Nice review of the user experience and product limitations of Band-Aid Liquid Bandage

So it was with a distinct sense of anticipation that I paid $8.99 for ten applications, at a CVS drugstore in Princeton, NJ

Since 1987 Lewis Baumgartne AKA, the World’s Worst Farmer has traveled the circuit entertaining at meetings and conventions all over the US and much of Canada. His self deprecating humor and his hilarious tales of predicaments encountered on his beloved farm, “Ragweed Ranch” have been a hit with audiences all over the country! His main audiences have been farm or farm related groups but he has also had success with non-farm groups as well. His program usually runs about 35 -40 minutes and is guaranteed clean, he does not tell dirty jokes or use offensive language! Lewis says, ” When people ask me if my program is clean I tell them, Yes, I could do it for a room full of preachers. After almost every performance someone will tell me how they appreciate the fact that my program was clean and funny!”
The World’s Worst Farmer program is mostly humor but it does have its serious side as Lewis relates the poignant story of Old Bill. Old Bill is an original poem by Lewis Baumgartner about a neighbor that was looked up to by the author as a small boy, but was more or less forgotten when the boy became a man. Many in the audience recall their own ‘Old Bill’ and can relate to the regrets of, “THE THINGS I FAILED TO SAY.” Lewis says, “This poem hits pretty close to home with lots of folks and I can almost bet that after every show, someone is going to tell me about their own ‘Old Bill’. I appreciate this response and knowing I’ve touched someone makes me feel as though in some small way I’m saying a belated thank you to my, Old Bill.”

STAR WARS in animated ASCII. Very cool. And you can fast-forward as well.

Last weekend we went to Portland, OR for a little vacation. It was a great and relaxing trip. I’ve been to Portland on business dozens of times, but it has been several years since I went purely for fun. It was depressing to have the boring conservatism of my community thrust in my face. There’s just no cool stuff where I live like I found in Portland. Powell’s books, of course was a destination, and the excellent stores nearby (Reading Frenzy, Palookvaille, and others). Besaw for brunch, Il Piattoand Thai Orchid for dinner.

And, we got to see a great deal of public access cable programming in the late evening, good for a laugh. And, I got to see once again, the horrific Jim Spagg show. He’s this dude who tries really hard to provoke and annoy, and then of course, tries to use your reactions to justify his point….whatever that is. The most bothersome part of the show is just how dumb he acts. I mean, the show makes no sense, whatsoever. At one point, he is standing next to a toy crocodile that is talking. He is looking at the camera with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape, in an attempt to look astonished (he looks like someone who can’t act but doesn’t know it, trying hard to overact). The scene continues for a very very long and uncomfortable time period. He looks at the crocodile and back at the camera. You can’t tell what it is saying. Or why he is reacting so. And he’s just so overdoing it, that it’s annoying.

Of course, the provocation on the show supposedly comes from the sexual or nudity content. A theme seems to be that nudity is not dirty, and that if you are offended, it says something about you. Yet this dude has exotic dancers (i.e., strippers) come in to the set and dance in their fashion. So we’re not talking about playing frisbee naked, we’re talking about bump and grind. Meanwhile, the host, with that same look plastered on his face, strips off his clothes and flaps his arms as he runs around the set. It’s not really dancing. And we still don’t know why he is astonished.

Meanwhile, various slogans that seem to come from an R. Crumb-type mindset, with an ogling focus, are plopped on the screen.

In another scene, the camera plays about his naked body, looking up at him from the ground, between his legs. Cut, to an extreme closeup of the details (and manipulative possibilities) of an uncircumcised male.

It’s visually gross to me, and I can handle that. It’s really the annoying cheesy overacting stuff and the ridiculous attempt to have this self-indulgent exercise be “about” something that bugs me.

But enough soapboxing, a great place to spend a little time if you have the chance (Portland, not Jim Spagg’s scrotum).

