Wednesday, October 26, 2005

ABC News: The Note: "Yada, Yada, Yada -- and So We Go"

Bush (41) "recalled that the Democratic chairman at the time, Robert Strauss, who was a friend of both Bush and Simpson, called and said the GOP job was like 'love with a gorilla.'

'I said, 'What are you talking about,'' Bush said. 'And he said, 'Well you can't stop until the gorilla wants to.' That's exactly how the job felt. Every time you turned around, there was some other scandal, some other exposure, some other thing that happened.'"

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

BLDGBLOG

"It's Tokyo's massive 'G-Cans Project,' a subterranean system of polished concrete viaducts built 'for preventing overflow of the major rivers and waterways spidering the city.'"

I'd post the pictures, which are just tremendous, but I'd have to put them all up, which just wouldn't be right. Click title above

Monday, October 24, 2005

Everybodyfields, Dogs of War















Two nights ago, saw Dogs of War (above), and Everybodyfields (below). Good night of music. Knoxville's pretty good for that sort of thing, music.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Laptops

"I've used many brands, multiple models including HP, Compaq, Sony, IBM, Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu and Sharp. If you plan to own this laptop for more than 3 years, I recommend IBM for the following reasons:
1. Easy upgrade, unlike other brands, you do not need a lot of drivers and special software to upgrade to newer Windows and IBM has excellent support to old models. Recovery is extremely easy, only one click.
2. The best keyboard, large, solid response and the unique IBM typewriterish click. " ...

More after the jump. Matches my experience with laptops in law school.

BLDGBLOG


"I'm left with speculation: If human beings actually do survive the next ten thousand years; if all this excavation not only continues but accelerates; if usable mineral deposits continue to be found, but only deeper and deeper beneath the earth's surface; then perhaps we might find that we've stripmined every continent below the waterline, returning the earth to the early Devonian, when warm, shallow seas covered most of the planet – only now, or then, the earth will be shelled by a new global city of interlocking excavation architectures – gantry cities, derrick towns, Constant's Babylon – " ...

my new at least second or third favorite blog. it's odd- they almost replace maganzines (still buy the occasional New Yorker and whatnot, but.)

Monday, October 17, 2005

botheringly complicated site for some wonderful pictures

This picture, this one right here, I'd like to have at the top, forever. But I might change my mind tomorrow.

"Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle (a French pastry chef/arts photography team) create landscapes out of food: mushrooms, kiwis, salads, ice cream, watermelons, cakes. Cauliflower, even. "

via, via

New Yorker article by John McPhee, one of my favorite authors

"After being switched to the right at the top of the loop, we started around it counterclockwise. Coal trains are so heavy that they are rounted throught the loop in alternate directions, to distribute the assault on the track. In the infield to our left were five hundred acres of Campbell County, Wyoming, fifty feet deep-- the million-ton reserve known at Plant Scherer as "the pile." CBTMMHS circumscribed the pile until-- close by Plant Scherer-- it stopped at the head of the unloading trestle, which extended before it between rows of bright lights. This train had left Wyoming five days ago. Plant Scherer would burn everything in it in less than eight hours."...

"Damon Woodson, a mechanical engineer at Plant Scherer who had worked in a nuclear power plant, said, 'I never really understood nuclear until I came here.' That million-ton pile on reserve in the train loop was equivalent to one truckful of mined uranium, he said. 'The way to go is nuclear if you want to have power. To get a million BTUs, fuel oil costs nine dollars, natural gas six dollars, coal a dollar-eighty-five, nuclear fifty cents. We'll see how it all turns out."

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Alaskablawg

"The trial is set to start next Monday in Kotzebue, a town of about 3300 people north of the Arctic Circle. To anyone from Alaska reading this, it is no big secret which case this is. My client is a former police officer from Nome charged with murder of a local resident. The case was tried before in January and the trial ended in a hung jury. I wound up with it for the second trial and while I do not want to say that I am overwhelmed, I will say that this case has absolutely consumed my life." ...

This attorney worked in the other side of the building I was in this summer, when I interned for the Public Defender in Palmer, Alaska. His blog is excellent, as the above-linked post of his shows.

Friday, October 14, 2005

EconoCulture - Not Getting It On At CMJ

"Not Getting It On At CMJ
A memoir of awkward indie love—platonic style. Is there any other kind?"

