Gillen!

by the way...

2008-05-15T07:16:46Z

Son of Rambow is a completely formulaic coming-of-age flick that rides like it's on rails. That said, the two lead actors are so good they made it easily the best flick I've seen this year.

You expect me to talk?

2008-05-14T22:44:27Z

Ah, West Virginia... in an era of change, some things never do

2008-05-14T02:09:27Z

"Two in 10 white West Virginia voters said that race was an important factor in their vote, and more than 8 in 10 of them backed Mrs. Clinton, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls." - NY Times, 05/13/08

KOINH

2008-05-13T14:36:26Z

The local Albertson's has one of those automatic Seattle's Best coffee stands. Not feeling like dealing with overly-perky (::snerk::) baristas this morning, I dropped in to get myself a mechanical cuppa.

Damn thing won't take my card. Swipe-swipe-swipe. Nada.

Fine. I feed it a fiver. It starts spitting out coffee and change. "Great," I think, "a pocket full of jingly for my troubles." But it stops after only a few coins. Bwuh? I look at the change drawer and find a bunch of Sacagawea dollars.

I didn't think we made those anymore. But even more bizarre, one of them isn't a Sacagawea, it's a golden Jefferson dollar.

I've never seen or heard of such a thing, but when I get to the office I Google it, and, sure enough, subsequent to the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 (we really need to start finding things to keep our legislators busy, folks) the US mint is releasing commemorative dollars of every president in some long-range plan that stretches out past 2016, by which point I would have hoped we'd have completely eliminated coinage, if not paper currency as well.

So I guess I'm keeping these as collectors' items. Dollar coins have always been nigh impossible to find a use for, anyway. Vending machines don't take them and clerks usually spend minutes looking them over like you're trying to pass Canadian money or something. "Susan B. Anthony? Is this an American coin? I don't think these are legal for use. They're just for collecting."

The Opacity of Soap

2008-05-13T06:37:30Z

There's only two days left to get us to the 100 nominations mark for LJ Advisory Board representative (aka 'Send gillen to Istanbul'). So, if you haven't yet, now's the time to cast your vote!

Current standings as of 11:32PM PST 05/12/08:

[52 votes for | 2 votes against (such sweethearts!)] and some random postings.

Remember: if we make 5% or more in the final election, we're eligible for matching funds next campaign season.

Even if we don't pull off a win based on popular vote, there's always the argument that jameth is too damaged to take on Facebook and the nomination should be decided by the SUP(erdelegates).

Seeing is believing, but is believing understanding?

2008-05-12T22:37:48Z

Scientific American - 'The McGurk Effect'

If we watch a video of a person mouthing the word "ga," but have a synced voice-over of that person saying "ba," what we end up hearing, is a third variation that's never been said. That word is "da".

And even though you now know it's an illusion, you will still, when you see the video, think you are hearing "da". But if you close your eyes, and do not see the person's lips forming the word "ga," you'll hear what they are actually saying - which is "ba".

We think of speech as dependent on auditory perception. But this study shows the influence that visual input has.

To experience the McGurk effect, click on the video below. Play the video normally first, then play it a second time with your eyes closed. You will hear two different words.

[source]

ATTENTION:

2008-05-12T20:56:49Z

Tangerine

That is all.

Party of Five

2008-05-12T04:39:14Z

you could put a chair at the end
or push the tables together
but dont bother
This banged-up little restaurant
where you would expect no rules at all
has a firm policy against seating
parties of five
And you know you are
a party of five
It doesn’t matter if one of you
offers to leave or if
you say you could split into
a party of three and a party of two
or if the five of you come back tomorrow
in Richard Nixon masks and try to pretend
that you don’t know each other
It won’t work: You’re a party of five
even if you’re a beloved regular
Even if the place is empty
Even if you bring logic to bear
Even if you’re a tackle for the Chicago Bears
it won’t work
You’re a party of five
You will always be a party of five
A hundred blocks from here
a hundred years from now
you will still be a party of five
and you will never savor the soup
or compare the coffee or
hear the wisdom of the cook
and the wit of the waitress or
get to hum the old-time tunes
among which you will find
no quintets

- Robert Hershon

Nicely done, SNL!

2008-05-11T19:48:05Z

Yes, I know that it's dawn...

2008-05-11T12:42:49Z

SHUT UP, BIRDS!

