Serious Trouble in the Fuselage, Frederick

Everything I Consume: Midcentury and Innumeracy

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:27:00 +0000

These were two busts. I loved John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy and this book is written in the same style. There are multiple narrators, profiles of important representative people of the times and chapters that are snippets of songs, articles and expressions of the time. He was very ahead of his time. While U.S.A. was filled with a compelling variety of characters this book is mostly about bitter old ex-radicals and their miserable life dealing with labor unions. I gave up after 160-odd pages.

I think my train was barely into Manhattan the day I started Innumeracy before I bailed on it. It was supposed to be about teaching important math concepts that average Joes, Joe Sixpacks, what have you don't know and are important in our daily lives. Well, we'll never pick it up when it's written this poorly. His jokes weren't funny either.

New Speed Record

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:33:00 +0000

Check out the screen grab from my Garmin software. On October 17th I hit a maximum speed of 58.5 mph on my morning run. That's more than twice as fast as Usain Bolt was going when he won the 100 meter dash at the Beijing Olympics!

Celebrity Sighting

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:20:00 +0000

The Wife has become something of an expert about this Sarah Palin woman who's been in the news lately. A few week ago she appeared on CNN Headline News to give the Working Mother perspective. She was such a star they asked her back but she wasn't able to go on. Last night, The Wife was a person on the street for Entertainment Tonight. By a startling coincidence they had just interviewed her boss at her magazine and both people on the street were staffers. What are the odds of that? They also said they interviewed her in Times Square even though she is clearly across the street from Grand Central Station. Well, it's an easy mistake to make. The point is I'm proud of The Wife.

Last night, people started to call saying they had seen The Wife on Entertainment Tonight but when we watched it, she wasn't on! I guess they must re-edit the show during the day but New York gets the earlier version? It makes no sense to me. Luckily, our buddy JoEllen taped the show and sent us a copy. The Wife shows up at the 1:01 mark.

Everything I Consume: Pirate's Cove Mini Adventure Golf

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:06:00 +0000

The family spent a week in Maine last month and it was great: Acadia National Park, lobster every day, blueberry softserve, christian Oceanariums, Bar Harbor, alleged moose sightings and best of all, ~~mini~~ adventure golf. Well, maybe not best of all but still pretty cool. Gwendolyn and I got to take in two rounds at the fabulous Pirate's Cove course just outside of Bar Harbor. My hole-in-one on the fourteenth hole made me my daughter's hero for at least two days. And, in fairness, it was an awesome shot. My ball jumped two upward steps to fall right in the hole. After the game the Pirate's Cove people loaded us with booty, eyepatches, activity books and even a free game. I love that place. If you ever find yourself in Bar Harbor or Lake George or Brainerd you've got to go to a Pirate's Cove.

Here's a little movie of our family hijinks:

10/10/73

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Remember what you were doing thirty-five years ago? I do. On October 10, 1973 Spiro Agnew resigned as vice-president and the New York Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds in the final game of the National League Championship Series. When my Dad came home that night he told me he was stopped on the street by a radio reporter to aks him about Agnew and he said, "I don't know about that but the Mets are going to the World Series!"

I'm not sure that story was true (he once told me he accidently wore my name card to work all day) but I've always liked it.

And I'm still younger than Willie Mays was that day. Stay free, Say Hey Kid.

CNN Anchors…

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:07:00 +0000

…watch baseball on their computers at work, too.

