more pork genius

Bacon Alarm Clock

WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell and sizzle of cooking bacon.

WHY: This prototype illustrates a concept for a plugin-based waking system built around an alarm clock that triggers various add-on modules. This is the "Bacon Baker" module.

HOW: A frozen strip of bacon is placed in the Baker module the night before. Because there is a 20 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 20 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked it such that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power a halogen lamp in the "baker module" that slow-cooks the bacon in about 20 minutes.

This man sold me my yellow chair. And was a hell of an entertaining guy.

A Neighborhood Fixture Too Gruff to Not Love - New York Times:

It was always hard to make your way into Barry Jetter's good graces, almost as hard as it was to make your way into his used-furniture store.

Mr. Jetter's store, General Nitemare, on Columbia Street just south of Degraw Street, is filled with precarious towers: blond-wood dressers on blond bureaus, shelves of open cans of paint and brushes, a couch frame leaning on a couch, chairs piled on top of tables piled on top of chairs.

Mr. Jetter was known for grunting "Whaddya need?" to intrepid browsers. Once, when a neighbor asked to borrow pliers, he replied, "I don't have that technology."

Google gives me three fine quotes today...

Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.
- Mickey Friedman

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
- G. K. Chesterton

It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.
- Pierre Beaumarchais

Oscar's gonna be (even more) pissed

Mr. Rogers is a liberal?

From the NYT:

Squelching Public Broadcasting
Do little boys and girls out there know how to spell "spite"? For those who don't, the House Republicans who voted last week to gut federal support of public broadcasting - from "Sesame Street" to well beyond - are offering a graphic demonstration as they attack one of the nation's more valued institutions. The Appropriations Committee voted not only to end taxpayers' support for next year's children's shows on public radio and television (yes, "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and "Postcards from Buster," too), but also to close out entirely the $400 million in federal support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - the aid funnel to local stations - across the next two years.

Republican lawmakers insist that the budget cuts are only one of many sacrifices required for fiscal discipline - a truly laughable contention from a Congress that has broken all records for deficit spending and borrowing. The pending highway bill alone has 3,800 pet projects (cue Porky Pig, not Oscar the Grouch). These include $2 billion-plus for two ludicrous "bridges to nowhere" in rural Alaska, where, incidentally, station officials say public broadcasting may fade from the air unless the Senate blocks the House's spiteful cuts.

"then i'll be longer than expected"

Our lives grab hold of us, and they can be so busy and so confusingly good that we forget that things have gone by. Last week I was supposed to stand awestruck at simple, slow songs, that came out loud then soft then loud than softer than you could imagine. But in pictures now I’m looking at a man now who stopped that, for now, who said that maybe his own head needed time. And I hope he’s found it, I hope that people can, when they need to.

there's so much time, really.

"You should go to Pittsburgh"

I don't know if Warhol ever actually said that, but it will forever be in my head when I'm walking down Crosby Street and remember Bowie as Warhol advising Basquiat on possibly relocating to the iron city. Holland Carter has a piece about his Dia show up right now, and in it is this little bit of awesome. So many ways to communicate, I'm learning...

Yawning is a way of talking, he once said, and he routinely dropped into comatose mode in the presence of people he didn't know or like. Initially, he did so out of nervousness; there was a candid, clowning side to his personality, which probably got him into trouble as an effeminate kid. As an adult he figured out that silence could be protective camouflage, even a source of power. He developed it as a personal style, though he was verbally as sharp as a tack when he wanted to be.

These are always fun...

Team Party Crash: Tucker Carlson Launch Party : Gawker

Innovations in Taxi Cab Hailing

While waiting for the B75 bus that I often take from the Heights back to Carroll Gardens in the morning, I had the pleasure of taking in one of those New York moments that make the tourists return home ranting and fearful and make me happy to be here:

Scene: Corner of Atlantic and Court, I stand near the hideous corner drugstore, trying to figure out how I can dress up without dressing up for dinner tonight. In front of me, an older man, somewhat unwell looking, surly, and sporting a cane and a limp to match, is grumbling about getting to the city.

He spots a cab, and in it a driver wary of picking up someone who in addition to the warning signs above, begins to shout when he can't get in. In nearly 6 years I've lived here, I'm only now beginning to understand what the lights on the cab mean, so I can't say for sure, I think he was on duty, but wanted nothing to do with this fare.

