Do you think Hillary's getting a wee bit miffed by Barack's constant plagiarizing of Bubba's 1992 campaign?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Since I spent a lot of time on the sofa this past year, watching tee vee, I tried to make the effort to watch educational tee vee, so I could at least get something out of the only thing I was able to do. As such, and as I've mentioned many times, I watched the Discovery Channel a lot---and in the process got completely hooked on Dirty Jobs. If you're unfamiliar with the premise of the show, it's fairly simple: people who have "dirty jobs" invite the host, Mike Rowe, out to complete a day's labor. It's one of the funnier things I've seen in a long while, because Rowe is completely incompetent and always manages to screw things up. Very funny stuff. Think of it as "Inspector Clouseau Goes to the Dump" or anywhere else that's even remotely filthy. It's a lot fun, and it has the added benefit of making you realize that being a television show host ain't all that glamorous.

Anyhoo, the husband forwarded this interview with Mike Rowe along, and not surprisingly, I laughed just as much reading it as I would have had I been watching his show. Here's one brief, but hilarious, excerpt, regarding Mike's pre-Dirty Jobs days at QVC:

{...}QVC taught Rowe the ins and outs of live TV and how to talk off the cuff on just about anything. "There was no training," he recalls. "Nothing." Working the ultimate graveyard shift--3 a.m. to 6 a.m.--Rowe was left alone to hawk thousands of different products pretty much however he wanted. "Basically, I just made fun of the products and the callers. I was a complete anarchist." He was selling lava lamps, Hummels, and other nonsense, and falling in love with the occasional hand model.

Then came the business with the nun doll. He had just returned from a weekend getaway involving the beach, a case of Dos Equis, and one of those hand models, when a Sunday-evening emergency call arrived from the studio: The prime-time host was ill. Eager to prove his mettle, Rowe rubbed the weekend from his eyes and headed into work, only to find a display of collectible girlie dolls waiting for him. "There were dozens of little hobbits," he recalls, still sounding vaguely offended some 18 years later. "Little pixies from another time, just sitting there like these little Victorian whores. I thought it was a joke."

He was about to be humiliated in his first shot at prime time. "I'd already called everyone I knew to watch." The producer tried to calm him down, but in his panic, Rowe just reverted to his usual shtick. He picked up the first doll, Rachel--"a nightmare in crushed velvet"--by the hair and plopped her in his lap. "I think I described her as 'soulless, a little creepy but kind of hot,' and as 'a runaway from Little Women,'" he says now, rubbing his head. The crew on the set was dumbstruck. But, Rowe says, "I was really encouraged because the little whore sold out in record time."

Then someone handed Rowe a 2-foot nun doll named Sister Mary Margaret. "If you wound her up, she played 'Climb Every Mountain,' which I thought was hysterical." Rowe had four minutes to kill but ran out of material in 30 seconds, including the time he spent having her spank him with a ruler. Then he tried to crank up her music feature. "I've already announced that she plays music, and I'm squeezing her hand, looking around her neck, but I can't figure it out." When the technical director finally cut away to a display version of the same doll, Rowe, in desperation, turned the little sister upside down in his lap and peeled down her garment. He finally found the crank "in the small of her back, but it's really sort of in her ass." Unfortunately, the technical director cut back to Rowe without warning: "Suddenly, I see myself live on the monitor, with Sister Mary Margaret's face in my crotch, my hand on her ass, and her habit around her neck. And the damn thing is playing 'Climb Every Mountain.'" Rowe froze in horror, then made an unfortunate gesture not suitable for prime time. "It was not good." {...}

Go read the whole thing.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Robbo has a clever idea about how to get his garden in shape.

When I was a young girl, I whined volubly about the amount of chores I had to do. They usually revolved around "inside chores," because that's what the girls did in our household. The boys got the manly, outside chores. This, of course, ultimately meant that I---and my three sisters---was forced to clean their bathroom. I didn't think this was very fair and, of course, I whined about it. This cut very little ice with my mother. Her reply to my complaints was always, "Why do you think I had eight kids? Slave labor!"

If she'd been of a different generation, she would have followed it up with a "Duh."

I suspect the Cake Eater Mother would support Robbo's plan.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We have this occasional problem with our FT delivery: the paper is actually printed elsewhere (in Chicago, I believe) and has to be flown up here for distribution, and, on occasion, it doesn't make it from the printers to the airport on time. Hence, one day we will go empty handed, but the next, we will have two newspapers on our doorstep. Yesterday, we had no paper. Today, we had two, and while I usually take this sort of thing in stride, I was a wee bit pissed off because the front page story on yesterday's FT was the first face-to-face interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky since 2003.

