Talk to the hand

For the Star Wars fans out there (though you must face facts, Trek is much much better!)

More Finn newz

Remember how I mentioned Neil recording a new album back in October? Well, turns out that Nick Seymour was also in the studio with him, and now thanks to this news article and confirmation/clarification from Peter Green (see this post from the Gryphon himself) we now know that it’s going to be a Crowded House reunion album, complete with Mark Hart! I would be sorely disappointed if Mark hadn’t been included, by the way. And there aren’t really words to describe the lack of Paul. I still can’t believe that I never even got to see them live until after Paul had quit back in 1994.

They’ve also rereleased the Farewell to the World DVD and it’s finally out in the US; I have got to stop putting off my next Amazon order and get the damn thing. (Actually, I almost ordered it straight from Oz earlier this month before seeing in the fine print that it was a Region 4 disc! Disaster averted.)

Could it be true? Solo Tim and Crowded House all in the same year?

A damn good idea

Wish I’d thought of this one: a mitten that has a pocket on the back of the hand that you can put your Charlie Card in. The card scanner can read the card through the mitten, and your hands stay warm. It’s a win-win! Read about it here, and here is another blog that links to the article about the mittens that ran in the Globe last week.

Time won’t give me time

When am I going to grow a spine and cancel my subscription to Time magazine? My major complaint is that over the years they’ve been subtly and gradually changing the tone to one that is less like reporting and more like advertising. I even got torqued up enough last September to send an email accusing one writer of being a shill for a business whose product he reviewed. In the offending “article,” which I don’t feel like identifying because it will just name the damn product another time, was about a new cell phone. After gushing about the phone itself, quoting the manufacturer’s own description of the phone, the writer actually advised buying it now rather than waiting for other providers to offer it because one “may never again find a monthly rate this good.” In this era of uber-crass commercialization, does this kind of plug bother only me? For what it’s worth, I did get a reply to my email, but it was not in any way apologetic and rather defended how cool he thought the phone was. So be warned: Time magazine now carries bought-and-paid-for ads, as well as masquerading-as-articles ads.

The latest misstep is, of course, the now infamous “Person of the Year” issue where it was Us, the DIY You-Tubers who lurve to use teh Internets as our new medium of navel-gazing. Far be it from me to ignore the irony of bitching about it on my blog (and of course I’m also a couple of weeks late and the Eye of the People has certainly moved on by now). But come on. Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, maybe someone involved in that Iraq thing going on, hell, even Vladimir Putin and his growing fondness for trying to bully the world through manipulation of the energy supply. I mean, do I matter even a tiny bit in the grand scheme of things in contrast to the aforementioned dudes? Sure, I love YouTube, sure I dig keeping up with the peeps blog-style. But it ain’t the most important shit that happened last year. Get some perspective, hmm?

So why do I continue to subscribe to this damn mag? Well, there’s certainly inertia at work. And they do a decent job in the front third of the mag to give me the lowdown on the week’s happenings. Hey, maybe I should just cancel until the 2008 presidential campaign starts to heat up. Uh—wait a second...

Hibachi!

Well, it seems as though the last few days have been dedicated primarily to sports in one form or another. First off, the Snorklewacker/Swami household has been consumed with Gilbertalooza, after Arenas sank an unbelievable game-winning shot on Thursday night, then had an insanely expensive birthday party on Friday night (not that I was invited, snif), and in general showed off his phenomenal swag.

Then there was an hour and a half of tennis on Saturday, where we were one court over from Thomas Blake, bro to James and a Boston Lobster. (It’s pretty daunting to play your own crappy game of tennis, involving lots of hitting it into the net and other unforced errors, while the dude next court over is thwacking the ball at a billion miles per hour. Although I did hit an ace, boo yah!)
Finally, today, it was a 19-mile bike ride in the amazing sunny weather. As righteously pissed off as I am about global climate change, I can’t complain about sneaking a cycling session in during January, of all months. Although I do miss the snow and cold weather.
Now, I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Woof.