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6.30.2005
see, it's a festival about communities. and stuff.
 so i've been told to talk about comfest.what to say? the pictures here are a couple i snapped with the camphone at the greenhorn show -- greenhorn being the guys we were there to see (since they'd done right by us at the newport a few weeks back.) that's our pal steve there on bass, front and center, rocking out in the classic style. steve would later have a hendrixesque rocknroll meltdown on stage, smash his axe against the mike stand, dive into the crowd and get himself thrown back on stage, whereupon he crashed into the drumkit and pretty much brought a spectacular, if somewhat abrupt, end to the performance. (we probably would have taken off at that point, but we discovered that local superstars watershed were up next, so that pretty much cemented our plans for the next hour or so.)  glad we were there on friday night, though, since it was hotter than blazes on saturday. it was a pretty good evening for an outdoor show, nice breeze, and since it was early on in the weekend, the crowd wasn't too crazy (though it sounds like it got there eventually -- some photos nsfw, so you have been warned). me, i think that folks were a little awed by the manatee, myself...we got some better pictures on sarah's camera (oh yeah -- did i mention my most awesomest sister in the whole wide world of sports was in town for the entire weekend? well she was) but i haven't seen them yet off-camera -- we'll see if any of the ones i took are, y'know, good. from about the late-night phone-call incident onward, i think our abilities were seriously in question. 6.29.2005
ray of light
6.28.2005
de-identified
when dsw announced several months ago that the store's computers had been hacked and customer information was stolen, i was miffed that none of the reports (including the initial official press release) named the stores affected. the subsequent release named all 108 stores, but by the time they posted that, the news had died down and i had all but forgotten about the debacle.
until i got the letter. dsw sent me a friendly little note last night to inform me that, indeed, my credit card numbers were among those stolen in the massive data heist. not only did they get my discover card--the number that i've had so long that i know all its information by heart, including the secret number on the back--and my debit card. fortunately, i do keep a close eye on transactions that post to both accounts, and i call whenever i see something i don't recognize. nothing has shown up yet. but still, the fact that someone else out there might be able to buy my numbers and then use them at will was enough to drive me to cancel both numbers immediately. so now i go through the hassle of figuring out where i need to change the numbers (online bills, etc.). maybe i should invest in one of those fingerprint credit cards after all. 6.23.2005
flickr mosaics
an automatic mosaic generator using photos and tags found on flickr. it's wonderful for small or simple images, but because it seems to limit itself to about 500 photos, it's not that detail-intensive -- but still, wow.
donkeys don't golf?
from today's slate:
"but in today's washington, golf is an intensely republican sport. george w. bush, tom delay, bill frist, and rick santorum are all fanatics. john kerry, hillary clinton, harry reid, and nancy pelosi are decidedly not. which stands to reason: the corporate, country-club veneer of golf fits more easily with modern republican culture. plus, golf tends to thrive in red-state regions, like the sun belt, where open land is plentiful and to which the gop's power base has recently shifted." and more where that came from. now, given my familial bias toward the sport, it is perhaps no real surprise that such a broad generalization immediately gets my back up. and i might even have given him that big stretch, if he didn't follow it up with this: "at the same time, the republican obsession with golf reveals the party's phony posturing as the champion of average americans. all the hand-wringing among democrats about why liberals don't go to nascar races or duck hunts misses the fact that tom delay and bill frist don't go to monster-truck night with the guys from deliverance either. they hit the links at exclusive country clubs with rich donors and corporate lobbyists. that's who they are. golf is an expression of the party's elite upper-class id." and that's where crowley goes off the rails, frankly. implying that golfers tend toward the higher end of the wealth and income spectrum is at least an arguable position; suggesting that a sport is somehow a reflection of class and social stratification and that that reflection is ingrained into a decades-old political party's structure is ludicrous. is basketball's respect of and