I'm going to go ahead and hang it up for the rest of the week. I can't think of a suitable Easter blessing at the moment that doesn't sound both contrived and inadequate, so I will simply offer thanks and prayers to all of you who have served up comment, inspiration, yes, and good-faith criticism as I've splashed about in the Tiber for the past six months or so.
(btw, something's winging its way toward your part of the world to commemorate the occasion. Just so you don't think it's a mail bomb when it shows up )
Posted by: Kathy at March 19, 2008 09:50 AM (yHxQl)
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Fabulous. And yet, the very poorly written introduction, from a professor of English, kind of says it all about what depths our educational system has sunk to.
And to top it off, the good prof mostly cares about what the oration says about women? Really? That's the best question he can come up with?
The Bovina Bloviator, who is also on track to arrive on the Roman shore of the Tiber this week, notes the bright side of getting ready for one's First Confession.
Mine is tomorrow afternoon and I have been, of course, dutifully working my way up and down the Commandments, putting together a cribsheet of my 43 years' worth of unconfessed sinfulness. What I'm discovering, however, is that while I've certainly made some first-class howlers in my life, and I have some general traits and practices that need to be dealt with, overall the list really isn't all that......long. I had previously reckoned that it was going to take an hour at least to get through everything, but the truth is that I could probably cover it all in about five minutes (much to the relief of Father, I am sure).
Of course, Mom just laughed when I mentioned this to her last evening. "Why should you be so surprised?" she said. "What have I always said? Such a nice boy! Such a good boy! Bubi!"
And because my brain works the way it does, I just couldn't help thinking of this:
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Pretty much the same for me, Robbo, a little longer; around ten minutes. I think I'm older than you thus had more blots on the old escutcheon, as Wodehouse might say.
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Heh. The list is short. But what will surprise you, a year down the road, is how often you have to confess the exact same list.
It's a little like the scene in Blazing Saddles where Hedley Lamarr is gathering his posse. Not everyone can confess to stampeding cattle through the Vatican (and earn, from Hedley, an appreciative "Kinky"), but more of us are like the guy who in listing his crimes, repeats "rape", and when asked by Hedley why he listed it twice, tells him "I like Rape."
Not that you are a cattle stampeder, the priest is Hedley Lamarr, or all of us are serial rapists, but I think that I have a point in there somewhere. Which is that when we confess the same sins over and over again, it leads us to want to change ourselves.
That's one way that confession is good.
Posted by: The Abbot at March 18, 2008 01:14 PM (ivbbD)
Today is the eldest Llama-ette's tenth birthday. Hard to believe.
Those people who believe that who we are is a function of nurture rather than nature can go spit up a rope, because this gel is a stone ringer for her late grandfather, who also happened to share her birthday. Family lore says that my great-grandfather married a completely insane Scotswoman, and that her craziness - known as the "McDill Taint" - has manifested itself in various ways in the generation since. Fortunately, I got my personality from my mother's side. Dad got the Taint in spades. So, I'm afraid, did the gel.
Where the nurture comes in to the equation is in the strenuous efforts of all of us around her to rein in all the more obnoxious characteristics she inherited from the old gentleman. Whether we'll manage remains, of course, to be seen. Mom remarked last evening that if anybody could do it, it would be me. Bit of a slim reed, I would say. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that the gel is devoted to me, so perhaps the constant series of lectures I feel I've been forced to give lately about effort, honest self-examination and sympathy for others is somehow slowly permeating into the concrete. We can but try, after all.
Posted by: GroovyVic at March 18, 2008 09:28 AM (DVkb2)
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I'm reminded of Florence King's "Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady," where she describes how Southerners argue about whether nervous breakdowns were more feminine than "female trouble," or vice versa. "These two afflictions are the sine qua non of female identity and the Southern Woman is not happy unless her family history manifests one or the other."
"Evelyn's mind is going, I can see all the signs. It's the Cunningham taint."
Hi-larious book.
Posted by: Monica at March 18, 2008 09:33 AM (ZoRGT)
I have to think that every family has a taint of one kind of another - all you can do is hope that your manifestation is less than the generation previous.
Posted by: beth at March 18, 2008 09:49 AM (AwZ3/)
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As someone who has watched her grow up from the beginning, I am happy to note that the taint does not manifest itself all that often, but then again the teenage hormones are not yet in full swing : )
After all, according to her I do need lasik !!!!
