mrshl | blog

In which I discuss my car accident…

Yes, yes, ya’ll. Today a dude ran a red light at the corner of 610/Fannin and smashed my car as it was turning left. It doesn’t appear as though he ever saw me or even slowed down. Because I was driving to work, I was alone in the car, which is a good thing. Because the passenger side is wrecked. This is what’s left of our brand new Honda CR-V.

In this last photo you can see the other dude’s busted vehicle, a 2008 Nissan Versa. His car was a rental vehicle. Which means the dude probably had another accident not too long ago, and he just destroyed his temporary vehicle. We’re dealing with an expert driver here.

Was anyone hurt? Not too bad. I went to the emergency room at Methodist Hospital with Jordan (I refused ambulance transport). I’ve got a couple of banged up knees, but I’m otherwise fine. I imagine I will be quite sore in the morning. The other driver was transported to Methodist by ambulance. Jordan and I actually saw him being wheeled out as we went into the ER. He looked okay.  

Who was at fault? The other dude ran the light, and a witness named Mani (an MD Anderson employee) saw the accident and gave the officer his statement. The officer told me the other guy would be found at fault.

Dude, is your car, like, totaled? It could be. We’ll have to see how bad the frame is bent. Plus the air-bags deployed on the right side. The other driver has insurance, but probably not enough to cover both the rental car he was driving and my car. The good news is: the rental car carrier probably has secondary liability coverage for my vehicle. If so, we shouldn’t be out much cash once everything gets straightened out.

For now, I’m chillaxing with an unexpected day off. Props to Jordan for taking care of me this morning, She made lunch for me and we watched Wipeout before she left to get some work done.

Now I’m here alone, mourning a car that hadn’t yet reached 6,000 miles.

Google’s gay pride about to earn them a trip to the No-Spin zone.

I’ll let Duncan Riley explain:

Users who type the word “gay” into Google are being presented with a little extra in their search results: a rainbow flag between the results and ads.

The rainbow flag (also known as a gay pride flag) represents an open statement of support for the LGBT community, and can commonly be seen in businesses or on vehicles of members of the LGBT community or by those who support this community. By display the flag, Google is sending a message that it supports gay rights.

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with Google’s stand, and credit to them for making it, but gay rights and the religious right in America don’t make great bedfellows. Google is making overtly political statements in its key search area, a stand that for Google is actually unprecedented as far as I can recall. When the right wing media and blogosphere find out that Google is making these statements, it’s only a matter of time until someone calls for a boycott.

Wait, you think the same right-wing nut jobs who mistook Rachel Ray and her scarf as apologia for Islamic extremism might have a problem with Google expressing clear support for gays and lesbians? 

Google has already been getting flack for not being patriotic enough to honor certain holidays with one of their famous doodles:

Perhaps the most extreme condemnations come from the editors of the populist WorldNetDaily.com, who have all but accused Google of advancing the cause of godless communism. "Google consistently ignores patriotic American holidays such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day," WorldNetDaily’s editors wrote last October, "but today it acknowledged an accomplishment of the communist Soviet Union, which launched the Sputnik satellite fifty years ago." The news site, which has also complained that Google’s search rankings keep its stories in the basement, even ominously reported that the company misspelled its logo when commemorating Valentine’s Day last year. "Previous Valentine’s Day logos for Google, obtained by WND, have no such possible confusion for spelling," the site noted. Could Google even have it in for love?

If these dorks can’t get over Sputnik, they’re going to have a really hard time tasting the rainbow. Wake me when it’s over.

Thurston and George

As Thurston Moore gets older, he’s starting to look a lot like George Plimpton.

Just sayin’.

Firefox 3: Today is Download Day

Today the Mozilla foundation is releasing the third iteration of their popular Firefox browser. Only “release” doesn’t quite capture the hype they’re generating. No, they’re trying to set a world record. You can help them by downloading a copy today beginning at 10 AM. If it’s still too early when you read this, you can “pledge” to download it once they turn on the spigot. Seriously.

But why should you download it? Because it’s the best. browser. ever according to the Chronicle’s Dwight Silverman. Walt Mossberg agrees.

My opinion? The singular “awesome bar” is reason enough to give it a chance. Your new address bar does so much more than auto-complete. It learns your preferences as you browse. Sort of like Tivo for the Web. Just start typing in the address bar, and you’ll quickly find what you need. You won’t need bookmarks anymore. It’s that good. Remember when the first Firefox browser added tabs? This new location bar is a similar leap forward.

But there are lots of other reasons you should download Firefox. That is, if setting a record doesn’t interest you.

UPDATE: Turns out the 10 AM start time is Pacific. You central timers can start downloading at noon.

