Because Every Little Bit Counts

If you need air conditioning in Dallas, Dring is the place. They rule. Also, if you need storm windows in Texas, DYC is the manufacturer to talk to. If you need commercial insurance in Arkansas, or an Arkansas insurance consultant, the Grace Group can help. If by some chance you’re looking for somebody in the Fort Lauderdale plastic surgery arena, Dr. Wigoda is the man. In Houma, Louisiana, boats are best bought at G & F Sporting. Should you happen to find yourself in Tennessee looking for a duck hunting guide on Reelfoot Lake, talk to Don Finch. And if you want to have a wedding in Arkansas and need a scenic wedding chapel, the Old Mill Chapel is quite nice.

These are just things I thought you people should know.

Paging Mr. Scurrilously

New Plog entry culled mostly from last weekend.

In addition to being one of my favorite musicians, Paul Gilbert is also my low-fi web design hero. Click around the site – it’s hilarious. He’s getting pretty good at Photoshop. His site is a perfect example of how imagination can be far more important than knowledge.

Today I got an email from a Fecal F. Scurrilously. Spammers are now beginning to use random words as names. This is almost entertaining.

Ruins of the Modern Day

For some reason I’ve really become fascinated with old stuff – antiques, buildings, whatever. I’ve been perusing a variety of photologs dedicated to these sorts of things, particularly Shaun O’Boyle’s Modern Ruins. Walk through the halls of this abandoned orphanage (which burned down in 2000) or this hospital. There are even more creepy examples, like the abandoned insane asylum.

On a lighter note, deserted farms in Iceland are far more picturesque.

Photo Blogging

Sometimes I like to use Google toolbar as a quick-jump spellchecker. I typed in “applaud” (something still doesn’t look right about it). The number one site that came up: Satan’s Laundromat. As someone who spends a lot of time optimizing sites for search engines, I’m fascinated by the fact that the entire site does not, as far as I can tell, contain the word “applaud.” “Applauding” is in there, but for a site to be number one….there must be some google gremlins at work.

The site is a fantastic photojournal of New York, mainly Brooklyn and Manhattan. There is some good coverage of the recent spate of spontaneous flash mobs in NYC – random gatherings of people in pre-determined locations, wherein the people mill about aimlessly and confuse passersby. What this says about 21st century urban culture I have no idea. Maybe modern people are just bored, and in a city where people avoid eye contact at all costs, I guess it’s good to see that they don’t mind gathering together for no reason whatsoever with other likeminded strangers.

The author also seems to take the same fascination in odd signs and junk that I do, which is all the more reason for me to go get a digital camera and do a right honorable photolog.

Useless Links

Utterly random link #2. This shouldn’t be done. The facial expressions in every picture on this site read very clearly: “KILL ME NOW.”

Utterly random link #3. Go to this page and do a Find on "Rogers, Arkansas." Those crafty liberal, leftist, commie, pot-smoking hippies! Those meddling kids! But this is the best part. Some poor schmuck ranting about Hollywood and how he’s going to only go see movies by Bruce Willis and the Rock rather than go see movies featuring actors with whom he disagrees. God forbid he should make choices based on artistic merit. This guy must really feel unempowered by the world. Sure celebrities are mostly idiots (or worse, they’re normal people), but I’ll trust an actor before I’ll trust a CEO. And here’s why. Something I learned from an actor: Even the villain is the hero of his own story.

I’ve often wondered why Hollywood is so liberal, given that so many in La-La Land are so wealthy (I’d expect them to be conservatives after they’ve made money). But I really believe that good actors (not celebrities, since they’re by definition out of touch with reality) have studied the heart of man more thoroughly than most people. A good actor understands the motivations and churnings of the human animal. It’s not make-believe when a great actor is performing, it’s a work of art. A work of art that says, "here is Man in all his grandeur and folly."

Having worked as an actor (I actually got paid to act – I’m still not sure I was worth it), I’ve learned a great deal from the process of putting yourself in the shoes of another and trying to understand the reasons why people are the way they are. So perhaps by definition good actors have to have bleeding hearts.