Seinfeld

I had a sheltered childhood, spending most of my time outdoors wearing goat leggings, digging large holes and making rabbit skin pouches. 

Now, however, I am trying to relive my mispent TV youth by watching stuff that I missed. So when the opportunity arose to watch season one of Seinfeld, I thought I would give it a go. 

I, as most of you will know, am rather fond of all things Apple. I am, however, not so keen on the Mac vs PC advertising campaign. As a Mac user, I used to find myself defending the Macintosh platform against the PC, to people unfortunate enough not to know any better, or too stubborn to switch to a more stable and beautiful platform. 

So for the last few weeks I have been watching Seinfeld and I am really enjoying it, especially when the set is littered with works of art such as the Mac SE (see below)



Apple and Jerry have been pals for some time it seems. See the end of the old Apple ad below.



So it was a great shock read that Jerry's soul has been has devoured by the Dark Side. That's right - starting in September Jerry will be working alongside Bill Gates to promote Microsoft in a new $300,000,000 deal.

The Joy of Tech sums it up very well and this is why I will continue to watch the rest of Seinfled to the end. ClickHere

Au revoir Jerry!

- Philip x

It's Joe

Just over a year and half after announcing his candidacy, on the steps of the of the Capitol in Springfield Illinois, Barack Obama introduces his Vice Presidential nominee, Joseph Biden.



- Mr. Ed

Has it got sharks in it and that?

For the past 4 days Chucktown has been lashed by the outer bands of Tropical Storm Fay, which has been meandering over Florida this past week. Here are some photos of downtown, near MUSC and my 'hood, at high tide yesterday afternoon:




Wearing my wellies to work,

- Mr. Ed

From the Dept. Unintentionally Great Headlines

Via Josh Marshall, from yesterday's NT Times:

More proof, if you need it, that the mainstream media has gone to shit.

- Mr. Ed

~ Political interlude ~

Do not be alarmed P Clubbers - the light-hearted, clippity-cloppity, breying-'n'-neighing fun will return shorty. We now present:

~ Some dull political commentary ~

In response to a reader's comment:

...the essence of Obama's campaign needs to be "John McCain will do anything to get elected."

-snip-

This is short. And it's easy to remember. And it counters McCain's own branding of himself as a Maverick.

Josh Marshall wonders,

"why this point hasn't been hit harder or hasn't caught on more even irrespective of the campaign. Because here you've got a guy who's literally abandoned everything he supposedly used to believe in, all to be president. There really is nothing he wouldn't do."

As if taking a cue, Andrew Sullivan unleashes a ferociously good take down of McCain on almost exactly that tack. Here are a few choice parts, but you'd do well to read the rest.

"In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar? According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

- snip-

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

-snip-

[T]he actual techniques used on McCain, and the lies they were designed to legitimize, are a matter of historical record. And the government of the United States now practices the very same techniques...

-snip-

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

These are the prices people pay for power.

So where's the Obama surrogate, or the Ad for that matter, hitting this point?

- Mr. Ed

LOL Pols

The current Russian-Georgain conflict, and the confused, ineffectual role the US has played in it, only serves to remind us that the end of Dubya's tenure in the Whitehouse can't come soon enough.

Or to put it more succinctly in a LOLpol:

Image from Pundit Kitchen

- Mr. Ed

Beat This

Dear Clubbers P. I saw a clip of this on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and knew I recognised it from somewhere - Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

When you think of Midland two-tone ska from the late 70s who comes to mind? The Specials, dare I say UB40? Well it seems The Beat have been overlooked. This is my first new purchase in a while and I'm loving it. May I introduce Mirror In The Bathroom by The Beat (AKA 'The English Beat' in the US).






- Scout

Spider Update

For those of you who doubted me, here are some up-close and personal photos of the offending deadly spider - after a thorough killing, naturally. Her mortal remains now reside in a jar that once was used to vend IPTG from a reputable supplier. Her spirit, one would assume, is... returned to whence it came?




Click on photos to enlarge
And now it's time for a poem:

Anywho,
it occurred to me,
recently,
that kharmically,
I'm buggered.

"Why so pessimistic?" you impetuously ask.

Well, in the last week:

I've put my hands under a table, where beneath dwelt a deadly poisonous spider.

I've left my car keys IN THE DOOR OF THE FRIKKIN CAR for 18 hours without my car being stolen.

AND!!!

I've spilled beer all over my computer without apparent damage.

So, if an earthquake-plague of locusts-hurricane combo should strike Chucktown soon, you'll know why...

- Mr. Ed

Ahhhhhhhh!

The other day my mate Erik stayed on my futon, a common enough occurrence apres les bars. When he woke up, he noticed a rather large spider had made it's home under the table, next to the futon. That's why Erik noticed it, he woke up pretty much nose to nose with it. He pointed the spider out to me, and rather casually said, "it's ok though, I don't think it's a Black Widow or anything". Well, it turns out Erik isn't an much of an entomologist, and it most assuredly IS a Black Widow. Here are some rather crap* photos of it.



click on images for a larger view

What's really AWESOME is that I discovered it around half past 12 this evening, so I'll have to wait until morning before I can go to the shops and buy gallons of the strongest insecticides known to humanity. It will die, it will die!

- Mr. Ed


* It was a difficult angle, and yes, I was less than keen on getting very close to the blighter. I'd like to see how close you'd get to a deadly poisonous spider, just to take a photo of it. Well, quite.

Tourjours tunetastique

It's been a while since we've had a P Club tunetastic tune, so here's Devendra Banhart with "Carmensita". As an added bonus, the video features Dev's current squeeze - the ever-gorgeous Natalie Portman.



- Mr. Ed