ATL - 10/27/08 Tech & Zombies

Last weekend we celebrated both Georgia Tech's crazy Homecoming Parade and World Zombie Day 2008. Guys/girls who have Brains...meet zombies who crave brains.

Buzz...lawnmower...elvis...see-saw power...now that's a big wheel!
Ferris Bueller..."more frying pan!"...go fiji...treadmill power...cool piston-drive

mayhem...dead superheroes..dentistry of the damned..juggle this..bad skin day
need more fritos...does this pole make my butt look big?...walk...walk...walk
walk...walk...vortex of the dead...walk in l5p...can you give me a hand?
skateboard of the dead...in line at variety...1-eyed w/binoculars!...walk...home

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - 10/28, 9:30 PM - The Plaza / Flicks and Giggles - "Airplane"

10/28, 7:00 & 9:00 PM - International Animation Day @ the High Museum Hill Auditorium...FREE!

10/29, 7:00 PM - Goethe Zentrum - "Metropolis"

10/31, 8:00 PM - High Museum LAFF - "Play"

11/1, 8:00 PM - High Museum LAFF - "Young Blood"

ART NEWS - "Wicked" continues its Atlanta run at the Fox through November 1st. Sign-up at the box office 2 1/2 hours before each performance for the $25 ticket lottery.

...and if you still can't get a seat, you can meet "Wicked"'s author Gregory Maguire at Outwrite this Tuesday at 7:30. (Bring your broom; parking is limited.)

10/31, 8:00 PM - Like there's not enough happening on Halloween - Tonga Hiti and the Dames Aflame are back at Trader Vic's. Seriously - the best entertainment you will EVER get for $5.

LOCAL NEWS - This is the last week of Metropolis Bootcamp until April, 2009! Thanks for everyone's participation...I'd hate to think about how lazy I would have been all summer if I didn't have our neighbors' support for this...not to mention the greatest guy in the world! Thanks, Shawn!
10/28 - 6:45 PM
10/30 - 6:00 AM
11/01 - 8:00 AM

10/30, 8:00 PM - Metropolis Halloween Party!

10/31, 10:00 PM - 1113 Colquitt "Best of Youtube" Halloween Party

11/01 - Beer Laura's Saints & Sinners "All Saints Day Party"

11/02 - Obama March (& cook-out) -my.barackobama-

Progress announced on the 14th Bridge! -mna-

...but what's happening with the $3.9 BILLION Atlanta sewer upgrade? I can't find any recent progress reports, but here is a report of $9M paid out by the city to two Buckhead homeowners flooded out by the aging Atlanta sewer system... -ajc-

...and the Clean Water Atlanta site schedule shows the West CSO Tunnel that begins in Piedmont Park as being complete. -cleanwateratlanta- -district 6 pdf-

U.S. NEWS - 11/2 - Daylight Saving Time ends. Fall back! ...and that hour you gain? Don't get too excited; you'll lose it standing in line to vote on November 4th!

A former co-worker emailed me the "left" -most political cartoon below...to give everyone equal time, I replied with 3 subsequent, edited versions:
-thanks gary mccoy-

FRENCH NEWS - Lemonde reports on Syria's complaint against the U.S. for entering their air space to attack al-Qaida in Syria. Echoes of a little dispute back in 1986 when the French didn't want the U.S. to fly through their airspace on their way to retaliate against Libya following a bomb-attack on American soldiers in West Berlin. -nationalreview-

WEB NEWS - Our household does pretty well at reducing the amount of stuff we throw away (recycling, composting, donating), but this guy is the uber-green-dude. -365-

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ATL - 10/20/08 - L5P Halloween

Dia de los Muertos...FrankenWolfman?...Dia de los Raggety's
Tike on a bike...fuss on a bus...hiss from a KISS
HEY! I was gonna wear that...PINK!...Do these glasses make me look like Palin?
Live Cop / Dead Biker?...Shawn-o-Lantern...Good Cop / Bad Cop

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "High School Musical 3", "Saw V", or "Fear(s) of the Dark"! I'm totally using the "I-have-nieces-so-that's-the-only-reason-I'm-going-to-see-HSM" excuse for seeing the lastest Disney teen musical. I'm using the "I-have-a-brain-and-want-to-keep-my-$10-and-my-lunch" excuse for NOT seeing "Saw V" (even though the roman number "V" makes the title look classy?)

