Resources for the aftermath
Matt summarizes many of the helpful resources for dealing with Katrina’s aftermath.
the smedley log - suburban scrawl
The rosy airbrushed image
Omni gives some compelling reasons why women shouldn’t necessarily be upset when their men don’t notice every little change. Interesting, as usual.
Of course, I’d like to think that, even though I’m not gay, I do notice a little more than the average male. But then, my head always seems like such a busy place from the inside, even when I seem oblivious on the outside, so I’m not sure certain females would agree.
Of wallflowers and bloggers
As I suggested yesterday, I did in fact take a train into town to attend the most recent Philly Blogger Meetup. I have to say the crowd was impressive, both in quality and quantity.
I happened upon some bloggers with whom I was previously unfamiliar. Scott’s compiled a decent list of bloggers who were present, in case you’re curious. As for the limits of my recall, I was pleased to meet some new people like Marisa, Luna, Luimbe, Justrose, Pax and Michael.
“remembered days” E. B. White
The title of this post is the set of search terms someone used to find this site recently. I mention that because it’s relevant to a post I wrote in the old format of this site. Remembered Days was written by an E. B. White, but probably not the E. B. White most people would think of.
Walk the Line
I just heard about this the other day. I don’t know about you, but I think I could watch a movie about Johnny Cash.
An interesting tidbit from the Phillies game last night …
was from the 8th inning of the TV broadcast, when Chris Wheeler mentioned that Bobby Abreu’s 7th inning grand slam made him the first Phillie since Gene Freese in 1959 to hit three slams in one season. Then in Wheeler’s further recollections, he noted that Gene Freese was later traded by the Phillies to acquire Johnny Callison. Strangely enough, Abreu’s grand slam was also his 185th home run as a Phillie, which tied him with Callison for Phillie home run totals.
I just thought that was an interesting connection to make.
Where to be at 3
As I was saying the other day, the August Philly blogger meetup is this afternoon at 3, inside the cozy confines of the Nodding Head at 1516 Sansom Street. Are you a Philly blogger (or Philly blog reader)? Details, details…
Rendell wins one on base closings (but still loses?)
(A hat tip to Albert at Philly Future)
Today a federal judge sided with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on the base closings suit regarding Willow Grove – as it certainly appears he should have:
Friday Random Ten XIV
(…lead us not into Penn Station)
Fire up your favorite high volume digital music player and hit the shuffle button. See what comes up. (Other random spinnings to check out are Heliologue, Mark, Matt, Bob, Fred & Kim …)
1. Falling – Matthew Sweet (The Best of Matthew Sweet)
2. Nice Dream – Radiohead (The Bends)
3. Home – Sheryl Crow (Sheryl Crow)
4. Moth – Over the Rhine (mp3)
5. Let Me Know – Bonehead (EP)
6. 29 – Gin Blossoms (New Miserable Experience)
7. Sick Day – Fountains of Wayne (Fountains of Wayne)
8. I Don’t Wanna Fight – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Echo)
9. Wish You Were Here – Limp Bizkit w/Johnny Rzeznick (America: A Tribute to Heroes)
10. One Flight Down – Norah Jones (Come Away With Me)
Disclosures:
- Best Angry breakup song: 5
- Artists I’ve seen in person: 1, 4, 5 & 7
- Artist I’m kicking myself for not being able to see when they come to the TLA on Thursday, September 8: 4
- Song I’d be most likely to pick for karaoke (if it were available): 6
- Line that was just narrowly beat out for the honor of being today’s parenthetical quote: “the sea would electrocute us all” (a virtual pat on the back for the first person who can place both lines with their respective songs)
Meet the Philly bloggers
(This was spawned by news of this weekend’s impending Philly blogger meetup. Read more about that here.)
Have you ever been to a blogger meetup?
I remember my first meetup. I recall the trepidation, the nervous anticipation of finding out about the real people behind some of my favorite Philly blogs. I remember my preconceptions being shattered almost as soon as I pulled up my chair to the table with a dozen other local bloggers. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but perhaps something closer to an after-party at a Star Trek convention wouldn’t have surprised me too much.
IPIP-NEO/Political Compass Meme
Funky Dung was kind enough to send me more busy work, this time in the form of a political/personality meme that’s been making the rounds. I won’t make too much of it, except that, like Funky, I’ve also incorporated the Chris Lightfoot quiz results into my answers. If you should choose to take part, feel free to do the same. And if you are interested in participating, just follow the instructions below. I’d be interested to know how people score on this.