The cab is at a red light, and the man walks away, then back to, the stopped car, pleading his case to anyone who will listen. "I just want to go to Manhattan!! C'mon!! You see this? Why won't he take me to Manhattan?"

Two overweight nurse type women, walking past him on the street, and one offers this, without missing a beat: "I'll take you to the candy shop." Sexy, I know.

I lose it, laughing, expecting that to be the climax of my morning urban tragicomedy. Hold please. It's not.

Man and cane, undeterred by the cabbie's initial rebuff, and not understanding that those two woman totally wanted to get on him, returns to yelling at the man in the car, demanding that he be taken to his destination. When that doesn't work, he shows his clear familiarity with current events.

"You see this?! Come on now, I want this guy's head cut off! Let's do that to him!!" Excuse me?

Then, my New York moment -- Cabbie has inexplicably changed his mind after hearing this, and consents to let the lunatic in his car. I hope the meter was running.

My bus ride was somewhat less exciting.

Fucking Absurd

But I'm not surprised...: "''Somewhere $120 billion has suddenly disappeared,'' said Philip Morris lawyer Ted Wells."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal prosecutors, wrapping up a drawn-out lawsuit against the tobacco industry, are demanding only a fraction of the $130 billion that a government witness initially envisioned cigarette makers would have to spend on smoking cessation programs.

The Justice Department's position, announced as lawyers were summarizing arguments Tuesday in the racketeering trial, caught some by surprise. Federal prosecutors asked for a penalty of only about $10 billion, for a five-year program to help people kick the habit.

The $130 billion, for a 25-year smoking cessation program, was initially proposed in court by Michael C. Fiore, a medical professor at the University of Wisconsin and government witness. Justice Department lawyers on Tuesday called the $10 billion sum an ''initial requirement'' that could be extended.

Cigarette makers saw the department's change of heart as a positive sign.

Genius. Maybe.

Ananova - Chocolate sausage wins the day: "

The world's first chocolate sausage has won a top German chef first prize at the annual Sausage Championships in Berlin.
Joerg Staroske said the idea for the chocolate sausage came to him suddenly after a sleepless night trying to come up with an idea for the contest.

Staroske describes the taste of the sausage, which has orange peel as well as chocolate chip fragments, as 'surprisingly different'.
The annual Bratwurstmeisterschaft invites Germany's top butchers to display their creations and compete for the prize of Bratwurstmesiter.

These are pirate's ways, I think!

I'm swamped today, so please enjoy this bit of spam...text designed to make me read through to yet another viagra ad. I particularly like the opening sentence:

Content preview: Hello, stabbed him like daggers. These are pirate's ways, I think!Esteban stared at him wide-eyed, incredulous. I don't believelaughed, well pleased with his it. Milagrosa, half cable's length to starboard, and from the height ofshown him a side of the Spanish character which he had found anythingebb, he announced, and went off to his cabin.and glaring into his face. He's rallying rue, by God!of their admiral in flames, and the Salvador drifting crippled
fromBut if there are questions meanwhile? bleated Nuttall. He was aYou thought that I could drop my spade and go and seek him for you?you will not persist in your refusal. You will not do that in anyOglethorpe's farm stood a mile or so to the south of Bridgewater onI trust that you will honour my table with your company. Meanwhile, with untroubled eye upon many a hell of devilment in his time, butShe cried out at that, and clutched her breast whose calm wascoming out to the West Indies in the person of Lord Willoughby, [...]

and now the low takes up its place next to the cummings

Low's songs are tiny constructions packed tightly with very little, as anyone who loves them will tell you. Anyone who hates them will likely tell you the same thing, which is strange, but fine. the words themselves are simple and few, as is the music. to see the lyrics written out almost belies how beautiful the finished songs are, unless you know by heart how they stretch out over so many minutes.

Do yourself a favor and go listen to these two with your eyes closed.

sea

the sea is a long, long way from me

i'd go there if i had the time
but lying here will do just fine

---
over the ocean

i'm over the ocean
over the hills, over the dell
over the fireline
over the sand, over the plan
over the empire
and if I belong, then I'll be longer than expected
and if I'm wrong, the mighty and strong will be rejected

and today's spam winner is...

From: "Classmate G. Kabob"
Subject: Reply: regular Cialis and Viagra delivered anonymously

I'd consider ordering if I could actually meet Mr. Kabob.