Odd, I had a bit of a problem with all my posts and links previous to today disappearing. I'll try reseting my template. Seems to be back. Bloggger or Blogspot sometimes has a problem with a month or year change.

A new fan writes about Babylon-5

The possible "I hate you . . ." post title comes from the realization that all of you on this list told me I would grow into B5 after watching the series mature. I just finished the last episode and . . . you were RIGHT! Now I hate you because I don't have season 2 in my hands, ready to watch. The Post Exchange doesn't have it. My friend has ordered it but he'll probably watch it first(that a..hole). (We agreed on this: he'll buy B5 and I'll get the SG-1 DVD sets and we'll share. I have SG-1 season 3 pre-ordered.) After watching "Chrysalis", my appetite for B5 season 2 is quite acute.

Who ever told me to get over Laurel Takashima was almost right; Ivanova is starting to "rock" (but I re-watched "The Gathering" after the season finale and I do like Takashima, probably a libido thing). Garibaldi has definitely grown into his part.

I understand Sinclair is not in season 2. This saddens me. I know from 30 years military experience I would have enjoyed a few more commanders like him. PLEASE DON'T tell me what his fate is. I know he is not gone from the series as "Babylon Squared" reveals and there is still the unresolved 24 hours he spent after capture by the Minbari.

I'm really impressed by the way the threads interweave dovetail in "Chrysalis." Events are poised for things to burst out in season 2. This is probably the most coherent, intriguing, and ripe with anticipation season ending cliffhanger of any of the most popular SF series. Most series such as Star Trek (even SG-1, my favorite ('til now maybe)) leave you hanging on one huge event that must, and will, be resolved in the next episode. These have only one question to be answered and that is "How will they solve the problem." There is never any doubt a reasonable happy solution will be found and it will be one that meets my expectations. B5 left me with several smaller, yet no less significant events to ponder possible solutions. Having watched the Earth President's assassination, I [am] very sure not every thread will end "happily ever after", my expectations be damned.

My favorite episodes:

1. The Parliament of Dreams
2. Babylon Squared
3. A Voice in the Wilderness (I & II)
4. Legacies

Least Favorite:

1. Eyes (The colonel with the chip on his shoulder was way, way too over the top. Bad acting killed this one for me.)

George A

P.S. I don't really hate you, but you got me . . . I'm Hooked and can't wait for season 2.

This was from the Larry Niven list serve.

Fantagraphics Books Needs Your Help!

Publishers of the best Comics and Graphic Novels in the United States

Buy Books! Keep Us Alive!

Our former and now bankrupt book trade distributor went out of business owing us over $70,000 — which we will never see. (To add insult to injury, we learned that the owner is selling copies of our books that he should’ve returned on e-bay!) This unexpected shortfall necessitated taking out a couple loans which have now come due. In late 2001, our line was picked up by the W.W. NORTON COMPANY, who took over our bookstore distribution, and has done a magnificent job of providing us unprecedented access to the bookstore market. Inexperience with the book trade resulted in our erring on the side of overprinting our books too heavily throughout 2002, so that our anticipated profit is in fact sitting in our warehouse in the form of books. Loans must be paid in cash, not books. The only way to get out of this hole we’ve dug ourselves into is to sell those books. Which is where, we hope, you come in.

To Buy Something Go Here.

Hackers Put 'Bane' in Shadowbane

The horror, as horror so often does, began slowly … almost imperceptibly.

Late Tuesday evening, little things suddenly started to go very wrong in the virtual world of Shadowbane, a popular online multiplayer game.

Some players noticed that their money and weapons had suddenly vanished. A few whispered that tonight the monsters somehow seemed slightly bigger and meaner.

And then all hell broke loose.

The population of an entire Shadowbane town was forcibly moved to the bottom of the sea, where they drowned. City guards turned feral and attacked town residents. Mobs of never-before-seen superpowerful creatures, seemingly spontaneously spawned from the ether, began to prowl the streets unchecked, killing characters in the most painful way possible.

Not that the game was ever intended to be a happy, cuddly experience. Whacking other players around in one of Shadowbane's many free-for-all zones is one of the main attractions of the game.

But it has a "Newbie Island," where inexperienced players can hone their gaming skills in a protected atmosphere. After making their way off the island, players join guilds, and battle the members of other guilds.

The members of guilds build cities that serve as their personal strongholds. Neutral cities exist also, virtual Switzerlands, where no one is supposed to attack anyone.

But on Tuesday there were no neutral zones -- nowhere to run -- and newbies became the prime targets.

Experienced players looked on in horror as new players were slowly and gleefully dismembered by ax-wielding ogres. Others just laughed and looted the characters' bodies after the ogres were done.

Mike Gontelli, a late arrival to the game that evening, said that when he arrived in Shadowbane "there were hundreds of tombstones. New players were being beaten and tortured. Newbie blood was flowing like a river. I knew it wasn't real, but it was oddly terrifying."

He added, "I've been playing online games for a few years. There are always some hackers hanging around who have figured out how to give themselves special powers. But I have never, ever seen or heard of a game going this deeply berserk."

Clint Hayashi of Ubi Soft Entertainment said on Thursday that "we quickly and easily identified the individuals who disrupted the game" and also said that users' personal information was not accessed.

The game was "rolled back" -- everything and every player reverted to their status shortly before the attacks.

"Hallelujah, I was dead and now I'm not," said player Brian Buttoloer. "This is way better than real life. Let the games begin … again."

"If you go to what is left of the town of Khar, you will see my grave," one Shadowbane survivor wrote in an e-mail. "I never knew dying could be so hilarious -- I had a great time."

