A trio of supergiants -- red, cool, bright stars at the end of their lives -- may be the biggest stars ever identified, astronomers reported on Monday.

All three have diameters of more than 1 billion miles, or 1,500 times the sun's girth. If they were in the same location as the sun, they would completely engulf Earth and their outer layers would extend to a point between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

The big three dwarf even Betelgeuse, a well-known supergiant and the brightest star in the constellation Orion, the team of scientists said in research presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego. They also are slightly bigger than the previous champion, known as Herschel's "Garnet Star."

Source:
Astronomers Identify Trio of Supergiant Stars
By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters, Mon Jan 10,12:24 PM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=570&e=3&u=/nm/20050110/sc_nm/space_supergiants_dc

Posted at 07:51 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger image

I was stunned to learn of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide last week -- I was off the grid and unable to access any media or email.

Thompson was a phenomenally talented writer. His book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (sub-titled, A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream). remains to this day one of the funniest things I ever read. Get the hardcover, which is brilliantly illustrated by Ralph Steadman

You can also check out his 1965 Nation article on Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders   

Sources:
Hunter S. Thompson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67
'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' author takes own life
CNN, Monday, February 21, 2005 Posted: 3:49 PM EST (2049 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/02/21/thompson.obit/

Posted at 04:38 PM in Books, Humor, Media, Philosophy, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Some more  interesting ice photos (earlier shots are here). 

A couple of weeks ago a spectacular ice storm hit Geneva's lakefront.  The winds whipped up spray from Lac Léman (which is fresh water, after all) and carried it onto the parks and docks along the  shore.  Because the air temperature had been below freezing for several days, the spray froze instantly on everything it touched.

Posted at 08:44 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Very very cool full screen, immersivde QTVR of the moon from this site:

QTVR Full Screen Moon Panorama

Source:
Apollo 17 last men on the moon
Panoramas/QTVR movies
Hans Nyberg
images via NASA
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f29.html

Posted at 09:01 AM in Design, Science, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Need a GMail invite?

Problem solved.

Click on the link below, and lets see how longhtis works for . . .

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/d-2-ritholtz%40optonline.net-2411f89e48d348283f8a7d9c87900a7459eda0cc

Posted at 11:31 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Put this 4 x 6 sticker on the back of your car; A 25 year old waiter did -- and got arrested for "distribution of sexually oriented materials to minors."Absurd!

This is what gets you arrested in Clovis California?

See the artists site for more of his work

Source:
Battle brewing over devilish stickers
Mike Linn: CNJ news editor
News Journal 
http://cnjonline.com/engine.pl?station=clovis&template=storyfull.html&id=9759

Posted at 09:06 AM in Art & Design, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Gotta get me one . . .

Posted at 10:44 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I hardly agree with a lot of these -- but there are certainly some  interesting choices here, as mweel as music you probably haven't heard -- but should.

Let me spare you the suspense: here are their top 10

010: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Maps"

009: The Rapture
"House of Jealous Lovers"

008: Missy Elliott
"Work It"

007: Beyoncé [ft. Jay-Z]
"Crazy in Love"

006: Annie
"Heartbeat"

005: Kylie Minogue
"Can't Get You Out of My Head"

004: Missy Elliott
"Get Ur Freak On"

003: LCD Soundsystem
"Losing My Edge" / "Beat Connection"

002: Outkast
"Hey Ya!"

001: Outkast
"B.O.B."

See what I mean? A novelty song, 2 Missy Elliotts, and Beyonce in the top 10.  Either that wa sa pretty horrific period of music, or these guys have the musical chops of 14 year olds . . .

Check it out:

Pitchfork Top 100 Singles
http://pitchforkmedia.com/top/2000-04/singles/index.shtml

Posted at 09:59 AM in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pretty fascinating collection of products from the turn of the centruy (um, last century). All available over the counter, no prescription, perfectly legally -- in any pharmacy or grocery.

Cocaine: Now in delicious Cherry flavor !

Heroin:  From a name you trust

Morphine: Mom's helper when Junior has a toothache!

