Sunday Observations 11.17

Even though I've been told Halloween doesn't count the holiday season is fast approaching. You can tell by the damn store displays which only means the music can't be far behind. Actually I don't mind Christmas music, I have about a thousand songs on my iTunes but I only listen to them in the month of December, sometimes July. But this is all besides the point because I didn't bring up the holidays to talk about music, I have something in ways in rather extraordinary to report. Due to holiday commitments I needed a dress, yesterday I went dress shopping, I bought two dresses because my shopping partner and I couldn't agree and I wasn't about to go a second time.  One dress is black while the other is slightly longer and black, enough on the matter. That should be enough dresses to last me the rest of my life but now I may need shoes.

It being Sunday I should stay away from politics but this in a way combines sports and politics. The Washington football team should just change their name now before they are forced to do so. Longtime owner Dan Snyder says he never will change the name but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might soon have other ideas. The reasons given for not changing the name include tradition, as if it always having been called the 'Redskins' makes it right, and the team losing money. The latter reason is laughable because of all the new name merchandise the team could sell.

While I'm picking on Washington football I'll mention their quarterback Robert Griffin III, known to the world as RG3. Until he learns how to play football and wins something please just call him Robert. Robert is like the second coming of Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo, another whom the world anointed savior and one the greats but Romo has yet to win anything that matters. Romo has won just one playoff game in his ten year NFL career and is probably better known for dating Jessica Simpson a few years ago.

Joe D. Horse Capture, currently Associate Curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, had a novel idea. Instead of changing Washington's name change its emblem, to a red potato.

Sunday Observations, Sports Edition

It's the sports edition because I don't feel like getting into all the ways the world seems to be falling apart at the moment. Another reason is the time of year, this was always the time of year I obsessed about the coming hockey season.

Before I get to the sports one non-sports related item I think I'll pass on. The Penn State class of 2017 met for the first time today and includes students from 41 states and 71 countries. Classes begin tomorrow.

Penn State's field hockey and women's soccer teams start their season on Friday. The football team begins it's season Saturday in a game that will mark my first ever trip to MetLife Stadium. Penn State opens with a game against Syracuse at the Meadowlands Saturday afternoon and I shall be there along with my brother and a few others. Don't expect any photos from the game due to the new NFL and NCAA regulations which allow nothing into a stadium not resembling a large zip-lock bag. The days of sneaking beverages into a game are gone forever, just another way the terrorists have won.

Have I ever mentioned what a most awesome brother I have? For my birthday he gave me a HartnellDown t-shirt autographed by Scott Hartnell himself. For the uninformed HartnellDown is a charity started by Flyers' forward Scott Hartnell. Why is it called Hartnell Down? A few years ago a group of Flyers fans on twitter started posting with the hashtag #hartnelldown whenever Hartnell fell on the ice, mostly mocking him because he sometimes isn't the best skater in the rink. Instead of getting mad Hartnell commandeered the tag and made it his own. His foundation sells apparel and other things with the tag and donates all the proceeds to various youth sports related charities.

Admittedly it hasn't been the best of summers for the Phillies but last night they played in a rather historic game. The 7 hour 6 minute 18 inning marathon was the longest game in the Phillies storied history. It was also the longest game in Major League baseball in 25 years and tied the record for most pitchers used by both teams in a game, 20. The Phillies' final two pitchers weren't pitchers at all but a center fielder and a third basemen which may explain why the Phillies lost.

Tonight it was announced that former Penn State and NBA player John Amaechi will be Penn State's Homecoming Grand Marshall this year. Normally I wouldn't care who the Grand Marshall was but Amaechi has a bit of history I personally find important. In 2007, in his book Man In The Middle, Amaechi became the first former NBA player to come out of the closet.

Sunday Observations 8.11

This is an odd mix of things but it's Sunday and I'm cleaning up notes.

Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is the first openly bisexual member of Congress. Sinema says she was always open about her sexuality but her first comment on it as an elected official is classic. In 2005, while she was a member of the Arizona State Legislature, a Republican colleague gave a speech in which he insulted LGBT people. "We’re simply people like everyone else who want and deserve respect," Sinema said. Later reporters asked her about her comment and she answered "Duh, I’m bisexual."

Jay Leno was talking about comedy but the Republican Party could have learned an important lesson had they listened to him a few nights ago. He said that when you play to one group, a part of the audience in his case, in the end all you do is pander to that group at the expense of the rest of the group.

I enjoy Abby Huntsman on The Cycle so much more than I did Sarah Elizabeth Cupp.

