Reflections
November 18, 2011

Somber sunlight strikes the edges of fallen leaves that rustle as I shuffle through. A walk is what I need; a walk is what I get. The air is cool, crisp, and is sharpening to really bite. But this isn't about the air or the sunlight or the leaves. It's about me. It's about time.

Tree shadows play across my face, until I've walked out of their reach, out on the dock, and I look down.

A face looks up at me and behind the face is a shadow. I wave. They wave back. I stop. They stop.

It's like they're trying to compete with me. They're trying to be brighter or darker or biker. Can't people play their own games and let me be?

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Music Associations: Diana Ross - Reflections & Beach Boys - Catch A Wave





The End of Credit Cards (& PayPal)
November 15, 2011

Imagine the hopes and dreams of ten thousand companies and billions of financial transactions improved through a payment system that only costs 25 cents a shot.

Reading the Dwolla story is like having a window into the future. This is good stuff.

Dwolla handles financial transactions, like credit cards and PayPal, but without the percentages. Dwolla currently moves $1 million a day from bank accounts to bank accounts. The transactions are run through The Members Group, which also handles the security. Both Dwolla and The Members Group are headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa.

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Music Association: The O'Jays - For The Love Of Money  "Money, Money, Money"
You'd think I used up all my money music associations with yesterday's post. Heh. My music association wallet is deep, almost endless.
 





November 14, 2011

Black Friday darkens the doorstep of Thanksgiving this year.

Best Buy will open on the cusp of Thanksgiving, midnight Friday morning, under pressure from the other big box stores, like Target, Kohls, and uh, Ace Hardware.

To counter, Walmart will have three different Black Friday start times this year: 10pm on Thanksgiving for toys - home - apparel, midnight for electronics, and 8am Friday for storewide.

Best Buy will entertain waiting shoppers at their Eden Prairie, Richfield, and Maple Grove stores with a screening of the last Harry Potter movie at 9pm.

And Toys R Us will start their sale at 9pm on Thanksgiving.

At least that's what the stores are saying now. They might secretly start a frenzy between now and Black Friday, which is only eleven days away. To celebrate, watch Logorama (2009) and Josie and the Pussycats (2001), not that either are recommended by Hopes-and-Dreams.net.

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Music Associations: The Flying Lizards - Money, The Beatles - Money, & Pink Floyd - Money





Smile, It's Veterans' Day
November 11, 2011

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month was (nearly) when the First World War ended (on the western front).


Here's Elvis in 1959, in Wiesbaden, Germany.

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Music Association: Elvis Presley - G. I. Blues





This Could Be Heaven Or This Could Be Hell
November 10, 2011

A man dies and finds himself in a small room, like a living room from a sitcom. It has a couch and TV set. Another guy is sitting on the couch watching TV. The newly dead guy looks around and asks, "so... is this heaven or hell?"

The other guy looks up and says, "Well, there's no windows or doors, and no apparent way out."

"Oh," says the first guy. "So it's hell."

"Well," says the other guy, without looking up from the screen, "but they did give us this nice HDTV set."

"I see. So maybe it's heaven."

"Yeah, but the TV has only one channel."

"Oh, so maybe it's hell?"

"Well, but the TV station it gets is pretty good -- it's PBS."

"Oh, so maybe it is heaven after all?"

"Yeah, except for just one thing..." the other fellow says, sadly. "It's always pledge week."

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Music Associations: Eagles - Hotel California  "this could be heaven or this could be hell"
                                      Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here "so you think you can tell, heaven from hell"
                                      AC-DC - Highway To Hell  "on the escalator to hell"
                                      Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven "we're climbing the escalator to heaven"





Star Naming
November 9, 2011

How do you honor someone great? Name a star after them?

Please don't. Many companies will gladly take money and write a name in a list, but it has no bearing on the scientific community. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the people who decided Pluto wasn't a planet in 2006, uses numbers to identify stars and publishes a catalog of stars. November is catalog season, but I haven't received my catalog of stars. I threw out the last catalog, the one I received in 2008. Now I find out that was the current one.

The catalog only lists 945,592,683 stars, but there are 7 billionish people on Earth.
There aren't enough stars to go around!

The IAU page link above has an entertaining description for people who are determined to buy a star name. What it doesn't mention is that some astronomical bodies can be named. New planets can be named by their discoverer, provided they follow IAU criteria.

Overheard at the University of Minnesota: "He un-named my planet. He un-named the planet that he named after me! Can you believe that?!? I didn't think he could do that. I mean, everyone knows those star catalogs only come out every seven or eight years..."

As with everything, read the fine print:

Drunk astronomers call the 800 numbers of the star naming companies and sing Bon Jovi, "You give stars a bad name. No-no-no, you give astronomy a bad name."


Some starry night when you're taking a walk with your sweetheart, say, "I named a star after you."
"You did? Which one?"
Pointing, you say, "That one over there."
"That one?"
You say, "No not that one. That's a common star. That one over there. The one that's winking at you."
"That's not a star; that's a plane."
You say, "I didn't name a plane after you. Whoever heard of naming a plane after someone? (A boat maybe...) Not the plane, that star over there."
"That one?"
You say, "Yes."
"When did you do that?"
You say, "Right now."

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Music Association: Guess Who - Star Baby






Meningitis Epidemics May Be Eradicated
November 8, 2011

A new meningitis vaccine is saving thousands of lives and may eradicate meningitis epidemics.

Meningitis is a sometimes-deadly infection of the membranes around the brain and spinal cord caused mainly by viruses or bacteria. Symptoms come on quickly and can include: stiff neck, headache, nausea, or fever. Diagnosis requires a spinal tap.

