Wow, it's late. Or at least it is for me. I guess this could wait til tomorrow... Except... I have a feeling that this card will show up in my dreams tonight, taunting me to figure out the Mystery of the Two Well-Dressed Men in the Stands Behind Burt Hooton. Seriously, I feel like the third Hardy Boy trying to make sense of who those two guys are at the top of the bleachers. Wait... there were only two Hardy Boys, weren't there. Hmm. Well, you know any time a book series clocks in at well over 50 volumes, I say it's okay to position yourself as an alternate. You gotta figure one of the two is gonna get sick of the other one, or will sprain an ankle and can't get past page 100, or will be killed off or something. Makes sense for there to be a stand-in, stretching and loosening up somewhere in the background. Right.

Anyway, I've come up with a list of possibilities on the identities of these guys:

• Jake and Elwood Blues Problem with this theory is that they're a), about ten years early, and b), not wearing hats and sunglasses. Other than that, one's tall, the other's fat, and they're at a Cubs practice... Oh, but that's another problem, isn't it? This is surely Cubs spring training, and wouldn't Jake be in lockup at Joliet round about this time?

• The Righteous Brothers Man, how great would it be if these two guys were the Righteous Brothers? Problem with this theory is that there's nobody sitting around them. The girls would be swooning all over them, and yes, when I say "girls" I really mean "old ladies in the bleachers at a Cubs spring training practice."

• The Everly Brothers They both look a little too tall to be the Everly Brothers, but you never know. Again, not likely, as there are no guitars around them, and no girls swooning. Yes, "girls" still equals "old ladies in the bleachers at a Cubs spring training practice."

• Bonafide G-Men OK, here's the scene: practice has just ended and the players are walking off the field in clusters, joking and making plans for dinner. G-Men #1 and #2 walk down out of the bleachers and up to a random player, flicking cigarettes out of their mouths and pulling out notebooks. They say they just have some questions and the player gets real jumpy (cue fast-tempo bongo roll, to build suspense). The G-Men tell him to cool it, the player freaks and makes a break for it, and G-Man #1 pulls out a walkie-talkie and calls for back-up (cue horns hitting the first hook of the theme song). The scene freezes for a split-second and the title comes up "FOOT CHASE!" Then it goes back to the action. I'm thinking real late-Sixties, early-Seventies cop show, full of tense drama and action-packed, uh, action sequences. Oh, so it would turn out that the random player was really a petty numbers runner who would cave in interrogation and squeal on the mafia boss. Or something. It would be different week to week.

• Team Executives or Scouts Snooze. Seriously, who wears a sportscoat and black slacks to a spring training practice?

Or maybe they're not in the stands at all, but are:

• Tiny Devil and Angel, perched on Burt Hooton's shoulder It's a stretch, mainly because a), they'd travel with him throughout his pitching motion, and b), they're not technically perched on Burt's shoulder. I bet, though, that if he were standing up they'd be right there, leaning in to tell him a dirty joke.

I give you 1968 Topps #38, Tony Pierce, with razor-sharp sides and corners, and I-swear-it's-original-gloss. It's well-centered on the front and the tid-bit of fantastical info on the back is incredible (Tony once struck out 5 batters in one inning at high school). But best of all, you'll go blind looking at it.

This particular piece of cardboard badly misaligned when it was time to hit the blue rollers in the printing process, resulting in an almost 3-D effect on the team name and missing ink in other areas. It all feels like a waste, too, since the photo is so boring (it looks like the photographer asked Tony to take his hat off and gaze stoically into the distance, like a tired farmer at the edge of a field). If only this had happened to a card featuring a more dynamically posed player... but this was 1968, so I guess that rules out Vicente Romo doing jazz hands (1970), or Dock Ellis thrusting the ball at the camera in an attempt to get the viewer as high as he was (1969).

Like everything else, I could be weeks, months, or possibly even years late on this. Well, probably not years, because as far as I can tell, this is something new for 2008. I'm referring to a new promotion Topps is going to roll out for their football products in 2008, called Topps Player Collection.

The gist of it is that the 30 best players will be found on the same checklist numbers in every Topps NFL set for 2008. It's an interesting idea, and you have to think that if it tests positive with dealers and collectors, something like this will end up as the practice for other sports.

The problem I see with it carrying over to other sports is that it throws off the meritocratic checklisting system Topps baseball really just put back into circulation. Let's say Albert Pujols is #500 in 2009 Topps. Does this mean that every Topps baseball set will have at least 500 cards? Or is it much more likely that cards #1 through #30 are super stars?

Also, here's a great piece by Tyler Kepner in today's New York Times about major leaguers and their fantasy football teams. [NY Times.com]

Since the dawn of time, Cowboy's younger brother has been mildly pestering us to go on a skiing holiday with him and the girlfriend, whose company I don't enjoy. Cowboy has wanted to do this for the past six years. I have always resisted, coming up with excuses ranging from "We can't afford it" [lie] to "Oh dear. We've just booked flights to the States, so we can't go this year" [true]. It was