"Fear(s) of the Dark" looks awesome, but I can't find it playing in Atlanta, yet...so, for my Halloween Fright Flicks, I might be attending our local Fright Flick fest:

10/22-26 - Atlanta Horror Fest flicks -AHF-

ART NEWS - 10/23 kd lang at Atlanta Symphony Hall -livenation-

10/24, 5:30 - Margaret Mitchell House Mixer with Zydefunk. Where the literary spirit of Margaret Mitchell lives on! -MM House-

LOCAL NEWS - 10/24-26 Oakland Cemetery - Halloween tours of the historic cemetery. Where Margaret Mitchell is dead every day! -oakland-

10/25 - Georgia Tech Homecoming ... there's a little football game against Virginia, but more importantly (you guessed it) there is a PARADE! Check out the "Ramblin' Reck Parade" starting at 8:00 AM on campus...see the crazy vehicles Tech students construct from scratch...and why completing your engineering degree is so important...and how you can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning!

10/26, 5:00 PM, Masquerade - World Zombie Day / Zombie Walk. Join the undead for a walk through Little 5 Points. Play the new sidewalk game "guess which is the deadbeat and which is the undead..." -AHF-

U.S. NEWS - John McCain wants to give us all options for Health Care. He wants to give individuals a $2500 tax credit to buy their own health insurance, so they have more choices and flexibility. What choices? I want health care that keeps me from being dead. That's about it! Do they have "choices" for health care in congress? How about giving us the same health care that Senators gave themselves. -john mccain-

FRENCH NEWS - Less airplane traffic, fewer automobile emissions, less construction - lemonde reports that a drop in the economy is a possible boost for the environment.

WEB NEWS - Can't afford to buy a costume? -ducktape-

...the rest of the story...

ATL - 10/13/08 Oregon 2

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/OREGON/FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "A Girl Cut in Two" started 10/10 at Landmark and only runs through 10/16. See it! It's French!

10/14, 8:00 PM - Metropolis Club House - "The Happening". What better way to watch a movie in which, by all accounts, nothing really "happens" that with a big, heckling crowd of neighbors?!? Come join the fun (and the pizza!)

10/14, 9:30 PM - The Plaza / Splatter Cinema - "Dead Alive"

10/17, 8:00 PM - High Museum Latin American Film Festival - "Kill Them All"

10/18, 8:00 PM - High Museum LAFF - "A Cuban Family"

ART NEWS -10/16 Avant Garden at The Contemporary. -acac-

It's pledge drive time for WABE, Atlanta's public radio station. For regular listeners used to programming without commercial interruption, the breaks asking for donations this week can seem unbearable. Here's my plan: go to pba to donate and then go to itunes to download mp3s of past programs for free-of-interruptions iPod-listening. (Also, you can get the current week's "This American Life" mp3 for free -here-).

10/16 - 11/1 - Center for Puppetry Arts - "Ghastly Dreadfuls" - Come celebrate the Spooky Season with your favorite band of specters as the Ghastly Dreadfuls present a new Halloween cavalcade of creepy stories, frightful songs and devilish dances from around the world and beyond this mortal plane. Puppets! Songs! Music! Dance! Macabre fun for the living and the dead! -puppet-

LOCAL NEWS - 10/14 - Tuesday Bootcamp nows moves to evening for the Fall. Meet in the Metropolis lobby for a running/conditioning work-out in Piedmont Park (rain location: walk the stairwells of Metropolis!) Tues - 6:45 PM / Thurs - 6:00 AM / Sat - 8:00 AM.

