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Stuff and things for Wednesday

A few people actually asked for this on Twitter — can you believe it? — and so I’ve compiled this list in Storify. It is found elsewhere on the site, but that just isn’t good enough. Your requested material should be everywhere. It started on Twitter, of course, but the biggest problem is that Twitter has a very temporary nature. Storify will, presumably, be more permanent. And I can edit it for later. So, then, here is the famous Twilight Twitter commentaries:

The Yankee tells me the next movie is set to underwhelm everyone 17-years-and-older this fall. I’m sure she’ll go. If so, I’ll go along to make fun of the thing on Twitter (I do it for you, Internet) and then put it there.

I’m beginning to like Storify. It makes sense, though I wish it would do a few more things, which would also make sense given what it is trying to be. But that’s the nature of things. I’ll take my mile now, you charming little free service.

Follow ups to things mentioned recently: The New York Times has have no interest in competing for digital-only dollars. Did I mention that in it’s present form the paywall is hardly daunting? I get my Times from Twitter, so it is free to me under this odd scheme. Meanwhile, USA Today is revamping. There’s promise and trouble there, I’d think. Their online presence will be the best part of their recently unveiled strategies.

About Libya. Scrambling, stumbling and fumbling. Oy.

The story here is that a guy stills a laptop from a young computer whiz. The guy then apparently recorded this video of himself and the victim tracked it all down through the power of ~~cheese~~ technology.

And finally, a guy I worked with in Little Rock years ago put this on Twitter today. Apparently that’s his great-uncle cutting Elvis’ hair. He says his grandfather swept it up. No word, yet, on whether anyone stashed it for the eventual creation of e-bay.

So, there, I have three degrees of separation from Elvis and my friend Grant Merrill has a really cool family story he’s probably heard all of his life. And Elvis hair, lots of Elvis hair. He’s just waiting until his daughter goes off to college, and then he’ll sell it off for tuition money. Grant’s a multimedia mogul now. Very impressive.

One day, when I need a loan, I’ll remind him of that time he crashed on my sofa.

This got me looking for an aircheck from the late, great Ray Lincoln who was simply one of the best people any of us ever worked with in radio. I only knew him at the end of his career when his health was failing, but his mind was razor sharp. In his prime he did a show where he performed two people, Ray and Ram, at once. And he did it well, I’ve heard snippets and the thing was amazing. Later I wrote a little copy for him and pitched to him as he did horse track picks. Lincoln was one of those guys who could do a lot of things well, and he was regarded as one of the best handicappers in the country. As was typical, he did that as a character, too. Sport Jackson was a no-nonsense personality and it was just inside the man. He was a method actor without a stage.

KTHV, when Lincoln died a few years back, did the best obit piece you’ve ever read, mostly because the man was one of those people you could imagine has existed anyway:

In January of 2000, deteriorating health forced Lincoln to quit full-time radio. His condition would worsen until he was forced to enter a Dallas hospital in 2003. “They cut me open and did six bypasses. They were gonna do five and I found out if they do six, you get the cell phone and the Internet and the dish.” His condition would deteriorate until he was forced to enter a Dallas hospital in 2003. He suffered six strokes which left him incapacitated and he was in dire need of a heart transplant. Lincoln was kept alive by a machine called an l-Vad. Eventually though, his family was faced with a decision. Lincoln explained in 2005, “It was not looking good. So, we had decided on Thursday, come Sunday, we’ll just turn this machine off.” Suddenly, there was a donor heart available that was a match for Lincoln. “This kid, his name was Dwayne Compton, 26 years old. He was killed in an automobile accident December 11th and the next day, I got his heart,” Lincoln says. “And his heart is in my chest right now.”

And they included quotes that probably are more in keeping with the character Ray Lincoln conveyed on air:

“The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench. A long, plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

“Do I get credit for using those words? Look at my contract. I get a 50 cent bonus for large polysyllabic words that are obscure and seldom used except for people who are erudite and urbane.”

I didn’t know him especially well, but he was always a decent guy and a great talent. Sadly, there isn’t any audio of his to be found on the Internet. This is an oversight.

We’re going to Little Rock this weekend for a conference. I must resist the urge to try and remember stories to tell. I was only there for a year, after all. But I certainly met some characters.

books / family / friends / iPhone / links / photo / site / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
16
Mar 11

Sadly they did not have strawberries

I made a video of our visit to the farmers market this morning. Enjoy.

The most important thing about this video is not that I shot it on my phone, but I edited it in the car on the ride home. After that the iMovie app offered an update. The description sounds promising. Can’t wait to see it in action.

I promised you two stories yesterday.

Here’s the first: My longtime friend and radio mentor, Chadd Scott, lost his job at an Atlanta sports talker this week. He was stuck in St. Louis, stranded by Delta and weather. He tweeted about it, Delta took offense and, being sponsors of his station, put a lot of pressure on his employer. So they fired him.

