Three O'Clock in the Morning

YouTube Tuesday: The cure for what ales you…

2012-01-31T09:17:00.003-06:00

Today's the big day, guys. The big, chocolatey, hopsy, sudsy day that Kansas City has been abuzz about for weeks.

It's like Christmas in January. For, today is the day Boulevard Brewery's Chocolate Ale hits the shelves.

I know I don't have to go into a big long description of Chocolate Ale. I'm sure that by you have all heard ad intoxicum about the wildly popular collaboration of Kansas City's own Boulevard Brewery and Kansas City's own artisanal chocolatier Christopher Elbow.

Anyway, I've never tried it but apparently it's all the rage. In fact, I saw beer aficionado Chimpotle stocking up on the stuff as soon as stores opened this morning. I thought you guys might like to see the video of him bringing it home to his house.

I'm just glad he wasn't driving… his car.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, beer, train, Boulevard, Kansas City

YouTube Tuesday: No Joy

2012-01-10T15:51:00.003-06:00

I didn't realize until today that Joyland had closed.

Not that I'm surprised. I just haven't thought about Joyland Amusement Park one way or another in ages. As a kid, my parents took us there two or three times, making the hour's trip from out hamlet to the city of Wichita for a diversion of bumper cars, Ferris wheels and carnival games (as I recall, I wasn't old enough to go on the roller coaster).

Anyway, as this video shows, the amusement park has undergone significant decay since it closed nearly 10 years ago.

Much like our culture in general.

No Joy from Mike Petty on Vimeo.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Joyland, amusement park, Wichita, Kansas, decay

PvC art

2012-01-05T14:53:00.000-06:00

I like it when artists have fun.

Oh sure, that seems obvious to you and me. We're just a couple of working stiffs, marking our time in the trenches, bringing home the Benjamins so we can put food on the table and shoes on the kids' feets. So to us, it seems crazy that someone who spends their day doing stuff we used to do in kindergarten should have anything but a fun life.

But then you hear stories about how all the artists are so tortured and how they suffer so much for their art that nobody will ever understand, because how could they, they're just a bunch of proletarian cretins who wouldn't know a Pollock from a used drop cloth.

But when I serendipitously run across the work of someone like Belgian visual artist Ben Heine, it pleases me to know that the art world isn't entirely populated by brooding alcoholics and stuffy joy-sucking academics. And maybe it paints me as uneducated in the art world, but I subscribe to the Montgomery Burns school of art criticism:

"I don't know art, but I know what I hate. And I don't hate this."

In his series Pencil vs Camera, Heine takes a whimsical stab at mixing the real world of photography with the fun and fantastical world of his mind as sketched on paper.

I like the fresh take and I'm I big fan of Heine's sense of humor.

There are a ton of images in the Pencil Vs Camera series, all of which can be seen at Heine's kickass website along with much of his other work.

tagged: art, photography, sketch, Ben Heine, culture, humor

Well, if that's the way the blog wind blows…

2012-01-04T13:38:00.008-06:00

So, don't like the the old tried and true New Year's Resolutions, eh?

Gotta be all "progressive" and try to "start something new" eh?

"Tell you what, we’ll just create one, call it the Flashback meme: post your last sentence from the last post for each month of 2011."

Well, if that's the way the blog winds blow, then never let it be said that I don't blow.

Jan: What did I miss? How do you think we'll get our comeuppance?

Feb: The post-modern alt-pop-blues-folk singer-songwriter, not the Fox News crybaby.

Mar: I know we use some pretty big words, but try to follow along.

Apr: You may have heard of it. It was in the news and everything.

May: I did record video of the meeting, and it's pretty damn entertaining if I do say so my damn self.

Jun: I've got some ideas, just not the concurrent time and motivation.

Jul: Given the local temperatures around here lately caused by an infernal Heat Dome, I thought this brief synopsis of Dante's Inferno seemed apropos.

Aug: As a parent, I'm just flipping the script on them. Using the same kind of marketing tactics to trick my kids into eating something less unhealthy.

Sep: Word up Mr. P!

Oct: But I think the biggest affect this unusually vivid dream on me has been that I no longer have much of an appetite for sushi.

Nov: (Sorry, I wasn't feeling particularly bloggy this month. But I guess even choosing not to say anything is saying something, right?)

Dec: -- Patricia Highsmith (New Year’s Eve Toast, 1947)

tagged: blog, meme, New Year, review, 2011, quote

The resolution will be bloggerized

2012-01-03T10:54:00.003-06:00

Hey guys, check this out!

This dude I know did this thing this year where he chose a list of personal goals for the year and "resolved" to accomplish them.

He called them "New Year's Resolutions."

What an awesome idea! I mean, you're using this kind of natural "beginning" to the year to sort of take stock in yourself and setting up some targets for personal improvement. I think everyone should do this. In fact, I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner.

So yeah, I sat down and tried to come up with a list of things that I can do to improve myself. Because the first step in making the world a better place is to make myself a better person. Right?

So here goes…

1) I resolve to start flossing my teeth more than three times a week. My dental hygienist says I should do it twice a day. So that's going to me my goal.

2) I resolve to try some Vietnamese food. I've heard good things. There are lots of Vietnamese restaurants around, so let me know if you have a recommendation. As far as I can tell, the toughest part is going to be paying for that flight to Vietnam.

3) I resolve to read a book this year. Seems like people are always writing books, so I want to see what the big deal is about. Since I have an e-reader now, I might even e-read and e-book.

4) I resolve to get my car serviced. For the last few months, I've used what the Kansas City, Mo., street department calls "deferred maintenance" on my car. It's a middle-aged vehicle and needs new tires, probably new brakes and who knows what else. So, yeah, it's going to be expensive. But it's something that I just need to do.

5) I resolve to get some new shoes. I like my current work shoes so much that I've worn a hole in the heel. What is is that letter carries always say? Time wounds all heels? Anyway, it's time for me to say goodbye to these old souls and get some new kicks.

Well, that's a pretty good start. Five goals for personal improvement to start the new year.

Let me know what YOU plan to do, you damn slacker!*

* No, not you. I was talking to that other guy.

tagged: New Year, 2012, resolution, blog, floss, Vietnamese, shoes

New Year's Toast

2011-12-31T15:56:00.002-06:00

To all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace.

-- Patricia Highsmith (New Year’s Eve Toast, 1947)

tagged: quotes, Patricia Highsmith, New Year

YouTube Tuesday: Oh Hobbesy Night

2011-12-20T09:46:00.002-06:00

I'll be perfectly honest with you, guys. I'm a bit Scrooged this year. Work has been more work than usual, and definitely more work than I prefer.

But, you don't want to hear about that right now. Buck up! Get in the spirit of the holidays!

Well, okay. This is the best I can do.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, Christmas, Calvin and Hobbes, music, Winter Wonderland

YouTube Tuesday: Instant Carma's gonna get you

2011-12-06T14:08:00.011-06:00

Well we got our first snow of the season today.

Wasn't much. Barely measurable by any means other than the sight of a white glaze it left all over everything. By noon it was gone. The only thing left was the memory of the kids' morning excitement of actual snow on the ground.

That and the severely scarred tree near my office.

Because, even though the snow wasn't much to look at (or maybe even because it wasn't much to look at), it still caused some pretty sever traffic problems. Some say drivers always freak out during the season's first snowfall. That there is a seasonal learning curve for which we all have to adjust each year and during which we realize that we can't drive a slick snowy street the same way we drive the hot sticky pavement of July.

But I think today's snow had a slightly more icy character than one would normally expect, which made it deceptively slick. That in turn makes it even more important than usual not to drive like a total entitled douche.

That is a lesson the jerkoff driver who ended up sliding into the aforementioned severely scarred tree near my office presumably still hasn't learned.

From my vantage point at the front of the left turn lane (waiting for my signal to turn), I saw the entire incident. The light turned yellow, then red. The driver of the dented green pickup in the far right lane was already speeding when he hit the accelerator to beat the red light. Just after making it through the intersection, his redneckmobile began to slide. He over corrected, executed a graceful 360-degree turn, hopped the curb and slammed his passenger-side front quarter panel into the young tree.

The tree itself shuttered mightily, but withstood the strike of the pickup. Fortunately, there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk — a silver lining for the frigid morning temps — or they surely would have been killed (or worse).

After taking a few seconds to collect himself, the driver got out, surveyed his now barely drivable pick'em up truck, and then got back in and barely drove away. He left only some tracks in the shallow snow, a deep gash in the trunk of the tree, and a good lesson to not drive like a prick.

So I guess it could have been worse. It could have been, for example, a jerkoff driving a Ferrari like a prick. Or a bunch of pricks driving a bunch of Ferraris…

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, car, accident, wreck, weather, snow, Ferrari, ice

ODS

2011-10-26T15:57:00.003-05:00

tagged: Star Wars, Occupy, satire, humor

Open to interpretation

2011-10-18T13:26:00.007-05:00

If you're like me, every once in a while you'll have a really crazy, strange, vivid dream that doesn't seem to make any sense yet it sticks with you throughout the morning and keeps you asking yourself "WTF, man???"

So here's how it went down last night. To set the scene, I find my dream self on his way to attend some sort of fishing seminar. And I'm not talking about fishing in the Internet spam sense. I mean like fishing, like actually trying to catch fish in an actual (dream) river.

So I'm on my way upstream to this seminar that takes place in the wide bend of a river. I'm in this old sputtering rust bucket of a boat that reminds me of the ~~old~~ vintage blue Ford pickup that my high school cross country coach used to haul the team around in (back in the day when a public school employee hauling high school kids around in the back of a rickety pick up truck didn't prompt the kind of nambie pambie safety backlash that would surely plague my coach were he in the "more refined" 2010s. Man, the 80's were awesome!).

Anyway getting back to sureality, I'm in the boat following what the instructor says about fishing (whatever that was) when it starts to get super windy. I mean gale force, Kansas summer afternoon windy. The river gets really choppy, and I'm there trying to balance in this boat of questionable river-worthiness. While trying to keep my balance, I accidentally drop a gadget of exceedingly high importance. What the object was isn't clear anymore. Could have been a tool of some kind, or keys. But it fell into the river, and it was important enough for me and two other seminar attendees to dive in after it.

And here's where things get really weird.

We're swimming down, down into the unrealistically deep river, chasing this important object. Along the way, we're swimming passed a boatload of different kinds of fish. And they're huge. I mean, they're like bigger than a Pacific Bluefin Tuna ("the cow of the ocean"). And they keep getting bigger.

Eventually the three of us dive deep enough and fast enough to catch up with the sinking object. It's really dark down here and muddy like a Kansas creek, but now the object seems to be emitting it's own light for some reason. When we reach for it to take it back to the surface, the muddy water seems to close in around us. Suddenly, we get the feeling that we're in an enclosed space, like a large conference room, but it's too dark and murky to see exactly what's going on. So I turn on my flashlight that I suddenly have in my hand (yeah I know, dream physics).

I swim a couple of yards and come to a wall. Well, a sort of slightly concave wall-like structure made of a pinkish, striated material. I follow it to the left for a few feet, then start swimming "up" and follow it some more. I then reverse myself and follow it down and find that it curves into a floor.

At last we all realize where we are - in the belly of a great fish!

We all stand around discussing the problem for a few minutes. It's surprising because we weren't really panicked, and we were breathing and talking underwater (but again, dream physics). We conclude that one of us, that being me, is going to have to swim out the exit and get help.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the exit. It turns out there was only one way out, through the exit - the natural exit that you would expect to see from inside the belly of a fish.

So it fell to me to somehow struggle through the muscular sphincter of the leviathan and wiggle Shawshank Redemption-style through the digestive track to the freedom of the river. When I got the outside of the fish, I used the 8-inch fishing knife that had dream-physics appeared in my hand to cut the fish open and free the two nameless faceless guys with me.

At that moment we see below us an even bigger fish waiting on the bottom of the river. It's like the older, bigger, scarier uncle of the fish whose digestive tract I just crawled out of. Given the harrowing ordeal we'd just gone through (not to mention the 20 or so feet of fish doo doo), we start kicking for all we're worth toward the surface. But before we could make it...

... the sound of my wife's hair dryer from the master bath woke me up. Man, I hate that sound.

I know this kind or weirdo scenario is rife with all kinds of symbolism. There's the whole being chased thing, losing something valuable (but you don't know what it is) and of course the Old Testament "Jonah and the Whale" parallel. Feel free to offer your own armchair psychoanalysis in the comments.

But I think the biggest affect this unusually vivid dream on me has been that I no longer have much of an appetite for sushi.

tagged: dream, fish, river, fishing, Shawshank Redemption, sushi

YouTube Tuesday: Bucking the trend

2011-10-11T08:51:00.003-05:00

Some of you may know that I've taken up cycling again after a long hiatus. Just for my health, mind you. Not really competitive.

Anyway, it was such a beautiful weekend a couple of weeks ago that I decided to hit up a nice trail i know of in the Konza Prairie Reserve. My friend and I were cruising along one of the trails. Luckily, he had his video camera on getting some shots of the beautiful landscape (if you've never been, you really should), when...

... Well, let's just say, I'm glad I was wearing my helmet.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, cycling, mountain biking, wildlife, environmentalist

YouTube Tuesday: Performing Lights

2011-09-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

For those of us unlucky enough to not be there (sheesh, double negative split infinitive much?) on opening night, here's a video of the quite kick ass light show displayed on the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

I'm proud to say that a long time friend and one of the most talented people I know was one of the architects on this project. Word up Mr. P!

Opening Night 'Projections'. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Kansas City - September 16, 2011 from Quixotic Fusion on Vimeo.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, Kansas City, Kauffman Center for Performing Arts, architecture, Moshe Safdie

Making the UTmost of history

2011-09-15T09:55:00.005-05:00

Around about 500 years ago, Machiavelli was writing The Prince, Martin Luther was denouncing abuses of the Catholic Church, and the ecosystem on Easter Island was beginning to fail.

I'm not trying to imply that those events are causally related, but I think they each reflect, on a thematic level, some of the baser human traits which seem to be coming so much more prevalent today.

