a few random, disconnected things you might like to know:

1. Today at work I witnessed a man working on one of the elevators, on a step ladder, replacing the light bulbs inside the car. He was doing this without having the car stopped. So, the elevator continued to go up and down, and I witnessed him stopping on several floors — the doors open, there’s the ladder, with the dude on it. It was like the X-GAMES version of changing a light bulb. And when a guy on the ground floor hit the button to go up, and that car opened up, X-TREME light bulb changer told him he could get on, and asked what floor he was going to.

2. In 1863, John Wilkes Booth moved to Venango County and founded the Dramatic Oil Company. The company failed within a year, and then he went and assasinated the president a few years later. Interesting.

3. I have a few exciting show announcements that I’m sitting on, waiting for confirmation and/or details. But get ready, I’m stoked.

4. I’m watching moguls skiing right now. After the 1994 games in Lillehammer, I was convinced that I was fated to be a moguls skier, and I jumped in that bouncy back-and-forth manner on my trampoline for that entire spring.

recent flagrant abuses of the word “literally”

From the P-G article about the recycling truck that hit a bunch of cars yesterday:

The half-full truck — which weighs 32,000 pounds empty — struck the station wagon and forced it into five other vehicles parked along the 300 block of East Carson Street.

“That [vehicle] became literally a snowplow pushing the others around,” Public Works Director Guy Costa said.

Now, I don’t so much mind that the guy misused the word “literally” — that’s really not a grave offense, just one that brings an amusing image to one’s mind, and besides, completely unrelated to his job. The real concern, to me, comes when I think about the fact that when he sees a recycling truck smashing into cars, our public works director’s first thought is, “Oh! Just like a snow plow does!”

i believe in outer space

Sunday night I grew quite weary at about 10:30, and around 11:00 gave up on the Olympics and headed for bed. I flipped on the TV in my room right before bed to see if the Flying Tomato had held out for the Gold, and as I was switching around the dial, I came across, for the first time in years, Jack Horkheimer, Star Gazer. (Apparently the show used to be called “Star Hustler,” but had to be changed when they went online and search engines would turn up lots of porn results for that phrase?)

Jack was always something of an enigma to us growing up because, beyond the mere fact that he was a dude with funny sweaters who walked around in outer space and talked about astronomy, he didn’t seem to have a regular air schedule. Every once in a while, you would turn on the TV and there he was. Often you missed the first 2 minutes of the 5-minute broadcast and had to figure out for yourself what end of the sky Alpha Centauri was inhabiting.

Actually, he may have been — and may still be — on a completely regular schedule on WQED, and I just never figured it out, mostly because he’s not advertised and not listed in the TV listings.

Regardless, you can stream his bizarre little starwatching lessons or get the PODCASTED (whatever that’s about) through that site, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any further merch to purchase (no t-shirts, or chain wallets, or back patches or anything).

And as always, keep looking up!

Toward an Increased Library Nerdery

Last night, watching the Olympics, my ears perked up and I became temporarily perplexed when one of the commentators made reference to how one of the skiers had the same bib number for this race as the last Olympics when he won gold. It only makes sense in my mind that once a bib number is established, it shouldn’t change.

on being asked for an autograph.

This is a question for you. An assignment. If you read this and have anything to say on the subject — anything at all — do email me.

Have you ever been asked for an autograph? If so, how did you handle it? If not, how do you think you would, or what would be the best way?

I ask because I of course am pretty dead set against autograph culture and wouldn’t really ever ask for an autograph at this point, and am generally completely uncomfortable with the notion of someone asking for mine, but it definitely happened this weekend (well, not just mine, the whole band’s) and I didn’t really have an approach worked out (because this is, believe it or not, not something I really expect to happen very often, and not something I had anticipated). It’s all well and good to say that you wouldn’t participate, but when someone is genuinely interested in you and respects you, and that’s how they manifest it, it’s hard to say no. One thing I’ve since thought of is asking that person to autograph something for me — although that could just end up making them feel extra weird. And of course, some people will sign and then cross it out or whatever. I’m curious as to whether there’s a best way of dealing with this without making an autograph-seeker feel stupid.

Please provide feedback.

Also, big ups to Carlisle and the Arts House at Dickinson. If you have a band, you should play there. Those kids rule. And big ups to the driver of the 18-wheeler I drafted behind through a good stretch of the ride home in the snow last night on the turnpike, and also to Rage Against the Machine for providing the necessary jamz for said ride, and for being true renegades of funk.

newspaper comics lessons

Have you been READING Rex Morgan lately?

For those of you who haven’t: we’ve been following Jack, an Iraq war vet with some issues, not the least of which being his gambling addiction. There was some major tension build as we watched him play his hand of poker and at the same time saw his wife and his doctor (Rex Morgan, M.D.) scrambling to find him before it’s too late (he’s gambled away nearly all of the family’s money)!

(There was also, I’d add quickly, a racially-charged subtext involving a Rastafarian cab driver, but that’s outside of thee current point.)

So this week, it all came together as the good doctor and wife, with the help of a good barmaid, rolled up on the game, only to find Jack in shock, just having won SIX GRAND!

Of course he’s going to quit NOW, because he made off with some mad loot! That’s the point of this particular storyline, I think. Gambling is bad, except that if you do it anyway, it might bring you lots of money.

In other comic news, I note that this past Sunday, the narrator of The Amazing Spider-Man referred to the suicidal man who turned into West Coast Spidey as a “loser.” Because people who consider suicide are losers.

