:: December 31, 2001
One of the most inspired moments in the history of the The Austin Chronicle is the Dec. 31, 1999 issue, the theme of which was "Party of One: Your Guide to New Year's Home Alone." Though the story package was more a response to the pressure of having to do something spectacular for the big millennium shift, its themes apply to any New Year's. Master food writer Greg Beets' "I Eat Alone" is a classic:
The good folks at Marie Callender's make a tasty Yankee Pot Pie that contains 60% of the RDA for sodium and an astounding 105% of the RDA for saturated fat. This is the kind of foodstuff I want to end a century with.
More suggestions for losers' New Year's activities: Do laundry, wallow to music of Nillson, or "Find mates for all your single socks. Fail to see the irony."
And Happy New Year to you! May this one not be as jerky as the last two have been. ::
:: December 27, 2001
John Guedel, an early television pioneer (with emphasis in the game show and comedy arts), died earlier this month. His obituary in the New York Times is excellent and hilarious. On his early years:
Mr. Guedel came up with the idea of writing a few words of advice and encouragement to anyone who appeared in the papers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded. He also began sending off short stories to magazines, and received 116 rejection slips.
These were followed by "a long stream of successes -- two," he told TV Guide. "I sold a joke for $5 and a story for $15," he said. "I was in." ::
As someone who has seen Kenny more recently than all you suckers out there (Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo, March 2001, take that!) , I say Kenny #6 doesn't deserve to be a pimple on the Kenny-butt of Kenny #1 or even Kenny #6. So why is he currently two points ahead in the polls? Please help remedy this situation. Vote. ::
:: December 23, 2001
Hey, it's Festivus! Happy Festivus, everyone! ::
Build your own Shockwave slot car track and then race your car against one controlled by a cockatoo. This one is especially meaningful to me since so much of my California youth was spent at the track with my dad and brother. SLOT CARS TOTALLY RULE. Too bad I shunned being a racer myself in favor of playing Donkey Kong and Crystal Castles. (Found via Coudal Partners, also I think the slot car site doesn't work on Macs but I could quite possibly just be stupid) ::
:: December 21, 2001
Everyone knows and loves clip art, but have you experienced the magic that is clip content? If you feel uninspired to write, say, a weblog entry of your own, Napsnet is here to help. Here in the ol' sweatshop we get Napsnet's awesome retro-looking monthly newsletter called "News to Use," from which you can clip the articles for use in your own print publication. One April Fool's Day, back when we were still in the days of pasting up copy onto flats, our publisher filled up all the editorial holes in the paper with these stories, and I so wish we had gone to print with it, but he was just playing a clever game of brinksmanship.
Here's just a sampling of the free and copyright-free content (plus matching clip art/stock photo) that is yours for the taking:
[Exclamation points mine.] ::
:: December 20, 2001
I remain this afternoon a little emotionally drained from spending last night tending to Boutros-Boutros Collie, as she required frequent trips to the outside to vomit (this was of course after unloading the bulk her poor stomach's content at our sleeping feet after first trying unsuccessfully to wake Bryan, who had fallen asleep on the couch, and me, who was cocooned in bed). At 5am I huddled with the only remaining unbarfed-upon blanket watching he Candian station Newsworld International's coverage of a big cricket match between England and India. The dog seemed fine after an hour or so. But, as you well know, once you're confronted with doggie upchuck, it's one of those things that haunts you all day long. So in honor of the occasion, let's read the transcript of a well-known but worth-revisiting call from Daniel Manus Pinkwater (the best children's author in the world) to Car Talk on the topic of canine mobile eructation. ::
:: December 19, 2001
Just when I was wondering where all the high-art concept restaurants were. Oh. Don't read German? Try this. (Another lift from Metafilter.) ::
Confidential to my Secret Santa: Thanks! You're so kind. The person whose Secret Santa I ended up being is a 19-year-old Floridian porn aficionado, or maybe a fat old guy pretending to be a 19-year-old porn aficionado. I sent her Heart's Greatest Hits, though it was a tough decision between that and some of her other wishlist items, like Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!. Who am I to deny her membership in the Cashflow Community? Don't look too closely, you may fall into a trance ... ::
:: December 18, 2001
The Empty Bowl (The Definitive Source for All Your Cereal Needs) this month interviews Dan the Automator about his relationship with cereal, past, present, and future. A sample:
What's the most popular cereal in the year 3030?