Khodorkovsky was in court on a hearing related to new fraud and embezzlement charges levied against him, and he spoke with the FT's reporter during a break. You can read the transcript of the interview here. I have to say, I don't really know what to make of the entire situation. Khodorkovsky is currently on a hunger strike, to protest the treatment of one of his former Yukos' vice presidents, who was being offered treatment for some medical problems in return for falsifying testimony against Khodorkovsky. The former Yukos vice president refused, and so Khodorkovsky decided to starve himself to try and get his vice president admitted to a Moscow hospital for treatment. So, for someone who has put himself up as a martyr for democracy, and is currently starving himself so that a fellow prisoner (and friend) can get medical treatment, I kind of expected more vitriol against Putin and his hand picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Not so.

FT: Do you think Medvedev believes in the rule of law? When he becomes president is some kind of change possible?

MK: It’s very difficult for me to predict, because it will be so difficult for him. I can’t even imagine. Honestly speaking, if you asked me how to get Russia out of this situation, I would be utterly lost. Tradition, and the state of people’s minds, and the lack of forces able to [support] any movement towards the rule of law, everything’s against him. So…may God grant him the strength to do it. All we can do is hope.”

But that's not the only curious answer Khodorkovsky gave:

FT: Some people say fear is returning to Russia, that things could go back to the Soviet eraÂ…

MK: I hope that that wonÂ’t happen. We need to be ready for the bestÂ…I donÂ’t think it will happen. People can leave freely, the internet works. ItÂ’s just not possible.

FT: But the Federation Council will examine a law on internet this week?

MK: ThatÂ’s just not possible. Everyone clearly understands that innovation is important, we wonÂ’t be able to survive without innovative technology.

FT: But does the government understand that?

MK: The government understands it very well. Even the oil industry canÂ’t work properly without innovation. There can be situations where itÂ’s very difficult to develop an oil well. Without innovation you canÂ’t do it.{...}

Naive? I don't think anyone in their right mind could claim that Khodorkovsky, of all people, is naive. That's just not a possiblity. Beaten down to the point where all he has is hope to cling to? Perhaps. Not in his right mind because he hasn't eaten in ten days? Well within the realm of possibilities. Trying to play the game Putin's way, and is putting out the message that he's finally gotten with the program in the hopes that the establishment will ease up on him? Again, well within the realm of possibilities. I don't really know. It's all very curious. Very, very curious.

But I have to say, what I was really hoping for was some enlightening commentary on this issue:

FT: WhatÂ’s your attitude to the auctions of Yukos assets that took place last year?

MK: I reacted to all that fairly calmly. Because I used up all my nerves in 2004, when a company that was working well was seized and handed over to Rosneft. Rosneft today is basically Yukos with a bit added on. To a large extent, itÂ’s the same people. The production capacity is 75 per cent the same. Rosneft is Yukos after three years of peredelok.

What the hell? His former company headquarters sells for almost $4B US to an unknown entity, when everyone claimed it wasn't worth more than $300M, and all he's got to say about it is that he reacted fairly calmly to it? Sheesh. It's not like I expected all that much, but come on! This is Russia, for chrissakes! Ate least wrap your answer up in an enigma that will leave me wondering for days, bub. Get with the program, eh?

Go read the whole thing. The answers may not be all that enlightening, but if you read between the lines, well, perhaps you might get your Russian Grandmaster political jones satisfied.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I lit a fire last night.

Our choice of kindling is the leftover Financial Times we have lying around the house. The FT usually puts out a lot of supplements, covering things like digital business to, as was recently the case, the World Economic Forum at Davos. Last night, I pulled out that supplement to get the fire going, and how sweet it was because guess who was on the cover?

Yes, you guessed right: it was Al Gore.

How sweet it was to set Al Gore on fire. I relished every moment that section of the paper burnt, spreading his warmth and light to the logs. I watched as he turned to ash and scattered under the grate. It was brilliant and satisfying in a way that really isn't a normal part of my day.