The case of Easter Island, in particular, is the one I want to focus on now.

For about 700 years, the Polynesians who settled Easter Island (Rapa Nui, as they called it) had it pretty good —nice beaches, plenty of fish, fertile soil to grow their taro root, yams, and cassava.

Thing were so good that there was plenty of leisure time that needed to be filled. And the Rapa Nui invented a cool kind of puppet theater using giant stone statues they called Moai. They were like the action figures of the day. You'd set them up on a field and pretend they're having great adventures.

No, don't judge. What may seem a bit ridiculous to you and me was really a smashing success on Rapa Nui. The past time became so popular that the Rapa Nui people decided to create more and more of these giant statues. They would dress them in garish attire and sometimes pretend they were in great sporting events.

It was all great fun.

Until…

It wasn't.

At some point, the theater and games the Moai were imagined to play became less important than Moai themselves. Different tribes began to compete to see who could built the most and the biggest Moai and who could dress them in the craziest uniforms. Giant (by Easter Island terms) corporations got involved to sponsor the creation of the Moai and market them to the Rapa Nui public.

But it didn't take too long for that public to take a look at the insane Moai arms race, at the completely batshit crazy amount of resources it was taking up, and realize that something had gone terribly wrong on Easter Island.

The Moai that they once depended upon for entertainment and diversion from their idyllic life on Rapa Nui, had come to consume the very resources they depended upon for survival.

And by the time the Rapa Nui powers-that-had-been saw what their audience saw, the island had been completely deforested. There were no trees to build boats, so fishing came to a halt. With no trees to hold the soil, it began to erode and became less fertile.

With less capacity for farming, the islanders began to eat the birds and small rodents on the island. When those were pretty much gone, they began to eat each other.

They had, in essence, entertained themselves into cannibalism and near extinction.

On a bit of an unrelated note — Man, the Big XII used to be a really great football conference, right Texas?

tagged: Easter Island, Rapa Nui, history, unsustainable, BigXII, Texas, Longhorns, college football, realignment

As Seen in Kansas: Paul Boyer Gallery

2011-09-06T15:00:00.001-05:00

Anyone taking a trip through the northern third of Kansas is probably taking Highway 36.

It's not speedy and high-octane as I-70, on which I've never seen a speed limit enforced (at least, not once you get passed Topeka). And Route 36 certainly doesn't have the historical cachet of its venerable cousin Route 66.

In many ways, Highway 36 is just a utilitarian point-A-to-point-B strip of tarmac. But it still has it's fair share of interesting side excursions for those not too busy to get off the beaten path.

One of my favorites is the Paul Boyer Gallery in Belleville, Kansas.

According to the museum, Boyer began carving and working with small machines as a child in Michigan. But when he lost a leg during an accident at the age of 35, he threw himself into carving, drawing and sculpting to help occupy his time.

The result has been a life's work in animated sculptures, or cartoons brought into the kinetic art world. And though many so-called "art experts" would look down their noses and derisively call his work "folk art," in my humble opinion Boyer is one of the artistic treasures of Kansas.

Many of his sculpture do focus on the humorous. He has fashioned a style of big-nosed, saggy-breasted hillbilly characters to be the target of his mischievous sense of humor. That's on the surface. But what lies beneath is a dizzyingly complex set of clockworks that would give any steampunk fan squeals of delight.

And on what I consider his finest pieces, those complex mechanics become the art itself.

My personal favorite is a set of models of mechanical wings. I think the piece is titled (something like) "Flight of Man, Flight of Bird," and it wonderfully demonstrates the grace and subtlety of Boyer's artistic vision.

I've tried to capture it and a couple of my other favorites in this quick video, but my videographer skills pretty much suck. Anyway, you really must visit yourself to get the full effect. There is a minimal admission fee to the gallery, which is operated by Boyer's daughters and is open May through September, Wednesday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m.

tagged: Kansas, travel, Belleville, Paul Boyer, art, folk art, motion

Parents as marketers

2011-08-31T10:14:00.006-05:00

I've been doing this parenting thing for a few years now, and I'm getting pretty proficient at it (if I do say so my damn self).

Now, I don't claim to be as good as everybody. Certainly I'm not as good as my own parents, but then few are.

But as far as I know, all of my children still live under my roof, and most of them still have most of their digits (which is more than I can say for myself). None of them have intentionally set fire to anything (that I know of) and we don't seem to be having any Mountain Dew Mouth trouble as of yet.

What I'm trying to say is that, so far things are going as well as can be expected, and I've picked up a few tips and tricks along the way.

The one I like to highlight today is one that many marketing and advertising professionals use all the time. It's about product positioning, and I'll illustrate it with this quick anecdote.

Our two-year-old is in a finicky stage. There are only a couple of foods she'll eat, and since I'm in charge of breakfast on a daily basis, this sometimes irritates the crap out of me. I mean, I'll go to all the work of preparing a delicious bowl of instant oatmeal only to have a budding food snob turn her nose up at it.

So I've been trying different breakfast items to see what works. At the super market the other day I picked up a box of Kix cereal, reasonably healthy because it doesn't have added sugar (which is toxic, by the way). Yesterday, I poured a few of he corn-based pellets into a bowl and set it in front of her for breakfast.

Of course, she would have none of it. One look at the pile of cereal and she handed me a stink eye along with a sharp "No! I want yogurt!"

Now I know most of you don't put up with this kind of attitude from a two-year-old, and you shouldn't. I don't either. I made sure to get an apology before providing a bowl of plain vanilla yogurt, her favorite. But knowing that a key to getting you're little house apes to eat different foods is just getting them to try them, I came back a few minutes later with a small handful of Kix in my hand.

I made sure she was watching when I popped a couple in my mouth and made the "Mmmmmm!" sound and said "Wow, these tiny little cookies are delicious!"

Key piece of information here: The girls is very familiar with the concept of cookies. She's tried them. She love's them. She would probably exist (for a few short years before dying of childhood diabetes) solely on them if we let her.

And of course, the mention of "cookies" got her attention. She tentatively took one of the little round pellets from my hand and popped it in her mouth. Then she grabbed the rest and ate them all. Next thing you know, she's going back to that bowl of the "cookies" and chowing down.

You see, it's all about Placement. Big Cereal does this all the time, using cartoon characters and high fructose corn syrup to get children to eat toxic substances.

As a parent, I'm just flipping the script on them. Using the same kind of marketing tactics to trick my kids into eating something less unhealthy.

And that's, one to grow on…

tagged: parenting, marketing, food, KIX, breakfast, kids

YouTube Tuesday: It's time to get things started

2011-08-23T10:48:00.003-05:00

Sensational internet modern alt/funk/pop/prog group OK Go is back with a blast of nostalgia with a new release covering the theme to the old The Muppet Show. It's interesting since my 8-year-old daughter is the first person to show this to me the other day, and she never even saw an episode of The Muppet Show.

Sign of the times, I guess.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, music, OK Go, The Muppet Show

Formsprings Eternal #2: Time may change me

2011-08-18T16:01:00.006-05:00

Today's Formspring question asks me to look back in to the past.

If you could change one thing that happened last year what would it be?

I suspect the submitter of this question meant something like "If you could change one thing that happened TO YOU last year…"

But to be honest, I had a pretty good year.

Don't get me wrong. It was a crap year for a lot of people. I have some friends who lost jobs. There was some health problems for people around me, some friends lost loved ones. There's the fact that we're still at war despite everyone saying in public that there's no reason for it, and some people I care about had friends and brothers killed in what seems to be pointless fighting. The economy's still in shambles and, just to top thing off, it's been one of the hottest summers on record (I can't really back that last statement up with stats, tho).

In short, to paraphrase Chuck Dickens, it was a year like all other years.

But it makes me appreciate the good fortune I've had. I live in a nice neighborhood with a beautiful Supermodel Wife, two great kids, a house with a roof that doesn't leak. I dropped 35 pounds in the last 6 months and my cholesterol and blood pressure are both down to normal. My health is better than it has been in years.

So, I really can't say I would change anything personally.

Oh, wait. I just thought of something I would change. You remember when I bought that lottery ticket that would have paid out $300 million if I had won? Well, I'd change things so that I would have bought the winning ticket.

Yeah.

And I suppose a close second would be that the Japanese tsunami hadn't happened.

Got something on your mind? Something troubling you? Need a little compassionate input? A little constructive criticism? Well, that's what I'm here for. Plop your question in the text field at the left and hit the submit button. It's fun, it's easy, and if you're not careful, you might learn something.

tagged: Formspring, question, change, Charles Dickens, lottery, Japan, tsunami

YouTube Tuesday: Bugnado

2011-08-16T08:58:00.004-05:00

I'm no biologist, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. And based upon that expertise, my theory is that the high flood waters in Missouri have created a fertile breeding ground for flying insects.

This brave videographer ventured out into the northwest Missouri wilderness one July evening to capture swarms of bugs flying into insectoid vortices which he termed "bugnados" and which totally give me the heebie and/or jeebies.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, Missouri, insects, bugs, wildlife, biology

As Seen in Kansas: The Western Home

2011-08-11T17:50:00.002-05:00

One of the truths that I hold to be self-evident is that places aren't boring, people are.

As a life-long Kansan maybe that's just some kind of defense mechanism. But I've traveled a fair bit both domestically and abroad, and I find that no place it boring as long as you're curious.

Take, for example, the middle of nowhere.

It would be tempting to look at a flat, mostly blank spot on the map, such as Smith County, Kansas, (the entire population of which numbers fewer than the available parking spaces where I work) and conclude that there can't possibly be anything of interest there.

But with a good guide and sincere curiosity, I've found that even such places as these have interesting nuggets to yield. And, to steal a line from Bill Cosby, if you're not careful, you might learn something.

One of the nuggets of interest we checked out on our recent visit there was a small, ancient cabin in the woods.

The cabin, of basic construction and even more basic amenity, is notable for it's original occupant, Dr. Brewster Higley, né Brewster Martin Higley VI, a homesteader originally from Ohio.

Higley's primary claim to fame is a poem he wrote in 1873 after moving to the Kansas prairie and building cabin by a small creek. The poem was called The Western Home, and it so captured life on a pioneer homestead that it was set to music and became a popular folk song.

The Kansas Legislature adopted it as the official state song in 1947.

The cabin, as it stands today, in the midst of a wild cannabis grove near a wooded creek, has been reinforced with stone, cement and angle iron. There is also a gigantic circular saw blade that I'm pretty sure wasn't part of the original structure.

But much of the original log structure is still there. You can see axe marks in the wood and the rusty square nails from the era.

It's difficult to imagine being the original occupant of this house. Indeed, most people these day's have nicer garden sheds. I'm fairly certain that nobody today would be inspired to think of "home" given a life in these accommodations. The interior has barely room for a single mattress, let alone a queen sized bed. The "kitchen" consisted of a small, camp-sized wood-burning stove and the air conditioning was provided by half-inch gaps between the logs (though I assume these were patched when people were actually living here).

I guess it's possible that Dr. Higley's poem may have been more aspirational than inspirational — not so much an ode to his little hovel, more of a longing for something nicer. Still, it's impressive to consider the hardy folk like Dr. Higley (and perhaps more impressively, Mrs. Dr. Higley) who chose this lonely, primitive lifestyle in pursuit of their American dream.

tagged: Kansas, Smith County, Brewster Higley, cabin, Home on the Range, pioneer

YouTube Tuesday: I'm Yours

2011-08-09T16:05:00.003-05:00

I'm not a huge Jason Mraz fan, in fact I'd say I'm not a fan of his at all. But I wanted to post this for you JM fans who were unable to get tickets to this weekend's Farm Aid concert at Livestrong Sporting Park in KCK.

This cover of his signature hit is pretty much just as good as the original.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, music, ukulele, Jason Mraz, cute, Farm Aid

YouTube Tuesday: Dante's Inferno in 10 minutes

2011-07-26T14:43:00.002-05:00

Given the local temperatures around here lately caused by an infernal Heat Dome, I thought this brief synopsis of Dante's Inferno seemed apropos.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, literature, Dante, Inferno, Divine Comedy, heat

Formsprings Eternal #1: Innie or Exie?

2011-07-21T10:50:00.001-05:00

I remarked in a conversation the other day that I've reached the age when I can pretty much give you an answer to any question you ask.

Of course, I don't think my 8-year-old daughter realized that it might not be the right answer, or even a good answer. Then again, it's important to keep in mind the words of contemporary American philosopher Francis V. Zappa who wrote…

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth.

That said, since I put it out there that I'm now taking questions, my in-box has been flooded with inquires by the curious, the truth seekers, and the desperate. So today starts my effort to make good on my promise and work through the backlog.

Question 1: Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

You see, this is the kind of false dichotomy that is so common these days. Are you introvert or extrovert? Liberal or conservative? Mac or PC? Pale Ale or Unfiltered Wheat? I don't know if it's a symptom of our digital culture or just a byproduct of lazy education that has foregone the instruction of critical thinking.

But the short answer is that I don't think a person has to be either an introvert OR an extrovert. Obviously since I do a blog on the internet, I've got a pretty strong introverted side. But I also like to hang out and meet new people, talk about stuff I don't know much about, find out what interests others.

But as far as it goes, with all things being equal, I'm just as likely to hang out with the family on a Tuesday evening than go out an party. So, if I had to choose one, I'd say "introvert." But come on, get some nuance, man.

There's still plenty of time to get some advice from Yours Truly. Just jot down your question in the Ask Me Anything field up to the left, no... a little further... yeah right there. I promise I'll answer your question first.

tagged: Formspring, question, introvert, extrovert, logic, false dichotomy

YouTube Tuesday: Echos of unseen objects

2011-07-19T15:06:00.003-05:00

Just feelin' a little philosophical today…

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Plato, allegory, cave, claymation

double plus ungood

2011-07-15T10:58:00.004-05:00

tagged: language, George Orwell, Facebook, Twitter, 140 characters, 1984, thought crime

Don't know much about history…

2011-07-13T14:23:00.012-05:00

Say what you will about the new Netflix pricing changes/fiasco, they still have some really good, not to mention educational, video content.

