Here on the fourth day of 2010, I found one sentence that might do the best job I’ve seen yet at putting the last 10 years into a nutshell (from this NY Times article):

“A dollar is no longer a dollar in this country,” said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, a trade association. “It’s a Visa dollar. It’s only worth 99 cents because they take a piece of every one.”

OK, so maybe it doesn’t sum everything up… just imagine that terrorists are buying steroids with their Visa cards and then you’re there.

I was really struck by a sentence in this article today, it’s worth a read:

For Iran’s leaders, the only state of affairs worse than poor relations with the United States may be improved relations.

It reminds me of Thomas PM Barnett’s statement about the “soft kill” of diplomacy. If you’ve never seen Thomas Barnett speak, give yourself the most valuable education about foreign affairs you can get.

Links:

• TED Talk
• Pop!Tech Talk

I’m partial to the second talk, but Barnett calls the TED talk the best he’s ever given.

And just so I don’t get too serious here, you can go watch the I-Ran video on Hulu.

There is an old game where you can determine your “porn star” name by taking the street name where you grew up and your pet’s name. That one never really worked for me because the only street name I could remember of the houses I grew up in was Genesis Drive, and our family dog is named Pearl. Genesis Pearl sounds like a Clive Cussler novel, not an adult film actor.

I found a much more entertaining game on a cool blog called Presurfer. The game here is to come up with your hypothetical Band’s name, album title and cover art for your first album.

You do that by:

1. Band Name: Random Wikipeda Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
2. Album Title: Random quote generator (take the last four words from the quote) Link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
3. Album Art: Flickr Interesting Photo: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

Mine actually came out well:

1. Band Name: Ernst Gaupp (a 19th centry German antomist, but it sounds like an ironic punkish kind of band)
2. Album Title: Thanksgiving to the Gods
3. Album Art: See Below – I mocked up an album cover in Photoshop, I’m pretty happy with it

So Neatorama (a really fun site to read) posted a You Tube clip of a ukulele band playing the Theme from Shaft. Here’s the video:

OK, that was pretty fun to watch (for at least 30-45 seconds). But, I know you will agree that is barely a shadow of this hyper-cool version (why is Jesse Jackson on stage???):

One quick fun fact about Isaac Hayes (may he Rest in Peace, he died this year at 66), he was a Scientologist. Hayes quit his role as “Chef” from South Park after their hilarious, rabidly anti-Scientologist episode, Trapped in the Closet. Never to be away from the shroud of weirdness, there are some who believe that he was forced to quit by Scientology and even his press release wasn’t written by him. Odd.

According to Snopes, and other reputable sources James Woods was on a flight with some of the 9/11 terrorists while they were taking a trial run:

One of the practice flights may have occurred in August. Actor James Woods was so shaken by a flight he took from Boston to Los Angeles about a month before the attacks that he told an attendant and authorities of his suspicions when he landed. Woods was in first-class and the only other passengers in the section were four men who appeared to be Middle Eastern in origin.

During the entire six-hour flight, Woods noticed the men neither ate nor drank. They talked to each other in whispers and did not read or sleep. On Sept. 12, Woods called the FBI to tell investigators about his experience. He was interviewed by agents on Sept. 13. Woods’s spokesman told Reuters the actor thought it ”prudent not to comment on this and let the FBI continue to do their job, which they seem to be doing superbly right now.”

from: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/woods.asp

Honestly, I think we should get James Wood’s opinion on this whole bailout.

You probably aren’t going to start your own Hells Angels chapter. From their website FAQ:

How do I start a Hells Angels Charter ?

Another If you have to ask, you won’t understand the answer. Motorcycle Clubs consist of a group of people who have ridden together for years, live in the same community, are known by the community, have runs to raise money for local charities, and are a brotherhood. It’s Motorcycle Club as opposed to an association such as Harley Owners Group, or Goldwing Riders, which allow anyone to join as long as they have a Harley or Goldwing. Not to say associations are better or worse, just different; they don’t ride 20,000+ a year together, or know each other as well as you know your family, which is what a Motorcycle Club is about. If you’re already in a Motorcycle Club you know how to start a Hells Angels Charter in your area, and if you’re not…well, that’s probably why you asked the question in the first place.

I heard a truly remarkable fact last night on NPR while brushing my teeth (side note: this really annoys Evie, she hates that I turn on the radio for the 2-3 minutes it takes to brush my teeth and wash my face each night…)

The president of Lion’s Gate Entertainment said that their company owns the rights to Dirty Dancing, and they sell over 2,000 copies of the DVD every single day! This kind of blew my mind.

A little research led me to these facts:

• That’s one copy for every rider of the New Mexico Rail Runner Express on a daily basis (Albuquerque’s mass transit system)
• It’s one copy for every worker Air Canada laid off yesterday due to high fuel costs. Though the numbers line up, a copy of the DVD would be a pretty awful severance package.
• And probably the most apropos fact – it’s one DVD for every liter of methane gas an elephant releases per day.

If you want to join the 2000 club – admission is only 9.99 on Amazon.com.

Evie, the kids and I were driving home from a fine dinner at Chick ‘fil A and saw this truck on 71st St. here in Tulsa. I grabbed Evie’s iPhone and snapped a picture of it.

I recoginized the company’s name from the copyright notice at the bottom of Google Maps, like you see below. (Why stuff like this gets stuck in my mind, I can’t tell you…)

CNN.com published an article about the company in 2006, in the article they mention their fleet of trucks that drive around collecting map data

Inside a locked metal box in the back of the SUV, all the changes were recorded in a laptop computer hooked up to the SUV. The only unusual things visible from the outside of the SUV were a small white cone on top housing a high-powered satellite receiver and magnetic “Navteq” signs on the doors. The signs could be removed to allow the SUV to travel in areas where commercial traffic isn’t supposed to go.

One thing that I think is curious are the cameras that are in the cone on top. They’re not mentioned in the CNN article (or seen in the accompanying picture). Perhaps Navteq is also collecting picture data like Google’s Street View?

If you’ve never seen tilt-shift photography before, take a minute and look at this slide show from the magazine Portfolio. I first saw this technique years ago from this helicopter pilot’s page. He took these pictures over Mexico City.

It really is amazing how it makes everything look so model-like. Wikipedia has a good breakdown of why this happens.