and vinylly....my last blog of 2005....

the most improved dj award goes to:

mr. tancred dickens!

happy new year, everyone!

letter to the new york times

Dear New York Times, & Richard Feast in particular,

Are you in fact an automobile writer? I ask that, because I’ve just stumbled across your pathetically unimaginative write up of the new Bugatti Veyron. (Dec. 25^th)

“It would be nice to relate that this reporter's driving skills are capable of wringing the maximum from the Veyron. They are not, but they were enough to determine that at really high speeds the car is quiet, comfortable, refined - and as easy to drive as Mr. Bscher says. The car's everyday top speed of 234 m.p.h. is enough to make it a king of the road. To be the performance emperor, though, the driver must resort to a second ignition key to the left of his seat.”

Wow! Richard; that left me panting harder than an asthmatic ant, carrying a small leaf up a very gentle incline, at a leisurely pace, stopping off to read last Tuesdays obituaries, while waiting for a double mocha decaf latte, as he checks his blackberry for e-mails sent earlier about how to get the best deals on figurines on QVC. You get the point? Dull! Dull, Zzzzzzz…

How in God’s name did you get this job?

Psst! you want to know how a real motoring journalist writes about the world’s fastest production car? I suggest you start by reading Car Magazine’s story by Jason Barlow, on page 120 of the December 2005 issue.

In fact, I suggest you read all of Car Magazine’s stories, and hopefully become enlightened by the art of the true motoring hack. That way, at least i hope you won’t continue to murder the Queen’s English with such a dull quill.

With due deference, I await your next article. Or response.

All gripes aside: - Happy New Year to everyone at the New York Times!

Mark Solomon

Washington, D.C.

Mark.a.solomon@gmail.com

defying nature

stayed in, as no djing tonight.

just watched "march of the penguins" on dvd.

i'm definitely not coming back as a male emporer penguin.

grizzly man

watched "grizzly man" on dvd.

a great film. difficult to watch this particular human being at times, but that's what makes this film great.

conclusion: don't live with bears.

it's life, jim

but not as we know it.

Graz removes Schwarzenegger name

Officials in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian hometown of Graz have removed his name from a football stadium in an ongoing row over the US death penalty.

The California governor has said he no longer wants to be honoured by Graz, where he has been criticised for denying clemency to a death row inmate.

death penalty views aside; how reassuring for californians that their governor wants to cut his ties with his hometown, the cultural capital of europe, 2003.

like they say: "you can take the trash out of the trailor park......"
i don't think austria has an equivalent....

ah....the agony of choice...

what to do on new year's eve....

whatever we do, it will have nothing to do with this disturbing character, or television.

mercedes, green light, police car, action - whiplash!

just your average start to christmas day. rebecca and i left the apartment around 1:15pm to head out to see her family for lunch and presents. at the junction of new york ave. & florida, we have to stop on a green light for a police car, siren-on, travelling across our right of way. unfortunately for us, the driver of the green mercedes behind us, apparently didn't see or hear the police car, and rear-ended us at i guess about 20 mph. fair amount of damage to the rear of our car, and extensive damage to the front of the merc. the driver explained that it was her mother's car and that she'd never had an accident before....if she can't see us, the police car going across the road, or hear it's siren, this probably will not be her last...

we exchanged details, and rebecca phoned the insurance company, so i guess it will all eventually sort itself out. we were lucky that we were able to drive the car and didn't have to wait for a tow. but we both have really sore necks and headaches from the whiplash, which isn't exactly what you expect on christmas day. tomorrow, or tuesday, i guess we'll go to the doctor and spend the morning getting checked out - (you never really want to go to hospital on christmas day unless you absolutely, really, really have to).

rebecca didn't get to see her family, or exchange presents, and we had chinese food delivered for our dinner (many thanks to khan for the suggestion and peking garden for actually being open), as we had no food in the house.

here's hoping tomorrow will be ever-so-slightly better :)

all the best

season's greetings, everyone!

like a ghost town

there's hardly anyone moving around d.c. this morning.

tonight, we're heading over to science club for open turntables, and some decidedly non-christmas music. wednesday night was great! a very good night was had by all.

we walked past rumours on the corner of 19th. you couldn't have paid me enough to go in. lots of drunk people to accompany the musical commercial banality.

i paid the price on thursday at gazuza, where there was maybe 30-odd people, and i didn't know anyone apart from the staff.

dick & george; they're rascally, those two...

from the new york times:-the national security agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and internet communications.....the volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the white house has acknowledged, the officials said. it was collected by tapping directly into some of the american telecommunication system's main arteries.

this is very different from the line being doled out by the white house. i doubt that terrorists are making large volumes of telephone calls about anything, so data-mining, much like trawling for fish is a catch-all vehicle.

makes you feel all cosy, doesn't it?

i live a few blocks from the white house. this national symbol now resembles some sorry, whitewashed fortressed garrison. freedom? anyone know the color code for terrorist threat for today.....

executive power? i wouldn't put bush in charge of making me a cup of tea. he can't do anything else right...

sanity prevails.

intelligent design got the thoroughly good kicking its proponents deserved. how arrogant and insular from the real world about them that they want the very definition of science changed so as to accommodate their beliefs. refusing to acknowledge or accept any line of reasoning that goes against them, the director of communications at the discovery institute's center for science and culture had this to say of the recent ruling by judge john e. jones:

robert crowther II: "the recent ruling on intelligent design is rife with false assertions and mischaracterisations of the theory of intelligent design." really? i read what judge jones said and it sounded very thoughtful and reasonable. unlike your complete and utter devotion to "intelligent design" - religion dressed up so as to further its own aims.

