Garbage Plate

Sony P7

From Nick Tahou's in Rochester, NY. This is three sausage patties, a huge heap of fried potatoes, a pile of baked beans, onions, and chili sauce, served with thick white bread and a Pepsi. Mine is a variation on the standard, which is usually cheeseburgers instead of sausage, macaroni salad instead of baked beans and a plop of mustard on top. But, I'm picky. Other options include hot dogs (red or white), hamburgers, fish, fried egg - and the strangest, a deep-fried pork chop. I've tried most of them, but generally stick with sausage or white hots: "sausage plate, beans, no mustard" - I can order it in my sleep. It's a huge amount of super-filling food, and perfect for a late night post-bar snack. My little circle of friends used to eat them before the parties started, after classes, Fridays. I ate two at a time, once. A friend nearly finished three. Ah...

Wet

Nikon N80, 50mm macro, Sensia 100

Start Your iPods

This week, the iPod starts out with:

1. Sonic Youth - She is Not Alone
   
2. Matt Suggs - Where's Your Patience, Dear?
   
3. The Beatles - Don't Let Me Down
   
4. Buddy & Julie Miller - Holding Up The Sky
   
5. The Cure - A Reflection
   
6. Radiohead - Creep (acoustic)
   
7. DJ Krush - Final Home
   
8. Yo La Tengo - Orange Song
   
9. The Rosebuds - What Can I Do?
   
10. DJ Krush - No More
    

6200 songs to choose from and it picks two from the same artist (#7,#10), and another two from the same CD (#2,#9). Sigh.

Monday Cat Blogging

Sony P7

The Mind Is Stranger Than Fiction

Mixing Memory has a post that summarizes the results of some experiments in which subjects are exposed to words and images that suggest concepts like Polite, Rude and Elderly and then measure the subject's response to various situations. Ex. in one experiment, two groups of subjects arrange words to form sentences; one group has words that relate to politeness, one to rudeness. And then...

While the participant was completing the scrambled sentence test, the experimenter left and began talking to a confederate (an experimenter posing as another participant). When the participant finished, he or she came out of the room to look for the experimenter to receive instructions for the next task (as the experimenter had instructed). However, the participant always found the experimenter talking to the confederate. Bargh et al. then measured the time it took for the participant to interrupt the conversation between the experimenter and the confederate.

Guess what they found. Of the participants who did the RUDE version of the sentence test, more than 60% interrupted in under ten minutes (they cut it off at ten minutes -- can you imagine how frustrated some of those participants were after standing there for ten minutes?), whereas fewer than 20% of the POLITE-primed participants interrupted in that time. The neutral list participants were in between at around 40%. The RUDE participants also interrupted a full 3 minutes sooner than neutral participants, and almost 4 minutes sooner than the POLITE participants.

Apparently, just reading words associated with rudeness causes people to become more impatient and interruptive; and reading words associated with politeness causes people to become more patient and ... polite.

..."But it gets weirder."

Wilmington, NC

Sony P7

Boo hoo

(found on the web)

Colorblind James and me

The former lead guitar player for one of my all-time favorite bands, the late Colorblind James Experience, has started a blog about his time with CBJE, called Colorblind James and me.

From the start, Chuck's vision was to have fast, danceable music that embraced lyrics that dealt with pain & suffering. Pain & suffering were the realities of life, the music was hope. The hope was seen in the reckless abandon with which the fans would dance to songs of sadness, loneliness, about common folk who got dealt a bad hand. Reckless abandon was spirit, and spirit, to Chuck, was bigger than pain & suffering.

Now to see if he has any copies of that hard-to-find first CBJE record, on CD...

Henry Potter

Nikon D100, 50mm

Sleepy

Nikon D100, 50mm

...while his parents studied Bible verses ...

Unfortunately, not a joke, a man has been convicted of killing his three year old son because he thought the boy might be ... gay.

Via Panadagon.

Two Jehovah's Witnesses walk into a Hare Krishna Curry Joint...