Something I want to read is Five Star Billionaire, a new novel set in Shanghai and written by Malaysian writer Tash Aw. I was reading a column about it and others in the current rash of Asian superwealth novels when I saw the following line. "Does the rapid ascent of the $30,000 handbag spell some sort of apocalyptic, karmic doom? Or a societal dynastic pattern in which Asian superwealth will end up where America is now, divided and waiting for the revolution." The review was written by Chinese author Janice Y. K. Lee who resides in Hong Kong. Nice to know that the residents of Hong Kong think Americans are awaiting the revolution, they might be right.

Another book i just added to my wish list is Taipei by Tao Lin. Technically Tao Lin is an American writer but his parents are Taiwanese so I guess you could say I'm currently looking at Asian writers. But then I haven't read any of them yet, right now I'm reading The Story Of Paris by Thomas Okey which was written in 1906.

Finally a link I've been saving so long I forgot what it was, "Architecture: Pre-emptive Moves, Predemolition." It's about the New York practice of tearing the decorative pieces off of classic buildings so there is no reason to give them historic designations and clearing the way for the developer to tear down the entire building. I saved the article because it reminded me of a cool store in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. The 'store' is a warehouse next to a huge century old barn both of which are filled with things salvaged from buildings about to be torn down. Everything from doors and windows to mantels and antique crystal door knobs, this place has it all. According to it's website Oley Valley Architectural Antiques even has 150 antique bars.

I warned you it was an odd mix of topics.

Sunday Observations 8.4

So you should know by now I have a thing for movies where things go boom but rarely if ever has that included French films. Live and learn. I watched a movie called Forces Spéciales (Special Forces) which is about a fictitious hostage rescue mission into Pakistan. I have to admit I did enjoy it even if I was bit confused at times because it's in French but also English and Persian. As for the plot, well if you have ever seen the Bruce Willis movie Tears Of The Sun you get the idea, just substitute the Hindu Kush for Africa. What's also funny is that the French reporter who is taken hostage by the Taliban is played by Diane Kruger who also happened to play Marie Antoinette in the movie I mentioned last week, Farewell, My Queen. For the record Kruger is a German actress.

It may seem like a weird quirk but when I read a magazine article about a woman I always look to see if the writer and photographer were men or women. What made me think of that? Currently a short bio of Kate Upton in the June issue of Vogue which mentions her breasts quite a few times. Both the writer and the photographer were women. The same issue has a nice fashion layout by Peter Lindbergh, "Stardust." I can't say I've ever really wanted to do fashion photography but if I did I like to think it would look something like that. Maybe it's just the motorcycles, or Edie Cambell's eyes, or her short dark hair, I'm not sure.

Who says an advanced art degree is worthless? It seems more and more people are willing to pay to have someone give them a private tour of a museum or a 'cultural excursion' as it is called. A couple of examples are Art Tours in Europe and Art Smart in New York City. The going rate in New York, about $200 per hour with a two hour minimum. I could handle that kind of money but I wonder how much I would have to talk to people because, well, anti-social.

Something in the same line of thought, art degrees not money. It's that time of year when everybody comes out with a list of worst college majors. I wont bother with links but just say that there is a common thread in all of them, art degrees. All the worst ten degree or major lists include Fine Arts, Film, Photography, and Theatre. None of the lists include Art History which either means they think it's a good degree to have, highly doubtful, or they don't even want to admit it exists.

Finally my sister is off on a fishing expedition this weekend. She texted me a photo of her holding a bass she caught and I'm terribly jealous. For a change that isn't sarcasm.

Sunday Observations 7.21

At the moment the temperature is 79° so I want to quickly claim the temp is below 80° for the first time in days before it has a chance to rise. Today's high temp is supposed to be in the mid 80s, the first time in a week that it hasn't been above 90°, which will break the longest heat wave in the Village since 2002. We shall see.

A few weeks ago I had the totally brilliant idea of getting tickets for a Phillies game when they visited the Mets this weekend. Looking back it probably wasn't one of my better ideas. Granted I had no idea what the weather was going to be like but also Philadelphia sports teams have notoriously bad luck when I'm at the game. I thought things looked good after the Phillies beat the Mets 13-8 in Friday night's series opener. My positive attitude continued as I watched Jimmy Rollins hit a lead-off home run to give the Phillies the lead just a few pitches into the game. Then Cole Hamels took the mound for the first time looking like he had just stepped out of the shower and immediately gave up 3 runs to the Mets. Four hours of hundred degree heat later the Phillies had lost 5-4. It was still a good time.

One thing I noticed at yesterday's game that I'd like to mention. The Mets' home at Citi Field is a wonder of modern architecture. Built facing Flushing Bay in Brooklyn it manages to catch only the non-existent northern wind and have no shade whatsoever. Well done.

I also had a different kind of experience with a movie last night. The movie was Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la reine) a French film by Benoît Jacquot based on a novel of the same name about Versailles during the first few days of the French Revolution. While the trailer is French with English subtitles the version we saw was dubbed in English and I had a hard time following it. The only reason I can think of is that I was reading their lips meaning what I was seeing didn't go with what I was hearing, now I need to find the French version. I'd honestly always rather have a subtitled version of a film.