Give her big hugs and kisses from Uncle LMC and myself, the Future ROTC scholarship winner and Our LIttle Debutante
Posted by: Mrs. LMC at March 18, 2008 01:32 PM (W54Wt)
Yes, Steve-O's perennial presidential write-in nominee Kurt Russell was born this day in 1951 in Springfield, MA.
I've already caused plenty of rancor around here recently so I won't go into it in depth, but I can't resist mentioning again the fact that I've long held a theory that Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze are, in fact, the same person. (Before you scoff, name a single picture they've starred in together. Well? Well?)
So what's your favorite Kurt flick? Personally, I've always liked Tombstone because of its rocking ensemble cast. [Ed - yeah, the fact that Dana Delany is shmokin' has absolutely nothing to do with it.] Shut up. However, I must confess that Executive Decision ranks up there as well. I'm sure the LMC will note with approval the performance of Halle Berry. However, my favorite part is the bit where Steven Seagal get sucked out of a plane at 40,000 feet with no visible means of support (ha!). Also, let's hear it for David "Hercule Poirot" Suchet, who provides a convincing role-model for tubby, middle-aged terrorists everywhere.
Posted by: Babs at March 17, 2008 07:57 PM (iZZlp)
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Escape from New York/Escape from LA
The Thing
Tombstone
Those 4 movies are what comes to mind when Kurt Russels name is mentioned. I'd mention Big Trouble in Little China, but I can't remember if its any good or not. I remember it being,,,,,goofy.
Posted by: nuthinhere at March 18, 2008 02:59 AM (blNMI)
I really loved Breakdown, perhaps because of the The Hitcher feel, and all the silly old Disney flicks that I grew up on are still fun for the niece and neph. Stargate was quite fun at the time, but my favorite Saturday afternoon hangover movie:
Used Cars
Posted by: Uncle Pinky at March 19, 2008 08:36 PM (WDso1)
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Definitely Snake Plissken! "Call me Snake" or Call me Plissken"....tells you where you stand and you don't want it to be the latter!
Also liked "Executive Decision", but felt it was a bait and switch the first couple of times...hubby is a Segal fan. I think more an explosions in the first 30 seconds kinda guy. Russell has improved, though we enjoyed "Overboard" and the antics he pulled.
Went and looked up his filmography. Wow. Didn't know how much he really was in.
Also liked Captain Ron, Backdraft, Stargate and Soldier. Tango & Cash, too. Wife Goldie is a family favorite as well.
Posted by: JB in Florida at March 19, 2008 09:28 PM (S0z6q)
I must admit that I pay just about zero attention to St. Patrick's Day anymore, not that I ever thought much of it to begin with, being the Scot that I am. However, for the second year in a row now, the middle Llama-ette was disappointed this morning to find that her leprechaun trap - set last evening - came up empty.
The Missus and the gels are away tonight on a little spring-break excursion and it suddenly dawned on me that a note left by a "leprechaun" in the gel's bed (and indeed, in all the gels' beds), might be just the ticket.
How does one say "neener, neener" in Erse?
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Our leprechaun forgot that he was supposed to come last night too. We told the kids that they sometimes come on the night of St. Patrick's Day. Now I need to figure out what to put in the trap, since I'm not leaving the ounce of gold my son is hoping he can make his fortune with.
Posted by: Jordana at March 17, 2008 05:31 PM (QeLuW)
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I've heard that a wee dram of Jameson's is the perfect enticement.
A sure sign of the approach of spring to Dee Cee: I saw my first herd of grundgy, slack-jawed touron teenagers milling around in front of the Hard Rock Cafe on E Street this morning.
It suddenly dawned on me this morning that today was the last time I'd ever participate in an Episcopal Communion. Whoa.
I've been doubling up on Sunday services for some time now, going with the family for the nine o'clock at my old church, and meanwhile attending Mass on my own either before or after. I must say that it works out quite well, and I really haven't felt this arrangement to be at all burdensome.