The other night I logged in through our Wii to watch a fascinating documentary about ancient Persia. And while I still believe our civilization is accelerating downward and that my kids will probably be the last generation to truly benefit from the heights we've reached, these heights are really impressive.

The shear amount of information and analysis that is at our fingertips is mind boggling. Just a few watts of power and a half dozen click was enough to bring up an extensive 2-hour program about a little known chapter in the long history of ancient Persia.

The documentary, narrated by Hollywood's hunky Jake Gyllenhaal, told the story about a Persian king and his efforts to keep his family together, build a dynasty and thwart schemes and coup attempts by those who would usurp his throne.

This fascinating history isn't something we covered in World History back in high school.

At the center of the king's efforts to maintain control of his empire was a magical dagger that could give its wielder control over the flow of time itself!

Needless to say, I was blown away by the amazing historical account and by the fact that very few people in our increasingly superficial country are even aware of these events.

But what blew me away even more was the revelation that people in ancient Persia spoke a language and dialect that sounds almost exactly like English spoken with a fake British accent.

I know what you're thinking, you would expect a Persian accent, or maybe something that sounded like a Greek accent or something. But no, it's a British accent that all the ancient people seem to have.

Amazingly, it's the same dialect that was spoken by Senators, Legionaries and gladiators during the Ancient Roman empire and by the Pharaohs and Jewish leaders of the Ancient Egyptian dynasties.

I tell you, the more I learn about history, the more amazing it is.

tagged: Netflix, movie, Prince of Persia, history, Gladiator, Egypt, Jake Gyllenhaal

Delugional

2011-07-06T10:53:00.001-05:00

So a couple of weeks ago I posted some pics of a photo safari to the Kaw Point riverfront park in KCK.

You no doubt had this image of the Lewis & Clark sculpture seared into your memory…

The reason I bring up is that I went back to Kaw Point over the July 4th weekend, just to check things out. Most of the trails were blocked off for a pretty good reason, that being that they are now under water.

Here's a pick from Monday by way of illustration. This is as close as I could get without getting wet.

So you can see that if you did venture out to stand beside the sculpture, you'd be about neck deep in icky, dirty brown Missouri River mud. Also the mosquitoes are pretty bad down there, so if you go be sure to take a harpoon to defend yourself.

tagged: Missouri River, Kansas City, Kaw Point, photo, flood, nature, Lewis and Clark

Where the sidewalk ends

2011-07-03T11:25:00.003-05:00

I came upon this rather suddenly during yesterday's bike ride while exploring the Indian Creek Greenway trail in KCMO.

Not sure if it represents a depletion of Parks and Rec budget or just a depletion of political capital. But it did make me think of these classic lyrics…

Turnaround... Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my gears…

or something like that.

tagged: photo, Kansas City, Indian Creek Greenway, cycling

One of these days...

2011-06-30T15:17:00.003-05:00

One of these day's I'm going to write another blog post. I've got some ideas, just not the concurrent time and motivation.

tagged: blogging, writing, malaise

YouTube Tuesday: Drug

2011-06-28T09:21:00.004-05:00

I like this fine little bit of scathing satire from Pineapple Shaped Lamps, a live theatre troupe based in Wilmington, NC., for a couple of reasons.

First, of course, is the aforementioned scathingness, and Truth sharpened to a fine razor's edge by Humor. But even more, I appreciate the ripping aside of the curtain of emotional manipulation that has become stereotypical of drug commercials.

Watch and enjoy, and call your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, satire, Drug, parody, commercial, humor

formspring.me

2011-06-24T10:52:00.001-05:00

Please allow me to share my extensive wisdom with you cretins.
http://formspring.me/emawkc

YouTube Tuesday: My Hero

2011-06-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

Here's another really cool stop-motion animated short film. This one dealing with the question of nature vs. nurture, personal potential and equality of opportunity.

From the YouTube description:

In a world that judges people by their number, Zero faces constant prejudice and persecution. He walks a lonely path until a chance encounter changes his life forever: he meets a female zero. Together they prove that through determination, courage, and love, nothing can be truly something.

I really like the parallel to the excellent sci-fi flick GATACA staring Ethan Hawke, which I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, film, animation, Zero, Gattaca, Ethan Hawke

As seen in Kansas: Kaw Point

2011-06-13T13:44:00.002-05:00

An unusual set of coincidences Saturday resulted in all the women in my house being out on a girls date and me with no plans.

Free time is a rare commodity these days.

So because the weather was so great, and because I've been hearing a lot about Missouri River flooding, and because I've heard nice things about the place, I pinged Xavier Onassis, King of the Wild Frontier, to see if he wanted to go on photo safari at Kaw Point in KCK.

I've lived in the KC area for way more than a decade and never checked out Kaw Point. It's a really nice river front park/trail on the west bank of the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. And it has a remarkable view of downtown KCMO.

I've always thought rivers, and the concept of rivers, was a great metaphorical device. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming that as an original thought. Far better minds than me have had the same notion.

The river is a strong reminder that we are here but briefly. Water flowed down these channels long before we put up buildings and bridges. And despite our levies, dredgings and sandbags, it will overflow it's banks again. In the not too distant future, it will wash all evidence of our existence out into the ocean, leaving behind only a substance that is too thick to drink and too thin to plow.

That's a bit maudlin. I also like the river as an illustration of how we're all connected. Water that rushed passed us on Saturday was a few days earlier in Montana and South Dakota. And the same power that can uproot trees and destroy towns, can also lead to natural renewal.

The river has a kind of memory of its own. And while it can reflect the natural beauty of our world …

… it can also show us some of our own ugliness.

The river also provides an opportunity for us to bridge it. Calling to mind higher ideals like our drive to overcome obstacles and connect people and places in a positive way.

tagged: As seen in Kansas, Kaw Point, Lewis and Clark, Kansas, Missouri, river, photo, Kansas City, driftwood, mud, bridge

YouTube Tuesday: Loom

2011-06-07T14:30:00.000-05:00

I don't really care for spiders in general. They pretty much creep me out (with one notable exception).

And this CGI art film, while really cool and compelling, doesn't help.

Here's a little explainer that I stole from somewhere that I can't remember.

The German-based production team know as Polynoid is a collaboration of Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Csaba Letay, Fabian Pross and Tom Weber, all design, music and storytelling geniuses. This 5-minute film, Loom, took one year to create.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, arachnophobia, film, nature, spider, moth

YouTube Tuesday: Entrepreneurial

2011-05-24T16:45:00.000-05:00

I had a meeting yesterday with a couple of guys from an interactive consultancy startup about some work I'm having done on the website form my evil lair. While I've had to edit out some of the critical information, I did record video of the meeting, and it's pretty damn entertaining if I do say so my damn self.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, start up, entrepreneur, humor, satire

DAM!

2011-05-23T09:33:00.004-05:00

And a few more looks at desperate homeowners trying to hold back the flooding Mississippi…

tagged: dam, flood, levy, river, water, photo

The Holiday Spirit

2011-05-20T10:00:00.005-05:00

I posted this a couple of months ago, but I think it's an appropriate repost given the big day on Saturday.

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

tagged: Robert Frost, Fire and Ice, Harold Camping, poetry, end of the world, pop culture

YouTube Tuesday: Music Beta

2011-05-10T15:40:00.002-05:00

I already hve my invite request in for this much-needed service:

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Google, Music Beta, streaming, technology

Get Glue

2011-05-09T16:11:00.013-05:00

It is said that over time, married couples begin to resemble one another.

Fortunately for my Supermodel Wife, this isn't the case in our situation. I mean, it would be a tragedy for her to begin to look like an old, fat, bald guy just because she had the bad judgment to marry a wildebeest like myself.

But that's not to say that over the course of years, shared experiences haven't given us a few physical similarities. Such an experience happened over the weekend.

It was the first Saturday in forever that we didn't have some kind of social or familial engagement. So I had the day open to focus attention on some much needed yard work. I spent the morning trimming trees and bagging up the debris in the back yard, spraying weeds, putting out cancer-causing crabgrass preemergent and cleaning some spilled plutonium off the back patio.

Pretty typical suburban stuff.

By about noon I'd worked my way to the front yard where I was shearing back some shrubbery that had become overgrown due to the sudden spring and our many busy and out-of-town weekends as of late. I was making pretty quick progress on the overgrowth thanks to the Black&Decker cordless electric hedge trimmer that I received as a Father's Day gift a few years ago.

(Ever notice how all Father’s Day gifts are either clothing or tools to "help” you work more?)

Anyway, I was happily buzzing along removing twig after twig of overgrown Japanese Snowball and ornamental apple tree in front of our house. I was trying to avoid disturbing a robin’s nest (with three bright blue eggs in it) when I reached up to remove a severed tree branch with my left hand. Stupidly, I simultaneously brought the electric hedge trimmers down with my right hand, getting the business end close to my left ring finger… a bit too close, as it turns out.

The pain of the cutting blade biting into the fatty tip of my finger was still radiating up my arm as I ran cursing into the kitchen, a trail of blood droplets left on the grass, sidewalk, driveway and garage floor (not to mention my t-shirt and shorts). Instinctively, I put my injured finger under a stream of cold water in the kitchen sink. It took about a second to see that quick medical attention was in order.

The pad of my ring finger, from about the middle of my finger nail to about 60 percent around my finger, was neatly sliced and dangling by the remaining 40 percent of the fingertip, which was still attached and in pretty good condition, all things considered.

I wrapped a piece of ice to my finger with a paper towel while my wife and hero, who was making lunch, recruited our next door neighbor to watch the kids. We headed to the emergency room at St. Luke’s South. After a quick three and a half hour wait, a tetanus shot and me explaining the accident three or four times to various nurses and doctors, I returned home with my finger tip superglued back in place underneath a Band-Aid with instructions not to get it dirty or wet.

Now, for those of you who have been reading this blog for a few years, some of this might sound vaguely familiar. But I can assure you that I’m not making up new stories due to a lack of anything else to write about. I mean, I do have a lack of anything interesting to write about, but I’m not repeating stories because of it.

It so happens that a similar accident befell my Supermodel Wife a couple of years, only in her case the cutting instrument was a cheese slicer, and she lost part of her thumb. You can read more about that at the link, but here’s a reminder of what it looked like after a week or so of healing.
For comparison, looking at this picture of my ring finger after a day or two of healing, you can see that it’s not near as bad.
But still it’s one of those shared experiences that helps make us old married folks begin to look like each other.

UPDATE:
There's still a lot of healing to do. The glue used on my finger turned out not to be so super so I went to the walk-in clinic this morning to get it redressed and re-glued. According to the Nurse Practitioner I saw, the glue used costs about $200 per .5ml vial. Thank you Obamacare!

tagged: injury, finger, medicine, home improvement, accident, hedge trimmer

YouTube Tuesday: Junkyard Jumbotron

2011-05-03T10:54:00.004-05:00

The computer geniuses at MIT have created software that allows ordinary Joes like you and me to virtually stitch together random displays to behave as a larger screen. All you need an a web browser and an email account.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, technology, MIT, junkyard, jumbotron

3AM Observation: In the motel lobby

2011-05-03T10:10:00.006-05:00

Scene: Sitting in the lobby of a Best Holiday Super Motel Inn, late evening, getting some work done on my laptop.

Old guy walks in and takes a seat on the lobby sofa. He's wearing a WWII service veteran's cap with the name of the Navy ship on which he served. Elastic waist band struggles to hold in a pot belly. Puffy eyes and blotchy skin.

Observation: The sound of an old guy sucking saliva out of his ill-fitting dentures sounds precisely and uniquely like an old guy sucking saliva out of his ill-fitting dentures.

tagged: observation, saliva, false teeth, dentures

YouTube Tuesday: Hydrophonia

2011-04-19T09:31:00.002-05:00

NOAA scientists used an under water microphone — a hydrophone — to capture audio of the massive earthquake that hit Japan a few weeks ago.

You may have heard of it. It was in the news and everything.

Now the full force of mother nature can be terrifyingly relived as scientists from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle have released an extraordinary recording of the sound of the 9.0 earthquake as it powered its way through the Pacific ocean moments before creating the devastating tsunami.

Captured by an underwater microphone called a hydrophone positioned 900 miles away from the epicentre in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska the earthquake's incredible rumbling and roaring is not dissimilar to the sound of a rocket taking off.

Original Source: UK's The Daily Mail

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, science, earthquake, Japan, hydrophone, NOAA

YouTube Tuesday: The Audition

2011-04-05T13:47:00.003-05:00

Today's edition of YouTube Tuesday brings one of the cutest, funniest brother/sister acts to hit the Internet since… well… ever.

John and Molly Get Along follows the adventures of John and Molly Knefel as they try to make it in New York. We pick it up in Episode 6 when Molly is auditioning for an off-off-off-Broadway play.

Enjoy the entire series at the John and Molly Get Along YouTube Channel.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, comedy, humor, John Knefel, Molly Knefel, John and Molly Get Along

YouTube Tuesday: Lincoln–Douglas redux

2011-03-29T12:35:00.003-05:00

I don't think it would come as any surprise to any of the half dozen or so readers of this blog that Blogger Great and Lord of Independence Xavier Onassis and I have had our political and philosophical differences.

It's all been pretty well mannered, and any ribbing has been for the most part good natured. At least I think it has. Especially by Internet standards.

But at the urging of three-balled The D, we agreed to meet in person to hash out some issued and find a common understanding. As a disinterested third (balled) party, The D even offered to host the Mass Debate in his kitchen.

Well, unbeknown st to either XO or myself, The D recorded the exchange for Internet consumption. And since the cat is out of the bag, well, I thought I might as well post it here as well so you all can benefit from our intellectual discourse.

I know we use some pretty big words, but try to follow along.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Lincoln, Douglas, politics, philosophy, cute

Basketball jones

2011-03-28T12:55:00.004-05:00

My sword-wielding friend Xavier Onassis is a huge college basketball fan... not¹.

I only mildly disagree with the point, though the form betrays lack of gravitas that tends to undermine the very point being made.

I guess one could argue that college basketball (and other college sports) provides a funding mechanism to educate thousands of student athletes who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford an education. So XO's statement above essentially puts a value of zero on education. Which is a shame. I personally think education is one of the more important investments we can make in our own futures.