Spider Robinson has a column in The Globe and Mail on valuing labor and those who care.

Theological Science Fiction

Why The Matrix matters

By Gregory Benford

Reason Magazine

The point of speculative ideas and science fictional treatments is not to foster propaganda (though many do so, usually obviously and unsuccessfully), but to make us think. As a literature of change driven by technology, science fiction presents religion to a part of the reading public that probably seldom goes to church.

Movies are another matter; The Matrix Reloaded sometimes seems like the New Testament on steroids. It also suffers from the bind of superhero epics—if Neo is unstoppable, how can there be real constraint, and so suspense?

Beyond the cool violence, vinyl cat suits and dazzling bullet-time effects, the Matrix world points both toward our future and to basic theological mythologies, to spiritual meta-narratives that can appear backlit by modern science.

THE GEEK TEST

How geek are you?

I am a Major Geek. I have some bonus geek points, have a Star Trek TV script, have 2,000+ books, staying up all night alone without work, alcohol, or friends involved. I think there was another but I've forgotten.

How has Apple stayed in business, besides great products?

Bradford DeLong, economist analyzes it for Wired.

First, and perhaps most important: Joel Klein of the Clinton Justice Department. With the DOJ attempting to break up Microsoft for antitrust violations, Redmond quickly made it a top priority to keep competitors ostensibly healthy. This meant helping Apple remain afloat with a $150 million investment in 1998. Microsoft also poured money into making sure that Macintoshes running Microsoft Office could easily interoperate with Windows machines. And it poured still more money into making sure that Internet Explorer for the Macintosh was in no way inferior to the Windows version. Without Microsoft's assistance, I think Apple would have been shuttered.

Second: Apple has managed to stay even with, or slightly ahead of, Microsoft in system software.

The company has a third powerful advantage: It's gotten its hooks into the open source movement. Mac OS X is a graphical user interface, a set of utilities and programming tools, and a few world-class user applications - iTunes, iMovie - running on top of a Unix core. This is important, because Unix is the native language of the Internet and of the world's programming culture.

As long as the world's programmers continue to speak Unix, Apple's economic future - one perhaps greater than that of a niche player given the rumblings surrounding its apparent bid for Universal - is secure. I doubt that my current Mac will be my last.

I'd like to be kool and have an ibook or some other Mac. I know I wouldn't have my current problems with mp3 and wma software.

Psst - wanna buy an aircraft carrier? - a steal at $4.5 million.

Part of why I like Houston

Midnight Cons at Midnight Comics

Dylan Otto Krider contiues to show up in The Houston Press occasionally.

Get your Creole Kisses at the Accadian Bakers (604 West Alabama, 713-520-1484).

Robb Walsh -- The wine is the straightforward claret of Bergerac, which tastes like Bordeaux without the pomposity. Guerin's Bistro offers the same sort of hearty French country cooking and unfussy wine.

The last time I visited Guerin's Bistro was on a Friday night. The cheesy fake bricks on the walls and hokey wooden beams mounted over the acoustic tile ceiling never looked more romantic. A Texas guitarist and a Ukrainian violinist were playing jazz riffs on international classics. And I was delighted to see the place was packed. Guerin looked pleased as he led us to our seats. "It's very rare that the restaurant is this full," he said with a smile. Hopefully, this means Houstonians are coming to their senses.

Forget about politics for a second and think what would happen if this idiotic boycott were really successful. What a great city Houston would be with no French restaurants and no French wines! That would hit France where it hurts, huh? Just like we would be devastated if they stopped renting Jerry Lewis movies.

Guerin's Bistro
Details: Pâté: $5.50
Duck confit: $12.95
Red snapper: $18.95
Pepper-crusted tuna: $18.95
Delas Côtes du Rhône: $20
Louis Latour Macon-Villages : $22
Where: 11920 Westheimer; 281-558-5095. Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

What's been going on lately

Memorial Day I finally went to the zoo. I thought that the zoo didn't open until 10 so that is when Pat and I got there. It doesn't officially open until 10 but they really let people in at 9 or so.

This was a free day, a later news report said this was the most attendance ever, so it would have been good to get their earlier. We went straight to the bird house followed by the children's zoo. Bird house was great, I saw more birds and they were very active at that time. Otters at the children's zoo were also active but toward the end it was becoming human high density packing. We saw the plants at the hospital entrance which might get a lot more traffic when the metro line starts up in a year. They have a good selection of plants.

It was getting toward noon and Pat was hungry and thirsty so we back to car seeing Okapi (rare short necked giraffe), giraffes, pygmy hippos, and wolves along the way. I decided to skip the prairie chickens and flamingos among other things this time. Temperature was still nice for Houston - maybe 90 and a little breezy.

Pat thought she had a Carrabba's gift certificate but as we got in Jim's car it was discovered it was for Carrabba's Italian Grille and it was expired. Jim suggest a Noodle House by Kim Son that Pat and I had never been to. It was closed,

We fell back on Mai's, one of our favorite Vietnamese places. We managed to get seated right next to the aquarium on the east wall. Jim and I had tofu - his fried with a great selection of vegetables, mine with a good lemon grass and chili sauce, Amy had rice cakes and bits of other people's tofu. Pat had some beef over thin vermicelli, they really hide the vegetables underneath the vermicelli. I had also ordered spring rolls for us all and then Jim told me he doesn't like them - "liked eating condoms." Pat loves peanut sauce (like me) but she isn't that fond of spring rolls. Final score on the spring rolls, which were bland, Me 2, Amy 1 1/2, Pat 1/2 and Jim 0. Jim and I also had their strong iced coffee with condensed milk. Pat and I picked up the bill.

