Ogblog

but I did not want to be another muskateer

Back in late 1989, 10,000 Maniacs recorded an episode of MTV Unplugged. Also appearing was a very young Michael Penn, who performed two songs and was accompanied by Patrick Warren.

No Myth

 

Brave New World

Mwahahahaha!

All of the following Wikipedia pages redirect to the evil laugh article:

• Evil laughter
• Kakaka
• Maniacal laugh
• Muahahaha
• Muhuhaha
• Mwa ha ha
• Mwahaha
• Mwahahaha
• Mwahahahaha
• Mwahahahaha!
• Niark
• Niark niark

Early modernist homes in NYC

Edward Norman House in 1944

Many early modernist homes strongly emphasized the horizontal, like the the broad eaves of the Prairie Style in the Midwest, Mies' Farnsworth House, and the California houses of Richard Neutra. However, this luxury was unavailable to architects building in New York City. Unsurprisingly, their homes were much more vertical. Three striking examples were designed by William Lescaze (1896–1969), better known for the PSFS Building in Philadelphia.

• William Lescaze House, 211 East 48th Street (1933-34). The home he built for himself was the first International Style house in New York City. In April 2001, its owners put it up for rent at the bargain price of $20,000 per month. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and designated as a New York City Landmark (PDF) in 1976.
  

• R.C. Kramer House, 32 East 74th Street (1935)
  

• Edward A. Norman House, 124 East 70th Street (1940-41)

In 1934-35, designer and architect Morris B. Sanders built a similar house at 219 East 49th Street. The Morris B. Sanders Studio & Apartment was designated as a New York City Landmark (PDF) in 2008. All four of the buildings remain standing.

Voting is exciting

I voted today. Yes, that's right. We had a special election two weeks after the general election. The lone decision on the ballot was to select a candidate to fill the remainder of the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones' term in Congress. Marcia Fudge, our newly minted representative-elect, was running unopposed. I voted at 6:00 p.m., 11½ hours after the polls opened. The poor poll workers were so glad to have a little company, and were happy to give me a ballot. I was the eighth voter in the precinct for the entire day. Good thing we had better turnout for the general election.

P.S. I won't tell you how I voted. It's a seeecret.

Lost and found department

I've been taking the train to work for a few years now, and I've become very good at timing my arrival at the station to within a minute or two of the train's appearance. As I was walking up one day early last week, I spotted something glinting on the ground and scooped it up as the train arrived. It was the gold bracelet you see above. On the trip downtown, I thought about how best to return it to its owner. The transit system does maintain a lost and found, but turning it over to them would have meant relying on the honesty of every employee with access to the lost and found box. Instead, I resolved to post a sign at the station where I found it. If nobody claimed the bracelet, I could keep it with a clear conscience. I consulted some co-workers who know more about jewelry than me, and they noticed that it was a tennis bracelet, studded with tiny diamonds along its entire length. That confirmed my inkling that it was more than a piece of costume jewelry. Before I left work, I registered a special e-mail address and printed up a little sign (in Goudy Old Style, because it felt somewhat anachronisticly subversive to post an e-mail address in an old style typeface). I taped it up at the station that evening. Then I waited.

The sign stayed up all week, and I began to wonder if I was going to hear from anyone. It disappeared on Monday, yet still there were no messages. The next day, however, I finally received an e-mail from the bracelet's owner. She described the piece to a T, so there was no doubt that she was telling the truth. I was busy the next couple days, but I called her on Thursday to arrange a time to make the return. So, on my lunch break yesterday, I hiked over to the downtown mall and reunited the bracelet with its grateful owner. Hooray for happy endings.

Hello not the man familiar to me!

Have I ever mentioned that I love reading Russian mail-order bride spam? Because, you know, I do. And it just so happens that I received an excellent example of the genre this afternoon. It begins, "Hello not the man familiar to me!", and gradually becomes less intelligible from there. Here are some of the highlights:

At first I wished to be presented. My name to Vera me of 29 years I live in Russia in the Cheboksary of I not married. And never was married. I have finished school and arrived in medical college finished it and went to work in hospital but only me never I carried could find to myself the man and me so it would be desirable it.