For the most part, I've been hitting the 7:30 Mass. Advantages: there are no kids, so one can actually concentrate. Disadvantages: no musick, and I'm usually the youngest one in the congregation by about sixty years. But when the middle Llama-ette's youth choir is performing at her service, I have to get her there a bit early, which means I have to wait until later to get to Mass. In that case, I've been going to the 10:30. Advantages: musick and hymns, and one doesn't have the sense of being hustled through. Disadvantages: a sea of small and very loud children. I had a pair in front of me this morning who got progressively noisier and more squirmy to the point where I found myself meditating strangling one or both with my palm frond.
I haven't really decided what to do about this, if anything. I may just continue to flip back and forth as the mood and circumstances dictate. Another possibility is skipping both the 7:30 and the 10:30, sticking around at my old church for social hour and then catching the noon Latin Mass. The option of attending the early Saturday evening service has no appeal to me whatever.
I noted that the 10:30 Mass has musick, but I should also reiterate my opinion that it is largely thrown away on my new flock. I've heard plenty of horror stories about what kind of hymns get served up in a lot of RC parishes these days (indeed, Mrs. LMC, who came to visit this weekend, mentioned that theirs employs bongos), but week after week this lot is treated to the choicest of Old School hymnody, yet sit there practically in silence when invited to sing along. To give but one example, this morning being Palm Sunday, we got "All Glory, Laud and Honor". This is an old favorite of mine and - momentarily forgetting where I was - I duly snapped into my standard church voice, only to discover after about a line and a half that I was easily the loudest singer within ten or twelve people in any given direction. And although I couldn't prove it, I got the distinct impression that everyone in my immediate area was looking at me in surprise, tainted perhaps with indignation and even hostility.
The Eleventh Commandment for me has always been "Thou Shalt Not Make A Fool Of Thyself In Public", so it was pretty tough to keep going. I hope that I won't be beaten down by the forces of social pressure so that I am eventually assimilated into the Mumblers' Collective. On the other hand, who knows? Perhaps once I've settled in I'll take it upon myself to teach these people a thing or two about hymn-singing. New blood and all that. In any event, as I plan to continue going to the other service with the Missus and the Llama-ettes, I will at least have one outlet in which I can sing to my heart's content.
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At least you have your pick; Husband and I are still so shell shocked over the mess at the church we just left that we're spending Sunday mornings curled up in fear of looking for a new church.
And I just wail away to my worship CD's.
Posted by: GroovyVic at March 16, 2008 03:35 PM (DVkb2)
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I just recently heard that what GrovyVic describes is called "Bedside Assembly". When a friend who's chosen to leave TEC said that's where they tried that week, I asked where it was, as I hadn't heard of it...then got the full definition. Felt every blonde hair I have. ;-)
While we don't feel swimming the Tiber is a sport we would enjoy, we find we are watching the Mass on TV more.
Posted by: JB in Florida at March 16, 2008 05:19 PM (S0z6q)
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That's a good old hymn; anything in which the lyrics are a translation of an original Latin version that is pre-9th century and the music is from the old Munich Gesangbuch is a guaranteed winner. And whenever you see J.M. Neale as the translator you know you're getting a good translation of something ancient. It was at our church today, too, which makes me think that there is beginning to be something of a common musical revolution in the church, at least during Lent and Easter.
We have an organist at my church who really understands music, too -- and the organ we have is less than 5 years old; modern, digital, etc. it can reproduce the hoary old sounds needed as if it was made in the 16th century.
As for singing, our church has been singing the Agnus Dei in Latin after the consecration. I sing it loud enough to make up for the deficit around me. I have a good singing voice but a range of about 5 notes; it's taken me 43 years to realize what I was given it for.
Compare the note range of "All Glory, Laud and Honor" to something modern like "On Eagle's Wings" (which goes up and down almost two octaves) and you'll soon reealize a paradox -- ancient church music was written for people with little or no range (most of us), while modern church music was written for the performers. So to bring music back to the people, guess what we need -- more old hymns.
Posted by: The Abbot at March 16, 2008 05:23 PM (QBuXz)
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Please don't stop singing! I am tone deaf and cannot sing at all...I love to be surrounded at church by those who can, and do.