It’s a long way down from high-minded “Curtis” Kwanzaa fables to this stuff.

gifts given and recieved, edition 2/7/06

Today: received wonderful mixtape from Only Person Thus Far to Take Me Up On My New Year’s Mixtape Trade Demand. Highlights include “American Girl,” by Tom Petty, which has the distinction of having been on the first tape I ever gave my now-BFF/roommate, Ted Leo covering Lungfish’s “To Whom You Were Born” (woah.) and Stevie Wonder. Also features Lifter Puller but no Hold Steady, which I was anticipating, but that’s okay because I finally got a burned copy of “Separation Sunday” the other day and I’m not really as into it as I expected to be, given all the hype. I’ll give it another spin though.

Gave a package of Garfield’s Chocobites (see below), received in return two packets of Cranberry Emergen-C. Healthwise, at least, I made off in that deal.

Also, Carlisle, PA, we’re coming your way this weekend. Not that anyone in Carlisle is reading this. Not that much of anyone is reading this lately (except that person from Japan who got here searching for the words “Modey Lemon Steelers” the other day). But yeah. Arts Haus Basement, Saturday evening, with A Day in Black and White (Mike from Navies’ band, they’re on Level Plane) and Harrison Bergeron and Running from Dharma (make a stupid Must-See TV and/or Karma-running-over-Dogma joke here) (or, for super Pittsburgh points, make a Dharma Sons reference) (or, if you’re TOTALLY BEAT, say something about Dharma Bums) (you get the picture). It will be wonderful. Do show up.

in which i review m&m imitation products

I have this major sugar problem — never diagnosed, but between me, my mom and my nurse sister, we’ve decided it’s reactive hypoglycemia or something along those lines. For this reason, I shouldn’t eat sweet things, like candy.

But I do, oh, I do.

I’ve been nursing this ugly vending machine habit at work lately, and ever since they replaced the granola bars with Snickers, I’ve been forced to eat something TOTALLY bad for me, instead of something that I can pretend is good because it has oats in it.

So the past two days, I’ve ended up eating some bad M&M imitation candies, made by other companies. I guess it’s cool to eat non-M&M things because of Mars, Inc. shady dealings. But our competitors will have to try a little harder if they want to take the big guys’ business. A quick overview:

- Hershey’s Kissables. These are basically like M&M’s only in the shape of little Hershey’s Kisses instead of tiny flying saucers. Not that awesome. Sort of an awkward fit between your teeth. Also, the chocolate in the middle is sort of that super milky stuff that they make Hershey products out of, where I think the darker stuff they but in M&M’s meshes better with the candy shell.

- Garfield’s Chocobites. Apparently a newish product without its own website; you have to call if you want to make an order. This is by far the more intriguing of the two products — not tasty either, mind you, but bizarre. It’s a peanut M&M, essentially. They’re made by an Argentinian company called Arcor. There’s a “Garfield Approved - Limited edition” stamp on the package, which makes me wonder if the whole thing is planned to be short-lived, or if Garfield is pulling his endorsement soon because of the inferior quality of the candy. Other highlights include special instructions on storing the little guys (68° and 60% relative humidity, I kid you not), and a list of “Colors” in the ingredients, including “Titanium dioxide.” That’s one that did not make it onto the rainbow, unfortunately.

super bowl commercial review

First of a couple posts (if I get around to both) expanding upon and/or organizing thoughts already expressed on The Message Board. Please forgive me for treating ads here as something to be taken for granted and not looked at with a harshly critical eye. To be honest, I hate the fact that we look to advertising as one of our main sources of “art” or whatever you might call it in mainstream pop culture, but it’s a fact right now, and I’m dealing with it as such. I’ll save the paradigm-shift shit for another day.

Without further ado:

- I was pretty disappointed that there was only one King appearance. For the first two-thirds or so of the BK commercial I wasn’t into it, but then when all the chorus girls were stacked up as a sandwich, and the King appeared, I will admit, I chortled.

- My impression is that Godaddy drained their advertising budget on two Super Bowl spots and couldn’t afford to go out of house for the actual ad, and consequently their spot didn’t really make sense at all. I get the reference, but there seemed to be no actual plot?

- The Budweiser Spots were “cute” but not that impressive. I thought the one with the zebra doing the call review a couple weeks ago (perhaps originally aired last Super Bowl?) was a lot better than the ones they showed during this game.

- The fedex spot at the beginning probably wasn’t worth the amount it cost to make, but the dude getting crushed by a mammoth (or whatever) after he was fired and kicked a lizard was pretty funny.

- The Ameriquest ads in which the doctor kills a fly and says “that killed him” while the patient’s family walks into the room, and the one with the man and woman on the plane were pretty good — I liked the first one better, I guess for shock value?

- The new razor with a total of five blades is intimidating and scary, and the ad was so long and built so much suspense, we had time to guess what it was for before we were introduced to the product. I said Icy Hot, or maybe the Miami Hurricanes, others guessed Quizno’s. We were all sadly mistaken.

- “Brown and Bubbly”?!?!?! Clearly an attempt at self-deprecation and in-joke style anti-advertising (like the Uncola), but one that I can’t see lasting long. The first Diddy spot came around to be pretty funny, though.

- The monster/robot breeding spot for the Hummer was disgusting and incensing but, as Joe Deefer points out, completely apropos.

this weekend:

- Awesome show in Philly with amazing friends? Check.
- Totally stunning show in Pittsburgh with an even greater number of amazing friends? Check.
- Steelers Super Bowl win? Check.
- Peaceful crazy Bloomfield celebration? Check and check.

Good job, folks! Thanks!

I just wish that I had a two-hour delay from work tomorrow like the schools have.