los angeles burning - a photoset on Flickr

Big fire up by the Hollywood sign yesterday.

Here's a link to someone's photos of the event. Pretty crazy shit.

los angeles burning - a photoset on Flickr: "los angeles burning"

Stats, March 30th edition

Current listen: LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum

Location: recovering on my floor.
Free food this week: None. But I couldn't keep anything down on Wednesday. Does that count?

Sleep: so-so
Drugs: none. besides the cough syrup
Back: so-so
Effort: 1. Whether it's Legionaire's disease or the lower grade Pontiac fever, or merely Buick cough, I've been sick for basically 2 straight weeks.
Engagement: focused on not dying.
Loneliness: not bad lately. hard to go from a weekend with someone to nights without anyone. (same as last week)
Newness: 2. Puking my guts up and having a sinus infection is a new one.
Fun: -3 fucking Legionaire's disease (i'm just kidding, but i do feel like something might be seriously wrong with me)
Long-term Forecast: fair
Brutally truthful answer to 'How you doin?': completely wrecked from being sick.
The only even prime number of Ryans at work that put in their 2 week notice: 2. Good luck Shamrock and Ryan Scott. You will be missed.
The only even prime number of years I've officially worked at DDB as of this week: 2.

Current read: What is The What? by Dave Eggers. FYI, I couldn't stand A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
Thing I'm most excited about tomorrow: getting done with work early enough to watch both NCAA Final 4 games. But more likely watching the Gators play UCLA with J. hopefully, we win, but i've got a bad feeling about it.
Today's extras: Ready to go to a faith-healer if i'm not better soon.

Only 27 days to Coachella!"

Anna Nicole Smith Finally Reaches Target Weight | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Best Onion story in months.

Anna Nicole Smith Finally Reaches Target Weight | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

NASSAU, BAHAMAS—Former stripper turned Playboy Playmate turned reality-TV star Anna Nicole Smith has overcome her longtime struggle with obesity, at last reaching her target weight of 125 pounds, sources said Monday.

"Anna's been through a lot," said Florida Circuit Court Judge Larry Seidlin, who became visibly emotional as he spoke to reporters. "But I think it's fair to say that she hasn't been this happy in years."

More Joi

More Joi, originally uploaded by ideateller.

Kudos to Chris for the shot.



Thanks to Niko Demus for the hot tunes.



Thanks to Jess for being so much fun. (pictured here).

From the House of Dr. Joi

From the House of Dr. Joi, originally uploaded by ideateller.

Kudos to Chris for the shot. (pictured in this one).



Thanks to Niko Demus for the hot tunes.



Thanks to Jess for being so much fun.

again! again!

again! again!: "Current listen: Modest Mouse - 'Missed the boat' (featuring James Mercer from the Shins on backing vocals)

Location: Venice
Free food this week: Friday lunch for before our first pitch meeting

Sleep: so-so
Drugs: ridiculous amount of cough drops
Back: been a little stiff lately
Effort: 2 (the new pitch has been great. J's been great.)
Engagement: pretty good. other than being sick.
Loneliness: pretty good.
Newness: 3 (all stats out of 5)
Fun: 2 (but the coughing is dragging things down)
Long-term Forecast: fair
Brutally truthful answer to 'How you doin?': wish i was fully fucking healthy.
Cash from selling my CD collection: $570

Items knocked off to-do list: selling CD collection
Current read: new Wired. it has the word 'naked' on the cover.
Thing I'm most excited about tomorrow: not being sick, hopefully. going to the gym, debriefing from our pitch meeting"

Gators Get Defensive and Move Closer to Repeat - New York Times

Gator Boyz are still Hot, yo!

Gators Get Defensive and Move Closer to Repeat - New York Times: "“So many people hating us, so many people doubting us,” Noah said. “People have been trying to divide us all year. The Gator boys are back in the Final Four. Everybody wants to shine but, unfortunately, not everybody’s a Gator boy!”