Drugs are whack  available from your local grocer!

Source:
Before Prohibition: Images from the preprohibition era when many psychotropic substances were legally available in America and Europe
Addiction Research Unit, Department of Psychology/University at Buffalo
http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm

Posted at 07:27 AM in Humor, Politics, Shopping | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

NYT:  "The story of Tatra is one of innovation, repression and vindication. The company got its start in the 1850's in Moravia (then part of the Austrian Empire, later Czechoslovakia) making buggies and railway cars. Auto production began with the Präsident in 1897.

A brilliant young engineer named Hans Ledwinka joined the company around that time and introduced innovations like all-wheel brakes, air-cooled engines and a central tube chassis with independent rear suspension. The Tatra's design and construction were years ahead of their time, strongly influencing Ferdinand Porsche, who was developing the Volkswagen Beetle on orders from Hitler; Porsche appropriated several of Ledwinka's ideas for VW.

"Porsche admitted he was basically looking over Ledwinka's shoulder," Mr. McCoskey said.

By the early 1930's, Tatra was testing aerodynamic design elements by a Hungarian designer, Paul Jaray. Many of these were incorporated into the design of the Tatra 77 of 1934. The air-cooled V-8 engine was placed behind the rear axle, allowing a spacious, quiet interior, and the car had a top speed of 90 miles an hour.

Ledwinka continued to tinker and produced a more graceful and compact model, the T 87, in 1936.

To keep the car light, much of the Tatra V-8, an advanced overhead-cam design, was made of aluminum. Like its predecessor, the sleek T 87 had an airplane-type central fin at the rear, air-intake scoops along the sides to direct cooling air to the engine and a third headlight that turned with the front wheels to cast light around a curve - as the Tuckers did years later.

After World War II, Communist central planners shifted production to a rival carmaker, Skoda, where the Tatraplan T 600 was made. But in 1957 car production returned to Tatra with a new streamlined model, the T 603. A descendant of the T 87, the first 603 also had three headlamps, an air-cooled V-8 and the same innovative chassis, although it traded the distinctive tailfin and louvers for a normal rear window."

Tatraplan and Tatra 603.

Source:
An East European Tour de Force, Often Copied but Still Unsung
MATTHEW HEALEY
NYT, January 31, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/automobiles/31CARS.html?8br

Posted at 01:28 PM in Design | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My buddy Jeff used to regale me with tales of Ice  Sculptures at Winter Carnival (including X rated ones) when he was an undergrad at Dartmouth.

Looks like the tradition returns:

Pirate ship sculpture marks revival in tradition of scope, grandeur

Execrpt:

After a decade of struggle due to unexpected weather constraints, political controversies and insufficient design considerations, the official snow sculpture comprising the Winter Carnival tradition is on the rise toward a new revival of creativity and immensity.

The Winter Carnival centerpiece features a massive ship to capture the weekend's "Peter Pan" theme. The structure surpasses previous sculptures in size, towering between 50 to 55 feet and spanning 18 feet wide. The mainmast stands 56 feet high, and the foremast stands 52 feet high. Sketches for the ship began in early December, as Eric Clum '08 and Lucas Schlumtz '08 designed various structural parts for use in the ship's construction.

This is what becomes of a dry campus . .  .

Source:
Pirate ship sculpture marks revival in tradition of scope, grandeur
By Kristen Kelley,
The Dartmouth, Friday, February 11, 2005
http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005021101110&sheadline=pirate%20ship&sauthor=&stext=

Posted at 08:37 AM in Design, Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Reflection nebula in Orion, NGC 1973-75-77

via the Anglo-Australian Observatory

Posted at 09:13 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I post to the blog primarily from a Mac, so I don't encounter these all that often. But in the office, even with a full IT department and a suite of anti-virus software, I still get the occasional infection.

What to do while you wait for IT to arrive?

