Apparently the trip to Paris whetted Dr. No's appetite for steak frites. I went out to dinner with Mr. Guapo and Dr. No on Saturday and what do you think we had?
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Apparently the trip to Paris whetted Dr. No's appetite for steak frites. I went out to dinner with Mr. Guapo and Dr. No on Saturday and what do you think we had?
We've all received spam filled with gibberish trying to sell us Viagra. Now Pfizer is taking that strategy to the airwaves.

The NY Times profiles Hellx's people. My favorite passage:
Riders of fixed-gear bikes are as diverse as bike riders in general. Messengers are big fixie aficionados, but more and more fixed-gear bikes are being ridden by nonmessengers, most conspicuously the kind of younger people to whom the term “hipster” applies and who emanate from certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn. You see these riders weaving in and out of traffic without stopping, balancing on the pedals at a stoplight and in the process infuriating pedestrians and drivers alike.

While I'm no fan of Obama's adoption of 1970s-era Democratic policy retreads, at least in the photos I've seen of the Democratic debate in South Carolina he isn't engaging in the horrible politician practice of pointing at people in the crowd.
Following the talks with North Korea in February, I thought that maybe the Bush administration's foreign policy had turned a corner. Leave it to Bush to create a program where there wasn't one before.
Where do they come up with these ideas? It's like a foreign policy version of bad idea jeans.
It's not been a kind season for Aussie rockers. First went Billy Thorpe. I first heard him driving over Mount Hood listening to the Alice Cooper radio show. Alice played the Aztecs' cover of "Poison Ivy", which was pretty cool. Here he is in the middle of his transition from clean-cut masher to full on hairy rocker. The ironic thing, of course, is that for fairly obvious reasons there are not a lot of Mexicans in Australia. One doesn't really consider that one way or another until looking for a burrito, which, it turns out, is not so much of a thing here. I can only imagine in the 60's being an Aztec in Australia might as well have been a Martian.
But then comes Lobby Lloyd, former Aztec who moved on to punk rock . Here he is in his psychedelic phase, pre-skinhead.
If I was Angus Young, I might take up jogging or summat, wouldn't I?
The Village Voice uses diagrams to explain "This is Why I'm Hot". Listen to the song here.

For Plantnerd:
One recent evening, Stephe Sautner sat behind his desk in the Bronx Zoo’s administratio building, hoping that José hadn’t washed away. José is an American beaver, and after Sautner discovered him, in February, during a lunchtime stroll along the Bronx River, the zoo celebrated José as the first beaver to claim New York City residence in more than two hundred years. (“Dam! The Beaver Returns to New York,” Gothamist reported.) But a month ago a tempest of rain, sleet, and snow submerged José’s lodge, a twelve-foot-long, four-foot-high engineering marvel of sticks, rocks, and mud. No one had seen him since.José’s forebears had a storied, if strained, relationship with New York. The state once claimed tens of thousands of beavers—Albany was originally named Beverwijck, “district of the beavers”—but, even if the beavers managed to elude John Jacob Astor’s traps, then deforestation, factory waste, pop bottles, and discarded tin lizzies evicted them from their watery tenements. For centuries, the best places in the city to see a beaver have been on the city seal, the ceramic tiles of the Astor Place subway station, and the Field House of the Brearley School, home of the Beavers. Tonight’s mission: find José.
Courtesy The New Yorker.
For the New Year in 2003, I resolved to drink more sparkling wine. I succeeded and have an on-going resolution to continue to drink my favorite beverage whenever possible. This year I resolved to learn about rodents, and am posting my findings on my rodent/sparkling wine/vegetable/book blog. Stop by if you have an opinion on animated rodents (Tom and Jerry vs Mickey vs Chipmunks vs Danger Mouse vs Rescuers) or happen to want to know my thoughts on a few champagnes. You can also see slug's photos of skunks, marmots, squirrels and the like.

This former gang member may be frightened of them:
Just what kind of gang was this, Mr. Nussbaum wanted to know, and should he take precautions to protect his wife, like sending her away to stay with friends?The questions, alas, did not endear him to Justice Edward J. McLaughlin of State Supreme Court.