Noah then loped past the band, which was playing “We Are The Boys,” first in waltz tempo, then in a faster tempo. He shook a few of the musicians’ hands and joined his teammate Corey Brewer in the grandstand to hug fans. They moved their arms up and down in the Gator chomp."

ESPN.com - NCB - NCAA Notebook

The Gator Boyz are - woooooooooooooooo! - hot!

ESPN.com - NCB - NCAA Notebook: "ST. LOUIS -- Billy Donovan turned to an old friend to
provide some motivation before Florida's victory against Butler in
the NCAA tournament.

The Gators' coach asked former wrestling star Ric Flair to speak
to the Gators before Friday's game. Flair, who once appeared at
Florida's 'Midnight Madness,' strutted through the locker room
and did his well-known 'Whoooo!'

'We were up, we were energized,' Florida forward Corey Brewer
said.

The Gators needed an extra boost to beat Butler 65-57 and
advance to the Midwest Regional final against Oregon on Sunday.

'That was a big kick,' Florida guard Lee Humphrey said of
Flair's visit. 'I wasn't a huge wrestling fan growing up, but some
of my buddies were big fans. I would watch it occasionally. I
remember when we kids, some of my buddies had those dolls and we
used to beat up on the dolls -- Macho Man (Randy Savage) and Lex
Luger and Ric Flair. That was pretty cool to know that he was there
supporting us.'

Flair sat in the stands right behind the bench and cheered
alongside Taurean Green's father, Sidney, and Al Horford's dad,
Tito.

His visit also left a lasting impression -- and several
impersonations.

Humphrey, Brewer and Donovan each imitated Flair's famed
catch-phrase Saturday. Humphrey's was clearly the best, but only
after a weak first attempt."

Girls Gone Grabblin'

Hot!

"One of the weirdest things I've ever seen. Girls in bikinis catching giant catfish with their bare hands. Also known as 'noodling', this is illegal in 46 states."

It's Spring, the time when stats spring eternal

It's time for stats to reappear on a regular basis here at AgainAgain. We hope to start regularly uploading files to the music blog, too.

Current listen: Modest Mouse - "Missed the boat" (featuring James Mercer from the Shins on backing vocals)

Location: sick, on my floor.
Free food this week: Monday, judging at the AICP Original Music

Sleep: so-so
Drugs: 2 pills on Saturday night at the wonderful soulXXXcious party. With Jessica.
Back: been a little stiff lately
Effort: 2 (the new pitch has been great. J's been great.)
Engagement: so-so. excited about the pitch.
Loneliness: not bad lately. hard to go from a weekend with someone to nights without anyone.
Newness: 3 (all stats out of 5)
Fun: 2 (but the sickness is dragging things down)
Long-term Forecast: fair
Brutally truthful answer to 'How you doin?': achy behind the knees. sore throat.
The only even prime number: 2.

Items knocked off to-do list: took care of tax and condo paperwork today
Current read: alternate history of the Third Reich, in which zie Deutsch win WWII.
Thing I'm most excited about tomorrow: if I'm not sick, party at Optimus, NCAA bball.
Today's extras: Happy to be back and blogging more.

Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON, DC—Almost a year after the cessation of major combat and a month after the nation's first free democratic elections, President Bush unveiled the coalition forces' strategy for exiting Iraq.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Defense and I have formulated a plan for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," Bush announced Monday morning. "We'll just go through Iran."

Vote Different

This rocks.

Hillary's got to be very angry.

Noah Busts A Move

Even if you don't like sports at all, you should watch our resident, um, unique individual. Joakim Noah (son of French tennis star Yannick).

This is him celebrating after winning the SEC title. Usually the guys stand idly by, waiting to be interviewed by the announcers.

Noah? Well, sometimes exuberance isn't irrational, just emininently watchable.

