And a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Xmas time savings

So Gabe, our friend Adam and I were roaming around Fry's last night looking for Mac repair essentials. After many tangents, we pass a STACK of brown generic boxes containing 19" flat panel monitor pilled up like sliced meat; on top of the pile was a brief sign that only read "19 inch LCD $159.00"

As we walked by Adam said, "walking through Fry's this time of year feels like buying electronics out of the back of some dude's van." HOW TRUE! Everything was silly priced to resemble hot merch and the packaging had a certain "fell of the truck" quality.

The best part about our Fry's trip? As I stood scanning the area looking for Gabe, Mr. Paul Harriman(!) came in the front door at 9:30 PM and meandered by, our exchange followed:
"Hi Paul!"
"Hey there, what are you doing?"
"I seemed to have lost my husband"
"You'll never see him again."

I didn't look to see if he was holding the Sunday Ad, but I assume he went to the car later holding some generic cardboard boxes.

Black Screen of Death

Heidi learned today that Macs can also die on you with no warning. Instead of a cheerful and optimistic blue screen of the PC that says, "Hey buddy, REBOOT!" you get a somber black Mac screen that says, "SOL!"

Turn back on? If only! Call a dude to help? None to speak of! If your Mac crashes so hard it won't even turn on, get thee to a reclaimation center. Nice work Mr. Jobs, my Mac should have the Happy Fun Ball warning because it has given me more problems than a PC ever has.

Links Roundup!

My new favorite thing about having a blog is that whenever I find something cool on the web, rather than try to figure out who to email it to, or consigning it to the black hole that is my bookmarks list, I can just post it here.

Yes, I know. I can email that epiphany back in time to 2001 when it was still reasonably fresh.

Links!

Video of excavating an ant colony!

Someone made a family tree of D&D up through AD&D 1st Edition.

Flickr stream of concept art Ralph McQuarrie did for the original Battlestar Galactica. To answer your first question, yes it does look even more like Star Wars than the final product did. On the other hand, I want to see someone do an animated movie in McQuarrie's art style.

Andy Rooney talks smack about Windows! How can someone be so right, and still make me want to disagree with him?

The Logitech Mice that weren't.

XKCD - Alternate Currency.

BCC Radiophonic Workshop - the Fourth Dimension. A blog I had never heard of but am now a huge fan of has posted mp3s of a long out of print Radiophonic workshop album. Awesome. The rest of the blog is well worth poking around as well. (Also, it's worth pointing out that those MP3 are sourced from vinyl. How the heck do they get them to sound that good? I NEVER heard a record player sound that good.)

Tiki artist Shag has been commissioned to do art for the Haunted Mansion's 4oth anniversary. How badly do I want prints of these? Pretty badly.

Greg Costiklyan does a fascinating analysis of Candyland.

"They" would seem to have turned Get Your War On into a web cartoon. Tilt!

I didn't know this movie existed, but now I really want to see it really badly.

Bettie Page Passes Away

Bettie Page passed away today at the age of 85. If you consider yourself a feminist, you are probably in one of two camps regarding her presence and influence on the women's lib movement that came shortly after her rise to popularity. One camp says she exploited herself and women and was bad for their efforts for equality. The other camp says she was a pioneer and actually helped lay a few bricks herself in the path all women walk today towards a life of equal pay, equal respect and equal rights. I happen to be in the latter camp and am sad to hear she has gone.

She was raven-haired when it was in vogue to be blonde, she was vivacious when it was the style for women to be demure and while other ladies wore aprons in their 1950's kitchens, she was bold enough to run around naked. A lot of gals may be put off by the bondage flavor of some of her photos, but when you think about how the 1950's were, I think they are an apt reflection of the time for women. After WWII, A LOT of women were kicked out of the industries that kept America going while they built the hardware that won the war. They had been pilots, machinists, managers and factory gals; then the men came home and the ladies were shown the door, it was a great contraction of women's liberties and lively hood that created the powder keg that blew in the 1960's. Bettie Page was a revolutionary thinker in the fact that she simply didn't subscribe to the notion that women's sexuality should be suppressed.

She also happened to be a stunning specimen of the opposite of what was popular at the time. Leggy blondes in coquettish poses were the posters and photos that had wallpapered locker walls and dreams alike; then Bettie shows up with her raven locks, severe fringe, animal print and teeth baring photos and gave a new perspective to what is beautiful.

I think that Bettie knew what she was doing, while she wasn't out to make a feminist statement, she was quoted on saying the she never thought nudity was dirty or bad. She said if religious people had a problem with her photos because of nudity that they should remember their bible and know "God made Adam and Eve naked as Jaybirds." She never saw herself as a porn star, and I don't consider her photos pornography. Why? I can't explain, I just know it when I see it. She is both cute and fiercely sensual, submissive yet in control -- she is complex. I think this complexity is why Bettie has been so popular for so long; when you consider her photos have been praised, damned, loathed and admired for 50 years, you know her impression is a lasting one.

I don't consider her to be on the same level of Gloria Steinem, but I appreciate the efforts of ALL the women before me who made a choice to speak out, act up and sit in and I consider Bettie to be one of them; because of their forward thinking, when I cook in the kitchen it is my choice and not my place.

You'll be missed Bettie!