“So do you honestly feel you’re in a position to fairly evaluate this case in view of your mindset that your wife might be in danger from an organized group of violent lesbians?” Justice McLaughlin asked.
To which Mr. Nussbaum protested, “That’s not what I’m talking about, Judge.
“When you use, when one uses, the term ‘gay,’ it generates a number of connotations,” Mr. Nussbaum said, according to the official transcript, though yesterday he said he actually used the word “gang,” not gay, and that the transcript was incorrect.
“One of them that crossed my mind was, you know, a nationally organized gang, very powerful, that could reach out and try to influence members of the jury.”
In all honesty, this sounds a bit like a misunderstanding. It's unclear to me whether Nussbaum knew they were talking about four women. Plus, I know of one woman I'm physically afraid of, much less four.

I often wonder what people were thinking when they decide to do something. I saw the photo above and thought, "Why the hell did they take a camera when they left their dorm or whatever? What were they hoping to photograph? Bloodstains?"
Needless to say, a camera wouldn't be something that I would grab following a tragedy. Mainly, though, that's because I don't own one.
When I heard that Bush would attend a memorial service for the slain VT students, my first thought was, "boy, he must be glad to have a tragedy occur for which he's not responsible." Then I learned that the shooter was an international student.
The Bush administration's visa policies: great at protecting us from musicians, bad at protecting us from homicidal maniacs.
Update: Never Mind.
...of a silly piece of technology. I don't think I will buy it -- this keyboard is Dr. No-sized.
On Saturday, I noticed that Steve's C-Town had replaced the lobsters in its fish tank with crabs. This is why. Personally, I'm happy about the switch. I could see myself buying a crab, but not a lobster and they're more fun to watch.
Total time from landing to getting home: Three and a half hours. Still, Paris rocked. Photos later.
This comment was recently added to a photo of Mrs. 00soul on her wedding day by somebody/thing called Czolgolz:
And to think I knew her back when she was a man. Way to live the dream, Steve! ~~~~
Check out other comments on wedding photos from Czolgolz here.

It's a cold and rainy day in New York City. Every trashcan that you pass has at least one broken umbrella in it, ruined by the gusting wind. As I was getting my morning coffee at Juilliard, the cashier looked at my dripping coat and asked, "where's your umbrella?" I responded with, "in a trashcan at 65th and Broadway."
Being surrounded by performing artists at Lincoln Center has its little joys, though. As I was walking across the plaza this morning, there was a woman walking in front of me with a brightly patterned umbrella and striking rubber boots. Halfway across the plaza, a sudden gust of wind caught her umbrella and turned it inside out. Without breaking stride, the woman performed a graceful pirouette that popped the umbrella back into shape. It was sublime.
The photograph is from Nijinsky Through A Window a piece about the Ballets Russes dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.
Of the overseas adventure can be found here.
Personally, my favorite nugget so far has been buying Imperial Leather shaving cream. I can almost feel my upper lip stiffening up. None of that smooth gel for sensitive skin stuff for me, mate.
The New York Public Library, at least the research libraries where I work, is very similar to the Big Three U.S. automobile manufacturers. Both industries share a heavily unionized aging workforce that fears change. In addition, the attitude among the research libraries staff is that "we're NYPL. We'll always be important -- people don't have any place else to go." Yes, attendance is down, but the staff can come up with a million and one excuses why this is the case. The only reason they don't give for the attendance decrease is that attendance is down because nobody wants the services that they're providing.
Instead of seeking continual improvement, a large percentage of the staff has just settled into their jobs; doing the same things that they were doing twenty years ago. The structure of the LPA hasn't changed since its formation 50 years ago and the NYPL as a whole is organized in the same way it was at its creation 100 years ago. While NYPL will never be the Toyota of information management, I want to help remodel the library so that it is sustainable and provides the services that people want.