The exact incidence rate is unknown. Meningitis can occur anywhere, but sub-Saharan Africa has been plagued by huge meningitis epidemics, the largest epidemic was in 1996–1997, causing over 250,000 cases and 25,000 deaths.

In 2001, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided a ten-year, $70 million grant to establish the Meningitis Vaccine Project, a partnership between PATH and the World Health Organization.The Meningitis Vaccine Project partnered with SynCo Bio Partners, a Dutch biotech company, and the US Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research to develop MenAfriVac™, and the Serum Institute of India manufactured it.

The MenAfriVac vaccine was launched in December 2010. Burkina Faso in western Africa was the first country to receive the new vaccine. After a few weeks, everyone from the age of one to 29 was vaccinated -- nearly 12 million people. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger report the lowest number of confirmed meningitis A cases ever recorded during an epidemic season (Dec-June).

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Music Association: Remy Zero - Save Me






The Vikings Brand
November 7, 2011

Every true-purple Minnesota Vikings football fan has the horns, the tailgating grill, and the stadium watch. But what about the Vikings toaster?

The problem with the Vikings toaster is that it doesn't burn in the Vikings logo, just the word "Vikings."

What does a Vikings fan have to do to have Vikings toast... get a Vikings branding iron?

That's it! A Vikings brand!

The advantage of a Vikings brand is that it can Vikingize more foods than just toast.

The disadvantage of a Vikings brand is the hefty price tag and the baggage that goes with it.

The Baggage (Accessories)
The Minnesota Vikings want a new stadium. The State Legislature has offered them the keys (& deed) to the Metrodome, but the Vikings want a new stadium in Arden Hills, the St. Paul suburb. Or the Vikings will run with the ball.

The Vikings contract with the Metrodome signed in 1979 was slated to expire February 1, 2012, except for the force majeure clause, which states "For each football season, or part of football season, while this Agreement is suspended, the term of this Agreement ... shall be extended by one football season." [Strib]  The Metrodome roof collapse last December cut last year's season in the dome short, thus the contract is extended until February 1, 2013.

The leading location for the Vikings to run to is the warm sun of Los Angeles, just like the Minneapolis Lakers did in 1960.

If the Vikings think the stadium situation is bad in Minnesota, which in recent years has built new stadiums for the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota Gophers, it's a building mecca compared to Los Angeles.

Having previously scared away the Rams and Raiders, Los Angeles would welcome the Vikings. Or the San Diego Chargers (contract window: Feb-April 2012), the Oakland Raiders (2014), the St. Louis Rams (2015), Jacksonville Jaguars, or the Buffalo Bills (not while 93 year old owner Ralph Wilson is alive). [Wash Post]

If a stadium is free.

Los Angeles is the film capital of the world and the Failed Stadium Plan Capital of the World. Failed LA stadium plans have included:
Here are the latest LA stadium plans:

Plus, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena is studying letting the NFL use them for a year or two as a source of funding. [LA Times]

Since the NFL left Los Angeles, 22 stadiums have been built and five have had major renovations. Half of the funds used on those stadiums came from public sources, according to Conventions, Sports & Leisure International [ESPN].

The problem with the Vikings brand in Los Angeles is star power. It's tough to be an asteroid in a star field. And no one wants to get burned.

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Music Association: James "Red" McLeod - Skol Vikings  "Go Vikings, Let's Go"







Andrew Rooney (1919-2011)
November 6, 2011

It would probably bother Andy Rooney that we're paying attention to him. He would prefer to try to go about not liking life without anyone noticing. He died Friday night after minor surgery.

Every so often I'll do an imitation of him. It'll be odd to carry on without him.

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Music Association: Adam Ant - Here Comes The Grump





The $65 Funeral by Mike Nichols & Elaine May
November 5, 2011



I'd love to hear a recording of this entire routine.
It was from the Jack Paar Program some Friday night in the early 1960s.


The routine continues with the possibilities for adding music to the funeral. The cheap music option was a girl who could play the organ but only knew one song, Blues in the Night. As the options for additional extras continued, Nichols cuts May off with "(I'll take) the middle one" before she can even begin to describe them. Nichols cries more into his handkerchief to mask laughing out loud and May asks, "Are you alright, sir?"

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Music Association: Cutting Crew - Died In Your Arms






Pick Up The Pieces and Go Home
November 4, 2011

Trouble wears a baggy, sleeve-drooping coat and oversized, unbuckled rubber boots. Trouble lights a cigarette, blows smoke triangles, and reads a sign that says, "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass."

He thinks about it for a few minutes longer than anyone else would, while twirling the ends of his mustache.



With all his faults, even Trouble can't understand why Occupy Wall Street or Occupy West Central at 51st would break the windows of retail establishments. What's the point?

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Music Association: Fleetwood Mac - Gold Dust Woman  "pick up the pieces and go home"







The Keys to Life
November 3, 2011



Okay, but for many, many people, the key to life is clear fresh drinking water. So for them, here's a straw.


Seriously. This is the LifeStraw, a point-of-use water filter for some of the 884 million people who don't have access to clean drinking water. It can be purchased for $19.95 plus shipping. [more options]

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Music Associations: B.B. King - I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water & George Harrison - What Is Life






Gone
November 2, 2011

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Music Associations: Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone & Cars - Since You're Gone
& Groucho Marx - Hello, I Must Be Going





All Saints Day
November 1, 2011

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Music Association: Train - Calling All Angels

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