Friday, July 1, 2005

Sing along with the soon-to-be-ex Supreme

Look at me, I'm Sandra D.
No more Supreme Court for me.
I won't leave the bench 'til Bush finds a new wench...
Then so long to Sandra D.

Watch me leave; watch Rehnquist wheeze; see Clarence give his clerk a squeeze
Sorry, dear Ruth, but to tell you the truth,
This gal has got to leave

Bye-bye Roe v. Wade,
Farewell rights for gays,
But don't get your pants in a twist.

Once George Bush is done,
No one will have fun as
he turns my seat over to Frist.

Don't burn a flag, go bash a fag,
The constitution's such a drag.
I don't mean to be rude but now this country's screwed...
Goodbye, says Sandra D.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The news isn’t greeeaaatttt…

Thurl Ravenscroft—best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger and as the singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas and "Grim Grinning Ghosts" from Disney's Haunted Mansion—has died.

And another big part of my childhood recedes into the past.

Monday, May 23, 2005

A boy and his tiger…are back! (Sort of.)

"Calvin and Hobbes" will return to newspapers later this year, and its reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, will answer questions.

Before fans of the renowned comic and cartoonist get too excited, it should be quickly noted that it will be reruns of "Calvin and Hobbes" that newspapers can publish from Sept. 4 to Dec. 31. And Watterson will reply to queries in a controlled way via Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Here in The BradLands, for our C&H fix, we've had this darling (possibly copyright infringing) feed in our NetNewsWire subscriptions. We recommend it to you too.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Preach, brother!

Respect the TiVo!

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Two great tastes…

Heartwarming story of a man and beloved pet reunited despite long odds? Thinly-veiled shill for consumer electronics? Both? You decide.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Calendar madness

Those online city guides and calendars, they sure are handy, right? You're in St. Louis or Chicago or Denver for the night and you want to go to the theatre or a gallery or go hear a good band, so you log on and search by date for what you're interested in. Easy, eh?

Not if you're a venue operator. For us, they're a pain in the ass.

About once a month, I get e-mail from a new website that has undertaken as their mission to be the place to go for information about events in St. Louis. They are going to maintain Calendar Supremo, a one-stop shop for all the details on theatre|art|music|entertainment in the metro area.

And I sigh heavily and add them to the list of (at this writing) 26 other sites I have to update with information about our events. We produce nearly 400 public performances and events every season. Assuming I can enter each into a web database—each of which wants the information in a different order or format— in, say, two minutes (and I can't), that's 13 hours of work per calendar. Over eight weeks of solid work, just to keep up.

I can't not participate in these calendars. For one thing, as sure as I decide to skip one of the more obscure ones, that's the one my boss checks religiously and wonders why we're not listed. For another, I can't be sure which ones have an audience of users hungry for information about local theatre, and I can't be sure which one will be the next "big thing" that everyone turns to to get events information.

So I grit my teeth and thank the stars that copy and paste eliminates at least some of the work and spend hour after hour on my butt in front of the computer repeating myself 26 times.

I love how the web makes my life easier as a user sometimes. This, however, sucks.

What I want to do, and what I know is theoretically possible, is to put all of my season information in one file of a particular format—XML, tab-delimited text, whatever—and either put it on my server or be able to upload it to each calendar and be done. Write once, read many...time-saving and error-reducing into the bargain.

I've inquired of the folks who do the major city guides. They all agree it would save me a lot of work and nod sympathetically when I tell them they're not the only game in town and the effort of servicing a dozen different calendars is breaking my figurative back. They're not inclined to change the system, however, or adopt a syndication format or standardized data-entry method that would make it easier. After all, if every calendar and city guide had the same information, no one could be the best, see?

I understand, to a point, and I appreciate competition and the way it has of encouraging innovation and all that rot. But here's the deal: These services that rely on the goodwill and "free" labor of venue managers and publicists to provide them with free content and then make it hard as hell to do are beyond beginning to piss me off.

