Etcetera

I'm stumped by MySpace too!

Charlie Brooker writing at Guardian Unlimted:

Because I don't "get" it. I mean, I know what MySpace is and what it's supposed to do and how influential it is. It's just that whenever I've visited a MySpace page I've thought "is that it?" and wandered around the perimeter looking confused, like a blind man patting the walls for an exit he can't find.

Ze Frank on Bill's Gates' charity plans.

From last Thursday's Ze Frank video show:

Last week Bill Gates announced that he's stepping down from his current position at Microsoft as Chief Software Architect. Gates will begin to focus more on his charitable work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in his quest to rid the world of diseases such as Malaria and HIV....

Wait! So Bill Gates is gonna spend his fortune trying to cure the world of viruses?...

I guess he does have some experience with viruses...

You gotta know how to give 'em to cure 'em...

Unofficial plans include giving out booster shots that need to be updated every year for a premium, and the release of a vaccine that will make the patient more vulnerable to other viruses that Gates is also working on the vaccine for. Both vaccines are schedule to be released in the year 2481.

More coffee please

By the way, was that Fox Mulder?

W Rocks!

Now, THIS GUY I'd consider voting for.

Happy happy

Paul McCartney turned 64, yesterday... it's a long and winding...

Axe Click

Sherm, over in the GEWF Forum, called our attention to this commercial:

Okay, here's something fun and non-political featuring Boston boy Ben Affleck.

I saw this stuff on a TV commercial recently. I said that maybe I should get some. My teenage niece looked at me, kinda sad, shaking her head, as if to say, "I don't think so, Uncle Jack."

Quote: Kurt Vonnegut

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., writer

Redsox 5, Texas 4

David "Big Popi" Ortiz hit a two-strike, two-out, walk-off homerun to beat the Texas Rangers today.

Oh, and the Yankees lost, again. Boston is 1.5 games ahead of NY in the AL East now.

DIY Justice

Boing Boing writes about how it's possible for regular citizens to initiate the process of impeaching the President.

They quote Jodin Morey:

There's a little known and rarely used clause of the in the rules for the House of Representatives which sets forth the various ways in which a president can be impeached. Only the House Judiciary Committee puts together the Articles of Impeachment, but before that happens, someone has to initiate the process.

That's where we come in...

Before & After Pics

In 1984 Peter Feldstein took pics of the people of Oxford Iowa. Last year he returned to take updated pics of those same folks.

Twelves

A-word-a-day writes about the number 12:

Twelve is a magical number. It's divisible by two, three, four and six.

There are twelve months in a year, twelve hours on a clock, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve tones in the musical scale, and twelve in a dozen, twelve inches in a foot, twelve Knights of the Round Table, twelve members in a jury (usually), twelve labors of Hercules... twelve must have something going for it.

We use the decimal system because there are ten fingers on our hands. But we might as well have used a duodecimal system: there are twelve phalanges on our four fingers (thumb used as an indicator). In fact, some cultures do use duodecimal systems. One can find a Dozenal Society that advocates use of duodecimal system in the US and in other countries.

ADDENDUM: One thing I like about this idea is that, in base-12, I'm 48 years old.

Diner Update

GEWF Forums regular MGA points us to this great resources on Diners. MGA writes:

I was trying to remember the diners I have eaten in. Some of them are long gone (Stoney's in Dover NH comes immediately to mind)

http://www.dinercity.com/maDiner/northEastMA.html

Eaten in the Salem Diner, and the Bel Aire. I think I've eaten in the Agawam (it looks familiar).

I remember one in NJ but I don't remember the name.

And the one in Malden isn't listed.

The Bel Aire in Peabody is currently closed for renovations. The Agawam up on Rt 1 in Rowley is a classic. I first ate there one summer when I was a kid, when my Dad would take me with him up to a job site on Plum Island. He recently told me that the Agawam used to be located in downtown Everett Mass, and was moved, many years ago, to the present location.

Drinking coffee makes you more open-minded

Jack and Jo Ann: coffee drinkers. Sherm and MGA: not so much? (*)

Here's more evidence that coffee is a health food. Newscientist.com:

The coffee you drink as a pick-me-up in the morning could also make you more open to persuasion, researchers say. Evidence from a new study suggests that this happens because caffeine revs up the brain, not because it generally boosts mood.

Read the whole thing.

(*) You have to be a regular reader of Etcetera's comments to even begin to understand this inside joke.

Kelly's Diner in Somerville

In my ongoing quest to find the best Diners in my world, I had repeatedly heard about Kelly's in Somerville (not to be confused with the excellent seafood/roastbeef place in Revere).

Kelly's is just up the street from where I used to live in Somerville, so it always struck me as odd that I'd never tried it back then. And these days, it just wasn't near my beaten path.

But this morning, my location and my urges converged, and I found my way to this classic diner in Ball Square, Somerville.

It totally lived up to its reputation.

It's a renovated O'Mahoney diner-car diner. These are the legendary prefab diners, originally built in the mid 20th century. The mystery of why I'd never eaten here, when I lived in the neighborhood back in the late 80s, was solved when I discovered that this Diner was moved here in 1996. It had spent the previous 4 decades in Delaware.

The food was great. My omelet was big, yet fluffy. It arrived hot. It was neither over- nor under-cooked. The coffee was served in genuine, heavy ceramic, diner mugs, not these distressing little thimble-like things you find most places.

The service staff was friendly, prompt with the refills, and while I ate at the the counter I listened to them pleasantly grumbling about lost checks and the malfunctioning soft-drink machine.

The menu lists a turkey club sandwich. I'll have to stray into this neighborhood again some time soon.

[Photo by Hugo Haas. I hope he doesn't mind me using it.]

"No one knows we are here"

LA Times.com:

...some network television correspondents had reached the unsettling conclusion that, even as they were risking their lives in the war zone, audiences and producers in America had grown weary of much of the coverage from Iraq.

ABC correspondent John Berman in Baghdad wrote in his blog recently that he and his colleagues felt like the castaways on the network's prime-time drama "Lost" — "We have come to the conclusion that no one knows we are here."

Earlier, he wrote: "There is definitely a sense that the public feels like it knows what is going on here, and doesn't want to hear anymore about it."

Quote: Ronald Searle

"You can never understand one language until you understand at least two."

-- Ronald Searle, artist

Following my lead

I was in Portsmouth NH on Wednesday, and that apparently inspired Food Channel celeb Rachel Ray to make a visit the following day:

Food Network headliner Rachael Ray was in Portsmouth Thursday, tasting some of the local cuisine and dining atmosphere of some local restaurants for an upcoming edition of "Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels."

Seacoast Online story.

A massive, coordinated campaign

Rolling Stone Magazine:

But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election...

Possible mail and web snafu

Due to a looming problem with the DNS for my domain da4.com, email & webpages at that address may have some problems over the next couple of days.

If you get any bounces, either be patient and try again later, or email me at jackhodgson@gmail.com

UPDATE: The danger seems to have passed with no downtime.

Rock Sculpture

Paddling about a week ago we came across this very impressive rock tower sculpture. It was about 18 inches wide, and a few feet high above the water. It was built in about 9 inches on water.