A hypnotic look at religion and war.

So I'm making good headway on the history podcast I wrote about recently (and which you all fueled with some great ideas and support). One of the major goals of the podcast will be to describe huge, epic changes in history without getting bogged down by details.

That's definitely a strength of this incredible piece from a site called Maps of War. Enjoy! (Oh, and be sure to check out this one too.)

Do you secretly long to help out a Bulgarian dairy farmer?

Bear with me for a second here. (Especially Karen's relatives who think my blog drifts entirely too far from interesting stories about our lives...this post likely will just prove your point.)

Many moons back, I heard an NPR interview about the emerging concept of "micro-lending," which more recently got a ton of international attention when the idea's pioneers won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I instantly loved the concept, which is to give small loans to impoverished entrepreneurs in developing countries or struggling communities. The loans (often as low as a few hundred dollars) are generally for tools or equipment that can help the entrepreneur get started or expand a small business.

Here's the strange part. When the micro-lenders won the Nobel Prize, I remember thinking how great it would be if I could help out on a project like that. But how do you get individuals in America connected with needy businessfolk in Asia or South America?

Well, I obviously wasn't the only one thinking that. Yesterday, Mental Floss posted a blog item about the Web site Kiva.org, which lets visitors lend money to countless specific business projects across the globe.

(And yes, I'm sure I shared some of your same concerns about keeping the money away from scammers. There's a ton if info in their FAQ, if you're interested.)

Anyway, just passing this on because I know many of you, like me, have little to give and are reluctant to hand money to a faceless charity. If we set aside enough to try one of these micro-loans, I'll let you know how it goes.

Be sure to browse the profiles of the entrepreneurs seeking money. There's some amazing stories there.

UPDATE: Noah's back, this time with Hasselhoff.

A few months back, I wrote about the guy who took multiple years' worth of self-portraits and made them into one compelling video.

Today, I saw that he has a new project: Taking a portrait of his same blank expression, alongside random celebrities.

It's worth a look if you're having as boring of a between-holidays work day as I am.

If I don't own a talking stuffed animal of some variety by this time next week, you will understand my crippling depression.

Just one last note wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas. I'll likely post again before the New Year, but this is as good a chance as any to thank you all for being such great friends, relatives and lurking strangers.

Cheers!

Good times at upward of 30 mph.

I've posted even more photos to Flickr. This time from loyal Asterian Emily's high-velocity, technocolored birthday bash at the bowling alley. (Here you can see her in just one of her many star poses from the evening. Be sure not to miss the "money shot."

So happy birthday to Emily and big props to our man Nimish, who bowled like a 420 or something.

Fun note: The alley's machines measure the speed of your throw, which added a great new element to the game for those of us who can't aim. Greg also proved he could roll a ball at 1.1 mph and not have it stopped in its tracks by the pins.

I hear the cool kids are "pod-casting."

OK folks, I'm quite seriously thinking about starting a regular podcast in early 2007. I've talked to some of you about this, and you've seemed receptive, although the idea is still a bit vague.

But before we talk about the point of the podcast (which will, I assure you, have a point and not just be an audio version of ye olde cafe), I wanted to pick your collective brain.

1. For those of you who listen to podcasts, what do you find you like or don't like? Do you have any pet peeves, or anything that draws you back to listen again?

My only true podcast addiction has been Tim Gunn's recaps of Project Runway. When I ask myself why, I think it's because he hits a mean podcast trifecta:
• Cool voice that's easy on the ears.
• Fun background stories on something I'm already interested in.
• Sly humor and earnest personality (ie, no obvious script).

2. Have any of you tried making a podcast? If so, I don't think I've ever heard it. But let me know if you tried, what equipment and software you used, and how it went for you.

Well, I guess that's really it for questions. I've mostly been probing the Internet for tips on free or cheap podcasting software to try. I also watched this free seminar from Apple about how to make a good podcast. It wasn't quite as helpful as I hoped (shockingly, it mostly pimped the power of Mac's own software), but it had some good tips.

Oh, and I don't want to seem I'm being coy about the nature of my podcast. It'll be about world history, somewhat following in the tone of my occasional trivia quizzes. I'm just hesitant to explain it thoroughly and put it out there for your review before I actually decide on the format and such. But rest assured, I'll keep you posted.

Elephants: The new godless killing machines?

On the off chance you read that George Orwell elephant-killing essay I linked to the other day, you might remember that he had to shoot the elephant because it had "gone must." I didn't think much about this, assuming it was just some sort of elephant crazies.

Well, kinda. In a strange coincidence, the Mental Floss blogs today posted a piece from their archives about "musth," which is like a male elephant PMS that only comes up once a year.

So there you go. The Floss again lives up to its goal of filling our heads with random but occasionally useful information.

The free-goodie train keeps rolling.

I pounced yesterday on this offer but refrained from posting about it because I feared it was a one-day-only deal. But apparently, you can still get John Hodgman's book, "Areas of My Expertise" for free on iTunes.

It's about 7 hours of good listening, so you can't beat that with a stick.

Two notes:

1. Continuing the small-world coincidences that always revolve around John "I'm a PC" Hodgman, you'll find that this audiobook features a theme song and occasional commentary from musician Jonathan Coulton, who was recently highlighted in this very blog!

2. Although it's a free download, I saw a $1 charge appear on my bank register. It's still a pending charge, though, so it might vanish later. Either way, one buck is a good deal for this much road-trip fodder.

How/when/what/where/mate with Pygmies?

I hate to harken to Slate.com articles two days in a row, but there's a classic today. As they continue to wrap up the year, Slate's "Explainer" feature listed some of the questions they didn't answer in 2006.

Here are my favorites (with parenthetical notes from me):

• Why do train whistles at night always sound lonely and mournful? Not so in the daytime.
(Seriously...isn't that true?)

• Is it possible to collect all the cookie dough in Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and actually bake cookies from it?
(My guess was no. A little Google sleuthing proved I was right.)

• Can you tell me how long it will take if you eat rat poison to see if it is going to affect you? Please e-mail me back. Because my niece ate some.
(In an anthro class, I once learned that some monkeys will risk their lives to save their nieces and nephews. However, the professor did not say how quickly the uncle monkey would jump on the case.)

• I have noticed that a lot of mainstream movies feature men peeing. Are the actors really peeing?
(I actually remember someone asking Ebert whether Jodie Foster was really peeing in "Panic Room." Ebert said that stuff's always a sound effect added later.)

• PYGMIES: How/when/where/still in existence/do we mate with them?
(This one's solely here for you, Britt.)

Oh, and for those of you who read "The Know-It-All," you might remember that writer AJ Jacobs repeatedly mentioned that kids like to ask how far down dirt goes. For fun, I poked that into Google and found the answer the same place he probably did...in an article from Esquire, where Jacobs is an editor.

Ten feet or less. In case you care.

Just don't ask me to make you one.

I apparently missed the frenzy over Slate.com's article on the secret existence of Starbucks' short cappuccino. (The article was included today in a list of Slate's most popular stories from 2006.)

This excerpt pretty much gives you the gist:

Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye.

A few points from my perspective at the Starbucks cousin that is B&N Cafe:

The article is dead-on right that a short cappuccino is as good as it gets, flavor-wise. More volume than that, and you're really just drinking a foamy latte. But a good barista can make a tall cappucino pretty well. I wouldn't get it bigger than that.

But, as I've told many a customer, we don't have a short at B&N. It's one of the very few things Starbucks doesn't equip us with (probably for economic reasons outlined in the article). In case you're curious, the other big differences are that we don't have sugar-free hazelnut syrup or a bean grinder. And for the love of god, we don't take Starbucks cards. *Sigh.*

I wish we did have a short. Partly, it would be nice just to calm people who get worked up that "tall" is our shortest size. And "grande" is not the biggest size. People, you've had a decade or so to get past that. Suck it up.