Posted by: old school lady at March 16, 2008 06:02 PM (sxZH7)
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I'll see your "Glory, Laud and Honor" and raise you ten bells. Yep, we started with a rousing choral Fanfare for Palm Sunday, then we all (the choir) rang handbells to accompany aforementioned opening hymn. It was very nice. We then proceed to serve up both "Behold the Lamb of God" and "Surely He hath Borne our Griefs" from Messiah. We added some plainsong mass parts, and our best gal did "Pie Jesu" from Faure's Requiem Mass, which I've never heard. It was lovely. This church hasn't seen ANYTHING like this EVER. It's still so soaked in the 70's pop hymns; I'm so thrilled things are changing, and people are loving it (or so they say.) Keep singing, Robbo, and you will be especially in my thoughts during this Holy Week. Can I say "Break a leg?"
Posted by: Monica at March 16, 2008 09:11 PM (zNfAV)
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Going to a lovely mass or service is great, but sitting through a mass offering your frustration as a prayer is probably more valuable to growing into spiritual maturity....
Say a prayer to ST. Therese, who had to put up with a nun who jangled her rosary during silent prayer time...she'll understand.
As for me, I figure about ten percent of all the masses I attended fed me spiritually. So I can sympathize.
Posted by: tioedong at March 17, 2008 07:22 AM (aynF8)
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For reasons still unclear to me, my (TEC) church decided to reserve the Processional part of the Palm Sunday service to the choir. The choir gets to Process every Sunday, but at least they sang All Glory, Laud and Honor. The three wigglers with me had been told by various people to expect a walk, a march, a parade, and even a hike, so they were really anxious to be out of the pews. Very difficult to make it through the Passion and a sermon when you were counting on a walk to burn off some energy and ditch the left-over snack crumbs from Sunday School that were supposed to be gone before church actually started.
What a change from my yout' at the same church when on one very memorable Palm Sunday, someone provided a donkey to be in the processional.
Flew in last night after a week of legal stuff out in the field and boy are my arms tired! (Thankyew!)
Actually, what's really tired is my throat, and not because I had to spend all day yawping with attorneys, witnesses and judges and the like. No, it's because [----redacted---------] that every evening when I got back to my room I had to do about thirty minutes imitating Sam Kinison at his grumpiest.
And for those of you kids who don't know who the heck I'm talking about, here's a little yootoob refresher:
Anyhoo, I've been right out of the web 'verse for so long that I really don't know what's what at the moment. And with Holy Week about to start and ol' Robbo getting set for the big night when he no longer has to wear a "trainee" badge and a paper bag over his head to Mass, I probably won't have much opportunity for goofing about over the next few days. I'll probably be posting, but I don't really know where it will be going.
Yes, you heard right. The benefits of voting in the PA primary for SWMNBN are priceless. BullDogPundit explains why. And here's a nice long-term one I hadn't even thought of:
Say what you will about Obama but he just doesn’t have supporters - he has followers that think he is the second coming. He’s leading a movement. He’s also got a lot of new people, especially young ones, involved in politics, and perhaps for the first time the youth vote might actually show up to help him.
If these followers, especially the young ones, see that party bosses are the ones that give the nomination to Hillary they are going to be furious. Actually, “furious” might be too mild of a word. But whatever it is, many of them will be so steamed they will not vote for Hillary. They won’t vote for McCain either, but they weren’t going to anyway. They’ll just stay home.
Also, don’t discount the fact that the first political memory many of these people will have is that the Democrat party screwed them, and unlike Elliot Spitzer, didn’t even pay them for the privilege. That’s a wound that won’t heal soon, if at all. Of course, like many young people do, they will grow up, see what the real world is like, realize the folly of their ways, and become Republicans. But they will always have a visceral reaction to the Democrats. That’s good for the GOP in the long run.
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Vote for Hillary? Why not just do this instead--it's just as dangerous, but at least you'd only suffer for nine days:
In those days, the amount of uranium necessary to start a chain reaction had been estimated theoretically, but could only be precisely determined through experimentation. Louis Slotkin, a Manhattan Project experimenter from Canada, took the task upon himself. He tinkered with two hemispheres of uranium, each less than critical mass, using screwdrivers to slide them back and forth across a rod. He watched the dial of a neutron counter, which told him when he was getting close to a chain reaction. The experiment was a screw-up waiting to happen.
