Top 5 Animals

I checked REM's Murmur out of the library today & noticed a sweet pic of llamas in the liner notes. Could it be that I've never actually looked @ the liner notes of that album before? I suppose, but it seems unlikely. None-the-less, it's a great picture. couldn't find a copy of it on-line though, so I just took one. It's obviously blurry & has bad lighting, but you get the picture:For those of you who don't know this, llamas are my #1 favorite animal. I've been a fan of them since the early 90's, & over the last 20 or so years I've met a few. It's always been a dream of mine to live somewhere where I could have some. Alas, chickens & bees are what are allowed here. Someday we'll move & get some llamas. They'll always be #1 in my book.

What's #2 you ask? Stick w/ me & you'll get all 5.
2) Hippo: The most deadly of the giant beasts of Africa. The hippo kills more people every year than either the lion or the Elephant. They're pretty sweet.
3) Owl: This is a newer addition to the top 5. It was really Isaiah's fascination w/ them that in turn led to my own interest. They're super cool.
4) Elephant: Though not as deadly as the hippo, elephants are pretty awesome. They have trucks! To paraphrase Pinter Ranawat's father, "I mean, trunks! Please!" (How did I not know about the connect between that episode of Seinfeld & the Harold Pinter play of the same name?) There must be other animals w/ trunks, but none as cool as the elephant.
5) Chicken: Having acquired 4 this past summer, I've developed a love for them... even though they're dumber than a box or rocks. They've been producing well all winter too. I'd read that they might lay less if they're too cold, so I guess we've done a good job of keeping them warm enough.

With owl & chicken entering the top 5, I suppose it'd be a good thing to explain which ones have since left the top 5. Those would be the platypus & the manatee. They're still in the overall top 10 though, along w/ alligators, polar bears, & moose... or mooses depending who you ask.

The Rally in Lansing

Although there was rather little notice ahead of time, Moveon.org's rallies across the country were pretty successful today. I cruised up to Lansing w/ Charles, Brian, and Abby to join about 2,000 people on the steps of the capitol building to show support for the workers in Wisconsin & to voice opposition to Snyder's attacks on state workers and unions in Michigan. Of course, there was also an air of solidarity w/ the people around the world who have been marching, protesting, & fighting over the last month. Dare I say that the feeling of revolution is palpable? I think it really is. We'll see how long it lasts though. We had a fun time & hopefully these rallies will continue; maybe next time, y'all can come along & bring a friend.

Here are links to The Free Press & Lansing State Journal articles about it from today.

Presidents' Day Snow Day

In England, there are always soccer games on bank holidays, but since we don't have that as a way to celebrate our former presidents, we'll do it w/ 8" of snow & a fun little list instead. It's been a pretty rough few days in the ol' homestead, but we're surviving & I think in the long-run, things will be much better. (How's that for a cryptic sentence that raises all sorts of questions but says nothing at all?)

Here's the Official Drifting Into Deep Water Top Ten Presidents of All Time. (Of course, we are also celebrating Nina Simone's & Vince Welnick's birthdays today, but we aren't listing the top 10 "Samba in the Rain" ... that would be silly). We're basing this list on 4 things (w/ a scale of 1-10 where 1 is low & 10 is high): looking presidential, thinking presidential, acting presidential, & all around coolness. A president can score high on all around coolness like Teddy Roosevelt or high on looking presidential like George H. W. Bush, but then very low on other criterion so we'll have to so we'll have to be very careful as we come to our determination here.