Audio

Onra – Introduction – Favorite lrpbbr01
Onra – The Anthem - Favorite lrpbbr01
Santogold – I'm a lady (Diplo mix ft. Amanda Blank) cdr
Sir Mixalot – Broadway Posse cdr
Santogold – Lights out (Diplo's Panda Bear mix) cdr
Clouds – Elders – Jahtari jtr02
Ras Amerlock – Elders (Trinity station mix) Jahtari jtr02
Johnny Osbourne – We need love – Heartbeat
Dub Specialist – Luanda - Heartbeat
Cutty Ranks w. Dennis Brown – Decide your mind – 17 North Parade
Dusk & Blackdown ft. Farrah – Con/Fusion – Keysound
Shackleton – You bring me down (Peverlist rmx) – Scape
King Midas Sound – Cool down – Hyperdub
Baden Powell – Samba em preludio – Naïve
Debashish Bhattacharya – Sufi bhakti – Riverboat
Mungo's Hi-Fi – Mexican bean riddim – Scotch Bonnet
Madera Limpia - en la esquina - Out there
Furlined - There's beauty in improbable things - Concave Music
Giant Sand - Stranded Pearl - Yep Roc
Mogwai - Bat Cat - Wall of Sound -
Moussu T - Lo Gabian - Le Chant du Monde
Orchestre du Jardin de Guinee - N'na soba - Sterns
Mbilia Bel - Wendenda - Sterns
King Cannibal - Arigami Style - Ninja Tunes
Radio Massacre International - Rain Falls in Grey... Cuneiform Records

The start of the college football season is upon us. Florida starts the year ranked #5 in the nation. I'll be watching #3, Chris Rainey from Lakeland. A home town boy from Polk County. A couple of great quotes from Rainey..

#1. "Damn, I'm glad I'm Chris Rainey,"
This quote was in the Miami Herald which led to a state investigation into illegal gifts.

#2. "Every time you see a fine girl (in Gainesville), you see another fine girl better than her. (Some people) like different color girls and stuff like that. I'm a white girl man."

Yeah, he is from Polk County........

It is with great sadness that I have to report that Geoffrey Perkins has died in a road traffic accident in London. He was only 55. Geoffrey was instrumental in bringing Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to radio back in the 70s, and in his roles as a BBC radio producer, director of Hat Trick Productions, BBC TV Head of Comedy, and latterly with Tiger Aspect Productions, he has been part of an incredible number of shows that I've enjoyed for nearly 30 years.

He was a great talent who will be much missed, and his list of hit shows just goes on and on. How many of these have you enjoyed?

The Catherine Tate Show, The Fast Show, Father Ted, Spitting Image, Saturday Night Live, The Harry Enfield Television Programme, Ben Elton - The Man From Auntie, The Thin Blue Line, Radio Active and KYTV, 2 Pints of Lager, My Family, Coupling, and Big Train. His latest show Harry and Paul, with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, starts next week.

Read the full report on his life at BBC News, and here is his Wikipedia and IMDB page.

Geoffrey Perkins, 55, worked for many years for BBC Radio, where he created the game Mornington Crescent in I'm Sorry Haven't a Clue.

He also produced the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the most successful radio shows ever made.
[...]
BBC director of vision Jana Bennett said she was "shocked and deeply saddened" by the news.

"Geoffrey Perkins was an outstanding creator of countless comedy hits on the BBC and elsewhere, and a very distinguished former BBC head of comedy.

Overwhelmed by the massive, 1,000+ card Yankee Stadium sets that have come out this year? Me too. That's why I've got a better idea. If you want to celebrate Yankee Stadium in your own way, collect those cards that feature it in the background. The same can apply for those of you sick and tired of all things Yankee, who would rather focus on Shea Stadium and the Mets.

Because Topps calls New York City its home, many of its cards feature the two current New York City ballparks as part of the background. 1970 was a big year that comes to mind immediately, but there are plenty of others. And the best part of these DIY Yankee and Shea Stadium legacy sets is that your sets won't be composed of just Yankees or Mets--your set will include most or all of the other major league clubs as well.

Now I'm not a Yankees fan, but something like this appeals to me as a fan of baseball history, much more than a set full of cards of the same handful of players ad nauseam.



(From sorting through a few thousand cards from the 1970s, a Fenway Park Legacy set could also be put together this way.)

One thing I always wanted: a clear resin toilet seat, the kind that comes embedded with hundreds of pennies. You can find this type of thing in gigantic Las Vegas souvenir stores and other fine outlets of all-American kitsch. I mean, c'mon-- who doesn't like finding money where you least expect it?

So then let's fast-forward to the end of September, when Topps releases Treasury Basketball, a product featuring cards literally stuffed with cash. Each box is guaranteed a rip card, with exactly 429 of them containing actual United States currency (neatly folded $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, and $1,000 bills).

OK. I can find a lot of problems with this, the least of which being that Topps has to remove their pack disclaimer that they don't claim to know if cards will have any future value, since 429 cards will be worth at least $10. But that's petty in comparison to the pandora's box this opens. What Topps has created is a lottery. Not just a pseudo-lottery that the card industry has become in general, with packs containing rare autographs and game-used memorabilia, but an actual one with predictable odds and real money changing hands. Kind of scary, isn't it?

Here's something else to consider: let's say you find one of the cards containing a $20 bill. Do you open it up? Or is it more valuable than $20 if you leave it intact? Also, what if it's stamped with a 1/50 serial number? Does that make it more valuable than $20?

But perhaps the harshest indictment of the state of the card industry is this: Topps is proclaiming that finding actual cash in a pack is the next step in the evolution of the insert card. And they may have caught on to something: it is probably far cheaper to include cash in a product than spending lots more on securing contracts for autographs and game-used memorabilia. And besides, autos and relics have become so commonplace that finding one in a pack no longer carries the same weight it once did.

If cash cards in a basketball product with limited originality or appeal works, the practice will soon become a staple of the hobby.

Read the article at SCD.com

Sean Cousin found my book online at Blurb.com and decided to contact me for an interview. His blog/journal is a great resource for integral photography. Pentimento / Polarama Please click on the link and check it out. Sean thank you for your interest in my Polaroid work and for taking the time to post the interview on you blog. Many thanks.......