But I also just think Starbucks is going to reverse course in the coming years and quit pimping the venti. (Which, by the way, is Italian for "20," even though the cold venti holds 22 ounces. Go figure.) I just don't think we're doing our customers any favors by pushing them toward 20-ounce (or 22-ounce) mochas, much less peppermint mochas or eggnog lattes.

Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe we'll just keep making people buy more and more fat, until we're have to resort to dropping a few slices of bacon into the cup. I can already see how we'll sell it: "Would you like to try that pancetta affumicata style today?"

Somewhat late, but worth the wait.

Finally got around to posting a Flickr gallery from the Halloween festivities at Boo 2006. So if you missed the fun, or just want to relive it, it's all yours.

The killing is justified if the elephant's in your pajamas.

Today's news report about the death of a terrorist/serial killer elephant in India reminded me of a George Orwell essay called "Shooting an Elephant."

A grizzled columnist Karen and I worked with in Fort Wayne would read the essay to schoolkids every time one of those "month of reading" kind of things came around.

Anyway, it's a great essay about Orwell's strange time as a police officer in Burma. (And coincidentally for you non-Hoosiers, Fort Wayne has the world's largest population of Burmese outside of present-day Myanmar.)

Orwell's intent is to give an insight into the minds of British imperials and the pressure they felt to always remain cool in front of "the natives," even if it meant doing something they didn't want to do.

But what I always remember the graphic conclusion, which is like something out of a nightmare.

I don't want to post that ending, because you should read it yourself in its entirety. But here's a quick taste of Orwell's stark and visual style:

I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth.

This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit.

At least it was quick.

Remodeling Cafe Asteria, but not too much.

I've been tweaking the look of this blog today, so pardon any wackiness you experience while I'm trying to get my Mac to get along with Blogger and its various new design tools.

If you've seen a cool feature I should steal from another blog, or if some new piece drives you crazy, let me know in the comments of this post. Thanks all.

UPDATE-A-ROO: Some of you commenters might notice a little wackiness on the blog. With the new Blogger moving out of beta status, I think they're doing away with the old system of Blogger IDs. Now, if you have a Gmail account, Blogger will likely still use that to log you in. I'm sure you can change your display name somehow, but for now, we have to live with the sadness that Claypits Jackson has been demoted to "Valerie." (See comments.)

Let's all thank the Internet for free songs about zombies.

The Black Keys were great last night, as expected. Slim turnout by my friends, but Bill and Dawn drove down from Huntsville for the show, and Emily came out despite not knowing much about the band. I'm pretty sure she walked away impressed.

On a vaguely related musical note, a few people have pointed me to a song called "Re: Your Brains" by Internet phenom songwriter Jonathan Coulton. Here's a video someone made for the song using screen captures from "World of Warcraft." The video doesn't match perfectly with the song, but that actually makes it even funnier:



Coulton's an interesting case study in what I think is the future of emerging music: give it away for free and just ask for donations if people like it. The days of paying for a cutting-edge band's CD is drawing to a rapid close, as Coulton argues quite effectively.

Here's my favorite line from his Frequently Asked Questions:

I think there are times when free music and file sharing can greatly benefit an artist. Believe me, I spent many years making music and not sharing it with anyone, and that didn’t get me anywhere.

You can do it. I'm living proof.

You're looking at the last, snipped remnants of my consumer debt. I called and canceled our last (and really only) credit card today. We hadn't had a charge or payment in more than a year, so I figure we're safe. (And it was surprisingly easy...the only rebuttal I got was, "Are you aware we're offering holiday promotional rates?" Wow. Persuasive.)

Debt's a funny thing, as I was reminded today. I felt I needed a witness to this big moment, so I walked into a co-worker's office with my scissors and card. Her reaction: "That's a bad idea. It can really hurt your credit."

First of all, having a huge, unused credit line is a big liability for credit, not some glowing beacon of financial savvy. Ever seen your credit report? Everyone's surprised to see all those credit lines (that couch you bought five years ago and paid off right away, etc.) are still open. That adds to your total potential debt, and that's a number that can make financiers nervous.

Second, I hope to all that is holy that my credit rating will never matter again. We got our mortgage, and our loan processor practically swooned over our credit score, so I'm guessing that helped. But from here on out, seeking new debt sounds about as good as elective prostate surgery in a training hospital.

But back to my co-worker's comment, which is similar in tone to the warnings Karen and I have heard since the day we decided to bust our collective ass to escape debt forever.

I've heard how dangerous it is not to have a predatory lender waiting to help me in case of emergency. I've heard I'm losing out on magical tax breaks that justify paying massive wads of interest for home equity lines and such. (Though I'll happily enjoy the tax break on my mortgage interest while I'm paying it.) I've heard that it's silly to pay extra principal on our house because the dollars are inflation-adjusted...or it'd be silly because you could invest the difference better....or it would be silly because of tax benefits or because of....oh christ already, just read this article or one of the thousands like it and admit to yourself that paying off a home early is one of the single smartest things you can do in your lifetime.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to preach. I know most of you have debt and couldn't have gotten where you are today without it. I know I've had more than my share of help and lucky breaks that made it possible to pay off everything, and I'm thankful every day to my parents for setting aside savings bonds throughout my life to help cover what scholarships couldn't for college. Similarly, Karen's parents had tremendous foresight in their savings for her education, and their example is one we hope to follow with our future offspring.

But if this does, in any way, motivate you guys to focus on paying off debt, then I'll be glad. All I can say is, be prepared for more than a fair share of derision. Debt is the standard for our society, and I've had quite a few people tell me it's just part of life. Fight that urge, and brush off the comments from armchair experts about how it's smart to plummet into a bottomless debt spiral. If you do nothing else, please please just read this book.

Gratuitous plugs, concluding with a German threat.

• Need free money? Online bank ING Direct has resumed their bonus payments for new savings accounts. The interest rate on one of those bad boys is currently 4.5%, which I can safely assume blows away anything you're getting from your bank. Karen and I have had one of these accounts for years now and love it, and we've referred quite a few of you who also seem to be happy with it. Transferring money to and from your bank account is simple, though there is a delay of a few days.

Today, ING announced it's gone back to giving you a $25 bonus if you're referred to open an account, and the referrer (me, for example), gets $10. The only catch is you have to make an initial deposit of at least $250. So if you want to make an easy $25 and kick me an easy $10, drop me an e-mail.

• Are you on Netflix? If so, why aren't you my friend? I only have two or three of you linked as "friends" on Netflix, and I'd like more so I can pry into what you're watching/liking/hating. So use my e-mail to connect with me on there.

One of my favorite features is the percentage rating of similarity you have with your friends. My closest link is with the Greg/Claypits Jackson couplage. They match opinions on movies 87% with me and Karen. Strangely, I feel in synch with longtime friends Bill and Dawn, but we officially only match 69%. After they rate all the Battlestart DVDs, that might change.

• Anybody still need a Gmail account? I can't believe it's still in Beta and invite-only, but it is. So if you'd like an invite, let me know. I have 98 left. I like it a lot, mainly because it links up with blogspot and...

• Google Reader. Anybody using this? Greg let me know about it the other day, and I'm stone addicted. It's an RSS reader, which I've avoided dealing with for years because it just couldn't sound less sexy. But you just tell it which blogs you want to subscribe to (like this one), and sends all the new posts to one place, so you don't have to keep clicking on a site to see if it's updated. It's a little problematic sometimes, but still nice.

• In closing: Long ago, my sister and I developed a theory that if you praise something to the point of sounding like a commercial, you should quickly toss in some blatant obscenity to make up for it. Since I try to keep this blog PGish, I'll just leave you with this holiday greeting from our friends in the Rhineland: "Ich haue Dir gleich eine in die Eier!" (Alas, while Babelfish's translation is quite humorous, it doesn't quite catch the idiom. Cheers anyway.)