The Goricle: Helping Boost Carbon Emissions at the Cake Eater Pad since 2008!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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They don't use the intercom much at the hospital where I volunteer. Usually it's the last resort to round up stray doctors (or, sometimes, patients), but even though it probably has nothing to do with you, and likely never will, you have to listen to it anyway, because if there's a code, even lowly volunteers have to know what each code means and what's entailed. You know, in case the hospital catches on fire or something equally unlikely.

This morning was no different in the rounding up of a stray doctor. But the details are where the difference was made. Overheard around ten a.m.

"Available OB to Room 222. Stat."

Three minutes later, the same voice and message appeared. The difference was in the delivery.

Available OB to Room 222. STAT."

Two minutes later, another announcement came booming through the loudspeakers:

STAT! ANY AVAILABLE OB TO ROOM 222! STAT!"

Shortly thereafter the familiar, light, cheerful chimes rang throughout the hospital, on, of course, the intercom system.

Room 222 is located in the maternity wing and the chimes ring whenever a baby is born.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Without further ado...

1. I suspect I am not the only person who is relatively up on political things, yet who has absolutely no interest in watching the Super Tuesday returns.

Just. Don't. Care. And you can't make me.

2. Three-quarter-length sleeves drive me up the goddamn wall.

I bought a couple of what I thought were long sleeved tee shirts at Le Boutique de La Target a couple of weeks ago, and when they turned out to be three-quarter-length, I was pissed off, but hell, I should have looked more closely instead of just grabbing a few off the pile and heading for the checkout counter. I mean, honestly, it's just a tee shirt---this shouldn't be that difficult of a purchase. Yeah, I know. Caveat emptor and all that, yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever. I'm still going to whine about them.

While the shirts nicely enhance my (fabulous) rack, they, however, neither keep my forearms warm, nor do they allow me to escape the hot flashes I still have on occasion (and have more frequently when I'm at the hospital because that place is broiling hot.). Besides, they just feel funky. Like you washed a shirt in hot water and the sleeves shrunk. They're the shirt equivalent of floods.

Posted by: Kathy at 07:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of the better Super Bowl Ads from yesterday. I was kind of disappointed in them as a whole, but this one fit the bill quite nicely.

The shape of Stewie's head really does give him the blocking advantage. He had some pretty sweet moves.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is going to seem a lot like inside baseball talk to those of you who don't read the FT on Thursdays---or ever---but this has just been so incredibly well done, I have to comment on it. Last week, we had some delivery issues and I was only informed this morning that I missed the resolution I'd been waiting for! I'm kind of pisssed off that, of all days, the delivery routine was goofed, but alas, there is this wonderful thing called the Internet and, fortunately, the resolution has been archived.

Every Thursday, Martin Lukes' column is published in the FT---or at least it was until around Christmas time, when his last column appeared. Until recently, Martin was the freshly-appointed transplant CEO of a-b global, an Atlanta based company, when he was arrested and tried on insider trading charges. Having been found guilty on four counts of insider trading, he was sentenced to two years and three months in a federal correctional facility in Florida. Apparently, his son, Jake, a trader, ratted him out to the Feds to save his own skin.

Now, Martin is quite the innovative business leader, as detailed in this article:

{...}His first - and some would say greatest - contribution to management thinking came in 2001 when he coined the term Creovation™, a deceptively profound hybrid of creativity and innovation. Over the following seven years this concept was much imitated by other leading corporations, though never bettered. Even General Electric, much revered for its management methods, followed Mr Lukes by launching its "Ecomagination" initiative, which experts criticised as a feeble imitation of the original.

Above all Mr Lukes was a man of paradox. He was a master of spin yet understood the power of authenticity - his sign-off to his cult CEO blog Mind Bullets from the Chairman was "Keep it authentic". He was also a world-class communicator. Reuben Smart, founder of the image consultancy ifwhatwhy!?, said: "At the end of the day, Martin Lukes reached out in a uniquely motivational way to set a benchmark for global practitioners in the communications space."{...]

While, undoubtedly, the fact that his ex-wife is now at the helm of a-b global (and is doing quite well with it) stings, at least his current wife and mother of his triplets is sticking by him. Also, according to his co-author, Lucy Kellaway, his post-incarceration prospects look great. He just has to bide his time in prison, and I'm sure he'll come back roaring.