10/18, 4:00 PM - Little Five Points Halloween Parade; gives the Dragon*Con Parade a run for the money for "Best Atlanta Parade". Certainly the most irreverent.

New store in the 'hood - Next to Trader Joe's on Monroe Drive --> Richards Variety Store!!! Go!!! And go with an adventurous spirit and an adjective in mind, not a noun. It would be easy to find, say, a goofy present or a crazy costume, but not something as specific as parchment paper.

OREGON NEWS - STAMPS - Visiting the Post Office, I carefully looked over 1st Class Stamp choices while in line before reaching the counter:

"Can I help you?"
"I need to buy some stamps."
"Excellent; we just got in the Bette Davis ones."

Really? I said exactly 6 words; how did she know I needed "Bette Davis" stamps? (I did).

---

ROUND AND ROUND - I'm browsing at Powell's through a book called "The Great American Attraction" by Rich Smith, when I reach page 90 and it's all about the Redneck Games, a silly, counterculture faux Sporting Event started in south Georgia in response to world-wide criticism of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics - The "Bubba Games". I turn to page 91, and it's describing a "young man from Atlanta" taking off his shirt to participate in the fart noise-making contest; a "young man" named Kyle.

I know Kyle.

So here I am, blogging about traveling to Powell's to find cool books like the one written by a Brit who is traveling to silly American festivals so he can write about funny folks like Kyle, my friend who is traveling to silly American festivals so he can blog about them. -kyle.tv-

WHAT NOT TO WEAR - A woman skating naked in Waterfront Park was asked by the police to cover up following complaints by local construction workers. She was later arrested for speeding (in a car). The last line of the news piece stated that in her police mug shot, she wore "an olive green T-shirt".

BOARD GAMES - The 27th Annual Grand National Cribbage Contest was under way. I'm grateful to my great-grandmother for teaching me how to play.

URBAN RENEWAL - 229 tons of lead bullets were removed from an old firing range hillside by former gold miners in an attempt to return the area to its natural state.

ECO 1 - Peet's coffee made cup lids available that appeared to be made from paper, not plastic. Kudos.

ECO 2 - Sign in Powell's: "Be Green; Buy Used Books".

BUMPER STICKER - "Warning: Your Local Police are Armed and Dangerous"

FRENCH NEWS - Nobel Prize for Literature - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. "...the prize committee in Stockholm called him an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

WEB NEWS - Fun Green Yips at -idealbite-

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ATL - 10/06/08 OREGON I

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "City of Ember" looks like Matrix meets the Golden Compass. "Quarantine" - your typical "help, the government has me trapped in an apartment building with rapidly mutating plague victims" - just looks messy. Blair Witch Zombies.

10/8 - If high gloss Hollywood seems a little...well...recycled, check-out Marlene Dietrich at the Goethe Institute in "Stage Fright (Die rote Lola)". A Hitchcock film in German with English subtitles. -goethe films-

10/8 - ...or if Marlene is too high-brow for you, check out the very low-brow "Christmas on Mars" at the Plaza. I know nothing about it except what I read: "When an oxygen generator and gravity control machine malfunction at a human colony on Mars during the holidays, hallucinations and a visit from a helpful alien make it a Christmas to remember."

ART NEWS - "Sex Right Across the Street" - If you were lucky enough to get a ticket ahead of time to her sold-out appearance, you can see Candice Bushnell present her new book "One Fifth Avenue" at the Margaret Mitchell House, tonight. (handy for Metropolis residents!) -MM House-

HIGH MUSEUM - The third and final presentation of works from the Louvre starts this week. Previews 10/9-11 for members. -high-

10/7...and if that's too high-brow, then you should DEFINITELY see "Pink Flamingos" at the Plaza, in combination with the art of Matthew K Manning. -plaza-

LOCAL NEWS - The Piedmont Park hostage crisis continues, with only the Dogwood Festival being allowed back into the park in 2009. Pride will continue to flounder at the Civic Center, the Peachtree Road Race will be allowed "limited use" of the park, the Jazz Fest will be in Woodruff, and Screen on the Green will continue at Centennial Park. -taps- -dogwood-

Following the Hurricane Ike refinery outage, Atlantans again have more readily available gas (and will invariably continue to use too much of it.)