10)Millard Fillmore: Score - 26
He was an asshole No-Nothinger, but his name was Millard Fillmore. How awesome is that?
9) Martin van Buren: Score - 27
He was the 1st American born president & has a fictional street gang named after him... a gang known for assaulting Kramer & George. That's pretty cool. His stance on slavery was less cool, but better than many of his contemporaries.
8) Warren G. Harding: Score - 28
The G. is for Gamaliel... pretty cool name. He worked hard on his Anti-Lynching campaign & there are rumors that he had more than a little African American and Native American ancestry & that he was all about the orgies. Of course, there's also the Teapot Dome scandal... the coolest name for a presidential scandal ever.
7) James Madison: Score - 30
He wrote the Bill of Rights, his wife was the 3rd best gas station pastry maker, Dolly Madison,and his VP was named George Clinton!
6) Grover Cleveland: Score - 32
He served 2 terms but they weren't consecutive. That's pretty cool. Plus, as his name suggests, he was probably pretty adept @ explaining the concepts of "Near" & "Far."
5) Teddy Roosevelt: Score - 34
Kind of a macho tool, but he was our macho tool... like Hemingway & Randy Savage.
4) Abraham Lincoln: Score - 36
He saved the Union & reluctantly ended slavery. Although that wasn't his main goal, he was willing to listen to Frederick Douglass & realized Douglass simply had better ideas than he did. Just think about what might have been possible if every president was willing to listen to smart people all the time.
3) John Adams / Bill Clinton (tie): Score - 37
Where Clinton often came across as a sex-crazed hillbilly, his genious was in his ability to get stuff done & help the people who needed help the most. He was a great negotiator who was able to raise our political capital around the world.
John Adams was a bad-ass. He was briliant & always looking to listen to Abigale who was also briliant. Had it been posible for her to be President, she may have made the list too.
2) Thomas Jefferson: Score - 38
He wrote the Declaration of Independence. He understood the limits of presidential power while being more than willing to overstep them when a good bargain came along, & he understood the importance of an educated electorate in order to for a more perfect union. If not for his more than problematic relationship w/ slavery (& one slave specifically) he may have scored a perfect 40. Then again, his views on slavery weren't anything more than products of his time. The vast majority of the rich white land owners felt the same way... if not much worse. Of course, that doesn't completely excuse him, but I don't think he deserves the vitriol he gets for this
1) Franklin Roosevelt: Score - 40
Beat Hitler, instigated the New Deal, & was actually willing to listen to his awesome wife... a wife who had great ideas about war, women, & the working (& out of work) poor. Plus, the dude overcame polio to rise to the Presidency. That's just Bad-Ass... Teddy could never have done that.

Honorable Mention goes out to JFK & Woodrow Wilson
Knowing full well that this is the official list, you can still feel free to post your own top 10 in the comments section.

RIP: Len Lesser... You Still Say Hello

I have 2 favorite Uncle Leo episodes, the one where he is caught stealing and the one where Jerry calls him an Adonis. I aways thought that he should have gotten a spin-off, or at least that there should have been a spin-off based on the lives of the secondary characters... it could have rotated through them from week to week. You know, Puddy, the Rabbi, the dentist, Banya, Jackie Chiles, the chick w/ the perfect tits, etc. Alas, that is no longer an option as Len Lesser, the man who played Uncle Leo, passed away yesterday. Apparently, he was working on a memoir (who isn't?), but it may not have been far enough along to be salvaged. I can't imagine I would have read it anyway, but I bet that dude had some interesting Hollywood stories to tell.In other celebrity death news, since Jason's site is no longer w/ us, I think maybe I should host a death pool here. In keeping w/ the structure of Jason's version, send me a list of at least 25 people and ensure they are in the order you want them. If two people choose the same celebrity, the one who has that person higher on the list will get that person. I'll figure out the point system this weekend, but I imagine that the younger people will get more points as was the case w/ Jason's version. You might want to include more than 25 on your list so as to ensure that you have the full contingent even if you lose out to someone else in terms of the first come, first serve situation. Get me a list ASAP and you can start accruing points. There won't be an end date for submissions, but if someone dies before you submit, that person will obviously not be available for you. Try to get me your team by March 1st. I will sort them out and post them then. Happy team selecting. Don't post your team here though so as to keep it a secret untill all the teams are set. Send it to my facebook or e-mail me: andrepeltier@hotmail.com

The Rise of the Machines...

... or, if you prefer the binary code,

0101001001101001011100110110010100100000011011110110011000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110110101100001011000110110100001101001011011100110010101110011


We have not 1, not 2, but 3 tech stories to bring you today. None of them signals the growth or power of SkyNet or even the eventual development of Cyberdyne Systems. Neither even suggests HAL 9000, but we best be wary. On Jeopardy this evening, a 3 part contest will begin between Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter (the 2 winningest contestants), & a computer named Watson. An obvious homage to the Holmes stories, this will give Jennings & Rutter plenty of opportunities to reference A Study in Scarlett.

What is the novel in which Holmes & Watson meet?

Here's a fun little BBC article for you to peruse if you're in to that kind of thing... & I know you are. Apparently, the toughest thing, as we all assumed it would be, for the computer to do is understand the nuances of the language. When a computer beat Kasparov in a 6 game chess match (cue the clip from Wargames) in 1997, people said it was down to the mathematics of the game. They claimed that any computer that was programmed properly could beat a human. Of course, we all know that the computer Mikhail plays on Lost may actually cheat, but that's a whole different issue. Tonight we get to see if the computer can adjust to the language & actually beat people in a contest that isn't as mathematical as chess. I don't know if I'll actually watch, but if I do, you can count on a follow-up in post afterwards.