No two histories agree on the exact date of the accident, but one day Slotkin's screwdriver slipped. The hemispheres came too close, and a chain reaction started inside the laboratory. Neutrons in the mass of uranium sprang out, smashing into other atoms, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. The lab was filled with the electric blue glare of Cerenkov radiation, as gamma rays slammed into air molecules, causing them to glow. The temperature rose several degrees in a fraction of a second. Radiation saturated everything in the room. Slotkin used his bare hand to pull the hemispheres apart, saving the lab and the town while forfeiting his own life.
He was hospitalized instantly, but it was too late. The hydrogen atoms in his body had taken the brunt of the radiation. Within an hour, Slotkin had lost his sense of touch. Gamma rays had penetrated his skin, and had destroyed his sensitive nerve cells first. This was an unexpected gift, because it spared Slotkin the horror of being conscious of his own death -- by the end of the day he had become delirious.
Over the nine days it took Slotkin to die, his hair fell out and the number of white corpuscles in his blood skyrocketed. His skin, both internally and externally, started coming off in layers. To put it simply, his cells lost their differences -- before long, there was no way to distinguish a liver cell from an intestinal cell from a blood cell. When he died, it was determined that the muscles of his heart were nothing but a mass of torn fibers.
Posted by: Pep at March 14, 2008 10:42 AM (1ZVcz)
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I don't know, Gary. I'm all for having fun, but I'm beginning to worry that Barack might be falling apart a little too soon, and that if he continues to show he is mortal, and that his associates are fairly unsavory, the superdelegates might opt for Hillary after all.
I'm beginning to think that it might be almost time to prop up the Obamaessiah just until we make sure Hillary is cooked once and for all.
Either way, it's playing with fire.
Posted by: The Abbot at March 14, 2008 12:27 PM (ivbbD)
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And another reason:
Barack Obama chose a racist as his spiritual advisor. So much for ending divisiveness.
New research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine reports that people who regularly exercise have younger looking cells with full, perky telomeres, when viewed under a microscope. It turns out, you've got to have some swing in your telomeres to live longer. Feeling the burn by 100 minutes or more a week will give you some reach in that all important telomere region - making them hefty, pouty and and ready for action.
What? You think I make this stuff up! Read it yourself.
In case you haven't yet heard of him, Randy Pausch is a virtual reality / computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an extraordinarily inspirational teacher who learned late last year that, due to pancreatic cancer, he had only about 6 months to live.
It sounds dreadfully depressing, right? But it isn't. This incredible man took the hard knock life landed on him and created from that a talk called The Last Lecture which he delivered to students and fellow faculty at his school. The Last Lecture communicates Randy's lifetime of learning about how to live a life worth remembering. He is awe-inspiring in all the best senses of the word.
He condensed The Last Lecture for a half-hour appearance on Oprah. Watching him on Oprah will bless you and make you feel better for the rest of the week. But, in order to get back every moment you've ever had to waste sitting in a waiting room, watch the whole lecture. It takes an hour and 44 minutes, but it will be some of the best two hours you've ever lived. (Transcript of the full-lecture.)
Randy's book entitled The Last Lecture will be published next month. He may not live to see it come to bookstores. But his legacy is going to change a lot of lives for the better.
I just changed my facebook pic in 0.1 seconds, flat
The latest fallout from Skeevy McJackass-gate in New York is sartorial. Behold the two greatest governors of the greater Gotham metropolitan area at their moments of public downfall:
I emailed my Dad, and he came back with the precision details:
Brooks Brothers stock "thin stripe no. 1, red with black/white thin stipe"
is not, as you know, regimental. It is, again as you know, picture no 1.
in the "dress for success book."
Not anymore.
Oh well, but I did love wearing that tie.
(And yes, it's entirely appropriate that McSkeevey's tie is going in the, um, other direction...)
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Diageo's Guinness brand has raised eyebrows -- and, it hopes, sales -- with a petition-driven push to make St. Patrick's Day an official holiday. Now Diageo's effort is getting support from an unexpected partner: Anheuser-Busch.
Ads in print and on radio will soon complement an online petition to make St. Patrick's Day an official holiday.
A-B -- which last year acquired U.S. import rights for Bass Ale, Guiness' traditional partner in "black and tan" mixtures -- is planning a print and radio push to support Guinness' drive, according to a memo to A-B distributors first reported by Beer Business Daily.
