It's Important to Know When

I think all of us struggle with this question, some of us daily: we believe we know the proper course of action in a given situation but there's always that nagging doubt that prevents us from executing our plans. Fortunately, Blame It On The Voices has devised a handy little flow chart to guide us through the most challenging decision: when to whip it:

Thanks to my friend, Dawn Stoppiello, for posting this to her Facebook page!

Yes, folks: I'm finally back... between my broken ankle, day job, and some video and theater projects, I just haven't felt that I could devote the time I'd like to posts. I'll try to do much better going forward.

Is This The Opposite of Queen?

Maybe, but it's still fun, especially if you compare it to the original video. Catherine found this on Flavorwire: enjoy!

Downtown Local Making All Stops: Eagle Nebulae Next

If you want the Orion Nebulae, get back off and go across the platform for the uptown.

Seriously, I think this is a great illustration of our Milky Way galaxy. The two posts—on Flavorpill and Gizmodo—that led me to Samuel Arbesman's original posting felt it necessary to treat the reader like an moron and point out where our solar system is on the map. I give readers of the Interlude much more credit and assume you all know how to find us. If you don't know, though, I've just told you where to find the answer... and you're not a moron: it just so happens that that was literally the first thing we learned in my college astronomy class.

The Vendor or the Client: A Rorshach Test

This video came to me from my account manager at Update Graphics, a temporary staffing agency for graphics professionals. If your business involves working with clients at all, as my day job does, you've been here. As an artist, though, and especially as a director of a company that's always operating on a tight budget, I think I may have made many of these arguments—or ones very similar to them—over the past 16 years.

A Leather for My Fred

I'm not very good with song lyrics. I never believed that Jimi Hendrix was saying, "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy," but there have been plenty of other songs that I've mangled in my head almost as badly. Some singers, of course, enunciate better than others—I've never really had a problem with most of Bruce Springsteen's songs,* while the vast majority of Nirvana's album, Nevermind, is sung, I believe, in Ancient Greek. But, by and large, I just don't pay close enough attention to the content of a song: I'm just more interested in the sound and feel of a song—the harmonies, the chord progressions, the tension in the music.

Still, even with my limited appreciation for song lyrics, I think some of these transcriptions for Joe Cocker's cover of the Beatles' With a Little Help from My Friends at Woodstock may not be entirely accurate. It's just a guess, mind you.

*Well, okay: Blinded By the Light, while much clearer on his original version than on the Manfred Mann cover, is really more of a "I have no idea what that means" than a "I don't know what he's saying."

Dear World

From my college roommate, Preston:

Dear World:

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service.

The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20, 2009.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come.

We thank you for your patience and understanding,

Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I can't add a thing to that—thanks, Preston!

A Phoenician Walks Into a Bar...

The world's oldest known joke book has been translated from ancient Greek. Seriously.

In a related story, Milton Berle's famed collection of one-liners and anecdotes has increased dramatically in volume recently. Sources close to the comedian say it is the greatest expansion of the material since Uncle Milty's death in 2002.

Predicting The Future?

Yeah... if it comes down to Obama losing by one vote, it won't be mine! Actually, this fairly impressive display of technical wizardry is courtesy of MoveOn.Org.

McCain Walks Into a Bar...

I've had no time to blog this week: between day job, going to the theater and Peculiar Works, I've just been too busy. However, I found this today and had to share it with everyone:

While he was making a campaign stop in Pennsylvania yesterday, John McCain kept getting interrupted by a heckler who shouted "I am a Democrat!" over and over.

McCain was obviously getting pissed, but he kept his anger bottled up long enough to respond to the heckler with, "My friend, can I ask you 'why' you're a Democrat?"

The heckler said: "My grandfather was a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, and I am a Democrat!"

"What if you father had been a jackass?" McCain asked sarcastically. "Then what would you be?"

"A Republican!" the heckler yelled back.

It isn't true, of course: the joke is apparently as old as T.R.'s Bull Moose party. But it's funny and I always go with what's funny!