I read a few reviews of the CMJ thing, this was the best.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Sleater-Kinney Blog

"Here we are in Knoxville, TN. Nice people abound. While getting coffee I inquired as to where a certain part of town was and a cute boy actually escorted me all the way there. But us Northwesterners are not cut out for this humidity."

So, found out today that Sleater-Kinney blog(s). Last entry is June 30, 2005, and they were here, and I wasn't.

Internet Archive: Details: Charade

"Charade (1963)
Delightful Hitchcock-like thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn... This film is public domain due to the failure to put the then required copyright notice in the released print."

Good news! Good movie. Click above to stream or download.

via

Investing - The Dark Magic of Oil Sands - FORTUNE - Page

"The Dark Magic of Oil Sands
Canada's Alberta province has oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's, but they're not a liquid asset. We visit Fort McMurray, the boomtown where oil-rich sands are mined-and a black-gold rush is on."

I remember reading- some time ago- about this stuff, about how Canada had oil that was then too expensive to extract. Seems times have changed.

via I forget where, sorry

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Flying!

Came across a site for a company that sells build-it-yourself airplane kits. I'd love one like this or this or this. While I was looking, my favorite radio show, This American Life came on, and their story was/is about people who almost died in airplanes. It was meant to be. I want to be an airborn ranger.

Hoopty Rides: The Not Subtle Look of Dragsters

"A day at the Hot Rod Reunion is enough to make you consider selling all your worldly possessions and moving into a shotgun shack in outer San Berdoo. A one room, clapboard side house with a black and white TV, a round top refrigerator filled with biscuits, jam and Budweiser, a sagging sofa, a pedestal fan, a wood grain formica dinette with a single chair, jelly jar drinking glasses and NHRA membership. Because, if you had a top fuel, front engine rail in your garage, what else would matter?" ...

Good pictures of excellent activities, too.

Friday, October 07, 2005

dinner


dinner, originally uploaded by bobby toe.

Monday, October 03, 2005

KnoxNews: Local

"Tennessee’s logging industry is producing more lumber than at any time in the last 50 years, yet the amount of Volunteer state land covered in trees continues to increase. More of the state is covered in forests than at any time since the beginning of the 20th century." ...

Registration sucks. Quite the article though.

KnoxNews: Local

"An Arizona-based company is due to receive the bulk of any revenues collected from its automated traffic enforcement cameras, according to the terms of its proposed contract with the city of Knoxville." ...

registration sucks. so do automated traffic enforcement cameras.

KnoxNews: Columnists (re: the recent TVA land-swap deal on Nickajack Lake [reservoir])

"I have had, and continue to have, an ideological problem with the government taking private land via eminent domain for a public project and later selling it back to other private hands at incredibly increased prices. It is fundamentally and ethically wrong. No amount of spin will change that.

There's a classic joke about such foolishness. You've probably heard it, but I can't resist in this situation:" ...

I hate registration. "knoxnews" requires registration. good column though.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Spitzerism - New York Times

"As United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Giuliani saw white-collar crime as a product of personal immorality, and he went after the perpetrators with relish. Spitzer tends to see wrongdoing as the product of both moral failing and lousy incentives. In Spitzer's mind, the reason the power plants produced too much pollution wasn't that their owners were evil; it was that neither they nor their customers were forced to pay the cost of polluting. Spitzer wasn't looking to put the utility companies out of business. He just wanted the loophole closed." ...

Wonderful article in the NYT about Eliot Spitzer, who may well be the next governor of New York. And it's not just about him; it gets into a lot of stuff about democrats generally/in the past few years/since Clinton. Click post title to read. But you might have to register, which is so lame.

Football, Quarries and Spiders


Watched the UT football game on Saturday on TV with friends who live in South Knoxville. Their place borders some old abandoned quarries and caves, which are just wonderful places to explore. Wish my pictures of that stuff had turned out. Glad that at least the pictures of the spider came out OK.

bull riding


I rode a bull! Saw an ad in the Metropulse recently for this new place, "Electric Cowboy," with a picture of the bull in it. Was happy to find the place, and, in it, the bull, working and everything. 5$ for two rides. Short rides, in my case. Worth every cent. Glad I brought the camera. I've been wanting to ride an electric bull ever since I was a little boy. Might add that the "Electric Cowboy is a huge place, and the waitresses there wear assless chaps over their panties, which was a Wow. And Jimmy- that's your suit I'm wearing. Thanks for the suit. I like it.