If you really want to support and promote the arts and culture, let me easily tell people about my events and then get back to the business of, you know, actually producing them. If you can't do that, I may begin to suspect you're really more interested in just making a buck.

Monday, April 4, 2005

Picturing the Male

One of my favorite Flickr photo groups is Picturing the Male, a collection of images that seeks to explore the beauty of men. Nude or clothed, in many colors, shapes and sizes, it's a glimpse at just how many different types of boys there are out there.

Friday, April 1, 2005

Miss Highrise, 36B

Speaking of television, here's a shoutout to a few famous brassieres (and other assorted imitators) featured in the plots of TV sitcoms and dramas.

We can't believe, however, that there's no mention of the manssiere (aka "The Bro"), made famous on Seinfeld. Hey, a man needs cross-your-heart support too!

Quote of the Day

"I wanted to be the first woman to burn her bra, but it would have taken the fire department four days to put it out." — Dolly Parton

Uplifting cinema

Here in The BraLands, we try to keep abreast of news from the world of entertainment, so we can't fathom how we missed the release of Chuet sai hiu bra (La Brassiere).

A wacky romp that begins with two men being hired by a women's garment company to design the ultimate bra, reviewers have described the film as "uplifting" and rave that stars "Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo are a joy to watch."

Tonight, we'll be dropping by Blockbuster and skipping whatever else is on the boob tube to watch this flick!

A mighty fortress is our bra…

Here at The BraLands, we're agnostic when it comes to recommending foundation apparel, believing that fit, form and style are personal matters best left to the lady or gentleman-in-transition in question. But, such neutrality aside, we still got a chuckle from this joke submitted by a perky reader:

A man walked into the ladies' department of a Macy's and shyly walked up to the woman behind the counter and said, "I'd like to buy a bra for my wife."

 "What type of bra?" asked the clerk. Type?" inquires the man, "There's more than one type?" "Look around," said the saleslady, as she showed a sea of bras in every shape, size, color and material imaginable.

"Actually, even with all of this variety, there are really only four types of bra to choose from." Relieved, the man asked about the types.

The saleslady replied "There are the Catholic, the Salvation Army, the Presbyterian, and the Baptist types. Which one would you prefer? Now totally befuddled, the man asked about the differences between them.

The saleslady responded, "It is all really quite simple...The Catholic type supports the masses. The Salvation Army type lifts the fallen. The Presbyterian type keeps them staunch and upright, and the Baptist makes mountains out of mole hills."

Eleven herbs and spices? Nuh-uh…

So...exactly what is Victoria's secret?

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Wonder of Wonders!

That boon to flat-chested gals (and a few rather odd guys), the Wonderbra, is celebrating its 10th anniversary! Knockers up, folks! Raise your cups in a toast to this miraculous undergarment.

Then ponder the fact that the Wonderbra is a product of the good folk at Sara Lee Intimate Apparel. Yes, Sara Lee, the same company that brings us heavenly desserts and pastries, wieners that plump when you cook 'em, men's underpants, and a dizzying array of other staples in our lives.

I guess it's true: Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee.

History of the Brassiere

Bette Midler long ago put to rest myths about the colorful history of the "over-the-shoulder boulder holder", revealing in her fanciful song "Otto Titsling" the struggle between the titular (sorry) hero and the French scoundrel Phillipe de Brassiere.

In reality, however, the first practical and widely used bra was developed by Mary Phelps Jacob, a New York socialite frustrated by the uncomfortable and often humiliating foundation garmets of her day.

There were others who came before Ms. Jacob, however, and the true history of the bra is as colorful as Ms. Midler's lusty, busty tune.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

A dude’ll do

Cheeky cutie Matt Kingston e-mailed a terse "Thinking of you..." along with a link to this New York Times story about the habitués of a bar "on the corner of Avenue A and 12th Street [...] named for the red neon rooster in the window."

I'm not sure how to take that, but it's always nice to be thought of.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Turing, Turing, Turing…

Five Questions to Verify if an Entity is a Robot

If ever you find yourself wondering if an interactive entity is something other than human, and most likely a robot, in your day to day life, here are some trick questions that will help shake out the truth...

