I'm surprised Starbucks hasn't opened on Lark Lane already.

Our mains electricity cut out earlier causing widespread panic around the nine rooms that constitute the flat. I tried turning everything, I thought, flicked some switches, but nothing would work. We rang the electrician who visited just twenty minutes later, an older man with a youngster close-by. This is the set up whenever a repairman visits. Always two there are, the master and the apprentice. Sorry. Anyway, he enters, opens the cupboard, flicks a few switches, and the power comes back on. Apparently he has twenty identical calls a day because people don’t know how the system works and he’s basically training us, once household at a time.

Robert Altman: His dangerous angel remembers
Virginia Madsen talks about working with the director on his final film, A Prairie Home Companion, which I adored.

Something Awful Weddings
Example: "Elbowed my cousin's four year old step-daughter in the face on accident as she jetted across the dance floor."

McDonalds Japan Goes No-Brand with Quarter Pounder Shops

I haven't been underneath the golden arches for well over two years now, but I'm forever tempted. Apart from the health and environmental issues, I'm always concerned that I'll be disappointed. Last time I tasted a Big Mac it was very flat.

Atari: The Golden Years
Ataris were always something other people owned so this is a good way to catch up on someone else's history.

A Pop Culture Rant...Feel Free to Skip
Alternate commentary on Heroes taking a much more balanced approach than I did the other day. We're pretty much in agreement -- Kring can't see the wood for trees and doesn't know what the strengths of his own series are. I showed the infamous panel to a work colleague the other day. She said: "I mean what's he got the whine about?" Meanwhile:

Tim Kring Apologizes For 'Mangled Quote'
This is looking increasingly like the Ratners moment for the series. I expect he'll be fired if there's a fourth season and someone good like Bryan Fuller will be installed. If only Joss were free.

Challenged Ballots: You Be The Judge
A range of challenged ballots from the narrowing Coleman/Franken senate race. I don't understand how some of these could happen. All they're doing is colouring in an oval.

BBC Audio Returns
A whole raft of off-air audio recording from lost BBC programmes have been 'returned' to the archive and he's a list of new merchandising opportunities.

Modern Pentathlon change irks Livingston
"The sport's governing body has voted to combine the disciplines of shooting and running into one event from January." Yes, really. I expect it's to delineate the running discipline from athletics, but I can't see how making it a start-stop-shoot-start-stop-shoot will help the sport's media profile.

Be-A-Magpie Is PayPerPost For Twitter
Wrong headed attempt to monetarise Twitter; as TechCrunch notes if all someone is posting is adverts there's little incentive to continue following them.

Richard Klein named as BBC4 controller
This is excellent news and the linked article is full of juicy quotes demonstrating why. Example: "Too many docs are commissioned, frankly, to do no more than shock and titillate, to thrill. They may well have a semblance of insight but actually it is a mask to feed our baser desires to stare, to mock, to revel in sensation." Hopefully this means Storyville is safe again for the time being.

Fed up Liverpool-Manchester passengers put squeeze on East Midlands Trains by sending controller something fishy in post
It's my old commuter line again. Enough being enough, a new protest group has been formed who will be sending tins of sardines to the management to see if it'll get them to budge and put more carriages on the service. A spokesman on the television earlier said they were aware of the problem and were talking about increasing regularity, but that's not what people are asking for. They just want to know that they can get on the train safely with it arrives. Here's a video of a typical morning service.

public radio podcasts rss feeds
The NPR's own website lacking its own feeds, a fan has set up a website filled with them instead.

BBC: Are there too many bars on Lark Lane?
Lark Lane - boho retreat or binge-drinking strip?
Considering its only across the park from me, I visit Lark Lane less and less. When we first moved here, it was a novelty in comparison to Speke and the city centre, quirkier. Now it seems have become infected by a problem which blights the city in general -- that whenever a property does become vacant it becomes a bar or restaurant or chain coffee shop. I'm surprised Starbucks hasn't opened on Lark Lane already. Not that I wouldn't be too averse to having a Starbucks in walking distance. Ooh, now I'm conflicted.

Yves Klein Blue
If only all band names were this clever.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re the Minnesota ballot: Heavens above! People don't necessarily have high enough literacy levels to complete the task, and it's unfair to blame them. The ballot designers need to look at the issue and redesign the process, user test etc.

Stuart Ian Burns said...

Bob: I was being sarcastic. It's stupid that people have to fill in a little round circle to signal their vote -- I have enough problems myself having to do the same in the uk to do the lottery each week. What's wrong with having crosses and boxes?

I appreciate that there are more voters in the US than UK and they don't want to be getting results the next day so want to pass the things through machine counters which is why it's done this way, but in the UK we have hand counts and that works perfectly well and it means as far as I know every vote is counted and matters before an election is called.

Anonymous said...

With respect, it didn't come across as sarcastic - just condescending.

The US ballots were a lot more complex than just marking your choice for the President. Some states were voting on dozens of other propositions at the same time, and on the same paper. For a human to tally up totals for each of these would take forever in the larger states!

Anyway, my point was that if people are experiencing issues with marking their ballots correctly it suggests that there's a problem with the design of the ballot paper (instructions, markings and so on) which needs to be addressed even before the issue of how to count the ballots is looked at.

Rob Buckley said...

"If only Joss were free."

Dollhouse is airing on Fox on Fridays. What do you think?

Stuart Ian Burns said...

Bob: I'm sorry you think that way, but I really wasn't.

Rob: I'm optimistic.

Anonymous said...

No need to apologise! It's your communication skills which are the issue here - not my feelings.