Head over to one of these sites for quick, free detection and removal tools and online scans:

Symantec Security Response
www.sarc.com

Trend Micro Housecall
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

McAfee Virus Removal Tools for  Lovsan,  Klez,  and  Bugbear
http://find.pcworld.com/42632

Panda ActIveScan
http://find.pcworld.com/42634

(Your welcome!)

Posted at 08:36 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said on Thursday. The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on Dec. 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paul Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.  "After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added. "The hippo is a young baby he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

Posted at 11:26 PM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

A Snowy Train Stop (Roslyn)

February 1, 2005

Posted at 06:06 AM in Design | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An interesting push back to the MPAA:

Doom9.org - Learn how to control what's yours.
Shareaza.com - Efficient tools for sharing what's yours.
Bluetack Security - Tools to block those attacking you for sharing whats yours.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org) - Protect your rights to control what's yours.
DownhillBattle.org - Join the fight against the people who want to take way what's yours.
The Motion Picture Ass. Of America - Know your enemy. To them, what's yours is theirs, period.
The Recording Industry Ass. Of America - The only people more corrupt than the MPAA.

Shut Down This via boingboing

Posted at 11:00 AM in Film, Finance, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

See the miracle of sound inside!

via Gizmodo

Posted at 07:05 AM in Humor, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

1) iTunes Music Store has an interesting collection of Romantic tunes

2) About.com's Music  Honeymoon/Romantic Getaway Guide selected the "Top 10 Sexy Music CDs"

"If you desire to hear more sounds in the bedroom than those of your own beating hearts and breathy sighs (or the neighbors fighting), these sexy and romantic CDs can set the mood for seduction and orchestrate your lovemaking."

Um, sure.  I have to take issue with a few of her selections. Tina Turner? Sorry, thanks for playing. And while I love both the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, I cannot think that most women would appreciate them as a romantic soundtrack.

As opposed to let's say Barry White or Marvin Gaye. Any woman that doesn't appreciate them during intimate moments, you don't want to sleep with anyway . . .

1) Moondance by Van Morrison

"It's a marvelous night for a moondance," croons the lyrical Irish poet -- and you'll find yourselves in agreement after listening to this.

2) The Ultimate Collection by Barry White

When velvet-voiced White starts singing "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," hearts begin to melt. And when the Ultimate Seducer segues into "I'll Do for You Anything You Want Me To" and "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More," the feelings are irresistible.

3) Music To Shag By

Containing the mumbled French "Je t'aime...Moi Non Plus" (you may not know what Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg are moaning, but their sexy meaning is clear) along with more than a dozen sure-fire hits, this Austin Powers-inspired collection is groovy, baby.

4) Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions by Marvin Gaye

Is "Sexual Healing" is your theme song? This CD has four versions of it, including the original vocal, an instrumental, and an alternate vocal mix.

5) Otis! The Definitive Otis Redding

When the Memphis man sings "Try a Little Tenderness," there's just no arguing with that logic. This boxed set contains his entire oeuvre.

6) Crossroads by Eric Clapton

What woman hasn't felt more beautiful after hearing the guitar master sing "Wonderful Tonight?" This boxed CDs set also contains the hypnotic "Layla," "Wanna Make Love to You" and "After Midnight."

7) Forty Licks by the Rolling Stones

Disc 2, from "Start Me Up" to "Miss You" to "Beast of Burden" and "Angie" to "Fool to Cry" and the new "Keys to Your Love" delivers some powerful emotional messages from the world's greatest rock and roll band.

8) Romanza by Andrea Bocelli

If your taste leans toward opera, let your spirits soar with this passionate Italian. The appeal of "Con Te Partiro" is universal.

9) Love Songs by Etta James

The first incredible bars of "At Last" are guaranteed to start a fire. And later when James sings, "I want a Sunday kind of love, a love that will last past Saturday night," you'll be inspired to start a long-lasting relationship with this Chess Records diva.

10) Simply the Best by Tina Turner

If this classic Turner CD, containing the operatic "River Deep Mountain High," the earnest "It Takes Two," the heartfelt "I Don't Want to Lose You" and the forthright "Better Be Good to Me," isn't already part of your collection, it deserves to be.

