Monday, May 22, 2006

Listicle 14.h!

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ǿǿǿǿǿǿ from PBS's Great Decisions 2006: Understanding Iran, question answered by Univ of Miss prof of Modern Middle East and S Asian History, Juan Cole - of Informed Comment
Q: How did Iran get it's original nuclear capability in the first place?
A: well, the United States, back in the 1950's hadsomething called called Atoms for Peace.. and it actually went around the world encouraging countries to develop nuclear energy and promoting the industry for financial reasons.. because the US was a leader in the nuclear industry at that time.. and so both in Bagdad and Iran the United States promoted Atoms for Peace and encouraged these countries to get reactors.. and when the Shah of Iran was an ally of the United States in the 1970's, he developed nuclear reactors down at Bosher which were light water reactors,those are much much more difficult to use for military purposes.
Q: and so some of that technology is American technology?
A: certainly the impetus for it came originally from the United States.
..update from the Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007: Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
..another update - It seems we created all the Axis of Evil'ers.. Rumsfeld sold nuclear reactors to North Korea!

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ join me in my puddle of melted cuteness. click on the pictures, if your brain doesn't tingle, just a little bit, you might be an alien. or a robot. or a robot alien.

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ On 4/28/06 and on 7/13/06 the sun will set on every Manhattan East/West-direction street during the last 15 minutes of daylight. they call it Manhattanhenge.

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ I really thought this was a joke when I saw it. it's ... uh.. no joke... let's go!

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ "Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the [tv] 'families.' Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge." - "There has to be someone ready when it blows up." .........yes, I'm finally reading Farenheit 451

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ God, people who go to store openings are morons. ...Oh wait..I uhh... ok, 'people who wait in lines for hours are morons', can we at least agree on that? And that panoramas are cool no matter what the subject? MmHmmm.. see? see???

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ (quote)"Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?"


ǿǿǿǿǿǿ Alec Baldwin and Sarah Michelle Gellar were in our building / on our floor filming a scene for some new movie they're doing.

ǿǿǿǿǿǿ Just when I was lamenting over the lack of recurring park characters, Singing Scotty is back at Washington Square Park! His cup (for 7-up and gin) has changed to a Jamba Juice cup but his LOUDLY sung song of choice seems to still be "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow"

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Catskills with Matt & Karen (and Marco pics)

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A trip to the Catskills cabin with Matt & Karen. Pictures that Matt took follow the pictures I took.

Pictures from the back deck, site of deliciously delicious BBQ'd ribs-BBQing. Why didn't I take any from the front of the house? Good question. Here's a link to the professionally done shots taken on our trip this winter.




pan right slightly. house construction blocks all but a small windowish view of the raging river.


pan right again, the dirt gravel road. Can I mention that one other car drove up and down this road the entire weekend we were there?





In the kitchen prepping for food, prepping for photos.

one of many failed shots of fire from hours of fire watching. funny enough, right after this photo, the fire spelled out the word "sassafrass".




A better photo of phire. ha. ha.


And so begins what will become a 10,000 part series of photos of people I know pictured in front of ribs I have eaten. Photo #1: Esra (eating ribs!) in front of ribs I have eaten.







Matt with ribs I have eaten.










Karen is honored to be picture # 3 in the "ribs I have eaten" series.

Experiments in auto-timer and brightness/contrast manipulation. ("keep experimenting, genius")




Matt preps ice cream to go with roasted peaches and ice cream.





Matt on the mike??? Noooo. Matt on the ice cream scoop.




Sleepy girls. sleepily passing out. perchance to .. sleep.


Blury McOneArm snaps another winner. of Matt preparing to snap real winners.





Did a hobo take this picture? NOPE! I did! Does my mastery of one armed photography know no bounds? Nope. wait... I mean 'yes'.. it knows no bounds.





Hmmm... no hiding hobos. damn.


We found the trains (and an old guy who talked about 'em) .. we found no museums, though.




Esra cleans up after killing a hobo. Karen contemplates killing the hobo's sleeping hobo friend.


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PICTURES MATT TOOK:


Cabin in daylight. Being that we were either eating or sleeping or relaxing, we didn't see much of the outside of the cabin.



Ahh, the roaring, raging, rumbling river. Rumbling? yes, rumbling. the river got into a knife fight with another river 200 yards downstream.

