Pastor Mike http://www.blogger.com/profile/10369574538444942811 pastorstahl@aol.com from the Living Water Church in Miramar FL, wishes that we had an atheist database, and that the Bible has no errors. He's #1 in the database.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
American Chopper Sr.vs.Jr. last night featured the culmination of a bike build off tween the two and their companies/cronies. First off, let me explain the whos and whats. Paul Sr. is an ex-alchoholic steelworker, who started building custom bikes on a small scale, and thought he'd let the kid design a few, and the world turned upside down when it came to light that Jr. could do this
right out of the box. Sr. is an abusive idiot who has somehow managed to raise two reasonable, likeable men in sons Mikey and Paulie. Paulie employs Vinnie, and Cody, two favorites from the old days at OCC, while Sr. has much the same crew as always, Mike Amarotti, Jim "JQ" Quinn, master of the CNC maghine, Rick Petko, artist in metal, and Jason Pohl, computer design. What prompted the break between Sr. and Jr. boiled down to how Paulies work and work habits affected the shop and Sr.'s sense of "good business". At the heart of this controversy lay paulie, and his habits of getting to the shop late, looking at things for hours on end, and suggesting changes as they went along, you know, acting like an artist, which was alien to Sr.'s steelfoundry work ethic. Sr.'s opinion was that he could do just fine without Paulie, and that he was largely responsible for the companies success. So Jr. left/was fired, and now the two stand far apart, with the lawsuits and the lawyers involved. Ok. Whew.
The problem with Sr.'s reasoning is that his solution, let the shop design bikes by committee, turned out to be a bad one, when the bikes started looking exactly like they had been designed by a group, and a group who liked to stick crap on the bike,at that. Inevitably, the business took a turn for the worse, and with Paulie's decision to go into business, the Vs. theme came naturally. The first build-off was for Cadillac, and they both chose the same car for design cues. Now, let me preface what I'm about to say here with I don't ride motorcycles. I understood early on that the combination of me and motorbike = dead and bleeding off the side of a bridge. that being said, i feel somewhat able to speak here merely because I've been with the show since the beginning, and I do understand good design.
Senior's design looks like someone took the bike from Death Race 2000, the original, and kept on sticking "really cool" stuff on until they were happy. The hidden nitrous tank, double sided wheels...and the stealth abomination stuck on the end. Just an awkward design.
In the unveil Sr. kept on going on about the "diamond polished motor" and other features that didn't seem very Cadillac. The crowd's reaction was beyond ho hum. Then Paulie came out with his bike and it was polished smoke.
Look at the way the design flows from the front wheel to the rear fender, with it's integrated, real tailights, as opposed to this horror we have here:
That rear end looks like someone thought the engines from one of the spaceships in "Space Balls" looked cool, and stuck it right on.
The two together really make this clear.
Which one would you rather ride? Paulie was the thing that made OCC bikes outstanding, and Mikey was a large part of the success of the show. I think it's safe to assume that without his sons, Sr. would still be making choppers on the side, that look much the same bike to bike. To claim the boys were "nothing" reeks of desperation to save face.
The problem with Sr.'s reasoning is that his solution, let the shop design bikes by committee, turned out to be a bad one, when the bikes started looking exactly like they had been designed by a group, and a group who liked to stick crap on the bike,at that. Inevitably, the business took a turn for the worse, and with Paulie's decision to go into business, the Vs. theme came naturally. The first build-off was for Cadillac, and they both chose the same car for design cues. Now, let me preface what I'm about to say here with I don't ride motorcycles. I understood early on that the combination of me and motorbike = dead and bleeding off the side of a bridge. that being said, i feel somewhat able to speak here merely because I've been with the show since the beginning, and I do understand good design.
Senior's design looks like someone took the bike from Death Race 2000, the original, and kept on sticking "really cool" stuff on until they were happy. The hidden nitrous tank, double sided wheels...and the stealth abomination stuck on the end. Just an awkward design.
In the unveil Sr. kept on going on about the "diamond polished motor" and other features that didn't seem very Cadillac. The crowd's reaction was beyond ho hum. Then Paulie came out with his bike and it was polished smoke.
Look at the way the design flows from the front wheel to the rear fender, with it's integrated, real tailights, as opposed to this horror we have here:
That rear end looks like someone thought the engines from one of the spaceships in "Space Balls" looked cool, and stuck it right on.