Polaroid Collage created on August 20, 2008.

Do you think Pain advances mankind? I would have to say it does. Both good and bad. Think about the lost of a love one. And the pain you go through when they are no longer around. That pain makes you stronger, makes you appreciate the time and lessons that you learned from that loved one! Its something we all go through with a number of situations. It changes our outlook on life and on society. This world, this America would not be the same without Pain. Nor am I...........

How many of you guys like Ben Stein? I just read an article by him published by the New York Times. I would love to post the article on my blog, but afraid I might get sued by NYT. Anyway, its about how we are getting chained to the devices and technology of our times. And how its making us un-connected with ourselves and with others.... A really great article. Worth you time reading.............. Connected,Yes, but Hermetically Sealed

Some recent vector images I created for a customer.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

I've been held captive by the 1953 Topps Eddie Mathews Mystique for years. It's officially my favorite card, and I've put off buying it until I had enough money for one in near-mint condition. But then something strange happened. I began to really love miscut cards. And it turned out that there are a plethora of miscut cards from the 1953 Topps set. Needless to say I jumped on this one as soon as I found it.

Here's where it gets really great. That other card that's along the bottom? It's the lower tenth of Roy Campanella's card, who's my other favorite player from Mathews' era. I think it's interesting to note that, using this card and the one of Clem Labine I posted previously as examples, Topps seemed to line up their cards one row up, one row down on their uncut sheets. Because the design featured a black box along a portion of the bottom of each card, you'd think that this set would've had a ton of miscuts.

My command of the english language is not so advanced that I can adequately describe the unbridled joy I felt when I exited the office safe in the knowledge that I would not return for two weeks. The jealous gods of the pre-holiday workload bonanza had been cackling from a great height while scattering piles of paperwork in their wake. They didn't forget a smattering of other people's urgent

Remember the cute (well, I thought she was cute) katydid that blended in so perfectly with the leaves? I've been watching her. In fact, I've been keeping her, so I could take pictures of her as an adult.


Here she was a day or so ago, her adult wings stuffed into her too-small exoskeleton.


These katydids are constantly cleaning their feet.



The view down inside her container this morning. She has made her final shed. I looked for her old skin, but I couldn't find it. Maybe she ate it?



Close up of a very leaf-like wing.












Now that I've seen her to adulthood, it's time to release her so she can find a mate and I can look forward to more of these delightful bugs next summer.

Audio

Young Marble Giants – The clock – Domino
David Lynch – Ghost of love – David Lynch
Tse – Negativ nein – Optical Sound
Kasai Allstars – Beyond the 7th moon ……… Crammed Discs
Konono No.1 – Kule kule – Crammed Discs
Daniel Figgis via Somadrome - 40 Shades of Figgis – Wiretapper
Terry Riley – The last camel in Paris Parts 1 & 2 - Ellision Fields
Passo Uno – Il paese immobile – Trazeroeuno
Hue – Medalena (Bologna) –Trazeroeuno
Steve Reich – Variations for Vibes, Piano and Amp: Strings (2005) II Slow – Nonesuch
Sahib Shihab – Stoned ghosts – Schema Records
Disrupt - Oppressor Dub - Jahtari -
Rootah - Elders Version - Elders
Unbunny - Casserole - Affairs of the Heart
Reggae Remixed - Mixed and Produced by Cojo Bushrocker
Cassette Boy - Carry on Breathing -
Low Motion Disco - Things are goona get easier part 1+2 - Eskimo Recordings
Aynzli Jones - Had Enuff -
Andy Haas - The Ruins of America, part 1 - resonant music
Pumajaw aka Pinkie Maclure & John Wills - Jacky Daw - Fire Records
Will Cookson - Autumn Song - Tinpot Records
Paradox in my Pantry - Natalie
Tee-Tot Quartet - 07-04-00 - pfMentum

Hi, I’m Mike Osier, head of IT Operations at Netflix. My team is responsible for the technology supporting our shipping, Web site, and streaming to PCs and TVs. Now that things are back to normal following last week’s shipping outage, I’d like to shed some light about what happened, why, and what we’re doing about it. On Monday, 8/11, our monitors flagged a database corruption event in our shipping system. Over the course of the day, we began experiencing similar problems in peripheral databases until our shipping system went down. It was going to be a long night.

We suspected hardware and moved the shipping system to an isolated environment, gradually getting DVD shipments moving again. Eventually the system was repaired and shipping returned to normal conditions. With some great forensic help from our vendors, root cause was identified as a key faulty hardware component. It definitively caused the problem yet reported no detectable errors. We’ve taken steps to fortify our shipping system with the acquisition of additional equipment and worked with our vendors to verify we’re in good shape elsewhere.

Hope this was helpful and thanks for your patience.

Last week I delivered two illustrations for a Belgian Card company called Marsival. This is the result: Two cosy christmascards made in the middle of summer.

I keep a mini card of Kwame Brown on my desk, one that I've dubbed Lil' Kwame Brown. And I've been thinking: what if Lil' Kwame was real? I've come up with one possible movie for him, based on his real-life basketball exploits...




But this would be just the beginning. I think Lil' Kwame has three-picture deal potential.

In "Swishinpoofs" he would star as a troubled-but-talented ballplayer, forced to join the college a capella group in order to stay academically eligible.

And in "The Lil'est Spy", Brown would infiltrate an underground drug network, with a climactic death race sequence shot in real time, between Lil' Kwame and life-size Andrei Kirilenko.