for a player's personal space on the court indicative of libertarian belief in privacy above all? is democratic multiculturization revealed in baseball's increasingly nationally diverse rosters? does uttering "there is no 'i' in team" make you a communist? and what, then, of those enthusiasts not in the gop -- are they, too, phonily posturing as champions of average americans? or is that simply if you're a card-carrying elephant? the real argument, here, would seem to be crowley's irritation with the spread of influence through money, which would be hard to disagree with -- and it's certainly relevant in ohio today -- but suggesting that corruption, graft and golf go hand in hand... well, no. for every golf outing, there's a fundraising dinner, or a charity auction, or some other means to put lobbyist and legislator together in a non-office setting. if you must attack golf and/or republicans and/or politicians in general and/or the wealthy elite, do it with what's there, not with what isn't. ff
 taken by my pal casey, who says "dude you so have to post these on your website!" so there you go. me, i'm not entirely sure what mr. fantastic is grabbing at there, but hey... 6.17.2005
beautiful
6.14.2005
iron & wine
 yes, that shot's from behind the band. ha. pretty good show at the newport, all things considered -- opener band of horses was kind of a mellow-ish cross between grandaddy and built to spill (and had three! drummers! who needs three drumkits on stage at once if they're not gonna play the superloudrockmusic?) i&w's set was much more plugged-in than i expected, since that's certainly not how they (he?) come across on the albums, which are closer to, i dunno, civil war-era folk than neil young/crazy horse rock. friend of a friend connections leads to casey and me watching the show from backstage with members of local band greenhorn, who are a fine bunch of fellas in their own right. safe to say that a good time was had by all. iron & wine on the web here; debut album on amazon; clip from cover of postal service's "such great heights" on garden state soundtrack (windows media) here. update: heard from casey that steve (our greenhorn pal) took the i&w crew out for drinks after the show (we bailed on that in favor of burritos as big as your head), and head i&w dude sam was asking about the guy on the side of the stage who loudly grunted in appreciation at the end of each song. congratulations, casey, you're (in)famous. 6.11.2005
climb every slide
6.07.2005
tiger, tiger
kansas city, mo. (06/03/2005) bill watterson has placed more than 3,000 original calvin & hobbes comic strips from his personal collection on long term deposit at the ohio state university cartoon research library.
according to the library�s curator, lucy shelton caswell, �bill watterson is unusual among cartoonists since he kept virtually all of his original comic strips. the collection he has placed here is unusually complete. we are delighted to have this archive.� [found via tom spurgeon] holy cow! also for your enjoyment, here's the rules for calvinball. spellbound
an audio clip from this year's national spelling bee, broadcast on espn, which will be hilarious for those of you who've seen this.
a million stories in the city
6.06.2005
joshua tree
on your side
6.03.2005
dinosaur vs. ark
when "debating" evolution, creationists are often stuck with trying to explain how dinosaurs fit into the grand scheme of biblical creation. but now? solved:
  i particularly like the dude in the lower left-hand corner observing the chaos of dinogodbattlesupreme, presumably in "sense-surround thx dolby stereo surround!" 6.01.2005
"comics, dude!"
it's the amazing adventures of lethem & chabon!
i dunno -- is "would be even funnier if it weren't so damned accurate" an appropriate response from someone who read and loved the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay and is currently trying to slog his way through the fortress of solitude? 4 8 15 16 23 42
in the vein of things which are needlessly overanalyzed, i would perhaps submit this exploration of the "numbers" from lost as stretching too far -- but for the more interesting notes found down at the bottom of the list. it's easy to find matches to individual numbers ("wow, there's four people in this scene -- it must be significant!"), but when you start to see multiple instances of the pattern in scenes (mostly involving hurley, i.e. his dead suv or the soccer players in the airport), well, it's harder to dismiss. but see for yourself.
warning: potentially some spoilers, i suppose, for those who haven't watched the season finale -- but it was two weeks ago, so tough noogies. [via augie de blieck] one small snip
neil armstrong, first man on the moon and all-around american hero, would like to have his hair back, please.
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