In other tech news, we get to reference Deep Ellum, Texas. If you go down there, put not only your money, but also your old 8-tracks in your shoes because there's a man down there who'll give a man the blues... oh sweet mama, my 8-track's got them Deep Ellum blues. Bucks Burnett, the man in question, has recently opened the first 8-Track museum. And if there's 1 thing the world needed, it was an 8-Track Museum. There are plenty of articles about this situation, but this 1 was written by a guy named Steve Guttenberg so obviously, that's the 1 you're getting here.In tech issue part the third, Dylan performed an interesting rendition of "Maggie's Farm" @ the Grammys last night. "They say 'Sing while you slave & I just get bored.'" On the positive side, this seems like a fitting comment in the face of the music industry. On the other hand, his voice is getting even rougher. This is where we get the tech part. He sounds kind of like a gruff robot w/ limited vocal abilities. I still loved it, & his body language was fantastic. He's even dancing a bit. Perhaps some day the music industry will create a robot that can write like him. That'll be a nice change of pace from the drivel those robots are writing now. Here's the video for your viewing pleasure.

Peaceful Protests Work: Mubarak Steps Down!!!

If the fact that a sustained non-violent protest for just over three weeks has brought about real change doesn't make you squeeze out a few tears of happiness, I'd be shocked. They've done what we always talk about doing. It really worked... and not over months or years, but over a matter of weeks. He really stepped down. They really did it.
* Al Jazeera live stream from Egypt!!!
* Here's the article from Al Jazeera
* Obama's Response
* NY Times Article

RIP: Jason Duerr dot Com or Counting Down the Hours

While the site is still up, as of yesterday, Jason Duerr Dot Com is finished. It's not clear when the site will actually be taken down, so while it's still up, I suggest you head on over there & bid a final farewell. Then you can join us for the second raising of a final glass tonight while watching The Office (which is actually a much more fitting time than last night's rather arbitrary 9:00). It was an awesome run. Now that it's over, I'd like to welcome all the loyal readers to this site. We will do our best to fill the void, but clearly, we'll never be able to fill its shoes.For having hosted the Celebrity Death Pool for the last 6 or so years, we salute you!

For gracing us w/ Gameballs & Douchebags of the week for your entire run, we salute you.

For linking people to all three of my sites over the years, Leshlush (do you all remember Leshlush? Those were good time too, but alas, nothing lasts forever), Visions of Ypsi, & now this one, we salute you!

For posting that sweet, sweet pic of Tevez fisting Rio Ferdinand, we salute you!

For keeping us abreast of good shit & bad shit, we salute you!

For all the other awesomeness over the years, we salute you!You were a good site, jd.c. Remember, there are no posting limits in heaven. You're going to a happier place where hot chicks of the week can frolic in the dew w/ Jeff Goldblum, Gary Coleman, & Yakov Smirnoff for the rest of eternity. Well played!

CDs vs MP3s

I'm curious as to how many of you still buy CDs. W/ the ease of things like I-Tunes, I know most of you are probably downloading a lot more than you buy on disc, but I just can't get myself to do that. The idea of paying for an MP3 drives me nuts. The compression is so noticeable to me. I could see paying for a SHN or a FLAC, but MP3s sound so thin and tinny. Then again, the sites that have SHNs and FLACs are usually free live files so while the quality is there, it's harder to find a studio album that way. This only leaves us w/ the traditional CD format... which is fine w/ me. I still dig the packaging & the liner notes so I suppose I'll keep buying them. I'm definitely not buying like I used to though. I remember in high school, getting a new tape or 2 every couple weeks. However, over the last 12 months, I've bought 16 CDs, 2 of which are from local bands, 4 were from garage sales, & another 1 was a discount CD for only a couple bucks @ K-Mart. This leaves us w/ 9 over a 12 month period. It still seems like a lot, but for the most part, they're really good. Here's a quick overview of the stuff I've bought in a roughly chronological order.

Mayflys - Down & In: Super fun local stuff... & I'm thanked in the liner notes. But you knew that already.

Willie Nelson - Country Music: Ironically, it's really not country. It's more of a traditional folk/bluegrass album. It's really good.

Norah Jones - The Fall: I dig her. Stephanie really digs her.It's a good album.

Kris Kristofferson - Kristofferson: This is a pretty odd album. It's not the straight, 70s country I expected. He's even got stuff that sounds like it could have come from the Three Penny Opera.

