:: Ray's Periodic Rantings ::

:: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 ::

One sentence concerning Iraq

To the president's fans who bleat on about how the media doesn't report the "good news" from Iraq, I say guess what...they don't report all the bad news either.
:: Ray 4:33 PM [+] ::
...

Seattle

I am flying home from a quick weekend in Seattle with Mary, who was there this past week for work. It seems like it might be a livable place, were it not for the unfortunate weather.

As we learned on the very amusing Underground Seattle tour, it is a city with a history of taking some not-very-good ideas and running with them. Case in point today is the city's now-abandoned monorail. Yes, you read that right. They built a monorail. It ran until it had an accident, and now it is abandoned. Did anyone see the Simpsons monorail episode? Somewhere in the afterlife, Phil Hartman has to be getting a chuckle out of this.

One end of the monorail terminates at the Space Needle, next door to which is one of the other highlights of our weekend, the Science Fiction Museum. Housed in a Frank Gehry-like structure, it features a fairly decent collection of costumes and props from sci-fi movies and television, along with some impressive multimedia presentations. We killed a good two hours in there, seeing things I never thought I'd see. One sad thing about a lot of the costumes...they haven't aged well. A lot of them show visible signs of wear and tear, or simply crumbling plastics that were never meant to last longer than the length of the production. Still, it was fun to see helmets and swords from Flash Gordon, Twiki's suit from Buck Rogers, Muffit's costume from the original Battlestar Galactica, Ripley's cargo loader from Aliens, and virtually every phaser pistol and rifle from the various iterations of Star Trek.

A final bright spot for the weekend was an evening at The Pink Door with Mary's sister and brother-in-law, where we had a nice bite to eat and took in a top notch burlesque show. Featuring and emceed by The Swedish Housewife, there were appearances by one of our favorites, Indigo Blue, Miss Fancy Chance from London, a contortionist, and a male burlesque dancer, Ultra. The venue had great energy, which carried over into a great show, and I would look forward to the opportunity to see any of the performers again.

Now if only the weather was better...
:: Ray 5:46 PM [+] ::
...

Lazy Sunday

I'm about a month late in mentioning this, but I still think that the Chris Parnell/Andy Samberg short Lazy Sunday, which aired on SNL in December, is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. It gets even better once you start figuring out how smart the lyrics are. "You can call us Aaron Burr, from the way we're dropping Hamiltons," (referring to spending $10 bills) is downright masterful. If you haven't seen "Lazy Sunday" yet, you can do so here, but I don't know how long it will be available.

The next time I go shopping or to the movies, I plan to drop some Hamiltons, baby.
:: Ray 1:37 AM [+] ::
...

As promised

Here is the footage of the Alito protest with a soundbite from me. (Quicktime 2 MB file)
:: Ray 1:36 AM [+] ::
...

Let's keep it fair

This morning on the way home from a late night at work, I heard KOA 850AM's Jon Caldara say that Senator Ted Kennedy, who killed a woman at Chappaquiddick, has written a children's book. OK Jon, if the First Lady ever writes a book, I expect you to introduce it by saying that Laura Bush, who killed her boyfriend in Midland in 1963, has written a book.

Both incidents were automobile "accidents." Fair is fair.
:: Ray 2:22 AM [+] ::
...

WGN Again

Tuesday I joined Mary in attending a protest against Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito outside the State of Illinois Center at Clark and Randolph. This time I was toting a hand made sign that said "ALITO? NO!" on one side, and "STOP THE WAR ON CHOICE!" on the other. Toward the end of the protest, reporter and cameraman approached me from behind and asked if I would be willing to comment on why I was there. I hesitated for a moment, then agreed. A friend tivoed the WGN News at 9, and sure enough, they used my sound bite! I will post the footage as soon as I can get it, along with photos that I took with my new phone, as soon as I can figure out how to upload them.

For the record, I have listened to some of the testimony and read a lot about Alito. I think he is dangerously to the right of the mainstream on a lot of issues important to regular people (not the uber-rich and not the CEOs of the Fortune 500). I am talking about little things like civil and reproductive rights...nothing big. This guy could upset a balance on the court that has existed for so long that we have forgotten what it is like to have a packed court. I am convinced that it is worth filibustering to oppose him, but I do not have a lot of hope that it will happen.
:: Ray 11:11 PM [+] ::
...

Radio Fun

I have become a fan of Newsweb Corporation, which it turns out owns the only two commercial radio stations worth listening to in Chicago, WCPT 850 AM, and "Nine" FM (low power at 92.5, 92.7 and 99.9). I have stories about both of them.

The Wiki article in the above link explains WCPT fairly well. Calling themselves Chicago's Progressive Talk, they are the local Air America Radio affiliate, also airing Ed Shultz in the afternoon. We went so long in Chicago without an affiliate that I got used to listening to Air America online. At home, I still do (it sounds better), but when I am in my car, WCPT is my first choice for listening. It is a daytimer station, however, which means that it must stop broadcasting at sundown.

Every once in a while, if I have driven to work or to the El to get to work, I will return to my car after dark, with the radio still tuned to 850 AM. On these occasions, if the atmospheric conditions are right, I get to hear KOA 850 AM, newstalk radio from Denver. It's fun to hear the news from another city and all, but the real appeal here comes from Jon Caldara and "Gunny" Bob, the two nighttime talk hosts. Both are far too conservative for my taste, but consistently each entertains me, Caldara with his nutjob libertarian-ness, and Bob with intelligence and surprising moderation on some issues. Then again, "Gunny" Bob may be the only talk host in the country, or even the world, with a model of gun sold by one of his sponsors that was designed to his specifications and named after him.

"Nine" FM was the first station in the Chicago market to recognize that pretty much every other station here sucks, adopting a "we play anything" format. To their credit, they have kept it up admirably, as I will explain in a moment. Another station, WJMK 104.3 FM, owned by big corporatation Infinity Broadcasting, soon followed suit calling themselves Jack FM, and the "we play anything" format seemed to quickly devolve into "we play everything from the 80s". Yet there is a subtle but huge difference between these two players, which results in Jack FM sucking as badly as everybody else, while Nine FM has earned my admiration. You can listen to Jack FM for hours and not hear anything outside the genre of rock and pop from the 80s. It can really be quite maddening. Nine FM, however, while keeping 80's pop and rock as its core, actually follows through on playing music from other genres and decades. Here are three cases in point that I have heard in the past few days, each of which was a pleasant surprise: The Oak Ridge Boys Elvira, The KLF Last Train to Trancentral, and most amazingly, The Postal Service Such Great Heights, a track from 2003 that I learned about on the internet and never, ever expected to hear on the radio.

Carry on, Newsweb Corporation!
:: Ray 9:22 PM [+] ::
...

Choppers

I just saw at least three big Chinook helicopters heading north along the shore of Lake Michigan. I wondered why, for a moment, then remembered that his imperial highness, President Bush, is in town to speak at some economic thing at the Chicago Hilton. I would have liked to join the protest -- a big one was planned -- but I have a lot of catching up to do at work after being layed up with a bit of a head cold for a couple of days. If I had protested, I would have carried a sign bearing one word: "IMPEACH!"
:: Ray 1:06 PM [+] ::
...