Another movie I saw recently was the zombie apocalypse World War Z. The movie was good but I just started reading the book because I had heard of some major ways the book and the film were different. What I have found is that the book is so much better. Actually neither the film or the book ruins it for the other because they are written in such different styles.

Last week I read a lot about Tumblr, Yahoo, and the 'quarantining' of adult blogs on tumblr. The short version is that tumblr removed adult blogs from Google and other web searches and also removed them from internal tumblr searches unless you actually follow the blog. I just had a little secret that I wanted to pass on that you may or may not know. Every tumblr blog has an archive page whether there is an archive link or not. Here is an example of one of mine. If you don't want to follow a blog yet you still want to keep track of it just bookmark the archive page. If a blog doesn't link to its archive simply add /archive to the blog's address and hit enter.

No politics today but I do have a quick question, why are so many guests on Sunday morning talk shows Republicans? I rarely watch the shows but it irritates me just the same.

7/23 update - Another tumblr idea I thought I should add to this. If your blog isn't completely adult or 'nsfw' keep tags to a minimum on 'nsfw' posts. That way they don't show up in search, nobody complains, and the gods of tumblr don't find out. Everybody remains happy.

Sunday Observations 4.28

We finally got a gorgeous spring weekend in the northeast. The way things seem to go now it will probably be the only one we get before the weather jumps right into summer so I decide it was time to check on my shore, the first time I have since Sandy. I knew it was still there but I wanted to see for myself and the need to get Foxy on the road, combined with the weather, made for a good excuse. I'll post more on what we found later.

Last Sunday HBO's Game Of Thrones finished with possibly the so far best scene of the series. I've read five of the books so I knew what was coming but Daenerys' kick ass "I understood every word you said and now you are going to die" scene was done to perfection. Here is a link to the scene, until YouTube takes it down, but the real reason for writing this was I get to use a pic of the mother of all dragons with this post. The problem with GOT is that now we probably wont see Daenerys again for a couple of weeks. Hopefully I'm wrong because that would be such a shame.

On a totally different topic the Out Magazine Gay Power list for 2013 is out and it looks like the news and political people are taking over with Senator Tammy Baldwin, Fox News' Shepard Smith, The New York Times' Nate Silver, CNN's Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow all in the top ten. You can find the complete list here. By the way, I'm not sure if that out pun was intended or not.

A few months ago there was an article in The New York Times T Magazine about a site called Gidsy which I never got around to playing with. As the article says Gidsy "enables travelers and other novelty seekers to find activities organized by what it refers to as "real people." Rather than get into it I'll let you read the article but what is fun is picking a city and searching for tours to see what comes up. Paris has a number of catacomb tours (one called the "Empire of Death" tour), a Monet's Garden bike tour, a chocolate and pastry tasting tour, and to finish the day either a pub crawl or a champagne tasting tour. A visit to New York could be highlighted by the Jewish Gangstas of the Lower East Side Tour, a mobile scavenger hunt, or a paranormal and ghost tour. After any of those tours the three hour historic pub tour, in which you "hear stories of the pubs' histories and the famous drinkers who frequented them," might be a necessary end to your day in New York. It seems like a bargain at $75 but only if drinks are included.

Have you ever read "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson? If you have you seriously need to read this article in Times about former Phillies and Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, "Rhode Island and the Fall of 38 Studios." I swear when I read the article I immediately thought of the Stephenson novel because it seemed like Schilling's company was writing its very own version of T'Rain. If you never read the novel that makes absolutely no sense but the article is worth reading if only for the political side of it.

For some unknown reason the isn't a Sunday Times to be had in South Jersey today and I have no idea how I am supposed to function without one. I suppose I'll have to make do with sticky buns and coffee.

Sunday Observations 4.14

Last Thursday the Republican National Committee held another in its series of "rebranding" retreats. It released a resolution that had passed unanimously and without any debate whatsoever. "The Resolution for Marriage and Children 2013" included the following paragraphs which I'm not even going to comment on, I think they speak for themselves. It makes me wonder what it feels like to be a political party that is about to be swept aside by history. You can read the full resolution here.

"WHEREAS, the institution of marriage is the solid foundation upon which our society is built and in which children thrive; it is based in the conjugal relationship that only a man and a woman can form;

WHEREAS, no Act of human government can change the reality that marriage is a natural and most desirable union; especially when procreation is a goal;

RESOLVED, the Republican national Committee affirms its support for marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and as the optimum environment in which to raise healthy children for the future of America."

Observations 4.14

I sat down to start writing my Sunday Observations and realized I hadn't written anything all week. My excuse is that it was a busy week. I went to a concert last Sunday night, had some work to get finished, and I had some visitors. My aunt and sister magically appeared at my door.