>
Hardly a definitive list . . . I'd be interested in hearing other suggestions for a more orignal and compelling list . . .

Posted at 07:17 AM in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.

Success is nothing, without someone you love to share it with.
-Billy Dee
Williams in the movie, Mahogany

Love cures people, both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
-Dr. Karl Menninger

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. 
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love is a fire.  But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.  -Joan Crawford

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. 
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Age does not protect you from love but love to some extent protects you from age. 
-Jeanne Moreau

Beware you be not swallowed up in books!  An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge. 
-John Wesley

Better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall.
-David Chambless

Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."  Mature love says: "I need you because I love you." 
-Erich Fromm

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. 
-Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he's finished.
-ZsaZsa Gabor

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing. 
-Mignon McLaughlin

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
-Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.   
-Ogden Nash

The course of true love never did run smooth. 
-William Shakespeare

You can't buy love, but you can pay heavily for it. 
-Henny Youngman

Men always want to be a woman's first love, women like to be a man's last romance. 
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

No matter how lovesick a woman is, she shouldn't take the first pill that comes along. 
-Joyce Brothers

Source: Quotes of the Day,

Posted at 06:59 AM in Humor, Philosophy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

UM, okay . . .

Posted at 07:46 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

We're working on a theme here:  Who is Deep Throat?

Here's my pick:

Mark Felt, FBI Deputy Associate Director

Who is he? Now aged 90, Felt was deputy associate director at the time of Watergate.

When did the speculation begin? Felt was a prime candidate from the outset. He has been named as the most likely suspect in several studies, but has always denied it.

The case for: Felt had the motive. He was one of the J Edgar Hoover "old guard' at the FBI, and hoped to succeed the old man in 1972. Instead, Nixon picked a loyalist, L Patrick Gray, as acting director. Felt was the bureau's point man in dealings with the White House. He would have been fully abreast of the investigation into the break-in and would have known many of the leading actors. He was known to be a rare FBI operative who would return reporters' calls. The President's chief of staff, H R Haldeman, told Nixon that Felt was responsible for "most of" the leaks already plaguing the White House. Much has been made of a rumoured 1999 visit by Woodward to Felt's home in California. In 1999 a newspaper claimed that Carl Bernstein's son had told another boy that Felt was Deep Throat. Bernstein and Bernstein's former wife deny the allegation.

The case against: He has asserted that no single individual could have known everything that Deep Throat purportedly knew.

Go read the list, and pick your own front-runner.

Source:

Posted at 06:19 PM in Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

"What is wrong with the world of entertainment and politics today? CNN is reporting in an effort to pre-promote the release of “Inside Deep Throat,” an NC-17-rated documentary about the classic porn flick “Deep Throat,” the original film will be also be re-released. The rub is that the film has been edited from its sleazy yet historically important original version to an R rating.

Look what you have done to us, Janet Jackson and Michael Powell!"

-Jerry Del Colliano

>

Sources:
Porn Classic "Deep Throat" Re-Released With an R Rating?
Jerry Del Colliano
February 10, 2005
http://www.avrev.com/news/0205/10.dt.html

'Inside Deep Throat' may surprise you
Mike Clark
USA TODAY, Posted 2/10/2005 11:18 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2005-02-10-inside-deep-throat_x.htm

"Deep Throat" makes comeback
Tue Feb 8, 2005 8:55 AM GMT
Reuters
http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2005-02-08T085524Z_01_HOL831990_RTRUKOC_0_LEISURE-DEEPTHROAT.xml

Posted at 06:11 AM in Film, Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The consensus was that most of the tamer Superbowl adverts were not likely the greatest use of corporate dollars. But in a few of the cases, companies managed to squeeze more mileage from their expensive ad buys. Todays NYT reports on Career-Builder's clever extension of their Superbowl ad, which showed a frustrated employee his co-workers are all "monkeys."

To keep the amusement going, however, Career Builder went viral:

Yeknom Industries Rebukes "sham"
http://www.yeknominc.com/news/

Here's an excerpt from the NYT:

"MONKEY DO, MONKEY DON'T If Ameriquest was a stealth marketer during the Super Bowl, some advertisers with larger public presences also indulged in stealthy marketing.

