Category Archives: Uncategorized

Desmond Child

Desmond Child is a songwriter and producer. His dozens of songwriting credits and co-credits include:

Kiss' "I Was Made for Lovin' You"

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' "I Hate Myself for Loving You"

Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer", "You Give Love a Bad Name", and "Bad Medicine"

Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady", "Angel", and "Crazy"

Cher's "We All Sleep Alone" and "Just Like Jesse James"

Alice Cooper's "Poison"

Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" and "Livin' la Vida Loca"

Wiki.

Leia Organa: A Critical Obituary

While Leia Organa’s letters, doctrines and later, command directives formed the ideological-strategic core of the Alliance, she avoided the leadership roles assumed by her father and Mon Mothma. Indeed, she used the courtesy title Princess (afforded by her adopted parents, as elected officials in Alderaan’s post-monarchic democracy) sparingly, and purely for political effect. She became a field operative instead, managing diverse intelligence assets under the cover of diplomatic and sapient-relief travel. Before the Battle of Scarif, her missions shared intelligence with numerous Alliance cells. Her uncanny ability to predict the actions of enemies and allies alike made her essential, but the Alliance treated her warily, concerned she might manipulate its forces for her own ends.

These worries may have been justified when Organa prevented Yavin IV Flight Command from properly securing arms and spacecraft related to the extraction of Jyn Erso. She correctly predicted Erso and the Andor faction would act on their own, and made a shuttle, droid and weapons conveniently available. Operation Rogue One remains controversial; critics note that Organa sacrificed the entire volunteer cadre, hundreds of troops and much of the Alliance fleet to acquire Designation Stardust intelligence, and that its ultimate success owed itself to her activation of a Jedi asset, Obi-Wan Kenobi, as she was captured by Imperial forces. Indeed, the coincidences behind her subsequent escape and organization of the defense of Yavin IV have been ascribed to the Force, singular tactical genius or pure luck – all ideologically fraught options.

Vroom!

There's an exhibit of 'art deco cars' at the NC Museum Of Art right now!

Here are three of my favorites!

Behold the 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt!

And the 1938 Hispano-Suiza H68 Xenia!

Edsel Ford's 1934 Model 40 Speedster!

V-8 making 75 HP! No roof! No doors! No seat belts! One of a kind! Last sold for $1.7M!

They encourage people to share pictures on-line, and suggested a hashtag to use (which I don't remember)! So, here ya go!

Carrie Fisher

According to TMZ, Carrie Fisher suffered a “massive heart attack” while on an airplane. She was reportedly flying from London to Los Angeles, possibly as part of her book tour, and the emergency occurred 15 minutes before landing. An EMT who happened to be on the plane administered CPR, and Fisher was rushed to a hospital as soon as the plane landed.

This fucking year.

Alle Oppostion muß dem Boden gestampft werden

The Washington area has a long and mostly proud tradition of houses that lend themselves as venues for up-and-coming bands. But in the last few days, some residents of those houses have become guarded after discovering their homes’ names and addresses targeted in online message boards populated by members of the white nationalist movement known as the “alt-right.”

Sites like 4chan and Reddit, along with even more unfiltered corners of the internet, have seen the emergence of threads in which users encourage each other to post addresses of houses that host concerts and other arts programming around the country, and to call local authorities to report safety and building-code violations in hopes of getting the venues shut down. The threads appear to be nominally inspired by a December 2 fire at an Oakland, California, warehouse that killed 36 musicians and concertgoers, but the message-board users also make no attempt to hide their political motivation.

“These places are open hotbeds of liberal radicalism and degeneracy and now YOU can stop them by reporting all such places you may be or may become aware of to the authorities, specifically the local fire marshel [sic],” reads the original post on a 4chan thread that has since been archived. “Watch them and follow them to their hives. Infiltrate social circles, go to parties/events, record evidence, and report it. We’ve got them on the run but now we must crush their nests before they can regroup! MAGA my brothers and happy hunting!”

Come On Let Me See You Save Your Tail Feathers

In 2015, scientist Lida Xing came across a beautiful and curious piece at an amber market in Myitkyina, Myanmar, likely destined to become a piece of jewelery. Trapped inside the yellow piece was a feather that others had overlooked as belonging to a plant. But Xing knew that it could be something more.

And it was.

It was a piece of 99 million-year-old history: a dinosaur feather.

CBC News

Attila

Before he became The Piano Man, Billy Joel was half of a Deep Purple-esque proto-metal band called Attila. And they made an album.

You can, if you want to, listen to the whole thing, below.

Attila (Billy Joel) - Self Titled Album (1970) COMPLETE

1. "Wonder Woman" (3:38)
2. "California Flash" (3:32)
3. "Revenge is Sweet" (4:00)
4. "Amplifier Fire (Part I: Godzilla/Part II: March Of The Huns)" (7:39)
5. "Rollin' Home" (4:52)
6. "Tear This Castle Down" (5:49)
7. "Holy Moses" (4:30)
8. "Brain Invasion" (5:41)

I made it through Part I of Amplifier Fire.

That's Joel singing.

The band broke up when Billy Joel ran off with the other guy's wife.

Brain invasion.

I Never Forget An Ass

Recognizing a fellow human’s face is about more than just identifying a nose or mouth. It’s believed we use something called configural recognition to process the entire facial structure altogether, which is why there’s often a little bit of a lag time when we see a face upside-down (humans have an easier time recognizing other objects, like cars or houses, that have been flipped).

Researchers now believe chimpanzees have something similar to configural recognition. Only they use it to recognize each other’s butts.

Mental Floss

Aw nuts

Our growing demand for coconuts has come at the same time stronger-than-usual hurricanes and droughts have destroyed or damaged coconut plantations. A lethal yellowing disease has killed other coconut palms, and in some areas, new trees haven't been planted fast enough. All of this has led to a 17 percent decrease in coconut plantations since 1994, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

“It’s fair to say that at this pace, the Caribbean is running out of coconuts,” Compton Paul, coordinator of a regional coconut program at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, told Bloomberg News.