The More You Know

iMovie's H.264 Share >> iPod encoding from a DV source looks great on Youtube. For iSight encoding use iMovie's Share >> Quicktime >> CD-ROM for decent results. The iSight video ain't that good to begin with, and its usually just a HEADSHOT!

Happy Birthday Jencap

Jennifer Capriati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Man oh man did I have a crush on her as a kid.

I wonder why...

The Daily Dish: Your Mom and Your Sperm Count

The Daily Dish: Your Mom and Your Sperm Count:

"She needs to lay off the beef, apparently."

Yeah but then how would she conceive to begin with.

/rimshot

Thank you George

Summary of Findings: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007

Daily Drew

BOSOM BUDDIES By KEITH J. KELLY - Business - New York Post Online Edition

(Jane) Pratt, who has been a frequent guest on Howard Stern's show, says, "One of my dreams is to return to Howard's show and tell him the truth about Drew Barrymore and me."



She said years ago, when Stern was on his terrestrial station, he had asked her if she had ever had sex with a woman. She answered "yes" but then demurred when he asked if it was someone people have heard of.



She said she would like to go back and tell him the truth. "It was someone famous. I did have sex with Drew Barrymore," she said.



Barrymore, who had graced the first cover of the debut issue of Jane back in 1997, could not be reached for comment.

Here's Pratt:

Here's the cover in question:

Sully on the captured Brits

The Daily Dish: Captured Brits:

"The news reports put that word in quotation marks. I wonder if it emerges that they are being subject to George W. Bush's preferred euphemism 'coercive interrogations.' And if that turns out to be the case, and we have to pray it isn't, then what will the United States and its ally Great Britain say in complaint? After all, Iran is only doing to Western soldiers in captivity what the U.S. has been doing to 'enemy combatants' since the war began. Then there's a question of what kind of trial they might face. One in which their defense gets a chance to see all the evidence against them? Oh, wait ... we don't do that either. "

Yep. It's not like we can bitch about that sort of thing anymore. Thanks George.

Tales of the Sea

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Robert Farley has a nice series of posts on the sinking of the light cruiser HMAS Sydney by the German armed merchant cruiser Kormoran.

Don't call it a comeback

Er... actually do:

How's that working out for you?

Americans For Bayh

Americans For Bayh is a grass roots effort dedicated to the candidacy of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as the next president of the United States. There is no official Americans For Bayh (AFB) organization or group at this point in time. So what are we about? Basically we are trying to provide those interested in the Senator with a portal where any news or events can be accessed easily. We publish a regular email-linked newsletter. Furthermore, some are involved as contributors on the Blogging for Bayh weblog which provides up to the minute Bayh commentary and news. All content reflects the opinions of the individual identified and are not associated with Evan Bayh's official capacities and is never in any way coordinated with the Senator or any of his staff.

Another Shot With ScribeFire

Is this thing on?

Blogroll Executions

Black Velvet Bruce Li -- Rampant homophobia from a supposed libertarian. If I need homophobia I can read any one of a thousand right-wing blogs, I sure as hell don't need it from a guy that claims to be a libertarian.

Magellan Rounding the Cape

Magellan's ships fight their way around the Cape Horn.

Getting RSS feeds from Youtube

I wanted to setup an RSS feed of my youtube posts, but it isn't immediately obvious how to do that on youtube's site. Enter Unit Structures: YouTube RSS Feeds post. Easy peasy.

And apparently Blogthis works again. Woohoo!

Best Show on Television

The Standing Rigging

(click to embiggun)

Poker After Dark

I hate this show. Not because its bad, but because it wakes me up at 2AM. Matusow, Hellmuth, Ivey, Farha, Bloch, and Tony G at the same table? Just silly.

Masts and Yards

This should've been posted before "Square Sails".