And if Hollywood doesn't pan out, Lil' Kwame definitely has boy-band potential.

(And by the way, I'd love to see other movie posters for fake films starring sportscards.)

Condé Nast Traveler features this lengthy essay about a trip to see the Mountain Gorillas by Klara Glowczewska.

Guhonda was some 450 pounds, measured over six feet when fully upright, and was shaggily, luxuriantly hirsute. Our eyes met repeatedly but fleetingly as he surveyed his terrain, and I was struck by how very nearly human his gaze was—97.7 percent of his DNA is identical to ours. Guhonda is a silverback (or sexually mature male) mountain gorilla, of the subspecies Gorilla beringei beringei. He is the dominant male in the Sabyinyo group, one of seven mountain gorilla families in Rwanda's northern Parc National des Volcans. I was crouching about ten feet away from him on the vertiginous, rain-forested slopes of a dormant volcano, seven of which, some up to 15,000 feet high, form the mountainous backbone of central Africa—'so high up,' Dian Fossey wrote, 'that you shiver more than you sweat.'

Because I'm on a miscut kick, today's card of the day is this version of Ike Brown's 1970 Topps card. A few other great things about the card (besides Brown sharing it 90/10 with Richie Scheinblum of the Cleveland Indians (card #161)):

• Scheinblum didn't make the Indians roster for 1970, but then went on to make the American League All-Star team in 1972 with the Kansas City Royals.

• Ike Brown's card in the Topps Baseball Cards Book is also poorly centered. Does that mean that the Topps file version of the card is also a terrible version?

• I'm beginning to find that I like cards of players where there are other players milling about in the background. Ike Brown's card has another player walking through the frame, making it seem like the Topps photographer either got to the stadium late to photograph Brown or had to squeeze him in. This theory actually makes sense, because Brown was a rookie in 1969.

• Because this version exists, there is at least one sheet of messed-up miscuts out there from the 1970 set.

I'll join the renewed spirit.

I have no real excuse except I haven't really felt much like bug-hunting. I haven't found much of interest lately. It's all the same old stuff. I often feel dissatisfied with the pictures I'm taking lately, so why post a crummy picture of something I already have a good picture of?

Which leaves me with nothing to post about lately.

OK, I did put up a set of katydids on Flickr.

Before Topps' institutionalized exaltation of players like Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, and Mickey Mantle, and Upper Deck's lavishly illustrated Baseball Heroes, hero worship was one of the many options in composing a baseball card set. Witness Fro Joy's 1928 Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig's face and facsimile signature on every card in the 1934 Goudey set. But most of all, feast your eyes on the big wet sloppy kiss on the lips that is Fleer's 80-card set from 1959: Baseball's Greatest, Ted Williams.

Six cards of a guy I can live with (that's about the length of a standard subset). And even 250 cards with Gehrig's little smirking face in the corner isn't bad (Gehrig is just part of the design, not the subject of each card). But 80 cards of the same player? You'd think that would be overkill. Of course, you'd be right. It turns out that you can form a pretty good picture of who Ted Williams was as a ballplayer with just five or six cards, not 80. And you really only need one card to form a solid image of who Ted Williams was as a human being: card #54, "Dec. 1954, Fisherman Ted Hooks a Big One."

From the back:
"Ted is an avid and expert fisherman. He devotes more time to fishing than anything else, except baseball. His status in the fishing world is as renowned as his status in the baseball world. Williams is particularly interested in game fish, such as marlin, tarpon or sailfish. On December 10, 1954 at Cabo Blanco in Peru, Ted caught the 8th largest black marlin ever landed with rod and reel. It weighed 1,235 lbs. Ted calls this 'my greatest fishing thrill.'

(The Best of the Set is Ted Signs for 1959 (card #68). It's by far and away the most valuable card in the set, and the most important for set collectors.)

Fleer made a big splash by signing Williams away from Topps in 1959, and they planned on getting their money's worth out of the deal. The set from 1959 was just the start of Teddy's cardboard coronation as he approached retirement. 1960 saw the first of two Baseball Greats sets of retired players, which lauded Williams as the brightest star among stars.

So then why, if 80 cards is overkill, does this set pull rank on a number of full-bodied sets made up of a season's worth of players? For a number of reasons, not the least being that it was the first post-war set of unabashed hero worship.

Fleer wasn't the first rival of Topps to sign away one of its major stars, but it was the first to do it after Topps swallowed Bowman in 1955. Also, it wasn't just a small-time regional star Fleer built around. It was Ted Williams, The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived. I don't know if this is a fair assessment, but if Fleer doesn't land Williams in '59, does it release baseball cards in 1960, 1961, and the aborted series in 1963? I'm not sure those other sets happen without Williams on board. Heck, the whole reason the Baseball Greats sets exist at all was to include cards of Williams as part of his contract.

Also, if this set didn't exist, I'd argue that subsequent hero worship would've looked a lot different. Remember, Topps' Babe Ruth Story subset in the 1962 set came on the heels of Williams' defection to Fleer (and Maris' record-breaking 61 home runs in 1961). Before the BRS subset, Topps had limited experience in the way of hero worship: they gave Ted Williams card #1 three times (1954, 1957, 1958) and within the first five in 1955 and 1956. The only other instance I can think of is Roy Campanella's post-accident 'Symbol of Courage' card (#550) in the 1959 set.

Following the BRS, hero worship was part of the Topps repertoire, to be used in 1974 with Hank Aaron, 1985 and 1986 with Pete Rose, 1990 with Nolan Ryan, and in the recent abyss composed of every Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds insert set the company has felt compelled to produce. All of these go back to the Babe Ruth Story subset in 1962 Topps, which in turns goes back to Fleer's 1959 set, Baseball's Greatest, Ted Williams.