i say: it's precisely because intelligent design is not a valid theory that you lost. you and your experts have yet to even make a case for a valid hypothesis, let alone a theory. in science, a successful theory must stand up to scepticism and observation. theory is continually honed to provide a better explanation of observed phenomena. schools around the world have this as the very bedrock of education.

i have many theories about a lot of things i feel strongly about. no doubt some are near the mark and others are way off. very few of them should be considered anything more than ideas. i certainly don't want education to be changed to 'fit in' with my ideolegy.

science's greatest and unassailable strength is that it doesn't care whether anyone 'likes' it's results; especially those that would corrupt the way children are taught in an environment, hopefully free from radical intervention by extremists who don't possess the capacity to admit any wrong.

just what evidence would you accept mr. crowther? or isn't there any.......perhaps that's why sanity prevailed. i bet the fact that it was a bush-appointed judge didn't go down well, either!

after all, as your response so eloquently shows, if you've already made your mind up, what's the point of debate?

king kong

this movie is incredible!

happy birthday!

to my niece, tara, in spain.

and here's a true player

from the daily telegraph (uk): "11/25/05. George Best, one of the world's greatest-ever footballers, has died in a west London hospital after a long battle with alcoholism. He was 59."

unlike david beckham, george was universally loved by everyone. it was impossible not to forgive him for being a drunk.

today, where everyone's got an ipod but no-one's looking happy, where it's 'coo'l to be this, and it's 'cool' to do that, and it's 'cool' to go there, and everything's cool, blah, blah, blah...' i.e. 'name dropping'......

o.k. ladies; beckham may be both 'hot' and 'cool' (eh?), but george was the real thing. and there's not a bloke in england that would disagree, whether you supported man. u or not.

cheers to you, george! i'll have a few beers tonight in your honour, because as a kid, i spent countless hours glued to the tv, watching your magic on the football field.

here's what a true fan is.....in my book:

every weekend, when i watch an nfl game, i hear the same, tired, line from the commentators: 'these fans are the best'. 'these fans, blah, blah, blah...'

nonsense! from what i've seen, the majority of american fans can't even deal with losing.

so as to avoid confusion, here's what a true fan is in my book:

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watched your team lose...
by home, i mean actually in attendence at the stadium; not sitting on your couch, watching tv.

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing...(because there aren't any seats...)

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...with no cover...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...with no cover...when they're in the 4th division...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...with no cover...when they're in the 4th division...with the season lost...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...with no cover...when they're in the 4th division...with the season lost...and gone home very depressed...

when you've stayed to the end (at home) and watch your team lose - standing - in the cold - when it's raining...with no cover...when they're in the 4th division...with the season lost...and gone home depressed...and then gone out for some beers with your mates.

and yes: i have done all of the above. and on more than one occasion (most regrettably).

the team: cambridge united. (they really were crap) the sport: football.

did you know...

...that cbs is 'america's most watched network'?

anyone watching the colts game did...

cbs: america's worst nfl coverage....

an air of entitlement

we walked to dupont circle this morning to get a coffee, and was heading to cvs, where we have to stop, along with a couple of others as the cars have the green light. three girls, the one in the middle talking, walk straight across into the path of on-coming traffic, not once looking at the lights and two cars have to stop because of them. the guy next to me is shouting to the girl in the middle: "watch the traffic!", pointing at the stop sign we (the pedestians) have.

indignant, she starts berating the guy for shouting at her. the guy (quite rightly) replies that he was only trying to stop her from being run over. she reponds "i'm not stupid. i'm not a retard!", at which point i butt in and say "i'm with him. he's right. and yes you are!

we all go our way as the lights change. i'm sure the idiot of a girl, full of an air of self-entitlement, goes on to complain about us to her friends, instead of thanking the guy for looking out for her. the amazing thing was that she never even acknowledged that she wasn't in the right, let alone that she caused two cars to brake in the middle of the road, just because she was unaware of the situation.

National Strategy for Victory in Iraq

i always allow comments (profanity-free, as i have family members that check it out) to my blogs. it seems reasonable to me if i'm allowed to say whatever i like, then people ought to be allowed to respond freely.

however; i received one this morning about a blog i did on september 15th, about president bush's job approval hitting a low of 41%. amazed that 41% of americans actually thought he was doing a good job, i wrote something sarcastic and included an image of a tipped balance - to represent the biased news media fed to most cable subscribers. does anyone actually think that fox news is a news provider? i also included an image of a painting done by my friend, katie didreksen, showing bush and cheney in an amusing setting - this was long before they wanted to keep torture legal on detainees.....i'm sure the whitehouse lawyers are busy at work writing legalspeak definitions that will save the use of inhuman practices outlawed by most of the western world

the response i received from that post (no names, as this person isn't spamming me) :

"Mmm.... so what?"

come on! i'm looking for biting, scathing, intelligent, sarcastic, witty retorts from those that disagree. i don't consider "Mmm... so what?" to offer any of those. Mmm: i can only presume this individual is one of the 41%......that's what.

one other thing: it's great to look up and check someone elses blog when they reply to your blog and all you see is: "this account is closed". that's it! pistols at dawn! :)

last, but by no means least: here's rooting for tampa bay against new england, and for the colts to beat the chargers. as for the redskins-cowboys game: it's do or die weekend for washington.

as that affable texan says:

bring 'em on!.....