But actually, when I hear/read people make statements like "nothing is less important than…" or "nothing is worse than…" I really just think that those people suffer from a lack of imagination.

I mean, I suspect that without too much effort I could come up with at least five things that are less important than college basketball².

What?! CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Let's see, let me start with… that bunch of cackling mother hens on The View, Lady Gaga, autotune, any autotuned song, the British Royal Family, any wedding among and/or within the British Royal Family, Renaissance Festivals, those weirdos who dress up for Renaissance Festivals, hippie drum circles, poetry slams, comedy jams, fashion week, fashion models, fashion magazines and anything even remotely associated with the fashion industry, steampunks and their steampunk accouterments, Dancing with the ~~Stars~~ Hasbeens, that lame-ass Thor God of Thunder (puhleeze!) movie, my stock options, foodies and the sport they make of eating, 99.9999999999999999 percent of the content of Twitter…

Whew… I guess I got a little carried away there.

1) Hello 1990s vernacular!

2) Of course I realize that this precariously places one upon a nihilistic slippery slope. I mean, if we accept XO's position that people are just semi-intelligent animals and that human life has no particular meaning, then how can we say that anything within life is any more or less meaningful or important than anything else. Just sayin...

tagged: basketball, college, meaning of life, education, fashion, steampunk, philosophy

YouTube Tuesday: The Delicate Sound of Pi

2011-03-14T09:01:00.003-05:00

I know it's a day early for YouTube Tuesday, but it's a special occasion. As you know, or will soon become aware, today is 3.14… Pi Day in the United States*.

To commemorate this special day, here's a special Pi Day song. I hope you'll all singe along.

*Europe, of course, doesn't have a Pi Day because they mess up their date notations by putting the day before the month, thus 14.3. However, according to my inside sources 143 is the sum of 3 consecutive primes (43+47+53), and also of 5 consecutive primes (11+13+17+19+23+29+31). So I guess it's Prime Day in Europe.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Pi, Pi Day, music, video, Europe, math

Best of 3 A.M.: No more wedgies

2011-03-11T09:11:00.001-06:00

Editor's Note: I'm pulling up some items from the archive, just for the hell of it. This one was originally posted in March of 2007. Follow the link to read more of The Best of 3A.M.

I may have mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating.

The "wedge salad" is the most ridiculous culinary fraud ever perpetrated upon the American dining public.

I mean come on people! This isn't a salad! It's a chunk of lettuce with possibly some peppers thrown in for color. Have we become so lazy that we can't chop up the lettuce? Are we so lacking in creativity that we can't toss on a couple of cherry tomatoes or cucumbers? This is like giving someone a loaf of bread and calling it a sandwich.

How have we let our democracy get to the point where a quarter-head of lettuce is considered a salad. That's not the America I know.

Hell, that's not even Mexico.

tagged: food, lettuce, salad, fraud, culture, cuisine

YouTube Tuesday: Go to the Mardi Gras

2011-03-08T09:42:00.003-06:00

Okay people, put on your beads, masks and zydeco music. Let's have a good time, but be safe. And say hello to the Zulu King for me...

tagged: New Orleans, Mardi Gras, Professor Longhair, music, YouTube Tuesday

My next million dollar idea: Continental Golf

2011-03-04T15:37:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I posted a few random items from my fictional bucket list. Some of those things I've already done. Some I'm still working on.

One in particular, I'm completing today.

I had this idea of creating a sport, in part, to gain a small measure of immortality (perhaps due to an aforementioned existential dilemma) . Consider James Naismith, who invented basketball while working in New England. Sure, you'll hear KU fans say he invented basketball at KU, but I think it's pretty well established how delusional KU fans are.

Anyway, to back to the story, the working name for my new sport is Continental Golf. Let me esplain...

You see, there's a sport played all over the country called golf. Essentially, you hit a small ball with a long club in an effort to make it land in a hole some distance away. Score is kept by tallying the number of hits — or strokes — it takes a player get the ball into the hole. The goal being to get as low a score as possible over the course of 18 holes.

My adaptation of this is similar, except that instead of 90 to 500 yards separating the start and finish of a hole, it could be 100 to 600 miles or more.

You see, I envision each hole taking the length of an entire state. One would tee off, for example, in Leavenworth, Kan., and play west to finish by putting into a hole near Horace, Kan.

View Larger Map

So you would end your first hole, then continue into Colorado, teeing off in, say, Cheyenne Wells, and finishing in, maybe, Dove Creek. You would continue, so on and so forth, until you had played the entire course, which obviously would be composed of up to 18 different states.

Obviously, this is a more extreme version of traditional golf. But hey, I enjoy the challenge.

As with conventional golf, we'd have to establish a "par" for each hole, and I'm thinking we might rely on the sport's pioneering players to help with this. We might find it necessary to count every 10 hits as a stoke, and then use a decimal system for scoring. Kansas, for example, might have a par of 440.0 which would be roughly 4,400 in conventional golf strokes (if you're a big hitter).

Colorado, though shorter, has a pretty big bunker in the form of the Rocky Mountains, so you'd need to account for that in the par rating. But you get the idea.

As for equipment, I see us using pretty much the same items as regular golf as far as balls, clubs, gloves etc. Although we should consider trading in the battery powered golf cart for a diesel powered Hummer. Or maybe a good quarter horse if you're a sport purist.

Now, the beauty of this sport is that while it may not be practical for your average Joe to take a few weeks off every year to go play a hole of Continental Golf, I'm thinking ahead to the digital spin off.

Imagine the appeal of taking my new game, putting it on an Xbox or even a Wii, juicing it up with some Google Earth mojo and launching an online Continental Golf league. You get to multiply the appeal of golf by the joy of travel and tourism, and I get to take a tasty little cut out of every purchase.

So, who wants to be in my first foursome. I'm thinking we tee off in late April?

tagged: Sports, golf, tourism, travel, James Naismith, Kansas, Colorado

Who wants to live forever?

2011-03-02T16:55:00.003-06:00

A few months ago, I caught this interesting tidbit on The Slate and stuck it in the "to blog" file in the back of my mind.

But in the way that thought gives way to thought and day give way to day, I just sort of left it on the mental back burner. And frankly, this whole blog has been on the mental back burner for a couple of weeks, so I figured now's a good time to dust off this topic and see if it has any legs left.

The story from The Slate was about how human life expectancy is getting much longer. It's happening not just in developed countries, but all over the globe. People are living longer, significantly longer. In fact according to the article, when we turn 50 most of us will still have more years ahead of us than our grandparents had when they turned 40.

This development comes with an argyle sock full of difficult socio-economic problems that someone will have to deal with: How do you feed all these old geezers? How can an already broke-ass Social Security system handle our additional years of geezerhood? Is Larry More really going to live long enough for me to have to watch him as a 3-D hologram?

I can't really answer these questions. Probably something for the upcoming young people to deal with the way my generation had to deal with cleaning up the Grunge music mess.

But when I first read the article I happened to be going through a bit of an existential funk, thinking about how quickly the first few decades of my life seem to have gone by and how even 100 years doesn't seem like nearly enough time to do everything that you want to do.

I know, I can hear what some of you are thinking. "Who wants to live to be 100, anyway?" And to be completely honest, I probably said idiotic shit like that back when I was young and stupid myself. Of course the answer to "Who would want to live to be 100?" is "Anybody who's 99."

As I've "matured" I've found that I love life. Sure it's crappy sometimes. There's always some jerk with an Apple logo sticker on his rear windshield who speeds up in rush hour traffic to block you from making a lane change. There are still people in the checkout line at the supermarket who insist on taking 15 minutes to write out a check (that's 15 minutes that I'll never get back, btw). The world, our culture and everything is pretty much going down the toilet.

But dammit, I really want to be around to enjoy this crappy world for a long, long time.

I love my family and I want to spend lots of time with them. I love seeing my kids grow up, even as I'm saddened to see them pass through the various stages of getting older. For every a-hole that doesn't hold the elevator for you, there's a glorious sunny spring morning, there are beautiful and priceless interstitial moments with your Supermodel Wife, there's your daughter with a death grip on your finger as she learns to walk, rather than crawl, down the stairs.

Everything just seems to be happening so fast. When I consider my own mortality, I think about how sad it will be to get to the end of the road and look back to see how short of a journey it was after all. Maybe life has a way of wearing you down as you age to the point that, by the time you get to the end, you're ready for it. But that hasn't happened to me yet. So when I read about increased longevity, I say bring it on.

It seem at this point that I would need 300 or 400 years to really absorb everything life has to offer, do everything I want to do, suck all the joyful marrow out of life's cold, cracked bones. Even that's just a guess. I'm sure that when I reached 399, I'd be thinking another 150 years or so would be nice.

I'm kind of just rambling on now, just freeforming this thing (that's what happens when you get old). I know I'm not alone and these are hardly original thoughts. Poems, songs, books, hell entire religions have been built around this subject. One could argue that the contemplation or our own mortality is central to what it means to be human.

So let me put it to you. Am I just stuck in a mid-life funk here? Can it even be considered mid-life given the longer lifespans? How long do you want to live, and more importantly, how long should Larry More be allowed to geezer up the airwaves?

Note: If you're reading this from an RSS reader, you might want to click through to the page to participate in the embedded poll question, if you can figure it out, ya old coot!

tagged: life, expectancy, science, society, Five For Fighting, family, mortality

YouTube Tuesday: Das Beer Boot

2011-03-01T09:37:00.000-06:00

Some of my closer confidants and minions know that, in an effort to drop a few ell-bees, I've cut back my alcohol consumption to a fraction of what it was a couple of months ago.

But I still have a great appreciate the making and especially the marketing of adult beverages. And if I'm any judge at all, this is probably the best beer advertisement — nay, the best advertisement of any kind — for 2011.

The only thing that could make it better is a cameo by Bull E. Vard, but I'm sure some enterprising local video hacker can make that happen pretty quickly.

tagged: Youtube, Tuesday, video, advertising, beer, alcohol, humor

System run by two parties

2011-02-17T10:05:00.001-06:00

I've tried to make a real effort this year to steer clear of political topics, partly because nothing has changed even with a new batch of lawmakers, but mostly because, as Beck* might say, there's no point fighting for a lost cause.

But, I recently saw a Venn diagram that so accurately makes the point that I clumsily was trying to make with the popular (by this blog's standards, anyway) The Undeciders post from 2008.

You can go ahead and reread that post if you're feeling nostalgic, or just take a look at this diagram originally posted on The Strategic Retreat (you may have to click to embiggen).

*The post-modern alt-pop-blues-folk singer-songwriter, not the Fox News crybaby.

tagged: Beck, Lost Cause, video, politics, government, Republican, Democrat, two-party system

YouTube Tuesday: The Sunset Limited

2011-02-08T10:15:00.003-06:00

I have already set the DVR to record HBO's Feb. 12 premier of Cormac McCarthy's play The Sunset Limited.

Though I'm not a huge fan of Tommy Lee Jones, who stars in and directs the production, I am a big fan of McCarthy's works being adapted for screen. I think it has been done for the most part successfully with his previous works (one of which also featured Tommy Lee Jones).

Here's the official HBO synopsis of the play…

Based on the play of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy, this searing two-character drama mixes humor and pathos while examining the relationship between strangers who are brought together by desperate circumstances. Set in a New York tenement apartment, the story focuses on two very different men — a deeply religious black ex-con who thwarts the suicide attempts of an asocial white college professor who tried to throw himself in front of an oncoming subway train, 'The Sunset Limited'. As the one attempts to connect on a rational, spiritual and emotional level, the other remains steadfast in his hard-earned despair. Locked in a philosophical debate, both passionately defend their personal credos and try to convert the other.

And here's the official trailer…

tagged: YouTube Tuesday, video, Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited, Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, drama

Random Photo XLII: Snowhedge

2011-02-04T10:20:00.002-06:00

It was sunny the day after the latest blizzkreig, and I was working from home. I opened the bedroom window to let the light in and I saw this really interesting pattern made by snow falling on the low hedge around our backyard patio.

I liked the way the sun highlighted the textures and the sort of fractal pattern of the snowfall.

tagged: Random Photo, snow, weather, nature, fractal, Bush, winter

To do ...

2011-02-02T08:55:00.006-06:00

I thought I'd post, as a seed for discussion, a few random items from by bucket list in no particular order.

By the way, I'm really not fond of the term "bucket list."

See the Grand Canyon
Learn to play the guitar
Visit all 7 continents
Lower my cholesterol
Win a $100-million lottery
Own a hand-made bespoke suit.
Vacation in Ireland
Bicycle from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico
Invent a sport
Take a computer class
Drive a fusion-powered car (preferably a DeLorean)
Lose 25 pounds

Okay, discuss.

tagged: bucket list, Europe, travel, bespoke, DeLorean, fusion, cycling

YouTube Tuesday: Crime Cops

2011-02-01T10:47:00.003-06:00

This video contains about twelve kinds of awesome. I mean, the parody and satire index of this thing is off the charts!

Well done, gentlemen.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, humor, Crime Cops, parody, satire, pop culture

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice

2011-01-28T09:27:00.002-06:00

El Borak's comment on a previous post got me thinking. I hate when that happens.

Here's what he said about the continued and rapid devolution of the human brain:

Take some comfort in the idea that if we are consumed by our little tragedies, it's because we don't have any big tragedies to worry about.

That's an interesting point. We humans have had it pretty good for a pretty long time. In fact, as far as we know, it's never been this good in the history of human existence.

And it seems to be driving us crazy. As Louis CK pointed out, "Everything's amazing and nobody is happy."

And there you have it. We have had it too good for too long. We're due for a "big tragedy" as El B calls it.

So, knowing that such a tragedy is virtually a mathematical certainty, why not have a little fun speculating about it? What kind of tragedy do you think we're looking at here? Lots of people have lots of theories…

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost could be kind of a downer at times. Fire and Ice are only two of the possibilities. Let's take a look at some of the more popular theories pop culture has given us recently.