Grasping at straw polls?

2008-05-08T19:02:14Z

Clinton Makes Case for White Wide Appeal

By Kathy Kiely and Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY

Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

[the full article can be found here]

Yes, there's a definite pattern. Uneducated white folk support Hillary Clinton.

Quelle surprise, given the way she paired off "hard-working Americans" and "white Americans".

Her campaign manager, Terry McAuliffe, must be locked in his office with a .38 by now.

No, seriously...

2008-05-06T02:45:53Z

LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections

I support gillen to be my representative on the Advisory Board.

Show your support at lj_election_en.

Any user who puts themselves forward will need to obtain 100 comments of support in order to become a candidate. We ask each user who would like to support a candidate or candidates to comment stating "I support this nomination" or words to that effect. Once a post has comments of support from 100 different users, we will email the nominee a certification form. The form will line out the responsibilities or commitments that the user-representative will likely have and ask the nominee to certify they are willing and able to serve if elected. In order to be included in the election poll, a nominee will need to return this signed form via fax or email scan by May 16, 2008.

Spread the word. Spread the love. You are all perfect in the eyes of the Cylon God:

cut and paste:

<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/9674.html?mode=reply"><center><div style="background-color:#fff; color:#213368; padding:10px; border:1px solid #213368; width:23.31em; height:6.88em; font-size:16px;clear:both;"><img style="float:left; width:6.25em; height:6.25em;"src="http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/22448321/491765" alt="" /><div style="margin-left:6.88em;"><p style="font-weight:bold; font-size:0.88em;">LiveJournal Advisory Board Elections</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">I support <lj user="gillen"> to be my representative on the Advisory Board.</p><p style="font-size:0.75em;">Show your support at <lj user="lj_election_en">.</p></div></div></center></a>

Mildred Loving, the last person to be prosecuted in the US for marrying outside her race, died today

2008-05-06T01:42:41Z

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero - just a bride.

__________________________

Mildred and Richard started dating when he was 17... and she was 11. She became pregnant a few years later and they married when she turned 18.

Only in Virginia could the race of a couple be a criminal matter, but not the admitted child rape.

for the want of a hyphen...

2008-04-27T21:17:36Z

I just got a spam email with the header "Get a large penis scar free"

Um... no, thanks.

shades of Damnation Alley

2008-04-21T07:58:10Z

As I was driving home, the skies opened and for ten minutes dumped crushed ice on everything - sometimes so heavily that, even with the wipers on full, hail was all you could see. Cars were crashing in the middle of the highway. And then just as suddenly - nothing.

Afterwards, I half-expected to hear Trillian's voice announcing that we were now cruising at an improbability ratio of 1:1 and anything I still couldn't cope with was therefore my own problem.

The extra 'E' is for extra pee

2008-04-21T06:24:50Z

tanyahp gave me the letter 'P' for the 10 Things meme, so here goes:

10 Things Gillen Likes That Start With The Letter 'P':

1. Pasta Bolognese

Americans may think this sounds fancy. UK readers will know better. There's nothing fancy about spaghetti with Ragu, and Pasta Bolognese is just that... noodles with meat sauce. But why mess with perfection? A plate of pasta bolognese, some parmesean cheese, garlic bread and a glass of wine. Molto bene!

2. Palestrina

The devil may have all the best tunes, but most of the best composers work for the competition. Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli is credited with saving the use of polyphony in the Catholic Mass. Its Kyrie may not inspire any faith in god in me, but it certainly inspires my faith in choirs.

3. Piper Perabo

A double P, but there's little chance I could double my fondness without needing to change my pants. Her agent clearly hates her, because she's been in one cinematic disaster after another, but for the sake of Piper I would willingly watch the live action Rocky & Bullwinkle movie multiple times. No greater love hath a man than to lay down all pretense at cinematic taste for his star-crushes.

4. Pancakes

There are three principal BDS (Butter Delivery System) items in the food universe: english muffins, egg noodles and pancakes. However, when it comes to the short stack of buttermilk pancakes with multiple interstitial pats of salted creamery butter, topped with blueberry compote and a dusting of confectioner's sugar... well, the others take a back seat.

