Brain Droppings

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Aug 082006
 

Somebody must think my blog is a depressing read because I’m getting completely hammered with spam for an antidepressant that rhymes with “smell boot trim” over the past 24 hours. I’m not the only one having this problem as David Sifry’s latest State of the Blogosphere says that 70% of the pings that Technorati receives are from known spam sources.

Janet Jackson is still hawt. I had a bit of thing for her on Good Times and Different Strokes. I think my infatuation reached it’s peak around the time “Anytime, Anyplace” was released. I was living in NYC at the time.

Speaking of NYC, JMG posted about rents there today. I had a one room apartment in the East Village for $800/month and it was a dump. I imagine it’s probably doubled by now.

The Internets are full of tributes to Love frontman Arthur Lee who died last week. Where the hell have I been? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of this band and neither had The Wife. We consider ourselves fairly saavy. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Bastards.

New Rescue Me tonight. Season three is drawing to a close and the show still doesn’t disappoint. The opening sequence last week was awesome. Fire plus apartment marijuana growing operation equals stoned firefighters and ensuing hilarity. I’m sure that must’ve actually happened at some point although the smell should’ve been enough of a clue to don the respirators.

I watched Zathura on Sunday night with the kids. There’s lots to recommend it. I’d kill to have the house in the film. The set design is excellent. Several funny lines from both kids. I had a hard time separating Dax from his Punk’d persona and I’m inclined to like almost anything Tim Robbins does. I liked it better than Jumani, the other Chris Van Allsburg book I’ve seen adapted to film. I never saw Polar Express. Plus, Peter Billingsley, aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story was a co-producer on the film. How could you not like that? And as a completely random aside to see if Scott H. is reading this, any idea why Peter Billingsley got a “thanks” credit on Mysterious Skin?

P.S. This is a personal best for most IMDB links in a single post.

[tags]mysteriousskin, peterbillingsley, zathura, rescueme, love, arthurlee, janetjackson, spam, davidsifry, nyc, realestate, joemygod[/tags]

 Posted by on August 8, 2006 at 4:41 pm

As Naked As You Wanna Be

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Aug 082006
 
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A friend is helping organize As Naked As You Wanna Be, a benefit and art show for Tamara Hoover, the teacher who caused a stir back in June when she was put on administrative leave for nude photos posted on Flickr. The show is this Friday, August 11th at 6pm at the Pedernales Lofts, Apt. 2028 on East Sixth Street (that’s Sixth and Pedernales, east of I-35, nearly to Pleasant Valley). There’s an after-party at Peacock across the street from the lofts according to CuddleFish.

I’ve been meaning to post a transcript from Tamara’s appearance on Rita Crosby Live & Direct and also this set of photos from behind the scenes of some of her media appearances since the story broke.

 Posted by on August 8, 2006 at 2:21 pm

Turn Here: Austin

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Aug 082006
 

Mark from BoingBoing posted about a site called TurnHere which features amateur produced video travel guides about particular cities. There are two videos about Austin, one about South Austin and another about Downtown. There’s a third video that appears to be an ad for Austin’s Park and Pizza in Pflugerville. I had problems getting the films to automatically play in Firefox, so you may have to use IE or fiddle with it to get it to work. Once you’ve played one film, the site automatically loads the next in line.

There’s not much new information in the two videos if you live here. It’s not a bad primer if you’re not familiar with the city. I’m glad the guy interviewed in the South Austin video likes it here, but find it amusing that he refers to the “dotcommers and computer companies” when he moved here from California three years ago himself. Zilker Park is nowhere near the second largest “inner city” park in sheer acreage, btw. I’m not sure where he got his stats.

The Downtown Austin film gives props to Casino El Camino’s jukebox and burgers. I can’t argue with that.

 Posted by on August 8, 2006 at 1:28 pm

Rainbow Connection

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Aug 072006
 
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It’s a sure sign that we’re all missing the rain when I find no less than three shots of rainbows over the past weekend. It looks like Wiley caught the same one that I did on Friday and WAE posted one Saturday morning. The quality of mine is pretty poor, having been shot on a Razr through a dirty windshield. One of the very cool things about sites like Flickr is posting something and then finding you’re not the only one who felt a particular moment photo worthy and worth sharing.

Speaking of a Rainbow Connection, I *think* this is the last week for the Alamo Summer Movie Camp (it’s hard to tell in their difficult to navigate/understand website). Alamo South Lamar’s been having a free movie every weekday for the past couple of months. This week, it’s Spongebob Squarepants Movie every day at 1pm. We managed to check out the Muppet Movie last month and it was a lot of fun.

 Posted by on August 7, 2006 at 11:19 am

Austin's Day of Infamy – Part 3

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Aug 012006
 

Too many new stories today not to start a new post:

Check out Part 1 and Part 2.

 Posted by on August 1, 2006 at 6:09 pm

Remember When?

 Family  2 Responses »
Aug 012006
 

Today is not only the 40th anniversary of the UT Tower shootings, but it’s also MTV’s 25th anniversary. SuicideGirls has a post on some of the highlights. The Wife and I noticed that VH1 was re-running the first day of MTV programming last night. It’s pretty much common knowledge at this point, but who knows what the first video was? Many remember the name of the song, but you get extra points for naming the band. No googling!

We didn’t get cable at my house until 1985. Prior to that, my only real exposure to MTV was on the a school ski trip to Breckenridge in 1984. I remember everyone drooling over the video for “Like a Virgin” and the Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest that they were advertising like crazy. I also happened to run across a video for Rush’s “Distant Early Warning” last night, which is from the same era and remains one of my favorite Rush songs.

The rush of MTV nostalgia capped off and weekend full of catching up and trips down memory lane. One of my high school friends (high school, middle school and college, actually) got married here in Austin on Saturday and nearly a third of my graduating high school class was in town. We were a small class, only 30 guys total. Yep, guys. It was an all boys school. It ran fifth grade through twelfth grade, although I started there in sixth. It was run by hungarian monks, making for an unusual school experience to say the least. We took a fair number of pictures of everyone and their families (this is one of those times when Flickr’s ability to add notes comes in handy). It’d be tough to track down a shot from school of the ten of us. I might have a class picture somewhere, maybe I can scan it and photoshop it to match the stuff we took this weekend. That’d be pretty sweet.

 Posted by on August 1, 2006 at 9:38 am

Austin's Day of Infamy – Follow-Up

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Jul 312006
 

I wrote last week about tomorrow being the 40th anniversary of the UT Tower Shooting. I’ve been updating that post periodically over the past week as new posts have cropped up. I’ve got a few more today:

Lastly, thanks to the Austinist for marking my original post as one of their Best of the Austin Blogs picks last week.

Check out Part 1 and Part 3.

 Posted by on July 31, 2006 at 10:19 am
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