The two together really make this clear.
Which one would you rather ride? Paulie was the thing that made OCC bikes outstanding, and Mikey was a large part of the success of the show. I think it's safe to assume that without his sons, Sr. would still be making choppers on the side, that look much the same bike to bike. To claim the boys were "nothing" reeks of desperation to save face.
Monday, June 6, 2011
"Kids today!"
From a Facebook post:
"Children are dissociated from the natural world due to focus on internet, Xbox and TV"
I disagree. My child watches TV like I used to read, voraciously (and knew the top ten dinosaurs on one show, by Latin names and classification, I mean, memorized) dances for hours on end to her Wii game, Dance Dance Annoy Daddy(and learns some odd songs. She loves hopping around to Bohemian Rhapsody, A song about a tractor, and Sympathy for the Devil) and uses her Ipod to access information and interact with her friends on a level the teenage me envies mightily. She is fully engaged in the world, and is sharp as a tack, with a wicked sense of humor honed by watching endless Nick at Night classic sitcoms when she can't sleep because of ADD(the best I could do when that happened was stare out the window and estimate how big the Junebugs banging into the screen wire, or if lucky the Braves were on the coast). She's growing up in small-town America, or what's left of it, and using technology to kick the world's ass right now. She still jumps on her trampoline for hours, and twirls a baton for days on end, like a champion. She twirls a 1/2" x 1/2"...staff for lack of a better term, like a modern day Maid Marion, beats people senseless, just in case she "ever wants to do Flag Corps". I have no clue how representative she is of "kids today" but based on her friends that I have met and my friends kids, they are bright, engaged and informed in a way I could have never been in middle school. They have access to the best medical treatment, both mental and physical, of any generation, as well as seeming endless choices in all of their consumer goods and services; and are by and large, doing great things. Challenging Michelle Bachman to a history test, standing up for religious freedom against an entire town in Louisiana, and using technology as a voice like never before, kids today are actually pretty cool. I'm not worried. Kids want to learn, you pretty much have to beat it out of them like it was with me. Only in the last 2 decades have I really started to enjoy learning again, and I hope that The Child and her generation never have that sort of weight put on them. I'm looking forward to the future.
"Children are dissociated from the natural world due to focus on internet, Xbox and TV"
I disagree. My child watches TV like I used to read, voraciously (and knew the top ten dinosaurs on one show, by Latin names and classification, I mean, memorized) dances for hours on end to her Wii game, Dance Dance Annoy Daddy(and learns some odd songs. She loves hopping around to Bohemian Rhapsody, A song about a tractor, and Sympathy for the Devil) and uses her Ipod to access information and interact with her friends on a level the teenage me envies mightily. She is fully engaged in the world, and is sharp as a tack, with a wicked sense of humor honed by watching endless Nick at Night classic sitcoms when she can't sleep because of ADD(the best I could do when that happened was stare out the window and estimate how big the Junebugs banging into the screen wire, or if lucky the Braves were on the coast). She's growing up in small-town America, or what's left of it, and using technology to kick the world's ass right now. She still jumps on her trampoline for hours, and twirls a baton for days on end, like a champion. She twirls a 1/2" x 1/2"...staff for lack of a better term, like a modern day Maid Marion, beats people senseless, just in case she "ever wants to do Flag Corps". I have no clue how representative she is of "kids today" but based on her friends that I have met and my friends kids, they are bright, engaged and informed in a way I could have never been in middle school. They have access to the best medical treatment, both mental and physical, of any generation, as well as seeming endless choices in all of their consumer goods and services; and are by and large, doing great things. Challenging Michelle Bachman to a history test, standing up for religious freedom against an entire town in Louisiana, and using technology as a voice like never before, kids today are actually pretty cool. I'm not worried. Kids want to learn, you pretty much have to beat it out of them like it was with me. Only in the last 2 decades have I really started to enjoy learning again, and I hope that The Child and her generation never have that sort of weight put on them. I'm looking forward to the future.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Listening to one of the all time great shows. Opened the first set with a 15 minute "Eyes of the World", and never looked back. Epic. This is the show featured on ABC's In Concert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKI4dKErQsQ, and in Spike Lee's 501s ad where he's in the top of the stadium swaying around, while in the background 70,000 people are dancing their asses off.
