5.31.2010 … Long grenouilles vivantes list for Memorial Day! … pouring … Happy birthday, jeff!

random:  My dad always liked this true story … and the movie.

Biggs, from Lambeth, south London, was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963, and made off with £2.6 million in used banknotes.

He was given a 30-year sentence but after 15 months he escaped from Wandsworth prison in south west London by climbing a 30ft wall and fleeing in a furniture van.

Biggs was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Australia and Brazil before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 in search of medical treatment.

via Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs admitted to hospital – Telegraph.

literature, The South: Really enjoyed this article.  Who is your favorite Southern Writer and why?

Perhaps it is the shared and unique history. Certain themes such as slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, family, religion, community, dialect and the overwhelming sense of “place” emerge consistently throughout the best of Southern literature.

Or is it, quite simply, a way of viewing the world around one and then portraying that vision with inimitable elegance and emotional honesty? As with all things in the Deep South, we must look to the past for answers.

via Carrying on the Southern literary tradition by Alex Kearns | LikeTheDew.com.

blogs: kinda interesting … especially like the graphic … 🙂 How Not To Act Old.

culture, teenagers:

As teenagers mature into their senior year of high school, many parents begin to feel more comfortable about letting them drink alcohol. But new research from brain scientists and parenting experts suggests loosening the reins on drinking may not be a good idea in the long run. And, researchers say, parents’ approach to addressing teen drinking does influence a teen’s behavior.

via With Drinking, Parent Rules Do Affect Teens’ Choices : NPR.

marketing, 2010 World Cup:

The meticulously organised and carefully choreographed tour is a centrepiece of one of the most ambitious pieces of marketing linked to next month’s World Cup. Over the past eight months or so, Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest international drinks company, has taken the 14in-high gold statuette to 83 countries.
…
This quasi-religious fervour has fed through to other aspects of the marketing of Coca-Cola and Fifa, football’s world governing body.

Coca-Cola’s executives say they are creating “brand love”. The company’s sponsorship of the World Cup, which dates back to 1978, is important for Fifa too.
…
The company is less willing to talk about its commercial goals. But it is clear “brand love” serves a business goal. South Africa is by volume already one of Coca-Cola’s 10 most important markets. That partly reflects the success of social responsibility policies developed during the apartheid era, when the company provided support for black football and other sports. Moreover, as African economies grow, sales of consumer goods – from mobile phones to beer – are booming.

Coca-Cola is benefiting but the market for soft drinks is becoming more competitive. That means there is good reason to invest heavily in brand promotion. And what better way to do it than develop an identity with Africa’s new passion?

In Durban, at least, the formula was working. As Ms Dhabicharan puts it: “When we watch the matches we’ll be buying a big crate.”
FT.com / Management – World Cup tour lifts Coke in South Africa.

culture, 2010 World Cup: Those Brits!

The average Briton turns up to work with a hangover three times a month, according to a survey on Wednesday, and the frequency is expected to increase during next month’s World Cup.

via UK work hangovers set to rise as Cup kicks off | Reuters.

museums, London: sounds interesting.

The galleries, revamped over three years at a cost of 20 million pounds ($29 million), tell the story of the capital from the Great Fire in 1666, which destroyed four fifths of the city, to the modern day.

Some 7,000 treasures have been cherry-picked from its collection of more than 2 million artifacts to illustrate the city’s rapid development.

Trade, crime, poverty, population growth, fashion and the heavy toll of war are all explored in the many interactive and high-tech displays.

In the gardens exhibit, visitors walk through a darkened room featuring real trees under star-lit skies. Mannequins adorned with original costumes, wigs, masks and hats of the period, glimmer under colored lighting.

via Sinful pleasure garden unveiled at London Museum | Reuters.

5.30.2010 … sunday, sunday … Is no one curious as to what an egg piercer is?

random, way too much information:  So I asked the question, “Is no one curious as to what an egg piercer is?” about an hour ago on Facebook and one dear friend responded. … So here is what it is … I found an egg piercer in my mom’s junk drawer a few years ago, and we have been using it successfully ever since … … you put a tiny hole in a egg before boiling it so it doesn’t crack. As I walked into our great all purpose hardware/variety store, Blackhawk, I overheard and elderly woman and her older daughter (daughter was 60ish) saying if anyone had one they would have it. I introduced myself, and the three of us started looking … I went and asked and voila the nice older British clerk found it … saying she thought they were new in this country. The three of us laughed since I am sure my old one is 45+ years old.  Here is a picture …

new, blogs, random: I’ve added it to my daily list … some just make me laugh.

Now, a new Web site is connecting real people and literary characters. Since early May, “Letters with Character” has been publishing letters submitted by readers to the likes of Goneril of “King Lear” (“I always thought you had the ugliest name….”), Stuart Little (“Turn the car around. She went south.”) and Raskolnikov of “Crime and Punishment” (“Kill her; don’t kill her. Confess; don’t confess. But for the love of god, STOP WHINING!”). In about three weeks, the site has received about 250 letters, 90 of which have been published.