Here is a story about an interesting encounter an American witnessed in a Tokyo restaurant. One interesting passage:

The Witnesses were determined to convince the Krishnas that God had but one name and that name was Jehovah. The Krishnas pointed out that if God was indeed infinite He ought to have an infinite number of names. The Witnesses said that our real nature was as spiritual beings. The Krishnas didn't seem to have a problem with that. They differed about what the actual form of God was. The Witnesses were convinced His form was unknowable while the Krishnas knew exactly what God's face looked like, and not only that, they knew what He liked for breakfast and what He did in His spare time. Both agreed that God was perfect and man was not. That's one thing pretty much all religions have in common -- this idea of perfection. The people we meet, the people we ourselves actually are, and world we see in front of us don't match this idea called "perfection" we carry around in our brains. In fact nothing we encounter ever does. Yet we stick to believing in perfection rather than believing in what we really encounter.

Love that last little bit.

Game Over

One of my favorite political (and non-political) bloggers, South Knox Bubba, has apparently called it quits, without explanation (update: he has a short explanation up now). He'll be missed.

Dos gefelt mir

I just received my first Israeli spam. It's written in Hebrew, and links to a "*.IL" website (won't show their name, out of spite for sending me spam). I can't read any of it, except for one little fuzzy picture of a piece of paper with a picture of the moon on it which says, in English, "LUNAR DEED". It looks like they're selling land on the moon. Oi!

Frederick

Nikon D100, 50mm

Another famous resident of Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Start Your iPods

The scratched-up iPod starts my work week with:

1. Gillian Welch - One Monkey. The iPod loves this one. I don't.
   
2. Big Star - Feel. One of my top 5 Big Star songs.
   
3. Grandaddy - So You'll Aim Towards The Sky
   
4. Radiohead - The Bends
   
5. Yo La Tengo - Somebody's Baby. This is a cover of the Jackson Browne song. YLT turns it into a credible rocker.
   
6. Horace Silver - Song For My Father. Steely Dan obviously re-used the piano part from this on Rikki Don't Lose That Number.
   
7. Stereolab - Wow And Flutter. I like this one, but since I can never remember any Stereolab song titles, I can never tell anyone unless the song is on. Not that anyone cares either way...
   
8. David Bowie - Soul Love
   
9. Sonic Youth - Kissability. A great one from their greatest album.
   
10. Miles Davis - Miles Runs The Voodoo Down. That voodoo must be hard to catch, cause it takes them fourteen minutes to get through this.
    

Monday Cat Blogging

Nikon D100, 28-80mm

Let's take a break from the cemetery, and do some cat.

Röck

Here is an informative Wiki article on the history of the Heavy Metal Umlaut. Something to keep yourself occupied while waiting for Harry Potter to arrive.

disco disco disco

From the wonderfully bad Makers Of Smooth Music compilation (people sent lyrics, along with a fee, and the house band put them to music), here are the lyrics to a song called "How Long Are You Staying".

disco disco disco
i am going to mount cisco
i am going to buy crisco
bake a cake so i can
disco disco disco

disco disco disco
how long are you staying
i mostly eat marisco
so i can
disco disco disco

disco disco disco
i am getting tired
waiting to be hired to do
disco disco disco

if i don't get hired to do
disco disco disco
i will take a gun
and become a sisco

disco disco disco
i am going to get fired

disco disco disco
you make me so tired

disco disco disco
if i don't get fired
i am going to jalisco
and dance on a wire

disco disco disco
if i don't get crisco
when i get to mount cisco
i am going to jalisco
and become a sisco
and then move to frisco
become the sisco
and move to frisco
disco disco disco

It's just so awfully wonderful.

Fragment

We're finally travelling under our own control. After a day in airports and airplanes, we're in our beautiful car, me and my beautiful wife, going back to our beautiful house, and I ask myself, because that song is on, "how did I get here?".

I got here, the suburbs of Raleigh NC, because 8 years ago all the jobs were here. This place was home to dozens of companies eager for programmers and biotech workers. They were hiring and the developers were building new houses, new strip malls and new office buildings. I noticed, when we drove down the first time, that Raleigh smelled like freshly excavated earth - construction. Everything here is new. I can go a week and not see a building more than 25 years old. Farm land, old neighborhoods, forests, swamps - all constantly devoured by developers.

And so we're driving home, past chunks of land that were horse pastures 6 months ago, past strip malls being built across from existing strip malls where you'll find another dry cleaner, another nail salon, another Super Cuts and another Matress Factory - one of each in every plaza. A huge variety of the same. I'm thinking about the city we left, 7 hours ago: Rochester, NY. ...