Took Jim and Amy home and then went and watched Amelia on videotape after Pat didn't want to go to a movie. She hadn't seen it and liked it. It is one of my recent favorites, a subtext is the importance of hugging - thumbs up.

As in the past couple years, management here still haven't opened the pool yet but they are about to. I need to call Jim and find when he is seeing Dad. I could also see Charlene and Bill and check out their pool.

It looks like a lot of the book groups are going to Scarborough Faire and RenFest tomorrow but I think I need to check into the gaming group to make sure I am signed up to teach Risk 2310 and Sid's Civilization the Board Game the following weekend at the con.

The last meeting of the Inner Loop group was good but only 7 people. I dislike Fuddrucker's as a meeting place - too noisy.

I took Pat to the airport and then went to Fry's. Perfect store for Geeks. I am doing enough CDs from my computer I decided I needed to get some real software. I haven't been that happy with Winamp. The plugins don't seem to be working on creating CDs and I can't get it to read WMA music files. My windows media player is also broken and I don't want to reload it because then I'll have to redo all the file associations it will grab from other applications. I also picked up a CD of Angel Clare by Art Garfunkel. . Decided I am weird for liking his stuff, so what else is new. At least Amazon has other people liking it. Also picked up a $2 CD of chants.

I've been spending too much time on getting more info on politics. I can't believe how bad the GOP is and how subservient the media are. Then I read more history books or watch something on the history channel and see similar stuff. Maybe I really won't need to stock up on silver bullets. Sorry, politics are normally on my other blog.

Test Firing of Insulation Foam Produces Long Slit on Shuttle Wing Mockup

A piece of insulating foam shot at a mocked-up shuttle wing opened a long slit in its leading edge, which may help to explain what caused the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, investigators said today.

In the experiment, which was conducted for the independent board investigating the shuttle disaster, researchers shot a 1.67-pound chunk of foam from a gas cannon at a full-size model of the wing's leading edge at about 530 miles per hour. They were trying to recreate the circumstances at the Columbia's launching, when a piece of insulating foam from the external tank slammed into the shuttle wing at similar speed.

The impact produced a 22-inch-long gap, ranging in width from the thickness of a dime to a quarter inch, a spokesman for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board said this evening.

The test was not as realistic as possible; the target was made of fiberglass, not the material used in shuttles, reinforced carbon-carbon. Carbon-carbon, or R.C.C., is in short supply but will be used in a later test, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Tyrone Woodyard of the Air Force. Fiberglass can withstand more forceful strikes without shattering, materials experts say. But investigators were excited by the test.

"If I was a gambling man, I'd bet it'll severely damage or perhaps even shatter a more brittle material such as the R.C.C.," said one of the commission's investigators. Another investigator said, however, that the main value would be to calibrate the testing mechanism, getting the speed right and the angle of impact, in this case 20 degrees, without using up scarce carbon-carbon samples.

In some ways, a narrow gap would be a more promising result than a shattered panel. Investigators note that before breaking up on Feb. 1, the Columbia entered the atmosphere far west of the California coast, but held together until it was over Central Texas, a sign that the breach in the wing must have been small and that the damage progressed relatively slowly.

That is why an expert outside the investigation suggested that today's experiment had solved the mystery. "That's the answer," said Paul A. Czysz, a professor emeritus at Parks College of Engineering and Aviation at St. Louis University, when told of the test results. A slit the size of one created in the test would let in a stream of gas three times as hot as a blowtorch."My God, that's like a barn door at those temperatures," he said.

Investigators have already concluded that a hole in the shuttle's left wing let in the superheated gases that destroyed the wing, and they knew that a piece of foam struck the wing on launching. But they would not have been able to link the two convincingly without experimental evidence, and some of them had been worried that the experiments might not produce any wing damage.

I originally hated Wings of Desire, putting it in my top five worst movies of all times. I have seen it again because I loved Until the End of the World. Now it merely is too slow.

Here is a review of Until the End of the World, poor, coupled with a good review of Hearts of Darkness.

What brought me to this discussion of Wim Wenders now is that I created a new CD mix and decided to use a photo of the beautiful Solveig Dommartin as an album cover.

NY Times has more reports on Atkins Diet being better than low-fat and other diets and just as healthy. The main problem with the diet is getting kidney and gall stones which magnesium supplements stop. The last isn't in the report but free advice, take a multiple vitamin and a magnesium supplement on low carb diets.

OMG-ROTFL - Leonard Nimoy Singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - The Greatest Little Hobbit of Them All.

VCR and Poker

My Dad bought a new VCR instead of waiting for me to come back with an extra I have around here.

Maybe I should have gone to Las Vegas and played poker. An internet amateur started with $40 and ended up with $2.5 million in the World Series of Poker Championship.

From the Houston Chronicle, registration required -

In his first "live" poker tournament, Moneymaker beat a handful of former World Series of Poker champs, including Dan Harrington, who was at the final table and finished third with $650,000.

The tournament began Monday with a record-breaking 839 players. A surge in online gambling and a rise in the game's popularity drew dozens of unknowns and a 33 percent increase in attendance over 2002.

"This is the sonic boom of poker," said Nolan Dalla, media director for the World Series of Poker. "This means anyone in their home can become a poker player."

Moneymaker, a father of a 3-month-old girl, was among 37 players sent to the tournament after paying $40 and qualifying at PokerStars.com.

Dan Goldman, vice president of marketing for PokerStars.com, credited Moneymaker's win to his natural card sense and the experience he gained while playing online.