IMAGE:
4/27/08
10:46AM
iphone #357

Tonight we were finishing dinner when Maya started whining. Steph picked up up and held her while we finished eating when Maya suddenly burst out laughing. This continued for a minute or so before I ran for the camera and sat down to see if I could catch it.

I did catch a bit of her laughter, but she definitely got the last laugh.

I've been silent lately, but I've been thinking. Is there anything more beautiful than a miscut baseball card?

As collectors, we expect certain things from card manufacturers. One is that their design and photography departments are competent enough to create cards that we will want to collect. Another expectation is that the card-cutting machinery at their printing plants work correctly. Because without proper framing, we're just collecting cardboard rectangles.

As collectors, we bring a lot to the table in our understanding of how to read a baseball card. When a card is miscut, it's no longer a card in the most traditional sense. It lacks focus, a subject, or even proper boundaries. Our approach to reading it is thrown off.

A miscut card is cast aside as a goof with no real value. And while I won't argue the monetary value aspect, I've come to appreciate miscut cards as art, and worthy additions to my collection.

So... if you have any miscut cards, any wrong backs, blank backs, or blank fronts, I'd like to trade you for them. (I'm not looking for cards that you've attacked with a pair of scissors, a box of thumbtacks, or those cards covered in tape or with writing on the front. Those will have to wait for another trade proposal.)

If you're interested in trading, you can email me here or by clicking on the image of Clem Labine's wonderfully miscut 1953 Topps card (to the right). Let me know in your email what you'd like in return. I'll post the best cards I receive.

Audio

Henry & Louis – Hands of Dub – 2Kings
Pale Rider – Dress up – Cassava Outernational
Winston McAnuff & Trinity – Unchained – Makasound
Barrington Levy – Do good – 17 North Parade
Dennis Brown & Big Youth – Equal rights style – 17 North Parade
Culture & Shorty the President – See then a come / Natty pass him GCE - 17 North Parade
Fred Locks – A nice feeling – Cousins
Dubkasm – Horn salute/Heartical dub – Sufferers’ Choice
The Matic Horns & the Sip A Cup Band – Jah farther (discomix) – Sip A Cup
Augustus Pablo – Israel in harmony (extended version) – Shanachie
Spam Allstars - Campanario64 - World Music Net Kid Prince Moore - Chrurch Bells - Mississippi Records
6 Day Riot - Go! Canada - Tantrum Records -
Sister O.M. Terrell - I'm Going to that City (To Die No More) - Mississippi Records
Woody Gutherie - Talking Hard Luck Blues - Snapper
Alabama3 - Woody Gutherie - One Little Indian
Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - XL
Atmosphere - - You - Rhymesayers
Real Tuesday Weld - The Decline of the Clerkenwell Kid - Antqiue Beat
Maybe Myrtle Tyrtle - El Rapido Bastardo - Bushwacaka
Genod Droog - - Gwn Tatws - Slacker
Idaho - The Thick and the Thin - Talitres
Armando - Don't take that - Lets Pet Puppies
Keith Worthy - Moondance - Third Ear
Mixworks - Berlin Dub - Mixworks

It’s been a long and challenging week, but it ends on a positive note. Today we shipped from all 55 Netflix distribution centers across the U.S. More than three million DVDs went into the mail, including roughly 95 percent of orders backlogged from Tuesday through Thursday. And the balance of backlogged orders will mail on Saturday. Importantly, all of us at Netflix want to offer special thanks to the scores of members who called, emailed and posted words of support at a tough and humbling moment for our company. Apologies to all once again and thanks for hanging in there with us.

2D pixel sketch.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

Let’s get right to it. This morning, we’re happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations after experiencing three days of significant issues. Throughout the night and as we post this update, our distribution centers are processing customer orders and getting them into the mail. If a member should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, with rare exception it will ship today (Friday). As a result, millions of our members will receive DVDs on Saturday, in time (we hope) for some weekend movie enjoyment. But we know that’s not enough. The service interruption we experienced this week inconvenienced many of our members and put us in the awful position of disappointing people. So we’re taking added measures. For all members whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a 15% credit to their next billing statement. Or, for new members whose first shipments have been delayed, we’ll automatically extend their free trial by a week. Rest assured that we are taking aggressive steps to fully understand the root cause of this week’s problems and safeguard against issues like these in the future. For now, we’re just happy to be able to get back to doing what we love most – delighting our customers. Again, most sincere apologies and thanks for your understanding.

allright allright.. been on a long holiday but this is one thing I recently created. There's quite a few real Berlin buildings and sights in it. First who sees them all wins!

By late this afternoon, we’d made enough progress on our system issues to begin shipping again from some of our distribution centers. We hope to bring the rest of our facilities back online overnight and be shipping from all of our distribution centers on Friday. But the issues we’ve faced over the last several days have been significant and there’s no guarantee at this point that our shipping operations will be fully restored by tomorrow. We’ll again be working throughout the night and will update you in the morning. Thanks for now and continued apologies.

Hi, it’s Andy again. Unfortunately, we continue to experience significant shipping issues as of Thursday morning. We were able to ship some DVDs from about half of our distribution centers yesterday but we haven’t yet been able to resume shipping this morning. Our engineers continue to work around the clock to restore normal operations. In the meantime, we’re notifying affected customers via personal email and we’ve posted a notice on the Netflix Web site. We’re as frustrated about this as you are and we once again apologize for the inconvenience. In any case, I’ll update you again later today. Thanks for your patience.