Goodbye Shea

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:41:00 +0000

Shea Stadium closed yesterday (in horrific fashion) but I have lots of great memories of the place. Dwight Gooden striking out 16 Giants, the group trip in high school on Flip-Flop Night (those were good shoes), a Jets game where I was so high up I was scared, heckling Sid Fernandez's abysmal hustle at a 1986 doubleheader and a glorious come-from-behind win from 1984 that was the best time I've ever had at a ballpark. Good times. I also remember the Dodgers winning a big game with a late home run and watching an entire game through a freezing misty rain to see John Rocker get a save. Anyway, here's a story from Deadspin's Shea memories page:

Bat Day. We were at a packed Friday night game in the late '80s, in just about the worst possible seats — upper deck, all the way out by the left field foul pole. The section was filled mostly with after-work drunks, but a few rows in front of us was a family, and in the first inning this little girl, maybe five or six years old, stands up and holds over her head a tiny piece of notebook paper on which she's written "Go Darryl!" or something like that. It was cute, but also kind of comical because the seats were about three miles from home plate and there was no way Darryl could have seen this sign without a telescope. So there's some laughter behind her, and then this one guy, just as a joke for his buddies, shouts "Down in front!" — as if this little girl and her miniature sign were obstructing his view of the action. But the girl hears him. She turns around, and cringes, and sits back down. The whole section starts unloading on this guy, which just makes it worse, because the little girl thinks they're booing her. Her dad puts his arm around her and says something, whereupon she bursts into tears. The abuse of this guy increases by a factor of about ten. Then a chant starts building in the section, and it takes me a minute to figure out what they're saying: "BUY HER SOMETHING! BUY HER SOMETHING!" So the guy leaves his seat, and an inning or two later he reappears behind the box where the family is sitting and taps the little girl on the shoulder. She turns around and with great ceremony he hands her one of those gigantic inflatable bats, probably twice as tall as she is. Her face totally lights up, we see her mouth the words "thank you," and the whole section just explodes.

Why I'm Glad I'm Alive in 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:41:00 +0000

Printing a Book, Old School from Armin Vit on Vimeo.

Everything I Consume: Tropic Thunder

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Many years ago there was a great show on PBS called Sneak Previews. There were two movie critics talking about movies and it was really good. The knew their shit and loved talking about it. The two guys were a little annoying on their own and didn't seem to like each other but boy, did they have chemistry together. Like Astaire and Rogers or Lemmon and Matthau or one part hydrogen and two parts oxygen. Of course, I'm talking about Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

They did the show for a long time and became famous. The name changed to At The Movies and moved to commercial television. Everyone in the world knew what "Two Thumbs Up" meant. They taught a lot of people, like me and my brother, about movies and gave time to everything from My Dinner with Andre to Friday the 13th. They really cared. When the last Star Wars movie came out Roger Ebert watched two days in a row from the same seat, once in in digital video, once in film to judge how the special effects looked. When the re-edited the ending of Jade before it was released, Roger went to see it again.

My favorite memory was the Worst Movies of 1995 episode. That was a year I saw a lot of movies. Gene Siskel picked Jade as the absolute worst movie of 1995, a choice I totally agreed with. When it was Roger's turn he said, "Just for the record Jade was my worst movie too but Gene won the coin toss and I had to pick something else."

The show was frequently imitated but nobody came close. Still, it was always nice to hear two people who loved movies talking about them even if one of them was Rex Reed. At the Movies lasted for about twenty years until Gene Siskel got sick and died.

He is buried in the white suit from Saturday Night Fever. Really, look it up on his Wikipedia page.

Roger Ebert continued the show with a variety of hosts before settling on a decent guy called Richard Roeper. It wasn't bad. But Roger got sick a few years ago and even though he's healthy he can't talk any more. He's still going strong. They tried some guest critics but the people in charge of the show decided to chuck Roeper and try something new.

The new At the Movies has five critics who spend about five seconds apiece telling you whether you should "See It", "Wait for the DVD" or "Skip It". Here's a math problem, if two people you've never heard of tell you see a movie, two people you never heard of tell you to rent the DVD and one person you've never heard of tell you to skip it what do you do?

The only person I recognized in Ben Mankiewicz from TCM who is supposed to be the snarky kid but comes off as a burned-out art director who will never get the promotion to head creative and realized it years ago but is too lazy to quit. Sadly, At the Movies now just reminds me of the political shoutfests that have destroyed American democracy. There's no depth and no kids are going to learn anything about movies, or anything, watching this show.

Anyway, Tropic Thunder was great and everyone should see it.