I have solved why and was not present if I could not find the man from Russia such destiny can at me and I should search the man from another of the countries. And they gave me yours e-mail the address and spoke that you search to yourself the woman. I took all data and went to the cafe Internet as I am not able to use well the computer and it costs much for my payment from work. I came to the Internet of cafe and asked that to me created the address e-mail that I from it could write you the letter. And here now you can see my letter.

Only I ask you at once look at a photo esteem the letter think and solve precisely you would like with me correspondence to me the friend to me is not necessary I and which is ready for serious relations will be necessary to love which MAN and creation of a family I is possible I ask you very fragile person and if serious relations write to me tell to me are not necessary to you that is not present I will understand.

As jonahedwards noted, "It's like being wooed by Don Quixote."

It's an anchor! Get it? Oh, never mind...

I saw the world's most terse license plate the other day. It looked something like this:

Because it was on an SUV, I'm going to uncharitably assume that it's an HTML reference.

Knees? Who needs knees?

Sometimes computers assemble images in ways that can almost be considered inadvertent art. This series of images came up in a Flickr search.

Television Preview

Right at this very moment, I could be taking advantage of an exciting offer "to participate in a survey whose findings will directly influence what you see on television in the future." A couple weeks ago, I received tickets in the mail from a company called Television Preview. Their introductory letter explains that they present "screenings of pre-recorded 1/2 hour television segments (including programs and commercials) to groups of people across the country. The groups evaluate what they see, and Television Preview tabulates and analyzes these evaluations. Then, we pass them along to the people who decide whether the material will be televised."

It sounded like it could be an interesting experience. As I considered who might like to attend the screening with me, I did a little research, and I'm glad I did. The company's website is intentionally vague, but it didn't take much digging to get to the truth. It's a scam.

Apparently, the programs they show are pilot episodes of rejected television series, some well over ten years old. The programs are mere filler, designed to distract people from the company's true goal, which is to gauge viewer reactions to the commercials and to extract direct marketing information. The real information that the company gathers comes from the questionnaires that attendees fill out before and after seeing the ads. This isn't exactly a new trick, either - they've been at it since the early 1970s. They may have been able to fool people before, but now the Internet can save gullible people like me who might otherwise fall for their ruse. Thank you, Internet!

Here's what some attendees had to say about their experiences.

Monty Ashley:

The first thing they had us do was go through a booklet of "prizes" and circle the ones we most wanted to receive. This process was very similar to picking your favorite brand of peanut butter, nail polish, and cake frosting, so it was pretty clear that they were going to show us commercials in what they called a "natural viewing environment", assuming you always watch television in a darkened hotel conference room, surrounded by strangers.

Kat:

You will be shut into a dingy hotel conference room for two hours. The room will be filled almost entirely with retirees and you will spend the better part of the evening straining to see a cheap television set, in what will be termed a "natural viewing environment". A semi-literate 'host' will read from a script, loosing his place now and then and will forget to ask "What is your name?" as an audience volunteer helps with a fake prize draw.

Toronto's Now Magazine, quoting a company executive:

"The whole set-up is that they're there to evaluate the programming. We try not to cue them to the advertising, because we like it to be an incidental exposure."

The Kansas City Pitch, quoting an attendee:

"I felt like a lowlife going to that thing. It was really embarrassing, kind of like if you buy something off an infomercial and think it's going to be cool, and then you get it and it's a piece of crap. It seemed like a big hoax."

Dennis Earl:

Be aware of something else: telemarketers. According to a couple of accounts online, a few days or so after they attended the presentation they were contacted by phone by someone wanting to sell them something that was advertised during those pesky commercial breaks.

I, uh... huh?

Searching for the band !!! at Yahoo Music returns the following artists:

• Little Anthony and the Imperials
• Claude Debussy
• 2Pac
• Leontyne Price
• Johann Sebastian Bach

Of course.