The Library for the Performing Arts has internal bulletin board. Here's a short excerpt from a message that somebody posted to the board yesterday:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: brian pickett *An Open Letter Concerning the Recent Occurrences of Censorship…* Last month a group of public high school students in Wilton Connecticut were told by their principal that they could not perform "Voices in Conflict," a play they wrote based on the words of soldiers serving in Iraq because it could be construed as "anti-war" and might upset the audience. Principal Timothy Canty went on to suggest that the students didn't "know enough" and didn't have the right to speak about the war. The play includes the words of a 19 year old Wilton graduate recently killed in Iraq. Within the same month at John Jay High School in Lewisboro, NY, three student actors were suspended because they dared to use the word 'vagina' in their reading of the critically acclaimed play, "The Vagina Monologues." Their principal, Richard Leprine, said the girls were punished because they had "disobeyed orders" in speaking the word. "The Vagina Monologues" often draws criticism from conservative groups where it is performed. More recently, recalling last year's controversy at the New York Theater Workshop, the board of the Mosaic Theatre in Miami has announced that "My Name is Rachel Corrie" will be pulled from their season, despite a committed artistic team and initial support for production, which was to be performed in repertoire with Heather Raffo's "9 Parts of Desire." A subsequent press release from the theater cited objections from an impassioned, vocal minority in the community. Isolated, these occurrences might reflect local discomfort about a particular issue. But viewed as part of the political landscape of today's America, these cancellations cease to be isolated events and begin to highlight a frightening reality- that in today's climate of atrophied public discourse, artists are increasingly subject to censorship based on the content of their work. James Presson, a 16 year old actor in "Voices of Conflict" told the New York Times, "Our school is all about censorship. People don't talk about the things that matter." Sadly, this problem goes well beyond the walls of a Connecticut high school. Indeed, this silence on "things that matter" has pervaded even the most respected of cultural and educational institutions.
The post, cut and pasted from an e-mail, goes on like this forever with absolutely no formatting. In a comment to the post, I described how to create paragraphs in HTML and pointed out some online HTML tutorials. I received this e-mail in response:
Thanks for your msg. Wish I had the inclination and savvy to learn to do what you suggest. My previous attempts to format articles in that on-line forum all came to naught so, figuring the information is what matters more, I no longer try.
When somebody who works for an institution whose entire mission is to MAKE INFORMATION ACCESIBLE TO OTHER PEOPLE says they don't have the inclination to make information accessible and they no longer try, I want to HIT THE CEILING! Is it any wonder that attendance is down across the board at NYPL and the library is on its way to irrelevance when this is the attitude of the staff?
From the Outdoors Section of today's LJW:
A bicycle built for two
Couple finds happiness on two wheels
You might recognize the controversial 'happy couple' as Jebus' Mom & Dad McBride. They forwarded the article noting, particularly, the comments section.
In other not so important news, Julian's gone.
A publisher recently paid $1.25 million for a book about a rescued cat that has lived in a small Iowa town's library for nearly two decades. The co-authors are going to be one of the library's librarians and an editor from the publisher of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books.
I think I'll skip this sure to be heart-warming and life-affirming book and stick with the novel about a rat that lives in a bookstore and watches porn from Madison resident Sam Savage.
In my blogging fervor last night, I forgot to include a random link that E came across somewhere. This didn't so much contribute to the strangeness of the week, but did add a little comic flair to the proceedings. Warning: Easter joke within; may not be fit for all ages and/or faiths. It is safe for work.
This post is going to be long. Consider how brief and to-the-point my comments usually are... You have been warned.
Tuesday, about 8:30am:
I'm running behind getting my shit together to leave for work in the morning. This is more commonly the case than not ever since the advent of Beatrix. (Can I get a witness from the 4me family?) I'm walking the dogs around the yard, urgently asking them to Just Pee, Already (don't laugh: I've actually managed to teach Jacques the command word "crap", and it works). Once they've done their thing, I'm headed back to the back door when two guys in jeans and t-shirts get out of a nice pickup they've parked on the wrong side of the road and walk towards me. "Hi. Is this your house? Do you have a second?"
"I have about two," I respond, thinking they're going to tell me how I'm a heathen sinner and ply me with pamphlets or something. But then they're not dressed well enough for that, so I'm confused. And in a hurry. "We're police officers, and we want to talk to you about the apartment complex over there." The short one shows me an ID card and nods in the direction of the apartments across the street. You'd think they were running an illicit doughnut shop in there given the number of cop cars we've seen in the last three years since we moved in. "We'd like to do some surveillance on one of the apartments and we'd like to use your house. Would that be okay with you?"
