The Boo Radleys have always been one of my weaknesses. Formed in Wallasey, England in 1988, with singer/guitarist Sice, guitarist/songwriter Martin Carr, bassist Timothy Brown and now Placebo drummer Steve Hewitt. The band split in 1999. They had their 15 minutes of fame with Wake up Boo!, from their 1995 Wake Up album, but had recorded some excellent work that earned them credit with Indie/Britpop/shoegazing lovers. The songs in that album will always remind me of the great spring of '95 in Liverpool. Stuck on Amber is one of the pop gems it contained (you can download it here)
I don't normally spend the evening alone, but yesterday Virginia had a dinner out, so I prepared myself for a good five hours on my own. First I did some manly stuff --- plumbing. My toilet's tank loses an almost invisible line of water, and since I'm in this very annoying, eco-taliban mode, I decided i had to stop it. After a couple of hours, three trips to my local hardware store, my toilet was pretty much in the same state as before starting to repair it., but the bathroom floor and walls were much dirtier though.
Pardillos...maybe. The ones that queued up in London got a free HDTV and a taxi ride home. Only that cost Sony UK about 250,000 quid, but the PR effect sure is great. And, if you like realistic games and movies, you're basically getting the best console money can buy and a really, really cheap blu-ray player (standalone ones cost at least 1,000 EUR). So, who is the pardillo now?
Well, it's finally here: the most expected and talked-about gadget in recent history, and definitely something I'd like to have.
On the plus side: A gorgeous 3.5” screen, Mac OS, with its widgets, stability and good looks. Being just a little bigger than an ordinary iPod, and a mere 15g heavier than your average telephone, you can make calls, access the Internet, watch videos and music, and even (I guess more apps will be eventually disclosed) enjoy a “Mac PDA”. Convergence in your hands, man!
On the downside: No 3G is the obvious one. Being cool will set you back 599 USD, which seems like a bit too much to me. Plus, it will only be available this side of the pond in Q4. By then these already-average specs will be long outdated…
The iPhone will become mainstream (just like the iPod) in three obvious stages:
Step One: Unemployed hipsters with trust funds and Mac afficionados drop the requisite 600$ to be the first to ride the iPhone wave, and more importantly, have another platform in which to exercise their pretension.
Step Two: Six months later, the price drops down into the "Somewhat-reasonable-but-not-really," and all the upper-middle class tech guys and rich white kids buy them.
Step Three: One year later, the price drops down into the Motorola RAZR range, and everyone and their grandma suddenly has an iPhone. Mac Fanatics everywhere rejoice in the growing ubiquity of their cult/favorite brand. Hipsters everywhere rebel in anger, many are quoted as saying, "The iPhone is like, so fucking 2007."
In any case, this may become the ultimate Metrosexual device:
As Bechtel Goes, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times:
Bechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission — to rebuild power, water and sewage plants — wasn’t accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq’s population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers’ money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract.
As Bechtel goes, so goes the whole reconstruction effort. Whatever our leaders may say about their determination to
stay the course, I mean, complete the mission, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq they’ve already cut and run. The $21 billion allocated for reconstruction ... has been spent, much of it on security rather than its intended purpose, and there’s no more money in the pipeline.The failure of reconstruction in Iraq raises three questions. First, how much did that failure contribute to the overall failure of the war? Second, how was it that America, the great can-do nation, in this case couldn’t and didn’t? Finally, if we’ve given up on rebuilding Iraq, what are our troops dying for?
There’s no definitive way to answer the first question. You can make a good case that the invasion of Iraq was doomed no matter what... But the lack of electricity and clean water did a lot to dissipate any initial good will... And Iraqis are well aware that the billions squandered by American contractors included a lot of Iraqi oil revenue...
Consider the symbolism of Iraq’s new police academy, ... “the most essential civil security project in the country.” It was built at a cost of $75 million by Parsons Corporation.... But the academy was so badly built that feces and urine leak from the ceilings in the student barracks.
Think about it. We want the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. But if they do stand up, we’ll dump excrement on their heads.
As for how this could have happened, that’s easy: major contractors believed, correctly, that their political connections insulated them from accountability. Halliburton and other companies ... were ... so closely identified with President Bush and, especially, Vice President Cheney that firing or even disciplining them would have been seen as an admission of personal failure on the part of top elected officials.
As a result, the administration and its allies in Congress fought accountability all the way. Administration officials have made repeated backdoor efforts to close the office of Mr. Bowen, whose job is to oversee the use of reconstruction money. ... And now, ... Congress has passed a bill whose provisions include the complete elimination of his agency next October. ...
But that’s all in the past. What about the future?
Back in June, ... Mr. Bush said something I agree with. “You can measure progress in megawatts of electricity delivered,” he declared. “You can measure progress in terms of oil sold on the market on behalf of the Iraqi people.” But what those measures actually show is the absence of progress. By any material measure, Iraqis are worse off than they were under Saddam.
And we’re not planning to do anything about it: the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is basically over. ...[T]he United States has accepted defeat on reconstruction.
Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq. For what?
Not all of that history, however, is being left behind. Owner Hilly Kristal said he's negotiating to open up a CBGB in Las Vegas, as early as March...
Wherever the next CBGB ends up, Kristal said he's planning to take everything he can with him: the stage, the bar, the floorboards and assorted memorabilia. The scraps, he said, may be auctioned on eBay.
"We're going to take the urinals," Kristal said. "Joey [Ramone] went to the bathroom there.
"We can charge admission," he said, laughing.
The whole story, here.
In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?“GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.
The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be. We don't want to scare you. Still, keep that seat belt fastened all the same.
Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.
Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.
On channel 11 of our in-flight entertainment system you will find a video consisting of abstract imagery and a new-age soundtrack, with a voice-over explaining some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious, but it is not meant to be fun. It is meant to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.
Once we have reached cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal and a choice of beverages—a word that sounds so much better than just saying ‘drinks’, don't you think? The purpose of these refreshments is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot do yourselves or anyone else any harm. Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.
After take-off, the most dangerous part of the flight, the captain will say a few words that will either be so quiet that you will not be able to hear them, or so loud that they could wake the dead. So please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. We appreciate that you have a choice of airlines and we thank you for choosing Veritas, a member of an incomprehensible alliance of obscure foreign outfits, most of which you have never heard of. Cabin crew, please make sure we have remembered to close the doors. Sorry, I mean: ‘Doors to automatic and cross-check’. Thank you for flying Veritas.”
“¿Por qué me gustan las medusas? No lo sé. Las encuentro bonitas. Antes, mientras las miraba, he pensado una cosa. Escucha, lo que nosotros vemos es sólo una pequeña parte del mundo. Damos por hecho que esto es el mundo, pero no es del todo cierto. El verdadero mundo está en un lugar más oscuro, más profundo, y en su mayor parte lo ocupan criaturas como las medusas. Eso nosotros lo olvidamos. ¿No te parece? Dos terceras partes del planeta son océanos y lo que nosotros podemos ver con nuestros ojos no pasa de ser la superficie del mar, la piel. De lo que verdaderamente hay debajo no sabemos nada”.
