Thursday, November 16, 2006

22 Years...

...is not a quarter long enough.

Happy Anniversary, sweetheart!

posted by Tony Plutonium @ 10:49 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Tyler Hansbrough is God

Okay, maybe not THE God but at least A god.

I said last January that Tyler Hansbrough might be the best center in UNC basketball history. Better than Sean May. Better than Rasheed Wallace. Better than Brad Daugherty. I may have sold him short.

Tyler Hansbrough may very well be the best player in UNC basketball history. Better than Lennie Rosenbluth. Better than Phil Ford. Yes, better than Michael Jordan. (I'm not saying that he'll be a better pro than MJ, but he may well be a better college player.) Most non-Carolina fans seem to hold Ralph Sampson and David Thompson (and more recently that big Duncan fella) as the best ACC players ever - Tyler is challenging them.

There's not much question in my mind that he'll be playing for big bucks next year, so I suggest you watch every damn Carolina game you possibly can this year and enjoy the kid while we can. As Stephen Colbert would say, he's crum-believable!

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posted by Tony Plutonium @ 9:38 PM 3 comments

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Cuckoo's Eggs and Klein Bottles

Many years ago I read Clifford Stoll's book, The Cuckoo's Egg, about his tracking down a hacker that was using the computers at Lawrence Berkeley Labs while Stoll was on staff as an astronomer. It is a very engaging book and I was very happy to see that he was the featured speaker at an IBM technical conference I was attending in Miami. It was great seeing all of these blue-suiters coming down an escalator at the hotel surrounding this wild-haired guy in baggie jeans and Chuck Taylors, spinning a yo-yo over the side during his descent. He turned out to be an incredibly entertaining, if frenetic, speaker and I've wondered from time to time since then what he's been up to.

I now wonder no more, as he is apparently a stay-at-home dad and maker of fine Klein bottles for your amusement and edification. If you're not familiar with Klein bottles, think of them as three-dimensional representations of a four-dimensional space with a single surface - sort of a volumetric Moebius strip. Didn't help? How about this bit of Haiku found on Stoll's website (attributed to Oliver Humpage):

bottle of one side

holds nothing and ev'rything;

no one understands

For Kelly and others of you that are textile-oriented, there's a "Klein bottle" wool hat that I'm sorely tempted to order...

posted by Tony Plutonium @ 10:24 PM 3 comments

Buffy the Cadet Slayer

Via Deadspin, a video taken of a bit of a pre-game scrum between the Citadel and VMI. Note the little blonde VMI cheerleader putting one of the Citadel cadets in a vicious headlock. Do NOT mess with VMI cheerleaders! (Watch the video all the way through - they zoom in on the scrum about halfway through.)

posted by Tony Plutonium @ 10:18 PM 0 comments

Still Standing

I happened to be in DC the day after the election last week and despite the dire preditions of Darth Cheney and President Sock Puppet, the Washington Monument hadn't been toppled and the Mall was not in flames. On the day that Rummy was shown the door, the officers getting on the Metro at the Pentagon were all smiles.

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo and Kevin Drum at Political Animal have done a pretty good job at debunking the current media myth on the winning Democrats but it bears repeating - no, the Democrats did NOT win the election by becoming Republicans. There were a handful of social conservatives that are now new members of Congress (NC's Heath Shuler among others) but as Shuler told Melissa Block on All Things Considered, the more pressing issues are pocketbook issues - what's important is that "he believes government should be a force to help those who cannot help themselves". Social issues just won't be as big a part of the agenda and a return to fiscal responsibility is clearly much more of a Democratic principle than Republican these days. Shuler talks about balancing the budget and ensuring adequate health care to everyone - sounds like a Dem to me.

posted by Tony Plutonium @ 9:56 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Love Will Tear Us Apart... Again

Found out a couple of days ago that there's a biopic of Ian Curtis in the works, based on the book by widow Deborah (and with her active cooperation). While 24-Hour Party People touched on Curtis' suicide (in a weirdly light way), this can't help but be darker. I came to the Joy Division party a little late, a couple of years after Curtis' death but JD and New Order have both been big faves ever since. To give you a taste, here's the video for Love Will Tear Us Apart...

posted by Tony Plutonium @ 12:18 PM 3 comments