A good friend of mine has started a new blog. Her and a few of her friends have put up a blog about Con$umption. They post reviews on things they buy. I think its a great idea and you should check them out.

IMAGE:
4/23/08,
10:01am
iphone #348

Hi, it’s Andy Rendich back with an update. As of this morning, some (but not all) of our distribution centers are back up and shipping DVDs. Our goal is to resume normal shipping from all of our facilities as soon as possible, but we are still experiencing technical issues with our shipping systems. We apologize again for the inconvenience and continue to appreciate your understanding. We’ll keep you updated as there’s more to say. Thanks for now.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund August Field News reveals that the famous Silverback Pablo, a 34 year old gorilla first named by Dian Fossey is currently missing from his regular group, and the outlook for finding him is diminishing day by day.

Giraneza, a 14-year-old silverback apparently went with him.

The same morning, silverback Inshuti, who is now the leader of a small new group that contains only him and three females, was found seriously injured. He seemed unable to move from his nest site and had a large wound on his arm and several smaller wounds elsewhere on this body.

Since Inshuti’s group was ranging not far from Pablo’s group on the previous day, trackers believe that there probably had been an encounter between the two groups. A study of the trail of Inshuti’s group suggested this was the case, with flattened vegetation indicating an encounter among several individuals. Trackers believed that probably the silverbacks of Pablo’s group, including Pablo and Giraneza, stayed behind to face Inshuti, while the rest of their group moved away to safety.

Hi, Andy Rendich here. I head operations for Netflix, which consists of shipping DVDs to our members. We received and were able to process incoming DVDs this morning but, due to a technology issue, we weren't able to send emails confirming DVD receipt and we won’t ship any DVDs today (Tuesday). Our goal is to resume shipping tomorrow (Wednesday). Members who should have been shipped a DVD today will automatically receive a credit to their accounts, which we will communicate in personal emails. Our apologies for the delay.

Come on, there must be people out there still working. Show something damn it!

Up until my most recent week's absence from writing, I was on a tear, one not unlike Fleer's first series of cards in 1963. I'm not in any way equating my writing with this set in terms of importance within the hobby, nor is Topps suing The Baseball Card Blog to get the idea into my thick skull that baseball cards is their thing, not mine.

Because Topps blocked Fleer in the courts, what could have been a landmark set and perhaps the start to a beautiful Fleer decade was stopped before it really got started. With only 66 cards, plus a scarce, unnumbered checklist, the set Fleer released has to be viewed as incomplete.

As far as formal checklist strategy is concerned, there are a number of interesting things going on. This is the first Fleer checklist to group team members alphabetically by team, though on a much smaller scale than in the sets released in the 1980s. 1963 opens with a handful of Baltimore Orioles, then a bunch of Boston Red Sox, followed by a few Cleveland Indians, Kansas City A's, New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, Washington Senators, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt .45s, LA Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Francisco Giants.

At 66 cards, not everybody from these teams is included. Take the Yankees: only Ralph Terry and Bobby Richardson are in the set. Presumably Howard, Mantle, Maris, et al would've been in a later series. What is surprising is the All-Star quality found in the short checklist. Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Carl Yastrzemski, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Warren Spahn, Don Drysdale, and Willie Mays all made it in. And let's highlight the Mays card for a second. His is the only card separated from the rest of his team (Mays is on card 5, while the other Giants are on 64-66). Another notable card in the set is that of Milwaukee Brave Joe Adcock (#46). This is a short-printed card, making it harder to find than the other 65.

The design is classic Fleer, following 1960's and 1961's lead with white borders. This set also marks the first modern-era use of fielder position silhouettes in the front-of-card design (1973 and 1976 Topps being the others). Finally, the Best of the Set is the rookie of Maury Wills (#43). For reasons that are still hard to figure out, Wills was one of the very few players whom Topps did not tender a player contract to before his rookie season. Therefore, this is his true rookie card. His first Topps card would not come until 1969. All those times you've seen Maury Wills on a 1962 Topps design? Yup, card doesn't really exist.

Cartoon about a new species of frog that was discovered in Colombia.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

LivingInPeru.com has a story concerning both Amazonian Manatees and the Pink River Dolphin.

Government authorities in Loreto, Peru's largest and northernmost region, have announced that measures are being and will be taken to protect, care for and preserve the lives of pink dolphins and other mammals in captivity.

It was reported that anyone who had a pink Amazon River dolphin, Inia geoffrensis, or "bufeo colorado” as they are known in Peru, will have 60 days to report to the Regional Production Directorate and explain why the animal is being kept in captivity.

How does it smell?

Rather well actually...

Molecular ecologist Silke Steiger, at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, has been conducting a new study, searching for smell-related genes in nine species of birds. Based on his team's research, guess who's been identified as the top sniffer bird?

They looked for genes that encode olfactory receptors, which detect odors. Researchers generally assume that animals with a greater variety of receptors have a better sense of smell. Mice, for example, have close to 1000 working olfactory receptor genes, and humans have roughly 400.

By this logic, the most acute sense of smell in Steiger's menagerie belongs to the kakapo, a rare nocturnal parrot indigenous to New Zealand. The team estimates that the kakapo has 667 functional olfactory receptor genes.

