Going to the registry of motor vehicles to renew the registration of the boat trailer, receiving a new registration and plate decal and finding the plate has fallen off somewhere — probably on the boat ramp. Have sticker, have registration, have trailer, have no plate.
Month: January 2008
What I am reading – January 2008
Hit the Harvard Coop yesterday (best bookstore in Massachusetts, fiction section is out of this world) and loaded up on some January reading. Have a lot ongoing, and more in the wings, but I couldn’t pass these up.
The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky. Well, this is a blog about clamming strategies, so I had to get this from one of the best food historians (Cod, Salt, etc.) writing today.
Ă‚Â The Mayflower Papers, Nathaniel and Thomas Philbrick. Primary source companion to The Mayflower, spied this as I was about to buy William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. All in keeping with my recent early Massachusetts history binge. I love primary source history — having had it shoved down my throat in college by history professors who would have it no other way. Sort of opens your eyes to a new perspective on things to hear from the first hand witnesses to events versus the commercial pap foisted on school children about the love affair between the Pilgrims and the Indians and the first Thanksgiving.
Stars and Bars, William Boyd. Contemporary English author, introduced to me by Charles Dubow. One of my favorites. Recommend a newcomer start with The New Confessions
PS: Hey Amazon, stop mucking up book covers with the fricking “Search Inside!” logo. It ruins a good thing.
There Will Be Blood
My son Eliot the film student and film blogger, was in a fever to see the lastest by his favorite living American director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia), There Will Be Blood, and having to drop his sister off at the airport in Boston yesterday, we decided to make an afternoon of it and catch a showing in Harvard Square.
I tend to over-indulge in superlatives, but this film just made it into my top five list of films, a hallowed quintet that holds room only for Ordet, Apocalypse Now, Godfather II, Barry Lyndon, and now this, the best, most swaggering, gripping account of American capitalism and rugged invididualism I’ve ever read or seen.
The cinematography, particularly during the well fire scene, is pure art.
I can’t predict commercial success for this, it is a challenging movie to watch and the title will put a lot of mainstream viewers off, but I suspect this is going to gain an audience over time like no other film in the past twenty years.
Daniel Day-Lewis is at the top of his form. Some of the closeups on his face are satanic.
Best wishes to Om
A Heart-to-Heart with GigaOM Readers – GigaOM
“I had a heart attack on Dec. 28. I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since. With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be OK.”
Get better Om, and stay off the fun stuff for a while.
Flickr uploader has gone flaky
The new uploader for Flickr photos — installed this weekend on my replacement tablet — is not performing up to expectations, nor is as effective as the last version which was quick, dependable, and simple. The new one — which has more pre-upload tagging capabilities, fails a lot during upload sessions. It’s taken me about six attempts to move a set up from New Year’s Day.
I remain a big Flickr fan and proselytize it to everyone with a digital camera, but some colleagues are beefing about how hard it is to share private photos with non-Flickr users, and others are equally passionate about other services such as SmugMug.
I need to do some serious culling on my library. Too much blurry crap up there as I tend to photograph in the even-a-blind-squirrel-can-find-a-nut school of picture taking.
Whereabouts week of 1.1.08-1.13.08
Wednesday 1.2 through Tuesday 1.08 – Cotuit
Tuesday 1.08-Thursday 1.09 – New York City
Friday 1.10-Monday 1.13 – Cotuit
Longterm
1.14 Raleigh
1.28 Beijing
Trying to fix the YouTube embed
Thanks to Chris Murray at the Northborough Group for suggesting a fix to my persistent video embedding problems. For some reason I can “share” a video from YouTube right into this blog but don’t get a post title and …. if I try to edit the post after publishing, the entire blog template gets hosed.
So, here goes, a quick tour of the creepiest place in New England, the site of the “Great Swamp Fight” in Rhode Island — where 400 women and children were massacred by the Colonial Militia in King Philip’s War.
update: it seems to work! thanks Chris!
Olympics stir mixed emotions in China
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Olympics stir mixed emotions in China
“Many Chinese people are trying to out-do each other with shows of Communist-style devotion to the games.
One man has spent three years recording the history of the Olympics onto a scroll 2008m (6,600ft) long.
But, sadly for him, he may be outdone by the acupuncturist who has promised to insert 2008 silver needles into his head to welcome the Olympics.”
That seems normal given my Olympic experience so far.
Couple Finds Rare Pearl in Plate of Steamed Clams
Tip of the hat to Ben L. for this late breaking story in the clamming department.
“Halfway through the $10 dish at Dave’s Last Resort and Raw Bar, Brock bit down on something hard.
He and his wife were astonished to find a rare, iridescent purple pearl among the shellfish.
And they are hoping to cash in on their good luck after experts suggested the find could be worth thousands.”
Purple quahog pearls are a new one for me — guess that’s why they are so valuable.