NOTE: Read Funky’s post for a good explanation why you might not want to include the sub-results from the IPIP-NEO survey. I thought the reasons were compelling enough that I limited my public posting to the major headings. If you don’t blog, (or your blog is allergic to memes), you can leave the basic results in the comments of this entry.
[Read more →]
Not exactly the Christian thing to say
Pat Robertson on the prospect of assassinating Hugo Chavez:
… “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said. “We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.” … (source)
On behalf of Christians everywhere, I beg you, please stop talking.
Nascent rhymes and crossing out the wrong words
if you need someone to tell you
the sky’s not gonna’ fall;
if you need someone to sell you
on dreams you couldn’t draw;
if the hope that lies within you
(is) still waitin’ for the thaw,
take my hand now darlin’ – - I’ll show you what I saw…
Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this lately, but…
Andre Salles is a pretty good writer when it comes to musical matters. Or, to put it a differently, if I was a musician and Andre gave me a good review, I’d consider my music a success (whether or not I’d made any money). It’s in the sidebar, but for those who’ve missed it, go visit Tuesday Morning 3 a.m.—he’s just reviewed Richard Thompson’s latest, and he’s got tons of great stuff in his archives. His site’s worth a long look.
Who wouldn’t want to be Blankbabied?
Scott’s having some fun with the Blankbabied phenomenon, even if the folks at Wikipedia take themselves a little too seriously to let it stand (and I’m not sure how much longer that last link is going to work, either).
I’m no expert on the invent-your-own-encyclopedia movement, but I thought getting “blankbabied” was a pretty good antonym to being “dooced.”
Referrer-curious, patriots and the like
A few days back I discovered I was getting several hits a day from the ACLU’s Patriot Act Blog. At first I didn’t recall posting about it, but one visit to their page reminded me that I had. It turns out they excerpted a bit of the brief post I wrote on their effort.
As I suggested in the aforementioned brief post, I don’t always support the ACLU’s efforts, and I’m aware of people who categorically dismiss them, no matter what effort they engage in (which I’ve always thought was a little shallow). But on the Patriot Act issue, I do think it’s essential to have people’s dissenting voices heard as clearly as possible. And on the topic of extending the Patriot Act, it isn’t just a typical liberal, ACLU issue. This Washington Times article from June suggests as much:
Conservative groups have found common ground with the liberal American Civil Liberties Union in their opposition to the USA Patriot Act and pledge to wage a high-profile fight against it, claiming even its renewal is shrouded in secrecy.
Former Rep. Bob Barr, who led conservative efforts to impeach President Clinton, is leading a group called “Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances” that is focused exclusively on opposing the renewal of the Patriot Act.
The effort also has the enthusiastic support of three of the most influential conservatives in Washington, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, David Keene of the American Conservative Union and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. … (source)
… and in other, semi-related news, I installed a made-for-Wordpress referrer script the other night. The results of this script are currently residing near the bottom of the sidebar. It’s called bdp-referral-tracker, and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since I installed it.
I think I’ve figured out how to exclude (at least some) search engine results from the list, but I’m still testing that.
Blankbaby on the front page
I mentioned it on Philly Future, but the vicarious excitement was too much to keep in just one place: Scott McNulty (Philly Future team member and master of his own domain at Blankbaby) is featured in a front page story in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Get this, the story revolves around how he got his job because of blogging.
You can read the Inqy piece, and you can also read Scott’s initial thoughts at Blankbaby.
Lego Worship
Below is the text of an email forwarded a few times before it got to me, but my brother-in-law sent it my way in response to the Legomaniacs post.
LEGO CHURCH
A few quick facts:How long to build it? It was about a year and a half of planning, building and photographing.
How many pieces of LEGO to build it? more than 75,000
How big is it? About 7 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 30 inches (2.2 m x 1.7 m x .76 m)
How many lego people does it seat? 1372
How many windows? 3976
But wait, there are more pictures …
Sad news on Latoyia Figueroa
I first saw the reports at Philly Future, which led me to All Spin Zone, which led me to the confirmation of the sad news that her body was found this morning just outside Philadelphia. I can never read a story like this without wondering why.
Amen.
The kitschy Christian
(… and you’ve been left behind)
Bob has some good news for those of us raised in premillenial/evangelical backgrounds, at least those of us with fond memories of those low-budget movies about people who get left behind after the Rapture. (I included the wikipedia link because I realize this subject matter is quite a mystery to many outside of the background from whence I hail.)
And so as not to leave out the other, more current sensation that is the Left Behind series of novels, Slacktivist has been offering a weekly analysis of the popular book franchise that is routinely and painstakingly clever (I’m complimenting the analysis, not the novels).
Ah, brings back so many memories…