"We've proven that people who play on the Internet are just as good as those who play in casinos," Goldman said.

NASA Says Shuttle Rescue Effort Risky but Possible

NASA told the panel that a rescue attempt would have been "technically possible, but very, very risky," said Tyrone Woodyard, spokesman for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

The agency laid out two possible rescue plans that could have been attempted had it known the extent of the damage to the Columbia's wing, the suspected cause of the Feb. 1 accident that killed seven astronauts, Woodyard said.

NASA could have sent up Columbia's sister shuttle, the Atlantis, and maneuvered into position to try to transfer the astronauts from Columbia.

Columbia's crew would have had to stretch its resources to stay in orbit for as long as 30 days while NASA speeded up preparations for the launch of Atlantis, which was scheduled to lift off for another mission on March 1.

Or the agency could have sent crew members outside the orbiter with instructions for patching the ship's damaged wing using whatever materials they could find on board, Woodyard said.

NASA came up with the rescue scenarios in response to a request from the head of the accident investigation board, retired Adm. Harold Gehman, Woodyard said.

Yahoo News

Kinky Friedman Comes Clean

Dixie Chicks have nothing on him.

How To Make Fried Chicken This Summer

Up to Dad's and My Peace Record

I was up to my Dad’s for a couple days this week which was overall a
pain but I got to listen to my Peace Record mix going up and coming
down.

Visiting was mainly a pain because I didn’t do anything while up
there. Normally I fix something electronic of his but this time I
worked on his 25 year old VCR and adjusted it to pick up the satellite
signal but while working on it something happened and it would not
play back tapes. On the TV nothing but static but the sound came
through. So overall his VCR ended up being worse than before.
Considering the very simple arrangements or adjustments you can do for
tape playback I think the heads fell out of alignment or something. I
will have to check the VCRs here and see if there is another one I can
bring him.

That was disturbing because I didn't do anything else while up there
except cook some steaks I brought while I got my car washed and we
went to eat twice and Jean made dinner once as well as most of the
meal I grilled my Omaha steaks. (I don't buy Omaha steaks - my sister
had given them to me.)

Back to the Peace Record - a very eclectic mix that I am really not
sure anyone but me would like. My ex-wife Pat intensely dislikes a
number of songs although my brother says he and his wife Amy like it.
Mixed reactions from other people. In the latest version I believe the
volume equalizer didn’t work and I know the
add-several-seconds-between-songs plug-in didn’t so I am going to
try again.

The following lists the songs and tells a little about them.

1. Ani Di Franco - Self Evident (9:10) I put this first because it is
poetry and very long and people who are not in the mood can skip it.
I really like it but would have cut a few minutes near the end -
probably when she goes off on trains. These first six songs are the
anti-war, anti-Bush section of the tape and many came from Salon.com.

2. John Mellencamp - To Washington (2:42) Different than first song, I
think more of a traditional protest song.

3. Chumbawamba - Jacob’s Ladder (Not In My Name) (2:52) I like but a
bit over produced.

4. Billy Bragg - Price of Oil (4:54) I never heard of Billy Bragg but
I like the lyrics.

5. Paula Cole - My Hero, Mr. President! (3:51) The best of the protest
songs, I think it would be a pop song playing on the radio if American
radio wasn’t now owned by large corporations. In the sixties and
seventies students listened to independent radio stations and many
anti-war, anti-government songs were big hits. Now she was afraid to
release this and just put it on her website where I found it. Some
very interesting lyrics if you listen.

6. Stephan Smith, Pete Seeger, Mary Harris, Dean Ween - The Bell
(3:27) My least favorite of this group - I debated putting it on but
hey, this was designed as a peace record and I had already left off
the Beastie Boys and a rap song I didn’t like. Very traditional
protest style song - simple point, counterpoint.

7. Enrique Iglesias - Hero (4:19) Now out of the protest songs. I
really like this by Julio’s son. He both wrote and recorded it and to
me thematically it seems related, as anti-war protesters can be heroes.
Technically this is not as good a recording as it was a lower bit rate
download I had to convert up.

8. Raimundo Sodr M’ban Samba (Brazil) (2:21) I like this - it is
African and not Portuguese I copied from a library CD called Songs
from the Coffee Lands. I have no idea what the lyrics mean. I like
some world music; I listen to KPFT a lot.

9. Tori Amos - Daniel 032203 (4:56) This is a pirate fan recording
from an Athens or Rome concert. This is a very different version of one
of my old favorite songs. Still somewhat related to anti-war songs as it is
about a blind Vietnam veteran going off to Spain. Has an odd
recorded-at-a-live concert sound.

10. Luka Bloom - Love is a Place I Dream Of (3:25) I really like this
which was a separate Salon.com download. Still somewhat on theme
— at least to me.

11. Soltero - Communist Love Song (3:24) Interesting lyrics, won’t
make American top-40 playlists. I like folk songs and usually pay
most attention to lyrics. I was told this was the worst song on the
CD because he is not a good singer and the subject matter. Again, I
like the Kerrville Folk Music festival which is just people singing on
simple stages or around a campfire so I didn’t mind the singer and
liked the ironic lefty lyrics. I might be influenced by first hearing
it as a download into Real player and watching Annabelle the Sheep
wearing dark glasses and rocking out to it.

12. Shana Morrison - I Spy (3:46) Very different than other songs on
CD, more modern Motownlike pop.

13. Linda Thompson - All I See (4:38) If I redid this CD I might
replace this - I sometimes skip this in my car because it seems to
drag.