I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned my aunt before but I should have as she is probably one of the more interesting members of my family. In many ways I'm more like my aunt than I am my mom just as in many ways my aunt and mom are very different. Both loved art but my aunt made it her life as she graduated from two art schools and worked at a few museums including the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Never married she lived in Los Angeles and New York, at one time having an apartment just blocks from where I live now, as well as Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. The Atlanta stop I should ask her about because I never could figure that one out.

My aunt is the world traveling rebellious sister while my mom was the much more serious and at times philosophical one. In that way the two remind me a lot of my sister and I. In art my mom's interests ran more towards classical art and history while my aunt loves all things modern and abstract. When my mom lost her hair during chemo she religiously wore a Penn State cap her daughter forced on her. Last year, after being diagnosed with the same rare cancer as my mom, my aunt refused all offers from my rather large hat collection and acquired a large collection of her own, long printed scarves that flow behind her.

I love my aunt dearly so I'm happy to tell the reason for the surprise visit. As I said last year she was diagnosed with same cancer my mom had. When she started treatment her CSA-125 level was in the thousands, normal is below 35. After two surgeries, months of chemo, and some personal treatments she wont divulge her most recent test showed a level below 1 prompting her doctors to say they have never seen such a dramatic shift and even inviting her to join some sort of cancer study.

So yes, after almost having an aneurysm when I saw them at my door it was a very happy surprise visit. Still, deep down I feel like I should warn her doctors what they are getting themselves into with this study invitation.

Sunday Observations 4.6

I'm going to start by saying I have no idea what Google is doing with Chrome and by extension Google+, blogger, and all it's other web apps. My main problem? Everything is double spaced including menus and bookmarks. The bookmark spacing is what is driving me insane because I save a lot of bookmarks and now I either have to scroll through them or sort them in more folders than I already have.

We were out last night and saw a woman walking a pink poodle, I do not lie. I really need to know what kind of evil causes a person to dye their dog pink. If you have any clue please let me know.

Sometimes it's best to just avoid reading anything related to healthcare because even with Obamacare it seems the country keeps heading in the wrong direction. A headline caught my eye because it involved Express Scripts CEO George Paz and Express Scripts is the company that handles my prescriptions. The article said health plans hire companies like Express Scripts to help keep a lid on prescription drug costs. Last year Paz had a salary of $12.8 million which made me wonder if I now need a company to keep a lid on the costs of the company that keeps a lid on my prescription drug costs.

Back in November MoMA announced the acquisition of its first collection of video games in a blog post that now has over 200 comments. I'm only mentioning it now because the art world controversy it started fascinates me. I'll be the first to say I have a problem with someone standing on the street corner holding a garbage bag art, I've seen it, but there are plenty of people out there who will argue with me like I smashed the holy grail. Now you have these same people almost ill because MoMA considers video games art. Is a film art? Is architecture art? For different reasons both are so why not a video game? If Damien Hirst's spot paintings can be considered some of the greatest art in the history of man I'm sure a classic video game can be considered art too.

In an earlier post I mentioned Christine Quinn running for Mayor of New York. Lately I have been seeing articles written about her temper and arrogance as if this was a bad thing for a politician, including last week in The New York Times. For the record she has a temper and she is arrogant, probably two reasons I like her, but I have to wonder how one is even supposed to dream of being Mayor of New York without being either. Just look at the recent string of Michael Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani, and Ed Koch, three of the more arrogant politicians you will ever hear of. Now I'm sure plenty has been written about all three's arrogance over the years but not in the 'this woman has a mouth' type of way the Quinn articles are leaning. A former donor is quoted in the Times article as saying Quinn "used the ‘F’word at least 20 times." Sounds familiar.

Finally a bit of total twitter randomness, one of the better profiles I have ever seen, very short and to the point. Actor John Cusack (@johncusack, verified account), Apocalyptic shit disturber and elephant trainer.

Sunday Observations 3.17

Vivek Shraya is a musician and writer living in Toronto who one day he had a cool idea and asked people what they loved about being queer. He filmed the answers in his living room and made them into a documentary. The film became a tumblr where you can post a photo and your own answer to his question. Now it has become a book which also includes essays by Farzana Doctor, Elisha Lim, Kathryn Payne, and Marilyn McLean. The book can be ordered from his website or in Toronto bookstores if you happen to be passing through.


