Lazy Blog

I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but my POS computer bit the dust and I didn't want to put a new video card, or motherboard for that matter, into the box. This opening paragraph inspired by Jim Anchower.

Jim Anchower's Hard Rockin' Home Page

I bought a shiny new laptop, it's totally awesome, it's really fast and has a really good video card. Windows 7 seems alright to me, but I'm having problems figuring out how to make audio come out of the HDMI jack, it says it should but it don't...

Lazy post: email converted to a blog post.
I just love bringing up the Za za za song. But, I have good reason to because last night there was a great interview on Fresh Air of Jake Adelstein who was a reporter in Japan who often covered the Yakuza. Really interesting about how a bunch of the crime bosses came to UCLA medical center (or other Cali medical university) for liver transplants with help from the FBI by rolling on some other Yakuza dudes.

http://www.npr.mobi/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120237244

Transcript:

http://www.npr.mobi/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=120237244

The book sounds really good, plus other book whose authors have been interviewed on Fresh Air have turned out to be great: Fahreed Zakaria's The Post-American World, Illicit, and that book about the ADM informant.

Audio Book Run Down (1)

I got a new job, woot! But, when I was searching for work I was also doing stuff around the house (see the tags marked home project and while I did them I often listened to OPB, music I've got, or audio books. I'm sorta new to audio books and devoting a little bit of the focus to the story while doing something else can be tough.

Here's the list:

Homer's The Illiad then The Odyssey -

Both were great tales of mythological conquest and adventure, I liked the Odyssey more because there was more travel involved while the Illiad is staged in and around Troy, when names are mentioned it's harder to keep track of what they are doing if they aren't moving somewhere. Made me want to reread Route 66 A.D., a great book about the beginning of travel and tourism in times of Ancient Rome.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers then The Tipping Point then started Blink - Outliers is about individuals and other groups of people who have bucked the trends and been successful or limited their success by the culture, period of time in which they lived, and social interactions. Once example I found interesting was about some airline pilots in Korea, because of their social structure the co-pilot often speaks in a differential tone to the captain even when there are serious problems the plane may soon encounter, this made Korean Airlines an outlier because accidents were happening more frequently not because of inexperienced pilots or planes needing repair but because there was an ingrained culture of hierarchy.

I liked The Tipping Point to learn how some new fashion trends had gotten started.

Blink, seemed like stuff I already knew so I didn't finish that one.

Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues, Freaky Deaky, City Primeval, Bandits - These were all great bubble gum novels about detectives bending the law, con men setting up a grift, organized crime, but what made them all great was that they were read by Frank Muller. I just found his personal website and learned that he's dead! He's the best!! Luckily I've got more Frank Muller narrated books for the bus rides.

Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes The Sign of Four - Good story, I couldn't really get into it, but I've got just about the whole Sherlock Holmes collection so I may do them all.

Activity Universal Associates

I went to the farmers market up in St. John's this morning and there was a band called Activity Universal Associates playing on the stage. It was the oddest band I'd ever seen. The video isn't good, I totally cut out the guitar player, but I was more interested in the sound machine the other guy is playing. He use this white card that starts to slide on this machine and makes a series of sounds, then when he slides it back it repeats. He had a couple different kind of cards with different music on them.



This is the only link I could find about them.

Star Trek

David Letterman's Top Ten Things You Won't Hear in a Star Trek movie:

Presented by Leonard Nimoy.

2. Live long, prosper and keep hangin' and bangin'!

1. I find the choice of your hair piece highly illogical.

God I love them both!