The recording is very similar to the ones I was doing at the time, an OTRF array. but he's using $2000 B&K mics, and all I had were my much beloved and missed AKG 451's. Of course, there's one other tiny difference. His was from the front row of the Taper section and had his mics on stands 7 feet tall, and mine are in the middle of the section, 25 feet in the air, and have 6 different mics hanging off the array, recording for friends and benefactors.
One night in '91 out of the blue, there's this ripple of sorts coming towards me, and it's Dan Healy, legendary FOH engineer for the Dead, and he's craning his head up at my array and goin' "What in the hell have you got up there?" in an actual tone of interest, and not the scorn one might expect from a road vet like him. Because i know, what I'm thinking up and doing taping-wise is going against most of the section and their Nakamichi 300 shotguns that are all middle and no highs or lows. I explain what I'm doing, and he gets a look on his face and goes "huh" as he processes. He then grins says I can see where your going, Cool." and we shoot the audio shit for a minute. I apologize for going up in '88 and asking for more Phil, and he laughs it off. Then BAM, just as quick as he shows up, he's gone. I kept the mics that high to minimize the crowd noise of the howler baboons and drunk idiots("HEY! IS THIS GONNA FUCK UP YOUR TAPE? AAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOO! Fuck you guys!") found at every show.
WAIT A MINUTE. IT'S BEEN 20 FUCKING YEARS SINCE THIS SHOW? HOLY CTHULU. time goes fast when you get married, move have a child, move again, get divorced and move once more.
Currently, I am sitting in the booth at Giants Stadium, circa 1991. DAMN this sounds good. As with most of Clay and Brenneke's tape with the B&K mics, the sound of the mics is almost dead flat, and has no particular character, more of a clinical observation. And let's all be thankful that they had the cash and know how to make it happen. My tapes are colored by the 451's tendency to be a touch bright, but I liked that. I tried to use them in as neutral a way as I possibly could, until 94 when I battery powered the Mackie 1202 and had those nice preamps, a little bit of eq, and an excellent mix between tow AKGs with the cardioid heads wide left and right in the OTRF and and two with the short shotgun heads pointed more directionally and added to give some center fill. The Help/Slip/Franklin's from '95 were recorded this way and I was closer to the front, and it can still fool my head that I'm in the omnibus. Having the dead neutral recordings are a valuable tool to have to compare all others to.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1991-06-17.fob.brennecke-young.GEMS.95644.flac16
The recording is very similar to the ones I was doing at the time, an OTRF array. but he's using $2000 B&K mics, and all I had were my much beloved and missed AKG 451's. Of course, there's one other tiny difference. His was from the front row of the Taper section and had his mics on stands 7 feet tall, and mine are in the middle of the section, 25 feet in the air, and have 6 different mics hanging off the array, recording for friends and benefactors.
One night in '91 out of the blue, there's this ripple of sorts coming towards me, and it's Dan Healy, legendary FOH engineer for the Dead, and he's craning his head up at my array and goin' "What in the hell have you got up there?" in an actual tone of interest, and not the scorn one might expect from a road vet like him. Because i know, what I'm thinking up and doing taping-wise is going against most of the section and their Nakamichi 300 shotguns that are all middle and no highs or lows. I explain what I'm doing, and he gets a look on his face and goes "huh" as he processes. He then grins says I can see where your going, Cool." and we shoot the audio shit for a minute. I apologize for going up in '88 and asking for more Phil, and he laughs it off. Then BAM, just as quick as he shows up, he's gone. I kept the mics that high to minimize the crowd noise of the howler baboons and drunk idiots("HEY! IS THIS GONNA FUCK UP YOUR TAPE? AAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOO! Fuck you guys!") found at every show.
WAIT A MINUTE. IT'S BEEN 20 FUCKING YEARS SINCE THIS SHOW? HOLY CTHULU. time goes fast when you get married, move have a child, move again, get divorced and move once more.