What I LOVE about being QUEER
Film teaser from Vivek Shraya on Vimeo.
Film and Screening Inquiries 

Observations from the Window 3.4

Hairstyle is something I have never in my life worried about, my hair is what it is, long, wild and for the most part unmanageable. Now I may not worry about hairstyles but that doesn't mean I have never thought about them. I was catching up on magazines a few weeks ago and it just struck me as funny that the two supposedly new hot styles for this spring are so different from each other. The first is perfect for me, Vogue calls it gym hair, because it's long, wild, and looks pretty much unmanageable. "The hair is meant to look disheveled," said one stylist. What it means is I could go to a salon and pay to have my hair look like it did when I walked in. The other style they call slick hair and is usually extremely short, pulled back if not, shiny, and saturated with mousse. Before you ask slick hair was in the magazine before Charlize Theron's appearance at the Academy Awards, maybe she saw it. Honestly i didn't know mousse still existed so I'll just skip this style.

Coincidentally Sunday morning's Up With Chris Hayes panel featured Liz Mair with uber-short slick hair and Stephanie Kelton looking like she had just gotten out of bed. Than again maybe that early on a Sunday it wasn't a style statement at all, maybe Kelton had just gotten out of bed.

Yes you actually just read a post about hairstyles. I had it written for some Sunday Observations that never happened and now it doesn't fit with anything I'm working on. So there it is.

Sunday Observations 2.17

This Sunday morning I'm going to be short, simple, and to the point. I woke up and found that I had been retweeted by Mika Brzezinski. So yes, I can die happy now. It's going to be a good day.

update - Not long ago after 46 hours of dancing THON 2013 came to an end. The total amount raised this year was was a record $12,374,034.46 bringing the total raised over the years to $101,477,271.88, all for the Four Diamonds Fund. I must also inform you, at my brother's insistence, that the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences raised $92,481.23 on its own, the most of any general organization. No word on the College of Arts and Architecture, not that I'm competitive or anything.

Sunday Observations 2.10

Friday I had just wanted to write a quick post to get my other drone thoughts out of the way before Nemo hit and my mind spiraled elsewhere. I started with following paragraph so you can see my mind always spirals elsewhere.

But speaking of Nemo, who the hell names a winter storm after a fish? Or maybe it's named after Captain Nemo or maybe I'm just putting too much thought into it and it's nemo as in the Latin word nemo. A storm named "no man." So you see how fast my mind spirals out of control. And now I have a Nemo post started ... but I never finished it. In the end the storm dumped a foot of snow on the Village on its way to terrorize New England where it left almost three feet of snow in some places. After the last few blizzards we had here, not to mention Sandy, a foot of powder on a weekend actually called for some fun. One lasting thought did come out of the storm though and that is damn the Weather Channel. Damn them for starting to name winter storms, damn them for naming a storm Nemo, and damn them for no longer having the hottest weather girls.

Nemo did teach me one thing. You really haven't lived until you have seen Fashion Week people trying to walk in snow in stiletto heels. It was totally worth the trip uptown just to see that rarest of social events.

Have you ever noticed Russian photographers are obsessed with big chunky furniture and Victorian settings? Do they teach that in Russian art schools or are they born that way? I mean seriously, simple and easy to look at they are not.

I was reading an article about population and found a bit of trivia. If it was concentrated as densely as it is in New York City the entire world population would fit in the state of Texas. There really is a smart ass comment in there somewhere which probably involves Rick Perry and contraception but at the moment I can't think of it. Now you might be wondering why I was reading an article from a two year old National Geographic and you would have good reason to. It was because the same month had a good article about the libraries of Timbuktu, the same libraries burned by jihadists retreating from the French in Mali. This too is how my mind spirals out of control but it seems perfectly rational to me.

Finally, Kate Upton is the cover girl for this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, it's her second time on the cover and yes this is important to know.

update - This photo is from Victoria Beckham's V.B. show at the New York Public Library earlier today. I'm only posting it because it could possibly be the only fashion line I've seen that looks like it was designed with me in mind. (Vogue)

Sunday Observations 2.3

It being Super Bowl Sunday I want to start with a beer related thought. I often joke about signs of the apocalypse but I saw something this week that just might be the final sign. This week the Justice Department blocked Anheuser Busch, the makers of Budweiser, from a complete takeover of Grupo Modelo who just happens to make Corona. AB fully admits the takeover attempt is out of fear of good beer. "We must slow the volume trend of High End Segment and cannot let the industry transform," said an AB spokesman. In the last ten years the number of craft (read that good) beer brewers has quadrupled while over the past two years Budweiser sales have fallen over ten percent. The combined AB/Modelo would control over half the U.S. beer market hence the anti-trust suit by the DOJ which is enough to thwart the apocalypse for now. Or it should until the vegetable growers try and corner the lime market.

Here is an example of the fun side of twitter. I read this tweet a couple days ago, "Leaning over stretching, I panicked for a second b/c I suddenly couldn't move my head. And...I was standing on my hair." Sadly I fully understood how this could happen but it made me smile just to read it because hey I've been there.