I can watch rivers and fires for Daaaayyyys.



The view from the front porch.

Pre-gorging. Corn with cilantro, tomato, scalions - sweet potatos - ribs, ribs, more ribs - an amazing slaw in the back there. not pictured: the best scallops I've ever had.

Gee, I'M Sorry... did Matt and I take a buncha pictures of your girls sleeping???? That's so odd. Not sure how those got in there .. and then posted here.



Karen at the car. one-of-thousands Catskill peaks behind. Greenery everywhere. Bears? No bears.

At the Catskills Railroad Museum. ..that wasn't a museum. but was still cool.


train tracks + humans = need to tightrope-walk





And more. Karen is stuck talkin' to "old railroad dude".




Matt conjures the spirit of Robert Johnson. minus all that Southern suffering stuff that gets in the way of a good vacation.





Ok, make that fire, rivers and train tracks that I could look at for days.




Our Presidential whistlestop tour passes through the Catskills. either that or I have a gun at Esra's back.

Karen succumbs to the irresistable demands of our human tightroping genes.

Allllll aboaaaaaaard.......... but please, no smoking.




Aliens and little girls with pigtails ride for free.

And Karen. Karen rides for free too. wait, Karen is the conductor... ok thennnn... umm... hmm.. wait.. lemme think about this...
forget it, no one rides for free, this is too confusing.




there's an obvious caboose / Matt's butt (caboose) joke here but I'll leave it to you to make it.



Matt gets to live out his Mussolini fantasy. or Mussolini's statue fantasy.

Carved wooden crap (this one's a magical gnome!) guard Catskill establishments throughout the valley. This one guards the World's Largest Kalidescope which... somehow we didn't take a picture of so... internet photo theft to the rescue!! ahem.. I mean... borrowing... yes.. borrowing.



Go here for more pictures and lots of info on the World's Largest Kalidescope.


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And now... Also... In addition to all the above wonderfulness... here's a bunch of pictures Marco took while he was here in early April. click on the button marked "VIEW PICTURES" (duh) and.. Click on the pictures themselves to view the larger version of same..

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Listicle 13.€↑

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₪₪₪₪ Why do I feel like I could watch this for hours?

₪₪₪₪ Your monkey's clothes are so 2004. Go shopping already, damn.

₪₪₪₪ Sad. the real six million dollar man died. well, the real pilot from the real crash.

₪₪₪₪ this quote summed up the righteous indignation I'm often known for: "Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate."

₪₪₪₪ maybe it's that I'm a little hungover today but I could just keep clicking and clicking on this. On these too.

₪₪₪₪ I'll never have to leave the house again.. or pay for anything.. or talk to anyone.

₪₪₪₪ how cool is this----> ₪ new symbol I ran across? it's the international symbol for a sheckel.. or sheqel. From me, to you. ok, from ... whoever invented it through me, to you.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

NFL Draft Sweepstakes - draft pics (get it?)

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Hambone hams it up with the fake broken leg. cute bastard.




outside of Radio City Music Hall, the night before the draft.





One armed photo goodness.






We look so much hotter in this photo. What? Am I supposed to not include it?? Also, the moving truck looks cool. I mean hot.




the view from the continental breakfast buffet area. the view from our room was much the same, just reversed (to see the West side of the park, instead of the East, pictured here)





Matt tries out for the NY Jets.









My turn. Interestingly enough, the Jets dont have a # 06 on their team. And the Jets picked #4 in the draft, not #6.




Let's call this... the grand concourse of Radio City Music Hall. looking down from the 3rd mezzanine level. Oh, do you like my artsy photo tilting technique? neither do I. I'm having fun with it though.




One armed photo blury fun.





"And the Oakland Raiders, with the number seven overall selection in the NFL Draft select... Michael Huff out of Texas"


Annnnd... another shot of same. Damn I need a zoom on my cameraphone.

And sitting in front of me?? Randy Moss and LaMont Jordan!! I know! awesome huh? LaMont could bulk up a little with some Chunky soup, I think.

Poor Matt Leinart. Going to a team where he'll almost surely start from day 1. Oh, did I mention the millions and millions of dollars he's gonna make?



the view from the ground level.





later that night.