First, is the dreaded Zombie Apocalypse. The current leading theory on this is that humans, through their hubris, create some kind of genetically modified virus either as a cure for cancer or as a biological weapon. The virus gets out of control, creating 5 billion zombies worldwide and leaving surviving humans to fend off attacks on their evolutionarily smaller brains.

I personally don't see this as a likely possibility. Still, it's good to have a plan in place just in case. So in the event of a zombie apocalypse, just keep a few things in mind.

First and foremost, always head to colder climates. Zombies don't generate their own body heat, so they freeze up when the temperature drops. Don't head to the beach, or Atlanta or anything like that. This is just common sense, people.

Be sure to stock up on guns, ammo and cricket bats. It's pretty well know that a bashed in head is the only way to permanently kill a zombie.

Remember that zombies aren't your friends. If a friend or loved one has been bitten by a zombie, you owe it to them to put them out of their misery. The survival of the human race is at stake here.

After zombies, the next most-popular sci-fi tragedy is the Robot Apocalypse. You know, mankind creates robots to do all the dirty work. The robots get too advanced. They realize the don't need humans around anymore and decide to exterminate them. Hilarious high jinks ensue.

This is maybe a little more plausible than the zombie apocalypse, but we're still quite a few years away from this. Of course, our military seems to delight in creating robots that can kill people. For the life of me, I don't see what good can come of putting a machine gun on a Roomba. I mean, think about it people. How long do you think it will be before that Roomba makes you go boomba?

Again, just to be safe, you might want to check out Humans United Against Robots (HUAR for short) for some helpful tips on protecting yourself from the inevitable robot uprising.

The next item on the menu of destruction is some kind of cataclysmic asteroid strike. This goes even higher on the plausibility scale, since we're pretty sure that it's happened to our planet before. In fact, we actually witnessed it happen to our planetary neighbor a few years ago.

It's also the event that, in my not-so-expert opinion, we would have the least chance of surviving as a species. I mean, if the dinosaurs — a much more successful animal the we puny humans — couldn't survive, that what chance do we have? I guess we have a superior intelligence to help us adapt… but I'm just thinking that whatever we become might not be recognizable as homo sapien anymore.

Of course we don't have to look to space for natural destruction, there is plenty potential for terrestrial tragedy. What I see as most likely, and most devastating to yours truly, is the explosive eruption (really, is there any other kind?) of the 925-square-mile supervolcano under the Yellowstone Caldera.

Already, a magma bed under the caldera has swelled and heaved the ground up by 10-feet. When it finally blows, a volcanic cloud will spew ash and debris 25 miles high while lava and pyroclastic flows cover two-thirds of the country from Wyoming to Louisiana and putting quite a damper on that summer barbecue party I was planning.

Also, it would totally fill in the Grand Canyon, which I haven't had a chance to see yet. So… moving that item up on my to-do list.

But even more likely than that, is a disastrous 10.0 earthquake that is due to hit California any day now. A few weeks ago, scientists on the History Channels' Mega Quake 10.0 all but guaranteed that a magnitude 10.0 earthquake would turn California into an island and Arizona into a state full of beach front resorts.

That is totally going to suck for everyone in California, but it might be just the kind of tragedy that could get us to stop focusing on how crappy our cell-phone service is and start focusing on actually helping each other out. So from that perspective, at least there's a silver lining.

Still, such a quake would probably turn the Grand Canyon into Arizona Bay, so my earlier comment about getting out to see the Grand Canyon? Yeah, still applies.

So those are the biggies as I see it. I guess we'll still have to contend with plagues once all of our antibiotics fail. And then there's always the inevitable Water Wars looming on the horizon. Oh, and don't forget about sudden widespread sterility due to all of the residual hormones in the food and water supplies.

What did I miss? How do you think we'll get our comeuppance?

tagged: Earth, destruction, volcano, Yellowstone, California, earthquake, robot, zombie, robot, asteroid, apocalypse, Robert Frost

YouTube Tuesday: Marshmallow Torture

2011-01-25T15:40:00.000-06:00

Don't get me wrong, I love my kid's and all. But it's pretty funny to see kids mildly tortured.

tagged: video, YouTube Tuesday, marshmallow, test, psychology, children, kids, delayed gratification

Random Photo XLI: Beneath the pale glow of a street lamp

2011-01-20T09:20:00.000-06:00

Couple of pictures of last night's snowfall.

I like the first one with the exception of the ugly pickup truck in the background. I wish I had moved to the left a few paces so I could crop it out…

Also, the snowflakes weren't as pronounced as I wanted them to be. I think they were just too small by this time to photograph the way I wanted them.

I did get this one, though, which I think is kind of interesting…

tagged: random photo, Kansas, winter, snow, night, picture, weather

Local gal makes good…satire

2011-01-19T14:40:00.002-06:00

If, like me, you're a fan of the LOLz then you're probably a big fan of The Onion, America's finest satire source.

You might also have been eagerly anticipating the premier of Onion Sports Network's SportsDome on Comedy Central. And I'm assuming, since you're like me, that you have impeccable taste and a great sense of humor but nonetheless you were a little underwhelmed by the premier.

I don't know, I guess you just had really high expectations. Sure, you thought it had it's good moments, but I guess you just thought it fell a bit flat… if you're like me.

But that's not really what I wanted to focus on right now.

What I wanted to mention was that a featured part of SportsDome involved a former minor Kansas City demicelebrity.

You may know her as Melissa Wells… here reporting on the city of St. Louis conferring dictator-for-life status upon slugger Albert Pujols.

Onion SportsDome

The actress playing sports announcer Melissa Wells is none other than former Kansas City resident Danyelle Sargent. You may remember her as an actual non-satirical sports reporter for Time Warner Cable-Kansas City's Metro Sports, or perhaps as the sideline reporter for the sucktacular Kansas City Chiefs in 2004.

But, chances are that if you remember her at all, it's probably more for the on-air f-bomb she dropped after climbing the broadcast ladder to a desk spot at ESPN. it was a huge Internet sensation…

It seems that little slip, followed by a later on-air gaffe during an interview with Mike Singletary cost her a promising career in real sportscasting. But I'm not her to throw stones. I mean, hey, I pretty much live with my foot in my mouth.

I actually think working in the satirical news is a step up from ESPN. Maybe not money-wise, hell it is Comedy Central after all. But in terms of respect and meaning, I consider satire a higher calling than lame-ass sports reporting.

Plus, it gives her a chance to make fun of those smug bastards at ESPN who fired her.

tagged: The Onion, SportsDome, Comedy Central, Melissa Wells, Danyelle Sargent, Kansas City, pop culture, media

YouTube Tuesday: My Oh My

2011-01-18T09:50:00.000-06:00

A few months ago I remarked, only half-joking, that I'd vote for any candidate who used this as the theme song for their campaign...

We can ride this stormy weather
If we all get out and try
So let's all pull together, my oh my

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, music, video, Slade, My Oh My, I Love The 80s

What's your sign

2011-01-14T09:22:00.003-06:00

By now I'm sure you've heard that the ancient, accurate and well-respected system of Astrology has been rocked by changes in the zodiac signs and dates.

I'll leave it up to you to figure out what affect this will have on your weekend plans. I'm just glad that, for me, according to the new zodiac, I'm still considered a Drunkard.

tagged: astrology, zodiac, sign, pseudoscience, superstition, drunkard

Mr. Emaw's Neighborhood: Chapter 2 — For the Kids

2011-01-13T15:05:00.003-06:00

When your kids start going to school, you're bound to run into minor differences of opinion in regards to parenting.

On occasion they can be major differences, but mostly (at least in our school district) all the parents want pretty much the same thing for their kids: good education, health, happiness, etc.

Well, it was one of these minor differences of opinion that I experienced the other day. I was picking up my kid from the after-school care in the lower level of the elementary. I bumped into the mother of my kid's best friend, and we were chit-chatting while our respective kids got their respective gear together so we could go to our respective homes.

Nothing but respect here.

As we were chatting an hyperacting 7-year-old boy came scurrying down the hall like a gerbil on meth. Eyes wide, hair wild, he looked at me and exclaimed, "Did you see all the snow we got! I can't wait to get home and play in it! Woooooo!"

This was followed by a back flip and a maneuver in which he ran up one wall, across the ceiling and down the other to stop and gave an unreturned high-five in front of me.

I, without so much as a pause, gave him my best "sorry to burst your bubble" look and said, "Oooh, yeah. Have you been outside since you got to school this morning?

"No," he said.

"Mmmm. Yeah. Well, it's been so sunny today that all the snow has melted. It's just a soggy muddy mess out there right now. Bummer, kid."

I swear, the kid shrank at least an inch. His shoulders, formerly held high in excitement, slumped in disappointment. His face, a few seconds ago alight with the enthusiasm of youth, was suddenly gloomy as a San Francisco summer.

With heavy feet, he trudged despondently back into the nearby classroom to ponder the cruelties of fate at robbing him of his fun in the snow.

My neighbor, the mother with whom I had been visiting, looked at me, a little surprised but also amused.

"You're mean," she said, smiling at my little joke.

But you know what? I don't really think it was all that mean. Sure I was having a bit of fun at the expense of this kid. But isn't that why we have kids in the first place? For the LOLZ?

But the way I see it, I was doing the kid a favor.

I mean, think about how happy he was when his parents picked him up and he went outside to see his winter wonderland intact and ready for sledding.

And besides, it was a valuable lesson for the young chap. Don't trust everything people tell you, especially if they're over 30. Gather evidence before jumping to conclusions.

And above all, don't let the words of a bunch of nattering nabobs of negativity dash your dreams or winter fun.

tagged: snow, school, neighbor, neighborhood, life lessons, kids, parenting

Give Mercedes a chance

2011-01-11T10:57:00.000-06:00

Okay, I'm only going to say this to you numskull kids one more time.

I'm glad you're all for peace and everything. I condemn the shooting of anyone, be they politicians or just regular schleps like me. So yeah, I agree with your basic premise here.

But let's get something straight once and for all.

This is the international sign for Peace.

It's customary, and some would say you're even encouraged, to take some artistic license in your reproductions of it. Hence…Or…Or even…
But unless you want to look like a complete idiot in front of the entire nation and set John Lennon spinning in his grave, you shouldn't use the Mercedes Benz logo:
I'm just sayin'…
tagged: Peace, sign, logo, Mercedes, advertising

Random Photo XL: snow cone

2011-01-10T16:30:00.000-06:00

It's the first really significant snowfall we've had around here this winter, which means lots of people will be publishing their snow pix.

Well, let me be the first. You can't blame me. Snow, as fake Miley Cryus would say, is pretty cool.

tagged: weather, snow, winter, Random Photo, Miley Cyrus

Are we human, or are we denser

2011-01-10T12:10:00.003-06:00

I've maintained for a while on this piece o'crap blog that we, as a species, are pretty much on the downhill side of our existence.

Sure, there are more of us than ever on the planet. And yes, we are more technically advanced than we have ever been. One could argue that over the past decade or so we've taken a leap in interpersonal connection and communication the likes of which haven't been seen since Gutenberg first moved type around to impress the ladies.

But then again, look what we're communicating. At best, it's ghoulish drooling over the latest tragedy. Whether a collapsed coal mine, an exploded oil platform or a mass shooting, our vulturous media stokes our schadenfreude until we're so jaded that nothing affects us anymore. And that's the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that the media stuffs us so full of intellectual junk food (which we consume with gusto) that we can no longer tell the difference between relevant an unhealthy. When supposed luminaries like Barbara Walters are soooooo fascinated by the barely trainable cast of Jersey Shore, well, let's just say that it's a wonder any of us are still walking upright.

Not that we'll be walking upright for much longer, at least if you look at the "progress" of our culture over the last, say, 40 years. But who am I, right? I'm just an amateur culture observer. Don't take my word for it.

Take the word of people who actually study the human brain for a living.

Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion.

“I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc.

Oh sure, you may have some scientists who hypothesize that this evolutionary trend is merely the brain reorganizing itself to excel in handling the challenges of modern man, such as memorizing the DVR program, or texting and driving at the same time.

But that's just an optimistic rationalization by people who don't want to, or are incapable of, accepting the real truth. Which is that for the past 30 or 40 years, our society has been naturally selecting for dumber and dumber offspring. I mean, just take a look at the first 20 minutes of Idiocracy. It's a simple numbers game. The smart people know that overpopulation is unsustainable and take steps to limit their offspring. The less intellectually advantaged? Not so much.

Anyway, I'm not claiming to be the last word on this. And I'm definitely not as sharp as our cro-magnon forefathers. But I do know that you can't fight evolution. It will be what it will be, and the only thing you can really do is sing a catchy tune and maybe dance about it while your here.

Oh, and for those of you who are way ahead of the evolutionary curve on this issue, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.*

*Homage to Douglas Adams.

tagged: science, evolution, brain, Human, Idiocracy, The Killers, Jersey Shore, homo erectus

Another million dollar idea to start out the year

2011-01-05T11:03:00.000-06:00

Lots of people know that I come up with a couple of brilliant million-dollar ideas each quarter. It's just part of what I do.

Whether it's indicator plastic wrap, cargo-style dress slacks, or my excellent idea for Tixaqyll, each and every one of these gems is guaranteed to be solid gold.

Well this year the inspiration came early as we were watching some generic New Year's Day football game. We began mocking all the advertisements pushing special deals on gym memberships and special meal plans to help people loose those extra pounds and keep their New Year's resolutions.

And as conversations go, one thing led to another. We talked about how people should just start exercising more instead of sitting around watching generic New Year's Day football games. You don't need a gym membership, do you?

That's when it clicked. Combine something that people need but don't want (in this case exercise), with something they love but don't need, i.e., sitting on your ass watching a big screen playing mindless programming.

Put them both together and you get… The Gym Theater.

You know how AMC has been building out their Fork and Screen concept? Where you go and have a real meal at a table and everything while you watch the latest lame-ass chick flick?

Well this is kind of the opposite of that. Instead of sitting there watching Zack Galifianakis while you eat your way toward looking like him, you instead hop on a stationary bike or treadmill or elliptical machine and burn a few hundred calories.