(click to embiggun)

Square sails

(click to embiggun)

Level 1 Human

Daily Drew

As mentioned I hate Spike Jonze. Sure its envy and jealousy, but I'm embracing it;)

250 years ago today

Was a bad day to be Admiral John Byng. Byng was the last British admiral to be shot on his own quarterdeck. Ordered to relieve the island of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Year's War, Byng's squadron met a French squadron outside Port Mahon on that island. Despite having the weather gage Byng's squadron took heavy damage while, due to a tactical decision by Byng, the French squadron escaped virtually undamaged. After four days Byng returned to Gibraltar and was subsequently brought before a court-martial for "failure to do his utmost". Undoubtedly he had failed to do his utmost to pursue the enemy and he was found guilty. Unfortunately for Byng a 1749 update to the Articles of War left only one punishment for this crime as stated in Article 13:

"Every person in the fleet, who though cowardice, negligence, or disaffection, shall forbear to pursue the chase of any enemy, pirate or rebel, beaten or flying; or shall not relieve or assist a known friend in view to the utmost of his power; being convicted of any such offense by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death."

The Execution of Admiral John Byng (Click image to embiggun, link to the left for more info on painting)

The Sound of Urchin

I've been rocking out with The Sound of Urchin since around late '98. Back then they had released a jazzy triphop EP called "All That and a Brandy Alexander" that I found on mp3.com. I immediately bought a bunch of live shows off their website and have drive five hours to see them more than once. They are great performers and thoroughly cool dudes. They opened for Tenacious D in Chicago in '01, and pulled my buddies and I backstage to meet Jack Black and Kyle Gass. I stole Jack Black's Bass Ale (ok it was in his abandoned dressing room, but still).

Over the years TSOU has changed styles radically. The first EP was a sample driven collaboration between Barbie Smooth and Tomato-11 (don't ask;). Barbie left when he got an offer he couldn't refuse (MTV was calling asking him to be a producer for some unpopular show called TRL). Tomato hooked up with a live band and started rocking. Now they are a guitar driven band with an eclectic array of styles that defies generic classifiction. Anyway here's a live performance of song off that first EP called "Green Green Gold" (and this is about double the tempo of the original track).

Minor NSFW language:

Too cool. This dude hacked a MAME cabinet into his TARDIS. He wins an Internets.

Daily Drew

Drew's modeling for some apparently famous English fashion designer named Giles Deacon.

"Carnage and Shops" my remix

Meet Stephen Scott Lowe:

You can see he probably hasn't had the best day. He really doesn't look to bad though for a guy that's driven his SUV through a mall and then been beaten up (with justification) by the cops. Well it is a mall, and they do have security cameras. I added the appropriate music to the silent mall videos.

Reconsidering Hagel

Chelsea in comments writes:

I'm sorry to say but I have to disagree with you. Giuliani, Romney, Gingrich and others are the ones that will have difficulty winning the primaries. I think Hagel has a great opportunity to appeal to primary voters because of his conservative voting record.

Sure, he is the only outspoken critic on the Iraq war; but, he has never flipped his position on abortion (a la Romney), he doesn't have a muddled personal history (see Giuliani, Gingrich), and he hasn't ever sold out like the other "maverick" (McCain).

None of the "Big 3" are really standing out for the Republicans right now. Chuck Hagel has the propensity to garner large support...especially considering that he's already the media's baby.

Don't be sorry, you've got a good point;) Hagel is the most appealing GOP candidate to me. Of course coming from me that's essentially saying, "I detest Hagel's politics the least". You may well be correct in Hagel being able to garner a large group of supporters; however, whether he can or not his entry is a plus for every GOP candidate except McCain.

Now if Hagel manages to go ahead and win the primaries, I don't suppose its a plus for the other candidates;)

Update: Hagel held the presser to announce... that he has nothing to announce yet.

Brilliant political move by Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel, anti-war GOP senator, is holding a press conference on Monday, and the money is on him announcing he is entering the presidential campaign. This is a major win for almost all Republican candidates as it allows all of them to move off the "Anti-war == terrorism supporter" rhetoric that failed them so miserably in 2006. McCain is still using the "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them there" variant and his poll numbers have gone to shit. Where he was once the front-runner he nows occasionally polls third behind Romney and consistently behind Guliani.