Commentary: Big 'Easy'? Storm's ire jars Gators

I love this (and last) years' editions of the Gator basketball team.

Possibly because it's so easy for me to identify with Noah. (long hair, liberal world view, funky dancer(link will be added below)).

Commentary: Big 'Easy'? Storm's ire jars Gators

Commentary: Big 'Easy' Storm's ire jars Gators
Listen to this article or download audio file.Click-2-Listen

By Greg Stoda

Palm Beach Post Columnist

Saturday, March 17, 2007

NEW ORLEANS — The numbers are especially haunting. Chilling.

They are written on abandoned houses still screaming in wicked silence more than 11/2 years after Hurricane Katrina came sweeping into the low-lying areas surrounding the mouth of the Mississippi River and spit out unimaginable devastation. The numbers mark how many bodies were discovered inside during recovery - don't call them rescue - missions.


That's why some of the young men who play basketball for the University of Florida pulled the plugs from their ears and stopped listening to their music while riding through the damaged neighborhoods.

That's why others among them were nudged awake out of tiny naps.

That's why the bus got so quiet.

"Very," Joakim Noah said softly after a workout session at New Orleans Arena, where the Gators began defense of their national championship Friday night in a first-round NCAA Tournament game against Jackson State.

It was Noah, then between his freshman and sophomore seasons, who found his way to coach Billy Donovan's office back in the immediate aftermath of Katrina's fury. Noah had watched hours of television coverage of the tragedy, and was feeling what was felt by everyone else who was far removed from the physical reality of the disaster. He couldn't possibly comprehend the scope of the destruction.

So, a coach and a player talked a long time that summer day. What they talked about was the uncertainty of life.

Which might be why Donovan, after a Thursday practice at a local high school, instructed the bus driver to take a different route back to the glitzy and glamorous surroundings of an NCAA Tournament in which the Gators are kings unless or until somebody proves they're not.

"I think these guys have a very, very good attitude about more than a basketball game," Donovan said. "But it's never a bad thing to be reminded of how good you have it and how lucky you are."

The intentionally detoured journey back from practice delivered its own potent message.

bagelvertising

bagelvertising, originally uploaded by ideateller.

From adfreaks http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2007/03/bagel_shop_need.html



This ad, for the River City Bagel & Bakery in Boise, Idaho, reportedly ran

in the Boise Weekly. No wonder the place has a ³fun atmosphere.² Scan by

silent7seven. UPDATE: It turns out The Vagina Monologues is playing in town.

Madrid bar

Madrid bar, originally uploaded by ideateller.

I used to go to this bar all the time when I lived in Madrid. I miss those

times and all those good, good people, and the Spanish side of my family.

OPmP3: Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good � String Quartet Tribute - Arcade Fire

Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good � String Quartet Tribute - Arcade Fire: "If you’ve followed this site long enough, you might remember a time when I posted a new String Quartet Tribute album every week. While those days are long dry, I still have a soft spot for the SQT and while I was perusing emusic today I noticed that they were releasing their tribute to the Arcade Fire’s Funeral today (conveniently linked to the Neon Bible release date).

Since some of these songs are heavily string orchestrated already the songs turn out sounding like a instrumental version of the song, which isn’t actually too bad of a thing to be listening when you have classics like “Neighborhood #1″ and “Rebellion (Lies)”. The only downfall is that the strings have a hard time capturing the urgency of the band, reducing most everything to pleasant background music. Still though, if you’re trying to pick up everything with the Arcade Fire name on it you can get your hands on, this release shouldn’t be missed.

MP3 Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
MP3 Rebellion (Lies)

Grab it at emusic"

ESPN.com - COLUMNIST - Wojciechowski: Recovering from a YouTube nightmare

This article references this YouTube clip.

Perhaps the most disastrous, college tv station sportscast of all time.