Audio

Divine Styler - Grey Matter - Giant
Ponchoz Sanchez - Papa Gato - Concord Jazz
Johnny Hammond - Fantasy - Juno Records
The Martins - Hung Over - Kent
T La Rock - Flow with the new style (dub mix) - Fresh Records
Sleeve - Clap your hands - Freestyle Records
Eric B & Rakim - In the Ghetto - MCA Records
Glen Anthony Henry - I Don't Know - Unique
Arnold Jarvis - Take Some Time Out - Fourth Floor Records
Stepahnie Mills - Top of My List - 20th Century Records+
Sharon Jones & Dap Kings - Keep on Looking - Soulplex Recordings
Cimarons - Wicky Wacky - Vulcan
Jorge Ben - Sou de Pedsa - Dejavu Records
West Phillips - (I'm just a) sucker for a pretty face - Quality
Soul Spectrum - Life Goes On - Soul Spectrum - Fry002
Leon Haywood - The streets will love you to death - CBS - S81774
Marc Evans - (If you want my love) put something down on it - Defected Records
Bakura - Mistaken Fet. Darien - Especial -
Ricco's All Stars - Going West - Swan
Joe Gibbs & Professionals - Fort Augustus Rock - Joe Gibbs
Tommy McCook - Tribute To Muhammad aLI - Pressure Sounds 59
Sound Dimension - Saucy Perila - Studio One
Sophia Nelson - Mystic Melody - Soulchoonz
Robin Thicke - Magic Interscope

Wildlife Extra has an interesting update on the NZ Department of Conservation's trapping programme which aims to remove all the stoats from Resolution Island.

In 1908 early conservationist Richard Henry left Resolution Island in New Zealand's Fiordland, his dream of an island sanctuary for endangered birds shattered by the arrival of stoats onto the island. One hundred years later the battle to restore Henry's dream has leapt forwards with the removal of 258 stoats from the island in the first fortnight of the NZ Department of Conservation's (DoC) trapping programme.
[...]
Resolution covers some 210 square kilometres and is the fifth largest of New Zealand's off shore islands. "For a number of years DoC has been successfully eradicating predators on smaller islands. We've proven we can really make a difference to endangered species, but Resolution is the 'big league'. The sheer size and the variety of habitats on Resolution Island means controlling stoats and deer will be of major benefit to a variety of wildlife. Stoats are the reason there are no ground birds such as kakapo or kiwi or other vulnerable birds such as saddleback and kokako on Resolution Island." Said Mr Murray Willans [Department of Conservation Biodiversity Manager in Te Anau]

You would be forgiven for thinking that this blog should be entitled 'Boring Trivial Life of A Beige Person', so sparse and dull has the posting been of late.  Indeed, I have wondered myself what on earth my life is coming to.  I have moved from London to New Zealand and recently, it seems the only thing that's changed is that I'm prohibitively distant from my family and old friends.Of course

I've just been clearing out my inbox and came across this story about the Boto, a South American River Dolphin with some "interesting" courtship techniques. BBC News has the tale.

A South American river dolphin uses branches, weeds and lumps of clay to woo the opposite sex and frighten off rivals, scientists have discovered.

Researchers observed adult male botos carrying these objects while surrounded by females, and thrashing them on the water surface aggressively.

Projeto Boto scientists are regularly finding dead dolphins, either harpooned or entangled in ropes.

"We lost half of the animals from our study area in just five years," said Tony Martin. [Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University]

"They may be fairly numerous now, but they're going downhill fast and we can't see any end to it."

Check out this news page on MarkCarwardine.com which pictures Mark and Stephen Fry down in the Amazon, most likely before Stephen broke his arm in such spectacular fashion.

Mark has joined forces with Stephen Fry to present a new television series about endangered species – as inspired by Mark's travels to almost every country on Earth studying, protecting and photographing wildlife at risk.

The series will include some of the old stars from the best-selling book, Last Chance to See (which he wrote with the late Douglas Adams 20 years ago), and it will introduce us to many new ones that have inevitably joined the ever-expanding cast of endangered species.

In a story getting a lot over coverage around the web, researchers reported today that an estimate 125,000 Western Lowland Gorillas have been found living in a swamp in northern Republic of Congo. Truly, the Lost World of gorillas, and its an astonishing boost for their numbers, as it effectively doubles their known population worldwide. CNN and MSNBC are just two of the news outlets with coverage.

"It's pretty astonishing," Hugo Rainey, one of the researchers who conducted the survey for the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told CNN Tuesday.
[...]
Acting on a tip from hunters who indicated the presence of gorillas, Rainey said that the researchers trekked on foot through mud for three days to the outskirts of Lac Tele, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the nearest road.

"When we went there, we found an astonishing amount of gorillas," said Rainey, speaking from the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.

I don't have one of these but I"m sure most people do. Do you think something will replace the dishwasher someday? I think its only a matter of time.....

Over the weekend I bought this great 1910 T218 Mecca Jimmy Walsh card for $7. (By the way, it turns out that Walsh and I share a hometown (Newton, Mass.).) And while I was busy scrounging in my pockets and smoothing out dollar bills on the store counter to pay for that great boxing card, over at the latest Mastro auction at The National in Chicago, a guy paid $1.62 million for a copy of the T206 Honus Wagner. All this gets me thinking: Can you imagine buying a beat-up copy of any card of a baseball player from that era for less than $10?

The whole atmosphere surrounding baseball history is singular in its intensity. I guess that's what you get for being the national pastime, but when you step back, the whole situation seems a bit unreal. I mean, why isn't the same focus fixed on old football or boxing cards? I guess there's the argument that that focus is present, but you have to add the signifier that it's only present to a certain extent, and never at the fever pitch baseball experiences on a daily basis.




Here's what's keeping these other sports back: there are no 'white whale' cards in either sport that have pervaded the national conscience like baseball's T206 Wagner.