This is regrettable, but everyone in the business pretty much understands the tough spot the station was in. Less excusable was Delta’s overreaction. Here’s why. He tweeted about it on Tuesday and the power of the Internet took over.

He started that day with about 800 followers, and now has almost 1,200 as of this writing, but that’s not what is important. I collected his original tweets, minus one, which he deleted for his former employer, and the next nine hours of original tweets and posted them on Storify.

If you don’t read the entire thing, I ended with the important part. The last 50 tweets mentioning @chaddscott and thus, Delta, had (at that point) reached 19,113 potential airline customers, creating 22,711 impressions.

So this is unfortunate for Chadd, but he’s the kind of guy that lands on his feet. You don’t build the fastest growing syndicated show in the country as he did a few years ago or work at ESPN for two of their top shows as he has done without being the kind of talented person capable of landing on your feet. While no time is good to be out of a job, now especially so, Chadd’s going to move on to bigger things.

But poor thin-skinned, corporate Delta. The guy had a few jokes, sound observations, really, and a few people online saw it. Now he’s going on television, thousands and thousands and thousands of people saw this and, apparently, are making travel decisions around it. (And as soon as my already-booked next Delta trip is up, I’ll be sure to figure this into my personal calculus.) If they can’t figure out when to have deicer at which airport they might not be worth my money, either. Also, they did my friend wrong.

Here’s the second story: I went to a local bookstore last night, a Hastings. We don’t seem to have another one around (that isn’t attached to the university). I remember when this Hastings arrived, when I was in college. it was a novel thing, then, because they had books and music and movies. But only mildly novel. They had some of all of those things, but other places had more of any one given thing.

The writing was almost upon the wall then, but there’s no mistaking what it says now. These stores are dying, at least the ones that aren’t dead. It was like strolling through a video store — Can you still do that in your town? — the only thing you need is the preservative fluids.

Finally found the biography section. Two entire sets of shelves. Amazon has a few more selections.

Not much of a story, but Hastings, I learned, has used books. Then again, so does Amazon. I hope the place makes it. Towns need bookstores. College towns should have more than one. Several people work there and they have at least three chairs for sitting and reading. Also, they have free coffee, so if you need a fix, that might be a good place to try.

I don’t drink coffee, so I couldn’t say.

Worked on what will become a new section of the site. I’ll give you a hint:

Give up? That’s from an old 4th grade science book. It was published in 1940. It belonged to my grandfather. I have a few of his old books and I’m scanning the fun pictures for a small extra section of the site. Not in this book so much, but in one of his high school literature books, there are notes in the margins. I get the impression that he was a funny kid.

I’ll try and trot out part of that section next week.

cycling / Friday / friends / video / YouTube Cover Theater — 1 Comment
4
Mar 11

Thanks Shimano

What not to do on your bike: destroy the crank set first thing.

My Felt showed up two weeks ago and this afternoon I finally had a chance to take it out for a spin. Five miles out — and fortunately close to home — the aluminum machining was ruined.

So that was frustrating. And will be costly to replace and set me back a week.

But at least I have all of the necessary bike accessories.

And, hey, I’ve reviewed a book blurb, chewed through my grading, started staring at my dissertation notes and more this week.

We had dinner tonight with hysterical friends. Andrew, with whom The Yankee and I studied at Alabama, was passing through town. That brought out one of his friends from undergrad at AUM.

From this conversation we’ve learned one of life’s most important questions: are you salad curious?

YouTube Cover Theater returns with three quick samples from Pete Yorn. First up is a cover of a Yorn duet with Scarlett Johansson, Relator:

There’s his turn of the century first single, Life on a Chain:

And, finally, this, which is more interesting for the story than the cover. The guy here had just retired and bought this guitar with his last paycheck:

What would you buy with that last check?

(Cranksets don’t count.)

friends / iPhone / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
3
Mar 11

A silver lining in home repair

Anyone know what this is?

After my class today, we had a nice presentation by a small group of students on advertising, one stood stuck around a little longer than usual. We talked about interviewing and resumes for two hours.

I’ve come to conclusion that the most rewarding moments of teaching aren’t in the traditional classroom environment.

So I’m packing up my things for the night and find I have a voicemail. A friend’s in-laws are in need. It seems they’ve had a catastrophic pipe failure that will require re-doing a room. And they’ll need tile. Lot’s of it. The local Lowe’s only has so much, but others near me had more, so I was sent on a mission to buy them all out.

I could sympathize in emergency repair, so I found myself visiting three Lowe’s tonight — I had to pick up a new garage door opener for our house anyway, so really only two of the store visits were for someone else. The very patient people working at the front of each store called their tile-needing customer and let her pay over the phone. I must have $600 worth filling up my entire back seat.

Got home to a delicious turkey wrap from Amsterdam, and then loosened the two screws from the old garage door opener. Opened the new one, wrapped the wires around the contacts, tested my installation (A success!) and mounted it to the wall.

This home repair only cost me $8.

Now let’s review:

When we first moved in we broke the thermostat. That cost $50.