10/8, 7-8:00 PM, The Laughing Skull Lounge - After visiting the urban jewel that is my hometown of Portland, Oregon, it's a good time to see how I can be involved in making Atlanta a better city. Midtown Neighbors' Association sponsors a Density and Urban Design presentation. -mna-

U.S. NEWS - MONEY, MONEY, MONEY - The market is falling, the market is falling! Wells Fargo and Citi Bank are fighting over my money! So what does Target do? Puts out the Christmas Crap. Animated, electronic Santas next to the Freddy Kruger masks.

...and speaking of Halloween, let's dress up like something really terrifying! Of course, slapping lipstick on a Jason Vorhees hockey mask is the obvious Sarah Palin tribute, but I'd really love to see someone dressed as that other harbinger of doom...Freddy Mac. (Foreclosure notices skewered on finger/blades?)

I'm not a big biofuel fan (at least not using frickin' food as the "bio"!), but an article in a Portland magazine made a good point: Fossil fuel use involves digging up hydrocarbons from the ground and burning them, releasing carbon into the air. As part of the biofuel process, carbon is first removed from the air by growing plants, before being burned and put back into the air and is therefore more carbon neutral. (Unless, of course, you are burning fossil fuels to create the energy needed to grow the corn and process the biofuel...)

$770,000,000,000 - Just wondering...where did all our money go? Why do banks need $770B? Just looking at Manhattan, "Along Central Park West a decade back, co-ops went for an average of $524 a foot; now, $1,548." $1000/ft increase. Now, I can't find a number for the total square feet of residential space in Manhattan, but for office space, it's 520 million square feet. At $1000/sq ft increase, that's $520B more value in the office market.

Don't "borrow" $770B from the "middle class taxpayer"; let's just sell Manhattan. -observer- -article-

FRENCH NEWS - Three French researchers have been granted the Nobel Prize for medicine for their research into the HIV virus. Congratulations to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier. -lemonde-

WEB NEWS - Cool fashion photographers -alek and steph-

...the rest of the story...

ATL - 9/29/08 Seattle

Ace Hotel...Pike's Market...Architecture...The Gum Wall

MOVIE/LOCAL/U.S./SEATTLE/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - This weekend, look for "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (whose posters remind us to pronounce it "chee-wow-wa"... from Disney, whose "Ratatouille" posters spelled out "rat-a-too-ee"), "Flash of Genius" (Greg Kinnear - the intermittently successful actor - as the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper), and "Nick and Nora's Infinite Play List" (Michael Cera as...well...Michael Cera).

ATLANTA NEWS - After all the controversy and comparisons following the Stepford-Wife-Like conclusion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I could't help put worry that our little "Bubba-games" in 1996 didn't fair very well. In Atlanta, we didn't have "Bird's Nest" or "Water Cube", but we did have the Olympic Stadium in which we now enjoy Braves Games every summer, the Natatorium and Olympic Village, which Georgia Tech administers and enjoys every day, and Olympic Centennial park, which is still a natural draw for visitors and natives alike.

We didn't build any Calatrava-like soaring sports cathedrals, but nor did we end up with any debt, or, like Lake Placid, a new jail.

Based on liquor license requests, 404 Lounge wants to open up in the Arts Center Tower...I understand the name tie-in to our area code (I've been to the similiarly named "Five-O-Three" in Portland), but on the internet, "404" is Not Found.

Congratulations Jimmy Carter on you 84th birthday this week!

U.S. NEWS - Sarah, Sarah, Sarah...just tell me you were wrong to teach abstinence to your daughter and I'll start listening to what else you have to say.

