Author: corey

You know how there are tools that exist that make what your doing pleasurable and you find that you actually want to do whatever work is involved? For me, a while ago it was the 38 gallon butterfly $189 trash can; I seeked out trash just so I could use it.

I picked one of these up for a couple of cents back in my Boston days and I relish opening mail. The chore becomes so effortless, the sound it makes ripping open (and so cleanly!) the envelope is addictive.

Well, y’all should get one just for that alone, but I just found another fantastic use: cutting pages out of magazines. Putting those little Cargo magazine tabs in the pages works, but you have to keep the whole magazine and if you’re like me have a stack of the entire production run with little tabs sticking out just waiting for the cash flow situation to justify that $450 slim-line laptop case or whatever. This little guy rips right along the spine making a clean cut all along. I now just have a Manila envelop with the loose pages waiting for it to be accidentally discovered, say around Birthmas time. (my birthday is the day after Christmas, dual presents – hence Birthmas)

Such a strange sight. So unnatural looking.

Can you imagine that first meeting? “Well, we can take off in Florida and land in California. How do we get it back to FL? Hows about we strap it to the top of a 747?”

This comes from Slate’s explainer explaining how it is all done. I like this fact: “Due to the piggybacked plane’s lousy aerodynamics and sizeable weight, the SCA’s fuel efficiency is significantly less than that of a commercial airliner. As a result, an SCA can’t fly more than 1000 nautical miles without refueling. The trip back will take up to 12 hours of flight time spread over two or three days.”

Many more pics of the shuttle making insect love to a jumbo jet are here:  SCA Ferry Photo Collection Medium Resolution Contact Sheet

Tags: Shuttle

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Freaky Styley (1985)

1  Jungle Man …  4:09  
2  Hollywood …  5:03  
3  American Ghost Dance   …  3:44  
4  If You Want Me to Stay  4:07  
5  Nevermind  2:48  
6  Freaky Styley  z …  3:39  
7  Blackeyed Blonde  …  2:40  
8  The Brothers Cup  …  3:27  
9  Battle Ship  …  1:53  
10  Lovin’ and Touchin’  …  :36  
11  Catholic School Girls Rule …   1:55  
12  Sex Rap …   1:54  
13   Thirty Dirty Birds  …  :14  
14  Yertle the Turtle   …  3:38 

One of my favorite albums is twenty years old. I admit that on my Friendster profile I put Uplift Mofo Party Plan as a favorite, but really this is *the* album, but the title isn’t as cool. I read on AllMusic that George Clinton produced the album, which means that the group didn’t really rip off Clinton directly, but rather took the man’s direction specifically. I totally agree with the blurb author’s assertion that this is the album that Clinton could never make on his own.

Back in the day, I used to somewhat into customization of my desktop environment. But after the umpteenth new PC build, I tend to stick with a relative few changes to suit my style.

I stay with the the XP “Luna” theme and go blue for home, silver for work, olive for the laptop, and classic XP for almost all VMs and remote desktops. This makes it pretty easy to tell where I am without doing any time-wasting thinking.

Anyway, I was working on my dad’s new dual core Pentium D Gateway machine this weekend and it had this slightly cooler blue theme and I figured it was a Gateway thing, but turns out it comes with Media Center XP.

Then I ran across this Ask MetaFilter post where someone asks about it and you can download it along with some silly images in a special New Zealand XP pack direct from MS.

Another “Corey standing in to test the lighting” outtake. Magazines are working on fall issues now, which I find strange. This was for a Halloween related article — shot in a basement apartment in Brooklyn.

Went for a bike ride on Saturday across the George Washington bridge from Manhattan and up the Palisades a bit. All together a great outing. There was one snag getting from Riverside Park to the bike path for the bridge; had to make a detour the long way around the block.

Turns out that was a helpful bit of fate. As we approached the NJ side, where the bridge is still quite high, but over the little bit of low coast there was an emerging commotion. A man had jumped just prior to our arrival. Bystanders were eager to relay the details “we saw him crawl up on the railing” “landed right on his back”. You couldn’t see the landing spot due to some thick brush and trees. Not to be too callous about a tragic death, but this wasn’t a good spot to land — way too much foliage to break the fall. People have survived parachute failures and this wasn’t high enough to guarantee a quick death. Police and paramedics were quickly on the scene and we managed to get away without serious emotional scars since we missed both the jump and the gore.

Another remarkable aspect of this was the complete, total lack of news coverage. Not even a passing comment on NY-1. So sad to say, but when it happens often enough it’s no longer news.

If you take the Iraq war down to the core, you will find a deadly simple rational.

We were attacked on 9/11, the White House needed to strike back, show significant force. Afghanistan was too easy a victory. It didn’t do enough to strike enough fear. I won’t spend time caveating this Iraq war statement with endless words on the long term benefits of democracy in the middle east, regime changes, etc. I believe those all to be simply supplementary justifications of a core emotion. There is enough nuance in this argument to keep people talking forever, but check this frank piece out from The American Conservative via Matthew Yglesias on TPM Cafe:

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing–that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack–but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

So they’re saying if we are attacked by terrorists of any nationality or background on a big enough scale, Iran’s gonna get nuked, no questions asked. The whole trying-to-manufacture-evidence-of-wmd thing is too much work and hassle.

Also, for sake of hammering this point home, one of the commenters adds this nugget from last week:

(AP) — A Colorado congressman (Rep. Tom Tancredo) told a radio show host that the U.S. could “take out” Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons. … Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons. “Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites,” Tancredo answered. “You’re talking about bombing Mecca,” Campbell said. “Yeah,” Tancredo responded. [cnn]

The thing is — these quotes clearly illustrate my original point. Our war today and future wars are going to be about revenge. And I know a whole lot of Americans are fine with that.

I am 29 years old, born in 1975.

For myself and many, many people my age that I’ve talked to, when world events of childhood are mentioned, the year that comes back again and again and again is 1986.

Sprol (a blog dedicated to using Google Satellite Maps and Google Earth to exploring environmental disasters and such) today has a feature on the Chernobyl meltdown. You saw this coming, the year? 1986.

Let me outline the real common memories that come up:

1. Space Shuttle Challenger explodes. I can’t overstate the affect this had on us as kids. Many of us were watching the launch live.
2. Mets win the world series of baseball, Bears win Super Bowl XX. Both released singles on the radio!
3. Hands Across America
4. The Statue of Liberty is reopened to the public, also it’s centennial
5. Paul Simon’s Graceland released
6. Top Gun, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Stand By Me come out.

Wikipedia has a pretty good list, but I’m more interested to hear yours.

The Emily Wilson Experience presents a visual recap of the Northern State show at South Street Seaport. Click image for the full size.

Add NY summer evening heat, a faint fish market odor and rocking hiphop to your sensory cortex while viewing and you’ll get the whole event feel.

Clockwise from top left: Corey & Hesta • Sprout and Spero • set list • import Nike • on stage • glamour 

Amazing how busy the Seaport is and I don’t know anyone that ever goes there outside of some event like this.

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It is just when things at work aren’t going well (see previous post) that a host of small things collude to ruin your day.

Exhibit A, this email from our facilities people:

I was told by building management that the third elevator on the Broadway side (of the building) will not be repaired until at least the 29th of July because a part has to be manufactured by their vendor. According to building management, the elevators are so old that some parts are no longer stocked by the company that maintains their elevators. They asked me to convey their apologies for the elevator being out of service for a month.