14. Blind Faith - Can’t Find My Way Home (3:16) I was looking for
Alison Krauss’s version of this song from the new Crossing Jordan
soundtrack but found this instead which is OK but is also a slower
tempo than most on the CD. I am not a member of any of the file
search groups like Kazaa so it is harder for me to find mp3s.

15. Enya - Pilgrim (3:12) I had a hard time making the CD because I
wanted the anti-war mp3 downloads but all my CDs I placed on my
computer are WMA format instead and you can’t mix them when you
create a CD. I finally downloaded a format converter with a free 2-week
trial and converted some of the CDs I had already transferred to my
computer to mp3s. This is the song I most wanted as I like it and it
fits thematically.

16. Civ3 - Late Peace Civilization (1:01) A nice music theme from my
favorite game which fits. It is so different - oriental - that it
also a marker for the change in theme of the CD if you didn’t want to
go on with the hard rock sound of the last four.

17. Zevon - Basketcase (3:38) Last four songs are hard rock and funny.
Basketcase is only available online. Zevon made it as a favor for a
friend who wanted an example of a rock song for a murder mystery he
wrote. They decided it was good enough it might be on his next record.
On all of these last four you either think it is funny or you don’t
and you either like the music or you don’t.

18. Corky and the Juice Pigs - I’m the Only Gay Eskimo (2:25).
Someone else recorded from television and it ends abruptly, I would like
another version of this.

19. Tenacious D - Tribute (4:08) Silly song about poor college
musicians who are asked to play the best song in the world by the
devil.

20. Tenacious D - Screw Her Gently (2:16) Alternate title. There is
a good flash animated video on the net. Advice to a guy on how to
treat a lover.

With my making CDs I can give them to people and they can keep the
CD or transfer any songs they like to their computer to later create their
own CD.

Buffy's last episode is Tuesday,

AP has a good story.

How to Retire in Comfort on $500

Hop a plane to a select country in Europe and be thrown in jail. You are set for life.
Free advice from the friendly folks at Exile.

What would you say if we at the eXile promised to show you how you could retire in comfort for only a few hundred dollars? No, we’re not asking you for the money. We don’t make a cent out of this. We’re not peddling a self-help book or a new religion. We’re doing this just for you, because we care about you. And our plan doesn’t take twelve steps. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s guaranteed to work. Here it is:

Buy a plane ticket to one of the following countries: Denmark, Austria, Finland, Holland, Switzerland, or the Netherlands. Find something you can brandish in a threatening manner. It doesn’t have to be much: a broken bottle, a sharp-edged rock, or a stale baguette. Rob a bank. Just say, “This is a robbery. Give me all your money,” and wave the rock or baguette in a more or less threatening manner. Don’t hurt anybody, though.

Wait for the cops to arrive.

How did I miss looting breaking out at the UN?

TIME -- Food Fight
When the Food Workers Union stages an impromptu walkout at the U.N., the diplomats start looting for lunch and booze

For the past 17 years the U.N. has been under contract to Restaurant Associates Inc. (RA). In March, RA lost the contract to Aramark Corporation, the largest U.S. food services company. According to Aramark executives who spoke to TIME, RA informed the food workers on Friday morning that it would only cover vacation pay that was issued before May 2nd, the last day of RA's U.N. contract. Any vacation pay due after May 2nd would need to be paid by Aramark.

But Aramark informed the Union it would only pay for time worked for their company and nothing previous with RA. Aramark told the union that whether or not vacation paychecks were to be issued before or after May 2nd the work in question was performed when RA held the U.N. contract.

That was enough to set the food workers walking during the height of Friday's lunch hour. After that, what ensued was nothing short of Baghdad style chaos.

But as tensions grew and stomachs growled, a high-ranking U.N. official boldly ordered that all the cafeterias open their doors for business even without staff. The restaurants had been locked shut by security until about 1:00 pm when the doors flung open.

The decision to make the cafeterias into "no pay zones" spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. "It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," said one Aramark executive who was present. "They took everything, even the silverware," she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was "stripped bare." And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was "unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare." And yet another astonished witness said that "chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid)."

The mob then moved on to the Viennese Café, a popular snack bar in the U.N.'s conference room facility. It was also stripped bare. The takers included some well-known diplomats who finished off the raid with free drinks at the lounge for delegates. When asked how much liquor was lifted from the U.N. bar, one U.S. diplomat responded: "I stopped counting the bottles." He then excused himself and headed towards the men's room.

Happy Fun Pundit has the Top Ten Things He Hates About Star Trek.

10. Noisy doors.
You can't walk three feet in a starship without some door whooshing or screeching at you. My office building has automatic sliding doors. They're dead silent. If those doors went "wheet!" every time a person walked through them, about once a month some guy in accounting would snap and go on a shooting rampage. Sorry Scotty, the IEEE has revoked your membership until you learn to master WD-40

Which I thought was OK but not great.

He was then accused of trolling for hits and responded with - Top 10 Upcoming Blog Entries

10. Why I think Fox Mulder is gay.
9. Best science fiction movie ever: Laserblast.
8. Linux: Operating System For Little Girly Boys.
7. I love the RIAA.
6. The best captain on Star Trek ever: Commodore Decker.
5. It's a good thing the two young lesbians on Buffy the Vampire Slayer were killed off.
4. The vampire Lestat is a big weenie. The only thing that saved the character was Tom Cruise's acting.
3. Saddam Hussein: Misunderstood Genius.
2. The second trilogy of the Star Wars films is WAY better than the first.
1. Who should play the next Indiana Jones? Carrot Top.

Which is much better.

One comment struck me -- Reminds of the most-controversial posts contest at Slate's Forum. I seem to remember "Jesus had it coming" and "These are my 10 favorite races, in order."