For instance, CareerBuilder, a company owned by three major newspaper publishers that operates a job-search Web site (careerbuilder.com), gained enormous publicity for three commercials it ran during the game featuring chimpanzees as dysfunctional office workers.

The campaign, by Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago, also has an element intended to be discovered by computer users on their own: a Web site supposedly put up by the imaginary company for which the chimps work, Yeknom Industries (yeknominc.com).

"Yeknom" is "monkey" reversed.

"We're going after 20-somethings with a viral campaign," said Peter G. Krivkovich, the president and chief executive of Cramer-Krasselt, "and if they spend time on the site, it eventually bounces them back to careerbuilder.com."

One section of yeknominc.com is devoted to a tongue-in-cheek call to boycott careerbuilder.com because of what the mock site decries as a "slanderous television campaign that uses editing tricks and disinformation to make Yeknom Industries the butt of their jokes."

Source:
Ameriquest Mortgage Spots Are Winners in Super Bowl Competition
STUART ELLIOTT
NYT, February 9, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/business/media/09adco.html

Posted at 02:54 PM in Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunrise, 2/08/05, 6:54 am, Greenvale, NY

Had an early meeting on Tuesday, and my early a.m. diligence was rewarded with this spectacular sunrise:

click for larger photo

The colors are not too shabby for a camera phone --
But I must remember to hold the phone perfectly still on these sorts of shots . . .

Posted at 07:02 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ice storm, reputed to be in Belgium Geneva Winter 2005

If anyone has more information on this, please fill in the details . . .

>

Update: February 8, 2005 5:11pm

Its Geneva Switzerland, and you can see many more photos here

Posted at 08:30 AM in Humor, Science | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Here's the deal: You send us a style, genre, word, phrase, emotion, or whatever else, and if one of our mix tape robots fancies your suggestion, that crazy set of circuits might just make a mix tape out of it -- well, at least a tracklisting for a mix tape out of it.

Our robots are on call, well, pretty much never, so please have patience and try not to be disappointed if your request doesn't show up!

If you'd like to help our robots out with the overwhelming number of requests we receive, just e-mail Wolfman (help at tinymixtapes dot com). Make sure the subject reads "Help With Mix Tapes," and you will receive an automatic message with instructions.

Source:
Tiny Tapes
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/amg/

Posted at 02:41 PM in Music, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another in our continuing series:  "Way too much spare time"

A marvel done with Legos.

click for larger photos

A few quick facts:

How long to build it? It was about a year and a half of planning, building and photographing.

How many pieces of LEGO to build it? more than 75,000

How big is it? About 7 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 30 inches (2.2 m x 1.7 m x .76 m)

How many lego people does it seat? 1372

How many windows? 3976

It features a balcony, a Narthex, stairs to the balcony, restrooms, coat rooms, several mosaics a nave, a baptistry an alter, a crucifix, a pulpit and an elaborate pipe organ

This gets bonus points for its utter religous irrelevance  . . .

Posted at 09:45 AM in Art & Design, Humor | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Here's an interesting tidbit:  The Truth Laid Bear has The Big Picture (I tihnk that stat includes e&e) ranked 107, according to  site meter traffic stats. (That wedges us just under Simply recipes, but on top of ahead of GayPatriot). Around the election, we actually  hit  #53. Amazing!

I find these stats astounding, and wonder how accurate they are. This is hardly a general interest blog, and while I see some serious traffic spikes occasionally (via Carnival of the Capitalists, Altercation or Linkfilter), this is not a Daily Kos, Gizmodo or BoingBoing.

So all of you who keep coming by, thanks -- I try to keep this site interesting . . . and maybe soon I'll even get around to a redesign of the place one of these days.

Posted at 12:17 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click picture for fun

In the sprit of the previous two posts, I present to you,

OSU's Sloopy (just click to play)

>

Enjoy!