Drinking buddies
"As the foundation of every authentic Black & Tan, Bass Pale Ale has quite literally supported Guinness for decades," the memo reads. "This year we've identified an exciting new way to 'support' our competition."
A-B, according to the memo, will support Guinness' push for 1 million signatures in favor of an official U.S. St. Patrick's Day holiday, with full-page print ads in alternative weeklies in 14 markets, as well as "nontraditional" radio sponsorships on stations popular with men aged 25-49 in those markets. The ads will begin running this week.
Despite the frequent mixing of the two brands by bartenders, the relationship between them has seldom been acknowledged by marketers.
Diageo has tended to push its Harp brand as the "tan," instead of Bass, while A-B, in its brief time owning Bass, has emphasized its obscure Bare Knuckle Stout in lieu of Guinness.
'Everybody's Irish'
"On St. Patrick's Day everybody is Irish, and everyone at Guinness is genuinely complimented by all the attention and good will being focused on our quest to make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday," said a Diageo spokesperson.
Just remember, it's a sin not to do it.
You know, I'm going to get in trouble on a number of levels for this, but my Mom always made a wicked corned beef and boiled cabbage. You would need to add a whole jar of mustard to get the cabbage down, but it worked for me. The Hugenot part of soul was I'm sure muttering anti-papist blasphemies the whole time that would've made an exorcist blush (think an Altar Boy Eric Cartman, but with tourettes), but the Irish part of me was happy (at least, as happy as could be without a tall Guinness in hand).
These two just came up randomly in sucession on the computer while I'm fixing lunch:
NOBODY'S GOING TO DISAGREE WITH THIS: next in the q:
YEAH, THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF: Next:
I think Joe needs a shower and a nap, perhaps.
DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT NO TRUMPET PLAYING BAND YIPS: Next up:
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses.
I've been on an REM jag as of late: I think I've played "Green" about four times straight through on the computer while I'm working. There's not a good version of "Turn you inside out" on youtube, for some reason. I don't know why it's in heavy rotation: I hadn't listened to Murmur front to back in ages, but popped that in yesterday.
Theories?
I've posted this before, but this is sort of the touchstone I think of culturally cool, circa 1983:
One thing I'm working on (Chai-Rista is going to get a hearty laugh out of this) is the outline for a course I'm teaching next fall, GOVT 3XX American Politics and Popular Culture. I had to promise a colleague of mine in the department that I wouldn't show any West Wing, as that's her particular province I guess (not that I was going to, sheesh.) Of course, I've already been referring to it as the "Batman/Red Dawn/Planet of the Apes" course. It's going to be cool: we're going to start with different responses to King Philip's War in the 17th century, and go forward. The first half is going to focus on the themes of nationalism, conquest and frontier, the third quarter on corruption and reform, and the last 3 weeks on issues of security and anxiety. Suggestions will be appreciated. (One of the key books is going to be Richard Slotkin's Gunfighter Nation, which is an awesome book on pop culture mythology in American history.)
UPDATE: Geez, you people are pervs: the XX designation is because the Registrar hasn't given it a number yet. Sheesh.
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corruption and reform - Mr. Smith still rocks. And Steve-O, you've got the Jimmy Stewart voice down cold. Gotta do that one.
Not to take you too far afield, but I saw a 6'4" teenager reading Atlas Shrugged on a plane last week (gotta get an oar in his hands).
Weaving throughout your topics is 'the role of government', but maybe that should be another little section. Govt as economic salvation, Govt as economic dead hand, Govt as Big Brother, Govt as protector, etc.
Posted by: tdp at March 11, 2008 10:16 AM (7CsBg)
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PS - Given 'Batman/Red Dawn/Planet of the Apes' as your working course title AND the fact that you teach at an all-women's college, perhaps for marketing purposes you should call the course 'Understanding the American Male Psyche' or something. Serve chips and you've pretty much rounded the bases.
Posted by: tdp at March 11, 2008 10:22 AM (7CsBg)
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Wow. I had almost forgotten that Stipe once had hair!
I HAD conveniently forgotten that Murmur was a 1983 release. And I remember (vaguely) seeing them play the 40 Watt in Athens back in the day. Has it really been that long?