A couple of posts from Mental Floss

Over on Life is a Thrill, I regularly share posts from Mental Floss, a superb “all things considered” kind of blog that regularly includes interesting links, lunchtime quizzes, and engaging trivia. All in the name of edu-tainment.

Today they had a couple of quick hitters that I thought I’d share, one of which is a 10% off sale featuring their wise-ass tee shirts. Here are a couple of my fave MF tees.

Thankfully, they do more than just hawk shirts. Today’s posts also included an updated list of the top-10 selling albums of all time:

1. Thriller, Michael Jackson - 108 million copies*
2. Back in Black, AC/DC - 42 million copies*
3. The Bodyguard soundtrack, Whitney Houston/Various artists - 42 million
4. Their Greatest Hits, the Eagles*
5. Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees/Various Artists - 40 million copies*
6. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd - 40 million copies
7. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf - 37 million copies*
8. Come on Over, Shania Twain - 36 million copies
9. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles - 32 million copies*
10. Falling Into You, Celine Dion - 32 million copies

If you’re like me, you had no idea Back in Black had sold that many copies. Also, if you’re like me, you’re sadly unsurprised about the some of the choices mankind makes when it comes to buying records.

*Records I own or have owned at some point. I probably bought all these through BMG or Columbia House. Back when I still bought CDs.

A quick post about Weezer.

As Weezer gets ready to release another of their single-color, eponymous records (you will remember the legendary Blue record and the not-totally-terrible Green record), I thought I’d take a moment to provide an alternate take on the frequently attacked rock band.

Next week, we’re getting the Red record. And its ridiculous self-portrait suggests something interesting. The band has reached its "a-ha" moment.  "Yeah, we get it," they’re saying. "You’re upset that we’ve never been able to match the bubblegum-metal awesomeness of our debut. You’re pissed that we’ve never again explored the socially-impaired pathos of Pinkerton, our relatively dark and unhinged masterpiece. And yeah, you’re probably puzzled that we’re not even trying to replicate our blandly catchy, but good-natured third record. It was at least listenable. You’ve might have heard our last few records…or not, but you think we’re total crap. Hell, you might even be right."

(deep breath)

"Guess what? We. Don’t. Care. Anymore. In fact, we’re gonna simultaneously enjoy, exploit, and mock our fame, ourselves, and our past. We’re going to drive a stake so deep into the dark heart of pop music’s cynical present, you won’t even be able to listen to ‘In the Garage’ without knowing we’ve buried that sound forever."

Strong hints of Weezer’s evolving sardonic commercialism were definitely present in Make Believe’s "Beverly Hills," but they’re really laying the hammer down with the first single from the Red Album. If you’re recovering from some kind of horrible sickness and haven’t seen the video yet, here it is. I’ll wait a moment while you watch.

What I loved about this video and this song was how Rivers Cuomo finally, if somewhat cryptically tells you he’s figured things out. This interview with the video’s director explains the attitude better than I can. So do the lyrics:

Imma do the things that i wanna do
I ain’t got a thing to prove to you
I’ll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if i make a scene
I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside
one look in the mirror and i’m tickled pink
I don’t give a hoot about what you think

So what’s so cryptic? Well, I love the layers here. Weezer’s recent singles seem to have consciously abandoned their initial indie-rock fans in favor of younger kids who can’t tell the difference between Weezer and the Jonas Brothers. So the simplistic top layer of kitchen-table rebellion is for the kids. But look at the diction here: hoot? dandy? tickled pink? Dude might as well be wearing sock suspenders. Tell me he’s not evoking that nostalgia of going your own way for the first time in a long time. He remembers what it was like to strap on a guitar instead of shoulder pads. Now, he’s an old man eating the meal he made himself.

Rivers Cuomo has always been a metal head trying to figure out how punk won the battle to be a new generation’s classic rock. In a world where metal and hard rock can only be found in Guitar Hero, he’s pointing to the heart of what it means to be himself. This is a new start for a guy who never quite made his peace with coolness. He is a famous weirdo; and he’s finally getting into the finger-paint absurdity of fame. Rather than accept fame begrudgingly, he’s remembering what his idols in KISS did with it. They took their 15 minutes and ran. They enjoyed it. They swam in it. They had action figures and lunch boxes. They might not have been the best, but they weren’t shy about jumping the claim.

When you think about it, the least Cuomo and Weezer can do to honor their 70s metal heroes is moisten their eyebrows with cocked middle fingers and point them at their fickle former fans. Two indisputable classic records is way more than you have a right to expect from any band, much less a band that’s been covered by both Dashboard Confessional and the Olsen Twins. They really don’t have a thing to prove to you.