We discuss the particulars for a minute or so before I say "Sounds okay by me, let's just go inside and check with my wife and see if she has any objections." We head into the house where E is on the phone. While we wait for her to finish, only a matter of about two minutes, a Ford Explorer-looking SUV thing (they all look alike to me) pulls into my driveway, which is just outside the back door and the kitchen where we're all standing. The two cops look very interested. I suggest it's probably just turning around in the driveway, and sure enough, the truck starts to pull back out again.
[screech! crunch!] Loud noises that you're not supposed to hear during normal driving conditions are heard from just outside the door. We open the door to check things out and see that the truck has run over my bike, which I'd locked to the handrail outside the door, bending the back wheel into an interesting but non-circular shape. The truck keeps on backing out as if nothing's happened. The cops push out the door past me yelling "Hey. Hey! HEY! Stop!" The truck stops, and the cops (who still haven't identified themselves to the driver) say Look what you did to my bike and Give me your driver's license. The girl says "This is my mom's truck - my license is in the other car." So cop number two gets on the phone while cop number one shows her his ID card and gets serious. Turns out she's 16 (so should be in school), has a passenger (who it turns out the cops already know from prior experience), is driving someone else's car without a license. And she trashed my bicycle. Things just got interesting. I ask "Do you guys just want to handle it from here?" "Yeah, we'll take care of it." The last thing I hear as I head back inside is, "Okay, now you're fuckin' with me. Out of the truck." I look out the window once I'm in and see cop number 1 standing in the road shaking his necklace badge in the girl's face. I get out the cellphone to call work and say I'm gonna be a little late today.
I wander outside after a while to see if they still want to talk about the surveillance thing and cop number 1 says they'll just come back tomorrow if that's okay - things are too complicated and weird right now. Meanwhile, the passenger is trying to talk to me from a short ways off, trying to buy the bike off me - "Dude - how much you want for the bike? Come ON. How much?" I thought but didn't say, "Dude, the chick you're with is playing hookie from school, driving a car she can't prove is owned by anyone in her family, and driving without a license. This whole thing is no longer about the bike." I didn't have the heart to tell anyone that I'd been talking to E only the day before about trashing the thing and buying a new one. This bike has been sitting out all winter locked to that rail and rusting since I planning on getting rid of it anyway. It was a graduation present - a high school graduation present - and I figure I'm due a new set of wheels seeing as I'm now 35. So anyway, off to work.
Wednesday, 8:00am
The cops come back and we all agree that yesterday was just too weird to be real and we should forget about it and move on. We head up to the top floor (3rd story), which has a fine view of the apartment complex, and talk about surveillance. I mention that it's already proven to be a fine vantage point to watch a big bust go down, since you can see the cops hiding around the backs of the buildings and still get a clear view of the half-naked guy getting hauled out the front window. Turns out they just want to set up a camera for a couple of days and watch people coming and going from a dealer's apartment. We set up a time for them to come back that evening and get set up.
When they return, there's an extra guy and a very spiffy camera setup that they install in one of our windows. The zoom lens can read the lettering on a 30-day-I-just-bought-this-car tag on the far side of the apartment lot, so things are looking good. They set the laptop to record and leave.
Friday
E is taking exams all day (comprehensives to finish her master's) so I'm taking the day off to watch Beatrix. The cops are coming at some point today to fetch the camera gear so they can set it up somewhere else for the weekend. When I get a chance, I check my email, and find a couple of real gems in my Inbox. They're short (shorter than my stories), so I'll just put them here in their entirety, with identifying features redacted:
From: [...]@aol.com
Subject: S[...] and E[...] Bober want to hear from you
Hey...I happened to be home just now when it popped into my head for the 100th time to google your name and see where you'd landed after disappearing without a word from CNN. Boom...here you are! Still at Az. State U.?
We were devoted viewers and felt ripped off by CNN. I found your website - Aaron and E[...] Brown - but when I tried to click on to your material (I'm pretty klutzy with the computer), I apparantly got your e mail address instead...so I don't know if there is still a website or not. I'll try to go back and see where I went wrong as soon as I finish this.