GE Moves Into Wind Power

Turbine unit likely to generate $1 billion in revenue for 2003

Wind turbine sales represents a $7 billion business globally and should grow to about $20 billion in the next five to 10 years, Swisher said, “The market has been doubling about every three years.”

But the company faces competition, mostly from companies in Europe, where wind power is more widely employed. And well over a dozen U.S. wind turbine manufacturers have come and gone in the past two decades, with many first-generation commercial turbines unable to handle the fatigue of continuous, powerful winds, Swisher said.

If Tuna's Getting Scarce. Why's It So Cheap?

Because the species that end up in your tuna casserole aren't the ones being severely depleted.

Albacore, the so-called chicken of the sea, is what you'll get if the tin says "white meat." Also popular are skipjack and yellowfin. The former is considered the world's most widely consumed tuna species, and cans full of these species are often marked "light tuna." All of these tuna variants mature relatively quickly, with reproduction starting at the one-year mark for skipjack. That means the aggressive commercial harvest has had less severe consequences for these early bloomers. The casserole-grade species are also much smaller, with the average skipjack weighing in at 7 pounds. Smaller fish tend to be more numerous since they require less nourishment to survive and reproduce.

That's not to imply that overfishing hasn't affected fish prices for normal consumers. Once considered a cheap protein source for the world's poor, much fresh fish is now too expensive for all but affluent diners. A recent study by the WorldFish Center estimated that, in a worst-case scenario, prices for tilapia, carp, and other low-grade fish could jump by 70 percent, in real terms, by 2020. On the canned front, albacore, skipjack, and yellowfin stocks are generally considered "fully exploited," meaning that a marked increase in annual catches could, eventually, put an end to your supermarket's two-for-a-dollar deals.

Another side effect of overfishing is the gastronomical interest in species previously disdained. Restaurant habitués will note the appearance of mahi-mahi on menus over the past decade; previously, the species was deemed a "rat of the sea"—too low-brow to be served in polite company.

Slate Explains It All

The Rube Goldberg Honda Ad

Ray and Donella send me a link to this terrific British Honda ad. There is no computer animation involved. The flash will take a while to load.

It was not an easy commercial to make: The Honda Accord campaign launched last week looks certain to become an advertising legend. Quentin Letts goes behind the scenes

Six hundred and six takes it took, and if they had been forced to do a 607th it is probable, if not downright certain, that one of the film crew would have snapped and gone mad.

On the first 605 occasions something small, usually infuriatingly minute, went just slightly awry and the whole delicate arrangement was wrecked. A drop too much oil there, or here maybe one ball-bearing too many giving a fraction too much impetus to the movement. Whirr, creak, crash, the entire, card-house of consequences was a write-off and they had to start again.

Honda's latest television advertisement, a two-minute film called "Cog", is like a fine-lubricated line of dominoes. It begins with a transmission bearing which rolls into a synchro hub which in turn rolls into a gear wheel cog and plummets off a table on to a camshaft and pulley wheel. All the parts are from the new Honda Accord - £16,495 to you, guv'nor, or £6 million if you want to pay for the advertising campaign. And what an amazing ad campaign it is, too.

Back on Cog, things are still moving, in a what-happened-next manner redolent of "there was an old woman who swallowed a fly". With a ting and a ding of metal on metal, a thud of contact and the occasional thwock, plop and extended scraping sound, the viewer watches as individual, stripped-down parts of car roll into one another and set off more reactions.

Three valve stems roll down a sloped bonnet. An exhaust box is pushed with just enough energy into a rear suspension link which nudges a transmission selector arm which releases the brake pedal loaded with a small rubber brake grommit. Catapult! Boing! On goes the beautiful dance, everything intricately balanced and poised. Nothing must be even a sixteenth of an inch off course or the momentum will be lost.

At one point three tyres, amazingly, roll uphill. They do so because inside they have been weighted with bolts and screws which have been positioned with fingertip care so that the slightest kiss of kinetic energy pushes them over, onward and, yes, upward. During the pre-shoot set-ups, film assistants had to tiptoe round the set so as not to disturb the feather-sensitive superstructure of the arranged metalwork. The slightest tremor of an ill-judged hand could have undone hours of work.

Utter silence, a check that the lighting is just right, and "action!". Scores of grown men hold their breath as the cameras roll. An oil can is tipped and glugs just enough of its contents on to a shelf that has been weighted with a Honda flywheel. Some valve springs roll into the oil and are slowed to a pace perfect to make them drop into a cylinder head assembly.

If all these technical names are confusing, that is partly the point. The advertisement was designed to show motorists all the fiddly little bits of engineering that go into the modern Honda. The result, in this film at least, is something approaching mechanical perfection and a bewitching aesthetic.

Copy Protection Is a Crime

…against humanity. Society is based on bending the rules.

Controversial essay by David Weinberger in Wired.

Smucker's 100% Fruit is Less Than 50% Fruit

San Jose Mercury News AP -- The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer interest group, is asking for the FDA to require Smucker's to change the name of its product or include more accurate information on its labels.

The group, known for exposing hidden fat in Chinese food and movie theater popcorn, claims that Smucker's strawberry fruit spread is made 30 percent of strawberries and 70 percent of fruit syrup. The blueberry spread contains 43 percent fruit, it said.

The ingredients for Smucker's fruit spread came from products sold in Thailand, one of 18 countries that require the percentages of major ingredients to be listed on the label, said Bruce Silverglade, the center's director of legal affairs.

"It doesn't seem fair for an American company to provide consumers in another country with better ingredient information than they provide to consumers here at home," Silverglade said.

