Ploafmaster General

Words fail to express how surreal and messed-up is the very notion of a whole chicken in a can.

I made my inglorious return to Facebook several weeks ago because I got tired of calling up my mom to tell her stuff only to find she already knew because of her friend status with various people I know. So I'm back in the loop, at least for now. I still see the same thing as I did over a year ago - people friend each other, and once you've made your digital connections there's little else to do but post status messages and use their mountains of useless apps.

But now it's just a bigger and more tangled mess, and no more so than on the default view when you log in: the News Feed.

I feel that there's very little rhyme or reason to this view. Here you have a jumble of status updates, comments, fan-mentions, sponsor surveys, app notices, friend notices, et cetera. Is it chronological? At first it may appear that way, but over the course of any given day I begin to notice certain items jumbling, disappearing, reappearing, moving further up or down the list, and who knows what else. It's fairly often that I see something posted early in the week suddenly appear underneath a status message posted two hours ago even though there are more recent items below.

There. I've released a little bit of steam over this still-almost-entirely-a-waste-of-my-time website. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm still on Facebook. Maybe in another year I'll look at it the way I look at my cell phone - just another "necessary" communication tool. But for now it feels like using cough syrup; you feel like it could be helpful, but it's disgusting all the way down.

Oh man...Layer Tennis starts again today. Set your phasers to "stun" and your Interwebs to today's match.

Should be grand!

As part of their "One in 8 Milliion" series, the NY Times site has a short audio/photo piece on Georgiana DePalma Tedone, a 90-year-old who still makes her own mozzarella cheese in Brooklyn.

If you can't laugh or at least smile at this, then your heart is an untended garden of dead things:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVblWq3tDwY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

Goodness gracious, I couldn't have said it better myself...Michael Ruhlman rants about the anti-bacterial obsession of American culture.

Hey, guess what? I eat pork that's pink in the middle. I eat burgers cooked medium...sometimes medium rare (even at - gasp! - restaurants). Ever since I was a kid, I've been eating leftover pizza that spent the night in a cardboard box on the kitchen counter. And you know what? I get sick maybe once every 12 months or so - and it hasn't been a digestive problem in at least 5 years.

Correlation is NOT causation, but I do subscribe to the notion that being less fanatical about food sanitation (while not ignoring common sense precautions) makes for a stronger immune system.

I'm a big fan of Dan Benjamin and his many varieties of content on the web. But today he posted an entry on his blog that he calls "Help for The Potential Vegetarian." I think he wisely disable comments on his post, but I wanted to say something about it, and my own blog is the ideal venue, so here goes. From his (short) post:

"For those of you on the fence about becoming a vegetarian, just watch this video showing how bacon is made..."

The YouTube clip is from the show How It's Made and shows how bacon is produced on an industrial scale.

Okay, I have no problem with Dan Benjamin or anybody else that is a vegetarian. It's a personal decision, and while I don't always agree with everybody's reason, I see no moral problem in one's electing to keep meat out of one's diet. But how is this supposed to help a person on the fence about vegetarianism make a decision?

Is a person considering vegetarianism because of health reasons? Then you don't need to see a bacon facility to make up your mind. What about vegetarianism for the sake of the animals? Well we don't see how the pigs were raised/fed/slaughtered in this video, so no help there. And if you just don't think it's right to kill an animal, you'd avoid bacon (or other meat) before watching this clip anyway. I mean, frankly, if you didn't know bacon wasn't healthy or that it came from an animal before watching this clip, you're probably not intelligent enough to make the call on vegetarianism anyway. Just keep eating your Cheerios, and somebody will take you to nap time shortly...

Dan's post bugs me because it seems to say, "Look at this gross industrial process. Are you sure you want to eat that?" If this video grosses you out and you're not already a vegetarian, I think it makes a stronger case against commercial meat processing than it does against meat in general. In fact, I'd say that commercial food production for some vegetarian or vegan foods might look just as unappetizing.

So again, no disrespect to Mr. Benjamin. I simply wish his post was a bit better...um...fleshed out. Now I'll go on waiting for the next episode of Tack Sharp :-)

I feel like a pretty dry well these days, so forgive me while I resort to the ol' blogging standard of simple links to amusing diversions...

I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't tell everybody about my friend Patrick's new Tumblog, tasty hip hop treats. If you're a fan of clever music regardless of the genre, give this a look. Patrick is beginning to curate a fine selection of beats, songs, and collections, much of which is free at least for the listening (and some for the downloading, too).