I like the idea of an intelligent interview program that you would host. I don't see or hear much that qualifies as intelligent probing for honest material. Our general population seems to incline to histrionics, softball freebies, of talking point newspeak, so maybe intelligent material would not sell. Still, inquiring minds would tune in, even if we're a minority. We would make your show a priority.
Okay...let me know if you're active and I'll sign up.
From: [...]@aol.com
Subject: S[...] bober, again
Ha! I finally got it right. Got into your photo gallery...the violinleaf is excellent! I'm imressed...strong image. I'll get more into your site as time allows. And what is your speaking calendar? Any Denver area dates?
I'm a communicator, corresponder, writer, therapist, and constant mountaineer. My serious amateur photography aims for the ephemeral and the expository in the high country of the Colorado Rockies...some would say flavored with occasional mysticality. My professional web site is at s[...]@aol.com. I'm always interested in dialog. ... regards...s[...]
First of all, the guy's an AOL user. Secondly, he thinks his email address is where his "professional web site" is. (I found his real web address - email me for it if you're curious.) Now, I've had people before remark upon the similarity between my name and the name of the guy who used to work for CNN. I even remember the day he was promoted to a more prominent job (not yet Anchor Man) at ABC News when I was in college. The paper had a blurb about him, and someone cut it out and pinned it to my door at 110 Stephenson. So that's not new. What is new is someone reading my personal web page and actually thinking they've found the The Other Aaron Brown. You know, the one who's likely to be a turd, but who may or may not be "one bad dude in a slobber" - my absolute favorite from that list.
So anyway, back to Mr. Bober. I've debated about what to write back to him and I'm tempted to write nothing at all, thinking that such would be the reaction of The Other Aaron Brown if he'd gotten these random email messages from some mystic photographer in the Denver area. I'm also thinking that this strategy is, aside from engaging in outright deception, the one most likely to produce another entertaining email message in my Inbox. Mostly, from what I've read of this guy, I'm just not really interested in having any kind of ongoing conversation with him.
Sunday, 9:00pm
I need to pack up a breast pump and get it ready to mail. Any one of you who are not married, or even married but don't have kids, especially the guys, I'll give you a hundred dollars in cold cash if you can honestly say you've imagined yourself ever ever saying that. Nonetheless, as of about an hour and a half ago this evening, it was true for me. The damn things are expensive, so my cousin had kindly loaned us hers so E could use it when Beatrix was born. It hasn't been used lately, and my cousin just gave birth to her second child, so we need to send it back. I'm collecting all the pieces and parts (follow the link - you'll see) and this involves me turning on a rarely-used light at the back of our bedroom and pulling out the power brick from the outlet in a corner of the room where we haven't gone since it was plugged in about seven months ago. I'm reaching for the brick and stop suddenly when I realize it has stuff on top of it... and the stuff is moving. I've found an ant colony. In my bedroom. The ants, perhaps trying to escape all the rainstorms we've had lately, have moved twenty feet up the wall of the house, found a way in through the power outlet hole, and have set up camp right there. The top face of the power brick is covered in little white ant eggs, looking like a dusting of tiny rice grains, and the eggs are surrounded by a ring of guardian ants. I lean in for a close look in a panic that I've found a termite nest, but they're just ants. There are hundreds more coating the power outlet cover, and I've now solved the mystery of the two or three ants I found in the bathroom earlier that day. It was a scouting mission. It's lucky we never take food up to the bedroom to eat.
The ant nest leaves me with a bit of a paradox - the vacuum is the easiest way to get rid of the ones I can see, and I'd rather vacuum dead ones than live ones, but spraying them would a) glue them to the wall, making them harder to vacuum; b) leave crap on my cousin's power brick that I'd have to clean off later; and c) I'd be spraying a live power outlet in my bedroom. So I'm putting this off til tomorrow morning when I can deal with the issue in the daylight. [sarcasm:] I can hardly wait to see how many more ants and eggs are hiding inside the outlet box behind the cover plate. (sigh)
So that was my week.
The NYT has an article about the debate in Iraq over what to do with Saddam's public sculptures. Now, the US/UK coalition may not be able to stop sectarian violence, but you couldn't ask for two more knowledgeable nations when it comes to making bronze art disappear.
