Shit.

Studs Terkel made it to 96, not bad. He's one of my heroes for his amazing oral history of the (first) great depression, Hard Times. Reading that really puts the present crises into perspective (anyone gnawed on a shoe for dinner lately?). Like The Grapes of Wrath, its a book that makes your bed a little softer at night, your food a little tastier and stays with you for a long time.

Always a music lover, Terkel had a radio show, often interviewing up-and-coming talent. In 1963, he interviewed Bob Dylan and started with the question, "Where do you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?"

RIP Studs.

Wilco the Song

Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood Cover Portishead

Thanks to Matt for pointing me to this haunting cover of Portishead's "The Rip."

I wasn't a fan back in the day, but now I Favor The Portishead. Third is blowing me away.

Happy Halloween Bastards

This video seems suitably creepy. I really like this guy, Chad VanGaalen, who is based in Calgary. He draws and animates his own videos.

Elizabeth Dole Hits New Low

I didn't know it was possible to sink this low in a campaign ad. The clip is of Campbell Brown lambasting Dole for sticking by this hunk o' shit, but you have got to check this ad out. It looks like a lampoon, but it just ran on my local station not ten minutes ago. Kay Hagan filed suit against her today, claiming defamation.

Fix It

I never noticed how much Ryan Adams looks like Rick Moranis. Can't wait to get this new album. Hopefully sometime in the next 6 months I'll have a spare $15 to go pick it up.

It pays to know your audience

I followed this link to a story about post-game celbrations after the Phillies' world series win last night. Down the side it lists "Related Slideshows" as follows:

Phillies vs. Rays - World Series
Phillies Fans Celebrate World Series Win!!!
Openly Gay Celebrities
Real Or Fake [Breasts]?
Celebs Who Lean To The Right
Celebrity Moms Gone Wild
Hottest Celebrity Moms

My question is: Who the hell is interested in "Celebs Who Lean To The Right"?

Fun in Memphis

Stuck in Memphis? Not sure what to do to entertain your kids? How about letting them beat up a cop? Fun for the whole family.

Here's a link in case the video wont' work for you.

Polly Scattergood

Not catchy enough for a Friday post, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. Good name too.

Palin's "Going Rogue?"

A recent CNN article suggests that as a McCain victory becomes less and less likely, Sarah Palin has begun looking out for Number One, deliberately going off-message with an eye on 2012. My favorite part of the article?

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," another McCain source familiar with prepping Palin told CNN, saying it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

Read the rest here.

Nice

I love how the marketing machine continues to chug even as the lawsuit between Warner Brothers and Fox could prevent this film from ever seeing the light of day.

At Least I Get A Dr Pepper

Ten years and this is it?

Catchy Friday

Catchy tune, although I must say even Andrew Ridgeley played the guitar better than this young lady plays the drums.

Good God, I've Been Busy

It's good to know I've been missed, Deighve.

After years and years and years of designing Web sites using table-based layouts (hey, that's how everybody did it back in the day), I have taken the plunge and taught myself to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a much more elegant and efficient way of doing things that separates a page's content from its layout. Why was I a hold-out, you may be asking?

1) Even just a couple of years ago, there were many people in my company still using Netscape 4.x, an ancient browser that was incapable of rendering CSS at all. However, a recent glance at our statistics verified that all my current customers are on board with IE6 (ugh), IE7 or Firefox.

2) I had heard some real horror stories about browser rendering differences with CSS and how the same things that rendered beautifully in one browser looked absolutely shitty in another. Weird indents here and there, odd overlaps where there shouldn't be any, who needs that? The only way around, and this is still true with IE6, is to use various CSS hacks to fool the errant browser into doing the right thing. ("* html" has become my new best friend.)

3) I, like most people, tend to stick with what I know.

I've done this completely on my own, with no prodding from anyone else - or hope of monetary compensation - because it's the right thing to do if I want to be regarded as a serious designer. (The look on my non-techie boss's face was priceless when I tried to explain CSS and its benefits to all concerned.) I've worked through a lot of lunches and even made a trip to work last weekend to figure something out that was making me crazy. (Thanks again, IE6!)

I'm still Johnny Newguy, and I'm relatively certain that my CSS will be a source of secret embarrassment in a few months, but to get a real sense of how powerful this stuff is, check out css Zen Garden and select some of the different designs in the right-hand column. Keep in mind as you do that the content for each page is exactly the same, only the CSS is changing.

Mind-blowing stuff.

So, Andy...

How much did this cost us?

Aaaaaargh . . . . .

From this article in the Atlantic Monthly:

I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver’s license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schnei¬er had made for me. I told the document checker at security that I had lost my identification but was hoping I would still be able to make my flight. He said I’d have to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived; he looked smart, unfortunately. I was starting to get genuinely nervous, which I hoped would generate incriminating micro-expressions. “I can’t find my driver’s license,” I said. I showed him my fake boarding pass. “I need to get to Washington quickly,” I added. He asked me if I had any other identification. I showed him a credit card with my name on it, a library card, and a health-insurance card. “Nothing else?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“You should really travel with a second picture ID, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“All right, you can go,” he said, pointing me to the X-ray line. “But let this be a lesson for you.”

Has the bottom also fallen out of the mackerel market?

From the WSJ recently.

