DEAD BLOG NOTICE

The Record Button, or at least this incarnation of it, is now closed.

All updates will now be posted at http://www.tommieandthebartender.com or in the blog at my myspace page, until it bores me (which may not be so far off).

The Devil's Bible

(found at Warren Ellis Dot Com)

Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil’s Bible ? a medieval manuscript said to have been written 800 years ago with the devil’s help ? has returned to Prague after an absence of 359 years.
The priceless piece, considered the biggest medieval book, was taken from the Prague Castle by Swedish troops at the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. It is in Prague on loan from Sweden’s Royal Library in Stockholm. It was put on display under high security at the Czech National Library.

According to myth, a Benedictine monk promised to write the book overnight to atone for his sins. When he realized the task was impossible, he asked the devil for help.

The manuscript was likely written by one monk from the Benedictine monastery in Podlazice located some 100 kilometers (65 miles) east of Prague sometime at the beginning of the 13th century, said Zdenek Uhlir, a specialist on medieval manuscripts at the National Library.

It contains “a sum of the Benedictine order’s knowledge” of the time, including the Old and New Testament, “The War of the Jews” by the first-century historian Josephus Flavius, a list of saints, or a guideline how to determine the date of Easter, Uhlir said.

“I would estimate it took him between 10 and 12 years to write,” he said about the piece, which weighs 75 kilograms (165 pounds).

Absent Artwork

A webserver I've been borrowing from a friend in Tampa SINCE 2001 seems to have forsaken me, which is why there's so many little red x's in little red boxes right now. And no header. And no background. Nada. Almost all of the artwork I use on my various sites was stored there.

However, as I'm too lazy/busy/pick your favorite excuse to move my files or redesign this page...it'll look like this for a while, most likely.

Blue Boy

Having trouble sleeping, so I'm trying something a little different before I go out and invest in a bunch of hot tea varieties.

A generous snort of scotch whisky, Isle Of Jura, aged 20, not too peaty, just enough bite to make my neck snap a little after each sip.

I anticipate some success with this method, but don't intend to make a habit of it.

And it won't be nearly as tasty as Friday Night's libation was.

This bad boy:

I wasn't even aware that the good folks at Johnny Walker made a blue variety. My Unofficial Brother Frank, Lord And Keeper Of Scotches, was given this recently when he ticked off a rather important birthday. It's a $200 bottle, and he was kind enough to pour me a few fingers of it while we sat and talked about cats and books Friday night.

I have a few decent bottles of my own...nothing worth more than $50 or $60, though. And let me tell you: there is a mammoth jump in quality from $60 to $200. This was so smooth it almost made me cry.

Must make wealthy friends before I turn 40...must make wealthy friends before I turn 40...

Roo-t of all evil?

I deeply appreciate the myriad of unique and unusual forms of life on this planet.

Especially in tasty, convenient stick form.

50 Days And 2 Words

Tonight marks 50 Days since my last cigar.

To observe this, for no reason whatsoever, I have developed a nasty cough.

Yeah. That seems fair.

Anyway...

I have decided there are two words that we have all deemed archaic that I would like returned to general useage.

The first is lollygag. This was a perfectly good word, fun to say and everything, which was cast aside around 1954 or so. It's a perfect dichotomy of a word: the latin-root lolly, which is international for lollypop (something pleasant) and the middle-upper-nigerian/venezuelan suffix gag, which is self-explainatory (something unpleasant).

Sample paragraph: "I say, refrain, you ruffians! Do not lollygag around at my storefront, blocking the path of any patrons who may wish to part with their sheckels and purchase my wares! Begone!"

The other is jackanapes. You can still find it in fresh use today, but only in historical fiction, typically set in the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Another one that makes you smile when you say it, fed to the wolves of change during a secret Merriam-Webster Meeting on the Oxford Campus in 1937. It comes from the cockney-adopted-by-the-wealthy-english-root jack, or man (with the modifier -an, to infer there is more here than meets the eye) and the lower-norwegian descriptor apes, meaning to ape around, apely, like an ape.