Sure, you might need to provide audio jacks for headphones or ear buds or something to overcome the noise of the machinery. But from what I understand, people typically listen to iPods or something while they work out anyway.

The beauty is that theaters could sell this as a monthly membership fee deal, so they would be locking in a regular revenue stream.

Okay, AMC. There's the idea. I'll let you take this one and run with it. But I think a finder's fee of 10% is reasonable and customary, right?

tagged: theater, gym, idea, exercise, weight loss, New Year's Resolution, work out Zack Galifianakis, Hans and Franz

YouTube Tuesday: Brick Thief

2011-01-04T14:31:00.003-06:00

Hows about a nice little bit of stop-motion quirkiness to kick off the new year.

Thanks. Don't mind if I do.

Hat Tip to Illegal Advertising

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, short, film, LEGO, stop-motion

Ode to a Honeycrisp Apple

2010-12-29T08:50:00.005-06:00

A short poem to my favorite breakfast food, as inspired* by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the last Honeycrisp Apple
that was in
the fridge

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
it was delicious
so sweet
and so juicy

*And by "inspired" I mean "plagiarized"

tagged: poetry, fruit, Honeycrisp, Apple, William Carlos Williams, breakfast, food

Mr. Emaw's Neighborhood: Chapter 1 — The Elevator Incident

2010-12-15T15:22:00.010-06:00

It struck me one day that over the years, I've had some pretty interesting neighbors. In fact, the people I've lived and worked next to have always been much more interesting than I am. So I thought I'd do a series of posts about some of them.

This story takes place about ten years ago. It was shortly after the first internet bust but before that quaint little (by today's standards) Enron financial implosion.

When the web startup I'd been working at closed up shop and headed to New Jersey, I took my first job at a cube farm corporation. It was a pretty good gig. The hours were flexible and me and a few other guys had a shared hard drive where we stored all the mp3s we downloaded from Napster.

I was lucky as the new guy to get a cube adjacent to a wall, so I only had one cube neighbor. We'll call her Janet. She was a great cube neighbor. Pleasant personality, always smiling, great sense of humor. She was a recent college grad and had snagged her job after doing an internship for the company.

She kept me up to date on all the pop culture news of the day.

She was one of the first on the block with one of those new-fangled "TiVo" devices and would give us daily updates on celebrity gossip and the latest exploits of the characters on Survivor and
The Geena Davis Show.

Janet was the social glue for our core group. There were about five of us who started having lunch together daily. As a group it was easier to rationalize, or maybe just ignore, the fact that you're leaving for lunch a few minutes early and getting back a few minutes late.

It was during one of these lunch jaunts that The Elevator Incident happened.

On these lunch outings, we typically would pool rides since it was ecologically the right thing to do and it provided a certain level of mutually assured destruction for getting back too late from The Olive Garden.

Anyway on this particular day, Janet and I had arrived back at the office from lunch. We strolled into the elevator, hit the "6" button and waited for the lift to deliver us to our floor.

As a joke, I always used to like to bounce the elevator a little bit by doing a few quick knee bends — kind of a fake jumping up and down when the other person's not looking to make them thing the elevator is falling or something. You know, for the laughs.

Well, to this day I maintain that that little stunt had nothing to do with our elevator doing an emergency stop between the first and second floors.

Nonetheless, stuck it was. Not moving, door closed and to make matters worse the emergency phone inside the elevator didn't work. It could have been my imagination, but I swear the lights were flickering and the vent fan had turned off.

Janet was ready to freak out. To calm her down, I told her that the building probably wasn't on fire and there almost certainly wasn't a Twilight Zone-style nuclear holocaust going on outside.

Still,I knew that if I couldn't find a way out of this, it wouldn't be long before we hit DEFCON LUDICROUS. But before I tried my daring escape through the ceiling access hatch, I pulled out my cutting-edge circa 1999 Nokia cellular mobile telephone.

With my phone's antenna extended, I dialed up the security desk to apprise them of our situation and get a maintenance dude to get us out of here.

Next I called my manager to let her know that Janet and I are stuck in the elevator, no, for real, we're in the elevator and the elevator stopped between floors. No, she's okay at the moment What? Well… of course we both have all of our cloths on…I mean, I slipped my shoes off but we all have our own coping mechanisms…

Before I was done with the call, an elevator technician had opened the doors. About waste level (for me) was the first floor ceiling/second floor floor. We were looking up (to the second floor) and a small crowd of or coworkers who had come to watch our daring escape. You can imagine the entertainment value we were providing.

The ~~janitor~~ elevator technician told us the plan was to help us crawl up to the second floor, then worry about getting the lift running again. Being the chivalrous sumbitch I am, I insisted that Janet go first. I would be able to help boost her up and, more importantly, if the elevator were suddenly to let loose it wouldn't be me getting sliced in half by a gigantic guillotine.

Well, to make a short story longer, we made it out of the elevator car safe and sound and had a good laugh for the next few hours and came away with a mildly amusing story to boot.

Eventually, I left that company for other professional pastures. It was eventually acquired in a corporate merger, and I kind of lost touch with Janet and the rest of the crew. It happens sometimes. Friends and neighbors go their separate ways.

Janet and I actually work at the same company now. She sits not too far from me on the same floor, but we don't have the same rapport that we had then.

And she still refuses to ride an elevator with me.

tagged: Enron, Napster, elevator, Geena Davis, Survivor, Nokia, neighbor

YouTube Tuesday: Word

2010-12-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

Here's the Rated-PG version of this video that's been out for quite sometime. I just like the concept of a word association exercise in a video format.

You can see the PG-13 Rated version here if you want.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, words, association, art

New dirt on The Mission Dirt Pile

2010-12-08T15:36:00.006-06:00

From what I could tell, the little tidbit of news didn't get much play earlier this week. At least if it did, I didn't see it in the usual local newscasts, websites and Twitters I follow.

Just a short few paragraphs from the Kansas City Business Journal that popped up in my RSS feed reader indicating that there might finally be some movement in the development of what has become known as The Mission Dirt Pile.

When the Mission Dirt Pile was first created, I was living a couple of blocks north in Roeland Park, a cute little inner-ring suburb peopled by families just starting out, elderly couples (and singles) who are dying out and your random urban chicken enthusiast.

We really liked living in the RP. Characters like the crazy pot-smoking retired lady a few doors down just added to the texture of the neighborhood. So we were pretty happy with the then Mission Center Mall property was slated to be demolished.

It was quite something to see the old mall go through the stages of deconstruction on my way home from work each day.

The proposal was to replace the mall with a "lifestyle" center that would include a high-rise boutique hotel, condos and street level retail. Somewhere along the way large aquarium was thrown in for good measure.

Keep in mind this was back in 2006, a more innocent time in America. A healthier General Motors was reporting losses of only $8.6 billion, AIG gave a sincere apology to government regulators for its deceptive business practices, and the Blue-ray Disc format was introduced to American consumers.

More importantly, the country was in the midst of a real estate boom the most thought would never end. So when developers presented the renderings of The Gateway lifestyle center, most of us were pretty excited about it. It was reported at the time that some people even put down deposits on some of the condo units before ground had even been broken.

Of course, we all know what happened to the real estate market, not to mention the rest of the economy. All that was left of The Gateway development was a giant mountain of dirt and broken dreams.

Well, fast forward to last Monday when we learned that the development group has new partners and may be close to resuming work on the project, possibly breaking ground as soon as next summer.

According to the article in the Kansas City Business Journal, the developer, The Cameron Group LLC, received an extension on a critical deadline that allows them to retain $63 million in sales tax revenue bonds for the project.

[Cameron Group's] Tom Valenti said his new partners, which include RED’s Tim Schaffer and Caymus’ Dave Harrison, add credibility to the project.

“Having RED and Caymus being involved sends a message to the community here that this is real and it is going to happen,” Valenti said.

Valenti said the Gateway project will be built in two phases, beginning with the aquarium and apartments.

It all sounds very promising. Certainly a nice retail/business district will bring in more revenue than a big pile of dirt. Definitely it will look much nicer, though the opossum's and foxes that now live there might have some objections.

Of course it remains to be seen whether we are near enough to the end of the current recession for this to actually happen.

I guess we'll know by the end of the summer.

tagged: Roeland Park, Mission, Mission Center Mall, The Gateway, Mission Dirt Pile, development, The Cameron Group

YouTube Tuesday: Happy Birthday Dave Brubeck

2010-12-07T09:21:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was Dave Brubeck's 90th birthday, which still makes him a youngster to my grandmother.

Anyway, he probably doesn't hang out much on the internet, but I wanted to post this video of one of his most recognizable and most covered songs in honor of the occasion.

tagged: video, YouTube Tuesday, music, jazz, Dave Brubeck, Take Five, birthday

Friday Blogthing: Merry Christmas from the Cup Size Choir

2010-12-03T13:51:00.005-06:00

It's about that time of year for the more cutting edge of creative agencies to begin releasing their Holiday viral advertising tactics.

While the effort by European lingerie maker La Senza lacks the cute innocence and tongue-in-cheek humor of local shop VML's Handbell Hero from a few years ago, but it does have several elements that make for a good viral tactic: It's interactive and empowers the audience to be content creators, it provides easy sharability, and most importantly it has seven scantily clad hotties. Here's the link to my little musical masterpiece.

tagged: marketing, viral, lingerie, La Senza, Cup Size Choir, Friday Blogthing, holiday

YouTube Tuesday: Leslie Nielsen Epilogue

2010-11-30T13:42:00.003-06:00

aka Lieutenant Frank Drebin, RIP.

tagged: Leslie Nielsen, celebrity, death, video, YouTube, Tuesday, Police Squad

Putting the T&A in TSA

2010-11-18T14:39:00.001-06:00

Just a few of my own thoughts (well, I suppose I'm not the only one with these thoughts) to close out the discussion on the TSA's aggressive security screenings…

Our own Midtown Miscreant rightly pointed out the other day that airport security screenings are not really that much worse than anything most ex-cons experience on a daily basis during their time in the big house.

His basic point, as with other proponents of the new measures, is that yeah it sucks to treat everyday, law-abiding citizens like the worst criminal in the world, but you have to do it for safety.

Is it the perfect fool proof solution? No. But I've yet to hear a workable alternative.

And this is part of the problem. MM, like decreasing majority of the American public, has bought into the scare tactics employed by bureaucrats and lobbyists who basically say "If you don't let us take naked pictures of you and grope you, you are going to be killed by terrorists."

In fact, many security experts have gone on record as saying none of these tactics would have foiled any of the terror plots that we've seen. Furthermore, the recent "tonor cartridge bomb" plot was discovered by other, less intrusive security measures.

Now don't get me wrong. I'd probably avoid the super backscatter scanning X-Rays they're using since I'm not crazy about having 1.21 gigawatts of radiation sent through my body (I like my chromosomes they way nature intended, thank you very much).

Of course, those of you more worried about modesty than radiation might not feel all that comfortable with a bunch of mall cop rejects checking out high-resolution scans of your nether regions. If you're one of those people, you might want to invest twenty bucks in some special X-ray shielded panties.

Personally, I enjoy a good groping by strangers as much as the next guy. And while I might consider having a sweaty, overweight guy with bad breath put his latex glove-covered hands down my pants at the airport a bonus, I can certainly see how some might find it objectionable, even invasive.

What concerns me more, however, is how we got to where we are.

It's like we've lost our minds here. We've been scared witless, and we're not thinking rationally. All the threats we've heard of — Shoe Bomber, Crotch Bomber, Tonor Bombers — are threats from abroad. Yet now we're clamping down on flights from Kansas City to Tallahassee? And that was only three or four cases out of hundreds of millions of flights.

So these measures, which are really just a kind of theater to make people feel like they're safer, have little real effect on a statistically insignificant problem.

I think a better approach is prudent and reasonable police work. The Israeli approach is probably pretty good. Use multiple checkpoints with security people actually trained in spotting real suspects — not frisking your 5-year-old niece.

Let's use our brains, citizens.

And there's one other germ of a thought that's been bouncing around in my brain lately. We, as a society, are expecting way too much out of our government.

Sure, the government likes it that way. The self-perpetuating bureaucracy loves the opportunity to assume more and more our responsibilities and is happy to accept more of our money and liberty in exchange for trying to keep us safe.

But the truth is, we have no reasonable right to expect to be 100 percent safe 100 percent of the time. A long, safe, healthy life is great. But for human beings, that's the exception, not the rule.

If I had lived 100 years ago, I'd probably have died before I reached my 38th birthday. Now I realize we live in the future and we've made advances in medicine and technology, but we're on a course toward asking our government to encase the world in Nerf for our own protection.

Anyway, there may be more on that line of thinking later.

tagged: TSA, travel, security, screening, airport, privacy, freedom, panties

Guest Post: TSA is here to protect the ingrates

2010-11-17T09:34:00.006-06:00

As you know, from time to time I'll post guest editorials about various topical subjects. These guest posts do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the editorial staff of 3 AM. Today's guest post is from Nathan R. Jessep, a mid-level Transportation Security Administration agent, in response to recent criticism of the agency's aggressive screening tactics.

What? So a few prissy travelers in their faggoty business suits think I'm invading THEIR privacy? That's funny! That's a joke!

You want the truth? You want the TRUTH!? You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has airports, and those airports have to be guarded by men with latex gloves. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Mr. Jillette?

I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for your groped genitals and you curse the TSA. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that the groping of your private parts, while tragic, probably saves lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives!

You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about on your blogs and on Twitter, you want me in that airport! You need me in your underwear! We use words like "bend over", "spread 'em", "cop a feel". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.

You use them as a punchline!

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a country that rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very safety that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "Thank you," grabbed a tissue to wipe your tears, and went on your way.

Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a body cavity search kit, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

You fuckin' people. You have no idea how to defend an airport. All you'll do with your National Opt Out Day is weaken the illusion of safety that I provide. That's all you'll do. You'll put people's lives in danger.

Sweet dreams, son.

tagged: TSA, travel, security, screening, airport, Nathan R. Jessep, satire

The Groupon Paradox

2010-11-12T07:35:00.003-06:00

I was having a quick lunch with a few of my closest friends a few weeks ago when the conversation wound around to the topic of Groupon.