Look, it's all worth it at least for Dert's Talk Strange.

Whether or not you like the new administration, I think it's a nice symbolic move that Whitehouse.gov now has a blog. Let's hope the updates are frequent and substantive.

The A.V. Club has a tasty new design...

For whatever reason this morning I felt compelled to read up a bit on US founding father Benjamin Franklin. Among the description of his inventions was an item called the "glass armonica" - a mechanical arrangement of glass bowls which rotate about a coincident axis. Such an arrangement allows many notes to be played simultaneously compared to simple water-filled goblets, for example. During its heyday, the instrument was the center of works from composers such as C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven, and even Mozart, as in this piece:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXSnI8VTIDM&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

It turns out the glass armonica - or glass harmonica - is still manufactured, though it certainly isn't cheap.

As parodies go, David Friedman's The Breakfast Cereal Club has the taste you can see.

Okay, so it's in German (I believe), and it's apparently a car commercial (we never see the car, and that Saturn logo doesn't look familiar...), but this is pure dope-aliciousness:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzd1OiP27s0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

So it turns out you can make your own B&W film developer using coffee, sodium carbonate (soda ash or washing soda), and water. I don't know that I'm up for trying this out just yet, but it sure seems like a good idea in a pinch, and would likely work out much cheaper than a packet of Dektol.

There's even a group on Flickr dedicated to homemade film chemistry with enough solid results to make this look viable.

If this doesn't make you smile I don't want to know what does:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

The New York Times has a great article that fusses a little obsessively and in great detail over that most magical of ingredients, butter. There's a great mix of low-level science and advice tucked into what is ostensibly a discussion of Christmas cookies.

The A.V. Club is one of very few movie review sites which I read, so while I'm sure it's contentious, I'm pleased to see their list of the best films of 2008. There are movies on this list of which I've never heard but, with their (as usual) solid commentary, I may just have to investigate a few of these further.

We hated the snow and we needed the snow—what were we going to dash through once springtime arrived?

Jon Mehtven brings a little Christmas and economic levity with his Christmas Carols, Revised for the Recession.

Amazon and IMDB have collaborated on a music website called SoundUnwound - and it even has some wiki-like elements allowing users to submit page edits (I've already submitted corrections for Steve Taylor's page). It's not the prettiest website around, but it does have sound clips from AmazonMP3, YouTube clips, and plenty of room for growth.

With its strong backers and potential, this site may surpass the Allmusic Guide as my primary music research tool.

David Friedman delivers the funny.

Slate is carrying an interesting piece from Kelly McEvers about her trip to Indonesia in search of real modern pirates. Three parts, so far, have been published, and I don't know how much remains. I can, however, tell you that it's all fascinating, and I don't know whether to call McEvers brave or stupid. I think this about sums it up:

At the hotel I think about how bipolar this has been. One minute I'm dying of boredom; the next I'm totally high. Right now, I can just picture it all unfolding. The conflict between the pirate and his uncle. The scene at the seedy disco, planning the next attack while prostitutes serve us beer. The moonless night out at sea.

Either way, I can't help but anticipate the conclusion. I suppose that's what some documentary involves - journalists take risks so we don't have to (or where we'd never think to).

I read an interesting profile of nearly all-girl hard rock band today. The AccoLade isn't all that interesting, musically - the lyrics are a touch cheesy and the music isn't my taste, but the New York Times wouldn't write up any average rock group. This band, you see, is from Jidda, Saudi Arabia. While Jidda is apparently one of the more "moderate" cities in that desert its citizens still risk getting dragged downtown for a head shaving from the religious police. The fact, then, that these young girls play loud Western music, sing in English, and hang around with their robes open to reveal jeans and t-shirts is really quite extraordinary and brave.

Here's the line that really got to me:

“The upcoming generation is different from the one before,” said Dina, the Accolade’s 21-year-old guitarist and founder. “Everything is changing. Maybe in 10 years it’s going to be O.K. to have a band with live performances.”

Rock on girls.

Monty Python have* their own YouTube channel, and they intend to add loads of high quality video as time wears on.

HOLY SHLAMEEL THIS RULES.

Here's a fine example:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZlBUglE6Hc&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&ap=%2526fmt%3D18%20&w=580&h=470]

*I felt the British pluralization was appropriate given the subject matter.