Or, as they might say, "If you want to rediscover what it’s like to be a Weezer fan, listen to us again on OUR terms. There’s something you’re not hearing. There’s depth. There’s humor. There’s hooks. We’re like the Darkness, except we’re aware that ‘post-punk’ and ‘post-hardcore’ are even more hilarious than hair metal."

I dunno what to think when they say it like that. I guess I might take another listen to these last few records. With new ears, and maybe a few new tricks I learned from Guitar Hero. Music is fun again. 

Our wedding photos are up…

More than 1,000 of them, all available via Pictage. It’s pretty slick. You get your own log-in, and you can mark pictures as favorites then return to order prints if you want. Also, Jordan and I can see which photos you mark as favorites, so please let us know which ones you like.

Again, I thought our photographers at BendtheLight.com did an amazing job. We definitely want to know what you think.

Playing Pinball on the Wii

Holy crap. Jordan and I spent much of last night playing Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. We picked up the Wii game for 19.99 at Target, and couldn’t pass it up since we had played the earlier Gottlieb Collection on Nintendo GameCube and loved it. The moment we put it in, Jordan freaked out because the first table you see is Taxi, which her mom and dad actually owned until recently. Jordan knows that table incredibly well from playing it thousands of times as a kid.

The game looked just the real thing, but as we played, she was more impressed that the physics had been carefully preserved. For example, She knew I was toast before I did when the ball went dead after hitting a certain spot and fell right between the flippers. She said it did the exact same thing on her old table. The Wii controls are perfect, too. The flippers are the triggers on the Nunchuck and Wiimote. The analog stick on the Nunchuck is a great substitute for the plunger, and you can nudge (or TILT) the machine if you shake the Nunchuck or Wiimote.

Here’s a video of the table in action.

There are nine other tables included in the Williams Collection, but we mostly played Taxi until I managed to get the high score and complete all the "Wizard goals." I got nearly 7 million. Jordan says her high score is 10 million, but I’ve got no way to verify that, do I? Anyway, for only 20 bucks, I recommend the hell out of this game. It’s received very favorable reviews on Metacritic, and the faux-Satriani soundtrack is so, so good.

Get it.

Facebook is your new Internet.

Facebook isn’t just a social network anymore. It’s expanding to embrace other sites and applications we used to view as separate. What do I mean? Simply that Facebook is the new Myspace, but it’s also Twitter. And LiveJournal. And Flickr. It’s all of these rolled into one. And now, Facebook is becoming a bridge to every other site on the Web, (duplicating features found in a relatively new site called FriendFeed—see my sidebar widget).  Eventually, Facebook could moot the Mac vs. Windows debate, because both operating systems will be little more than a conduit for Facebook. A means to an end. What the hell am I talking about? Here’s a chart to explain it.

Does Facebook match these other giants feature for feature? Hell, no. Most of these are a whole lot more functional and polished. But Facebook brings features together in a way that is compelling to normal, average folks. People who don’t care about niche sites like FriendFeed or Twitter or LiveJournal. People who don’t try every new Beta that comes along. And what if you do like one of those niche social networks, like Flixter or Goodreads? Well, chances are it hooks up pretty good to Facebook. That its genius. If you want to share your reading list or your movie reviews with your friends and you’re not a famous blogger, you can still reach your pals on Facebook, using just your inside voice.

Ultimately, talking amongst yourselves—your trusted friends—that was supposed to be the promise of social networking. But too many companies are building Web sites for a small group of technophiles and early adopters who care only about new bells and whistles and APIs. They’re solving problems that don’t matter to most people. Facebook has surveyed the Web and figured out why the most successful sites are successful. Now, they’re starting to pull those useful features under one roof. And it’s working. Because, somewhat circuitously, under that roof is where all the people are.

Emusic Downloads for May

I’m not sure this month’s downloads are entirely successful, ‘cuz I’ve not done a lot of listening. But one thing I’m sure about: What Makes a Man Start Fires will not be regretted. The documentary, We Jam Econo, got me all fired up about the Minutemen again. And I’m remember how weird I felt when I first heard them. Weird and intrigued to feel like everything I’d ever known about music was…incomplete. Like I had a lot of work to do, and it would never ever get done.  I would never stop learning and I would always be excited about rock music and what you could do with it.

I was wrong about that. You get old and you start to get bored with music. It ceases to matter the way it did when you were 17 and 21 and 24, and music was all you thought about. You get old, and you get bored. You get boring. But it’s nothing we can blame on The Minutemen. You hear the word "uncompromising" thrown around a lot. But that was the Minutemen. The sound of not compromising.