I mentioned Colin Hay on Twitter last night, since you asked. I really fell into Hay’s music again around 2000 or so, and then again off and on since. For a while, I’ve been trying to describe it. If there is an overriding sentiment, what would it be? I’ve settled on midlife, convertible, late-afternoon sun.
The prologue in that particular live performance is his getting dropped by his record label after Men at Work. He released the album carrying that song in his mid-40s, so it makes sense.
The debates? Twitter had a big night. Remember when the media scoffed at Twitter? I love that all the big national folks fall all over themselves to report about it now. I bet we’ll find that this was one of the biggest nights yet for the microblogger.
Did you know that the history of video has recently been re-written?
British photographer Edward Raymond Turner patented color motion picture film in 1899, but the credit for the first fully functional system went to George Albert Smith’s Kinemacolor in 1906. Researchers at the National Media Museum recently discovered that Turner had in fact shot a few rolls of color film that were languishing in the museum’s archives and set out to see if they worked.
Edward Raymond Turner had no idea in 1899 that you would see this:
From the first parrot, the first people shot in color, to the biggest blockbuster of 2012, re-imagined by the people at Honest Trailers:
A friend had this to say about that trailer:
OK, as a Marvel pseudo-expert, allow me to punch some holes in this “honest” trailer. First, Bruce Banner has ALWAYS been able to turn into the Hulk, just not the other way around. He spends most of his life trying NOT to turn into the Hulk. If you want misunderstood character, see Edward Norton’s Hulk. Anger is what sets off the Hulk, not heart rate. However, in the very first Hulk comic, he changed whenever it turned night. Back stories change. But this one got it right.
Second, every true comic fan knows who Thanos is. If you don’t know who Thanos is, then you aren’t a fan, you are someone who went to see a movie. And that’s fine. But don’t hate because you like superheroes with S’s and bats on their chest so you know who to root for.
Third, Loki didn’t die at the end of Thor, he just let go. He’s a god. He’s immortal. He also has inter-dimensional teleportation capability, see character back story.
And that’s what happens when the comic book set chimes in.
Story about news of the day: Alex Green is the editor of the student newspaper at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn. One of his professors, he learned, was leaving school. Green started looking into into the public records and learned the professor was facing of “having attempted to meet with a minor child” at a gas station. He wrote a story. School president Dr. Stephen Livesay ordered it killed.
All of that to get you to the latest, from Jim Romenesko:
This morning I talked to Bryan College Triangle adviser John Carpenter and asked: Are you aware that Alex Green called and asked me to remove the post?
The adviser said he was.
Did you or someone else at the college tell him to make that call? I asked.
“I can’t comment on that,” Carpenter said.
OK, that answers that question, I thought. (Someone else I talked to this morning believes the editor “has been guilted” by the college president to believe he did something wrong by publishing a story about a professor charged with trying to hook up with a minor. Green hasn’t returned a message that I left this morning.)
And that, friends, is a president big timing a student. (For even more, here are notes from a meeting the president had in the aftermath. He would not allow that meeting to be recorded because he can flex that particular puny muscle.)
Yes sir. For all sorts of reasons. First, while The Triangle is a class project, and thus under the purview of the administration, Green published this of his own accord after you shut him down. Second, you overreached in your reaction with regard to the intrepid young report. Third, from the university’s PR perspective you’ve now made this much bigger for you than it had to be.
Sure, this is a private school, and we can talk all about the case law. But there should be more to the ethical and moral leadership of students than the case law. The good folks at Bryan, as Dr. Livesay said tried “doing the right thing to protect the privacy of a man charged, but not convicted, of a crime” briefly forgot about their other obligation. Seems that everything is being righted now.
Quick links: When the Tuscaloosa News won their Pulitzer last year for tornado coverage, an important part of that was how they used Twitter. But don’t tell the Associated Press, which is vowing to not break news on social media.
It was a late night. About 2:30 or 3 this morning, I think, when they finished their newspaper. Much faster than the first night last year. Not as fast as they’ll be later in the year, of course. And of course time doesn’t matter so much. Work on it until the sun rises if it means the quality is good.
And the first paper is pretty good. This is a young staff, with only one returning section editor from last year. They’re learning as they go, and we’ll make sure they learn a lot. But for a first edition, this is promising. You can see it online here.
We had our first critique meeting just after lunch today. Four members of the editorial staff were there, and we laughed and told jokes and asked questions about this or that in the paper. There are errors to correct, but there are many things to brag on. Later in the day they received compliments from two big titles in the university’s administration. That’s a nice pat on the back, too.
Spent part of the afternoon unpacking a few new cameras for the department.
We have added a large handful of new high definition equipment this year. When they handed me this part of my job a few years ago it was a mess. As of today we are an all-HD shop.
A great plan from the faculty, great support from the university’s administration and attention to detail have made it happen. The digital video center is a part of the program we are proud of.