Posted by: ChrisN at March 11, 2008 08:05 PM (P9Exo)
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1983 - REM came to the University of New Mexico and threw a dance party. It went on for hours...(and yes, he did have hair back then) I do believe it was the same year that MTV was launched. I remember sitting in the student center eating my PB&J/chips and coke and watching Video Killed the Radio Star.
Was I ever that young?
Posted by: Babs at March 12, 2008 12:40 PM (iZZlp)
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And in 1984 they came to my alma mater, Connecticut College. I have no idea how we got them to play in "ConnCave" a tiny dark little place that always reeked of beer and had a floor that was semi-squishy and springy. Originally intended as a dance studio and later used for all sorts of beer fueled on campus concerts.
Posted by: Sarah G. at March 12, 2008 04:07 PM (Pp4ZX)
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Oh and don't forget their foray onto Sesame Street.
Posted by: Sarah G. at March 12, 2008 04:13 PM (Pp4ZX)
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Holy crap! I was at that show (I'm assuming they didn't play there twice that year). It would've been winter (Dec 83-feb 84) somewhere in that time frame if memory serves correctly. I went to high school two towns away. Awesome show.
Posted by: Steve-O at March 13, 2008 01:06 PM (4/H9X)
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I spoke with my husband, who also was there but we didn't know each other... yet (that wouldn't be until 1985). It was indeed late 1983.
And it was an awesome show.
So how did you get in?
Posted by: Sarah G. at March 13, 2008 10:30 PM (Pp4ZX)
Right off the top, though, you've got to wonder, for example, about a business where the posted price for the service runs up to $5,500 an hour. Who's monitoring this industry? Are there no competition laws, no regulators pushing for a "say on pay" rule against prostitutes, no attorneys general making sure prices are fair and equitable? No justice anti-trust probe? Is disclosure adequate?
But that gets us too far ahead of the story. As a high-level subject for economic study, it would be interesting to know how $5,500 an hour compares with, say, the going rate for a top takeover specialist at a Wall Street law firm. Or, on a comparative value basis, why is such a service worth less than the $6,000 one of Mr. Spitzer's corporate trophies, Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski, paid for a shower curtain? Maybe it depended on who he was showering with.
Driver 8, Client 9, Michael Stipe with long hair:
Apropos of nothing, youtube edition: REM playing Gardening at Night, same show from spring of 1984:
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"A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
Posted by: mojo at March 11, 2008 12:58 PM (g1cNf)
Posted by: Steve-O at March 11, 2008 01:42 PM (4/H9X)
3
One thing's for sure, the girls are not getting the $5,500. The majority of that is going to the management of the house of assignation.
And isn't it ironic that if the Governor had supported local industry by hiring a local working girl, instead of phoning to have one flown out from New York, he might not be currently in trouble?
Yes, stupidity and venality is its own downfall - and very amusingly, too ;-)
Posted by: Fuinseoig at March 11, 2008 03:21 PM (a1dyf)
Lockheed Martin is building on its Milstar, DSCS and commercial satellite expertise to develop comprehensive and innovative solutions for next-generation systems including the U.S. military's Advanced EHF constellation and others. A Lockheed Martin Space Systems-led team has completed a 20-month contract awarded by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to study the privately financed development of the next-generation space-based military communications system named Skynet 5. Lockheed Martin teamed with BAE SYSTEMS and British Telecommunications PLC in this Project Definition Design Study. The study, in combination with a proposal submitted in early 2001,will allow the MoD to evaluate all aspects of the Skynet 5 system to meet the required date-of-service provision later in this decade.
Michelle pounds Spitzer.
UPDATE: The New York Assembly GOP Leader was on Hannity and Colmes. He will give Spitzer 24 to 48 hours to resign before calling upon the Speaker to begin impeachment proceedings. He might be trying a Bubba and brass it out but it won't work.
MORE: The Daily Diary of the American Dream weighs in with The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.THANKS A FREAKIN' LOT, BUDDY FOR GETTING THAT DERN SONG IN MY HEAD YIPS from Steve-O:
Uggh.
)
In case you haven't yet heard of him, Randy Pausch is a virtual reality / computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an extraordinarily inspirational teacher who learned late last year that, due to pancreatic cancer, he had only about 6 months to live.
I emailed my Dad, and he came back with the precision details: