Maureen Writes

I enjoy reading Maureen Dowd of the Times for the most part. The sentence of the day comes from her:
"Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.

Sheer heaven."
Read all here.
graph per ny times

SLC Drives Cheaply

Just read this on the Times. Salt Lake City is one of my favorite spots so, naturally, I was interested in the subject.

"The best deal on fuel in the country right now might be here in Utah, where people are waiting in lines to pay the equivalent of 87 cents a gallon. Demand is so strong at rush hour that fuel runs low, and some days people can pump only half a tank.

Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah spent $12,000 to convert his government-issued S.U.V. to run on natural gas.

It is not gasoline they are buying for their cars, but natural gas.

By an odd confluence of public policy and private initiative, Utah has become the first state in the country to experience broad consumer interest in the idea of running cars on clean natural gas."
graph per ny times

Mulholland Drive

While reading the NY Times this morning, I noticed a bit on Naomi Watts. It got me to thinking of her past performances and a film I don't believe I've mentioned here yet is David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. If you haven't seen it, do so.
It's grotesque, sad, funny, mysterious, and vain all at the same time. In other words, a good metaphor for Hollywood.

Michael Jackson 'Pairs Up' with Robert BURNS

"Robert Burns's poetry might have been dismissed as "sentimental doggerel" by Jeremy Paxman but that hasn't stopped diminutive I'm A Celebrity contestant David Gest and pop legend Michael Jackson from recording an album of the much-loved Scottish poet's work. Gest's spokesman said the album is a modern musical take on some of Burns' classic poems, and had been a long cherished project.

...

"We haven't changed the lyrics but the music is now modern and brought up to date," Gest said. "Michael and I had fun. It's something we have always wanted to do…because he is our favourite poet."

Hmm. I would have figured Michael Jackson for a Dante fan.

More here.

graph per guardian
via MR

Apple Ad Banned in the UK

Mae West-inspired jokes apparently won't quite cut it for Apple.

""Is that the whole internet in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?"

The above joke, despite being quite hilarious, will never be seen in an iPhone ad -- at least not in picky Great Britain. Why? The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has upheld a complaint about a TV spot for the iPhone which claims that "all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone". The problem is that the iPhone doesn't work with Flash or Java, which caused two viewers to write in and whine. From the ASA case page:

Two viewers believed the claim that all parts of the internet were accessible was misleading because they understood that the iPhone did not support Flash or Java, both integral to many web pages."

Is this a question of semantics or a basic cultural difference?

Read it here.
graph per apple

Which Body Part Gets Sung About the Most?

"Across all of the categories, the eyes are most frequently mentioned body part (Hall & Oates, "Private Eyes"), with the exceptions of hip hop, which places a firm emphasis on the posterior (Sir Mix a Lot, "Baby Got Back") and blues (Louisiana Red, "Keep Your Hands Off My Woman") and gospel music (The Gospel, "Put Your Hands Together"), which are respectively focused on the keeping off of one's hands and the clapping or raising of one's hands.

As for the genre that talks about body parts the most, hip hop takes the honors with more references than any other genre. Meanwhile, gospel refers to the body the least. There are plenty of other data points to peruse. It's nice to know that 23.64 percent of hip hop songs refer to the behind, while 11.83 percent of rock songs talk about eyes."

I guessed similarly.

Read it here.
Hat tip to the MR
graph per wired

"Fake Following" per Kotke

Jason Kotke hit it right.
"One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates. That way, it appears that you're paying attention to them when you're really not. Just like everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it "most important feature in the history of social networks" and I'm inclined to agree. It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition."

Right.

via MR

Text Messaging: Economy of Speech Non Plus?

Textual activity is a necessity to many. Now consider the following:

SMS 1) "Uhm, did u get my email this morning re: that SMS I got last night from ___ after I let a VM for them when I was at that event in SF?'

SMS 2) "ja, ja, & ja."

SMS 1) "Oh my, s/o's chatty this AM!"

SMS 2) "k. N1"

Tip of the hat to the second texter. 'Economy of speech' par excellence.

What's Your Blog About?

Ok, this, this entertained me. It might also be one of those pictures that's worth, well, a bunch of words.
One of the HetPer readers did this with the content of this blog and this is what the picture yielded.

Music and Maturity

"For most of us, our love of music isn't getting in the way of work, family and relationships. At least I hope not. I'm not a therapist. I don't know what to tell you if you keep breaking up with people because they've never heard of Os Mutantes or Scott Walker. Nor do I have advice for you if your marriage is on the rocks because you'd rather see The Hold Steady than have dinner with the in-laws."

Music, as Nietzsche's music-loving, dying Socrates maintained, is the ultimate language and, as such, it is bound to evoke stark feelings. And maybe Socrates would have also skipped a dinner with the in-laws if The Hold Steady were performing on the Forum. One can only guess at this point.

(post scriptum: I found it interesting that Socratic references were also used in two previous posts on music: one on Bob Dylan and the other on Stereophonics.)

Good post. Read it all here.