Some Unfortunate Recent Old-Time Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:48:00 +0000

I've had a bit of a bad luck streak on my old-time radio podcasts.

The other morning I was out running and listened to a show about a husband who needed money for an operation on his wife. There is only one doctor who can perform the operation. He hooks up with a burglar and they rob a safe. They are interrupted by the homeowner and have to kill him. The husband escapes blame for the murder and has the money for the operation but it turns out the guy he killed…was the only doctor who could perform the operation! The irony!

The I listened to a show about the first trip to the moon, you know in 2000. On the way back everyone is happy except for the wise, old ship's doctor (what is is with ship's doctors?). It seems he was alive in 1945 and saw the first atomic explosion and the craters on the moon look exactly like the crater from the first A-Bomb! (This is not true. Crater from the Trinity test. Moon crater.) He theorizes that there was a civilization on the moon but it was destroyed by an atomic war that left all those craters and burned up all the atmosphere. The rest of the crew begs to differ but the matter is soon settled because just as they are about to land on Earth there is an atomic war that leaves Moon-esque craters and then burns up all the atmosphere.

I'm serious, that was the story.

Thanks for the Qualifier

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:06:00 +0000

From an article on San Diego Charger RB LaDainian Tomlinson:

This is the guy you picked #1 in the draft. He starts every week, no matter what (unless he's on bye or is out).

I dunno, he is a heck of a football player, he may rise to the occasion.

GBF!

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:31:00 +0000

As I often say, God Bless Football! Not only do we get football but we get fantasy football, videogame football and the endlessly fascinating NFL TV Distribution Maps website. This year they've upgraded to Google Maps which are a bit poky right now but are still endlessly fascinating. Why is San Diego getting Kansas City at New England while the rest of the west is getting Jets at Miami? Is Los Angeles getting the Saints game because of Reggie Bush? And when did Brian Billick start announcing games. Who knows? It's all about the question not the answer.

You also get a forum with post comments like "On another note, the last time Cincinnati got the Bills on FOX was Week #3 of 2003 vs Philadelphia." and "What game did Cincinnati get in Week 7 of 2003 at 4:15, CHI-SEA or TB-SF, since it wasn't WSH-BUF?"

Everything I Consume: No Country For Old Men

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:00:00 +0000

If I were David Spade I'd say I liked this movie better when they set it in Minnesota and called it Fargo.

Really, that's all I got. This was well-acted and looked fantastic but it was pretty soulless. These lifetime achievemnt Best Picture winners (The Departed, Return of the King)just remind me that all the best people are working in television these days.

In New York Even the Racists are Politically Correct

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

One morning recently a man got on my subway train and asked if anyone could spare some change and he'd especially like to get money from "some Asians." As he made his way through the train he said, "Asians never give me a damn thing."

Nice guy.

Future Space Nerds

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Here's a link to a great series on YouTube that was shot in my neighborhood. In fact, Gwen, Owen and I watched them shooting episode two. Check it out, it's really good. The cast includes Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Paul Scheer.

On vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:49:00 +0000

The Fuselage is taking some time off from our irregular posting. We'll be back around Labor Day.

Gwendolyn Is Not Happy

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Gwendolyn turns five on Monday and we're all very excited about this, especially Gwendolyn, but something is bothering her. And that something is that Pluto is no longer a planet. Back when Gwendolyn had just turned four and was first learning about the solar system from Ms. Frizzle, she was taught that Pluto was a planet. Now that she's almost five she has found out that Pluto has been downgraded and she's not happy. This morning she decided that Pluto has overtaken Saturn as her favorite planet ("Pluto is my favorite small planet, Earth is my favorite medium planet and Saturn is my favorite big planet"). Gwendolyn has told me some reasons why Pluto should be a planet:

Pluto has moons
Pluto is round
Pluto has craters ("Like the first planet". I think she may have taken an active dislike of cratered, round, no moon Mercury.)