Brenda Dempsey, a spokeswoman for Smucker's in Orrville, Ohio, said the company doesn't disclose ingredient percentages unless required by law.

Say it ain't so, Smuu!

Product Questions:
Contact us online
or call, write or fax:
The J.M. Smucker Co.
1 Strawberry Lane
Orrville, Ohio 44667-0280
1-888-550-9555
(9-7 EST Monday-Friday)
Fax: 1-330-684-3370

Naked Travel Market Is Taking Off, Nudists Say

Rimshot.

A Drink a Day Improves Overall Heart Health

People who drink one drink a day -- wine, beer or hard liquor -- show significantly better elasticity of their body's arteries, an important measure of cardiovascular health, results of a new study suggest.

"We thought only red wine helps, but we found if people drink one beer or one unit of hard liquor a day, they also have improved arterial elasticity, better than nondrinkers," said Dr. Reuven Zimlichman of Wolfson Medical Center and Tel Aviv University in Israel.

In comparing wine drinkers with drinkers who favor other alcoholic beverages, the researchers observed that beer and hard liquor drinkers had slightly higher blood pressure than wine drinkers. But all drinkers had blood pressure within normal ranges, Zimlichman said.

You Can Buy Purple Cow here or download it for free. He writes good stuff primarily about the new rules of marketing.

Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won't forget a Purple Cow. And it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.

The Big Ten

Is your primary residence within the [local] area?
Are you married, separated, living with someone, or in any other way attached to another person?
What is your position on abortion?
Do you eat vegetables?
Do you eat meat?
How many times a week do you shower?
Have you ever been in a relationship that lasted longer than six months?
Do you smoke?
Please describe your employment status.
Say something funny.

If I thought I could get away with it, this is the questionnaire I would hand to a man on our first date. Any man. A girl has to have standards, and I have some pretty strict rules these days about who gets a second date.

U.S. Lowers 'Normal' Levels for Blood Pressure Readings

The new category includes 45 million Americans whose blood pressure is 120 to 139 millimeters of mercury systolic (the top number) or 80 to 90 diastolic (the bottom number).

People with readings in this range do not need medication yet, but are quite likely to develop high blood pressure and so are advised to try to lower their pressure by losing excess weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, cutting back on salt and eating more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products.

A statement issued by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute said the new recommendations were based on studies showing that artery damage can begin even at blood pressure levels that until recently were thought to be normal. The risk of heart disease and stroke starts to rise at readings as low as 115/75, and doubles for each increase of 20/10 millimeters of mercury.

R i y a d h D a i l y -- Risk of a stock market crash in the next six months has grown to 21% in the US and 23% in Europe according to a Swiss insurance company.

Buffy Has The Stake Through Her Heart

I'd rather have a show that 100 people need to see than a thousand people like to see," says Joss Whedon, executive producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Sharply imagined and creatively realized, filled with humor, drama, wit, action and horror, Buffy the Vampire Slayer drew a consistent, ardent audience to television every week, even if it never brought Nielsen to its knees. The show, which ends its seven-season run after two more episodes -- tonight and May 20 -- was never more than a cult hit and media darling. Mass audiences eluded it.

"We do not destroy the entire fabric of the universe at the end of the last episode," he said. "Some people even live, so there's definitely an open door."

I am stuck on dial-up for another year. I was going to change to a 3-month term but I called a day late. Oh well, at least the price is good - $13.50 a month.

Bullet Time Again - The Matrix Reloaded -- Opens Wednesday




Free your mind and change reality.

The Gospel according to Neo

Where previous films made vague references to the Christian story, "The Matrix," some theologians argue, appeals directly to the heart of Christian identity. Its script, however, draws on Platonic philosophy, Greek mythology, Buddhism, and postmodernism, religious experts say.

TAP: X Caliber

The X-Men sequel has more special effects than the original, but less soul.

If one's a nerd, growing up is supposed to be a good thing. One gets to finally leave behind those difficult teenage years: the crying jags, the freakish bodily changes, the days of writing bad poetry and brooding to the sounds of the Cure, Metallica and Sergei Prokofiev's "Violin Sonata No. 1 in f minor." One can also abandon that haunting sense of alienation, that feeling -- half self-loathing and half self-aggrandizement -- that no one can understand the misfit pain of being so different, so weird . . . and (one's unconscious whispers) so special. It can all be forgotten -- unless one is a Marvel Comics X-Man, a mutant whose strange and staggering powers are feared by the rest of society. To be an X-Man is to illustrate that most human of afflictions -- a graceless adolescence -- and that most human of hopes -- to be truly exceptional.

Hopefully the next installment (the end of this movie screams another sequel!) will get it right, combining the mutant staples of disenfranchisement and zest for one's unique powers. Sci-fi and comic-book genres can be a fantastic revenge of the nerds; Neo of The Matrix is at first a computer programmer in real life, for Pete's sake, and Peter Parker of Spider-Man fame is a sweet dork who lives with his aunt and uncle. I hope that as the X-Men franchise grows older, it doesn't lose its sense of the joy -- and the terror -- of growing up.

Liberal magazines do good reviews. I wouldn't turn for a conservative magazine for a review. Maybe it is the conservatives are really strict parents thing.

Space Daily has three great pages on where we should go next with the space program, think unmanned robotic systems, no wings, and tinker-toy modular built space labs for testing ecosystems and centrifugial gravity.


More from Joe Walsh - the best dim sums in Houston and Italian sandwiches, gelati and sorbetti at 500 North Shepherd.

Art Car Parade today on Allen Parkway, might go and head to Nundini afterwards.

