Sunday Jewy Sunday

PBS's NYC affiliate Channel 13 is going heebolicious this coming Sunday playing not one but four shows in a row that have the word "Jew" not only in the title but in caps no less.

First off is an encore of the recent landmark series The Jewish Americans. All three episodes will be shown in order, starting at 10 am and ending sometime around 5 pm. In seven short hours, one can see the entirety of the Chosen People's US experience. It reeks of a pledge drive but should be interesting - luckily my TiFaux has one of those new fangled fast forward buttons.

Next comes The Jews of New York. I'm sure it only sounds like The Gangs of New York but who knows, maybe it will have a Meyer Lansky shout-out. I think pound for pound there are more great Jews in or from New York than in or from all the other US cities combined. Considering more Jews live in the Tri-State area than in Israel, that's a pretty safe bet.

I'm kvelling already.

I've Got A Fever And The Doctor Ordered More Dark Tower

Stephen King's site today informed me that Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1 will be arriving in stores at 12:01 AM, March 5th, 2008 (at participating comic stores). The writing crew of Robin Furth & Peter David and artists Jae Lee & Richard Isanove will be joined by special guest variant cover artist (and Marvel Editor-In-Chief) Joe Quesada to create the second limited series inspired by Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series.

Just like the first one, The Gunslinger Born, this limited series will be overseen by Stephen King himself. Just like the first one, Dark Tower: The Long Road Home explores a chapter in Roland's life only hinted at in the novels. Just like the first one, I expect it to be friggin sweet, kick total ass and to be just what the doctor ordered. One can never get enough of the Dark Tower mythos - not me at least.

Is it March yet?

Skynet Isn't That Far Away

PC Magazine has a short article about how hackers have been able to take control of certain power grids. It seems that several cities outside the U.S. have sustained attacks on utility systems and extortion demands and the CIA is taking careful note of what happened to try and prevent it from happening within our borders.

Considering the Internet really does not have any borders, this is troubling news as the world becomes more and more computerized. Let's hope that the sys admins who manage our vital infrastructure locations have changed their default passwords from "password" to something harder to crack than "p@ssw0rd."

Hudson River Trifecta

On Wednesday this past week, I hit the Hudson River Road Crossing Trifeca, travelling across the GWB, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel all within 6 hours. I'm not sure if this is cool or not but I thought I'd share in case. While this is not exactly like the guy who is living in IKEA right now it is sort of like it, a useless but interesting tidbit.

4:13 of Happiness While In Retail Hell

When I worked in retail clothing during high school in Roosevelt Field, the brightest star in the LI mall constellation, I had to listen to the store's musical soundtrack four times during a shift. The tapes were exactly two hours long, were controlled and sent by Corporate and changed on a monthly basis.

Music became an obsession of mine while I was there. I actually did not mind getting in an hour or two before the store opened so I could blast Black Sabbath while folding clothes. When the store opened though, we went with the Corp tape and man did it suck.

One summer, each and every minute of one month, I cannot remember if it was July or August, was spent listening to utter shite, the dreck of drecks and I was completely and utterly miserable almost all day long. Only one song was good and it was my saving grace: "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits.

When I think of the song I immediately think of the video, unlike almost any other song. First off, it is one of the first videos I can remember (like Thriller) but even more importantly, I just loved it. I mean loved it. I think the infatuation was completely because of its sports bloopers. The song and video was a stepping stone - I went from simply liking sports to enjoying, caring about, following, etc both sports and music. Years later, when music started to overtake sports in my life in terms of what made my motor run, here was this magical song, pregnant with memory, bringing me four minutes and 13 seconds of happiness every two hours.

When I heard the tune at that time I remembered my childhood and drifted away from everything else for that short time. Now, when I hear that song, I have a compound of memories. I remember my high school years, the days when I worked only in the summer, the transition from being dependent to independent on top of those suburban childhood thoughts.

So, happy Friday - enjoy it with good tunes as you do the walk, the walk of life...

From the "You Cannot Make This Up" Dept

I wish this was a joke but it is not: this Pakistan Airlines ad appeared in the March 19th, 1979 issue of Le Point (and surely countless other publications).

As 2spare.com points out, the shadow is in pretty much in the same place as where the planes hit on September 11th, and there's no way the shadow should be that big unless it's seconds away from hitting the towers.

Cue the conspiracy theories.

Via Phyl.

New Designs, Devices and User Experiences for 20008

The new year always brings new resolutions. Mine this year is twofold: to try and post more frequently and to change my eating habits. For the first one, in the words of Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food, I plan to "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

For the second, as my first post of the year, I thought I would share some spiffy new designs, devices and user experiences that are in store for us in 2008 and beyond. These are really, really cool. I'm not easily "wowed" these days but over and over again I found myself scratching my head and thinking "how do they come up with this stuff?"

Check out the Innovative Designs and Devices and User Experiences of the Future courtesy of Smashing Magazine.

I love the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard, the Hi-Tech Office: Eclipse Partitioning System and the Reactable. Most of these are spec only and not for sale which is good for me - it limits the temptation to run out and buy them today.