Currently, I am sitting in the booth at Giants Stadium, circa 1991. DAMN this sounds good. As with most of Clay and Brenneke's tape with the B&K mics, the sound of the mics is almost dead flat, and has no particular character, more of a clinical observation. And let's all be thankful that they had the cash and know how to make it happen. My tapes are colored by the 451's tendency to be a touch bright, but I liked that. I tried to use them in as neutral a way as I possibly could, until 94 when I battery powered the Mackie 1202 and had those nice preamps, a little bit of eq, and an excellent mix between tow AKGs with the cardioid heads wide left and right in the OTRF and and two with the short shotgun heads pointed more directionally and added to give some center fill. The Help/Slip/Franklin's from '95 were recorded this way and I was closer to the front, and it can still fool my head that I'm in the omnibus. Having the dead neutral recordings are a valuable tool to have to compare all others to.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1991-06-17.fob.brennecke-young.GEMS.95644.flac16
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/chaos/photos/Cast_Gallery/
I've been watching Chaos, the Freddy Martinez CIA show, and I'm kinda pissed off. The show was a mid season replacement, and was canceled after 2 freakin' episodes. I just got done with s1ep6, and the show and it's story arc are really, really taking off. The characters are starting to develop into actual people, and not just caricatures of government drones in a cubicle farm environment. The James Murray plays the enforcer, and is terrifyingly hilarious. "My stomach is upset, because that's where I keep all my worry. If you do not get my friend out of jail, I'm going to rip you in half" is one of the all time great threats.
The 4 on the OCS team are fairly well drawn, but there are small subtleties to other side players including the Director of Operations Red Foreman, who does a tasty job with the little bits that he's thrown. Non ridiculous plots about the spy game(Chuck?)that are plausible enough, and are still offbeat.Watch it now, and hope that USA or some other network picks it up. but there are small subtleties to other side players including the Director of Operations Red Foreman, who does a tasty job with the little bits that he's thrown. Watch it now, and hope that USA or another of the fine Cabletown family of networks picks it up and makes it a hit.
I've been watching Chaos, the Freddy Martinez CIA show, and I'm kinda pissed off. The show was a mid season replacement, and was canceled after 2 freakin' episodes. I just got done with s1ep6, and the show and it's story arc are really, really taking off. The characters are starting to develop into actual people, and not just caricatures of government drones in a cubicle farm environment. The James Murray plays the enforcer, and is terrifyingly hilarious. "My stomach is upset, because that's where I keep all my worry. If you do not get my friend out of jail, I'm going to rip you in half" is one of the all time great threats.
The 4 on the OCS team are fairly well drawn, but there are small subtleties to other side players including the Director of Operations Red Foreman, who does a tasty job with the little bits that he's thrown. Non ridiculous plots about the spy game(Chuck?)that are plausible enough, and are still offbeat.Watch it now, and hope that USA or some other network picks it up. but there are small subtleties to other side players including the Director of Operations Red Foreman, who does a tasty job with the little bits that he's thrown. Watch it now, and hope that USA or another of the fine Cabletown family of networks picks it up and makes it a hit.
Monday, April 12, 2010
TV I'm Watching This Week
OMG. I can not believe I am writing this, but I watch
Undercover Boss, and I do so religiously. I know, I know. It is as lowest common denominator as you can get, and they attempt to play on the most base of emotions, but, sometimes, they actually hit someone who makes me happy. Such was this young lady from 1-800-Flowers
last night.
Nicole works in a chocolate factory, and runs the line that boxes the chocolate covered goodies that they put in flower arrangements or something. The COO/President wasn't getting the boxes done and the line was backing up, and she would just walk over, do a few things and bang!, line fixed. Quiet, effective management, no yelling, no screaming, no threatening, no dire warnings about productivity, just steady leadership by example. Competence. And when they got to the reveal, where the Boss tells the employee, "hey, remember me? I'm not Dipshit McJones after all, hahahaha, I'm the President of the company!" and the employee gets to have a heart attack while thinking "did I piss this guy off? was there a booger in my nose? what was wearing that day? WHAT DID I SAY?!?!!!!", this young lady merely looked serenely worried, if that is possible. And I got what I watch for, my payoff, the boss saying "You saw how hard I was working on the line and how crazy it was, but it was amazing. When you stepped in it went calm." Her reply? "Thank you. I take pride in it." She is so competent that her answer itself is the ultimate expression of competency. Straight to the point, she knows what he is talking about, and doesn't brag or put on airs, just accepts the praise of her boss, and let's him know that it is important to her. Her "reward"? An incentive program, company wide, based on performance, with her name on it, as well as an actual management position. Talk about never having to buy a beer when you go out with co-workers. This is compelling TV. It doesn't happen every week, but sometimes, there is a spark of hope. People are being rewarded not for kissing ass, or for who they know, or for what they look like, or for what they wear; but for the craziest of reasons, how they actually perform their job. Of course, the other 4 people are hardworking as well, and I'm sure handpicked for the show, but as with this young lady., once in a while, it feels like they really found someone they weren't expecting to find, who blows them away with just competence. And that fires my brain up.