Wagner Sells for $1.62 million (AP)

A drawing I created as a tribute to the late Heath Ledger's magnificent Joker in The Dark Knight.

I've also written a review of The Dark Knight (no spoilers, don't worry).

In a conversation with Andy of the 88 Topps blog, this topic came up: How long has the hobby been obsessed with the rookie card? Or, perhaps more importantly, how long has the rookie card been important to card manufacturers? And has it become more important through the years, or is its importance just a quality we as collectors project?

Andy made the point that historically, rookies had to prove themselves in the minor leagues with at least a few good seasons under their belts, before they made the jump to the big leagues and got their card in a baseball card set. In contrast, in the last 20 years, young players have been on cards from the moment they were drafted, and sometimes even before they were drafted (the Team USA subsets in 1985 Topps and 1988, 1991, and 1992 Topps Traded).

It seemed obvious, at least to us, that the rookie card has taken a much more significant role in sets as the years, and hobby, have progressed. But then after the conversation ended, I got to thinking: Do rookies really take up a larger percentage of today's sets than in years past? I looked at ten random sets: the T206 White Border monster, 1954 Bowman, 1957 Topps, 1966 Topps, 1978 Topps, 1983 Fleer, 1991 Donruss, 1994 Bowman, 1998 Upper Deck, and 2006 Topps. Here are the percentages:

T206 White Border: 2.1% (11/525)
(incomplete tally, though most glaring rookie omission is that of Hall of Famer Harry Hooper, which is surprising considering the set included more than a few cards of flashes-in-the-pan like Lucky Wright.)

1954 Bowman: 1.8% (4/224)
(I didn't count cards of players making their manufacturer debut, like Jim Gilliam and Bill Bruton, much like you can't count Mantle's 1952 Topps card as his rookie card.)

1957 Topps: 5.4% (22/407)

1966 Topps: 16.6% (99/598)
(This set included many team and league rookie cards. In those instances, I counted each individual player, not card.)

1978 Topps: 20% (145/726)

1983 Fleer: 3.5% (23/660)

1991 Donruss: 11.8% (91/770)
(Coincidentally, this set and others in the early 1990s got screwed out of having more true rookie cards because of earlier player appearances in other sets. In this set, the most notable instance is Tino Martinez, whose only 'true' rookie is his Team USA card in 1988 Topps Traded.)

1994 Bowman: 26% (177/682)

1998 Upper Deck: 3.1% (23/750)

2005 Topps: I can't find a single rookie in this set


It's surprising that the second highest concentration of rookies in this list of random sets is in 1978 Topps. I would've guessed that the later sets had more. But what's even more surprising, if we follow our earlier assumptions, is that there were a handful of players pictured in the monster 1909-1911 T206 White Border set that were only in a league for one or two seasons, guys like Harry Gaspar and Lucky Wright (this smacks of the modern-day Bowman plan of giving everybody a card). Their inclusion may not seem important to the makeup of the set, but by including cards of Gaspar and Wright, American Tobacco left others (perhaps more deserving) out of the set, most notably Harry Hooper.

Another interesting idea is raised, this one for modern sets. When a player is included in a set many years before his actual major league debut, can those cards issued directly preceding or after his major league debut be considered rookie cards? Let's go back to the example of Tino Martinez. He made his cardboard debut in 1988 Topps Traded, as a member of Team USA that participated in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. His next cards came three years later in 1991, as a member of the Seattle Mariners. None of his cards from 1991 are considered his rookie card, but is this fair?

Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever your opinion, this issue is an important one that still affects the hobby (thus the need for and adoption of an official 'rookie card' notation in recent years).


(The card shown, 1989 Topps Gregg Jefferies, is not his rookie card.)

Audio

Orchestre Super Jheeves des Paillotes - Ye Nan Lon An - Analog Africa
Zola - Somlinda Gengoma - Sheer Sound
Orlando Julius & His Afrosounders - My Girl - Vampisoul
Manu Chao - 13 Dias -
Alliance - Maasina Tooro - Hill Country Records
Pama International Love Filled Dub Band - Lovely Dub - Empathy Records
I-Roy - Hard Bud Fi Dead - Kingston Sounds
f*** Buttons - Ribs Out - ATP Recordings
Mr. Scruff - Kalimba & Give up to Get - Ninja Tunes
Stricken City - Tak o Tak
9 Bach - Yr Eneth Ga'dd el Gwrthod -
Sparkle in Grey - Limpronta - Disaster by choice
Martin & Shaw - Warren brings his lunch - Barn Yard Records
Martin & Fisher - Little Man on the Boat - Barn Yard Records
Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray (Live from the Manchester Ritz - On the Wire - December 1988)
Vincent Floyd - "Cruising" Long Ride - Resound Records
John Baker - PM - Computers in Business / Electro- Twist / Man Alive: UFO / Electro Waltz / Orbit / Eletro Weird / Tom Tom (Theme) / Electro Fugue / John Baker Interview / John Baker Goon Advert / Radiophonic FX B / 1980's Tape FX / Spin off / Feedback MQ / Trial (Closing Theme)
Rivulets - Glass Houses - Orasa Records -
Geoff Soule - Improv no. 9 - Supermegacorporation
C Joynes - Pianer Magick - Palimsest Recordings -

Last week, I was way to busy to post but I got to work on a film short here in Lakeland. I did all the lighting. I"m waiting on a link, and once I get that you will be able to post some of the footage for you guys to see. My last post was #300. Wow, never thought I would make it there. Let you know when I hit the big 500.....out