Uhh …

spreadsheets.google.com

Huh. The tide really must be turning. Chris Matthews calling BS on Republican talking points (although I think Van Taylor may have been using a slightly out-of-date playbook).

It’s really amazing to watch him devolve his responses into simpler and simpler sound bites. He starts out with “Al Qaeda is trying to use Iraq as a training ground for terrorists,” stops off at “we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here,” and ends up at “support our troops. support our troops.”

It’s painful to watch, but good to see.

This is it. The last words (and pictures) about our trip to State College, PA and the surrounding area. We had a lot of fun and got a lot done. Thanks to Becky’s mom, Evelyn, for giving us a bed to sleep in, food to eat and a cat to pet. Below see pictures from our trip to the woods, a sojurn to the American Philatelic Society (sorry, jank — i know you wanted to keep this a family friendly site) and a surprise visit to the Bellefonte Arts and Crafts Fair.

Here is my next-to-last set of pictures from our State College trip. These were all taken with the Vito II.

It’s possible that every human metaphor is contained within this “game”, or it may just be a place for 10-year-old kids to write “boobs”. Whatever, I just spent 10 minutes trying to spell the alphabet, and while I was aided in my quest by several strangers, in the end I was defeated by the forces of evil, or possibly entropy.

No, no…it’s more interesting than it sounds.

On Saturday PASA hosted a farm tour of Centre County — the county that is home to Happy Valley and a number of Amish folk. On top of the fascinating process of environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities, meeting and interacting with people of a culture that separates itself from society was an experience everyone should have.

I would have pictures of the people we met — like Raymond Fisher who makes kombucha and is an amazing horse rider, or Elmer and Martha King who make ghee and wonderful chocolate/coconut pops; both of whom had adorable bright attentive children — but the Amish don’t like to be photographed so you’ll have to be satisfied with photographs of their farms (and a couple of distance photographs of Amish driving horse teams).

When Becky and I hit NYC this past April I dropped into one of my favorite camera stores and found a camera from the 1950’s — the Voitlander Vito II — that I just had to have. After paying too much for it, although it is in excellent condition and came with the original leather camera case, I took it for a spin and quickly determined that the person who cleaned it had committed a known blunder using a common camera cleaning solvent that gums up the auto-timer. Since I was leaving to come home soon I left the camera with my friend Ashley who was nice enough to take it back to the shop for me. Long story short: almost four months later I have the camera back and everything works great.

Here’s a selection of photos from my first roll of film.

Becky and I are about to travel forth to the wilds of Nittany Lion country. Upon my return I expect to regale you with tons of boring photos exactly of the type you expect in an independent intellectual family friendly blog like this one.

For now, though, I’m just going to serve you some generic spam mail pablum.

He is an American icon; his voice as comforting as the American landscape, his songs as familiar as the color of the sky, his face as worn as the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps that’s why Dan Rather suggested, “We should add his face to the cliffs of Mt. Rushmore and be done with it.”

American Masters . Willie Nelson | PBS

So, I’m channel surfing before nodding off, and catch this on CPTV. Fascinating – It’s like “The Real Willie”, complete with replicas of the mid ’90’s Jank – stumbling drunk, smuggling beers, and incapable of a sentence other than “Wow” in the presence of a hero.

Willie’s sober now, solvent, and trying to get back in shape – there was Willie doing Tae Quon Do with his kids, Willie riding a bike, Willie playing with his (Seven!) kids.

I keep waiting for the BioWillie plug, but it’s not coming.

Blogged with Flock

So, I’ve got a problem. It goes like this: I really, really like shiny things that I can carry around with me. ‘Specially if they’re useful, and I can claim that I’m carrying them around ‘cause they’re useful AND shiny.

This is my latest fetish object: Shiny, useful, and on sale.

Solid titanium, with an advertised crush strength of 2,000 lbs.

So, I could, y’know, run it over with my car, and then still plug it back into my computer and have that file that I’ve got to have.

I feel bad posting such a shameless plug, but I’ve been looking at it and fondling (yep, that’s the right word) mine all day.

Staples, if you’re interested.

Blogged with Flock

Ned Lamont won the Democratic primary up here, and I’m in the odd place of seriously considering a vote for a Democrat for the Senate in November.

The Democrat being Joe Lieberman.

From TNR:

Lamont may find that the institutional support of his state’s Democratic Party is not such a massive advantage. Connecticut Democrats haven’t elected one of their own to the governor’s mansion in 16 years. (emphasis added)

Will money dry up for Lieberman? His campaign insists it isn’t worried about raising cash. “It will probably be easier,” says a senior Lieberman aide, perhaps a tad optimistically. “There’s going to be a lot of people around the country who heard that appeal about being fed up with the politics of polarization and Washington. Also, there will be pro-Israel money, and the Jewish community will rally to his side in a big way. Raising money is the least difficult part of this challenge.”

Given a three way choice between Lamont, now beholden to the rabid left-wing of the DNC, the GOP, and a guy who thinks for himself regardless of focus groups?

It’s going to be fun up here this fall.

Blogged with Flock

What he was actually saying was “I hate juice. Juice is responsible for all the world wars.”

—sorry, Becky—

Celebritard quote, possibly of the year, from Lindsay, who wants to go to Iraq with Hillary and entertain troops.

I’ve been trying to go to Iraq with Hillary Clinton for so long. Hillary was trying to work it out, but it seemed too dangerous.

Uh … Hillary was trying to work out a deal … that you two might somehow … go to Iraq … and … what?

In recognition of Samuel Jackson’s upcoming film, Snakes on a Plane, the Alamo Drafthouse sponsored a short film competipion Blanks on a Blank. The idea was that each team would be given a random animal and a random mode of transportation, then they had to come up with a short disaster film based on that. My team was given “panda” and “scooter”. Originally we had an elaborate and really cool idea involving a kidnapping, a nuclear warhead and ninjas. We petered out on tha idea and decided to drag Becky in a panda costume to a party and force the party-goers to “act” out a little disaster dramedy. I made — and I personally take responsibility — a disaster of a film.

All the BoaB films are up at the competition website where you can watch and vote on the films. Watch our film — be patient, it loads really slow — which is 36 down on the list (jaireaux/Panda/Scooter) and then do me a favor and give it the lowest rating possible. I want to be recognized as the worst film in the competition.

I’m still not sure I really understand the “net neutrality” debate and this site is only making things a little clearer, but they’ve got a fun video.