MACKEREL ECONOMICS IN PRISON LEADS TO APPRECIATION FOR OILY FILLETS
Packs of Fish Catch On as Currency, Former Inmates Say; Officials Carp

By JUSTIN SCHECK

When Larry Levine helped prepare divorce papers for a client a few years ago, he got paid in mackerel. Once the case ended, he says, "I had a stack of macks."

Mr. Levine and his client were prisoners in California's Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex. Like other federal inmates around the country, they found a can of mackerel -- the "mack" in prison lingo -- was the standard currency.

"It's the coin of the realm," says Mark Bailey, who paid Mr. Levine in fish. Mr. Bailey was serving a two-year tax-fraud sentence in connection with a chain of strip clubs he owned. Mr. Levine was serving a nine-year term for drug dealing. Mr. Levine says he used his macks to get his beard trimmed, his clothes pressed and his shoes shined by other prisoners. "A haircut is two macks," he says, as an expected tip for inmates who work in the prison barber shop.

The full text of the article appears as a comment.

Happy Lurker Day

It is our resident Lurker's birthday. Pop a cold PBR and wish him well.

Here's the horoscope for someone with an Oct. 19 birthday:
Born October 19
You are more intuitive than usual this year, and often find yourself in the right place at the right time. Your instinctual judgment is enhanced, and creativity is boosted. Your determination to honor your deepest desires and goals leads you towards increased success. (Editor's Note: sounds like a banner year for lurking). Excess with personal finances is a potential problem if you are not careful. A balanced approach to life, in terms of realistic expectations, is the best approach for maximizing success.

And here are a few lesser celebrities who share a birthday today:
Happy Birthday to Saturday Night Live alum Chris Kattan (1970), South Park's genius co-creator Trey Parker (1969), Elf director Jon Favreau (1966), TV's favorite carpenter Ty Pennington (1965), pugilist and former world champ Evander Holyfield (1962), 3rd Rock's John Lithgow (1945), transvestite movie star Divine (1945), Harry Potter's "Professor Dumbledore" actor Michael Gambon (1940), and Brady Bunch patriarch Robert Reed (1932).

Mother and Father Store

From a recent column by Peggy Noonan. I actually find this quite troubling.

There is now something infantilizing about this election. . . . More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads.

Makes sense to me

A few words of wisdom fromn Gregg Easterbrook. Full article here:

"Financial chaos is sweeping the world," a New York Times lead story said last week. I didn't notice any chaos in my part of the world -- every business was open, ATMs were working, goods and services were plentiful. There are economic problems to be sure. But chaos? Collapse? Next Depression? Please, media and political worlds, let's stop hyperventilating and show some perspective.

What is going on is a financial panic, not an economic collapse. Financial panics are no fun, especially for anyone who needs to cash out an asset right now for retirement, college and so on. But financial panics occur cyclically and are not necessarily devastating. The most recent financial panic was 1987, when the stock market fell 23 percent in a single day. Pundits and politicians instantly began talking about another Depression, about the "end of Wall Street." The 1987 panic had zero lasting economic consequences -- no recession began, and in less than two years, stocks had recouped all losses. Perhaps a recession will be triggered by the current financial panic, but it may not necessarily be severe.

. . . . Why has a credit-market problem expanded into a panic? One reason is the media and political systems are now programmed for panic mode. Everything's a crisis! Crises, after all, keep people's eyes glued to cable news shows, so the media have an interest in proclaiming crises. Crises make Washington seem more important, and can be used to justify giveaways to favored constituent groups, so Washington influence-peddlers have an interest in proclaiming crises.

An example of the exaggerated crisis claim is the assertion that Americans "lost" $2 trillion from their pension savings in the past month, while equities "lost" $8 trillion in value. This confuses a loss with a decline. Unless you cashed out stocks or a 401(k) in the past month, you haven't "lost" anything. . . . People who because of financial need have no choice but to cash out stocks right now are really harmed. Anyone who simply holds his or her ground with stocks takes no loss and is likely, although of course not certain, to come out ahead in the end. . . .

We've also fallen into panic because we pay way too much attention to stock prices. Ronald Reagan said, "Never confuse the stock market with the economy." Almost everyone is now making exactly that mistake. The stock market is not a barometer of the economy; it is a barometer of what people think stocks are worth. . . .

Consider this. On Black Monday in 1987, the market fell 23 percent. If you had invested $100 in a Dow Jones Index fund the following day, it would be $460 now, a 275 percent increase adjusting for inflation. That's after the big slide of the past month, and still excellent. So don't panic, just hold your stocks. And if you'd invested $100 in real estate in 1987, it would be $240 today, a 30 percent increase adjusting for inflation. That's after the housing price bubble burst. A 30 percent real gain in 20 years isn't a great investment -- until you consider that you lived in the house or condo during this time. To purchase and live in a dwelling, then come out ahead when you sell, is everyone's dream. . . .



Want to worry? Worry about the fact that the United States is borrowing, mainly from foreign investors and China, the money being used to fix our banks. . . . Peter Orszag, now director of the Congressional Budget Office, was on "Newshour" last week talking about the panic:

PETER ORSZAG: One thing we need to remember is we're lucky that we have the maneuvering room now to issue lots of additional Treasury securities and intervene aggressively to address this crisis.

JEFFREY BROWN: Wait a minute. Explain that. Lucky in what sense?

PETER ORSZAG: That people are still willing to lend to us. If in 20 or 30 years we continue on the same path, with rising health-care costs and rising budget deficits, we would reach a point where we wouldn't have that ability.