Sample Paragraph: "That man is an ungodly jackanapes, as was his father before him. Sweet Tapdancing Christ how I wish he would find someone else to bother! My patience runs thinner than your mother's bathtub gin, I daresay!"

Okay, I'm done. Back to work now.

I effing Love This Schaffer Guy

Spiders On Drugs

Warren Ellis:

Next year I am going to launch a festival called DEAD EARTH. And yet, weirdly, it will have a smaller carbon footprint than Live Earth.Because the only way I could achieve a larger carbon footprint than Live Earth would be to drop an asteroid on Australia. And that's just a little outside the range of my capabilities right now.

Still, it's good to have ambitions.

Quote found at WE

“It is the business of the future to be dangerous.”

– Alfred North Whitehead

Death Of A President

Most likely, at some point in the last year, you heard about the movie with that title.

A lot of people immediately reacted with shock and disgust at the thought of British Filmaker Gabriel Range creating a film that marries actual footage and CGI to create the assassination of George W. Bush. The fact that Lions Gate...the studio that took a chance on Dogma from Kevin Smith and several other movies considered too hot for the bigger houses to touch...distributed the film is testimony to the awkwardness of the subject matter.

The Beloved Kim and I rented this movie and watched it last night, and I may have to go out and buy it.

Here's why.

The film is NOT anti-American, nor is it a slam-piece against the President. It's a very well-thought out story, actually a bit of a mystery, right up to the ending, that presents the situation as a documentary of the event. The production is very well done (something I always look for, given what I do for a living...point of fact, I like a lot of bad movies because they were produced well despite having no story to them). It's done in a respectful way that evokes emotional response from the audience. Anger, sorrow, disbelief...you get swept up in the story very easily.

The actual assassination scene is a brilliant piece of effects work. It's not bloody for the sake of bloody. It's very reminiscent of the shooting of Reagan, actually. Ironically, the picture above, which was used in the promotional materials, is not a camera angle that's used in the film.

Set aside whatever politics you have and watch this film with an open mind. It's worth your effort. I think it's one of the best films I've seen about the way America works since Good Night & Good Luck.

And the end result...Patriot III (a new spin on the Patriot Act) gives you a bit of a chill, no matter which side of the red-blue debate you typically fall under.

My opinion, and I think my wife would concur: This film is not sick. This film is not disrespectful. This film is not a blueprint for someone to try and kill Bush. This film is a look at what one random day could mean to this country, and the world. Like September 11th.

Too many blogs

The status of this place is under review. I'm stretched a bit thin, spending more time at myspace than anywhere else, and starting to get sick of that hole anyway. I'm not intersted in getting back into livejournal, either. And Tommie & The Bartender dot com is getting daily attention, because it has to. But I like having a place to myself, that isn't attached to the station.

More later.

Calvin And Hobbes

Warren Ellis found this, and I agree: it's really, really well done. It's the final exam of a student in an animation class:

Brilliant post at Robotman

The Problem With Time Travel

Patton Oswalt

Exceptional journal entry about the passing of an era at his myspace blog:

I went to Sony Studios this morning to watch Michael Giacchino score Ratatouille. The score mixer was Dan Wallin, this smiling dude in his 80's who's mixed films like, oh, BONNIE AND CLYDE, WAIT UNTIL DARK, COOL HAND LUKE, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, BULLITT, THE WILD BUNCH, WOODSTOCK, THX 1138, DIRTY HARRY, ENTER THE DRAGON, THE LAST DETAIL, BLAZING SADDLES, THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, NASHVILLE... the man has 502 imdb.com credits. They were using speakers he'd custom built himself, and they were scoring with a FULL ORCHESTRA sight-reading the score along with the movie. Oh, and they were on the stage where they'd scored THE WIZARD OF OZ, all the Fred Astaire films, GONE WITH THE WIND...

Michael told me this was probably the last film that would ever get recorded to tape. He was going to be scoring something else in the fall, and was already told, "You got the last of it for this film".