Rejoice, my follow kitchen nerds!

Logging into Blogger today to post about something completely unrelated, I saw a notice from Google that they've hooked up with Harold McGee for a cooking blog.

Wait, you ask, who's Harold McGee? Only the author of the most badass cooking science book ever, that's who! His opus, "On Food and Cooking," is the definitive text on kitchen science. It's not a light read (for that, I'd recommend this one), but it's a milestone in ushering in an era of food science that debunks centuries of kitchen myths.

(You'll also see it pop up often in episodes of Good Eats when Alton Brown is consulting his library.)

Anyway, check out McGee's blog, Curious Cook to get your food learnin'.

At least it wasn't a lightning storm.

Strange find on YouTube:

You'll never be so thankful that you're not a drum kit.

Live near Birmingham and have at least one ear? Then you need to be at Workplay on Wednesday, Dec. 13, for The Black Keys concert.

Most of you I think have heard The Black Keys, and the rest of you should slap yourself and buy tickets now before they sell out.

Seriously, you need to go.

New Alabama Arts videos!

Our December featured artist in The Year of Alabama Arts is Maestro Justin Brown of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. If you haven't already (and most of you haven't), sign up for a free YouTube account and subcribe to our channel at youtube.com/AlabamaArts. It won't bug you with e-mails or anything...it'll just show you new videos we've posted when you log in.

Anyway, on to the new clips:

R.I.P.

For all its faults, I have to say I'll miss The X, Birmingham's sole remaining "alternative" station. It signed off yesterday, and I've heard the staff got almost no notice. It's now some sort of sports talk bullshit.

(You can see the angry listener responses over on the station's MySpace page.)

Is this a bigger issue? Is my kind of music (and, apparently, My Chemical Romance) fading into a commercial purgatory, only to emerge as "classic rock" a few years from now? The X had no competition for its target audience. Is it satellite radio competition? Is iTunes ruining the world of free radio?

And for the love of god, who will broadcast live from jello wrestling at Bell Bottoms?! Someone think of the children!

Get your objectivism on....film!

Oh yes, it's finally happening.

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is being made into a movie.

Now full disclosure before I make fun of this: I haven't read Atlas Shrugged. I read and loved Fountainhead but just never got around to Rand's other mega-hit. Maybe I'll just wait for the movie! (Please don't hit me.)

Did any of you see the movie version of Fountainhead? I quite liked it. Of course, it had Gary Cooper...and the screenplay was actually written by Ayn Rand.

Maybe we'll have such luck this time. Hmm....let's see who's writing the Atlas Shrugged screenplay... Oh. It's the guy who wrote "The Man in the Iron Mask" and "Pearl Harbor."

OK, no luck there. Maybe they'll get today's equivalent of Gary Cooper or Patricia Neal...



Well there you go.

If only this sentiment were more common.

Poking around on a work project that referenced Samford University, I found this portion of an inauguration speech given by new Samford President Andrew Westmoreland.

"I believe our Christianity is no excuse for a lack of scholarship. Instead, our faith should move us to the highest standards for excellence. And in that search for excellence, we do not fear the discovery of any truth, because all truth is God's truth."

Just a great quote, that.

A nice MySpace coda.

Most of my bookstore co-workers don't know my last name, and they've never seen me with a goatee. That makes for some wariness when they get a MySpace friend request from "Griner" with the same picture I use on this blog (the "Homeless Griner Gets a Meal" photo, as Bill so aptly put it once).

So I enjoyed this response from a guy I work with in the cafe quite a bit:

man it took me a few minutes to realise whos myspace this was. u look like morgan spurlock from super size me in that pic and i didnt know what griner meant. so i was thinkin, morgan spurlock wants feed me ice cream and grind me? what a strange mfker

On that note, have a great Thanksgiving, everybody!

Wait, has anyone else heard of this social networking thing?

I've been somewhat, not really, kinda updating my space on MySpace, and I realized some of you might not even know I was on there.

I won't be replacing this blog with it or anything, but I figure it's about the best way for people in the world at large to find me these days. If you're on MySpace, feel free to "friend" me. And for the love of god, someone please post a comment on my MySpace page...I look so unloved.

(I've also added my MySpace page to my links list on the bottom left, just above my completely inactive zombie blog.)

On a similar note (and because I'm actually paid to do this kind of thing), I've been playing around with Orkut.com, a social-networking site run by Google. It's vaguely similar to MySpace, but it's much more refined-looking and clean. Truth be told, though, it just doesn't have a lot to offer once you're set up on there. MySpace at least has the gawking factor of looking around at millions of strange people with no sense of design aesthetic.

Ka-boom.

So I've always heard those cautionary tales about not burning down your home with a turkey fryer, but I can't say anything drove the lesson home quite like our friend Alton Brown.

If you haven't seen the fried-turkey "Good Eats" episode (or heck, even if you have), fast forward to the 2:30 mark in this video clip to see what could go so dramatically wrong in your driveway:

When there was no crawdaddy to be found, we ate coal.

There's a fun/scary tool in today's installment of the Slate.com Carbon Diet, an ongoing series of tips for reducing your CO2 emissions. Today's entry is about electricity, and it links to an EPA site that tells you where your local energy comes from.

Up here in Hoover, we're lovin' us some coal:


The good news is, up until a few years ago, Alabama was 30% coal, 43% suet, 6% moonshine and 3% bacon drippings. So there is some progress.

BTW, there are some great tips in this Slate series, so I really encourage you all to check it out each week.

Here are the two admonishments I was most guilty of today:

• How many times have you left your cell-phone charger plugged in, even when your phone is not? Wall chargers for things like iPods and cameras suck energy out of the socket, even when not attached to their mates. With the national average at five chargers per person, unplugging adds up.

• Rechargeable battery docks for gadgets like drills and handheld vacuum cleaners can draw from the socket five to 20 times more energy than is stored in the battery. Unplug them once tools are juiced.

Oops.

Shrimp in Sake Garlic Butter Sauce: An experiment gone totally right.

We had a supper club gathering the other day with the theme of "Rice." Karen and I were tasked with appetizers, so we poked around until we found a pretty great recipe.

I doubled the recipe below and dropped a Sam's bag o' frozen uncooked shrimp into a cast-iron dutch oven. Easily served 10 as an appetizer and could probably stand alone as an entree. But I'm simply transcribing the recipe the way it was originally written in the link above. Here 'tis:

• In an 8- to 10-inch frying pan over medium heat, stir 1 teaspoon minced garlic and 1 teaspoon minced onion or shallot in 1 teaspoon olive oil until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

• Add 8 ounces rinsed deveined peeled medium shrimp (41 to 50 per lb.) and 1/2 cup sake. Stir often until shrimp are opaque but still moist-looking in center of thickest part (cut to test), 2 to 3 minutes.

• Add 3 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; stir until butter is melted and blended into sauce.

• Spoon into 4 small shallow bowls. Serve with crusty bread or hot cooked rice. Makes 4 appetizer servings.

BTW: I served it over an ice-cream-scoop-sized portion of sushi rice and ladled on the sauce. Great stuff.

Empty forest, happy dogs.

I've posted a collection of photos from last weekend's hike on Pinhoti Trail, about an hour outside Birmingham. I've included two below, but be sure to click here for the brief gallery.

Karen looks out over Sweetwater Lake, the destination of the hike.

Jonas and Oscar go bobbing for my apple in the chilly Sweetwater.

A few Thanksgiving ideas for your consideration.

My mom mentioned via e-mail today that she plans to brine our Thanksgiving turkey before we smoke it. I love that my friends and family are constantly looking at ways to prepare meals far beyond the scope of most cooks. I mean, who else is smoking their bird, much less brining it and then smoking it?