So, I think she has a good case. If you want to help Gwendolyn out you can sign this petition. And this one. And what's one more? Take that astronomers!

Everything I Consume: Wall-E

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:16:00 +0000

Whenever I tell people I thought Wall-E was a good movie but nothing special they look at me and say, "You're the first person I know who didn't LOVE Wall-E." It's awkward. Maybe I was a little tense because I went to see it with Gwendolyn and I spend half the movies I see with her worried about her reaction. She had a great time. Towards the end of the movie I heard her making a weird sound like she was yawning but when I looked I saw she was holding back tears at the story. It was a moment that was heartbreaking but wonderful at the same time. I told her everything was going to be OK and, of course, it was but I wanted to tell her how lucky she was to be four and see everything for the first time and not know there's going to be a happy ending.

Everything I Consume: The Daughter of Time and The Crown Crime Companion

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Years ago I read an interview with V.S Naipaul, I have no idea why, where he said he would give a book 100 pages or so and if he didn't like it he would just stop reading. I've never actually read any of V.S Naipaul's books but I figure if a Nobel Prize-winning author would quit on a book he didn't like I certainly could. This was a revelation. I've been much more aggressive about giving up on books ever since. So, I bailed on The Daughter of Time after about fifty pages. I'd only been reading it because The Crown Crime Companion said it was the fourth-best mystery ever written. Better than Murder Must Advertise, Red Harvest, The Long Goodbye or Murder on the Orient Express. Better than anything written by Jim Thompson, Ross Macdonald or Ken Follett. I beg to differ. After fifty or so pages I found myself with that familiar feeling on involuntarily skimming paragraphs, then whole pages and then not caring enough to go back.

The story is about a English policeman stuck in the hospital who decides to solve the mystery of whether Richard III actually killed his two nephews. This was an interesting premise but there's too much of that breezy British dialogue that I can't stand. I just don't see the point of reading this book when there are still Agatha Christies and Dorothy Sayers I haven't read.

Since I only read this book because The Crown Crime Companion recommended it that book gets sent to paperbackswap.com too. Go, false guide to mystery novels, go! And I'm not going to read Presumed Innocent, either.

In The Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:53:00 +0000

The mysterious Vermont Market & Pharmacy, across the street from my apartment made the New York Times today.

Everything I Consume: The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:59:00 +0000

I love the style of 1930s medicine in old movies. Everything is white and sterile and made of chrome and porcelain yet people can still smoke cigarettes in the operating room. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is Edward G. Robinson, who becomes a criminal to study the physical effects of crime on the human body. Eventually, he takes over a gang and even does blood work on them before their heists. This movie was a lot of fun and has a cool ending. Highly recommended.

For a guy who has been frequently caricatured, Robinson could be a versatile and subtle actor who tried many different kinds characters in the course of his career. I think he's great in Double Indemnity. In fact, his final role was being turned into Soylent Green. Claire Trevor is also great as one of the criminals.

This movie was written by John Huston and was the beginning of an amazing collaboration with Humphrey Bogart (Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, African Queen) that ranks with Scorsese-DeNiro, Wilder-Lemmon and Jones-Bunny as the best in movie history.

Everything I Consume: A Spectacle of Corruption

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:49:00 +0000

This book is David Liss' sequel to his book, A Conspiracy of Paper. That book was set in 1720 London and told the story of Jewish ex-boxer turned proto-private detective Benjamin Weaver navigating the financial shenanigans leading up to the collapse of the South Sea stock market bubble. I'm pretty ignorant about that period of time so I learned a lot. That's one of the things I like about mysteries, they can take you to so many different places and times. Anyway, Conspiracy of Paper was a good book and I think it won an Edgar Award. When I was reading it I bumped into my friend Annie on the subway and she said she was envious of me reading it for the first time. IMHO, it's a good book but not that good.