Arby’s Tries a Talking Mitt

Arby’s is turning to a cartoonish kitchen implement to help rescue its sagging brand recognition. The chain’s new animated character is named Oven Mitt. Goofy, assertive and a bit of a ham - much like Tom Arnold, the celebrity who is providing its voice - Mr. Mitt is Arby’s new spokesthing and will appear in an $85 million national advertising campaign, beginning Sunday. Turning over a brand identity to a nonhuman object, however, can be a risky marketing move in the fast-food business. The public may not warm up to Oven Mitt, just as they did not cotton to KFC’s trash-talking cartoon colonel and Domino’s Bad Andy, a puppet that was quickly relieved of his assignment.

Floating Nikes

A ship bound from Los Angeles to Tacoma lost cargo Dec. 15 during a storm off northern California. Among the lost cargo: three 40-foot containers carrying an estimated 5,500 pairs of shoes each. ow the drifting shoes are heading for Alaska, but besides being soggy, the shoes are not matched pairs.

Okay, did they change the recipe to Post Golden Crisp (formerly Sugar Crisp and formerly Super Sugar Crisp)? It no longer comes in the special tinfoil bag, just plain old translucent plastic, just like mortal cereals, and it seems to have lost a certain zip in the taste. It still affects the way one’s urine smells (in a good way) as it always did, but the bag and the taste have shifted.

I wrote them and asked about both these things, and they didn’t address the packaging question - but they said the recipe hadn’t changed. I suppose the packaging change could have affected the taste, but then you’d think they’d have tested that and wouldn’t have proceeded. I don’t know. I need answers!

Thanks for visiting our Web-site!

Have you recently changed the recipe to Golden Crisp? The packaging has changed from the
tinfoil bag, and the taste just seems less — intense —

A common octopus in a German zoo has learned to open jars of shrimp by watching zoo attendants perform the act underwater. full story

Meet Dolly Downs

the doll with the lovable difference! Created in the image of a child with Down Syndrome, each of these adorable, soft dolls comes with her own tiny backpack and audiocassette. On the cassette, Dolly sings a song and tells the story of Donna, the real life inspiration for Dolly Downs.

My friend and colleague Jim Faris has a commentary about rain and Thailand on KQED radio.

Rain flows as an unspoken but universally understood language. For commentator Jim Faris, the downpour at his home floods him with memories of waters far away in Thailand

I received this by email yesterday. I believe they want to purchase some of the contents of my Museum of Foreign Groceries. Hmm.

Subject: I Have some Quations………
Hello My Name Is Alexander,

And I would Like to Try Some of the candy,
With A major cradit card
I live IN Tennessee………

Thanks !

A fantastic NYT magazine article by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability rights activist.

The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist. My fight has been for accommodation, the world to me and me to the world.
As a disability pariah, I must struggle for a place, for kinship, for community, for connection

Yahoo! News - L.A. Woman Chased by Fake Alien Sues Reality Show

Kara Blanc thought she was being chased by a space alien on her way to a posh Hollywood party and was terrified. But the alien turned out to be an actor in a monster suit and the party was phony as well.

So now the Los Angeles grade school teacher and aspiring actress is fighting back, suing the new reality TV series “Scare Tactics,” claiming she suffered severe emotional damage, court papers said on Tuesday.

========================================================
FreshMeat #17 from Steve Portigal

               (__)
               (oo) Fresh
                \/  Meat 

FreshMeat - the official snack of the Zeitgeist
=========================================================
Talk is cheap, and silence is golden.
=========================================================
“Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of
promotion, public relations, and market research, society
is suspicious of those who value silence.”
John Lahr

First things first: a shibboleth is a word (or phrase, or
form of language) that is used by members of a group to
identify themselves as being part of that group. Fans of
The Simpsons might exclaim “D’oh,” or software engineers
may make middleware references with their sandwiches. The
choice of words indicates something beyond the meaning of
the words themselves. One may (briefly, please!) ponder
what group I am claiming membership in through my use of
shibboleth here.