There hasn't been any reason to mention Willard for some time now but I found out a couple things this week that have changed that. The first isn't surprising at all. You might remember that during hurricane Sandy Willie's campaign changed one of their events into a pseudo food drive for victims of the storm. I've been reading an ebook by BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings in which he says that before the event the campaign dropped $5,000 at a Dayton, Ohio Walmart to stock the rally's shelves with canned goods. You know, in case Romney supporters were cheap bastards who couldn't afford a can of beans.

The other thing about Willard really did surprise me and reminded me that I had once thought that if Willard had run as the Massachusetts Governor Romney, and not the right wing kowtowing nutjob Romney, he might have won. Thursday the Romney campaign filed its latest report with the Federal Election Commission. It seems that after the election, and with no announcement at all, they had donated $90,000 to the Red Cross for Sandy relief. I thought that I should give him credit for that after all the abuse I dished out over the last year. Than again I should also note that the campaign still has $4 million in the bank.

The Hastings eBook is called Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama's Final Campaign and costs just $5 on Amazon. It's basically a 150 page BuzzFeed article about the campaign's last months which is funny and totally eye opening. It's worth reading and no I don't get a cut.

I don't normally share personal email but this one from a friend on Friday sums up the week so well. "Israel attacking Syria, terrorists attacking our embassy, China attacking the NY Times, Republicans attacking Hagel, all of England attacking the artist who painted Kate's portrait, people attacking commercials... I need a beer." I hope she got that beer and it wasn't a Budweiser.

Have I ever mentioned that I would totally like to go to China?

Sunday Observations 1.27

Have you ever read a magazine article and get to a point where it says continued on page 46 but when you get to page 46 it says continued from page 46 and the missing section is nowhere to be found? That just sucks. I needed to get that out of the way first.

In the mood for something a little different this morning I watched Ultraviolet on my Kindle while we were had breakfast. To be more precise I watched Milla Jovovich, read the Times, and ate waffles all at the same time. It seemed like a good idea to stay away from any of the Resident Evil movies because that might just seem impolite of me.

Here is some Penn State trivia for you. If you had to guess which sport has won the most national championships which would it be? Don't even guess football, there have only been two. I didn't know the answer so I guessed the women's volleyball team but even they have only won five national titles. It seems like they won more than that because four of those championships were consecutive, 2007-2010. No the correct answer would be the men's gymnastics team that has won twelve. I never knew that.

Something else I never knew is that both Nikon and Canon DSLR chassis are made by the same company, Ju Teng International Holdings of Hong Kong. The thing is I discovered this fact while skimming articles about a new Sony technology that originated in Canon film SLRs but was dropped when Canon went totally digital. The technology is an eye following autofocus that to me seems like more trouble than it is worth because of the need to calibrate your eye to the camera. You can read about it here if you want.

There was an article in The New York Times today about those end of the world as we know it, have your bag packed, I will survive even when the zombies attack type people known as preppers. So maybe the zombie attack is a bit of an embellishment but you get the point. The full extent of my prepping is to keep a full tank of gas and a camera in Foxy to avoid a repeat of Sandy when I didn't have enough gas to get off the island. Somebody in the article does mention the possibility of the bridges and tunnels of Manhattan being closed, which did happen during Sandy, and the need to raft across the river if it should happen again. A raft would be problematical but I remember old beetles supposedly floated so maybe I should just keep an oar in the trunk.

I started the day with Ultraviolet and finished it with Blood Diamonds. I'm not sure what, if anything, that says about me.

Sunday Observations 1.20

The NHL returned from its extended hiatus yesterday as the Penguins defeated the Flyers 3-1 in the first game for both teams. It wasn't quite as bad as the score indicates as the Flyers didn't start their season until the second period so we shall see how the Flyers look today in Buffalo. It will be their second of seven games in eleven days.

In one of those funny quirks of sports there are times that Philadelphia is truly the capitol of North American hockey. I'm not saying that because I'm a Flyers fan or because they played in front of a sold out crowd at the Wells Fargo Center, it's always sold out. I say that because after the Flyers game Penn State played Vermont in college hockey in front of another sold out WFC crowd, Penn State won 4-2. That means in a span of six hours about 40,000 people watched ice hockey in south Philly. I don't have to remind you what big field hockey fans Pennsylvanians are.

I could write a whole post about this next item but I don't feel like writing another gun post right now and I really don't want to take seriously at all. I'm only mentioning it because I once again want to show you what total nutjobs some of these gun people are. There are some out there who honestly believe the Newtown slaughter was orchestrated by the government to make the climate better for gun control legislation. One of the things they say proves this is that the parents of the dead children weren't suitably grief stricken.

Now conspiracy theories are nothing new to America. A few of the lasting ones are that Kennedy was killed by Johnson or the CIA, that there are aliens at Area 51, or that the moon landings never happened. Lately though the conspiracy theories are bordering on the macabre. This Newtown one is right there with Israel being behind the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 to draw the U.S. into war with Islam. Nutjobs.

