Wednesday, July 20, 2011

There's something you don't see every day

At least not even in my relatively upscale neighborhood. As the wife and I were driving past Ogden Avenue, right on the border between Downers Grove and Westmont, we saw the lot of a car repair shop that had parked on its lot corner: a Mercedes, and Jaguar, and... a Rolls Royce.
Now I'm not sure that I've ever seen a Rolls on the road at all before, let alone in a repair shop. This is in spite of the fact that the shop is located across the street from a Bentley dealer.
According to what I know, and I'll admit that sometimes isn't a lot, the urban legend goes that whenever a Rolls "fails to proceed" (they never do such commonplace things a "break down," yew know), a factory representative will arrive nearly instantaneously to effect repair. It certainly wouldn't do for the silver Lady to be seen in a common breakdown yard sharing space with some tawdry German hussy, or even, >gasp!< a Hyndai.
Well, the car was gone the next day, though the Jag was still there.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Whadya got when ya got no lights?

So two weeks ago we suffered through a major blackout caused by the storm through Downers Grove that was only later defined to be a Tornado. While we only lost a few tree branches, not even the worst storm damage our trees had suffered, parts of the village were ripped up pretty good. The park near us had so many downed braches being pushed to the sidewalk, it looked for a while like you could pretend to be walking along the tops of the trees in a rain forest. Until the leaves started to wither away, revealing the ugly torn branches underneath.
What we did have back at the ranch was a power outage that lasted just over 24 hours. This is longer than we've ever been without power in our Chicago area dwellings. For the most part, any storm usually knocked us out for an hour. So we just figured we wouldn't need to take extraordinary measures to save our refigerator, like buying bagged ice, until it was too late. Besides, many of the nearest stores were also still without power.
Well, we mostly ended up tossing leftovers and opened packages. The guides we consulted said anything in a chest freezer was probably good for up to 48 hours, but I'm the one taking those chances here.
We did discover what resources we still had available while we had no electricity.
  • Landline Phones. Sure, the cordless sets in our house were knocked out. Luckily I still had one ole fashioned receiver plugged in, in the basement.
  • Cell Phones. We weren't foolish enough to try and get a signal during the actual storm. But of course our cells had enough juice to take us to the next day, when we could still drive to work and plug in the phones to recharge there.
  • Hot water. You don't think much about it, but a basic gas water heater depending on a pilot flame has no electrical components. Hot showers all around!
Of course we can only be happy about these amenities because it was not humid and in the 90s after the storm hit. Even after the power came on, we went out to eat until the refrigerator could be properly sorted through. I was surprised to find stores and eateries along the main drag on Ogden Ave. were still without power. I can imagine the seafood department workers at Jewel or Dominick's getting called as soon as the power went off: "Get in here! If we don't have power in 20 minutes, we have to start dumping the scallops! Then the clams!"
One thing we did discover, with a couple of kids in the house, was the need to keep kid drinks around with a longer shelf life. In fact, the power finally came back on while I was at Jewel, picking up juice boxes, cans of evaporated milk, and those asceptic containers of Horizon Organic Milk, and just for a change, some "Almond Milk." Plus a Sam Adams Summer variety pack for Daddy.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Hiding out and Hanging out

So, I'm still not Wi-Fi enabled and mobile. But I expect to be shortly. And I'm thinking now of locations to hide or hang out while wasting time surfing the net doing my important writing.
My detached garage has no electricity, though it might be within reach of my Mac Mini's Air Port. But let's say you just want to go someplace away from the usual coffee shops and just sit in a quiet spot?
Here is:
#1 College Extension Campus Buildings
My current temp assignment is at the "Naperville Campus" of Northern Illinois University. A nice big, recent building along one of the many Corporeta lining the tollway. During the summer its practically empty except for the occasional seminar. You can be it's Wi-Fi enabled. And it has plenty of lounging areas besides the classrooms. Pretty much anyone can walk in, and there's a small cafe, too.
Now I haven't tested the Wi-Fi, and it may be you need to be a registered student to access it, so you might be SOL if you want free internet, or have a data plan handy. And while there are a few of these "Campus" buildings in local downtowns, I'm thinking a lot of them are a bit of a drive from anybody's residence. But of you really need a few hours of peace and quiet, here's a possibility.

Friday, April 08, 2011

Commodore USA returns with new C-64

Your favorite first computer is baaack!

Monday, April 04, 2011

Another "rediscovered" Warner Brothers wartime cartoon

Another Warner Brothers military film rediscovered: The Cartoon Brew site discusses this film: cartoonbrew.com/classic/grampaw-pettibone-by-warner-bros-cartoons.

