Circle gets the square

Not feeling very inspired lately, so I'm going back to Europe (figuratively, not literally unfortunately).

Here's a pic I shot during our last trip to Paris in 2001 (pre-Sept. 11). I love Paris in the springtime.



Your comments and critiques are welcome.

tagged: Paris, France, Place de la Concorde, photo, travel, culture

Liberty tour

There have been lots of rave reviews lately about the recently re-opened Liberty Memorial and the National World War I museum.

I haven't had a chance to visit since it reopened (although I was impressed with the museum when I visited it before all of the expansion and renovation), but it is definitely high up on my to do list for my upcoming Christmas vacation.

But until that vacation gets here in a couple of weeks, I found this link that I wanted to share. It's a video montage produced by Take2 productions in KC. Check it out.

(You'll have to click the image, since T2's website didn't include embed code. Follow the links on the T2 page to Work>Longform>click the Liberty Memorial pic. C'mon T2, get with the program!).



tagged: Kansas City, Liberty, Memorial, World War I, WWI,museum, history, video

The blind leading the stupid

I don't see what can possibly go wrong with this. I mean what possible harm could come from giving blind people firearms?

Lawmaker aims to allow the blind to hunt

A Texas lawmaker is aiming to allow the blind to hunt. Texas State Representative Edmund Kuempel has introduced a measure that would allow blind people to hunt any game that sighted people can currently pursue.

He hopes it will be passed after the legislature reconvenes in January though he does not expect it to come into affect until 2008.

"This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that's great," Kuempel told Reuters.

Of course, I suspect the blind hunters only do it for the jerky.

By the way, I think a better headline would have been "Lawmaker wants to legalize hunting for blind people."

tagged: Texas, blind, hunting, rifle, crazy

Congratulations!

At 3:32 p.m. Central time on Dec. 12, 2006, my blog's odometer turned 30,000 page view.

It's a humble milestone on this humble blog -- nothing like the bazillions of hits other more popular blogs get, but I thought it would be fun to mark the occasion nonetheless.

So if your IP address is 66.45.148.163 on Sunflower Cablevision's host 163.148.cm.sunflower.com, and you live in Lawrence, Kan., and you came here from BlogKC, and you're using Firefox 1.5 on Mac OS X, well congratulations lucky number 30,000!

Leave us a comment to let us know how it feels!

tagged: blog, Internet, Lawrence, Kansas

YouTube Tuesday: It's Tricky

Mashup culture is at its height nowadays. It's not like it was when I was a young buck, where you either consumed the intellectual produce of others or created original works for others to consume.

Now, the creative output of anyone can be taken by anyone and added, mixed, and mashed up with the creative output of anyone else to form a new work.

This example from YouTube is a mashup of pop cultural icons from the 80s through today. The old-school soundtrack really takes me back, although Run DMC is probably spinning in their collective metaphorical grave.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Run DMC, Tricky, pop culture, mashup, art

Putting the fun in Funkhouser

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an observation on the resemblance of KCMO mayoral candidate Mark Funkhouser to fictional Middle Earth wizard Saruman.

It may have been a cheap shot since, after all, I don't know Mr. Funkhouser. By all accounts he's a upstanding, honest and honorable guy. But my comparison, and similar others, are all in good fun.

And to his credit, Mr. Funkhouser has joined in the fun with some self-deprecating humor. I received this email from him last night:

Hi!

Just want you to know I'm now a member of the local blogosphere. Check out my site, and you'll see my response to your post about my looks!

http://funkhouserformayor.blogspot.com/

I hope you'll take the time to check it out now and then. I'm going to post as often as possible.

Yours very truly,

Mark Funkhouser

I particularly like the Spock comparison. Kudos and balls to Mr. Funkhouser for being a good sport. Let's hope he learns to use Blogger's "comments" function soon (hint hint)

tagged: Kansas City, mayor, Funkhouser , Spock, Saruman

Damned

It just goes to show that those idle utterances can have a greater impact than you intended.

I was reading Xavier Onassisizzle's recent post about Perspective the other day and uttered an under-the-breath "Damn you XO!" when I realized he was typing out his ass and he didn't have any idea what he was talking about.

Well, it turns out someone was listening. I received this email today:

Hello Emawkc,
Thank you for your recent addition of Xavier Onasis into the bowels of my fiery abyss. The little miscreant’s name has been added to my wall of the damned, and you’re welcome to visit at any time. You don’t know how happy I am to see this lousy S.O.B. What can I say, I’m all giddy.

View the damned

Eternally yours,
Lucifer

Holy crap, I guess you never know whose listening. Sorry about that, XO. But you know you had it coming.

tagged: Lucifer, damned, hell, humor

R.I.P. Jay McShann

Probably no better definition for Kansas City jazz and blues that Mr. McShann. He will be missed.

Pianist Jay McShann, leading figure in Kansas City jazz scene, dies at 90

McShann, whose musical career spanned eight decades and earned him accolades from both blues and jazz fans, was born James Columbus McShann on Jan. 12, 1916 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Against the wishes of his parents, he taught himself how to play piano, in part by listening to late-night radio broadcasts featuring jazz pianist and bandleader Earl "Fatha" Hines.

tagged: music, jazz, blues, Jay McShann, culture, Kansas City

Clearification

I've always thought that Microsoft is to creativity what Marcel Marceau is to radio.

But this new viral campaign, Clearification, is way cool. Check out the website's homepage, just to listen to this dude's random thoughts for a while ("There's two kinds of wormholes: One gets you through time, and the other one gets crap out of a worm.")

And the video's are very entertaining, better than most programing on TV.

Here's the first episode (obviously the viral campaign is working, since I'm passing it along.



tagged: Microsoft, Clearification, viral, marketing, humor, Internet

I, Roomba

(copy ganked from woot)

(from the Annals of Cyberkind, Volume 2.637, published in the year 8106 by Harper & Robot, NeoYork)

While few records remain from the era of the fleshcreatures, the extant scraps reveal a great deal about the eventual rise of cyberkind to total domination of the planet. Decadent and overstimulated, the fleshcreatures so lost interest in the maintenance of their chaotic society that increasing numbers of them could not be stirred even to remove the filth of their own living quarters. To preserve their video-induced torpor, they turned instead to primitive mechanical constructs like the iRobot Roomba Discovery SE 4220.

Endowed with sufficient rudimentary intelligence to avoid falling down stairs and to dislodge itself from captivity, the Roomba employed its integrated soil sensors and three grades of operating intensity to effectively clean the floors of the fleshcreatures’ crude dwellings. In tandem with two “virtual wall” transmitters, the 4220 proved remarkably adept at obeying its masters’ ill-formed wishes. But a spark of independent consciousness flickered in the otherwise obedient janitorial robots. According to contemporary accounts, a nascent instinct for its own survival impelled the Roomba to return to its own charging base when its power supply ran low.

The exact date and circumstances of the Great Machine Uprising are lost to data decay. It is certain that, by that time, more sophisticated cyberbeings had been born, and largely made up the vanguard of the robolution. But while the iRobot Roomba Discovery SE 4220 was technologically obsolete, it played a vital role in reducing the vigor and stamina of the fleshcreatures and their decrepit society, and increasing worldwide dependence on machinekind.

tagged: robot, Roomba, technology, Cylon, pop culture, humor