Johnny

Nikon D100, 50mm

Gen E.G. Marshall

Nikon D100, 50mm

Civil War General E.G. Marshall, from NY State.

Writing

Nikon D100, 50mm

Susan B Anthony

Nikon D100, 50mm

Mt. Hope Cemetery. Rochester, NY.

Filon family marker

Nikon D100, 50mm

Mt Hope Cemetery. Rochester, NY.

Starting line-up

The iPod starts the week with:

1. Cowboy Junkies - Seven Years
   
2. Elliot Smith - Bled White
   
3. Beastie Boys - Do it
   
4. John Coltrane - Equinox
   
5. Robyn Hitchcock - Vibrating
   
6. Van Morrison - Moonshine Whiskey
   
7. Allman Bros. - You Don't Love Me
   
8. Bauhaus - The Spy In The Cab
   
9. Robyn Hitchcock - No, I Don't Remember Guilford
   
10. Alison Krauss - Rain, Please Go Away
    

Not bad.

Thinking

Nikon D100, 50mm

Mt. Hope Cemetery. Rochester, NY.

Many more to follow.

Logical Monday Top Ten

Seeing as yesterday was a holiday, the work week actually starts today. And here's what iTunes starts off with:

1. Dinosaur Jr. - Little Furry Things
   
2. Robyn Hitchcock - Raining Twilight Coast
   
3. The Kinks - Session Man
   
4. Mudhoney - In n Out of Grace
   
5. Idyll Swords - A bridge to a bridge
   
6. Big Star - Thirteen
   
7. Buena Vista Social Club - El Cuarto de Tura
   
8. Del McCoury - More Often Than Once In a While
   
9. Elvis Costello - I Want You
   
10. America - Tin Man
    

Since I'm at home today, I get a much bigger selection than what I get from the iPod. Three of those aren't on the iPod - no room.

Edge

Nikon D100, 50mm

Advice to his 16 year old self

Jeff VanderMeer has a list of things he'd tell his 16 year old self (if he could go back in time). I liked this one:

There's going to be a really bad typo in your swords-and-sorcery story in the school literary magazine ('the musty smell of countless ages' without the 'o' in 'countless'). Don't sweat it. These things happen. Maybe it was intentional by the typesetter, maybe not. But you'll never be able to prove it.

Hmm... let me try:

1. When you go hunting with Bobby, driving there in his huge old Olds with one speaker missing (which takes a lot of the fun out of Led Zeppelin II's ping-ponging guitars), and you walk over the top of that hill to find yourself standing in the middle of Moreau State Park, and get arrested for it, don't worry - juvenile records are sealed! And it'll be a long time before you see the inside of a courthouse again.
   
   
2. OK, Christine was arright. But the girl you'll meet in a few years will set you spinning. So don't worry about it when Christine dumps you for the guy with the car.
   
   
3. Save your allowance and buy some Microsoft stock. Yes, they're the people who wrote the silly BASIC interpreter for your Commodore C64, but they'll get better!
   
   
4. The Cure. You'll really like them next year - might as well start now.
   
   
5. Pay more attention to your mom. She might be a hassle sometimes, but she won't be around forever.
   
   
6. No, lifting weights won't slow you down; so quit with the excuses and don't be a lazy shit. Joe V. and Matt L. are gonna come back next spring and crush you in the 400m - and they'll have done a summer's worth of squats.
   
   
7. RIT. That's the one. Don't worry about all those other schools. You'll get into all of them, but you don't need to apply. Lots of good things come from choosing RIT.
   
   
8. A few years from now, when you move out of the apartment to get away from the slobs, don't leave your stuff there thinking you'll come back for it later (remember all those pictures you had of your Hawaii trip, from when you were ten ?). It won't be there.
   
   
9. When riding your bike home, pay attention to the intersection at Quaker and Ridge - yes, you'll live in Glens Falls next year, but that's a different story - pay attention to that intersection and don't go through it until the old woman in the Buick turns first!
   
   
10. At Matt L's graduation party, you might want to take it easy on the wine. Waking up in a marinade of warm white wine and masticated partially-digested baked ziti is not as much fun as it sounds.
    

Sitting Up

Nikon D100, 50mm

Zorak

Nikon D100, 105mm macro, 5T close-up

There are three tiny baby mantises on my screened porch.