Be sure to catch the second half, when the "players" change

>

Note:   This works best with QT, which you should have installed already -- if not, click here -- its a painless install for Windows or Mac. . . Otherwise, WMP will run it.

Posted at 06:12 AM in Humor, Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rob Fraim is a friend who puts out daily market factoids; They are usually rife with unusual and very amusing tidbits. His most recent missive was particularly interesting:

Rob:   "As a Friday Factoid, I noted that “Hang On Sloopy” is the official rock song of the state of Ohio. I then posed these questions for the trivia contest:

· Who wrote the song “Hang on Sloopy”?

· What was his band that had the hit with “Sloopy”?

· He had another minor rock hit. This song was also a modest success for a rock musician who shares an unusual physical characteristic with his also-a-rock-musician brother. What was the song and who are the two brothers?

Here are the answers that I had in mind – and that are correct (this was before the interesting twist):

Answers:

1. Rick Derringer wrote the song.

2. His band – out of Akron, Ohio – was The McCoys

3. Later on he wrote and recorded the song “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.” This song was also a minor hit for Texas rocker and blues guitarist Johnny Winter. Johnny and his brother Edgar (remember “Free Ride” and “Frankenstein” in the 1970’s) are both albinos.

Some  side points. (Stick with me folks. I told you it this was long. And there’s more worth-reading stuff as you continue along – including our “important” section – a chance to do something good. So stand up, get another cup of coffee – or one of the foo-foo latte / cappuccino/ mocha foam spritzers that you big city guys drink, talk amongst yourself, and then crank up the reading again.)

My favorite version of “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo” was found on an Edgar Winter live album – “Roadwork – Edgar Winter’s White Trash.” Johnny had been off the music scene for a while due to heroin problems. It went like this on the album as I recall:

Edgar: “uhhh…people keep asking me….where’s your brother?”

<Crowd goes wild.>

Edgar: “Hey Johnny.”

Johnny: “Yea-aaah!”

Then he busted into “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo.”

Further miscellaneous Johnny/Edgar tidbits:

•  Edgar could really sing his butt off. A huge range and a powerful voice. Anyone who only knows the “Frankenstein” and “Free Ride” radio stuff missed out.

•  I was in the seventh grade and somehow ended up with a Johnny Winter record album. (For all you youngsters, records were these black discs that weren’t compact and you had to put them on this thing with a needle and they sounded scratchy…) The album was mostly rock and roll, but there was one long cut – the old blues classic “It’s My Own Fault.” That was the first time that I had heard the blues – and it knocked…me….out. Thus began my lifelong love of the blues and a discovery of the blues masters who influenced latter-day rock oriented blues players. So I’ve got a soft spot for Johnny Winter for getting me started.

All right then. Back to business. Winner Number 1 in the trivia contest was Cody Willard of CL Willard Capital in New York City – an excellent fund manager and telecom expert who also writes for RealMoney.com. Cody was spot on the money with his answers and right in synch with way I had the answers reasoned out.

Now as noted though, an alternate approach to the questions came up and I’m awarding First Prize Number 2 to Thomas Neuhaus – top notch value manager at Investment Management of Virginia in
Richmond, VA. He took us down this path.

1. Bert Berns wrote “Hang on Sloopy.” (You see, as it turns out, Rick Derringer and Bert Berns co-wrote it. So this was correct.)

2. He had The McCoys right.

3. Berns also wrote “Twist and Shout”

4. And with all due respect to “Ferris Bueller” fans everywhere, “Twist and Shout” was a hit for the Isley Brothers long before the Beatles did it. Thus the “brothers” connection.

Although I’m not aware of any special physical characteristic that the Isleys had that would rival the Winter Brothers albinism (unless you count the evidently uncontrollable urge to “Shout!” or even “Twist and Shout” a lot) I was too fascinated by the route of this alternate answer train to quibble over that. Plus Thomas’ mention of Bert Berns lets me get on a soapbox and talk about Berns’ unheralded talent. Most people don’t know the name, but check out this small sampling of the songs he wrote:

•  “Cry Baby” and “Piece of My Heart” - made famous by Janis Joplin but recorded much  earlier in the R&B world as well.

