Big Wheel

Holy crap, they're still doing it. This brings such a smile to my face.

One experience that I'll never forget is seeing the Halcyon Steel Orchestra, an amazing steel drum band, at the top of Shirley Heights, the highest point in Antigua. They were apparently regulars playing at this place on the weekends. They did this version of The Barber of Seville that was just sick - amazingly musical and carefully orchestrated. I've been trying to get more info about them every once in a while using Google, with little success. And now it turns out there are clips on Youtube!

Hate Joe Buck and Tim McCarver calling baseball. Generally think Al Michaels is acceptable as an announcer but I get the sense that he's a moron as a person. On the subject of announcers, I got a kick out of this Bill Simmons quote about Keith Jackson:

Sorry, this is just a retarded statement. Forget for a minute that the words "anecdote" and "data" are not synonyms and also forget that the IPO made about 10 employees billionaires and only about another 800-1000 Googlers millionaires. Also forget that a Google-esque IPO or acquisition comes around maybe (I'm being charitable here) once every 4-5 years or so, meaning that the average worker in America has maybe 10 chances during his working life to identify and join such a company (assuming it's conveniently located to where he lives). Also forget that most of the people who emerged millionaires from the IPO would undoubtedly have made tidy fortunes pulling down between $100,000 and $200,000 a year as some of the most highly educated and talented software engineers in the world, even if they hadn't gone to work for Google before 2004. We're not exactly talking about rags to riches cases here. Actually don't forget any of that, because it's ample evidence of just how little Dan knows what he's talking about. But anyway, let me point out what a stupid strawman it is to claim, as Dan is, that his opponents in this debate think that plutocracy means that it's completely impossible for someone in the second to fifth income quintiles to jump into the top 0.1 percent. Nobody claimed that it's impossible, they're just claiming that it makes it much more difficult. I fail to see how pointing to a once-in-five-years occurrence constitutes a counterexample to that.

BW, Something in your story doesn't quite wash. If checking accounts at banks really are a perfect alternative to check cashing services... why are people still using check cashing services? I'm guessing it's a combination of poor access to local banking services, perhaps distrusts and/or unawareness of local banking services... For what it's worth, AFAIK I cannot access the full cash amount of a deposited check after depositing it, but only a fraction. For somebody who needs cash NOW that could be a significant constraint. The poor (in the US and elsewhere) are "underbanked". Reducing access to payday lending isn't going to solve this problem. The poor access thing is unlikely to be a factor in urban areas. For example, here's a rough map I made of San Francisco's Tenderloin, with banks (or at least ATMs) marked in green and check cashing joints in blue. (Note: I can't vouch for Google Maps being 100% accurate and up-to-date with its business listings.) While check cashing stores are way more prevalent in the heart of the neighborhood, no bank is much more than a quarter mile away, I'd guess. Banks versus check cashing

I think this is outside the scope of this article, but let's not forget one reason we consider these "payday lenders" predatory that has nothing to do with the interest rates they charge on loans: the fact that a substantial part of their business comes from check cashing services. That's right, people actually pay these places to cash their paycheck if they don't have a bank account, which usually costs $0 to open.

Whoever compiled these is a poor reader who can't distinguish between a normative statement and a prediction. For example, the Charles Darwin quote: Darwin isn't saying that he predicts that his views will be uncontroversial to the religious. He's saying that there aren't any good reasons why religious people would find his views controversial. That is, people certainly may find his book controversial in light of their religious beliefs, but if they do they are doing so without good reasons (the likely corollary to this is that they don't understand what his views actually are and are thus taking issue with strawmen).

Gawd, Jurek's abuse of the language drives me up the wall sometimes. The box is a complete set of Henderson's Milestone albums, so calling them "representative tracks" is just wrong. It suggests to me that Jurek either can't speak English or is too lazy to read the liners or any number of online reviews of what he is describing.

This is bad - that title has been on my "want to buy" list for a long time. Has anyone else experienced this with this record or other Candids?

Well, Monson did include your book in the readings for her class. That said, I agree that she always seemed to me to be pretty out of touch.

I was mildly surprised to find this clip:

I thought these Steely Dan clips were pretty cool: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CH0JpBzi68E . There is also a segment on "Aja" with Wayne discussing his role in the session.

Crazy...Joe really is playing a keyboard backwards on Black Market.

Thanks to the miracle of this here series of tubes, I checked out that episode today. The part where the mom goes to Tesco to buy ingredients made me cringe.

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One thing I had for the first time after moving West was Romanesco cauliflower. Not sure if you can get it on the East coast - it's pretty good!

Broccoli and cauliflower are basically the same plant to start with, and humanity has been messing with its genome for thousands of years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruciferous_vegetables

By coincidence, I had the pleasure of encountering the drummer in this group this week. I'd call him a wanker, but it would be an insult to wankers everywhere.

Which is the wheat and which is the chaff, Chuck? I have the Jamal session already on the Columbia CD and assume the Hines and Garner sessions are worth picking up, but am in the dark about most of the other stuff.

People ragging on Andy Dick are usually funnier than Andy Dick himself. Exhibit A: the Shatner roast Exhibit B: the Pam Anderson roast I'm hot and cold on Lovitz but his slapstick Hitler scene in Rat Race is one of the most hilarious movie moments ever.

You can get plenty of other decent non-TBC wine at TJ's for not much more than $2. There are a couple of Argentine Malbecs that are $3 (at least in California), and a bunch of others in the $4 range. Last weekend I picked up an organic Spanish rioja...I think it was maybe $5. (Note: I'm far from a wine expert and would probably drink any swill out there.)

As I understand it, "Charles Shaw" actually is wine that comes from a variety of wineries, for reasons I'm still not clear on. Since there's no one consistent "Charles Shaw chardonnay," it's possible that the testers got a particularly good bottle. Maybe even TJ's can distinguish which are the best suppliers and entered one of the ones they knew would have a fighting chance.

Yes, the Hitachino white is quite good but also crazy expensive. The red rice ale they make is ok but strange. I sometimes see the Japanese Classic Ale in stores and may pick one up after I've tried a bunch of other stuff.

It doesn't list the city as Detroit. The AP story was filed in Detroit, but it never identifies him running in Detroit. That's all the city label before AP means at the start - that the story was filed there. That said, I'm surprised more people don't jog nude. It might be a growing fad. This is the second case I've heard of this year.