To honor that committment and keep us thinking of new ways to push the envelope, I came up with this list of turkey-preparation techniques we can use for the Thanksgivings to come:

The Head-Butterball: Deliver a series of decisive head-butts to the breast and sternum to tenderize the bird. A few swift elbows to the drumsticks and a groin kick won't hurt, either.

The Feast of Burden: Drag the turkey behind a tractor until it's learned the value of a hard day's work. Then get drunk and scream at the turkey about how college is for sissies.

The Special Delivery: Squeeze the raw turkey all the way into your mailbox, no matter how much bending, breaking and pushing is required. Raise the flag.

The Bogart: Push the bird away, then grab it roughly and kiss it. Then slap it hard and say, "That's for making me love you."

The "Lost": Ask the turkey to help you build a gazebo out of palm fronds. When the turkey asks why you're building a gazebo, stare silently into the distance and think of a long, unrelated story about someone you slept with.

The "Battlestar": Put the turkey in the middle of a table in the middle of your house. Tell everyone that figuring out what to do with the turkey is the most important thing on the planet. Then forget about the turkey until you notice it two seasons later.

The George R.R. Martin: Tell everyone how great the turkey is. Spend years doing it. Then kill it, rape it, and sow it with salt.

The George W. Bush: Kill the turkey, rape it, and sow it with salt. Then spend years telling everyone how great the turkey is.

The Advertising Copywriter: Serve the turkey the same way you always would, but just keep telling everyone it's ham.

The Sublime Strata: Roll the entire bird in maple syrup. Then in ground pistachios. Then in motor oil. Then in jolly ranchers. Then ask yourself what you've done.

Next you're going to say he wasn't a doctor, either?

For those of you who share my love of Neil Patrick Harris' Barney character on "How I Met Your Mother," this might be an ironic news bit:



Well that makes me feel better about some conflicted emotions.

Yes, I'm obsessed with video at the moment.

The other day I showed a video of potter Jerry Brown's mule, mostly just because it was short and fun. But this is the video you should all actually watch. It's hypnotizing and amazingly cool. Seriously, just watch to the end.

Now I need the background on the "when your hunger's pokin at ya pokin at ya" commercial.

Just posting this clip because I've mentioned it to quite a few of you. It shows you can still have fun, even when you're a mega-million-dollar advertising company. (Not my agency, but I think my creative director is right in step with the executive creative director featured toward the end).

If you're not into advertising industry stuff, I promise you'll enjoy this if you like a certain Snickers commercial.



Props to Tim from AdFreak for posting the clip.

There go the heady days of governmental gaybashing and hypocritical morality enforcement.

I pride myself on being a political moderate. I've likely voted for as many Republicans as Democrats.

That said, it's hard not to be excited about today's change in power and the new level of accountability this could bring to Congress.

Here's a description from MSNBC of Nancy Pelosi's goals for the first 100 hours of Democrat control of the house:

The plan includes promises to reform lobbying, enact the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, cut the interest rate on student loans in half, streamline Medicare’s prescription drug program and expand federal funding for stem cell research.

Wait a second! I thought Congress only voted on vital things — like protecting us from gays and flag burners and migrant workers! Shame to see that kind of stuff go away...

Dabbling in YouTube.

So here's how I've spent the past two days at work:

As I mentioned before, we launched our mega state arts site recently. The other day, I started pushing everyone to put all these great video clips on YouTube so people could find them without discovering the full site.

Amazingly, our video producer got all the clips compressed, formatted and uploaded in one day. So I spent today refining the clip names and descriptions. I also made playlists for each artist.

So check out our cool little customized YouTube page, and be sure to subscribe if you have a YouTube account. That way, whenever you log onto YouTube, you'll see all the new clips from my interviews (and I don't think it e-mails you a bunch of notifications, in case you were worried about that).

(Oh, and as for clip I posted here, I just wanted to see how many of you could actually understand Jerry Brown...)

Cheers!

A brief architectural field trip.

My dad and I drove out Sunday to find the little-known Wallace House, designed by modernist architect Paul Rudolph, whom I recently profiled for our ongoing state arts project. This house in Athens, Ala., is one of his relatively few pieces in Alabama, where Rudolph was trained at Auburn.

Click here to see the gallery of our photos from the house.

As far as I know, these are the only photos on the Internet of the Wallace House. I could never get any hits from Google or any of the Rudolph sites. Enjoy!

Hey look....art!

I might have mentioned to some of you that I've been driving all over the state, interviewing musicians, artists and scholars for the Year of Alabama Arts. Well, now some of that work is finally online!

Our long-developed Year of Alabama Arts Web site launched the other day. (Click here, then click on the Year of Arts logo on the right to launch the site.)

I wrote pretty much all the copy except event info and the short artist-submitted bios. My main project has been the featured artists. Each month, the state focuses on one person (living or dead). I write the full-length bios and interview the person or an academic (if the artist is dead). You'll see video clips from the interviews on the site.

Be sure to back and click on the "October" tab to see the featured artist bio on Paul Rudolph, an architect educated in Alabama. He was an interesting guy, but the site launched Oct. 31, so not too many people will get to see it.

Yep, it's already been a year.

A year ago today, Karen and I got up early, picked up some pastries at Mekka in downtown Nevada City, loaded our animals into two cramped vehicles and left California.

(Of course, I was blogging back then, so you can always read about Day 1 of our cross-country drive.)

But I feel like now's as good a time as any to look back at what a long, strange year it's been since we headed over Donner Pass with all the belongings we could fit into a rental truck and Karen's Honda.

At the time, we didn't really know where we were going. I was still in consideration for a job in Athens, Ga. I had turned down a job at one of the best papers in America, which I have not come to regret as much as I thought I would.

But we knew we were doing the right thing, even if the Georgia job didn't work out. (Which it didn't.) Our time out west was done, and we were both ready to be closer to our friends and family.

Living with my sister was meant to be a temporary fix...a few weeks, maybe. It ended up being nine months, but it was a great nine months. They sheltered us while we hunted for the next step in our careers. I worked full-time at the Barnes and Noble cafe while Karen worked at William-Sonoma. Then she was at the Wildlife Center and I was consulting. It was kind of a flurry of jobs that didn't give us enough security to settle on our own.

But in March, things just started to fall into place. I got my job at the ad agency, and Karen soon got her job at the Junior League. We bought our house and officially became independent adults -- again.

So yeah, it's strange to wake up on Oct. 31, 2006, drink coffee together in our house, look out at our yard-in-progress and then head to our jobs. Something tells me that a year from now, I won't have quite as many transitions to look back on. But you never know...

Bonus:
Here's a photo of me and friend Evan before we all went out to a huge Halloween party the other night. I'll probably throw on the old bobby cape again tonight. And no, that's not a euphemism.

What about toe lickin?

Just had to pass on a funny headline that someone got away with at MSNBC for about five minutes yesterday...



So much to make fun of. I mean, I'm in advertising, and I wouldn't even try to convince people that fried chicken is good for you, whether it's regular or extra-trans-fatty.

But no, my favorite part is that I first read it as, "Finger licking is good for you." I pictured people being advised to lick their fingers half an hour a day for the boost in antioxidants. Sadly, no...

That headline was quickly replaced with this bad boy:



Yawn.

Halloween lies and my date with all the dead wives in Bluebeard's closet.

So you know that haunted house so scary that you get all your money back if you make it to the end? Or where they pay you for each floor you're able to reach? Or that's sooo scary, no one's ever finished it?

Yeah, Snopes.com says it never existed.

I remember hearing stories about these kinds of haunted houses way, way back when I was a kid. Someone told me once that visitors had to climb each story, and thuggish monsters would grab you and throw you through a hole in the floor so you couldn't go higher. Sounded like a lawsuit waiting to happen, and the Snopes article even mentions that as being one of the mythical scenarios.

I never really got into haunted houses. When I was really young, they freaked me out too much to enjoy. When I was old enough to enjoy them, they didn't scare me.