•  “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters.

•  “Everybody Needs Somebody” -- the old R&B song, which many know best from the Blues Brothers re-make.

•  “Cry to Me” (in my top 5 songs of all time) – by Solomon Burke

•  “A Little Bit of Soap”

•  “Here Comes the Night” – Them (Van Morrison)

As a producer at his Bang Records, he did some great work also – including producing my very favorite song of all time: Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” along with many others.

“On a breakneck, seven-year run beginning in 1960, he created some of the most soulful and honest music of his generation - songs that made you shiver the first time you heard them, songs that are just as fresh and moving today. He is truly the lost titan of the American music business, an important figure the world knows little about. It's long past time his brilliance was recognized."  - Doug Morris, from the liner notes to The Heart And Soul Of Bert Berns

Now, here’s something both fun and worthwhile for all of us who would like to participate. When I gave Cody his choice of prizes (a Bert Berns-related CD,  or a Johnny or Edgar Winter CD) he suggested something else. He said “Why don’t you just donate the $15 prize value to Big Brothers & Big Sisters?”   I said sure. Thomas Neuhaus thought it was a great idea and threw his hard earned prize value into the pot.  So we’re at $30 already – and the day’s just kicking off. Some further brainstorming ensued and we thought: “Why not give anybody who’s feeling like starting off the week with some good deeds and good vibes a way to do it too – and make it a group effort?”

So, if you want to contribute to this worthy cause you can simply go to this site and do so. https://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp?c=iuJ3JgO2F&b=186611
(It is the Big Brothers and Big Sisters website although the address looks goofy – you can reach this page by starting at the www.bbbsa.org homepage if you want to verify.)

Now you will see that there is a notation for an “in honor of” notation. It would be fun to see what we do cumulatively, but be assured – I will not know who gave nor how much. Notating it with the code word, if you choose to, will simply  allow me to check in a few days and see how we did as a group. There will be no knowledge of personal participation or amount – unless you yourself told me.

Use notation word “Fraim” in the “in honor of” box  if you want to. But you may relax -- you are not “honoring” me. Heck, think of it as slamming me, vilifying me, smacking me around, whatever you like. It’s just a way to see if we collectively can accomplish something..

Now, back to the thing that first started this discussion, the song “Hang On Sloopy.” A few items of note:

•  Jordan Kahn, first-class hedge fund and individual portfolio manager at Berger and Associates in Beverly Hills, California – and a Cleveland, Ohio native – notes that in his neck of Ohio’s woods “Sloopy” was not highly regarded and that no one from Cleveland ever sang it.  (Capulets/Montagues, Hatfields/McCoys, Cleveland/Akron maybe?) Much preferred was “Cleveland Rocks” by the group The Presidents of the U.S.A.

• Michael Friesen at TD Securities shared this, which made me laugh: “I don’t know the answers to your ‘Hang on Sloopy’ questions yet, but I do remember that when I and my sister were young, my parents had an “oldies” tape we used to play in the car that had that song. However, in the way that kids hear lyrics, my sister and I thought it hilarious that there was a song where the chorus was: ‘’Hang on Stupid!’ ”

One more thing on “Sloopy”  -- and you need to read this because it shows that on rare occasion politicians do display a sense of humor.

Posted at 09:44 AM in Music | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

“A resolution is a formal expression of the Ohio General Assembly and does not require the signature of the Governor. A concurrent resolution requires the approval of both houses of the General Assembly but is not filed with the Secretary of State. The official State Rock Song, Hang On Sloopy, was enacted through House Concurrent Resolution 16, 116th General Assembly, 1985-1986 Session."

