It’s snowing in mid-October! Up is down! Black is white! Links are here! Just click “more”!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Oct. 16, 2009”
Shoot the bride
I’m sick as a dog, but I oughtta give you something nice to look at, dear reader. So here’s a photoset from this past Sunday. A young bride-to-be hired my wife to take photos of her in her wedding dress in NYC. I tagged along to carry stuff and take candids. We shot in Tribeca, Washington Square Park, and . . . the subway!
I also shot a minute-long video of our bride getting serenaded in the park:
So enjoy the pix! I’m going to rest and recover.
4 and 20 (thousand) blackbirds
On Saturday morning, whie Amy napped, I heard the CAW!s of The Blackbird Gang right outside my window. I took a look outside and discovered that our backyard was their newest turf:
I was worried that blackbird-on-blackbird violence might lead to a drop in our property values, but the upside of roving gangs like this is that they never spend more than 10 minutes in one place. Really: hundreds of birds descended on our yard, filling the trees, noshing on our weeds, chattering away on a Saturday morning, and then one of them got the signal, and they all flew off.
What It Is: 10/12/09
What I’m reading: Moby Dick
What I’m listening to: Not a lot. My head’s been so stuffed up, most music sounds kinda muffled.
What I’m watching: American Splendor, in honor of Harvey Pekar’s 70th birthday last week, the Yankees’ playoff games, and a pretty humorous Parks & Recreation.
What I’m drinking: NyQuil. I’ve been wiped out by a chest cold since Monday, and figured that booze would just zap my poor immune system even further. Reading the label, I discovered that one is not supposed to take more than four 30ml doses of NyQuil in one 24-hour period. If you’re the sort of person who would even consider four doses of this stuff in a day, you probably aren’t going to be deterred by that warning. Wowza.
What Rufus is up to: Packing his things for a 3-night stay with his pal Tut.
Where I’m going: To Cincinnati, to visit Amy’s pals Ken & Denise for a long weekend.
What I’m happy about: Seeing a lot of old pals at my 20-year high school reunion on Saturday.
What I’m sad about: Not getting to talk to everybody I wanted to talk to at the reunion. But at least some of those people are local(ish), so we can try to get together sometime this fall.
What I’m worried about: The fact that two old classmates independently asked me if I’d gone into politics, while two others asked if I was now a lawyer.
What I’m pondering: Writing a post about my annual movie-traditions.
Unrequired Reading: Oct. 9, 2009
It’s been another wipeout of a week for me, dear readers. But I’ve got one of my 20-year high school reunions coming up this weekend, so I’m trying to enhealthify. Not that you care. You’re just here to see the latest collection of links that I think you sortamaybe should read. So just click “more”!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Oct. 9, 2009”
Suspicion confirmed
Courtesy of VM reader Eric Scharf, we now have proof that Alton Brown is actually the long-lost twin of Thomas Dolby:
I’m waiting for his next book, Alton Ate My Buick
Three More Years!
Here’s a 35-minute video of Charlie Rose’s interview with Robert Caro last April, at the end of which Mr. Caro mentions that the final volume of his LBJ biography won’t be published for another three years.
That should give you enough time to read The Power Broker
Seriously: If you want to develop an understanding of how political power works in America, you really need to read Mr. Caro’s work.
What It Is: 10/5/09
What I’m reading: Early issues of my magazine, as I wrapped up the 10th anniversary ish. Boy, was that depressing. I also read the first 20 pages of George, Being George
What I’m listening to: The bad new Zero 7 record
What I’m watching: Charade
What I’m drinking: Plymouth & tonic
What Rufus is up to: Being an Ambassadog at Warwick’s Applefest town fair (with pix by my beloved wife). He got to meet a bunch of greys, but one of the owners kept trying to convince us to adopt Dollar, one of the hounds they were fostering. One of the other owners sympathized with my take on why we’ve held off on grey #2: what if he or she isn’t as awesome as Rufus (as in, can’t handle 9 hours without a bathroom break, or likes to chew on stuff, or gives Ru bad ideas and the two of them spend all day smoking weed and goofing around on Playstation)?
Where I’m going: The 20-year reunion for the high school I left after my junior year. In November, I’ll go to the 20-year reunion for the high school from which I actually graduated. Don’t tell.
What I’m happy about: My pal Ian stopped in for a visit on Friday, giving us an excuse to go to Cafe Matisse for another fantastic meal.
What I’m sad about: 10 years spent on this magazine, 20 years since I graduated high school, and, um, 30 years since I saw The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh. The calendar really does kick you in the nuts.
What I’m worried about: That I’m forgetting something.
What I’m pondering: What I’ve learned in the past decade about the pharma/biopharma industry and the contract services sector.
Unrequired Reading: Oct. 2, 2009
You don’t wanna know. Now the conference is over, but I’m still pounding out pages for the October issue. On top of that, I’ve either got poison ivy, shingles, or . . . neck-AIDS!
But you just want some fun links to check out, huh? Well, just click “more”!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Oct. 2, 2009”
Chicanerism
I’d read how the NYPost and other papers in Our Fair City have policies of not crediting blogs for, um, reporting on stories that they can then publish in their papers, but this morning’s rip-off by Page 6 could at least have come up with an alternative to “chicanery.”
From the NYPost on Oct. 1:
Even the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery. The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that’s 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes. Asks Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected — a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?”
From Mickey Kaus’ kausfiles on Sept. 29:
Did ACORN chicanery elect Al Franken? That’s the import of this tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune column.** Franken won by 312 votes. ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process … that’s 480 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken. … Maybe in pristine Minnesota even ACORN is clean. If so, the state would apparently be an outlier. …
To the Post’s credit, they did fix Mickey’s typo of 48,000 voter registrations. The original column they cut-and-pasted from says it was 43,000.