5. Pink Floyd

Although I may lose some hipster points, I must admit that I really only mean from Meddle through to The Wall and nothing before or after. I store emotion in music so it can be accessed later. I can reach a level of soul-wrenching sadness by listening to Floyd that I no longer experience in my regular life. Certain tracks from Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here put me right back with my head and arms resting on the windowsill of 306 Campbell, staring out at the lights reflected off the wet bricks in the dark night-time rain. I can even smell that cool, earthy scent mixed with a touch of dogwood. It's like canning fresh peaches so you can have the taste of the fruit harvest all through the winter.

6. Propaganda

Most people will tell you that the purpose of language is to communicate ideas. This is untrue. The purpose of language is to motivate others to action. The method by which they are motivated is the communication of ideas. The only purpose that man has for communicating an idea to others is to thereby inspire them to certain behaviour which will help him achieve a goal that he does not wish to or cannot achieve by his action alone. All communication is therefore propaganda and is either efficient or inefficient at achieving its intended result. Yes, you may subscribe to my newsletter.

7. Plutarch

"To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days." - Mestrius Plutarchus
The man penned lives of both Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (Roman patricians who nevertheless were staunch supporters of economic reform and price controls. They got assassinated for their trouble, making them basically the Kennedys of ancient Rome.) and utterly savaged the reputation of Herodotus, who never heard a story he didn't believe. How could I not love him?

8. Pastrami

Pastrami on seedless rye with stone-ground mustard, a fat kosher dill pickle, plain potato chips and a frosted pint of Helles lager. All but the last of which may be gotten at Goldberg's in Factoria, making it about as close to the perfect lunch spot as one can get on this coast. Of course, quality ain't cheap. Substitute a Dr. Brown's black cherry or cel-ray soda for the beer and that little lunch will set you back an easy $20. But oh, it is so-o-o-o worth it!

9. Phoenix, AZ

"But it's a dry heat." You would think that, being the devotee of cold and darkness that I am, that I would absolutely despise Phoenix - but you're wrong. Sure, I still hate all the sun and the fact that it's like a freaking oven outside in the summer, but I spent a few weeks in Phoenix back in the late 90s and was thoroughly charmed by its cool, dark spaces. What? Yeah, you heard me. The lower level of the Sky Harbor airport on a mid-July day is practically Gollum's cave. The poolside bar of the Pointe Hilton (now the Pointe South Mountain Resort, pictured above) is dark and cool and the perfect place to sip daquiris while watching the young hweemens cavort in the pool. The movie theatres are all pitch black, with stadium seating and industrial-strength AC. The sun, you understand, serves to throw the interior spaces into sharp relief. All the virtues of the cool and dark in Phoenix are likely the same as a thousand other places not situated directly under the Unblinking Eye of God, but you come to appreciate them all the more for the contrast. That and if one happens to get the chance to hang out drinking in the rooftop pool after midnight, watching a lightning storm roll in from the desert... well, there are more memorable experiences, I'm sure, but not a whole lot of them.

10. Pat McCurdy

Back in the early 90s, I spent 18 months living on the east side of Milwaukee. It was really the best time to be there. The eccentric coffeehouse craze had just hit and long time standards like the Coffee Trader (with its room-sized brass espresso machine and lazy Vientiane ceiling fans) were now being eclipsed by places like Gil's Espresso Bongo Lounge, the Fuel Cafe, Brewed Awakenings, etc. I was three blocks from Beans & Barley, a vegetarian co-op grocery store (yes, I was a veggie for about five years. Shaddap!), the same from an old art house theatre that still showed double features of 1960s films for a sawbuck and I spent my lunchtime scavenging in the same mall food court that Jeffrey Dahmer was apparently cruising for his own special brand of take-out. But the best was on Wednesday and Saturday nights when I'd grab a front table at Sherman's Celebrity Club (sadly now-defunct) and kick back with a few pitchers for a night of Pat McCurdy's... well... watch the video. What would you call it?

Whatever it is, he's been doing it forever. It's a bit like Rocky Horror in that the audience knows every.single.word.to.every.song.he.does and has in many cases developed their own response patter (which differs somewhat from city to city, so you can sometimes tell where a "Pat-head" is from just by the lines they shout out). I'll be catching a Pat show at the end of the month, actually. My first one in nearly 15 years. Shhhhhh!

postscript: What the hell does this post's title have to do with the meme? Nothing, really, but I've been wanting to use it for ages. See, there was this ad for a golden shower themed phone sex line (976-PEEE) that ran on the New York City public access channel several times an hour in the late 1980s. If you were watching the Robin Byrd Show at the time, you probably saw it. It was for 976-PEEE and the mnemonic for the number was "The extra 'E' is for extra pee." That has been bouncing around my brain for the better part of two decades now and this is the closest I've come to an even half-appropriate chance to attempt an exorcism. So yeah. Aren't you glad you asked?