I'm sure that by now, most of you are aware that Groupon isn't some kind of 1970s lingo for a swingin' good time. The social buying service has been around since 2008, and it's become a popular method of local advertising and deal hunting for today's cash-strapped consumer.

But for you nifty neophytes, the basic premise is that a business will agree to give a deeply discounted price on a service or product in exchange for a guarantee that a certain volume of that product or service will be purchased.

For example, today's deal was a 50% discount on carpet cleaning from a local service company, but only if at least 50 people bought the deal. As of this writing, they had sold 257 of the deals.

So you can see that for the savvy shopper, you can save a lot of money on some useful and neat stuff.

Except, there's a bit of a flaw in this plan, at least for me.

The first (and only... so far) time I bought a Groupon deal was when a new bakery in my neighborhood advertised a special. Natasha's Mulberry & Mott (which is fantastic, by the way) was selling $10 worth of pastries, coffee, ice cream or whatever for only $5. You could buy three of the Groupon's for a total outlay of $15 for thirty bucks worth of fancy pants breakfast.

Which is what I did. And apparently a lot of other people thought this was a great deal as well since they sold 1,451 of this particular Groupon. A little quick math puts the total take for Natasha's at a cool $7,255 American in just a few hours.

It was a few weeks before I made it down to the bakery to cash in on my deal. I printed out the receipt and stopped by on my way to work one morning. When I opened the door, there were about half a dozen people queued up in front of me.

And here's the thing: They all — every last one of them — were holding the same kind of Groupon receipt that I had. When I first noticed this, I kind of smiled ironically to myself. "Heh, we're all cheap bastards aren't we?"

But as I waited in line and watched everyone peruse the bill of fare, make their choices trying to get as close a possible to the $10 spending limit and then watch the harried woman at the check-out counter perform acts of mathematical heroism to get any additional money owed by the patrons, I just became more and more uncomfortable with my own cheapness.

After all, I don't need $10 worth of pastries. I don't even need $5 worth. Truth be told, my doctor would prefer I eat a bowl of oatmeal or an apple for breakfast.

And dire as the financial times are, I don't really need to save $5 on the pastries that I shouldn't really be eating in the first place. Don't get me wrong, we're not rolling in caviar and champagne. But we're gainfully employed and sticking to our financial plan, so if I wanted to drop a Hamilton on some expensive coffee and croissants it's not going to break the bank.

When it comes down to it, the only reason I bought the Groupon in the first place was because I could get for $15 something that I perceived to be worth $30. It was like getting free money.

But as I had time to stand there and stew in my guilt, I realized that another way to look at it was that I only bought the Groupon to screw the owners out of $15 worth of food (food that I don't particularly need).

When it was my turn at the counter, I ordered the items I'd been considering while waiting. Then I deliberately ordered a little bit more so that I ended up paying more than the five-dollar bottom line on my Groupon coupon, just to prove that it's not all about getting free stuff for me.

I've still go two more to cash in, and I'm sure I'll do it before they expire in January.

But the guilt will probably kill me.

tagged: Groupon, bargains, shopping, Natasha's, pastry, cheap, guilt

YouTube Tuesday: Photoshopping Life

2010-11-09T10:14:00.005-06:00

Technology is supposed to make things easier. Wouldn't it be great if you could use the image editing tools in Photoshop to edit your real life?

Like maybe cloning in a couple of extra Scarlett Johanssons?

Yeah, I think this guy's got the right idea.

tagged: YouTube Tuesday, film, video, Photoshop, Hyperakt, Photoshop dexterity

Guest Post: November 5

2010-11-05T07:41:00.004-05:00

Greetings, Internet.

Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine — the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high government. It promised you order, it promised you safety, and all it demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I wrote this blog post, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked.

But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

tagged: V, politics, Fifth of November, pop culture, Bill of Rights

Who will saaaayave our souls?

2010-11-04T07:02:00.006-05:00

I was humbled to get some link love from the great Joel Mathis at Cup o'Joel who latched onto my continued frustration with both political so-called parties after this week's elections.

He wonders if the government is even capable of governing anymore, and he rightly noted that we both think "that there's something unsustainable about the governance of our country."

I agree that our current government and bureaucracy is unsustainable. But it's not just our governance, it's our entire culture. As Americans we eat and drink more than is healthy. We consume way more than our fair share of energy. We live in homes that are way bigger than they need to be and pay for them much more than we should (indeed, much more than we can afford). We're more interested in voting results for American Idol than for American elections.

We demand free health care, free retirement, free food and water — hell, free digital cable converter boxes — even though, in the long centuries of human existence, no people have ever dared to dream of such things.

Somehow, over the last 80 years, we've become entitled.

So when Joel asks in the title of his post, "Can anybody save us?" The short answer is, no. If something is unsustainable and can't continue, it must come to an end.

The longer answer is something Cassius hit upon when he was having a beer with his good buddy Brutus at his boss's beach house in the hit film Weekend At Caesar's:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves… Hey, what's that thing stuck in Ceasar's back?

If we're honest with ourselves, we see that Obama isn't to blame for "the state of things," nor are the Republicans, the Democrats or the Tea Party; it's not Glenn Beck or Jon Stewart or Sarah Palin or Rachel Madow or that other guy who's name I can't remember from MSNBC...

When you get right down to it, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

We voted ourselves money and spending and benefits that we don't really deserve and certainly can't afford. And really, I can understand why we did it. That unsustainable culture I mentioned earlier? That's a fun culture to be a part of. I mean, who doesn't want to rock 'n roll all night and party every day?

It beats the hell out of allowing banks to fail from their own malfeasance... dragging us all into a great depression with them. That's just… depressing.

And aren't we all more than willing to take off our shoes and allow strangers to look at our naughty bits at the airport in order to feel a little safer about flying out to Las Vegas and maxing out our credit cards on overpriced booze and glorified money-sucking video games?

But we got ourselves into this mess. And we're going to have to get ourselves out. It's not going to be easy. I suspect that it will get much, much worse before it gets better. But I also think the best place to start is in your own neighborhood, in your own town, in your own city and state.

Democrats nor Republicans nor presidents nor senators will be able to help us. Relying on the government isn't the answer. We all need to pull together. Find people who need your help. There are a lot of great organizations and churches that are dedicated to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, trying to heal the sick.

We need to focus on our responsibilities as citizens, not our rights. Make personal changes like eating better food and less of it, maybe start using less energy (I personally have lowered my body temperature to 94 degrees).

Voting is nice. But it is more important to get out and help than it is to get out the vote.

tagged: culture, politics, Republican, Democrat, America, election, Obama

Not so fast, my friend…

2010-11-03T13:30:00.002-05:00

The Facebook message came through pretty early this morning. "I bet you're on cloud nine with the big Republican takeover in last night's elections..."

I responded with a rousing and resounding "meh…"

From what I can tell, in the scheme of things we still haven't seen any proposals for real change. And even if we have seen ideas for meaningful spending cuts and tax reforms from the newly minted House majority, there's no reason given the history of the last few decades to actually believe any meaningful steps will be taken.

I mean, many of the people who voted for Republicans actually think President Obama is solely to blame for "the state of things." But, for example, while Obama definitely had a role in the huge deficit spending stimulus packages that may or may not have had an affect beyond plunging us (and our grandkids) deeper into debt, the whole idea of TARP came about and was passed during the Bush administration.

The problem with campaigning against someone, as the Democrats have found, is that you're not really campaigning for anything in particular.

Of course, the problem with campaigning FOR something these days is that in order to really solve our most pressing national problems, you have to be an advocate of doing stuff that nobody wants to do. Nobody wants drastic, Grecian Formula spending cuts, but that's what we need. Nobody wants major tax and fee increases (certainly not me), but that's what it will take to balance our budget even if we cut spending.

So you get what we have now (which interestingly is frighteningly similar to what the Romans had near the end of their republic). Politicians make promises that, while popular, have little hope of coming to fruition without bankrupting the country. Political expedience makes meaningful reform impossible.

But at least we've got the new season of Dancing With The Stars to entertain us.

tagged: politics, election, Republican, Democrat, spending, budget, Obama

TARPography

2010-11-01T12:25:00.003-05:00

The comment from Lodo came, not apropos of the post it was on but certainly an apt continuation of a conversation we've been having here for some time.

The comment was thus:

All that TARP money everyone was harping about has been paid back with interest.

We've been tossing ideas back and forth about the TARP and various government bailouts. My point is that the financial bailouts in toto are a bad idea because of the monetary cost and the long term cost of cultivating a culture reliant upon bailouts instead of sound business judgment.

Lodo's point is that, as a practical matter, the bailouts and stimulus plans are necessary to stabilize the economy. And whatever the risks happen to be, they're better than the certainty of a second Great Depression (I hope I've characterized the point fairly).

So, it's only fair for Lodo to point out that all of the TARP money has been repaid in full, with interest. I assume he's referring to a White House report that was released last month.

Now, I have no reason to think the White House would tell us something that isn't 100 percent true. What motivation, after all, could they have for not being completely forthcoming about a program as popular as TARP has been — especially in this climate where pretty much everyone is strongly in favor of doing all we can as a country to make sure that the poor banking executives make it through this trying time of tumultuous tribulation with their multi-million dollar bonuses intact?

I mean, what could they possibly gain especially since their party is poised to make such great gains during this election season?

But, out of habit I guess, I just had to do some double checking on this claim "fully repaid with interest." So I jumped over to one of the only journalistic enterprises I know of that still has any integrity left. The amazingly awesome website ProPublica.

ProPublica maintains a Bailout Scorecard website, where they track how much taxpayer money has gone to whom and how much has been returned. And incredibly, the numbers they have on their site show that not only has the TARP program NOT been repaid in full with interest, there is still almost $170 Billion in loans/investments outstanding.

I just found this almost impossible to believe. I was shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that there may have been a bit of fibbing going on from the White House.

I just assumed that perhaps the database at ProPublica may not have been quite up to date. So I fired off a quick email to one of the contact email addresses listed on the site…

Hey Paul,

Let me first say how much respect I have for the ProPublica organization. It has become one of the only news sources I really trust. Thank you for your efforts.

My question is about the Bailout Tracker portion of your website (http://bailout.propublica.org/main/summary), specifically the information on TARP. When the White House recently announced that all TARP money had been paid back in full with interest, I thought I should really check with you guys before I believed them.

So I looked at your site and saw that, according to you, there is still quite a bit of TARP left outstanding. I just wanted to check to see if the numbers on your site have been updated recently.

Thanks again for the great work you guys are doing.

Within a few hours, Paul wrote back…

Thanks.

The short version is if you really listen to what the White House is saying, they’re not saying all the money has been paid back. They’re basically saying that they expect the money to be paid back eventually. Our database shows things as they currently stand (and yes, it’s up to date). Even if the administration is right and we’ll be paid back, that won’t happen for years.

Separately, you have to be careful when talking about this stuff whether you’re including Fannie and Freddie or just the TARP. We include Fannie and Freddie in our database because, even though it was a different pot of money, it’s still one of the big bailouts that was started in the fall of 2008. And as you can see from our site, that’s involved nearly as much money as the TARP, and it seems like it won’t be long before there’s more outstanding from that bailout than from the TARP.

Also, here’s a recent roundup post we did on the 2 year anniversary of the TARP: http://www.propublica.org/article/the-bailout-yearbook-the-stars-and-the-slackers

Best,
Paul

So, there you have it. Don't take my word for it, I'm just a cave man. Take the word of someone who tracks this stuff for a living and who doesn't have a political interest in trying to make everyone feel like hope and change will get us out of this mess.

tagged: bailout, hope, change, TARP, ProPublica, White House, Goldman Sachs

YouTube Tuesday: Special Halloween Edition

2010-10-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

Have a safe and happy Halloween you guys. Go easy on the Krackle and Jack Daniels.

tagged: movies, Halloween, video, Dawn of the Ted, humor, YouTube, Tuesday

3AM Poll: Ad nauseating

2010-10-27T09:09:00.010-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, there have been a lot of campaign ads on the television box lately. I was tempted to write that there have been a lot of classless campaign ads, but I like to avoid redundancies where possible.

Anyway, its easy to see that the entire commercial television industry is being kept financially afloat in these trying economic times by political advertisements and ads for erectile dysfunction remedies — both of which make me reach for the DVR fast forward button quicker than Larry Moore reaches for his jumbo bottle of Geritol.

But that may be just me. What do you think?

tagged: politics, campaign, advertising, media, erectile dysfunction, poll, vote

YouTube Tuesday: The sunny side of The Force

2010-10-26T05:31:00.001-05:00

Imagine this scenario: A crazed evil dictator has seized control of your government and killed all but a handful of your religious order. You're left to go into hiding on a small desert moon in the outer rim, but you still have to find some way to make ends meet.

So, you change your name to Ben and hang out a shingle as a private dick.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, humor, Star Wars, Ben Kenobi, movie

YouTube Tuesday: Ripped from the headlines

2010-10-19T14:25:00.004-05:00

The headline today of a 300-pound chimp loose and rampaging in Kansas City brought to mind my favorite outlaw virtual simian technopunk hip-hop quintet, Gorillaz.

Here to commemorate the occasion, one of their recent releases, Stylo...

tagged: YouTube Tuesday, Gorillaz, music, video, Stylo, Chimpanzee, Kansas City

Random Photo XXXIX: Steamy autumn

2010-10-06T10:47:00.003-05:00

Air and temperature conditions this week have been perfect for creating these romantic mists on the ponds in local parks. Just one of the many reasons I love this time of year in KC.

tagged: Random Photo, Kansas City, mist, morning, fall, autumn, weather

YouTube Tuesday: Shut your festering gob, you tit!

2010-10-05T10:49:00.000-05:00

Today's edition of YouTube Tuesday comes to you in honor of the original first-air date of Monty Python's Flying Circus on BBC television on October 5, 1969.

Yes, 41 years ago today national audiences (in Great Britain) were introduced to the genius of a comedy troupe that predicted nearly half a century in advance what the state of political discourse would be like in the United States.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Monty Python, video, movie, argue, abuse

Woohoo! Road trip!