SEATTLE NEWS - In the ATL, we are used to event sponsorships by Delta, Coca-Cola, and Georgia Pacific. In the SEA, it's all Starbucks, Boeing, and Microsoft. While boarding Amtrak (the BEST way to go from Seattle to Portland), a woman loading her bike was asked if she was doing the "MS Bike Ride"...I of course assumed it was Microsoft. Nope...Multiple Sclerosis.

WEB NEWS - As if I don't have enough to daydream about (my terrific partner...my ability to travel to visit friends...my closet), I can get lost all afternoon at outnext.

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ATL - 9/15/08 - E.D.'s Bday

Little E.D.'s 2nd birthday...awwwwwwwwwwwww.

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - Over the next 2 weeks, look for the release of "Igor", "Lakeview Terrace", and "Ghost Town". These movies are heavy on premise: What if evil scientist assistants had ambition? What if your neighbor the cop took a disliking to you? What if you were an icky, self-absorbed person who died for a few minutes and came back, forced to do the bidding of the (folks who stayed) dead?

"Blindness" is big concept, too - what would happen if the majority of the world's people suddenly couldn't see? (I'll tell you one thing, they wouldn't go to this movie - Go experience "Dialog in the Dark", instead.) -ajc-

Two weeks of foreign films at the High (sit through these flicks and you will have even more overseas experience than some VEEP candidates I know...)

9/19 High - Iranian Film "Night Bus"
9/20 High - Turkish film "Bliss"
9/26 High - Iranian Film "Look for the Woman
9/27 High - Turkish Film "The Edge of Heaven"

ART NEWS - THE SECRET ARTS FESTIVAL - Did anyone catch the Atlanta Arts Festival in Piedmont Park this past weekend? Don't feel bad if you didn't; it wasn't even advertised on the Piedmont Park website (although other important events - like the "Tango Lessons" for $5 - were). An apparent attempt to keep attendance low, meaning only unsuccessful festivals are allowed at the park? -ajc-

CENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTS - A new Jim Henson/Muppets exhibit opens this week. While you're at it, catch one of their performances; this is still the only theater I've ever been kicked out of. -check it out-

FOX THEATER - “Les Miserables”: This new production will draw its design inspiration from the art of author Victor Hugo. Sept. 19-28. -TOTS-

PIEDMONT PARK - Anticipating attracting fewer than 50,000 people, the park is hosting Improv on Wednesdays in September. Improv is all about pretending...maybe the Dogwood Festival could "pretend" to attract fewer than 50,000..."

Alliance Theater - 9/19/ - 10/26 - Now that "Peachtree Battle" has closed after more than 1200 performances, this Alliance Theater production continues the tradition of poking fun at Atlanta - "Too Busy To Hate..." -alliancetheater-

High Museum - 9/19 - Friday Jazz

Dad's Garage - 9/19-10/18 - "Cannibal! The Musical"

Castleberry Hill Art Stroll - 9/26 - A week from this Friday!

LOCAL NEWS - E-CYCLE - 9/20, 8:00 - 4:00 PM - Feel better about your consumerism while rationalizing that new laptop; E-cycle your old electronics at Grady High School, 8th parking lot.

IKE, IKE, BABY - Varying reports around Atlanta show Hurrican Ike pushed gas prices up as much a $1/gallon from last week's area low of $3.61; but that was only when you could find a gas station that wasn't sold out! Guv'ner Sunshine enacted anti-price-gouging legislation to try and counter-act high prices. Good job, Sonny, keep prices artificially low and panicked people will buy it all whether they need it or not. Let gas stations raise prices and only people that really, really need gas will buy it, ensuring availability. Has this guy ever even heard of supply and demand?

BRUTAL - I just heard a report on NPR about a church that wants to tear down it's "brutalist"-style church in Washington, D.C. Upon hearing the description of "brutalism" (the term comes from the french for raw concrete - "beton brut"), I immediately thought of the Atlanta Fulton County Public Library, designed by Marcel Breuer. Some Atlantans want to tear it down, too. It may be a tough building to love (in today's context), but is tearing it down the right answer? At one point in Atlanta's brief, architectural history, we nearly lost the Fox Theater, too.