Wars go more smoothly when you're running both sides

2008-04-21T03:46:38Z

NATO admits mistakenly supplying arms and food to Taliban

Friday, April 18, 2008
The Guardian UK

NATO forces mistakenly supplied food, water and arms to Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, officials today admitted.

Containers destined for local police forces were dropped from a helicopter into a Taliban-controlled area of Zabul province.

The coalition helicopter had intended to deliver pallets of supplies to a police checkpoint in Ghazni, a remote section of Zabul late last month.

By mistake they were dropped some distance from the checkpoint where it was taken by the Taliban, the Internal Security Affairs Commission of the Wolesi Jirga — the Afghan parliament's lower house — was told.

Hamidullah Tukhi, a local politician from Zabul, told the parliamentary commission that the consignment had been taken by a local Taliban commander.

A NATO spokesman said the pallets were carrying rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, water and food.

Several Afghan politicians have said they do not believe the drop was an accident.

That Mitchell and Webb Look: SS Officers

2008-04-17T05:20:48Z

the things my brain decides to mash up on waking...

2008-04-16T14:37:48Z

this morning it was Dean Martin, Scooby Doo and 1990s era NYC politics.

Dean (singing): "As you climb up the stair, who's that standing there?"

Velma: "Mayor Dinkins?"

Dinkins: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't've been for you meddling kids!"

Dean (singing): "It's the ghost of your love from the past."

They printed it. LOL!

2008-04-15T19:12:14Z

gillen @ 2008-04-12T15:26:00

2008-04-12T22:27:49Z

An idle Sunday spent recollecting Horace

2008-04-07T08:35:59Z

Time was if you lived in the US and wanted the DVD collection of the first two seasons of Thames television's Rumpole of the Bailey it would cost you north of $100. But it seems that cooler heads (or more practical licensing policies) have since prevailed and an A&E edition of the entire run is now available in two boxed sets for $39.95 per, not including Barnes & Noble's current 30% discount.

So, yes, I splurged and have spent the day in chambers with "Soapy Sam" Ballard, Guthrie Featherstone, Phillida "the Portia of our Chambers" Trant, Claude Erskine-Browne, Liz Proberst, Judges Graves & "the Bull" Bullingham, Horace Rumpole and "She Who Must Be Obeyed".

The only thing which would have made the day any more perfect would be to have watched it as I did when I was eight - laying on the living room floor, in front of the wood stove, propped on my elbows with a mug of cocoa in front of me. I could have done all that, I suppose (except for the wood stove,) but these days if one finds oneself laying on the floor it is more likely one has had a stroke than been stricken by nostalgia - and laying propped on one's elbows with neck craned upwards is comfortable for all of three seconds. Yes, I tried. What? Stop looking at me like that.

Still... ::contentedsigh::

nicked from that fellow what stole my name

2008-04-06T20:41:18Z

The Indelicates - America

Not really down with the sentiment, but I do love the bitterness of reluctant allies of America in the culture wars.

(as seen on Kieron Gillen's workblog)

Pleased to meet you, Kirkland

2008-04-06T18:18:14Z

Well, I did have a little help from Lee Harvey and a guy so nice they named him twice.

Bwah?

I 'splain.

Seattle being Seattle, the guy I share an office with is also the front man for Windowpane. (go. listen. buy merch.) Boy's got a mean set of pipes on him, lemme tell ya. I dropped in on an "unplugged" gig they were doing at Danny's Pub in Kirkland last night and my boy Glenn slipped me in to the lyrics of Sympathy for the Devil.

Apparently, I killed the Kennedys.

Sorry, America.

Charlton Heston put his vest on

2008-04-06T10:24:26Z

Will someone please pry Charlton's guns from his cold, dead hands?

edit: upon reading my flist, it looks like I'm only about the six billionth person to make that joke. Ah, well. That's what I get for taking time off from LJ.

So, instead, I give you Stump's Charlton Heston. I bet I'm the only one to do that.