My favorite haunted house experience was at Stephens College, a women's liberal arts school in Missouri. I was doing an article on their literary/historical-themed haunted house, and women would literally jump out and knock me to the ground. Unfortunately, I only had enough money to go through five times. ;)

I know this much: He'll never get over Macho Grande.

I had a long day in a recording studio yesterday, but it was one of those times that's fun to talk about later.

Got to record a radio spot for a bank featuring Robert Hayes, aka Ted Striker from "Airplane!", aka Hyde's dad on "That '70s Show." Nice guy, fun to work with (via uplink from Birmingham to Hollywood, not in person). And he actually sounds kinda like Shatner. I'll post a clip when it's all approved and such.

Another spot (we recorded three total on Thursday) featured Hal Douglas, aka that movie voice guy. It was cool just hearing that, yes, he actually does talk like that. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to edit "In a world..." into the spot.

Not much else to say...um...

...panda sneeze!

I haven't made it to the third coat hanger yet. There's still "Alone in the Dark."

Friend Evan, who likes to point out when the fare's not fresh at Cafe Asteria, sent me a link to a great article that follows up on (or actually preceded) a previous post of mine about uber-terrible movie director Uwe Boll.

I really, truly recommend you read this article, but just in case you're too busy throwing mouse heads in a blender or whatever it is you people do at work, I've culled my favorite lines. It's like a movie trailer that shows you every funny line or big surprise. I see it as a public service.

Anyway, on to the Boll-bashing quotes from writer "Seanbaby":

• Uwe Boll makes terrible movies. Anyone who tells you otherwise is Uwe Boll.

• Uwe is supposed to be a former boxer, but I have no way of knowing. My normal method of research, Google, only spits out "sucks" and profanity when I enter his name.

• I train in Muay Thai and jujitsu, so I think boxing is to fighting what Hungry Hungry Hippos is to fighting, but—holy crap!—I couldn't pass up getting my fist near the mouth that shouted "action" on the set of House of the Dead.

• I e-mailed (my fighting experience) information, along with the reassurance that the Holocaust survivors got together and agreed he was the worst thing to come out of Germany.

• Audiences left this movie so fast that theaters have switched to playing House of the Dead instead of using a fire alarm.

• The script is about 10 pages long, with 80 more stapled to the back that read "shoot ze zombees while plays ze techno" in color crayon.

• They must not have the same swimmingpool games in Germany, but over here, the tension in a horror scene dies when the actors start screaming "Marco!"

• "Squint at ze artifact, Christian Slater! Harder! Squint harder, dammit! Now, Tara, you vil fall down on ze floor for no reason! Now get up, zen fall down again! Ah! Look out! Now it's ze monster! Cut! Perfect!"

• After you've seen two Uwe Boll movies, watching a third is like jamming a third coat hanger into your urethra. It's certainly possible, but every instinct in your body will keep you from doing it. BloodRayne is a culmination of all mankind's suck technology.

• Uwe decided not to glamorize sex, and he truly captured the awkwardness of doing it in front of an awful film crew in a vampire costume.

• "Make love to her! First, make ze funny face! Now twitch! Twitch! Now apologize and avoid ze eye contact in shame!"

Dum da dum DAAA! Dum dum DAA! (Um...that's supposed to be the A-Team theme.

I've been having so much fun with fellow Asterians Claypits and Greg on this one, I wanted to rope you all in.

The debate: Is the story-telling TV theme song a dead art? We're talking literal plot descriptions, like Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. It's sparked interesting debate over on my favorite ad blog.

Within my circle, it has apparently lit a fire under the aforementioned Claypits-Greg union. Greg sent me this list of shows that he and C-Pits came up with sans-Google:

1. The Jeffersons
2. Green Acres
3. The Addams Family
4. Petticoat Junction
5. The Monkees
6. Good Times
7. Can we argue for Batman?
8. Family Guy
9. Beverly Hillbillies
10. Mr. Ed
11. BJ & the Bear
12. Boy Meets World
13. Silver Spoons
14. Patty Duke
15. Daniel Boone
16. Davy Crockett
17. Dukes of Hazzard
18. Flipper
19. The Greatest American Hero (Believe it or not, George isn't at home . . .)
20. Welcome Back Kotter
21. Larry Sanders Show (our favorite on the list
22. Spiderman
23. Wonder Woman

I subsequently disputed the Jeffersons, Good Times, Batman, Silver Spoons, Greatest American Hero and Welcome Back Kotter. I'm not arguing they didn't HAVE theme songs specific to their show, but the songs didn't spell out the plot on a first-grade level. (I mean, do you really have to point out that no one can talk to a horse?)

So I leave this open-ended debate with you. And yes, yes, I know that Family Guy, American Dad and probably a bunch of other cartoons still use this device. So let's skip past those.

And while we're here, what's your favorite TV theme song of all time? I'm not sure for me. I really like the original British Office song..."Handbags and Gladrags." A friend told me once that was Joe Cocker singing, but apparently not, if you follow that link. It's not really clear from there who sings the Office version, but apparently it's been covered quite a few times.

A fence update, with some sentimental appreciation buried beneath.

Well, we finally have our long-awaited fence. It was the major investment we had planned for the house (aside from painting it, which likely will happen in the spring).

I keep meaning to download some photos to show the difference. I'll definitely need before-and-after shots so you can all appreciate the vegetation genocide we had to commit to make the wood fence possible.

The Griner family reunion was an interesting adventure. More than anything, it gave me a lot of time to chat with my parents. Most times when I see them, there are 20 other people fluttering around the house, and it's an incredible feat to talk to anyone for more than five minutes.

In terms of distant relatives, I can't say I got to know many very well. There were quite a few I met and wished I had known earlier. Most of my direct line was absent due to infighting or illness.

As it always does, the trip to my dad's homeland left me even more impressed with him. He truly is one of the family's best success stories in a lot of ways, and (at the risk of sounding cheesy) I was proud to tell people whose son I was. My mom is the undisputed matriarch of my entire social circle, but I really think it was my dad who inspired me to seek adventure away from home after high school but still stay close to my family.

I've never really told him how much I appreciate it, so I might as well use this snark-fueled international medium to do so, right?

Thanks, dad.

A remake of a sequel that likely won't be as good as the remake of the sequel's prequel.

Not much to say today as I prepare to head off for the old Griner Family Reunion in scenic Panhandle Florida (I'm sure I'll blog about it sometime soon...maybe share pics! w00t!), but I did stumble across something interesting today.

Hollywood's finishing up a remake of Day of the Dead, the third installment in George Romero's original zombie series. This could be uplifting news, since the remake of Dawn of the Dead was probably the best zombie movie ever.

Buuuut....it's being directed by the guy who did "Lake Placid," "Friday the 13th Part 3" and "H20" (which I think actually was the 20th installment of the Halloween series). So no good news there.

Maybe the writing will be as good as the Dawn remake... oop, no, probably not. It's written by the dude who wrote ALL THREE "Final Destination" movies, known for their subtle dialogue and societal introspection.

So keep your expectations low, people. Real, real low.

And yet I was overlooked for the Birmingham Magazine cover on the city's most beautiful people. *Shakes fist.*

OK, sorry for being away for a while. Like I said before, it's actually been quite hectic at the office, and intense yard work has filled much of my other free time. The good news is, we've finished clearing our amazingly overgrown fenceline, and a crew is supposed to be out today to start building our new wooden fence. Yay!

In other news, my professional mentor and three-time boss, Rich Somerville, is on the cover of the Humboldt County alternative paper this week. Click here to check out the article.

Rich has been named editor of The Times-Standard in Eureka, Calif. It's a highly competitive news environment, and I'm sure he'll kick quite a bit of ass.

