Google gives a shout out to FLW by displaying “Fallingwater” and the Guggenheim Museum on its home page:
While Jessie does not necessarily love museums, I can always get her excited about going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by telling her we’ll stop by the Frank Lloyd Wright room. It is by far her favorite part of the museum and its one of my favorites too. The fact that it happens to be next to Arms and Armor? Well, that just makes it even better.
State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the 3 most powerful politicians in NYS, has effectively killed the West Side Stadium project by stating that he will vote no at tonight’s Public Authorities Control Board meeting. This little known (before the stadium debate that is) board has only 3 people on it – the others are Governor George Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno – and all 3 need to vote yes in order for the project to move ahead.
At a press conference today he said, “This plan is at best, premature” and, because he feels that the new retail and office development planned for the area around the stadium might hamper redevelopment at the World Trade Center site, which sits a few miles to the south and is part of Mr. Silver’s district, he said, “Am I supposed to sell out thee community I have fought for and I have represented? Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower Manhattan?” Mr. Silver said rebuilding Lower Manhattan was a “moral” issue and dismissed the stadium plan as simple “ambition.”
I heard the speech live and was very impressed on how he hit on all the points that I care about and how he was able to successfully issue a rebuttal against all arguments for the stadium. He offered better reasons that I have ever been able to articulate and from now on I am going to say to anyone else who is in favor of the stadium, “Just go read Sheldon’s D-Day speech” instead of debating them because I can’t do it better than Mr. Silver.
As an aside, I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic caused by an afternoon Yankee game on the GWB 2 weeks ago when everyone in the car at the same time asked, “And they want to put a stadium on the West Side?! What are they nuts?!” I’m glad that one elected leader, especially a very powerful one, is still, in my opinion, sane.
To following up on a post from February, Peru’s little mermaid, Milagros Cerron, underwent successful surgery to seperate her legs this past Tuesday.
To me, one of the most interesting parts of this story is that “like many poor people in Peru’s Andes, Milagros’ parents — young, humble and devoutly religious people — at first saw her deformity as a punishment from God and had to be convinced that a medical solution existed,” said Dr. Luis Rubio. “Other babies born with congenital defects are often abandoned to die.” I’m glad to see that she is not under the sea in Davy Jones’ Locker but rather living and breathing. Here’s to here continued recovery.
Chris has been on a posting tear lately, putting up all sorts of good stuff. Here are two of my favorites:
Via Blahblahblog
The Washington Post today has a story about how police in Shelbyville stormed a convenience store, freed a woman who was held hostage for 20 hours and killed the suspect in an exchange of gunfire. I hope Springfield isn’t next. Just in case, Apu should get extra security at the Kwik-E-Mart as a precaution.
I have not really liked any of the new bands that have entered the musicscape the past few years – I’m not sure if its because I’m getting older, if I’m not listening to the right bands or if its because most of the music today sucks. Its probably a combination of the 3 because recently my friends Jordan and Greg have turned me onto some good new music from the likes of Bloc Party and the Arcade Fire so to paraphrase the Descendents, “everything doesn’t totally suck today.”
One band that has definitely caught my attention however is System of a Down. I have loved their sound, their style and their weirdness since I first heard “Sugar” on the radio in the late 90’s. They recently released their third album “Mezmerize” and it is down right kick ass. I got it and I suggest you do too because its really, really good.
In the most recent Rolling Stone mag, an interview with the band has given me even more reason to love them – they are all full-blown geeks. For instance, their drummer John Dolmayan has storage space in a North Hollywood warehouse to store his collection of comic books, action figures and video games. At the start of the interview he said, “Dude, I like comic books. How cool could I fucking be? Dungeons and Dragons is badass. If I could find a good dungeon master, I’d play a game.” So would I dude, so would I…
Rock fucking on!
The answer is “maybe never.” One my favorite movie quotes all time is from Spaceballs – its the classic “We’re looking at now, sir. Everthing that happens now is happening now…” quote (I’ve included the entire quote after the jump). However, a young astrophysicist named Peter Lynds has forumlated a theory which states that “time” is merely an illusion, that time has no divisible unit and therefore there is no “now,” only sequences of events. I know what you are thinking – “Whoa.” I’ll give you a second to process that.
He came up with this idea after watching IQ back home in New Zealand – I shit you not. After the movie, he couldn’t shake the idea that if Zeno’s paradoxes are true, then there is no such thing as a discrete slice of time. So, he began working on a paper stating as such and eventually it was published to widespread notoriety.
His theory threatens to turn the entire physics universe on its head and here’s the best part: he’ a 30 year old college dropout living in a hillside flat described by a Wired reporter as a “cross betwen a tree house and a Hobbit hole.” In fact, the entire Wired article about Peter Lynds is a fascinating read and I heartily suggest you read it.
As promised, one of my favorite quotes of all-time:
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now. You’re looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What hapened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We’re at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: I can’t.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.
Dark Helmet: How soon?
Private: Sir.
Dark Helmet: What?
Private: We’ve identified there location.
Dark Helmet: Where?
Private: It’s the moon of Vega.
Colonel Sandurz: Good work. Set a course and prepare for our arrival.
Dark Helmet: When?
Private: 1900 hours.
Colonel Sandurz: By high noon tomorrow they will be our prisoners.
Dark Helmet: WHO!?
I usually do not post about celebrities but this was hard to resist. It seems that Burt Reynolds decided to vent his anger over his recent awful plastic surgery by slapping one poor CBS News reporter. When the reporter professed his ignorance about the plot of “The Longest Yard,” Reynolds gave him a good one. I find it funnier how he never broke eye contact with the camera while physically and then verbally abusing said reporter. As Warner Wolf would say, “let’s go to the video tape!”
Challenge Darth Vader to a game of 20 questions he likes to call The Sith Sense. My object was an radish which he guessed on the 17th question. Once again, the agency handling the Burger King account has developed a seriously cool viral concept. I especially likes the effect when Vader shakes your screen.
Cool stuff.
Thanks Scott
The ‘Boards magazine site has 3 fantastic ads for the new “Star Wars Revenge of the Sith” video game. Enjoy Paperboy, and Pigeons and my personal favorite Dodgeball.
Via Blahblahblog