danbruno.net/blog

Halley and I in The Sharper Image:

From CNN:

NEW YORK (AP) — Old school: The body is a temple.

The Next Big Thing, according to 31-year-old Joe Tamargo: The body is a billboard.

Tamargo, who runs a Web site LivingAdSpace.com, has started a new enterprise, selling advertisers the opportunity to permanently tattoo their messages on his body.

[...]

“They say there’s nothing better in advertising than word of mouth,” said Tamargo, who lives on Long Island. “I figured, this might be better.”

Well, I guess if you have some company’s logo permanently etched into your skin, you’re sending a pretty powerful message.

Back in my first post, I mentioned that Flickr’s general awesomeness. On a whim I decided to buy a Pro Account, which allows a gigabyte of uploading per month. That’s about…oh, I don’t know…my entire iPhoto library.

So, check out my Flickr photos so far, and make me take more pictures.

From the Journal News, my local paper back home:

Turning left on red goes against everything most motorists remember being taught by their parents or driver’s ed instructors. It sounds like the kind of fake rule you make up when no one else is around, like that “optional stop sign” near your home at 3 a.m.

But it’s there, in black and white, in the state’s vehicle and traffic-law book. Permission to go left on red was signed into law in 1980, covering cities with populations of less than 1 million, where motorists are turning from one one-way street to another.

The Onion AV Club has posted an interview with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Check it out. (Incidentally, if you haven’t been following, Family Guy is scheduled to be back on Fox in May.)

It seems that the terror threat in Boston was a false alarm. Reuters reports that it may have been a hoax.

So let me get this straight: someone gets the FBI to following a terrorism lead, they search for 14 men (one of which is not only actually a woman, but has been in custody for two months already, poking around with their high-tech equipment for a week, and then realize it was a hoax?

Man, Jack Bauer would not stand for this crap. Where’s CTU when you need it?

From MSNBC:

LONDON – Is the midwinter weather wearing you down? Are you sinking in debt after the holidays? Angry with yourself for already breaking your New Year’s resolutions? Wish you could crawl back under the covers and not have to face another day of rain, sleet, snow and paperwork? Probably. After all, it’s Jan. 24, the “most depressing day of the year,” according to a U.K. psychologist.

Weird stuff. Look at the article — the guy actually has a formula to “prove” his theory.

Whoa. We got a good two or three feet of snow, with drifts taller than some of my friends. Had a great time wandering around, writing things in the snow, tackling people, etc. Check out my friend Matt’s pictures.

Oh, and Tufts is closed tomorrow. Awesome.

I love New England.

The snow that’s been coming down for an hour or two is starting to pick up in intensity. The weather reports are saying twenty to thirty inches by the time it’s all over tomorrow. Should be a good time.

Ryanhood – Sad and Happiness
I first heard of Ryanhood when they came to play a show here at Tufts a couple of months ago. They’re an up-and-coming Boston-based acoustic guitar duo. I put them somewhere between Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds with both people singing and Simon & Garfunkel with both people playing guitar (which, as it turns out, is similar to how they describe themselves). In any case, I ended up being impressed enough with the show to pick up the CD. They have witty, well-written songs (with the occasional cheesy lyric), catchy melodies, and some nice guitar work. Check out the CD if you can, or, better yet, see them live. They put on a good show, and you’ll get a better sense of their talent there than from the disc. Still, it’s a worthwhile listen.

I first heard of Steve Vai when I saw his name on Berklee’s list of famous alumni. That was last summer, at their Summer Performance Program (which, incidentally, I highly recommend). I then heard him play for the first time while playing Halo 2 — he took some of the Halo music (also recommended) and laid an electric guitar track over it. And just now, while browsing Ticketmaster, I found that he’s playing at the Avalon in a couple of months. I have no idea what kind of stuff he plays or how it sounds, but I feel like I should see him now…

From the Times:

There is Charlie Parker’s King alto saxophone, with mother-of-pearl keys, his primary horn in the 1950’s. There is Benny Goodman’s clarinet, John Coltrane’s soprano and tenor saxophones, Gerry Mulligan’s baritone. Thelonious Monk’s tailored jacket. A ribald 27-page letter from Louis Armstrong to his manager. One of Ornette Coleman’s notebooks from the late 1950’s, with his practice exercises and, on one of the last pages, one of his greatest compositions, “Focus on Sanity,” written in pencil. Home movies of Coltrane shoveling snow outside his house in Philadelphia in the late 1950’s. Charlie Parker concert recordings made by his wife, Chan, and high school book reports by Monk.

On Feb. 20 at the Allen Room in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall, Guernsey’s Auction House will put all these items, and many others, on the block at a special jazz auction.

Oh man.

From the Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 – On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

[...]

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob’s creators had enlisted him in a “pro-homosexual video,” in which he appeared alongside children’s television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a “tolerance pledge” that includes tolerance for differences of “sexual identity.”

[...]

Mark Barondess, the foundation’s lawyer, said the critics “need medication.”

My sentiments exactly.

(I’ve decided to periodically recommend music here as well. If you end up buying anything, drop me a line and tell me how you like it.)

Comotion – Head West
Comotion was a collaboration of progressive/acoustic/bluegrass musicians, including: Michael Kang, of String Cheese Incident; Tye North and Jeff Sipe, formerly of Leftover Salmon; and a bunch of those musicians that seem to play with everyone, like Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Paul McCandless. This is their only release; they recorded it over a span of five days back in 2000, toured briefly to promote it, and then went back to their individual pursuits.

Head West is one of the more unclassifiable albums I own. Like most of my favorite music, it’s a mix of genres, but it’s not blended so finely that there is a homogenous sound. The album is clearly rooted in jazz, but you’ll hear chunks of Celtic, bluegrass, rock, and Latin throughout — it’s more akin to a salad bowl than a melting pot. “Oh, Lei,” one of the more inspired tracks, is a catchy Latin groove that eventually gives way to some cheerful Hawaiian harmonies, and then suddenly switches gears to a rocking electric mandolin solo. Comotion’s disregard for subtle transitions can make their genre-bending a bit jarring, but the members’ musicianship is strong enough to smooth everything out well enough. Even the less inspired songs are enjoyable because of the tight arrangements (likely a result of McCandless’s work with Oregon) and beautifully crafted solos. Overall, Head West is a highly original work by a group of virtuosic musicians. If you’re a fan of one or more of them, you might be pleasantly surprised by the different sound of this CD. If you aren’t, it’s good stuff. Check it out.

From the Times:

LITTLETON, Colo., Jan. 16 (AP) – A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a four-inch nail he had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier.

A nail gun backfired on Mr. Lawler, 23, on Jan. 6 while he was working in Breckenridge, Colo. The tool sent one nail into a piece of wood nearby, but Mr. Lawler did not realize a second nail had shot through his mouth, said his sister, Lisa Metcalse.

[...]

His wife, Katerina Lawler, said he was in good spirits.

“The doctors said, ‘If you’re going to have a nail in the brain, that’s the way you want it to be,’ ” she said. “He’s the luckiest guy, ever.”