Today's Random Myspace Picture

Some friends of mine apparently know this woman. Differential diagnosis is taxidermy versus cat psychosis.

phony beatlemania has bitten the dust

1. Of course every public figure or institution must now have a blog. Yes, even him. No. NO!
   
   
2. They're getting closer to understanding metabolic syndrome which is good for people like me, who have it.
   
   
3. Momus has a pretty good attack on "fashion Goth". Then again, you could probably write that pretty good attack on any trendy horseshit, eh?
   
   
4. The candy marketers have a new! exciting! paradigm! and it is: really big M&Ms.
   
   
5. A hearty "fuck you" to the nerds developing these sonic torture devices for controlling crowds.
   
   
6. Polecats hate freedom. NEVAR FORGET the enemy we all face together.
   
   
7. The Oracle corporation and their million-dollar heavyweight corporate database would like to say this to you: TOAD.

notes from wonderground

I retrieved my car today. Fixing the window cost $479.44. I'm going to split it with Jaime because I could have got a better deal going to a cheaper joint, and because Jaime is a good egg.

Driving in lunchtime traffic through Tustin and Irvine, I encountered the Office Men On Lunch. Groups of men all take lunch together from their desk jobs. Whether it's the clerks at Taco Bell with their ties flipped on the back or the Brooks Brothers smooth execs eating Cobb Salads at the Daily Grill, they have something in common: they're asshole drivers. Without fail, the car stuffed with four guys in button-down shirts will blow a red light, tailgate, cut in and out of traffic, and go 40 mph in the parking lot. A mild-mannered paterfamilias turns into a tire-squealing road rage case in this situation. Hooting like teenagers, he and his buddies flip you off and take the 30 mph onramp at 70, making the Taurus list unhappily to the right and the near-bald discount tires whine in pain.

As far as I can tell, women who go to lunch from work together just go to lunch.

citizenx informs me that his friends The Scattered Pages are playing in San Francisco on Wednesday the 24th at the Rickshaw Stop (8pm, 21+, $6). If you like indie folk/pop music, stop by and enjoy. I liked their song Emily (mp3 download link) from their label's web page.

I want to see this documentary about Freud's influence in America but it's only playing in New York. Apparently Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, invented the term "public relations" and was responsible for quite a few other Faustian ideas.

Not German. Still dead.

The woman who left her limo into traffic the other day here was apparently neither a lead singer nor in a German band. Her name was Jessica Roe and she was the drummer for a Bomp! Records bad-girl band called Les Hell On Heels.

Not the case! Bad reporting from KABC among others. The paragraph below stands.

Apparently she and her boyfriend for some reason told people they were in Rammstein. They rented a limo and ran up a bill of about $3000. And went to the Block and bought clothes at the Hot Topic, did some bar hopping, went to L.A. where he hung out at the Standard while she sat in the limo and boogied with street people to Rammstein, and then headed home except for the part where she dived out of the limo into traffic.

Forbidden donut

UCSF researchers have the first randomized, controlled trial showing that lifestyle-only changes can slow and even reverse cancer. Fascinating results.

On the other hand, you can get a new bacon recipe daily until you inevitably succumb to heart failure.

smog monsters

An interesting story in the New York Times (linked from automotivedigest.com) discusses the problems we're having in Southern California improving air quality. Despite tremendous efforts, greater Los Angeles is in the bottom 3 metropolitan areas for air quality.

As the article points out, we've come a long way. When I was a child in the 1970s, a visit to the city meant a headache, burning sensations in the eyes, and a sulfurous taint to the air. On bad days we'd have smog alerts inland and in the city, occasionally bad enough that the authorities would tell you not to exercise or breathe very much at all, thanks.

Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs led to legislation, and since California is a huge market for automobiles the automakers and oil companies had to cave. Over the last 30 years emissions from vehicles have dramatically reduced. You don't get a sick headache from a summer day in Los Angeles any more, and smog alerts are rare. The ruthless Air Quality people crack down on generators, drive through restaurants, even barbecues to keep particulate matter and ozone out of the air.

It turns out that further improvement may be a lot harder. We're still stuck with the inversion layer that keeps everything squeezed down on top of Los Angeles. There was smog before cars because of this; the Spanish called the Santa Monica Bay the "Bay of Smokes" because it was so hazy from forest fire smog.

And the last big set of air polluters are beyond our reach. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are gigantic and essential to the nation, and they spew the worst possible diesel fumes. Locomotives, idling trucks, and ships are all egregious polluters and for various reasons are beyond the regulatory authority of the State. Locomotives are regulated by the federal EPA, for example, and ships by an International Maritime Organization. The U.S. hasn't ratified the maritime treaty that would somewhat improve our ability to regulate marine pollution. The EPA says that locomotive fuel will become cleaner over five years starting in 2007. And diesel standards for trucks are progressively improving, but only for new engines, leaving an installed base of dirty engines that will be used until they finally die.

Unsurprisingly, shipowners and trucking company bosses are not enthusiastic about upgrading their fuel and engines. So it looks like we're stuck paying a huge price for the nation's import-export economy for at least another 20-30 years.

Once again I'm glad I live by the ocean, where the smog never comes.

DEVELOPING... (the freeway suicide story gets weirder)

Okay, so. CORRECTION! It wasn't Jessica Roe from "Les Hell on Heels". It was Jessica Rowe, of Irvine. And she and her boyfriend claimed to be in Rammstein but their connection to the band is "unknown". OC Register story below.


Camphone pic from the limo driver.

( story )

At this point you have to wonder if they were musicians at all, since I can't imagine how they could be in Rammstein. Maybe they were just rich drunks. We have a lot of those around here.