Undercover Boss, and I do so religiously. I know, I know. It is as lowest common denominator as you can get, and they attempt to play on the most base of emotions, but, sometimes, they actually hit someone who makes me happy. Such was this young lady from 1-800-Flowers
last night. Nicole works in a chocolate factory, and runs the line that boxes the chocolate covered goodies that they put in flower arrangements or something. The COO/President wasn't getting the boxes done and the line was backing up, and she would just walk over, do a few things and bang!, line fixed. Quiet, effective management, no yelling, no screaming, no threatening, no dire warnings about productivity, just steady leadership by example. Competence. And when they got to the reveal, where the Boss tells the employee, "hey, remember me? I'm not Dipshit McJones after all, hahahaha, I'm the President of the company!" and the employee gets to have a heart attack while thinking "did I piss this guy off? was there a booger in my nose? what was wearing that day? WHAT DID I SAY?!?!!!!", this young lady merely looked serenely worried, if that is possible. And I got what I watch for, my payoff, the boss saying "You saw how hard I was working on the line and how crazy it was, but it was amazing. When you stepped in it went calm." Her reply? "Thank you. I take pride in it." She is so competent that her answer itself is the ultimate expression of competency. Straight to the point, she knows what he is talking about, and doesn't brag or put on airs, just accepts the praise of her boss, and let's him know that it is important to her. Her "reward"? An incentive program, company wide, based on performance, with her name on it, as well as an actual management position. Talk about never having to buy a beer when you go out with co-workers. This is compelling TV. It doesn't happen every week, but sometimes, there is a spark of hope. People are being rewarded not for kissing ass, or for who they know, or for what they look like, or for what they wear; but for the craziest of reasons, how they actually perform their job. Of course, the other 4 people are hardworking as well, and I'm sure handpicked for the show, but as with this young lady., once in a while, it feels like they really found someone they weren't expecting to find, who blows them away with just competence. And that fires my brain up.
Tsunami, in stark detail.
Just screwing around on Youtube, I got into the Tsunami of Xmas 2004, don't know how or why I got there, as Tolkien wrote, "way leads on to way", and Youtube/google may be the ultimate expression of that. Anyhoo, this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agCG-rPqM6A#tsunami-hitting-koh-phi-phi-island video in particular caught my eye, and I started digging around and found it was this resort: http://phi-phi.com/. Nice place, just a little water coming over the seawall, right? Hold on there, Cap'n, Take a gander here: 
Beautiful island, right? Let's look a little closer shall we?
What the hell happened? An brigade of Bulldozers? Huge Army ants? Nope, that's what that seemingly small amount of water did in the space of 5 minutes, shown in this cute video:http://www.inet.co.th/tsunami/images/PP_45B_2_320.mov
5 minutes. By the time you had say turned on "When the Levee Breaks
When The Levee Breaks" and listened all the way through, the central part of the isthmus was swept clean. Note the clean demarcation of the treeline. Very much like this photo
from the Lituya Bay shoreline in 1958, when a tsunami was created by a landslide, and rolled up a narrow bay, destroying everything up to a certain height. This is why I don't like swimming, people. At any second, danger can kill you from any direction.
Beautiful island, right? Let's look a little closer shall we?
What the hell happened? An brigade of Bulldozers? Huge Army ants? Nope, that's what that seemingly small amount of water did in the space of 5 minutes, shown in this cute video:http://www.inet.co.th/tsunami/images/PP_45B_2_320.mov5 minutes. By the time you had say turned on "When the Levee Breaks
When The Levee Breaks" and listened all the way through, the central part of the isthmus was swept clean. Note the clean demarcation of the treeline. Very much like this photo from the Lituya Bay shoreline in 1958, when a tsunami was created by a landslide, and rolled up a narrow bay, destroying everything up to a certain height. This is why I don't like swimming, people. At any second, danger can kill you from any direction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)