Neko Case - Live from Austin TX: Not an odd album at all. This is pretty much what I expected... awesome. Her cover of "Buckets of Rain" is great, but the originals are fantastic too. You've probably already heard this though, so you already know this.

Gram Parsons - GP/Grievous Angel: This seems like something we should have had already. It's less glitzy & overproduced than his 2 albums w/ The Flying Burrito Brothers, but I still like The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo more.

Emmylou Harris - Elite Hotel: This is a beautiful album. She's so freaking good.

Phish - Colorado 88: This is a fun 3 disc set from their first trip through Colorado. It's got the acidy circus music sound that they were having fun w/ back then, & it features most of their 1st 2 albums plus The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday stuff. If you're a Narnia/Harry Potter person, you probably need to to hear the Man Who Stepped stuff. You'd dig it.

Norman Blake & Tony Rice - Blake & Rice: This is some great folk & bluegrass. Tony Rice knows how to play!*

The Del McCoury Band - Del & the Boys: A pretty straight forward album. It's nothing too out of the ordinary for them, but the song selection & the playing are both stellar.*

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Close Encounters to the West Coast: This is awesome. A very underrated album. I really enjoy this one.*

Tex Williams & His Western Caravan - Vintage Collection: I'm not quite as into this as I expected. It's traditional Texas Swing, but definitely not as good as Bob Wills.*

Whitey Morgan & the 78s - Whitey Morgan & the 78s: Awesome. Check out the Wikipedia page I started about them (plus the pages about their albums). That's fun times. I think this semester, I'm gonna make one about either Ralph Mooney or Fred Newell. we'll see.

Merle Haggard - 16 Greatest Hits: On paper, this looks like it'd be fantastic... it ain't. I don't know if they're burned from MP3s or remastered w/ an 80s Casio SK1, but the music is horrid. His vocals are fine, but something just isn't right. I guess you get what you pay for from the K-Mart value bin.

Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - III/IV: It's good, but not as good as the other Cardinals stuff. It's clear why this wasn't released when it was first recorded. It's definitely no Cold Roses or Jacksonville City Nights.

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives - Ghost Train; This is some quality country, & his band is super tight. I'd like to see his guitarist play w/ Phil some time. That'd be fun.

W. W. P. G. D.?

So I'm sittin' in my office today, eatin' my chili & watchin' an A-Team episode as one does while eating lunch. It was the one where the coalition of bad guys hire an A-Team like group to destroy the A-Team. of course, systematically, Hannibal & the boys take them out & prevail. I was about 10 minutes into it when an old student stopped by to chat. We were talking about old TV shows since I was watching 1 & it turned out she was pretty fluent in classic TV & film. I was a bit surprised that I didn't know this already, but the conversation was going nicely. We started talking about newer shows like Pawn Stars & Storage Wars. I said that we'd been watching a lot of American pickers lately. She responded w/ "I don't like that show; they're always trying to Jew people."

Ummmmmm was about all I could get out. Who did she think she was? Professor Grif? I haven't heard someone use that phrase in almost 20 years. I have canned responses for "retarded" or "gay," but "Jewing poeple?" come on! it was a major teaching moment, but I failed. I wish I could say we had a long talk about the history of that idea, but we didn't. I reworded what she said, but didn't actually confront her about it. I replaced "Jew" w/ "screw," but I was shocked. The worst part is that it clearly didn't phase her at all. Who are these people who are teaching their kids that this is an acceptable way to go through life? On the other hand, when people start replacing these terms w/ coded euphemisms, it may be worse. At least when people are saying what they mean, we know who they are. On the other, other hand, I'm sure she didn't mean it the way it came across. That isn't to say that I can tolerate that kind of talk, but I can't single out one young woman for acting on an age-old stereotype.

It got me thinking about these racist terms & the reversal that is occurring. Saying that getting screwed over is equivalent to "getting Jewed" is a type of revisionist history. Who was it that spent the last 1,500 years getting screwed over in Europe? It's like the term "Indian Giver." Giving things & then taking them back is the way Native Americans give things? It's obviously the other way around. By constructing these terms, we enter into revisionist history as we convince ourselves that the way we've been treating people is actually the way we've been treated by those very people. That's not to say that those very people might not have been treating someone else like that, but in the end, it's just another way for white people to act like victims while rampaging across the globe. No wonder douchebags like Glenn Beck get so popular... they have revisionist historians, (presumably like this student's parents) as captive audiences who are already partaking in their little roll-reversal games. I bet Dwight Schultz would be happy w/ this situation, but H. M. Murdock would never have stood for it.