ESPN.com - COLUMNIST - Wojciechowski: Recovering from a YouTube nightmare

On a March night in 2005, the nice guy volunteered to anchor the "Newslink @ Nine" sportscast on the Ball State University television station. The scheduled anchor had canceled, so Collins, a 19-year-old telecommunications freshman from Milan, Ohio, offered to help. He had never done a sportscast, but how hard could it be, right? You read some scores, breeze through the highlights, and before you know it, you're back in your dorm room doing English Lit homework.

But what happened next was, well, you can watch for yourself. Click on the link next to the column. I can wait.

See It For Yourself
Missed Brian Collins' ill-fated nightmare of a sportscast two years ago? You can still see the disaster. Video
Done? Sort of like watching someone perform open heart surgery on themselves, isn't it? It might be the most spectacularly painful 3 minutes and 54 seconds in sports broadcasting history. As we approach the two-year anniversary of the telecast, communications scholars everywhere now refer to it as, "The Collins Incident."

First of all, the teleprompter didn't work. Well, it worked, but there was a new person on the prompter who accidentally fast forwarded through the script. So Collins could pick out only a word here or there before it disappeared from the prompter screen. He sounded as if he were deciphering WWII secret code from the Germans.

But wait, he had the typewritten script pages in front of him for emergencies. Yes, he did. Except that the pages were hopelessly out of order. That's when Collins remembers thinking, "You know, tonight's not going to be a good night."

It didn't help that Collins kept looking at the wrong TV monitor during the highlight packages. Or that someone walked behind him during the telecast. Or that every nanosecond of the sportscast seemed to last a leap year.

"The one thing I was proud of, I didn't just get up and walk out," said Collins. "I didn't die. I took it until the end."

What was your favorite moment? The tortured script reading? The long silence punctuated by the sounds of frantic paper shuffling? The labored breathing? The heartfelt, plaintive sigh during the middle of the nightmare? The part where Collins glances to someone off camera and mouths the words, "I'm so sorry?"

It was so dreadful, so tragically funny, and best of all, so human. And yet, Collins somehow gathered himself during the botched Nets-Pacers' highlights and delivered the ad-lib line which became You Tube legend. Remember?

"Later he gets the rebound … passes it to the man … shoots it … and boom goes the dynamite."

Does beauty make you smarter? - By Tim Harford - Slate Magazine

Something that I've been contemplating lately here in LALAland. Especially while getting a recent promotion which my friend Christy partially attributes to wearing suit jackets at work.

Does beauty make you smarter? - By Tim Harford - Slate Magazine: "Biden has been charging around apologizing to everybody, but what nobody really wants to admit is this: One of Sen. Obama's qualities is that he is handsome, and handsome politicians have a habit of getting elected. Economists have found evidence that voters prefer a pretty face in the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, Germany, and the United States.

Researchers have to be careful when they observe simple correlations between subjective beauty and electoral success. Amy King and Andrew Leigh, who studied Australian elections, wondered whether the findings were driven by ageism or racism: Perhaps (mostly white) voters see a black face and believe the face's owner is both unattractive and unfit to govern. That sounds miserably plausible, but it is not driving the results: Restricting analysis only to white politicians, or those in a narrower age band, produces similar evidence of a beauty premium."

Early daylight saving spurs race against time - Los Angeles Times

Can we just get rid of this fucking thing? I hate it more than I hate the electoral college. End mini-rant.

Early daylight saving spurs race against time - Los Angeles Times: "Early daylight saving spurs race against time
Clocks move ahead Sunday, but millions of computers are programmed to make the change in April. Mayhem lite may ensue.
By Michelle Quinn, Times Staff Writer
March 6, 2007

Springing forward in the computer age just got more complicated.

At 2 a.m. Sunday, daylight saving time starts three weeks earlier than usual in a federal effort to save energy. But millions of computers, servers and networks are programmed to move the hands forward on the first Sunday in April."

