metal punk monday

One week from today...

WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD!!!!???!!!?

(Your tears are so yummy and sweet.)

What kills me, is that I didn't get to see it. You see, the NC State game was carried on the local CBS channel, and since no one and I mean NO ONE subscribes to the extra CBS Sports package around here (this is ACC country, after all) the game was effectively blacked out in Durham*.

So, if anyone has a recording of this game on their DVR, I'd really, really like to have a copy...



*If you found a place to watch this around here, I don't want to know about it. Really.

south durham, love yourself

More here.

ample parking, day or night

Good discussion over at Barry's place about the the City of Durham's tendency to overbuild parking capacity downtown. I think Barry has a great deal more faith than I do in the ability of local government to (effectively) push development in a less car-centric direction. Even if they weren't busily erecting new decks, I think driving in Durham (and in the Triangle generally) will have to get much, MUCH less convenient for there to be a broad base of support for the necessary investments to make this a transit town.

That said, he is absolutely correct in pointing out that if there is one thing downtown really does not need more of, it is parking spaces.

what i want for christmas

A H2O2-powered jetpack:

noted

--Durham residents: Have you been meaning to install floodlights on your property to discourage break-ins? Roll over to the DPAC site, they have just the thing.

--Um, yeah, Current Cafeteria is teh awesome. Thanks, Carpe Durham!

--Ann Coulter's jaw has been wired shut. Really. (via)

weird, but cool

There's a single-cell organism the size of a grape. It's called Gromia sphaerica. If they are easy to cultivate and transfect, that'd be one hell of model organism...I'm pretty sure even my clumsy hands could do a patch clamp on a grape...

The Triangle D at the corner of Foster and Trinity is selling unleaded for $1.559. If you feel like waiting in line.

I didn't. Also, I filled up two days ago...

UPDATE--This is was happening because the owner lost his lease. No word on what will replace it. Since it is directly in my path between "where I drink beer" and "where I sleep", my vote is for "all-night burrito joint".

(I'm not holding my breath.)

a pirate's life for me

Quickly, these modern-day pirates climb aboard their prey: cargo ships that contain food, machine parts and, most recently, oil or enough weaponry to supply a small army. Most of the time they meet no opposition — only frightened, unarmed crews who find themselves prisoners and held for ransoms that have exceeded $1 million.

(LINK)

Not that it's my business to tell anyone else their business, but...if it were my business to haul tens of millions of dollars of cargo on a slow-moving conveyance through stateless waters, I'd like to think it would occur to me to arm the freakin' crew...

stuff i've been enjoying lately

--Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart. At any given time I usually have a smallish paperback book that I carry around to read while waiting (doctors offices, oil changes, etc.) in addition to whatever is perched on my nightstand. This has been that book for me lately and now people all over the waiting rooms of Durham think I'm The Crazy Guy Who Giggles While He Reads. The chapter in which the protagonist writes a grant proposal for a Holocaust museum is beyond hilarious. And if you can make that funny, you're a freakin' genius. My habit of reading authors' second books first continues to pay off.

--In the mood for old (read: mid-1980's) horror movies, I rented Reanimator and John Carpenter's The Thing this past weekend. For fairly obvious reasons, I appreciate the satirical take on the culture of academic research in Reanimator much, much more now than when I was 12 (or however old I was when I last saw it). And I realize I'd really like a Mistkatonic Medical School T-shirt (though one of these might be OK) just to see who gets it.

The Thing scared the hell out of me when I was little. It's still pretty scary. The scene where the guy being treated with a defibrillator (he's really The Thing! Watch out!) is on the table and his chest opens up into a gaping maw of teeth and bites off the doctor's hands is a classic that will make you appreciate how much CGI sucks. (I watched that part a few times.)

--I re-read The Watchmen last week for probably the first time in over 15 years, in advance of the movie coming out in March. (The trailers make my head tingle.) There is no way the movie can be as good. And I will still go see it the night it opens.

brilliant

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

saturday night's alright for steampunk

Come by. Hear some music. Say hello (I'm one of the dorks trying to get you to sing...the one with the drum.)

in which all the women who read this blog say "duh"

So, [m] and I are going to Vietnam in 27 days.

We have a our visas (man I hate mailing my passport around), we have our flights, we have hotels booked for pretty much the entire time (thanks, baby!) and I go get inoculated for all the various things that can happen to you in a tropical climate first thing tomorrow morning. Cool.

It occurred to me a few days ago that Asia generally is a pretty good place to get a suit custom tailored for not a lot of money. Now, I'm not really a "suit guy"...I am in both a profession and city that rarely demands such a high standard of dress, but--it is a good thing to have. I do own one that I bought four years ago, and have gotten more mileage out of it than I ever imagined I would (two job interviews, half a dozen or so weddings, two funerals, a couple of Halloween costumes, and it serves as a "tux" when I sing with the CSD.) So, I figure this is at least worth looking into while I am there. More to the point, we will be spending at least three nights in Hoi An, which is a great place to do this.

So the recommendation is "comb your local fashion mags for a suit that pops out at you. Tailors here can copy every little detail from virtually any photo you bring in, so come prepared — a few pages torn from GQ can go a long way towards getting the style you're looking for." This seems reasonable, especially for someone under the impression that the term "double-breasted" is inherently redundant.

As it happens, I was sitting in a waiting room this morning, a copy of Details at hand. I seized the opportunity as it might spare me the indignity of actually buying such a thing.

Of course, there were plenty of lavish photos of suits that looked really good.

On models.

I never I thought I would be grateful for the fact that there are so many photos of Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau on IMDB.

ganymede shrugged

What do you think might happen to California's economy and tax base if a significant portion of its homosexual population migrated en mass to, say, Massachusetts? Particularly members of the creative class that could relatively easily do so, if they so desired? In San Francisco alone, the GLB population is estimated to be 15%. The fraction of the population in Los Angeles is much smaller, but still, we're talking about nearly half a million people.

metal monday

Pushing the boundaries a bit here...but I really like the cover, and the video is shot in one of my favorite places on earth.

(barely) blue in nc

Unofficial totals in NC:

Obama - 2,110,285
McCain - 2,098,595
Barr - 25,293
Write-in - 14,112

That's Obama up by 1,690 votes, an order of magnitude less than Barr or write-in.

In a perfect world, Republicans would take a cue from this...in a more perfect world, so would the Democrats...

UPDATE--the gap has since widened, but it is still (as of 5pm) less than Barr's vote total.

as i push away from the computer...

If what Intrade is currently showing is even remotely close to accurate (and it often is), it is going to be an early night. PA and VA are hovering around 90% for Obama, and if NC tips that way (63% at the moment) that's enough to offset a McCain victory in IN.

OK, I'm cutting the ethernet cable, getting some errands done, going for a workout, and then settling in at the pub...see you on the other side...

the waiting is the hardest part...

The deed is done, uneventfully as it should be.

I will be here tonight (or more likely, ensconced in the pub nearby). Be safe, be warm, and be nice to your neighbors.

All of them.

durham zombie lurch 2008

This is how I spent El Dia de los Muertos. How about you?