One of the odd little items my father left behind was a very interesting and beautiful hood ornament. I didn’t know where it came from, but  it was found among his belongings and I wanted it. It’s heavy, and old (much more weathered than the one pictured here). I have long planned to mount it on a proper base… But there was something about this regal little creature just lying on its side that seemed, I don’t know, more appropriate somehow. More a  relic of a bygone age. Just how bygone I never knew.

Until recently. Ava Gardner came onto my radar a few weeks ago. Of course I’d heard the name many times and seen some pictures, but I stumbled across some amazingly timeless images of her in various noir settings, and Holy Shit. Looked like some of these were taken last week. So we rented The Killers and watched it. There she was. Ava the Goddess.

In one of the earlier scenes, Burt Lancaster pops the hood of a big, fancy sedan by lifting up on a lovely ornament. My lovely ornament. The movie was set in ’34, so I searched 1933 hood ornaments, and there she was. With, it turns out, quite an amazing pedigree. From a 1933 Cadillac Phaeton V16. Fitting that I should learn the details in ’08, the flying gal’s 75th anniversary. She’s known as “The Goddess,” and is patented. I don’t know how my father came upon it, but now I certainly know why he kept it. And why I shall keep it as well.

This fun site came to my attention recently, and the reading is good. Says the host, “My name is Tara and I live in a van. Down by the river. And I dance nekkid for money.”

Tara has apparently settled down somewhere recently, but the site offers a wealth of accounts from past adventures. Her writing is warm, down-homey, and crisp. Not to mention drawn from some pretty fascinating material. She also includes plenty of how-to tips. For example, how to stay safe. Or pee. When you live in a van. Down by the river.

For the record, I’m a mostly-OS-agnostic Mac snob who uses PCs a LOT for work, which is 3D animation (Win2K) and writing (Linux or XP on my laptop of choice, an IBM ThinkPad).

It came to me the other day. Here it is:

Windows (and most PC hardware) is designed by engineers.

OS X (and Apple’s hardware) is engineered by designers.

That’s it.

What about Linux? Engineered by engineers, unfortunately. But lately (thank god), they’ve been talking to designers!

Surprise. Turns out people drinking more expensive wine don’t actually enjoy it more than the cheap crap unless you tell them the secret.

Oh, how many things in life are just like that.

Many firsts for me this year:

• First $$ donations to any political campaign, ever.
• First lawn sign.
• First vote for a presidential candidate younger than me.
• First vote for a black man.
• First time I felt proud, and honored, to vote for anything or anyone.

I love it.

Religion has been getting a bad rap. But it’s not Religion that’s the problem. It’s Faith. Faith extolled as unassailable virtue. Faith in the light of conflicting or even contradictory evidence. That’s actually the psychiatric definition of delusion.

Cling to any other such belief (in light of invalidating evidence), and people will rightfully worry about you. For example, that there is (more…)

How pathetic is it that the guys who own the frickin’ marketplace spend a gajillion dollars to A) hire an aging comedian to prove that they’re “hip,” and B) create an entire campaign that is essentially a response to someone else’s better idea. Gah. And to top it off, the ads were created on a Mac.

Here’s my recut tribute to MSoft and their pure and total awesome.

I recently slid up against the whole Getting Things Done thing. Sites that refer to it often (or are actually all about it) have slowly made their way into my regular visit list for being so damn smart and useful… The idea simply reached critical mass, and I had to check it out.

I didn’t buy the book or anything. Let’s not get crazy. But I did manage to get quite a bit of value just from (more…)

My favorite radio show is Left Right and Center. On last week’s episode, I heard something that has resonated with me ever since. The conversation, at one point, led to the observation that, if one were to simply take “the average American voter” and list the major policy positions of Democrats vs. Republicans for him or her, the majority of people will choose Democratic. And yet — Republicans win. Why? WTF is that about?

Tony Blankley (speaking for The Right) answered simply, and candidly. He said (more…)

One of my regular webstops is the blog of one “Ashley Blue” (real name Oriana Small), porn actress, artist, and barer of mind, body and soul. Ashley/Oriana is a remarkably unremarkable-looking woman whose work apparently includes the kind of porn where girls pretend (one hopes) to be forced to choke and gag and cry. Etc.

Her blog is brilliant, and addictive; nothing more than a simple selection of (more…)