U.S. NEWS - Republicans have once again stimulated the economy... everyone is buying Sarah Palin eyeglasses. I hear once the fad for that particular accessory dies down, she will continue the stimulus by participating in the next debate sporting a hearing aid and an artificial leg...

I'm still working out the two major party VEEP candidates differences...are there any? Senator Biden isn't going to have an abortion, either.

FRENCH NEWS - Registration for french classes at Alliance Francaise starts this week! Winter quarter begins the first week in October. -afatl-

WEB NEWS - Atlanta architecture discussion thread -skyscraper-

Wouldn't it be great to buy food that came from a neighborhood farm instead of a processing plant in Mexico? Eating locally in Atlanta -ALFI-

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ATL - 9/8/08 - RNC & Harry's Wand

The first photo is a bit unique - two friends who were both in St Paul last weekend; one covering the action inside the convention, the other getting arrested video-ing the goings on outside. (Then he had a "bail bond party"...of course). -kyle.tv-

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - This week we have the Coen brothers and "The Women". The latter is a remake of the 1939 classic, replacing Norma Shearer and Rosalind Russell with Meg Ryan and Annette Bening; I really wish I could get everyone to see the original.

"Burn After Reading" is the Coen entry into the CIA/spy film genre. I hope it's more "O Brother..." than "Intolerable Cruelty", or we'll have to "Burn After Seeing".

9/12 High - Iranian Film "A Few Kilos..."

9/13 High - Iranian Film "Unfinished Stories"

Several weeks ago, Warner Bros announced that the new Harry Potter film's release would be delayed from fall to July '09. Is it a coincidence that Daniel Radcliff is going to be on Broadway this fall; naked in 'Equus'? Could it be that studio heads didn't want Harry and his Wand in the movie competing with it live on stage in New York? -equusonbroadway-

ART NEWS - Horizon Theater, 9/12-11/16 - "Altar Boyz". Dunno about this local production, but the Off-Broadway musical was awfully clever.

Lavapalooza, Hilton Pool & Trader Vic's & The Dames Aflame, 9/13 - I can't be at the Luau all day, but I sure wanna make the Trader Vic's After Party! -lavapalooza '08-

LOCAL NEWS - PAIN-IN-THE-ASPHALT - The connector repaving was completed 2 months early over the Labor Day Weekend...you can see time lapse photography of the progress here: -oxblue-

TRANSIT MATH - Two articles side-by-side in the AJC today described the costs of non-automotive transportation projects in Atlanta, one described heavy/light rail options, the second, bicycling:

Heavy Rail (MARTA) - $215 million / mile
Light Rail (Trolley) - $75 million / mile
Bike Path (on former railroad) - $25 million / mile

-ajc rail- -ajc silver comet-

KILLING TV - Week 3. I bought the monitor cable to connect my laptop to our flatscreen; with (1) that video output cable, (2) the audio out of the laptop connected to the AUX in of the stereo, and (3) the wireless internet connection, we can watch many streaming network TV programs, plus Netflix on demand. Can someone remind me why we EVER paid for satellite TV?

U.S. NEWS - By now, Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy is old news. But, then again, Roe v. Wade is old news, having made abortion legal since 1973, but that hasn't stopped the Republicans from continually bashing us over the head with it ever since. -R v. W-

According to McCain's campaign, this pregnancy is “a private family matter.” Would it were true that the Republican Party also afforded the same dignity and respect to pro-choice pregnancies. -pregnant-

FRENCH NEWS - Lemonde's headline is that the U.S. government taking on Freddie and Fannie reduces worldwide credit risks. -lemonde-

WEB NEWS - Getting around Atlanta might have just gotten a little easier; here's a trip planner that let's you enter start & end addresses and then select via walk, bike, and/or mass transit. -A-Train-

Georgia Tech's colors may be Navy and Gold, but that doesn't mean it can't be green, too: -greenbuzz-

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