Here’s the actual Resolution. Read it. It’s great:

“WHEREAS, The members of the 116th General Assembly of Ohio wish to recognize the rock song "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of the great State of Ohio; and

WHEREAS, In 1965, an Ohio-based rock group known as the McCoys reached the top of the national record charts with "Hang On Sloopy," … and that same year, John Tagenhorst, then an arranger for the Ohio State University Marching Band, created the band's now-famous arrangement of "Sloopy," first performed at the Ohio State-Illinois football game on October 9, 1965; and

 

WHEREAS, Rock music has become an integral part of American culture, having attained a degree of acceptance no one would have thought possible twenty years ago; and

 

WHEREAS, Adoption of "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of Ohio is in no way intended to supplant "Beautiful Ohio" as the official state song, but would serve as a companion piece to that old chestnut; and

 

WHEREAS, If fans of jazz, country-and-western, classical, Hawaiian and polka music think those styles also should be recognized by the state, then by golly, they can push their own resolution just like we're doing; and

 

WHEREAS, "Hang On Sloopy" is of particular relevance to members of the Baby Boom Generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who now are old enough and vote in sufficient numbers to be taken quite seriously; and

 

WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take too long, cost the state anything, or affect the quality of life in this state to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff; and

 

WHEREAS, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down; and

 

WHEREAS, Sloopy, I don't care what your daddy do, 'cause you know, Sloopy girl, I'm in love with you; therefore be it

 

Resolved, That we, the members of the 116th General Assembly of Ohio, in adopting this Resolution, name “Hang on Sloopy” as the official rock song of the State of Ohio.”

Really, that's the resolution as passed by the Ohio General Assembly . . .

Posted at 09:33 AM in Humor, Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How poorly designed are SUVs?

Consider this public service advert, aimed at young males who now can afford a used -- "pre-owned" in auto dealer parlance -- monster truck.

Because of their poor handling characteristics -- much longer braking distances, unstable emergency manuevers, high center of gravity, and roll over tendencies -- they have a rasther disconcerting habit of, um, killing the people who drive them.

Before suggesting that a little cleaning of the gene pool might be constructive  --  its true that SUVs have terrible stats for "one vehicle fatalities," i.e., people killing themselves without any other driver plowing into them -- there are the other unfortunate SUV stats. These vehicles disproportionately take other innocent drivers with them as they careen down the statistical highways.

Solution:   Encourage young males to achieve a "mastery" of their vehicles, ala Star Wars:

Here's the NYT take on it:

SPORT utility vehicles are beastly, or at least beastlike. 

That is the message of a new public service campaign from the governments of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The $27 million campaign, paid for with settlement money from a lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company, starts this week and is aimed at informing young men in particular about the rollover risks of sport utility vehicles. 

This latest dent to the aura of the S.U.V. stars "Esuvee," who looks like a cross between the Star Wars characters Chewbacca and Jabba the Hutt, with headlights for eyes and a grille for a nose. Esuvee - pronounced "S.U.V." - also rides like a bucking bull. 

In a 60-second commercial that is part of the campaign and will appear before movies in theaters, young men mount Esuvee, "buckling in" to the back of the hairy beast in a sort of mock bull riding championship. A gate opens and they hang on for the ride. As the first rider vaults out of control, the camera settles on a seasoned rider offering ringside advice. 

A creative (if somewhat cynical) solution to a ridiculous problem . . .   
 

Source:
The S.U.V. Is a Beast, and It's Hairy, Too
Danny Hakim
NYT, February 2, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/business/media/02adco.html 
 
EsUVee
http://www.esuvee.com/flash.htm

Posted at 06:54 AM in Design, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

We previously noted that the WSJ had reported that U.S. officials recorded more than 175 attacks on sites in Iraq on election day. 

Now, we hear from the Washington Post that this number increased by nearly 50%:

"Across the country, insurgents launched 260 attacks against targets of all kinds, including U.S. military and Iraqi security forces, officials said. Yet the casualty count -- 45 dead, about 100 wounded -- did not rank among the highest one-day totals."

Iraqi Voting Sites Attacked

Source:
Insurgents Attacked, but Voters Persevered
Resolute Electorate, Blanket Security Thwarted Onslaught
Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service, Tuesday, February 1, 2005; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52500-2005Jan31.html

Posted at 04:01 PM in War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack