Les Jones

Stayin’ tuned to AMC all day

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Natalie has a fever, so I’m staying home with her today while she sleeps.

AMC is being very, very good to me. I’m about halfway through the Matrix trilogy. Then at 8:00 it’s the premier of “The Prisoner” mini-series with Ian McKellan.

Katie and Natalie visit the Sunsphere

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | A&E, East Tennessee, Home Life, Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |

Katie was out of school for Veteran’s Day, so Melissa took her and Natalie out for a big day in downtown Knoxville. They went to the Veteran’s Day parade, ate at the re-opened S&W Grand nee Cafeteria, and went to the observation deck of the Sunsphere. Katie declared it the best day ever.

P.S. This Metro Pulse article about the Sunsphere is incredible -Did a 14-Year-Old Kid Help Design the Sunsphere? The kid’s design used a doughnut-shaped elevator wrapped around a central support and the elevator turned as it ascended. Wicked.

Bryce Thomas is an architect of 45 who lives and works in Seattle. He sounds modest and unassuming on the phone. Son of businessman/lawyer Perry Thomas, Bryce grew up near West Hills. In 1978, when he was 14, his parents took him on an “adventure” vacation trip to Seattle. He was awed, as most teenagers still are, at his first sight of the Space Needle, the theme structure for the 1962 World’s Fair. “The Space Needle in Seattle is very slender, very graceful,” he says. He’d heard his home town had a fair coming up, thought it needed a theme structure like the Space Needle. Talking with his parents around the dinner table, he proposed what he thought might be an appropriate design for it.

He drew a picture that impressed his father. It’s labeled “Basic Sun Globe.” He still has the drawing of it he made in July, 1978. The globe is made of “gold glass,” mounted on top of a very tall stalk, accessible by an elevator. A note, in a child’s hand, specifies, “Globe contain[s] Restaurant and Observation area. If possible use as a source of solar energy [for] operation.”

His father was impressed, and mailed the diagram to the World’s Fair authorities. They heard nothing for two years.

“I was shocked the day I went to get the newspaper,” one Sunday in 1980, Bryce says. “On the front page there was a picture of this Sunsphere proposal.”

The World’s Fair had hired design firm Community Tectonics in 1979, several months after receiving the boy’s drawings, and they’re credited with the Sunsphere’s design.

In June, 1980, Bryce received a letter from George Siler, the fair’s executive vice president, who did acknowledge the kid’s plan. “As you can imagine, we receive lots of suggestions from people about the Fair,” Siler wrote. “Many of them are impractical or not in keeping with our objectives. Yours was a notable exception. In fact, you submitted one of the best ideas we have received. Your Sun Globe is innovative, well conceived and very much in accordance with what we think our World’s Fair ought to contain.

Movie: “The Box”

Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 5 Comments |

A sci-fi, metaphysical horror thriller. Pretty weird, way out there, not what you’d call uplifting, but never boring and definitely thought-provoking.

Miley Cyrus voted worst celebrity influence

Sunday, November 1st, 2009 | A&E, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

Our kids watch either DVDs or the Disney channel, which is where Miley Cyrus lives as Hannah Montana.

The other night I told my wife that Miley Cyrus acts like a 46 year old divorcee with six kids and a couple of orders of protection against her exes. Gal is on her way to being wizened and hard at the ripe old age of 16. The celebrity life has not been good for this child star.

MSNBC - Worst Celeb Influence? It’s Miley:

Cyrus, who easily took the title with 42 percent of the vote, has indeed been less than stellar in the role-model department: pole dancing, a probably racist photo, an oversexed photo shoot.

She’s no saint, but still, how she managed to top the runner-ups is mystifying.

Britney Spears (27 percent) took the No. 2 spot. That’s right. Britney Spears — the same woman who forgets to wear underwear, married K-Fed, slams junk food, smokes cigarettes, divorced K-Fed, shaves her head, attacks cars with umbrellas, lost custody of her children, starred in a reality show, makes-out with Madonna and dances half naked at concerts. This woman is somehow a better influence than Miley Cyrus.

Wait until Cyrus turns 18. Flashing her vajayjay to photographers Brittney Spears-style will be the least of her coming out party. I’m thinking Lindsay Lohen-level breakdown. Here’s hoping someone in her family steers her to a better direction.

Selena Gomez was voted best celeb influence.

Selena Gomez (”Wizards of Waverly Place,” also on Disney) is awesome. Fresh-faced, kind, optimistic, and without a hint of cynicism.

“Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy”

Friday, October 16th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Comedian Louie C. K. on the Conan O’Brien show. “How quickly the world owes this guy something he only knew existed 10 seconds ago.”

Via Facebook pals.

Tags: youtube

Black Flag at Vic and Bill’s Deli, Knoxville 1985

Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | A&E, East Tennessee, Food & Drink | Permalink | No Comments |

Oh hells yeah. My first Vic and Bill’s Deli show was Teenage Love, the STDs, and Guadalcanal Diary. I was 16. Vic and Bill’s was all about the punk rock and the serving beer to underage kids.

Before I graduated high school I saw the Circle Jerks and the Dead Kennedys there, too. I think I saw Black Flag, but I honestly can’t remember for sure. This was the old Vic and Bill’s, next to Stefano’s Pizza on the UT Strip.

Via Swanky’s Facebook. He BTW won a Metro Pulse bartender award. Not that he’s ever mixed a delicious tropical drink for me. Hint hint.

Tags: can you believe that guy?, i love me some rum, youtube

Touchy-feely art

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | A&E, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

This article - Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings - brought back a memory.

Seven or so years ago I took my mom to a Rodin exhibit in Knoxville. I think her sight was starting to fail even back then and I noticed her reaching out to touch the sculpture.

She did it again, running her hand over the statue’s face. “Uh, mom, you’re not supposed to touch that.” At some point a person at the museum noticed and told her she couldn’t touch the Rodins. Mom acted sheepish and didn’t touch any more sculptures.

Looking back it’s clear she was suffering from the beginnings of macular degeneration. She’s almost completely blind at this point, and has been for some time.

Now I wonder if she was beginning to succumb to vascular dementia, too. People with dementia decline over a long period of time. It’s hard to recognize, especially in the early stages, and it can happen so slowly over so many years that you barely notice. And of course you don’t want to believe it is what it is, because it’s painful to think about.

It was only a few years ago that I had to admit mom’s mind was getting cloudy. It was less than a year ago that it became perfectly clear to everyone that something was really wrong. Even then we blamed it on medication, thinking that she’d be back to her old self once she got out of transitional care and got off of sedatives. It’s only been six months or so since we all finally admitted that mom wasn’t going to be her old self anymore and would need someone caring for her for the rest of her life.

When shotgun silencers are outlawed, only Anton Chigurh will have shotgun silencers

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | A&E, Guns | Permalink | 4 Comments |

SayUncle links to some real-life shotgun silencers.

Tags: no country for old men

Lost - Mysteries of the Universe Part 3

Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Hat tip to DarkUFO. Check out that DarkUFO title card in the video, which is from this URL and is embedded in the video embed code above. I gotta try that.

LATER: The title image is a feature of the player at spoilertv, rather than YouTube. So if you want to use that player it works and is pretty straightforward, but if you want to use YouTube’s player you’re out of luck.

Tags: Lost

Scalzi on Star Trek design FAIL

Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | A&E, Star Wars | Permalink | 1 Comment |

John Scalzi’s Guide to Epic SciFi Design FAILs - Star Trek Edition

The silliness in Star Trek seems less like bad design and more like symptoms of low budgets and lazy writers.

• It takes too long to show the crew flying to the planet. Hellooo, transporter!
• “I’m behind on my alimony payment I’ve got this Gunsmoke script that CBS doesn’t want.” Hellooo, Star Trek goes to Wild West planet episode!
• The guy who plays Picard is a pretty darned good actor who can play costume dramas. Hellooo, wacky holodeck plot!

Sushi Mayhem for iPhone

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 | A&E, Tech | Permalink | No Comments |

From a U.S. Internet bud:

My latest game, Sushi Mayhem, just went live in the iTunes App Store. As I’m sure a lot of you have heard me nag before that the first day of sales are the most important and give you the best chance of hitting the top 100. Because of the (flawed) way the app store works if an app gets in the top 100 it will usually stay there for a while and be self sustaining… so PLEASE go pick it up asap. I’m looking at you Arlene/Joe Sera/Scott! I don’t want to have to find a real job. It costs less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks and if you hate it I’ll give you the $2 back and count it as a marketing expense 8). If you know anyone with an iPhone let them know too.

Sushi Mayhem mini-site.

Here’s the link to the iTunes store. I’ve never done an itms:// link before, but when I click it I go to iTunes. Pretty neat.

What would this chair look like?

Monday, August 17th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I’m reading John Scalzi’s sci-fi Old Man’s War series. In one of the books he mentions they have chairs for aliens whose knees bend opposite of ours. Now I’m trying to imagine what would that chair even look like.

I saw the “G.I. Joe” movie

Monday, August 10th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | No Comments |

As G.I. Joe begins, you’ll want to remember to turn off your cell phone. And your brain. Either one could cause distractions that will lessen your enjoyment of a movie designed for 12 year olds.

Speaking of which, it’s worth mentioning that this is a movie based on a cheesy cartoon that was designed to sell plastic action figures. For some reason this movie has attracted political cannon fire from both directions. Some people are perplexed that G.I. Joe is now a United Nations team (Globally Integrated Joint Operating Entity), while others see it as imperial American propaganda.

Both groups are spotting the movie about 50 more IQ points than it deserves. A list of improbabilities and silliness in the movie would be pointless, but it’s clearly intended for 12 year olds who won’t ask a lot of questions as long as all buildings have metal interiors and all guns go “bang!” and “pew! pew!”

It’s an OK popcorn movie I guess, but if someone in your house wants to see it consider waiting for the DVD.

G.I. Joe opens today

Friday, August 7th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | No Comments |

I’m going to see it at lunchtime as part of a team build at work (which is pretty awesome). Review later.

Lost - Mysteries of the Universe: The Dharma Initiative (Updated)

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | No Comments |

Via JOpinionated. Released at ComicCon, with more Web episodes to come.

UPDATE. Via DarkUFO here’s part two, which gets into the meat of the show.

This format - a fictional TV show about aliens and monsters focuses its attention on the secretive Dharma Initiative - is pretty smart. We get clues about Dharma, but the clues are sketchy, second hand, and probably interspersed with unreliable information so that the mystery isn’t spoiled.

I love the way it’s filmed. “Mysteries of the Universe” has the look and feel of trashy 1970s documentaries about UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster down pat. I’m guessing they used Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of” as one of their models. Great line from the narrator, after explaining that applicants for the Dharma Initiative must complete many rounds of interviews and undergo psychological exams and ink blot testing: “Why would a veterinarian be profiled in the same manner as a psychotic killer?”

Tags: Lost

But I thought crime labs had a “30 minutes or your DNA test is free” guarantee

Monday, July 27th, 2009 | A&E, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

10 things about the entertainment industry that piss me off:

8. Weird Science: No we don’t have computer databases of every matchbook from every club in the tri-state area. No we can’t piece a broken bottle together and get a fingerprint that comes back instantly to a known felon (that gets picked up in 20 seconds). NO DNA TESTING IS NOT A “WHILE YOU WAIT” PROCESS!

And from comments:

Dude, CSI pisses me off so bad. I have actually had a person whose mailbox got hit by a car ask if I was going to take DNA samples. “Um, yes lady, I’m sure the car left some bodily fluids behind, and sure, we’ll spend $10,000 on a test to solve the damage to property case regarding your $25 mailbox.”

Hat tip to Tam.

Water tower and telegraph pole at sunset, Louisville, TN

Monday, July 27th, 2009 | A&E, Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I remembered this shot after following Jason Kottke’s link to the work of Brend and Hilla Becher. The couple photographed industrial equipment as art, devoting entire books to a single subject, such as water towers or grain elevators. The Bechers used black and white film because of the era in which they did most of their work, but these sorts of pictures cry out for black and white even when color is available.

No need for this with John Grisham novels, natch

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | No Comments |

How 10 classics got their titles:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in a Time of Cholera - Got its title through an opportunity for pun that does not exist in English. Cólera, in Spanish, means both ‘cholera’ and ‘anger’.

That’s a top 10 list excerpt from the How books got their titles blog.

Fight Club

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | A&E, Middle East | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Watched Fight Club again last night. The basic story is that a generation of young men are living empty lives, “working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” Fight Club gives them a purpose and makes them feel like men.

Scary thought: think of the aimless young men in Fight Club. Now imagine they’re young Muslim men joining a terrorist organization, which is what Fight Club became when it turned into Project Mayhem.

Fight Club was released in 1999. Post-9/11 they would have never used an ending that involved blowing up skyscrapers. The parallels would have been too obvious and unnerving.

I’m glad they were able to use that ending because the parallels are instructive. I like Fight Club, but what I’ve always disliked about it is the juvenile endorsement of violence as a means to manhood and the embrace of destruction as entertainment and self-realization. Connecting the dots with groups like Al Qaeda shows where that mindset leads.

IDNKT - Osborne Brothers performed classic “Rocky Top”

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | A&E, East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |

The version of “Rocky Top” you hear the most in East Tennessee was performed by the Osborne Brothers, who were a well known bluegrass act. How did I not know that was them?

Tags: idnkt

Star Trek: The Abridged Script

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | A&E, Funny Ha-Ha | Permalink | No Comments |

is up at The Editing Room:

Suddenly, ERIC BANA appears on a screen.

ERIC BANA
I demand that your captain board my random-looking bundling of metal spikes and slightly curved surfaces.

FARAN TAHIR
Seeing as how the only way an in-person discussion differs from what we’re doing now is that the former offers you a way to kill me, I’ll go ahead and comply.

He DOES, and ERIC kills him.

CHRIS HEMSWORTH
Alright, that makes me captain. Someone get my wife to an escape pod while she delivers my son.

CHRIS HEMSWORTH’S WIFE
Chris, no! You have to come with me, a lack of a father figure will surely turn our son into an insufferable douchebag.

Bonus! Abridged Scripts for Watchmen, Terminator Salvation, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Sci Fi channel is now SyFy?

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 3 Comments |

WTF

Sci Fi had a perfectly good name and they replaced it with SyFy, which is also a perfectly good name. For a feminine hygiene product. “Siffy!”

Tags: teh stoopid

Katie loves Woobies

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | A&E, Home Life | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Katie loves CoolIris, the online picture, video and game site. Tonight on CoolIris she found Woobies, a breakout/falling block type game. She loves it and the easy level is great for her. (She’s four.)  I’m going to scout around allgamesallfree.com and see what else they’ve got.

Got any good Web sites for a four year old?

A 13 year old tries a Walkman

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | A&E, Tech | Permalink | No Comments |

Via Tam, Giving up my iPod for a Walkman:

“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.”

Any media that has to be turned over is just begging for replacement.

Old fart memory from the 20th century alert!

I remember a Rolling Stone review of some album in the early days of the CD. I want to say it was by Sting. Whoever it was took advantage of the greater space available on a CD to deliver more than the 40 minutes of music that was typical of the LP and cassette era.

That turned out to be a downside for cassette listeners. The extra time meant that the album had to ship as a double cassette. The reviewer noted that the album was best listened to on a CD, because when the longish CD was stretched across four cassette sides you were constantly flipping tapes. With the CD you could push play once and hear the whole thing. What a concept!

Attn friends of Scot Sherrod

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 3 Comments |

He’s on Facebook and he has vintage pics from the Dirty Dancing set of him mugging with Baby and drinkin’ brewskis with Patrick Swayze.