Hard working students, smart planning among the faculty and an administration that is taking part. No wonder Samford is a great place to work.
Pretty, too. This is one of our lovely buildings, as the afternoon is winding down:
And this is west campus, from Talbird Circle, looking back toward Seibert Hall:
This came up on Twitter. Someone we know from Alabama, and from Auburn, is back at Alabama for law school. But before she returned to Tuscaloosa she came to visit the Cumberland School of Law at Samford. She’s jealous, but, you know, they are all beautiful campuses.
Chick-fil-A now wants your name, for when your order is ready. The guy at the cash register asked. Threw me for a loop. Why does everyone need my name? This is probably a good idea at lunchtime. For now I hope I can hear them over the din of the … three people in here at dinner.
Also that manager is working. That guy. You know the one; he moonlights as security at concerts so he can get his authority on. One night I saw him almost work his way into a fistfight over what time he closed his store. He’s a bit aggressive with his employees, too. Just a bit intense for a chicken place.
Remember, during the week of Chick-fil-A Week of Free Publicity, that after the I Eat Mor Chickun campaign, there was to be a kiss-in after that. Some wondered if that would devolve into a nasty scene. If there were going to be fisticuffs it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn it involved him.
Here’s why you love Chick-fil-A, though: the guy who took my order gave me a coupon for a free sandwich for the delay. I’d waited an eternity, three minutes.
More rehab tonight. I’m sore, but that’s more muscle sore than injury sore. Seems I can easily overdo it, that’s progress. So, yes, let’s do that again.
And then I did an hour of intervals on a bike, clocking 19.5 miles and showing watts and METs I don’t understand. I’m just waiting for the muscle spasms to go away. A few days after that — I have to make sure they aren’t trying to trick me — then I’ll try to really ride again. It has been a while, but my shoulder says no rush. So far I’ve been inclined to agree, which seems odd. I try not to think about it.
Any day that starts with fruit and grading can’t be bad, right? I think so. Also, apple slices are delicious.
I’m a phase eater. Sometimes I eat a lot. And then, for a brief while, I’ll eat very little. There’s nothing consistent about it, except when I’m in the habit of eating the same things over and over. Lately I’ve been on a fruit kick, which is not particularly interesting to anyone but me, and only then given how many bad-for-me things I typically ingest.
There is a boy in my family who apparently reminds me of me — how he talks and walks and laughs — and I think, “Poor kid.” And then I text his mother and say “If he is like me tell him to study harder and eat fewer candy bars.”
“Enjoy more grapes.”
So I had a small fruit tray for breakfast and graded quizzes this morning. I had lunch with one of our recent grads. We had barbecue, my first ever trip to Saw’s. It is a small little place in a roadside strip mall. There are maybe eight tables inside, we had the corner window. The lady at the register is managing chaos, but thanks everyone who writes out a tip. It doesn’t feel particularly clean, but you can’t make respectable barbecue in a place that aces the health code rules.
A young man brings out your lunch on paper plates. They leave you alone otherwise, despite the lunch crowd and the few tables. There are framed newspaper articles and magazine covers on every inch of the walls. There are license plates above the doors. It is all a thin and perfectly random homage to a sub-genre of food.
Longtime readers know barbecue would be the center of all of my food streaks if it were actually healthy. All things in moderation though, even slow cooked, pulled pork.
Back on campus I had a brief meeting with the editor to discuss distribution patterns and then a visit with my chair, who’s the nicest guy around, and some students about various student things. I wrote plenty of emails.
The guy that can fix my office phone called my cell. He stopped by near the end of the day. This is what he did: glanced at my phone, followed the path of the two cords coming out of it with his eyes, picked one up and plugged it into the wall.
The phone paused, lit up and turned on.
Naturally, I feel like a dope. Turns out he’d had to do some electrical work in a panel in a Jeffries tube somewhere in the building. He did that after I called to complain that my phone wouldn’t work. I didn’t know that, and hadn’t thought to test the highly technical technique of plugging the phone back in to see if it was working this week where it did not last week.
So I spent a few minutes playing with the settings. Turns out you can run your computer off this phone. You can both phone home and phone the Internet from this Cisco IP device. It does not have the ringtone from 24, however. I’m sure there’s a way to do — yes there is.
The engineer that fixed the phone left his notebook in my office. It looked important, so I called his office and someone was still there. He answered his phone, on this same server networked phone. Sounded like he was standing in my doorway.
Pin drop nothing, I could hear the creases in his slacks settling.
So I walked the book over, because this is one thing the phone won’t do. The phone guy will thank me in the morning.
He’ll send an email, no doubt.
Hot day today, even into the evening. I believe she had the right idea:
She does it, her owner said, more than he would like. But the fountains at Samford are just so tempting.
Burr and Forman, by the way, are not buried beneath that fountain. That is a large regional law firm. Some 55 of their lawyers graduated from Samford with their undergrad or with their JD from Cumberland.