Wallin had recorded stuff to ACETATE in the 60's.

It was like watching the Justice League of film scorers.

I walked around in a daze. I talked to tuba players, vibraphonists, and string-men of every stripe. They let me stand in the orchestra space while everyone played, and it was like being stoned by sound.

Hate: It's what's for dinner.

Hate Makes a Comeback

Groups Like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis Target Mexican Immigrants

Father To Son

"Son...you're making the same mistake in Iraq that I made with your mother. I didn't pull out in time, either..."

no-no

Chicago White Sox Postgame Alert
---------------------------------------
April 18, 2007

Texas 0, Chi. White Sox 6 at U.S. Cellular Field
Texas Record: (6-8)

Chi. White Sox Record: (6-7)

Winning pitcher - Mark Buehrle (1-0)
Losing pitcher - Kevin Millwood (2-2)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Texas 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Chi. White Sox 0 0 1 0 4 0 1 0 X 6 7 0

TEX HR - None
CWS HR - J. Dye (3) J. Thome 2 (5)

Next Chi. White Sox Game: April 19, 2007 07:11 PM CT vs. Texas Rangers

Check, Mate.

Police have briefly arrested Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov at a banned anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow.

Glazer/Bucs story from Tampa Trib last week

No one should think I didn't feel the pain as much as anyone else last year. I didn't like 4-12. I never dreamed we would own a 4-12 football team - but we did last year. I don't want to see that again. But things happen and now we move on. We still feel good about the direction of our organization. You have to be realistic about what you have, not make excuses, correct the mistakes and move on.

To wit: Friday was a busy day for the Buccaneers front office, coaches and players. General manager Bruce Allen, head coach Jon Gruden and, very interestingly, quarterback Chris Simms and wide receivers Michael Clayton and David Boston flew to Atlanta on Friday morning for a private workout with Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson. The Bucs don't stop there, either. Now it's on to Notre Dame for a private workout Saturday with quarterback Brady Quinn, and then on to LSU for a private workout with quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Russell, whom many project to be the top overall choice in the April 28 draft, is keeping his own busy schedule. Russell arrived Thursday night in Oakland for a visit Friday with the Raiders. (NFL.com)

Non-Imus Headlines

(because God knows you won't find any on the fucking television today)

(all courtesy of the BBC, where NEWS is)

Jail for Serb video death squad
A court in Serbia sentences four paramilitaries filmed killing Bosnian Muslims during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Ethiopia admits terror detentions
Ethiopia admits it has detained 41 foreign "terror suspects" who were captured in neighbouring Somalia.

Woman loses final embryo appeal
A woman left infertile after cancer therapy has lost her fight to use frozen embryos fertilised by an ex-partner.

'Hijacker seizes Turkish plane'
A Turkish plane is hijacked on an internal flight, but a man surrenders after it lands in Ankara, Turkish media say.

Chad admits battle inside Sudan
Chad says its troops did cross into Sudan and clash with the army, in the two rivals' first direct battle.

Bush renews immigration bill call
US President George W Bush stresses the need for a consensus in Washington on reforming immigration laws.

Guantanamo force-feeds detainees
Thirteen detainees on hunger strike in Guantanamo are being force-fed through their noses, the US navy says.

Australia to double Afghan force
Australia's PM announces plans to nearly double troop numbers in Afghanistan, to help fight the Taleban.

Macau 'unblocks' N Korean funds
Macau unblocks frozen funds that have proved a stumbling block to a N Korea nuclear deal, the US says.

Many dieters 'finish up heavier'
Dieting is unlikely to lead to long-term weight loss and may put a person's health at risk, a study says.

Yellow Ledbetter Decoded

At last. Mumblefuck makes sense to me.

Courtesy of The Dale.

Clickity.

Roadmap To Extinctions

At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts: "Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events" ... "1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity" ..."major extinctions around the globe."

My Favorite Discovery All Year

Post-Soviet Union Pop Stars performing the old Soviet National Anthem...differently... (1991)

Seven Seasons, Seven Minutes