Then I broke the shower head trying to fix a drip. That led to a larger problem which required plumbers, a drywall saw and an acetylene torch. It should have cost us about $1400, the plumber said, since it was a weekend. Fortunately the house warrant and the new shower head stuff cost us around $100.

And then we woke up one weekend to find the frozen contents of our refrigerator hanging out in liquid form on the floor. That cost us $50 (thanks home warranty) plus whatever we paid for ice and dry ice to preserve our perishables.

(We’d been in the house for two months by then.)

Then, in October, the dishwasher broke. Fifty more bucks. (And our second in-house electrocution.)

Then it broke again in December. We had it repaired during the holidays. Yep, $50 more.

This list does not include the bird feeder or the cable/Internet problems.

January we had a month off from from fixing anything, but lately the garage door opener died. For a few days we’ve opened it the old fashioned way, with the remotes in the cars, but now we’re boldly living in the 21st century again.

On the other hand, we haven’t had to re-do a room because roots destroyed pipes and brought a sewer into our home. So there’s that.

Auburn / friends / video / weekend — Comments Off
29
Jan 11

Remember to check the lint filter

The day began with what might have been my first ever Honey Do item. I don’t keep track of such things, but this could be that mysterious piece of trivia that will become vitally important in 48 years.

The Yankee was out of town for a family trip and she asked me to make an appliance change while she was gone.

The dryer on one set is getting a bit sluggish and, in the interests of national security and energy bills, the list was handed down, “Would you mind swapping out the washer and dryer while my car is out of the way, giving you room to maneuver?” We have two sets. (Are you surprised? Don’t you have a backup?) But, really, this wasn’t merely an appliance change. This was a change of the set, because it wouldn’t do to have a cream washing machine operating next to a white dryer. There must be uniformity.

I did not mind, and so I did that. Up into the attic I went to retrieve the hand trucks. Cleaned everything out of the way in the laundry room. Disconnected the washer and carted it into the garage.

Disconnected the dryer, slid it over and then hauled it through the door into the garage. I made the baseball’s bullpen motion to no one in particular, touching right hand to left elbow and moved the boxes off the washer and dryer that were about to go into the game.

Then I carried them, one by one, into the laundry room thinking, Ha! Now I can correct the mistake I made the day we moved! I can put the washer on the left and the dryer on the right, like it is supposed to be!

And I did that, right up to the point where I realized that the washer had been on the right for a reason. Has to do with the exhaust hose for the dryer and a space issue that creates.

So the dryer went back into the garage, and now I’m just playing Tetris. The washing machine went to the right side, the dryer was inched into the space on the left. Hoses were connected. Things were fumbled. Water was dripped. I came to the stunning realization that hoping behind the washer in the narrowest of spaces with a wire shelf inches above your head is not a good idea.

There was a small leak in the washing machine’s supply hoses. I uttered oaths at the manager who called in this lefty. This guy was going to ruin everything!

When I’d tightened those things for all they were worth, I decided to then check to be sure that hot was connected to hot and cold was going to cold. Dodged a bullet there.

And then for the biggest test of all. The towel that has been collecting dust and water went into the machine and was washed in short order.

Stephen visited today. Haven’t spent that much time with him in several years. We had a burger for lunch, walked around campus enjoying the first beautiful spring-like day of the year. Ventured into Beard-Eaves and ran suicides on the old hardwood. (OK, we talked about doing it. As neither of us had gym shoes on, we found a convenient excuse.)

The baseball team was practicing across the road at Plainsman Park. We walked in and watched the last few innings of a scrimmage there.

And then we went back to my place and noticed that the TiVo had recorded the Auburn basketball game. That’s a not-good team, but we started watching it out of morbid curiosity. Before long the Tigers had a little lead over South Carolina and as the game progressed they kept that lead until it become possible that they might win. And then it looked probably and, finally, Auburn won an SEC basketball game for the first time this year. Some had predicted they wouldn’t pick up a conference victory.

Stephen left for dinner with his in-laws. I stayed in for barbecue chicken and to wrap up the Robin Hood series. One of the good guys, Allan A Dale, died, and the Sheriff, the main bad guy reappeared from the dead. The final fight featuring everyone that was still alive in the series began.

During that was the biggest problem. Robin, Much and Guy, two of our heroes, and one bad-guy-turned-decent-by-circumstance found themselves trapped in a room that became filled from above by Styrofoam pellets or aquarium rocks or Tribbles. It was hard to tell. They were finally rescued by their friends through a side door. Out spilled the unnamed nitrogen pellets of doom and the three victims.

The first thing Robin’s new love interest does?

Mouth-to-mouth? An 11th Century peasant beat science to the technique by about 800 years. I’d watched 38 of the 39 episodes of this show and almost stopped right there.

And then the final personal duels, a little more exposition and Robin got knifed in the neck. It was but a flesh wound, but the knife was spiked with medieval drugs. He wandered off and died. Roll credits!

Just checked on that towel. It dried in only one cycle. We’ve now made our home that much greener.