Sunday, March 6, 2005

Pull for the puppy…

Dog lovers are remarkably able to focus positive energy in the universe, of this I am sure. So, please, have some good thoughts today for Beta and her worried daddy.

Update: So far, so good...

Further: Beta may get to come home tonight. Yay!

Denouement: I love a happy ending!

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Oneletter

A Flickr tag for all your ransom note needs.

It’s Tara-riffic!

The Gone With the Wind Online Exhibit, part of the David O' Selznick Collection at the University of Texas-Austin. (Current Exhibitions | Visitor Information)

Monday, February 28, 2005

Damp Pants

Good heavens, it was almost 10 years ago! Andy Baio today turned up a web archive of Greg Knauss' hilarious slice of life about his damp pants, a short, soggy saga that begins...

So I'm on the back porch in my underwear. I didn't start washing my jeans until almost 11 last night, and when I finally put everything into the dryer, I just sorta wedged it all in, hoping for the best.

This morning, they're still wet. Very wet: heavy, clammy, tacky and stiff. I imagine the dryer is snickering to itself.

All my pants are wet, and I'm on the back porch in my underwear, late for work.

That's just one anecdote that endeared Greg's bygone site An Entirely Other Day to me. I often forget that the archive.org caches of lost sites are available, but thus reminded, I'm saving a trip through the EOD backfiles for a rainy day when I need a smile.

Meanwhile: "Damp pants. Damp pants. Damp pants! (Bundt cake!)"

Spider-man’s Greatest Bible Stories

Have you ever stopped to think how lucky God was to have the help of Spider-man?

Friday, February 18, 2005

Death of a Theatre

Flickr user Toxic Toast poignantly documents the end of Boston's Gayety Theatre.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Ban Comic Sans

How to ban Comic Sans from your life. Thanks, Dan!

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Telecharge vs. Safari

It Sucks to Be Telecharge: I'm not a big fan of any of the major online ticket brokers, but among them, Telecharge used to be my favorite, certainly head and shoulders about the mess that is Ticketmaster. So imagine my surprise and disgust a few weeks ago when I tried to log on and make a purchase, only to be greeted by this message:



Oh? Since when? I've used Safari to browse and buy with Telecharge dozens of times and never encountered a problem but suddenly...why, it's as if they don't want my money anymore. Further frustrating is the fact that, if you visit their site and see that message, that's all you see. No phone number or e-mail address to solicit help. No link to download one of their recommended browsers. Nada.

Now like a good Internet citizen, I have Firefox installed on all my machines and Telecharge seems to play nicely with that. But that's beside the point. My preferred and default browser is Safari, and I don't take kindly to swapping horses in mid-ticket purchase just to accommodate a company that can't code for a standards-compliant, perfectly fine web client used by millions.

In looking over the Telecharge site, I can't see anything that (to my eye) prevents Safari from working with their pages. I've dashed off an e-mail (once I found the appropriate address using Firefox) to them asking what's up. Who knows when (or if) I'll get a response, or when they'll wise up and stop locking out a good chunk of Mac users.

By the way, Ticketmaster—to give the devil its due—works just fine with Safari. That's about the only good thing I can say for them.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas, Friends

Merry Christmas, Friends: The last few weeks have been hectic and harried; we'll save the story of why for another time. Suffice to say that the unexpected addition of stress to the regular hustle of the holidays has been enough to wear me out (although not wear me down) more than usual.

Still, I didn't want the day to go by without a special greeting for friends far and near who've spent at least part of the past year reading over my shoulder here in Ye Olde BradLands so, with the assistance of InstaSong, I put together a little holiday ditty as my way of saying thanks for stopping by. Download and enjoy:

A BradLands Christmas Greeting [MP3, 5.9M]

There'll be at least one more update hereabouts before the New Year, so stay tuned. In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe and stay just as you are, because that's how I've come to know and love you.

Merry Christmas!