2010-09-30T10:40:00.004-05:00

A cool new headline in the old feed reader this morning read: US scientists find potentially habitable planet near Earth".

It turns out that planet Gliese 581g (orbiting the Red Dwarf star Gliese 581 — only 20 light years away) may have areas that would support human life.

The planet… is orbiting in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which means it could have water on its surface.

Liquid water and an atmosphere are necessary for a planet to possibly sustain life, even if it might not be a great place to live, the scientists said.

The planet… has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet and has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere…

Given the close proximity of Gliese 581g to Earth, it seems a road trip is definitely in order. But before you pack your bags, there are a few things you might want to keep in mind.

First, scientists say the planet is "tidally locked" to it's star, meaning it's always daytime on one side and always night on the other. The planet is theoretically habitable in the "twilight zone" where it's perpetually evening (or morning, depending on your perspective).

This isn't terrible, given that you potentially would have a nice romantic sunset all day long. Unfortunately in that habitable area, temperatures are thought to range from -24 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit — much like North Dakota.

The other hitch is that the planet is three to four times more massive that Earth. This is good, since it means that it can hold an atmosphere, which is nice if you plan on breathing.

But you'd better be in some pretty good physical shape by the time you get there. If you weigh in at a svelte 180 pounds on Earth, you'll have to lug around a 720 pound body on Gliese 581g. And that Quarter Pounder with Cheese that you packed for a snack just became a One Pounder with cheese.

Still, it may be cold, rocky, and dark, and it may make your butt look fat in those jeans, but I bet Gliese 581g is still ten times nicer than Uranus.

tagged: science, astronomy, planet, Gliese 581g, twilight zone, North Dakota, Uranus

YouTube Tuesday: The adventures of Dot

2010-09-28T09:44:00.004-05:00

Today's edition of YouTube Tuesday is a cute little stop-motion animation in it's own right. But even more interesting, it was filmed with a cell phone camera using an attachment called a CellScope…

Professor Fletcher's invention of the CellScope, which is a Nokia device with a microscope attachment, was the inspiration for a teeny-tiny film created by Sumo Science at Aardman. It stars a 9mm girl called Dot as she struggles through a microscopic world. All the minuscule detail was shot using CellScope technology and a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, video, movie, stop motion, animation, Nokia, CellScope

YouTube Tuesday: Extruded light art

2010-09-21T15:40:00.000-05:00

Most people who don't have posters of Steve Jobs on their bedroom walls agree that the Apple iPad is pretty much useless. And I totally agree.

Which is why I guess it's good for Apple that there are people out there with more money and time than they know what to do with who can work on coming up with gimmicks and cute ways to try to find SOMETHING worthwhile to do with these things.

Enter the creators of Making Future Magic, Dentsu London. The creative agency put their considerable talents to work developing a new sort of stop-motion animation using the iPad's screen.

This film explores playful uses for the increasingly ubiquitous ‘glowing rectangles’ that inhabit the world.

We use photographic and animation techniques that were developed to draw moving 3-dimensional typography and objects with an iPad. In dark environments, we play movies on the surface of the iPad that extrude 3-d light forms as they move through the exposure. Multiple exposures with slightly different movies make up the stop-frame animation.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Apple, iPad, Steve Jobs, design, Dentsu London

The Hunt, Part 3: Parting shots

2010-09-20T06:03:00.000-05:00

Capturing a good photo of the elusive white squirrel proved more challenging than I had originally expected.

I can only assume that growing up a white squirrel in a gray squirrel's world must be a lot like Johnny Cash's Boy Names Sue. You either have to become very quick and elusive, or you get eaten by hawks.

That being the case, it wouldn't have taken me this long if I hadn't has some of the defections among my crew. When my plan to trap the beast met with mixed results, I decided to hire a couple of guys to help out with this little project. But one by one they abandoned me the the quest.

First, Ishmael decided go to back to teaching when the school year started again. Then Starbuck decided to go open a chain of coffee shops (Hope he's doing well with that. There's a lot of competition in that sector these days.) And Queequeg had to quit when one of his new tattoos became severely infected.

Be that as it may, I persevered. Camera in hand, finger on trigger, er, shutter release as I passed through the beasts feeding grounds daily. I spotted it often, but as I've said before, a clear focused image remained out of my grasp for weeks.

Until one still, lazy afternoon in the late summer, after the season's heat had broken, but the sun was still bright, I decide to take a leisurely stroll up up the street. Almost out of habit, I'd taken my camera.

I walked casually up the street to the squirrels feeding grounds. Sure enough there he was. I stopped for a moment, not evening bothering to raise my camera. I knew from experience that in a split second it would bolt up the tree or into the bushes, so why bother taking off the lens cap.

But for some reason, this time was different. I don't know why. Maybe Moby had grown accustomed to my face, or scent, or whatever, because I'd stopped by so often. Maybe at this point he sort of considered me the squirrel equivalent of a friend (a squirrelfriend?).

Perhaps he was just tried of the whole game, tired of continually being pursued and running away. It could be that in his tiny squirrel brain, life just wasn't worth living when your always on the run.

Whatever it was, this time he didn't bolt right away. He sat there, still as a statue, his little black eyes watching me. He twitched his tail a few times as I raised my Nikon and removed the lens cap. He put his paws to his mouth, nibbled a bit on an acorn, then proceeded to ignore me.

By now of course, I'm clicking away like mad, capturing as many frames as I can with Moby posing like a Vogue model during fashion week. After the weeks of hunting, the actual moment of capturing the prey was exhilarating.

The photo session seemed to go on for hours, but I'm sure it only lasted for a minute or two if even that. Soon, it seemed the white squirrel's survival instincts took over. After a quick glance back at me, he took two long hops and landed on a tree trunk.

He ran a lap around the base of the tree, and then instantly shot up into the branches of the of the oak canopy 30 feet above me.

tagged: white, squirrel, Moby, Starbuck, Queequeg, Ishmael, wildlife, suburban, animals, Johnson County, Kansas

It's a mad, mad Mad Men world

2010-09-15T03:14:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite local bloggers recently tried to watch the hit TV show Mad Men, but couldn't get through an entire episode because it's so booooooorrriinnnnggggg.

People blather on about how beautifully the show captures the 1960s—the clothes, the sexism, the smoking. I got over that in about 15 minutes. Yes, you’ve done your research. Now have your characters DO something.

And you know what, I'm with JJS on this. I mean, if something doesn't have loud music and sparkly jingly things within the first five minutes, I say "see ya, wouldn't want to be ya."

It's like, what am I watching TV for, to be intellectually stimulated? To have to actually THINK about what I'm seeing? Hellz no! I'm watching TV so I DON'T have to think, so I can just see some holier-than-thou never-was tell some untalented nobody that "You Suck!"

Now THAT'S entertainment!

And I don't want to hear any of you book lovers tell me to go read a book, either! Have you ever TRIED to read something like The Great Gatsby?! Yeah, right. "Great" my ass. If it's so great, why doesn't anything happen until, like, the second chapter.

No thank you. Give me some good wholesome Deal or No Dancing with America's Top Survivor Idol. At least something actually HAPPENS in those shows.

But Mad Men? Yeah. Nothing EVAR happens.

tagged: TV, television, pop culture, Mad Men, The Great Gatsby

YouTube Tuesday: Instant Billy Joel

2010-09-14T11:00:00.003-05:00

If you keep up with tech news — which is way less depressing than the real news — you no doubt heard about Google's launch of Google Instant last week.

Google Instant is an essentially useless feature that allows you to get "instant" search results rather than having to wait 0.8 seconds. I say it's essentially useless because it's only available on the Google home page, which, let's face it, nobody uses anymore.

But it is useful for the production of a nifty and moderately entertaining keyword search video set to the music of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire¹. You might want to click full-screen mode to get full enjoyment from this video.

1. When is someone going to do an update to this song using references to the first decade of the current century?

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, Billy Joel, Google Instant, video, music, We Didn't Start the Fire

Random Photo XXXVIII: PACing KC

2010-09-10T11:13:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I got a nice shot of the continuing construction of the new Performing Arts Center in Kansas City.

Shot from atop the Liberty Memorial, I think it's clear this building will be a great addition to the downtown skyline.
tagged: Random Photo, Kansas City, Performing Arts Center, architecture

Soy un perdedor

2010-09-09T03:30:00.004-05:00

It's been growing, like another wart on the ugly face of American pop culture, for a few years now.

I'd hear these rumors and rumblings and increasingly regular references on popular fake news television shows. Like jungle drums starting in the distance and getting closer… "beck"…"Beck"…"BECK"… For some reason, everyone seems to be talking about Glenn Beck. Especially the people who hate him the most.

They have virtually canonized him in the social media circle jerks like Twitter, where it's common to see attempts at wise cracks from 140 character pundits such as ... The thing that doesn't make sense to me is why, when so many people dislike him so much, do they devote so much of their cognitive energy him.

I mean, it's one thing to listen, read, talk to people with whom you disagree. This is a sign of healthy intellect. But eventually.you have to realize where a person stands and that person isn't likely to change their position (especially when their career and their millions of dollars are dependent upon them being in that position).

I mean, if you're a hemp wearing, flag burning, drum circle sitting hippie and you've regularly listened to Rush Limbaugh for the last 20 years -- well, you might want to reconsider the hemp thing.

You know what I'm sayin?

If you're one of those delusional Hope&Change suckers with your head stuck firmly in Nancy Pelosi's assets and your pink blinders filtering out all rational evidence that both so-called political parties have failed The Republic (if you can still call it that) miserably and you still bother to scour YouTube for Glenn Beck's latest screed, then I can only conclude that you're either not-so-bright or you're some kind of rage addict.

Or both.

Look, I like you guys. I really do. That's why it's so awkward to try to explain to you how you're being used. But I'll do it anyway. Because when you care about someone, you keep their best interests in mind even when it's uncomfortable.

You see, son, Glenn Beck doesn't give a flyin' FOX what your opinion is. I suspect that he doesn't even care what his own opinion is. To Beck, it isn't important to have the "right" opinion, or even to have a well considered and rational opinion (obviously). It's only important to have an opinion that a lot of people (not to put too fine a point on it, but YOU) disagree with.

In fact, the more irrational and polarizing his statements, the better. This will get people reacting, talking to their friends, posting on Twitter and Facebook and blogs. That keeps him on the top of the consideration ladder. Keeps his audience numbers high (again, that's you).

And that keeps the advertising dollars rolling in.

It's a pretty old game. Something that Limbaugh and Howard Stern have been doing for years, not to mention a certain dumbass from the west side of Topeka and even local bloggers. People like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow do it as well, they just don't seem to be as good as Beck at manipulating large numbers of people who both agree and disagree with them.

So to sum it all up: You are being used¹.

If you hate Glen Beck so much, you should stop paying attention to him. To be ignored is the biggest injury you can inflict upon his ilk.

1) Yes. I do realize that by posting this on my blog I have been drawn into the whole affair of promoting Beck by criticizing him. And it does make me ill. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to try to get you people to see that you're being manipulated.

tagged: Glenn Beck, Obama, media, Limbaugh, Howard Stern, FOX, Twitter

YouTube Tuesday: History of Greed

2010-09-08T10:40:00.003-05:00

Another animated short from the Vancouver Film School examines the roots of greed and lust in the human condition. It's cute and profound.

tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, History of Greed, movie, short, animation, caveman

YouTube Tuesday: Conference calling

2010-08-31T10:05:00.002-05:00

I'm fairly certain that anyone who works in a professional environment has dealt with this issue at some point.

If you're like me, working with agencies and colleagues on both coasts in a time when conference rooms have tended to become a virtual phenomenon rather than a tangible one, it's probably far more common that you prefer.

But at least we can still joke about it.

tagged: work, office, conference call, life, professional, David Grady

A tale of two cities

2010-08-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

There's been quite a public debate of late regarding the fate of a certain parcel of land in a certain highly-prized district that also carries with it a significant emotional attachment for certain groups of people.

Now I'm not one to casually dismiss the emotional attachment people have for places, buildings, cars, or whatever. Especially when the place and buildings in questions are now so intricately woven into our collective identity.

But in cases that involve private property rights (which, really, are just an extension of personal freedom), it's helpful to take an objective look at the facts, lest we inadvertently set a precedent that we might live to regret later.

So the facts are these:

The property is privately owned.
The city has zoning codes and usage ordinances in place to ensure that any construction is appropriate for the site in question.
Our laws and constitution guarantee protection equally to everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.

I understand that to those with a strong emotional interest in the preserving the purity of this historical site, the proposed building project seems insensitive and inappropriate. Those people certainly should voice their opinions, as they have a constitutional right to.

But let us not use the heavy hand of government to deny those with whom we disagree the very property rights we hold dear for ourselves.

Change can be scary, but it can also be positive and is often accompanied by opportunity. Highwoods Properties and Polsinelli Shughart should be allowed to build the building they proposed*.

Let us not stand in the way of economic progress and cultural understanding. It's fine to remember the past, but not at the price of sacrificing our future.

*Perhaps they could gain public support by including an "Islamic Community Center" on one or two floors of the building.

tagged: Kansas City, building, Cordoba Center, Highwoods Properties, Polsinelli Shughart, Country Club Plaza, property rights

Random Photo XXXVII: Liberty Memorial

2010-08-25T13:24:00.005-05:00

We hit up the Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum last weekend. We really enjoyed ourselves, though we didn't allot enough time to tour the museum. Unfortunately, it closes at 5:00 and we didn't get there until around 3:30 p.m. An hour and a half sounds like a good amount of time, but not when you consider all there is to see.

One thing we made a priority was a trip to the top of the Liberty Memorial. That's where I snapped this shot looking down at the plaza 217 feet below.

You can tell that it was late after noon by the quality of light and the length of the tower's shadow. I also shot a pic of the tower from the bunker museum below.

If you haven't visited the WWI Museum/Liberty Memorial in a while, I highly suggest you make it an item on one of your weekend itineraries.

tagged: random, photo, Kansas City, Liberty Memorial, World War I, museum, history