So while I'm on guns I should also mention that yesterday was the first annual Gun Appreciation Day. During the celebration of this grand day five people were injured, shot, at three separate gun shows.

I've found I'm turning into my grandfather of all people. I blame my kindle because at breakfast and dinner I've started to read out loud items of profound importance just as grandfather always sat and read the paper to everybody. As usually happened with him everybody in turn just ignores me. I find it irritating when they ignore me.

Finally, I was reading a magazine when I saw a pic of a model wearing some cool striped underwear, yes underwear. When I looked to see what they were I saw Marc Jacobs briefs $525 and that is today's sign of the apocalypse.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 1.15

This may be bad form, or maybe it's just perfect, but I'm going to update you a little on guns on Martin Luther King's birthday. Originally I was going to post this as my Sunday observations, I had some good links to go with it, but other things came up and now the guardians of the empire seem to have lost my links.

In typical Amerikan lunacy NRA memberships and gun sales have surged since the Newtown massacre, magazine and rifle orders have a backlog of almost a year, but this time around there's a new wrinkle. There now seems to be a national ammunition shortage so bad police departments across the country are cutting back on training. In some cities the shortage has gotten so bad the police have resorted to buying ammo at local gun shops. This means there is a good chance the NRA's vaunted good guys with guns wont be able to hit the bad guys with guns should they see them. You can bet the gun industry is enjoying their rising profits once again courtesy of the NRA and the nutjobs that worship it.

A seriously funny side story to this is that some gun and ammo buyers are complaining about price gouging. Seriously. On one website a buyer whined about paying $999 for a case (1,000 rounds) of ammo listed at $399 in the site's catalog. I'm not going to get into the reasons somebody might need 1,000 rounds of .233 (bushmaster caliber) ammo but somebody left a good quote as a comment to his tirade. "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt," Abraham Lincoln.

For the record, as of today there have now been 936 gun related deaths in the U.S. since Newtown.

Sunday Observations 1.6

So I woke up to a perfect storm of hockey this morning. After a 113 day lockout and a 16 hour negotiating secession came this from The New York Times, "Breaking News: NHL and Players Union Reach Tentative Agreement to End Lockout." As I was reading the headline it was snowing slightly in the Village, a documentary on the Philadelphia Flyers was on HBO, and today just happens to be Flyers owner Ed Snyder's 80^th birthday. No details on when the season will start or how long it will last but this is critical information as my brother owes me a trip to a Flyers game which was last year's birthday present and I have every intention of collecting it.

I really don't watch a lot of TV other than sports and the usual Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Alex Wagner MSNBC lineup but suddenly I find myself swamped with things I want to see. I had been watching Revolution from the start but I never got back to it after a storm named Sandy took out our cable. I always thought Falling Skies looked good so when it showed up free on Amazon Prime I started watching that and burned through season one in a week. Now Bo is coming back in season three of Lost Girl and I haven't seen any of season two yet. But Lost Girl just appeared free on Netflix so I'm torn between watching the second seasons of Falling Skies and Lost Girl. Netflix also has all the seasons of Nikita for free so if I can't make up my mind I can always watch that. Than again soon I can just watch hockey.

While I'm on entertainment, I mentioned before I was reading Salman Rushdie's "Joseph Anton" which is actually a memoir of Rushdie's after he wrote "The Satanic Verses." If you like memoirs or history it really is very good but it's a hard book to start. Joseph Anton is the name Rushdie came up with at the request of his guards from the Special Branch of the British Metropolitan Police. What you have is Rushdie writing a biography of Anton who is actually Rushdie and sometimes reads like Anton writing a memoir of Rushdie who is at the same time Anton. Once you get past all that it's an easy read and sometimes reads more like a spy novel than anything else. Just take my word for it.

Happy Birthday Mr. Snyder, somewhere Reggie Dunlop is smiling.

You can look that one up.

update - I'm not sure if this is an update to this post or yesterday's on Penn State and the way stories twist around each other. No NHL schedule has been announced yet but it will either be a 48 or a 50 game season. If it is a 48 game season the Flyers will open with an early afternoon game against the hated Penguins on January 19^th in Philadelphia. Early afternoon because that night the new Terry Pagula financed Penn State ice hockey team plays Vermont at the Wells Fargo Center.

Sunday Observations 12.29

It's officially cold this morning. When I go get my paper if it's below freezing and breezy, windchill is 16°, it's officially cold. That makes me wonder about our New Years Eve plans because ice skating at Bryant Park or going to Times Square were both options but who wants to freeze in the new year? Than again my brother is in State College and the Village is rather balmy compared to the mountains.