Now, most of you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, are probably wondering, 'why is she calling this the best gag ever?' Well, it's because of this: Martin Lukes doesn't really exist. He's an amalgam of the worst of business speak and corporate leadership, rolled into one fictitious character, meant to skewer the conventional business thought of this particular day and age. He's the creation of Lucy Kellaway, and while I haven't been reading his column as long as some people have, I'm nonetheless going to miss Martin's exploits. (My personal favorite was while he was on a junket to Svalbard, to launch a-b global's green initiative, and he shot a rampaging polar bear. Of course he fired off his shotgun in self-defense, but he managed to escape any serious ramifications by means of his incredible mastery of PR.)

If you've got some time to kill, and are looking for some entertaining reading, I would highly recommend perusing the archive of Martin's past columns. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll claim it was much better than Cats. I swear.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No, really.

Retired hospital porter Steve Smith, who is suffering from a potentially fatal heart defect, won almost 19 million pounds ($38 million) on Britain's National Lottery -- but said he would give it all up if he could spend a few more years living with his wife Ida.

"I have a one in 10 chance of living. It's like a ticking time bomb," said the 58-year-old Smith, enjoying a bittersweet glass of celebratory champagne with his wife Ida.

Smith, who has an aortic aneurysm, told reporters when collecting his check: "It's Ida I worry for, it's leaving her behind. I would give all that back if I am allowed to still be with her because there are no shops in the cemetery are there?"{...}

It's nice to know in this day and age of people bickering endlessly over pennies on the dollar, that someone's got his priorities straight.

Posted by: Kathy at 06:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...your garden variety internet catfight?

It would appear that there are going to be protests in various cities on February 10th.

I have no idea about any of this stuff, but it sure is fascinating to watch. Although that doll in the video is WAY creepy.

Posted by: Kathy at 07:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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To: Any future dischargees I might handle sometime in the near future
From: Moi, your volunteer with the mostest
Re: Behavior

Dudes, seriously. It's not my fault if your ride shows up at the wrong door. Don't take the fact you have to wait a bit while we sort things out on me, eh? I'm just the girl with the wheelchair.

The same goes if your doctor prescribes you a drug with a whopping co-pay. Don't throw a fit in the discharge pharmacy and then lump me in with the pharmacist when you scream, "You're all just a no-good lot of bloodsuckers!"

Again, I'm just the girl with the wheelchair.

To: The Nurses
From: Moi, your volunteer with the mostest
Re: Transfers

People, I'm more than happy to give someone a wheelchair ride to wherever they need to go---really and truly, I am---but I can't do it if they have an IV attached. It's against regulations---and you know this because the job generally falls to you when this occurs. So, even if the guy is going to have his IV locked off sometime in the next half hour, don't call me until the IV is gone. Otherwise, I'm just standing around, when I could be doing something exciting. Like a blood bank run. The chances that Dracula could intercept me, and whisk me away to Transylvania for an eternity of blood sucking, decrease dramatically when you do this.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Damn, that kid's pretty sharp.

{ht: Ace}

Posted by: Kathy at 06:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Check this out:

I have absolutely no idea if this is for real, and I suspect it's not, but wouldn't it be super duper suh-weet if it was?

Let me know when the fighting starts. I need to stock up on popcorn.

{ht: wwtdd}

UPDATE from The Husband: I find it curious...that when you enter the following search string into Google (anonymous scientology challenge puppies fish oil), the first result is this {link}.

Posted by: Kathy at 06:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Bond people are back to their Inquisition-like ways by announcing the title of the twenty-second film in the series: Quantum of Solace

{...}Co-producer Michael Wilson said the title was taken from a short story by Ian Fleming, the author who created Bond.

"We thought it was an intriguing title and referenced what is happening to Bond and what happens in the film," he told reporters.

{...}Several reporters at the press launch questioned whether the film makers should have opted for a snappier title. A blogger for the Guardian newspaper was already asking whether it was the "worst Bond title ever?"

Craig defended the name. "At the end of the last movie his heart's been broken and he doesn't have that quantum of solace, he doesn't have that ... closure on what happened in his life and he needs to find out," he told Reuters in an interview.

"What is great about it is it also applies to something very important in the plot," he said during a break from filming.{...}

I told the husband about the title whilst we were chatting earlier and he said, "{...} undoubtedly the plot will involve some goofy, dumbed down high-end physics - hence the name." Way to call it, darlin'!