Much lesser-known than the Pvt. Snafu, cartoons for the Army, the Grampaw Pettigrew character was thought to have been created by the UPA studio for Navy training films, but Brew researchers found the first of these was definitely Warner Brothers, probably Frank Tashlin directed, definitely Carl Stallings music.

Start of the cartoon has some rather limited animation, though it carries the precautionary tale well: a bomber pilot so focused on his bombsight while diving toward his target, that he forgets to check his altimeter, and blam! To we who are many years removed from the war, the sequence evokes the Rebel X-Wing pilots trying to sight that thermal exhaust port on the Death Star. If only that pilot had trusted The Force.

The other half of the film is said Grandpa (an aircraft mechanic?) lecturing the audience about carelessness. One gets the impression that someone higher-up might have thought Pvt. Snafu getting killed in humorous ways from his own ineptitude was taking the vital message they wanted to convey too lightly.

Side note: "Grampaw Pettigrew" was created by Robert Osborn, who illustrated thousands of posters and other educational materials for the Navy. There's an appreciation of him here: www.cartoonbrew.com/comics/the-largest-on-line-stash-of-robert-osborns-dilbert
He main educational creation was a screw-up Navy pilot named "Dilbert," which soon became the slang term for screw-up throughout the Navy, and which Scott Adams has said was where he got the name for his comic strip from. Another trivia trifecta for today!

Visit the image or link below to view the footage:
 
 

Monday, March 21, 2011

Three topics you should never bring up in polite discussion

Religion, politics, and Superman vs. Flash.

DC Universe: The Source » Blog Archive » Who’s the Fastest?

Probably should add to that:
Hulk vs. Thing
Thor's hammer (unstoppable force) vs. Juggernaut (Immovable object)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Iconoscope No.1: Star Wars Episode IV | DozBlogThing

When I'm at work and find these things, I can't post to Facebook, so here you go: Star Wars retold using icons.
Iconoscope No.1: Star Wars Episode IV | DozBlogThing

Monday, January 24, 2011

Comics Code Authority is dead - Boing Boing

Comics Code Authority is dead - Boing Boing
It's not yet confirmed that the Comics Code Authority will still continue in some form; presumably not, as its membership was representatives from the very publishers that submitted to its authority.
While some will look at the practice of the CCA as "censorship," the dividing lines are not as clear: publishers had to right not to submit their comics for Code approval, in fact Dell/Western proclaimed their standards were more stringent than the Code, thus why sully their reputations buy putting the seal on their covers.
But when the Code was first adopted in the 1950s, other publishers that tried going without it quickly found that distributors would not rack their comics if they weren't Code approved. Those that couldn't adapt went out of business. Bill Gaines canceled all his comics, made MAD into a magazine, and thrived.
So that's an example of censorship by the free market. One can argue that's even more egregious than censorship by self-appointed committee. Most movie chains still won't book a film that doesn't carry an MPAA rating, and we've seen how the movie rating board thinks a movie full of gory violence can be PG-13, but if that same movie shows a sex scene, or uses a common word for sex, it's an R. Or consider that Nat King Cole had a variety show on NBC for over a year; that finally closed down because no national sponsor could be signed, and TV staions in the South refused to clear it.
That's your free market at work.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Best analysis of a failed "Star Trek" movie by its writer

http://www.metafilter.com/99091…

It's easier to follow the links in this article than to track to the original articles it cites. Basically, Michael Pillar, "Star Trek: TNG's" show runner, detailed what went wrong with "Star Trek: Insurrection."

While I might complain that I just now realized the final plot of the movie was swiped by "Avatar," is it better than the original idea of swiping from "Heart of Darkness?" or rather "Apocalypse Now?"

Commenters in the article point out the main problem with Roddenberry's Star Trek universe: The Federation has infinite resources and its people can get pretty much anything they want. Starship crews are all perfected human beings without the possibility for character-based conflict. The only source for conflict is people on new planets who haven't been converted to The Way; or the Borg, the Ferengi (as originally conceived) and other races who invade the Federation because they Want Our Stuff. After Roddenberry died, the staff were allowed to create some conflict among characters. Deep Space 9 threw together more than one source of conflict with the local war's detente and its intrigues, then the Founders on the other side of the wormhole, while the beloved Ferengi Quark made his nut by meeting even Federation members' appetite for avarice. And don't forget "Gold-pressed Latinum," introduced as the new hard (well, liquid) currency because it was the only substance which couldn't be duplicated by transporters.

Then again, this is the production crew that did two movies with a Villain who wanted to Blow Up the Earth simply because they had a bad day. At least Marvin the martian wanted a better view of Venus!