Dearest Edward,

Have you gone mad, Bear?

via An Open Letter to People Who Don’t Read Letters – Speakeasy – WSJ.

glass ceiling, irony:

When my son was in kindergarten, I spoke at career day along with a male nurse who had a child in the class. Afterward, he and I discussed our parallel experiences in the work world. The teacher asked my son, “When you grow up, do you want to be a contractor like your mother and build sports facilities and schools?” My son said, with disdain, “No, that’s women’s work.”

via The Boss – Keep Opening Doors – NYTimes.com.

tv, gLee: Enjoy … final on 6/8 …

Glee – Clip from Regionals : Faithfully – Glee Forum. The Fansite and Forum for FOX’s Glee.

literature, Harper Lee, Jane Austen, quotes:

Soon after Mockingbird appeared, Lee said, only half-jokingly, “All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama,” and she began work on a second Southern novel, but its progress was slow. This in itself was not surprising: Mockingbird had not exactly fallen fully formed from Lee’s brain. She had turned out essays, humor pieces and short stories for campus publications during her one year at Huntingdon College in Montgomery and her years at the University of Alabama (where she studied law), but writing did not come easily to her.

via Harper Lee’s Novel Achievement | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine.

sports, perfection: Perfect Game … Congrats, Halladay of the Phillies!

Now he has mastered the National League with his new team, the Philadelphia Phillies, and on Saturday he reached the pinnacle of pitching greatness.

Halladay pitched the 20th perfect game in major league history with a 1-0 victory over the Florida Marlins at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. He struck out 11, finishing by getting Ronny Paulino, the third Marlins pinch-hitter in a row, on a groundout to third baseman Juan Castro.

via Phillies 1, Marlins 0 – Roy Halladay Pitches Baseball’s 20th Perfect Game – NYTimes.com.

random, education, tradition:  Do they every really say anything … does anyone listen? Famous Graduation Speakers 2010 – Photo Gallery – LIFE.

architecture, history, Georgia, Savannah: Interesting bit of history.

In December 1817 Jay arrived in Savannah as the city’s premier architect and one of the best-trained architects in America. The Richardson-Owens-Thomas House (1819), a commission he received through a family connection, was the first of a series of neoclassical-style mansions Jay designed and features a Regency-style side porch supported by foliated consoles (leaf-shaped decorative brackets).

Bulloch House, Savannah

The interior plans of the William Scarbrough House (1819), which later became the headquarters for the Historic Savannah Foundation, and the Alexander Telfair House (1819), which later became the Telfair Museum of Art, are configured in circular, oval, and elliptical shapes. In the Bulloch House (1818-19) Jay called for a dramatic spiral stair surrounded by Corinthian columns. Jay’s last commission in Savannah was the Bank of the United States (1821), an early Greek revival–stylebuilding dominated by a hexastyle (six-columned) Doric portico. During the years he worked in Savannah, Jay also practiced in South Carolina. In 1820 he was appointed architect of the South Carolina Board of Public Works, for which he provided designs for district courthouses and jails.

New Georgia Encyclopedia: William Jay (ca. 1792-1837).

movies, chick flicks: Well, I liked Kate and Leopold. The Ugly Truth – Top 10 Worst Chick Flicks – TIME.

museums, NYC: Another exhibit I would like to see.

What chance did the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen ever have? Yes, he won the race to the South Pole in 1911, as an engrossing exhibition opening on Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History reminds us, leaving his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott, far behind. Yes, he made his way over uncharted Antarctic territory to the pole, taking 57 days to do what Scott, beginning from previously mapped terrain, could only do in 81. And yes, Amundsen attained the glory offered every pioneer in that waning era of exploration, without having lost a single man and with 39 of his sled dogs still alive, while Scott and his party, well …

…

Young visitors try on polar jackets at “Race to the End of the Earth.” The exhibition includes artifacts lent by the Scott Polar Research Institute

But what chance did Amundsen have, after nearly a year of living in triumph and delivering lectures on his great feat, when the bodies of Scott and two other members of his expedition were finally discovered in 1913 by a search party, frozen dead in their sleeping bags in a tent?

via Exhibition Review – Race to the South Pole at Museum of Natural History – NYTimes.com.

Apple iPad, media:  As a gift to myself I will periodically try a iPad version of a magazine … this month Popular Science or Wired … Wired I think!

And as PaidContent points out, the new loot from the new platform comes on top of 63,000 paid iPhone and iPad apps for GQ. (They also point out that some digital titles are more alluring that others: While Wired sits atop the iPad app kingdom, Vanity Fair ranks 90th. Guess iPadians find rich media content of gadgets doing backflips far sexier than winsome portraits of Emma Watson.)

via Wired Magazine’s App Gets a Jolt in Debut – Media Decoder Blog – NYTimes.com.

disasters, BP Oil Spill, irony:

BP was drilling to tap an oil reservoir it had identified called Macondo, the same name as the cursed town in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” As on many past projects, BP hired a drilling rig from Transocean, the largest deep-water driller. Workers from Transocean and other contractors did most of the work, under the supervision of BP employees on the rig and in Houston.

via BP Decisions Made Well Vulnerable – WSJ.com.

random, Jane Austen: A man who evaluates women in light of  Jane Austen’s heroines … that’s a new one!

Jay McInerney, novelist and ladies’ man, describes his serial crushes on Jane Austen’s heroines – and how they shaped his romantic life

via Beautiful Minds: Jane Austen’s Heroines – Telegraph.

“I would not say that this announcement is the equivalent of seeing the face of God, but it might turn out to be the toe of God.” – JOE LYKKEN (a theorist at the U.S.-based Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) week ending May 29, 2010

“So I would not say that this announcement is the equivalent of seeing the face of God, but it might turn out to be the toe of God.”

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/05/physicists-stub-the-toe-of-god.html#ixzz0pQtQXORx

Week of may 23 – 29, 2010

“An activist court is a court that makes a decision you don’t like” – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy … Week ending 5.22.2010

May 16-22, 2010

Now you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running! … -Forest Gump … week ending 5.15.2010

Week of June 9 – 15, 2010

“A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt week ending 5.8.2010

you say goodbye and i say hello … hello, hello … i don’t know why you say goodbye, i say hello … hello, hello – The Beatles week ending 5.1.2010