This has got to be, hands down, the dumbest Bond film title of any of these films---and that's saying something, because there are some serious, dumbass titles on record already. Anyone remember License to Kill(OB-vious!) or Moonraker (who wants that job?), The Spy Who Loved Me (uh, hate to tell you this, but James isn't into the concept called 'love'.) Tomorrow Never Dies (what the hell is that supposed to mean?) or my personal favorite, Octopussy (let's avoid going there, shall we?)? I could go on, but really. Quantum of Solace? What the hell were you people thinking? I realize that they're taking "Bond back to the beginning" and all that, but there's absolutely no reason why they have to stick with Fleming's title. After all, the man may have created a memorable character in Bond, but, all in all, he was a pretty crappy writer. But maybe I'm worrying over nothing. Five bucks says it won't make it past the focus groups.

Gah. So, the torture has started. Good times. Good times! I simply wish these people would shut the hell up, work on the film and then release it! Stop with the press conferences already!

Posted by: Kathy at 01:32 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One of my favorite things is watching people get made over. It's fun and it satisfies my need for instant gratification, like when I want chips and I open up a bag of Fritos and begin to chow down In other words, it's good fun, but, unlike the chips, doesn't add any poundage to my already fine wide arse. Since Trinny and Susannah are no longer the backbone of BBCAmerica, I find myself watching the American version of What Not to Wear on a regular basis, and even though I still feel the need to bitchslap Stacy London for being, well, a monstrously bitchy poseur with waaaay too many pairs of gorgeous Louboutins at her disposal, I find that, if I switch channels when she becomes annoying, it nonetheless satisfies my jones. But I still want more, and fortunately, one of our friends has obliged me.

As I mentioned in this post, the husband is now getting his hair cut by one of his regular (and favorite) customers, Christopher Hopkins. Christopher has earned the moniker "The Makeover Guy" over the years as, well, it's what he does---and he does it well. So well, in fact, that he's got a book coming out at the beginning of May, entitled Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45. Christopher gets it, to put it simply. He knows that beauty is about maximizing what you've got, and sorting out the fine art of the optical illusion to make you look your best, and with this project he's been working with middle-aged women, who are struggling with what time has done to them and gives them solutions to counteract it, while still managing to look age appropriate and fabulous. Check out this video he's put up on YouTube and see what the man can do.

Amazing, no?

And, yes, he really is as nice and as funny as he appears to be.

The husband and I are very excited and happy that his book is coming out soon and hope it does very, very well---and will do what we can to ensure that outcome---so you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, can expect a few more plugs in the coming months.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, a couple of weeks ago, more spam found its way into the Cake Eater mailbox.

The only thing different about this and the crap that the Minnesotans for Romney and Nigerian oil scammers keep dumping into my mailbox is that it came from a live email address---with a living, breathing human being on the receiving end. The email was from a PR rep, promoting a book, and it was full of information about the author and the work that he was so diligently plugging. I found out that the email was live when I replied and told the guy to take me off his list, because I generally don't comment on books that I haven't read. Thinking nothing of it, I sent the email off into the netherworld. Shortly thereafter, a reply came flying back via the interwebs, and I was surprised to be offered a review copy of the book, along with the promise to make the author available for interviews and podcasts.

Momentarily stunned, I nonetheless jumped on the chance to get a free book. It was even something I might read, so that sweetened the pot a bit, and I gave the guy my address and he said he'd send a copy straight out. I received the copy yesterday and I'm almost done with it. It's not highbrow fiction, but rather a thriller, so it's pretty much right up my alley. While it's definitely not the type of envelope I'm used to receiving from publishing companies (those are usually of the SASE variety, full to the brim with crap I sent them, which they duly recognized as crap and sent back.) it was pretty cool nonetheless.

But all of this begs the question: what the hell were these people thinking when they sent me, of all people, that email in the first place? While I'm all for free swag, and do definitely want to interview the guy, I mean, really. It's not like I'm Instapundit or anything. I have no illusions about my place in the blogging world, and I'm definitely not at the top of the heap, ya dig? But, hell, if someone wants to throw me a bone, I'll yank it out of midair and see what kind of meat I can get off it.

If nothing else, it's a new experience. And that, in the words of our fabulous felony committing housewife of the century, is a good thing.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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...Aussie actor, Heath Ledger, was found dead in his NY apartment yesterday. He was twenty-eight-years-old, and the father of a two-year-old daughter, Matilda. Rest In Peace.