Just to recap, Rich and I go back a long way. When he was a grad student at New Directions for News, he hired me to be a research assistant, despite the fact I looked like a shaggy-headed Phish concert reject. Two years later, I hired him as the adviser for my student paper, The Maneater. In 2003, he hired me again to be city editor at The Union in Grass Valley, Calif., where he had been editor for six months or so. After we both had left The Union last year, he hired me yet again to be a consultant with his new venture, Media Foresight Associates.

As far as I know, I'm no longer on his payroll, but we obviously remain close.

I thought this article turned out pretty well, though I was a bit surprised that they let his critics be quoted anonymously. I'm sure they could have found some journalistic dreg to trash talk him on the record, but their spinelessness actually makes him sound even better.

I'm excited for Rich and his paper, because I've seen what he can accomplish with a good team. But if he overworks himself to a heart attack, I'll personally fly out there and slap the crap out of him. (There's yer warning, buddy.)

Something to enjoy while you wait...

I'm actually quite slammed with work this week, so I likely won't be posting until after the weekend. For now, enjoy this clip, which I'm currently using as inspiration for a commercial I'm pitching...

Yes, you should be careful googling perverts, cannibalism and "good feelings"

Answers to last week's trivia, although everyone who played along seemed to know these anyway:

1. Question: What enigmatic slang phrase, meaning "get lost," supposedly originated from cops shouting at perverts outside a New York landmark?

Answer: 23 Skidoo. Lots of theories behind this one, but this is my favorite (from Wikipedia):

New York City's Flatiron Building, on 23rd Street, is shaped as a triangle. This shape caused frequent winds, which would stir ladies' skirts, revealing ankles which, in the early years of the Twentieth Century, were seldom seen in public. Rogues would loiter around the Flatiron Building hoping for glimpses. Local constables, shooing such rogues away, were said to be giving them the 23 Skidoo.

2. Question: What was the quaint name for consensual cannibalism by stranded shipwreck survivors? It was sometimes used as a defense against subsequent murder charges.

Answer: The Custom of the Sea. This is the old cliche of drawing lots to determine who gets et. If you read the link, you'll see that it's important everyone agree to the lottery. If they don't, it's murder. A fine line.

3. Question: Which close friend of H.P. Lovecraft helped ensure the writer's works were published posthumously? This friend even finished some of Lovecraft's incomplete works.

Answer: August Derleth. He may be personally responsible for the survival of the Cthulhu Mythos, but dude was not a great writer. Lovecraft fans have to be careful, because there are "rare collections" of Lovecraft writings that were in fact story fragments fleshed out by Derleth.

4. Question: What coastal territory has been a point of political debate involving Britain and Spain since the two battled over it 300 years ago? It even led the Spanish king to snub Prince Charles quite publicly. Bonus: What was the snub?

Answer: Gibraltar. Geographically, it's the southern tip of Spain, which Spain feels is plenty of reason to annex it. But the Gibralterians (I made that up) are happy being a self-controlling British territory. The illustration with last week's questions was a painting of the 1607 Battle of Gibraltar, which actually involved the Dutch and the Spanish. (Wow, two references to the Eighty Years' War since the inception of this trivia challenge. Crazy...)

Bonus answer: The king of Spain boycotted Prince Charles' wedding to Diana because of...well, just read:

In 1981 it was announced that The Prince and Princess of Wales would fly to Gibraltar to board the Britannia as part of their honeymoon. In response, the Spanish King, Juan Carlos I refused to attend their wedding in London.

5. Question: What was the name given to a 9-year period in U.S. history when tension between political parties died down almost to the point of placidity? Of course, it exploded again in a big way, and then there was that whole Civil War thing...

Answer: The Era of Good Feelings.

Congrats to Greg for being the first to get them all right. Thanks to Dawn, Emily and Andrea for playing, too. Everyone did great. I apparently need to toughen these things up a bit.

Say what you will about bloggers...

I'm sure most of you have been following (or at least heard about) U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's resignation in light of "inappropriate" e-mails with at least one young page.

If you're like me, you've been a bit confused.

It's been easy to read his e-mails to a former Louisiana legislative page, but they're not exactly salacious. They're creepy, and I would be upset if I had a kid receiving messages asking for pictures and personal info, but news reports keep saying he resigned because of "sexually explicit" messages.

So the deal is, those Louisiana-kid messages aren't the e-mails that led him to resign. But when they were brought to light, they did lead someone to bring forward other — apparently quite graphic — e-mails and instant messages from Foley to pages.

You might also have heard about the St. Petersburg Times getting ahold of these e-mails LAST YEAR and interviewing the kid. But they never ran the story. So what happened?

Today, Poynter links to a note from the St. Pete editors about why they were, you know, a year late to the party.

The answer, of course, is a classic tale of traditional journalism versus the publish-anything-you-want world of blogging. From the editors' note:

The Louisiana boy's emails broke into the open last weekend, when a blogger got copies and posted them online. Later that week, on Thursday, a news blog at the website of ABC News followed suit, with the addition of one new fact: Foley's Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney, was on the record about the Louisiana boy's emails and was calling for an investigation. That's when we wrote our first story, for Friday's papers.

After ABC News broke the story on its website, someone contacted ABC and provided a detailed email exchange between Foley and at least one other page that was far different from what we had seen before. This was overtly sexual, not something Foley could dismiss as misinterpreted friendliness. That's what drove Foley to resign on Friday.

So what to think? I'll be honest, this is a complex journalistic decision that could (and should) be debated at journalism schools around the world.

In this case, tossing traditional reporting guidelines to the wind led to the removal of a pedophile from Congress. Oh, I'm sorry...the removal of an alcoholic from Congress.

But does that mean that newspapers should relax their guidelines on anonymous sources and potentially devastating allegations? Hard to say.

My opinion: The documents the St. Pete Times had in hand were enough to publish something. If the validity of the messages was proven, then it's at least worth putting in a column or editorial that maybe congressmen shouldn't be asking young boys for their pictures and talking about what "great shape" other boys are in.

The newspaper industry has lost the ability to simply sit on hot documents and hope a story emerges someday. They need to become part of the forum of public debate, or else newspaper reporters will find they're not being handed much of anything worth reporting.

EDIT: Oooh, look, you can read the super-creepy instant messages! (Don't worry, ABC only includes the disturbing-yet-not-graphic portions of what was obviously the IM equivalent of a night in the hot tub with Roman Polanski.

Once more unto the trivia breach.

Yay, quiz time again. I doubt this one will be much of a challenge for you brainiacs, but here goes...

1. What enigmatic slang phrase, meaning "get lost," supposedly originated from cops shouting at perverts outside a New York landmark?

2. What was the quaint name for consensual cannibalism by stranded shipwreck survivors? It was sometimes used as a defense against subsequent murder charges.

3. Which close friend of H.P. Lovecraft helped ensure the writer's works were published posthumously? This friend even finished some of Lovecraft's incomplete works.

4. What coastal territory has been a point of political debate involving Britain and Spain since the two battled over it 300 years ago? It even led the Spanish king to snub Prince Charles quite publicly. Bonus: What was the snub?

5. What was the name given to a 9-year period in U.S. history when tension between political parties died down almost to the point of placidity? Of course, it exploded again in a big way, and then there was that whole Civil War thing...

As usual, e-mail your answers to griner (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll post the answers early next week.

Nibble nibble.

Just a cute oversized postcard I did with designer Miles Wright for the Virginia Samford Theatre. Miles has done some wicked stuff for them, and they've been super happy with all the brochures and stuff we've made this season.

As always, click to see the full-sized image.

I'm most proud of the Crabs shirt.

So I saw today that MSNBC (it's been a while since I picked on them) had a story on a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind trend: kids are wearing edgy -- sometimes offensive -- T-shirts.

No, it's true.