This week's episode of Studio 360 was dedicated to the influence of the Great Gatsby. My favorite part of the show was this interaction between the host, Kurt Andersen and Patricia Hampl:
Hampl -- "I went to the same school that Fitzgerald's mother had attended...and there was a feeling of his shadow being around, however, he wasn't yet a figure that was accepted and lionized and made much of."Andersen -- "This was in the 1950s?"
[brief pause]
Hampl -- "Sixties."
This afternoon in Bryant Park, there was a rally and march to free the Cuban Five.
Post when you land, and send photos!
There's an urgency to New York real estate, like the enemy has surrounded us and survival depends on holding on to every inch of land. Excerpt from an email from a local real-estate brokerage forwarded by a friend:
"Buyers also seemed more willing to pay higher prices for new condominiums in Brooklyn. Corcoran said the average overall prices in Brooklyn rose 22 percent, to $628,000 in the first quarter of this year from $514,000 in the first quarter of 2006." ---New York Times (4/3/2007)"In Brooklyn, the city's most populous borough, the median price of all apartments rose 12 percent to $560,000, according to Corcoran's report."
It's the same reason people can ask each other here what they paid for their place, how much they put down, and gosh, isn't that a lot of money, anyway? It's a chance to collectively shake our heads in disbelief. People in Kansas say, "that's a shitload of money to pay for a place to live," and people here say that, too.
Our friend Sarah mentioned that she knew of a place in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Kensington. Three bedrooms, two baths, pre-war (read: wood floors and hard white walls) (and don't you love the phrase "pre-war"? Which war? Like the building miraculously survived the mortar fire), ground floor in a safe neighborhood. The kitchen was Medieval, but hey, so was Stephenson's. Subway commute to Manhattan: 25 minutes to half an hour. Price: $330,000 or so. Verdict: A steal.
It was hard to turn down. We could "afford" it -- if we radically changed our lifestyle. Which would have been possible, since the neighborhood shuts down at 9 pm so there's no place to eat or drink. The real estate market has cooled off somewhat but it's still a fierece place of unebelieable prices and 20% down.
We said no anyway, though running the numbers we figured we should look for something. Our decision came down to whether we wanted to spend twice as much per month on housing to live in a place that's half as fun. So we rejected the homeowning madness. But for how long?
I just got this e-mail from Brooklyn for Barack:
Hi,
A group of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens Obama supporters are meeting Wednesday, April 11th to begin to mobilize our newfound hope and opportunity to take back our government and play an active role in our nation's politics.
You signed up to volunteer on brooklynforbarack.org, and we hope you will join us for a discussion to plan and organize our ideas into events and activities in our neighborhoods.
RSVP by replying to this email or online at http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/BOCOCA , where you can also join the BoCoCa for Obama group to keep up-to-date on neighborhood happenings.
Hope to see you on Wednesday.
Kay, Lewis, Deanna and Mike
I am particularly galled by the phrase "mobile our newfound hope" because it makes absolutely no sense. Maybe I'll switch to Edwards.
I was looking up the history of some funds when I came across this letter:
On December 21, 1999 my broker transferred 4 shares of Nextel Comm. stock to the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts. It was worth $376.06
I got kind of misty-eyed. Of course, they were tears of laughter.
jebus4me said:
Illiterate? I can read, I just choose not to.nokhbah said:
kindly give me the list of failed products in pakistan and why they failed and what kind of stretegies they used??????? please do reply me on my e.mail adress its my university project. thnxhellx said:
The first year or so, I felt horribly read so I started reading more of the sort of books that might make it into the ToB. Even so, I still have never read more than four books at the start of a tournament. The best part is, even though I've read a lot of good books over the course of the year, thMr. Guapo said:
The Andrew W.K. Conspiracy.Mr. Guapo said:
As usual, I haven't read any of them. I feel illiterate. Jebus, is that what it feels like to be you? But I've rediscovered reading. Dr. No bought me the final book in James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy, "Blood's a Rover," which kicks all kinds of ass. Then two Paul Theroux books, the Dexter FilMembers' Blogs
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