I remember years ago, back when I used to read Vanity Fair on a monthly basis, they put Ledger on the cover and called him, "the next big thing," or something similarly asinine and completely out of perspective for a young actor who didn't really have anything remarkable under his belt. Which, of course, doesn't really mean anything other than that he'd had the good sense to hire a PR person who had access to the likes of Graydon Carter. Whoo. Big hairy deal. Vanity Fair is notorious for this sort of stuff. They do it all the time, and many a promising actor's career has gone up in flames (Gretchen Mol, thy name is legend). Surprisingly, Ledger slowly carved out a body of work that did, indeed, live up to the hype. While I never saw Brokeback Mountain, everyone who did and who talked to me about it said he was absolutely remarkable in it. I was---and am---sincerely looking forward to his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight. If the trailer is anything to go by, well, it should be astonishing.

The coverage of his death isn't surprising, nor is the fact that he, probably, died of a drug overdose. What is surprising, although it shouldn't be, is that the Westboro Baptist Church is announcing that, yes, indeed, they will be picketing his funeral because of his portrayal of a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. (I would rather die than link the church, so here's a photo of the press release. If you want to go find them, type "G0d Hates Fags" into Google and see what pops up.)

{press release found at WWTDD, along with scintillating commentary}

Yes, these are the same people who regularly picket the funerals of soldiers, because, by their reasoning, the soldiers deserved to die in Iraq because America loves gays, hence America deserves to be punished with dead soldiers. They show up at the funerals to make this known, you know, in case someone couldn't follow their math.

Now they're going to picket a man's funeral because of a character he portrayed.

You know, I'm not a big fan of church bombings. Really, I'm not. I find them atrocious, reprehensible, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. But I might be willing to put aside that loathing for a minute or two if, perhaps, someone would put a big chunk of C4 under their foundation and blow them all to Kingdom Come during a Sunday service.

I mean, look at it this way: they could finally find out if God really is as pissed off about gays as they say He is. It's more about sending them on a fact finding mission than domestic terrorism. Really and truly.*

This is a work of satire, ok? Don't take it seriously.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The husband, internet God that he is, recently found this super duper coo-el tool: Pandora Radio.

This is radio that puts the Music Genome Project to work. To Wit:

A given song is represented by a vector containing approximately 150 genes. Each gene corresponds to a characteristic of the music, for example, gender of lead vocalist, level of distortion on the electric guitar, type of background vocals, etc. Rock and pop songs have 150 genes, rap songs have 350, and jazz songs have approximately 400. Other genres of music, such as world and classical, have 300-500 genes. The system depends on a sufficient number of genes to render useful results. Each gene is assigned a number between 1 and 5, and fractional values are allowed but are limited to half integers.[1] (The term genome is borrowed from genetics.)

Given the vector of one or more songs, a list of other similar songs is constructed using a distance function.

To create a song's genome, it is analyzed by a musician in a process that takes 20 to 30 minutes per song. Ten percent of songs are analyzed by more than one technician to ensure conformity with the standards, i.e., reliability.

Basically what you do is enter in an artist that you like, and it finds more artists with similar music and creates a playlist around that. I currently have my Nicola Conte Radio playing---so I'm not only listening to songs by Nicola Conte, but also, The Herbaliser, Juan Tutrifo---and many, many more. It's a lot of fun to see what comes up and there's nothing random, or computerized, about the song selections. The first fits in with the second, the third, and so on and so forth.

The husband and I have, for a very long time, been fans of Soma FM, but...some of their playlists, particularly the Secret Agent Channel (which I adore simply because they throw out quotes from Bond movies between songs) are highly repetitive. If you don't like a song that's playing on Pandora, however, you can skip right past it---and what's more is that Pandora will take your selection into account, and will play the song less, more, or not at all if you so choose.

It's quite a cool tool, and I highly recommend it.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:35 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Is thou name actually Lisa?

I don't know that this is in any way, shape or form a definitive answer, but it's interesting nonetheless:

The University of Heidelberg in Germany says it has identified the woman in Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”, The Associated Press reported. She is Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine businessman. In a statement on Monday, the college said its library expert, Armin Schlechter, found the answer in a copy of the works of Cicero, where, in 1503, Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine official and friend of Leonardo’s, wrote in the margins that the artist was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Surprise? For centuries the Mona Lisa has been known in Italian as La Gioconda. Though anecdotal evidence pointed to Giocondo as early as 1550, vague references in 1517, 1525 and 1540 pointed to others.

Although one wonders why some random Florentine official would have been marking up the columns of a perfectly good copy of Cicero with notes regarding DaVinci's latest project, it's still a pretty cool discovery.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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