Ramblings & ephemera
From Chris Suellentrop’s “Scooby-Doo: Hey, dog! How do you do the voodoo that you do so well?” (Slate: 26 March 2004):
The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever concisely elucidated the “Scooby worldview” when the first live-action movie came out: “Kids should meddle, dogs are sweet, life is groovy, and if something scares you, you should confront it.”
Related [...]
Posted on October 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, commonplace book | Comments Off
From Spare me the details (The Economist: 28 October 2004):
LISA HOOK, an executive at AOL, one of the biggest providers of traditional (“dial-upâ€Â) internet access, has learned amazing things by listening in on the calls to AOL’s help desk. Usually, the problem is that users cannot get online. The help desk’s first question is: “Do [...]
Posted on June 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, business, language & literature, tech help, technology | Comments Off
From danah boyd’s “Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?“:
What’s at stake here is what is called “subcultural capital” by academics. It is the kind of capital that anyone can get, if you are cool enough to know that it exists and cool enough to participate. It is a counterpart to “cultural capital” which [...]
Posted on April 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: social software, commonplace book | Comments Off
From sleazy and how!:
I’m a sucker for a sleazy mystery or a trampy romance novel from the 1950’s-60’s. I usually buy these silly books more for the covers than the stories, but sometimes both are equally bizarre.
This is a gallery of some of the better books I’ve come across. Some have book summaries, others I [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: cool stuff, history, language & literature | Comments Off
From "Unwanted at Any Speed", a review of Richard Porter’s Crap Cars in The New York Times Book Review:
The DeLorean DMC-12 of 1981-83, he writes, had an engine “so weak it would struggle to pull a hobo off your sister.” Not since Raymond Chandler have I met a metaphor so much more powerful than would [...]
Posted on November 20th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, on writing | Comments Off
From Best Undiscovered Museum of Americana:
It’s hard to imagine how anything so big could be such a well-kept secret, but there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who haven’t heard of the Shelburne Museum , and those who rave about it. I’m one of the latter.
Situated on 45 acres outside Burlington, [...]
Posted on November 1st, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, cool stuff | Comments Off
From Neither the Power Nor the Glory: Why Hollywood leaves originality to the indies, on Slate:
Back in the old days of the studio system, the brand of a Hollywood studio meant something to the moviegoing public. Each studio, with its roster of stars under contract, came to be identified with a particular genre of movies: [...]
Posted on October 18th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book | Comments Off
From "Culture Club" by Louis Menand in the 15 October 2001 issue of The New Yorker:
Things take their identities from what they are not … The concept of a highbrow culture, the culture of great books and the like, depends on the concept of a lowbrow, or popular, culture, whose characteristics highbrow culture defines iself [...]
Posted on October 16th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, on writing | Comments Off
I wish Mother Nature would decide if she wants to snow or rain or what.
Added a product to their wishlist:
Good God a'mighty but that big man positively.WAILS on the geetar!
The amazingly loud & good Tony Campanella is just starting. This guy rocked the house last year.
On my way with Robin to the annual Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute show at the Pageant. $15 for a kickass 3 hour + show. Awesomeness!
Daniel Craig = best James Bond ever. Good flick. Amazing fight scene among ropes & flying scaffolding!
About to see Quantum of Solace. I'm just expecting a popcorn movie, so I'm gonna be happy.
Just signed up for Mint to track my finances. http://www.mint.com. So far, it seems great. Really slick interface &easy to use. And free!
Awesome way to search Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, &more: http://keyboardr.com. VERY impressed, I am.