Dan the Automator: Microsoft ::
More proof that Scrabble is inferior to Boggle. (Link via Boing Boing.) ::
:: December 17, 2001
Slate has an entertaining article about fake meats. Author Dahlia Lithwick gathered friends and served a three-course meal of faux pig, poultry, and beef products: "The trick is, as I quickly learned, not to explore all of them at once. While some fake meat products are in fact pretty tasty, attempting to eat 13 of them at one sitting is an activity best undertaken with a fake stomach." See now I've been a vegetarian for over a decade because of one too many traumatic encounters with gristle during my childhood, so you won't exactly see me cheerleading for the Soysage team. I do, however, wish to take this forum to defend the Morningstar Farms "Breakfast Strips." The trick is eating it hot and crisp off the grill, even though it is true that the stuff "bear[s] a rather distressing resemblance to something Play-Doh might have generated in its Fuzzy Pumper Barber and Beauty Shop, in that they are engineered with a strip of fake white pig fat down the centers."
Even though it shouldn't have, the article reminded me of my ex-comrade Meredith Phillip's experiment making a turducken. This season, why not throw a tofurkey inside the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey, making it a tofurducken? ::
:: December 16, 2001
These were under "communist" and/or "propaganda."
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This one is my inspiration, my coup d'etat. You do need to see the bigger version (to do so, click on the picture) in order to fully appreciate what's going on here. They're local carpet entrepreneurs -- I don't know which ones -- who have just won some prize -- I don't know what for. Note that the Texas flag in the background is made out of carpet. The lady's expression is priceless, as is her lapel pin.
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I like in this one how almost everyone has their mouth open, even the Doughboy. It's my default expression when someone is taking a picture of me.
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I like this one because it's promoting liquor, yet in such an unexpectedly lo-fi way. Looks like they're trying to shake Jager's associations the fatherland and hunter's lodges in the Black Forest in favor of hot weather, sexy ladies, and fast cars.
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This is John, the official taster for Dreyer's Ice Cream. He travels across the country to hang out in grocery stores, answer questions, and offer samples of his company's products. To interview him, we were to show up in the frozen food aisle of a local grocery store at an appointed time.
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:: December 15, 2001
A local satellite TV company has "declared war" on cable and is offering a "daisy cutter" promotion. I just thought that was weird. ::
:: December 5, 2001
Every once in a while the Hill Country Nudists have an "Introduction to Nude Recreation" talk. My writer who processes these listings tagged the blurb with "Winter be damned, family-oriented nudity for all!", and that's why I love her. And then today, I come across this: A study showing that nudists are mostly white, middle-class people who are, despite their party line, just as snotty about other people's bodies as the next person. Yeah, buddy! NO FAT CHICKS! ::
:: December 4, 2001
Oh hells yeah! The Sifl & Olly lost third season is out on DVD, and can be purchased through the official S&O site. If you're not familiar with the show, let me recommend the many sites on which sock puppet devotees have collected just about every second of every episode in mp3 form: Try The Sifl & Olly Archive (probably the best organized), Sifl-n-Olly.net (warning: it's rotten with popup ads), or Sifl & Olly Sock Zone. This clip's a classic. You may start with it.
Also: Apple interviews Liam Lynch, half of Sifl & Olly's creators. It's as much about pimping Apple products as it is about the history of the show, but worth reading. ::
BoingBoing pointed to this great and rather cheeky Washington Post article that delves into the mysterious world of the Freemasons, focusing on the organization's rapid decline in membership. An excerpt:
Bored, I leave my seat and wander around the hall. A lot of bored Masons are wandering around, too. They wear caps of various colors -- black, white, red, blue -- each indicating a different Masonic rank. But they all have one thing in common:
They are old.
Some of them are very old. They lean on canes or hobble on creaky legs. They huff and puff as they climb the convention center's steep stairways and some of them look like they might not make it.
I look around for anyone who appears to be under 40. No luck. Under 50? Maybe one or two. Despite the Kramer factor, the TV generation just isn't there.
Generation X is a particularly tough demographic for the Masons. Could it be, though, that Austin has its own recuiting center? Let's see ... an indie record store, owned by a gentleman older than your average indie rocker. The word on the street is that the name of the store has something to do with "RPMs" of "vinyl" ... shyeah, right. ::
:: December 3, 2001
Dozens of captioners (yes, the people responsible for the "closed captioning for the hearing impaired") talk about their experiences working marathon shifts to cover the events of 9/11. (Link via Metafilter) ::
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