When it comes to the tunes I listen to I can be a bit strange because I can jump from Ellie Goulding to Linkin Park in one playlist. Thing is my iTunes holds almost anything including sadly country and Tom Jones but there is no opera. Last night I was listening to a playlist that may have been stranger than any of mine. Like some of mine it was all over the music rainbow but yes it included opera, opera shuffling to dance shuffling to indie which is my whole point of writing this. I heard a cover of Neil Young's "Into the Black" that was awesome so I asked who it was and was told it was a band fro Oregon called the Chromatics. We ended up listening to there entire newest album, Kill For Love, and it's really quite good, worth a listen, or maybe it was just the wine. (video)

I was reading an old article from the Guardian about career tips for art school graduates when I came across this one, it's a rule I follow at all times. "It's crucial to remember that everything you do online can be seen by everyone. So no political rants, no passive-aggressive behavior, keep it light, fun, happy and professional at all times." I'm very good at their first tip, multitasking.

So you thought this was a non-political post? Wrong because here we are looking into the national financial abyss without a parachute and the House is just coming back tonight. Well maybe not an abyss, as with the whole mess the 'fiscal cliff' is totally self inflicted drama. It would take months for all the spending cuts and taxes to take effect and in the end it's just not going to happen, take my word for it. But there are a couple things to notice.

The first is that if nothing happens tax rates will go up and than will be cut again for most people. But as the new year begins, if nothing happens, the Bush tax cuts cease to exist. When they take effect again they will be forever known as the Obama tax cuts.

The other thing to do is sit back and enjoy the beauty of a second term president. I may have mentioned before that a second term president is a totally different beast because he/she is never going to run in an election again. When President Obama made his fiscal cliff statement on Friday he threw down the gauntlet, actually he put a noose around the tea party's neck and dared them to jump. Come up with something he can support or allow a yes or no vote on his tax rates before we hit the curb. That leaves them very few options none of which are good for Republicans because either we play Thelma and Louise or they raise tax rates on the wealthy. Republicans get the blame for the first but no credit for the second. It's a beautiful thing.

Finally, Saturday morning at 12:25 AM Eastern Time the first same sex couple was married in the state of Maine. Next up the sate of Maryland on New Years Day. Congrats.

12/31 update - I wanted to add this yesterday and never got around to it. This week a bill legalizing gay marriage will be introduced in the Illinois State Senate. It is a rare thing for a sitting president to voice their opinion on state matters but on Saturday President Obama privately urged lawmakers in his home state to pass the bill. Also Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked major state CEOs to sign a letter which calls passing the marriage equality bill an economic imperative for the state. Among the signers so far are Google, Groupon, Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, and PrivateBancorp Chairman Norman Bobins. This letter follows the release on Saturday of another letter signed by 250 state religious leaders supporting the bill which would make Illinois the tenth state to legalize same sex marriage.

Sunday Observations 12.16

The past few months I've had some fun with the petitions on the White House website. Who wouldn't have some fun with secession, death star building, imaginary countries? At the moment there is a very serious petition you should take a look at; We Petition The Obama Administration To: Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress. At the moment it has 113,000 signatures or four times what is needed for an official response from the Obama Administration. It's very short, only five sentences, and you can sign it here.

That's all I'm going to say about guns at the moment. I had a few notes for today but now they all seem relatively unimportant as I look at them. The wingnuts made a big deal of President Obama planning on spending Christmas in Hawaii and thought he should cancel those plans if there is no fiscal deal. Petty as hell because they know damn well, as Joe Scarborough noted, he was born there. Some of us are lucky enough to be born in Hawaii and some of us aren't. I wouldn't mind spending Christmas on Kee Beach with lights in the palm trees and a Corona in my hand but I don't see it happening anytime soon. The wingnuts probably think the President should be spending Christmas in Nairobi.

Meryl Schenker, ZUMA Press

Here is a little something to remind you that even after the past few days there is always something to make you smile about life. Last week I posted a photo of Larry Duncan and Randell Shepherd, the gay bears, getting their marriage license in Seattle. Last Sunday the two were married in Seattle's First Baptist Church. While not religious at all the two said they wanted a church wedding because as Larry said, "Enough people have told me, ‘God hates fags,’ I want someone in a church to say, ‘God loves fags,’ to have that stamp on it." No word on where the happy newlyweds spent their honeymoon.

I did something yesterday I have never done before, went into a Japanese bookstore. If for whatever reason you ever want to feel totally lost in the world I suggest a Japanese bookstore. The most awesome looking books you'll ever see but I have no idea what they said.

Finally Jesuit Father Jose Funes, the head of the Vatican Observatory, assures us the Mayan Apocalypse is not going to happen this week. In L'Osservatore Romano he published an article in which he emphatically states the Mayan calender is 'irrational' which is something I'm sure a Jesuit priest would know something about.

I have to go now, seems hell is calling ....