At any rate, Lahr’s quote nicely encapsulates some
thoughts I have had about silence, spurred on by a pair
of experiences over the past few months. A while back I
was in my first public improv performance. We were all
amateurs, some with many years of experience, others with
a year or less (such as myself). In this performance we
started each scene with one idea (often from the
audience) and proceeded from there with some sort of
structure. What often happened was a scramble to move the
idea forward - everyone speaking at once, with too many
ideas thrown in the first few moments to ever really
solidify into a great scene. Have you ever seen 8-year
olds play soccer? The ball and both sets of kids are a
whirling cloud that moves up and down and across the
field like the Tasmanian Devil. That was us.

But then the next night I saw the Kids in the Hall - a
comedy troupe that has been performing together for a
very long time. After the scripted material had finished,
the audience was clamoring for more. In advance of the
encore, they all walked on stage and thanked us, then
improvised a few jokes before heading off stage to
prepare for the encore. All five of them managed to hold
the stage coherently. Not everyone spoke at equal length
in those few minutes, but at no point did any of them
speak on top of another. It came off as natural and easy,
but it was really quite incredible - grab four people and
try to do that some time.

Where they succeeded and we didn’t-succeed-as-well (for
there are no losers in improv) was in allowing for
silence. Each Kid in the Hall was silent for most, if not
all, of their unscripted segment. What a powerful
contribution they made by not speaking. Yet what a
strange statement to make - that a comedy performer
helped by not speaking - how can that be? We tend to
expect performance to be the explicit utterances, not the
space between them.

But, as the word shibboleth reminds us, there are layers
to communication, and there’s a lot that can happen
without verbalization - posture, gestures, breath sounds,
eye gaze, facial reactions, and more. The Kids in the
Hall were doing all those the entire time - and they were
paying attention to each other. When silent, they were
actively silent - sending and receiving information.

This behavior is crucial in ethnographic research. When
interviewing, ethnographers speak minimally (reviewing
videotapes suggest as little as 20% of the time). Yet,
the interviews are directed and controlled by the
interviewer. Nodding, eye contact, and body language all
support the respondent in providing detailed information.

More tactically, we learn to remain silent for a beat or
two after someone has answered a question. People work in
“chunks” and often there are several chunks required to
deliver a response. Simply remaining silent (and this
does take some practice) and allowing the respondent to
answer in their own time is remarkably effective.

Of course, there is often more than one researcher on
hand. If the first ethnographer remains silent, waiting
for the respondent to continue, the second ethnographer
must recognize that, and also listen silently, rather
than using the opening as their chance to interview. This
collaborative use of silence is something the Kids in the
Hall managed and my improv group did not.

We experience these same challenges in more familiar work
settings - brainstorming, meetings, etc. We work in a
society that judges us primarily by our own contributions
rather than the way we allow others to make theirs. If
the collaborative silence is not a shared value in a
group, there can be a real problem for those who default
to listening, not speaking. We’ve learned how to give
credit to those who utter the pearls, but we don’t know
how to acknowledge the value of those that choose their
moments wisely, that allow others to shine, and that
ultimately enable those pearls.

I don’t propose any solution and I won’t condescend to
suggest “gee, if we each would try a little harder to…”
Indeed, so as to not end on a preachy note, I should
point out a 2002 episode of The Simpsons (DABF05, “Jaws
Wired Shut”) in which Homer’s jaw gets wired shut. He is
physically unable to speak. He does become a better
listener, but most interesting are the positive qualities
the people in his life project upon him. Simpsons
Executive Producer Al Jean said: “When Homer gets his jaw
wired shut, it makes him into a really decent, wonderful
human being.” I don’t know if Al Jean is getting post-
modern on us, but Homer’s internal change, through his
silence, was fairly minor compared to the differences
that other people perceived. For even more on that theme,
check out “Being There” by Jerzy Kozinsky (with Peter
Sellers starring in the film version).

–

Soundbites from “Jaws Wired Shut” here.

The Stones make extensive use of WiFi on the road

From Mick Jagger on down to the lowliest roadie, pervasive connectivity has become an essential part of the business and art of the modern rock tour.