Of course, I don't doubt the validity of this permanent trend, but I was curious what kinds of shirts MSNBC would choose to profile. The answer basically confirmed my longtime complaint that when journalists discuss morality, they end up sounding like a grumpy retired vice principal.

Here's one of the article's many titilating case studies:

One popular merchant of suggestive shirts is Hollister Co., a chain owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. Its shirts say such things as "two boys for every girl" and "FLIRTING MY WAY TO THE TOP."

WHOAH, sorry I didn't warn you that was totally not safe for work.

I mean, come on, this stuff is less racy than a '60s beach-blanket movie. I think the Tool shirt I wore in high school was more disturbing than this.

Don't get me wrong. I fully believe there are offensive shirts out there, marketed to teens. And if I were an educator/parent/codger, some of them would give me pause. I mean, if a kid wore this shirt to school, I might understand objections. (Don't worry, no nudity on that one. Just a little F bomb.)

Other examples of salacious shirts from the article:
"yes, but not with u!"
"Your Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser"
"My Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser."
"TRUST ME..I'M SINGLE"
"I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT"
"Single and Ready to Mingle"
"Pimps" (My personal favorite)
"Don't Call Me a Cowgirl Until You See Me Ride"

I would like to challenge the establishment with these T-shirts of my own writing:
"I'll do anything if it's yodled."
"Tuck it in. Or out."
"Low self esteem!"
"Two words: Camp site."
"I'm not teh gay, but OMG ym gf is!"
"No, but maybe after church."
"Crabs"

What about you guys? Any phrases that'll make us rich off these sex-crazed kids before their generation ages and this trend never again re-emerges?

I give 'BloodRayne' four stars. Now please don't hurt me.

So, I can't say I believed this at first, but I suppose this proves it's real.

The setup: "Director" Uwe Boll, who made such cinematic masterpieces as "House of the Dead" (based on a video game) and "BloodRayne" (also based on a video game), challenged his detractors to a boxing match. He selected five finalists and then literally beat the snot out of them in a Canadian boxing ring.

Here's the footage of him beating down on Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka, who runs the site Something Awful. Below that, be sure to read the quote from Kyanka.



Kyanka's quote, from a Canadian article:

"I feel great. I feel like a very angry German man punched me in the head repeatedly," said the 30-year-old CEO for the Something Awful website.
"He kept saying it was PR stunt and a joke, but then he comes on just murderizing me. I want to have more kids someday, so I just said, 'I'm not going to stay in here and keep getting punched in the head.' "

Thanks to Claypits for letting me know about this...um...thing.

Incendiary bullets are demanding a recount.

OK, here are the answers to last Friday's quiz. Slim turnout, but the respondents did seem to nail quite a few of the answers, and this one was a bit of a toughy.

1. Question: In 1915, German zeppelins were wreaking havoc on the British. One of the main reasons these giant explosive floating targets were successful was because British pilots generally could only destroy them by dropping bombs on them from extreme heights. What technological innovation turned the tide in Britain's favor?

Answer: Synchronization gear (or interrupter gear). Until synchronization gear was developed, early military aircraft couldn't fire bullets through their propellers, which basically meant they had to bomb the high-flying zeppelins, which were also guarded by a thicket of machine guns. Once synchronization gear was in place (yes, along with the much-guessed incendiary ammunition), blimps lost their air superiority.

Only Bill got this one, and incendiary bullets were also his first guess. I admit that the bullets were a good answer, but they wouldn't do much good if you couldn't shoot them. Oh, and today's photo is a Wikipedia shot of what happens to a propeller without synchronization. I'm assuming it was a malfunction, and they didn't just press their luck trying to time those shots just right.

Bonus question: What badass was the first to actually bring a zeppelin down with bombs?
Answer: Reginald Alexander John Warneford. His story reads like an action flick. He chased the zeppelin, dodged its machine gun fire and hit it with his bombs. The thing exploded, flipping his plane and stalling the engine. He emergency landed in enemy-controlled Belgium, fixed his fighter, and made it back home. He earned the Victoria Cross but sadly died in an accident 10 days after destroying the zeppelin.

Everyone got that answer. Jolly good!

2. Question: The recent discovery of a prehistoric child's skeleton in Ethiopia has renewed interest in Australopithecus afarensis, an ancient ancestor of ours who walked on two legs but was otherwise pretty monkey-ish. There was a similar ape-man genus that came along later than the afarensis but died off as an evolutionary dead end. Some theorize that this genus had too limited of a diet (grubs and plants) to adapt as well as the omnivorous Homo genus that led to us. So what was this mystery genus?

Answer: Paranthropus. Some confusion on this one, for understandable reasons. I was originally going to ask about Australopithecus bosei (which is what I describe in the question), but while researching it, I learned that it had been moved to another genus: Paranthropus. It sounds like this is still being debated, but it made for some good reading.

Everyone got this one, sort of. Claypits got it on her first guess, Bill on his second. Greg guessed "Australopethicus robustus" but recognized that it would be a different species, not genus. His response: "I remembered my answer to #2 from an old Cartoon History of the Universe book. How dare scientists change their mind!!!"

3. Question: In the movie "Real Genius," (how's that for a smooth transition?) Val Kilmer's character recommends nudity as a solution to what potential problem?

Answer: Loss of gravity. Claypits sent on the quote via IMDB:

Chris Knight: Would you prepared if gravity reversed itself? The only thing I can't figure out is how to keep the change in my pockets. I've got it. Nudity.

Everyone got this, but Claypits admitted she hadn't actually seen the movie...which is criminal. Strange sidenote: The guy who played Lazlo Hollyfeld was Uncle Rico in Napolean Dynamite. Huh.

4. Question This week's coup in Thailand has generally gone better for the military than a coup a few years back in which South American country? Hint: The replacement president was unable to retain his office for even 48 hours.

Answer: Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez was replaced by Pedro Carmona for a mere 47 hours. Strangely, Chavez believes the CIA was closely involved in the coup attempt. Our government involved in overthrowing a populist South American leader?! Crazy talk!

5. Question: What magic-oriented "fraternity" was founded in the late 1800s, included famous writers along with the world's most notorious Satanist, and continues today as a Florida nonprofit?

Answer: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Of course, the Satanist was Aleister Crowley. Writers included William Butler Yeats. Today, the order is carried on by the Florida-based Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Inc.. Anybody else think this was the inspiration for the Mythic Dawn cult in the video game Oblivion?

Thanks to everyone who submitted answers, by which I mean, thanks Bill, Greg and Claypits! Each time I try to crank up the difficulty, you guys still rise to the occasion. I'll try to offer you a real challenge next time...

Blimps, ape-men, nudity...it's quiz time!

Because you've all been so patient, and I've had relatively little to talk about -- it's a new Cafe Asteria Quiz Contest! E-mail your answers to me at griner (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll announce the winners early next week.

1. In 1915, German zeppelins were wreaking havoc on the British. One of the main reasons these giant explosive floating targets were successful was because British pilots generally could only destroy them by dropping bombs on them from extreme heights. What technological innovation turned the tide in Britain's favor?
EDIT: Two people have guessed "explosive bullets," but that's not what I'm looking for. A great answer, though, and it sounds like that did help...after this technology was added.
Bonus question: What badass was the first to actually bring a zeppelin down with bombs?

2. The recent discovery of a prehistoric child's skeleton in Ethiopia has renewed interest in Australopithecus afarensis, an ancient ancestor of ours who walked on two legs but was otherwise pretty monkey-ish. There was a similar ape-man genus that came along later than the afarensis but died off as an evolutionary dead end. Some theorize that this genus had too limited of a diet (grubs and plants) to adapt as well as the omnivorous Homo genus that led to us. So what was this mystery genus?

3. In the movie "Real Genius," (how's that for a smooth transition?) Val Kilmer's character recommends nudity as a solution to what potential problem?