Santa Monica Squirrels to Get Free Birth Control

Christian parents say promoting abstinence would be more effective. From LA Times

For squirrels gone wild, city plans a turnoff
Santa Monica has a new plan to stop a breeding frenzy among the rodents in Palisades Park.
By Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writer
March 5, 2007

Afraid that a population explosion among squirrels in a city park could pose a public health risk, Santa Monica officials are ready to try a proven method of dealing with the problem: birth control shots.

Plans call for squirrels in Palisades Park to be injected with an immuno-contraceptive vaccine to stunt sexual development. Breeding season runs from February to April, but the inoculations will take place this summer when the squirrels are most active outdoors and easier to trap.

Santa Monica would be only the second city in the state, besides Berkeley, to try the immunization program.

"It's a cutting-edge approach," said Joe McGrath, the city's parks chief. "Pest control in general isn't usually very exciting or even controversial. That hasn't been the case with the squirrels."

California ground squirrels, like rats and gophers, are rodents. Experts warn that they are aggressive and may carry rabies or host fleas that can spread disease, such as bubonic plague. The larger the squirrel population, the greater the chance for infestation, which in turn could expose humans and predatory animals to disease, said Gail Van Gordon, an entomologist with the Los Angeles County Health Services Department.

ESPNsoccernet - US - Dell'Apa: Odds looking favorable for U.S. World Cup bid

Maybe we won't be so eager to head off to Jo'burg for the 2010 World Cup. We'll just wait and see it here in the States.

Jesus. I'd be 42 or 46 then. Scary.

ESPNsoccernet - US - Dell'Apa: Odds looking favorable for U.S. World Cup bid: "Odds looking favorable for U.S. World Cup bid
Dell'Apa

U.S. Soccer announced last week that it will bid for the 2018 World Cup. FIFA president Sepp Blatter gave the U.S. the green light Wednesday, confirming North America is in line to play host to the 2018 World Cup.

Blatter was talking in London, effectively warning the English to back off on their bid. But Blatter also was setting the stage for contingency plans. When Blatter speaks, you have to read between the lines. In this case, Blatter hinted at a possible 2014 World Cup in the U.S., keeping the 2018 door open for England and, possibly, Australia or China. In any case, the U.S. should start preparing for the World Cup to return."

Barack and his pops

Nice quote from Barack Obama in a Maureen Dowd article.



“You don’t want to go on with too much pop psychology,” he replies. “Somebody said that every man is either trying to live up to his father’s expectations or trying to make up for his father’s mistakes. And in some ways, when your father’s not there, you’re doing both. You try to live up to the expectations of somebody who’s not present to tell you that you’ve done a good job, but you’re also trying to make up for the mistakes that partially led to his absence.”

NBC Augusta Donut Blooper

Every copywriter's written a slogan like this before.

Fare thee well, Mr. Ramen

From the Beeb :


Space-age funeral for 'Mr Noodle'

The late inventor of instant noodles was symbolically blasted off into space at a funeral ceremony attended by thousands in Osaka, western Japan.

The event was a tribute to Momofuku Ando's creation of Space Ram, a noodle soup that works at zero gravity.

...

The man dubbed 'Mr Noodle' has been honoured by Thailand, Brazil and the US city of Los Angeles.

He was born in Taiwan in 1910 and moved to Japan in 1933, founding Nissin Food Products after World War II to provide cheap food for the masses.

His most famous product, Cup Noodle, was released in 1971, with the masterstroke of providing a waterproof polystyrene container.

In 1999, Mr Ando opened a museum in Osaka devoted to instant noodles.

Flickr: Photos from buildingcrusher

I really don't want to discuss where this came from. But it's a man with a large butt destroying a miniature city.

I'd like to hire a bunch of architecture students for him. They would build a miniature city out of balsa wood, that BuildingCrusher would then get to crush.

Flickr: Photos from buildingcrusher: "'we are experiencing some delays'

'I'll show YOU overbooked!'

giant having fun with an airplane"