CYCLORAMA the New Studio Album from STYX!

Looks like Google has purchased Pyra, the company behind Blogger (the software that runs this and a million other blogs). Wild.

Written on the airplane to Denver:

I used one of my upgrade certificates and got into first class, which is mostly empty. While awaiting takeoff, the row behind me had some seat assignment confusion, and of course, the guy there actually was supposed to be in my row.

Big round-shaved-head guy with Stone Temple Pilot mini-beard and wraparound shades. Won’t let me get up to let him in and drunkenly (aha, it’s immediately apparent) pushes in. Orders another screwdriver (”thanks sweetheart”) and introduces himself, and asks me what I do, telling me that he is the fuckin’ Ozzy Osbourne of the mayonnaise business. (Full disclosure - he later tells me I look like Ozzy. Full disclosure 2 - while boarding the aircraft, the greeting attendant said I had nice hair and actually flipped it with her hand). Rob, as he is named, talks about his business a bit while I make the odd comment, and then he turns left into something about Bush, going to war, fucking Mecca festival, right, RIGHT? Ya know what I’m saying?????? He’s actually spraying while saying. He’s a republican now, was a democrat, why the fuck should be afraid at the superbowl, getting patted and shit (this is demonstrated with one meaty paw on my tender chest for a too-long moment), let’s tell them, right, we’re going to fucking bomb their festival, right? Ya know what I’m saying???????? I mean, when some GUY blows up a fucking nuclear bomb in BOSTON, just for fun. Right???????

At this point, the guy in the captain’s uniform who is in the row in front of us turns around and says in a very very controlled voice “Excuse me. If you’re going to use language like that. I would ask that you do keep your voice. down.” I could feel Rob (who is reminding me more and more of Chris Farley) looking at me with a “Phhht” look on his face and I struggle to keep reading the book jacket or anything but not look at him. He leans in and says “Arabic!” indicating the slightly dark skinned captain guy. I said something mutter-y, and he said “don’t ya think? Arabic?” At this point he taps him on the shoulder and I am VERY concerned, but Rob just wanted to apologize.

Rob is now sleeping, occasionally snorting, but he’s no longer a threat. They did NOT want to wake him up before takeoff to get his seatback up, but they did. Landing, however, is still a few hours away.

We’ll see if we do the business card swap at the end of the flight. [We did not - SP]

Game from the folks at Snuggle. Catch those nasty wrinkled clothes and earn points. Heady stuff here.

An eyeball in a bottle of juice?

The seal on the bottle was intact. The expiration date was more than four months away. The eyeball was considerably larger than the mouth of the bottle. How did it get there?

Read full story

Artist Dianne Platner adjusts one of the structures in her miniature homeless encampment made from signs she has collected.

Cool glassware from Melina

Fitness celebrity? What the hell is that! That’s even worse than spokesmodel!

Sniffy the Rat Bus Tour

The Sniffy the Rat Bus Tour pays homage to one of Canada’s most famous artistic events. In 1990, Vancouver performance artist Rick Gibson announced he would be crushing a live rat named Sniffy between two cement blocks in what he called a ‘free art lesson.’ Word of the event generated international media publicity and inspired much dialogue about the definition and ethics of art. Public outrage swelled until the day of the event when angry animal activists stole Gibson’s killing apparatus and threatened his personal safety, while Sniffy was ‘rescued’ and given a comfortable home in the suburbs.

The Sniffy the Rat Bus Tour is much like a celebrity bus tour you might find in Hollywood. A friendly tour guide provides commentary for the audience as they travel to the sites that made the Sniffy story happen. There’s music and singing, a multi-media presentation, dramatic re-enactments and plenty of photo opportunities!

Turning a Digital Database Into Local Radio

With a little help from digital editing, Mr. Daly can do a top-10 countdown show tailored to the phoned-in requests of radio listeners in 11 different cities without actually knowing which songs he is counting down.

‘Dawson’s Creek’ Dries Up After Five Years on WB

The WB plans to air a two-hour “Dawson’s” finale May 14