4. This week's coup in Thailand has generally gone better for the military than a coup a few years back in which South American country? Hint: The replacement president was unable to retain his office for even 48 hours.

5. What magic-oriented "fraternity" was founded in the late 1800s, included famous writers along with the world's most notorious Satanist, and continues today as a Florida nonprofit?

Three cheers for unethical business practices!

These posters likely will never see the light of day (sigh...t'is a common ending for my more zany stuff), but the client did love them. Click on each to read it, then read my note on the bottom.






Basically, the theater loved the posters, but the production company balked at promoting the show for some reason. Oh well, now it's just portfolio filler for me and the designer.

Strong like bull.

A bit late on these, but here are some photos from the great log-split-o-thon at my house two weeks ago. Several friends and relatives turned out to help us break down the massive dead hickory from our front yard. Anyway, on to the pics:

This was the base of the tree, so it was the largest part. Probably weighed in excess of 200 pounds. From left are friends Eric, Nimish and Jamey, with me on the far right. The log splitter uses 27 tons of pressure, but it still couldn't make it through some of the dense logs.

Jamey helps move logs across the yard from where the tree was felled to the carport, where we were operating the log splitter.

I don't know how to count cords of wood, so I'll just explain what we ended up with. There actually is another pile of the same size behind this one. There was a smaller pile nearby in the back, a pickup FULL of wood, and another massive pile in the carport. Of course, none of that counts the branches that were left by the street and eventually picked up by the city.

Big thanks to my parents, Karen, Nimish, Eric, Disa, Jamey, Evan, Greg, and Valerie. Also, thanks to Bill and my parents for actually taking some of the wood. Sorry if I missed anybody. It was quite a large endeavor.

Job security. Woohoo!

Sorry for the lengthy pause between posts, which led loyal Asterian Bill to send me this delightful image:



Anyway, some of you may remember my minor panic when, shortly after starting at the agency, I learned that our largest client was merging with another bank.

Why was this scary? Because the post-merger bank could easily decide to go with another agency, including the hotshot Atlanta agency that was representing the other bank.

Well, good news. We won the post-merger account, meaning that our largest client is now considerably larger, so we should be in good shape for a while. Speaking of which, I should have some more fun stuff to show you all soon, but as I've said before, things move slowly in the advertising world.

More to come, and sooner than later this time.

He'll feel even better after he punches a barrel and it disappears.

Very random post here. It's just been a long time since The Onion made me laugh. Today, mission accomplished.

Yes Virginia, there is a deep-fried hamburger.

Continuing my new-found obsession with frying a hamburger, I did some intense research today. OK, so I googled "deep-fried hamburgers."

I was shocked, SHOCKED to discover that the vibrant niche of restaurants that specialize in fried burgers can be found right here in Alabama. Specifically, it seems to be centered around Decatur and Athens (where my parents live in the northern reach of the state).

Here's an article on the phenomenon.

Of interest to my upcoming experiment (next Wednesday is fried-burger Wednesday) is this section:

It seems simple, but it is not, according to the cooks. NeSmith and her sister, Betty Garrison, have cooked about every NeSmith hamburger in the past 20 years.

"You have to know exactly how much meat to put in your hand," NeSmith explained. "If you get it too thick, the hamburger won't cook to the inside. Cooking is an art."

Depending on how hot the grease is, NeSmith said, it takes between 13 and 15 minutes to cook each hamburger.

So it sounds like they're just dropping patties into the oil and letting em fry for quite a while. I might try that, but we had also discussed breading it in corn-dog batter and frying it. Now, if it takes 15 minutes to fry these things, that would scorch the hell out of the batter. I can't think of anything breaded I've fried that long and didn't burn.

So what to do? It sounds like thin patties are the answer, but where's the fun in that? Dare we pre-cook the burger with a sear? Would that be any more effective? Would any breading actually stick to seared meat? Probably.

Put on your thinking hats, people. How are we going to do this?

The photo, btw, is some random girl eating a "deep-fried hamburger" at a North Carolina fair. They seem to have used breading and a stick, which I'd ideally like to avoid (though Asterian reader Greg has proposed using the stick, then removing it and eating it on a bun).

UPDATE: A co-worker from Decatur said he's eaten many a Penn's burger (mentioned in the article). He said he "loved them as a kid, but I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole now." The burgers are a half-and-half mix of breading and meat, squished together and fried. They're then set aside and fried again to warm it up when you order one. The texture is very soft, unless you ask for it "extra crispy," he said. Personally, this isn't what I want to try...

Did you HEAR?! The violence in Sudan's Kordofan Province worsened overnight!

I think I can say without a doubt that every single person in America was talking about the Crocodile Hunter this weekend. Maybe you were off in a desert on a solo death ride or something, but you sure as hell heard about it first thing when you got back.

It was the conversational shocker at the family party with my in-laws in Wisconsin. It was the buzz of the airport. Even the Scottish teenagers were talking about it in the forums of my favorite online zombie game.

And who can blame them/us/everybody? It's a great story. An international adventure icon, an Errol Flynn throwback to the days of pith helmets, is stabbed in the heart. To death. By a STINGRAY.

So it was with a loudly confused "bwah?" that I noted this excerpt today from Howard Kurtz's media chat at WashingtonPost.com.

Washington, D.C.: I find it bizarre, depressing, and not just a little telling about the sorry state of American TV news that Steve Irwin led the NBC news last night. I know he's a high-profile guy, and I don't quibble with the story being included in the news, but come on. Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan... These are somehow less important than Irwin's death and examining the new threat of sting rays?

Howard Kurtz: Two words: Labor Day. Look, I wouldn't have led with it -- and I wonder if Brian Williams would have if he hadn't had the day off-- but there was not a lot of hard news yesterday.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. I spent years trying to explain to people what's wrong with American newspapers. And it's right there, tied in a little elitist bun.

People want intrigue and excitement from their newspapers. They want stories they can buzz about, stories that stick with them. They don't want heinously boring, broad-stroke journalism with headlines like "Compromise hopes dim as Iran dismisses sanction threats."

God bless him, but the Croc Hunter dying is a great story. It's a frigging Doc Savage dime novel, and I've been following it like a vulture over a limping chubby hiker. But alas, until newspapers learn that great stories aren't defined by geopolitical impact, they'll just keep dwindling into irrelevance like a grumpy racist uncle shaking his fist on the porch.

Surely someone's tried it.

OK, don't ask why, but today I'm obssessing over a strange culinary question: Why don't you ever see fried hamburgers?

It just seems like a common-sense way to wreak havoc on your digestive system. I mean, it seems that if you breaded a hamburger patty and fried it in hot oil, it would have to be disgustingly good. Or would it just trap all the grease inside and get all nasty?

Has anyone tried this? If not, how would you do it? What do you think it would be like?

(And yes, I Googled it, but the only recipes were for lightly floured "Chicken Fried Hamburger" that was really just sauteed/seared. I'm talking about serious frying here.)

Who needs firewood?

For those of you who stood in the shadow of the massive dead hickory tree in my front yard, you might be glad to know it's now only a memory.

A tree guy took down the monster yesterday, but he wouldn't remove the wood (for the price I was willing to pay him). So great big huge thanks to friend Greg for coming over before I even got off work to help clean up the mountains of debris. Amazingly, we got most of the yard cleared, although the city of Hoover will have a fun pile to pick up from the street.

I'll try to snag a photo of the dead-tree carnage and slap it up here before it (hopefully) gets hauled away.

So yeah, if you need firewood, now's the time to ask. We're going to have a few years' worth (although we put a lot of the good stuff by the curb, since we don't have much space to store it).

Not many other updates. I've finished a radio ad that should start airing soon on "youth" stations...probably The X in Birmingham and a few others.

I'm still plagued by poison ivy and will probably go in for a second steroid shot today. I feel like my arms are covered in ants. All day. It's great.

OK, back to being productive.