With Hagel's entry the "allowed to waver" candidates, Romney, Guliani, Gingrich and Huckabee can start to moderate their positions to appeal to independents that they need to win a general election. They won't be "as crazy as Hagel" when they say something like "we need to begin the process of a long term staged withdrawl" or some other vague reference to end the war that appeals to Independents without alienating the base. McCain is so tied to the current surge that John Edwards' pejorative reference to it as "the McCain strategy" stuck, and he becomes the other bookend of the GOP war debate. Hagel's entry allows for an actual debate on the war during the GOP primaries and doesn't restrict GOP candidates to the two current options of "total" or "complete" support for the war. McCain is "stay the course" and Hagel is "cut and run". The rest of the candidates can pick a moderate position in between. Hagel cannot win the primaries, but I don't think that's the point. An actual debate amongst the GOP on how to end the war can only help the GOP's candidate in the general election.

Good move Chuck.

Bad sight gag of the day

Daily Drew (I hate Spike Jonze edition)

In my "pre-blogging" days over at everything2 I once wrote:

Sat May 13 2000 at 16:32:30
Somebody look up Spike's family tree. He's a rich kid who's been handed a bunch of media tasks by his oh so wealthy family (Rockefeller or Getty I can't remember which). ed note: it's actually the Spiegel family, and his branch wasn't all that wealthy apparently

Am I bitter... a tad. See Spike's my rich kid alter ego.

When I was 13 I was into journalism and freestyle bike riding and BMX. Spike edited my favorite bike rag. I got a Redline -- not bad but not a freestyle mag.

When I was 18, I was into music and journalism. My favorite band... the Beastie Boys and Spike edited their magazine (Grand Royal) and made their videos. I saw them in concert at Lollapalooza -- clearly the decline has started.

Now I'm 25 and I'm into movies, computers, and music. Spike gets to make and star in movies and music videos, meet other stars, and generally be considered cool. I get to slag him on everything2. I win!

Now via Defamer I get this little nugget:

Drew Barrymore sucking face with a scrawny-looking guy who looked familiar but I had to be told was Spike Jonze at Golden Gopher downtown Fri night (3/2). She looked great actually, definitely skinnier than when she dated that drummer.They were pretty annoying, giggling and touching and making out. Then they started slow-dancing to Patsy Cline even though no one else was, but the song switched to Arcade Fire so they sat down and kissed more. A fast Beck song came on and they danced again (still no one joined) but were gone next time I passed on the way to the pisser.

DAMN YOU SPIKE JONZE! What makes this worse is that I really really like Spike Jonze's work. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are both great movies. Plus look at that list of music videos. Cannonball, Sabotage, Buddy Holly, Praise You, and Wonderboy to name just a few of his good videos. Sigh... Opulens adepto opulentia

Tip of the Iceberg

Project Hamad update

Some seemingly good news:

Adel Hamad’s lawyers have been notified that Hamad and his landlord, Mammar, have been approved to leave Guantanamo. Some internet articles have already begun speculating about the effect that the YouTube video, Guantanamo Unclassified, may have had in securing his release. Of course, we hope that Project Hamad and Guantanamo Unclassified have helped expedite Hamad’s release, as these articles suggest, yet we believe it is premature to declare victory for a number of reasons.

Read the rest for a cautionary note.

New to the Blogroll

An old friend's new myspace page. Nice stuff Pearl.

Daily Drew

From Defamer:

Hello Drew Barrymore!

My name Henrik [Redacted], I come from Sweden, I am 20 years old

You are my world favourite actress!! I have seen 16 filmen as you with in the filmen but 10 off the filmen have I DVD-filmen...

You are good actress! I think to you beautiful.

I love collect celebrity picture and celebrity birthday and I are interest contact with celebrity but I know to celebrity and you have not time to answer but hope answer beautiful day

So I are interest contact with you Drew.

I Love You! Hope you answer so soon near you have time...

I Love You! Hoppas du svar så snart när du har tiden!!

Greeting Henrik.

Good luck Henrik.