Strawberry Festival Parade in the morning here in Pasadena a few blocks away.

See how democracy flourishes in Pasadena - population over 130,000.

Houston Press -- Bigger and Battered,Where does Baytown Seafood get those enormous shrimp? By Robb Walsh

I ate there, there are a great many in the Houston area. the first time it was great but I took a bunch of people the next time and nobody got shrimp and it was decidely subpar. Next time I know, get the shrimp.

According to Walsh, the Jumbo shrimp are Asian Tiger shrimp, the biggest commercial shrimp but bland. The grilled shrimp is Gulf Shrimp not as big but with more taste, sweeter.

He also closes with a warning that many seafood places in Houston, like this one, label other fish as Red Snapper.

Thirty Years Of Fudge Could Bring Down The Shuttle Yet

At one of the Columbia hearings, the Shuttle program's manager during Shuttle development explained how 30 years of lying led to our current space program.

I was just surprised that the reporter was surprised, this has been known at NASA for years. Nixon wanted a cheap program without a single year big budget number and decided to sell Congress on how reusable shuttles made economic sense when they didn't. They were needed to build a space station that wouldn't be built until years later and the military needed a vehicle that could launch large spy satellites so they drew up the cargo bay specs.

The same fuging the numbers might be said of the space station. It was deliberated oversold then stretched out over years so there would not be a big budget shock - escalating costs astronomically.

Making Sense of Air Fares

There is a suggestion that airlines have realized that the spread has gotten too large between last minute business and plan ahead vacation buyers. Southwest and other low cost carriers have attacked the middle section with simpler plans and now -- "Despite what you might think, the impact of low-fare airlines on major carriers isn’t in the lowest fares: It’s in the middle range. A traveler can book three days out on Southwest or Britain’s EasyJet and get a mid-price fare, while a full-fare ticket on the competition costs hundreds more."

Of course, someone thinks they have a newer better model that may fix that.

Lastest on me

I went to Miller Outdoor Theater for the first Island Sounds Free Show. Some of the music was good. D.R.U.M. and some of the other reggae.

Picked up take-out from Fusion Cafe in Rice Village - Brown Stew Chicken and Curry Chicken meals with salad with honey mustard dressing, cabbage, Jamaican rice, and stir-fried vegetable strips as the side dishes. They tossed in some potatoes with the chicken with curry seasonings and a free spiced tea as well. Sweet corn bread also came with it, sweeter than Jiffy mix. Pat thought they were desert sweet. They are great with their seasonings except for the cabbage which was watery and no seasoning. It tasted much better mixing some curry seasoning from the chicken in it. I had noticed nefore their greens were flat and dull and their cabbage is the same way. However, terrific service, terrific food overall, and great take-out for Miller.

I tried to see my brother first at work than at home but he had taken the day off to see a friend at the opening of a play. Pat and I ended up talking to Amy's mother Sue for hours about politics.

Saturday I did not go to see X-Men 2 but did go to Fuddruckers for the Clear Lake Book group meeting. Too noisy. Next time I will get one of their huge chicken salads someone else had. Main thing interesting there was that Michelle had very informed opinions about my Watchmen graphic novel and the history and repression of comics in the Fifties and the rise of super-heroes in American comics.

Melinda called earlier and said to call Richard's number but no answer and they weren't at the meeting.

There was a report on the 13 people showing up at the first inner loop meeting and an implied request to move some books to non-circulating to free up room in the group book boxes. If people haven't checked them out by this time it is time for new stuff. Pat brought a lot of books and I believe just one was loaned out.

My apartment has been messier than ever and I am trying to clean it for a get together for movies this month. I have been distracted by the newest version of Civ 3, Play the World. I highly recommend it even if you don't want to play online. It adds tons of easier playablility features and lots of scenarios.

I played an only 6-hour modern scenario of the new Civ. I was way ahead on points, advancements and culture and was debating ending the game within a few turns with a space victory when I lost. I had forgotten France had the UN and they called a vote and everyone voted against me. I was playing the Americans. Interesting as I had taken out the Arabs in a swift military campaign shortly before.. Unlike someone else, I also knew to bring enough troops to pacify the cities and save some infrastructure. Later I loaded a 5 turns earlier auto-backup and militarily pacified them as the only way to stop the vote.

No progress on job search since I decided against a teaching career. I brought little bags of green tea and coffee to my brother and wondered how much delivering other little baggies payed! :-) I saw Go on DVD the other night. That movie explores the bad things about that option. I picked up the DVD at Fry's, the Geek Superstore (old Salon Article) which has a much better price than Amazon.

I owe an email to someone, gotta go.

Garlic seems to ward off cancer

MSNBC -- A clove a day may cut risk of prostate and other cancers by Karen Collins

IN ONE OF the latest studies on this topic, less than a clove of garlic a day was enough to cut men’s risk of prostate cancer in half compared to men who ate none.

Garlic’s link with lower cancer risk has been well established in highly focused laboratory studies involving cells and animals, as well as in studies that look at large human populations. Yet because people who eat more garlic also tend to eat more vegetables and engage in other healthy eating habits, it has not always been clear how much of garlic eaters’ lower cancer risk is due to garlic per se.

One of the most prominent garlic researchers, John Milner, Ph.D., now with the National Cancer Institute, notes that the benefits of garlic are not limited to a specific tissue, which suggests that garlic probably has broad anti-cancer effects throughout the body.

Studies have shown that while garlic, onions, scallions and leeks contain slightly different compounds, the substances that block cancer-promoting enzymes, promote DNA repair and regulate the cell life cycle are found in all these foods.

Garlic - Hmmm.