The sequel is set a few years later and opens as Weaver is being falsely convicted of murder. Not only is he being set up for execution he is also set up to escape prison. It's a complex story set against the background of the 1722 parliamentary election. There's a much-needed historical note in the front of the book and the players are often recapped. Still, I don't think I ever got a handle on it. Throw in a conspiracy where people may be trying to implicate the other side of crimes and it's very hard to follow. Like Conspiracy of Paper, it's all talked out in a lengthy explanation at the end of the book.

This book seemed to lurch in a pattern of Weaver interviewing someone, finding out a small piece of information then he talks to someone else and finds out more information. Then there's a fight scene. Repeat. Maybe most mysteries and even most books and movies are like this and it just seemed more artificial and exposed in this book. Like I said before there's lots of recapping.

Despite all my complaints I really liked this book. I fell into the rhythm of the plot and the dialogue was great as were the descriptions of London. Weaver is a great character. He is strong but unsure of himself intellectually. Weaver is constantly proud of himself when he figures something out or says something witty. I cared about the mysterious conspiracy and even the election. So, go figure.

Talkin' Bout Mon

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:06:00 +0000

The family hit Montauk for the holiday weekend and it was just the way we like it, cold, foggy and filled with over-friendly strangers. Despite the threat of Hamptons trash spilling over Montauk is still a very low-key place, ideal for doing a lot of nothing like playing on the beach, reading the goofy local papers, playing mini-golf and strolling through town.

We ate tons of random fried foods, I felt a little guilty as my kids wolfed down french fries at the friendly but incompetent MTK Diner but they seemed to enjoy themselves while the other patrons raged against the poor service and bad food.

Gwendolyn got to take her first pony ride and she loved it. She wasn't nervous at all and we laughed when the pony stopped to take a leak in the middle. Gwendolyn also took a bike ride (and kept putting The Wife into flower beds) and showed the combination of extreme interest and lack of talent in mini-golf that means she really is Daddy's girl.

Unlike his sister at that age Owen isn't scared of the beach at all but he does like to put his pacifier in the sand and then suck on it. The grubby little guy had a great time. Check out this movie from our trip to Gosman's Pier.

Like so much in life the trip was a lot of work and a lot fun. We left a stroller at the hotel with all our sweaters but, hey, we'll just pick them up when we go back in August.

Everything I Consume: The Guns of Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:58:00 +0000

This was a good, quick read from Pete Hamill about a reporter who gets involved with the IRA. I liked this book but even at 250 pages there's a lot of padding about Irish history and New York City locales. For some reason the author even threw in an albino near the end of the book. I guess you toss the rulebook when you're trying to make a deadline, I don't know. Here are a couple of reviews.

New Poll

noreply@blogger.com (Brett) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:23:00 +0000

So I got this book from paperbackswap.com called The Crown Crime Companion : The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time and truth be told it's pretty lame but I'm a sucker for lists and I thought I'd go through the book and find some classic mysteries I haven't read yet. I've read the top three (Complete Sherlock Holmes, The Maltese Falcon and Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and ordered number four (Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, a book I'd never even heard of) but number five is Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow and after you say to yourself, how the fuck is a Scott Turow book the number five mystery of all-time I have a question. I saw the movie of Presumed Innocent when it came out, it's the one where Harrison Ford has that terrible haircut, and I'm pretty sure, but not certain, I remember who did it. So, should I read the book? One one hand it might be interesting reading it knowing (I think) who the killer is. On the other hand it might just be a waste of time. The poll is up, you decide!

My last poll, about whose t-shirt to buy, was deadlocked 1-1-1 between Lidstrom, Hasek and Backstrom so I decided on Backstrom because he was the most obscure of the bunch. I think the odds are pretty low I'll see another Minnesota Wild t-shirt on the streets of Brooklyn, much less a Niklas Backstrom one. My NHL t-shirts were a jinx anyway, the Wild lost in the first round of the playoffs and every time I wore my Sidney Crosby shirt the Penguins lost. So, by not buying the Red Wings t-shirts I un-jinxed them to the Stanley Cup, I mean it makes perfect sense.

Though, if I had to do it over I would have gotten a Henrik Zetterberg shirt.