Last puff for the French-made Gauloise: "In a victory for lighter American-style cigarettes over their pungent Gallic counterparts, the last factory in France making Gauloise cigarettes shut down on Wednesday...
The end of Gauloise production in France came as little surprise to the owner and clients at La Civette, a tobacco shop in the Paris suburb of Neuilly.
'Dark Gauloise smokers are very faithful to their brand, but they are not young or very numerous,' said Delphine Cartron, owner of the shop. 'Young people are attracted by the cowboy and sweet taste.'"
Goths and chavs go to war in the woods in attempt to keep the peace on the streets: "'We've had large groups of chavs and goths on Cathedral Square on a Saturday. They've not really being doing any harm but the sheer number of them intimidates people,' he said. 'It's like mods and rockers - not that these guys start fighting, it's just a bit of a slap here and there.'...
Kenny admits he was once a 'borderline' chav but got in with skaters, punks and then goths. Black is his daywear but for gigs he'll don black eyeliner and black nail varnish. Apart from clothes and music, the difference between the groups is attitude, according to Kenny."
Matt P is right: Best newspaper headline ever. Really. (This includes the future too).
Role as a gay activist calling to ex-Gov. McGreevey: "After a year of keeping a low profile, former Gov. James McGreevey has begun to emerge in the gay social world and is interested in lending his name to gay and lesbian political causes, according to friends and associates.
McGreevey surfaced at a recent Lambda Legal fundraiser on Fire Island, where he was photographed with Lambda national executive director Kevin Cathcart."...
'Actually he was more excited about the beach dance in the Hamptons, where he got his picture taken with ("Sex and the City" steamy star) Kim Cattrall,' [friend Jeffrey] Zirpolo said. 'To tell you the truth, we didn't talk politics.'"
USS Monitor's cat mystery: "Was there a black cat aboard the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, placed inside a cannon by a superstitious but desperate sailor as the vessel was sinking?
Crewman Francis Butts wrote in an 1885 magazine article that... the cat sat on the breech of one of the guns 'howling one of those hoarse and solemn tunes which no one can appreciate who is not filled with the superstitions which I had been taught by the sailors, who are always afraid to kill a cat.'"
HappyWill's birthday is coming up soon so I have been doing some browsing for gift ideas. He is turning the big F-I-V-E.
The world of children's toys is odd. First I came across this review (bottom of page) of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends:
this program describes being employed in the old economy. corporate or factory employees can find themselves here. it like the old Japanese corporate system, when it was not an option to lay off an employee and the employees do not think about looking for another job. less ideally, it's just like any corportate environment and any factory in the first world. thomas and his friends encourage each other to base their self worth on job performance, and everyone has his/her place. indeed, derailed tank engines are sitting ducks. the engines' loyalty makes sense.
And it's true! The engines do base their self worth on their job performance!
Next, on Amazon I was searching for pirate toys as pirates are "in" right now. The How To Be A Sexy Pirate list contains many useful items for someone new in the pirate industry. I, for one, never knew that pirates would like a jerky sampler.
Yeah, yeah, classes began again, but in more important news, my hairstylist Brian has disappeared! I called to make an appointment with him and was informed that he is no longer at the place. When I asked if I could get in touch with him, I was gruffly told no and was hung up on. Was it me? Did I do something wrong? He never even said goodbye. Brian always knew how to give the perfect dirty, mussed look. Either I try to find someone new or just go the buzzer way.
Craigslist has opened up shop here in New Hampshire. Now I too can share in the joy of missed connections. These diamonds in the rough are already waiting for responses.
The day was rainy and I was catching up on life and tings after the past week in Cape Cod. This also included sitting on the sofa before the imminent start of classes on Monday. So I watched the comfort television of The Adventures of Pete & Pete during the afternoon. Life seemed so simple in the mid-90s: Juliana Hatfield is a lunchlady, the Magnetic Fields provide the background music with songs from Holiday and the Wayward Bus, it was okay to wear flannel. Oh but wait, of course, at that time I was stuck in the middle of high school and not happier for it. And flannel never really was okay.
Well, Jamison, DHL did not lose my iBook. In fact, it arrived via FedEx right on time. However, Apple forgot to install a hard drive in the machine. So, the machine is on its way back to Apple and a replacement will be sent from the other side of the world. (The replacement can not be obtained from an Apple store since the 80Gb HD is apparently considered "customized"). This is rather uncool since I had planned to get the new iBook in ship-shape this week while I am away on Cape Cod and before classes begin again on Monday.
Remember the first time: "You can pin all kinds of epochal changes on the Britpop generation - but there are, it seems, limits. 'I don't think you can blame Noel Gallagher for Coldplay,' says [Alan] McGee. He suddenly looks slightly horrified. 'And you can't blame him for Athlete.'"
Big O is big draw to grade-A Oberst fan: "So why would a teenage girl leave the beaches of sunny south Florida for the Big O? Because it's the hometown of another Big O - indie-rock superstar Conor Oberst. [Michelle] wears an 'I (heart) Conor Oberst' bracelet around her wrist. From her neck hangs a locket with a picture of - you guessed it - Conor."
I swear I would be doing something more productive if my new iBook had arrived instead of mysteriously disappearing somewhere over the Philippines. Amelia Earheart better not have her paws on it.
[Edited to add: Sorry Amelia! Now the iBook has left Indianapolis!]
Stripping down men on Broadway: "'I think you could say that gay people coming out of the closet has paralleled the arrival of the penis onstage,' said James Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop."
The hospital has finally sent me the several hundred dollar bill for the amount insurance will not pay for my finger incident last fall. I was hoping the hospital was just overbilling in order to recoup some amount at all from insurance and would leave me alone. At least I already ordered my new iBook so I can avoid the buyer's remorse. The finger has healed nicely; the bicycle is still sitting on the backporch with its deflated tire.
I wish I understood the health care industry better so I could rant against it more effectively. Since Bri is enjoying his freedom from the working week, he needs health insurance. One insurance plan that I can get as a student specifically accepts d. partners. BUT the cost is close to $3500.00 extra for 1 year (and the plan excludes pre-existing conditions). The second plan costs only $1000.00 for 1 year to add a person, but specifically notes "spouses" (and I vaguely recall that this did not include d. partners when I checked last year). Perhaps I should just add him on the second plan as a spouse--seven years counts for something. Doesn't it?
French no longer bon vivants: "The French now have so much free time that they cannot afford to enjoy it... With many employees entitled to up to 11 weeks annual leave, thanks to the 35-hour-week laws introduced four years ago, the French are taking more breaks. However, they tend to be shorter and holidaymakers have less cash to spend when they are away.
The Union of Hotel and Restaurant Owners said its members have complained that holidaymakers now rarely take aperitifs, that they drink water rather than wine, eat sandwiches at lunchtime, order just one course at dinner and refuse even a post-prandial coffee."
Even the post-prandial coffee?! Is nothing sacred? If the French give up bon vivantism, who will take up their cause? My daydreams are shattered.
For every nervous obsession and annoying habit, a Dashboard Widget exists to suit your needs! With the continuously rising gas prices and my necessity for auto travel back in New Hampshire, I have become a gas price spotter. At every gas station, we pass in the car, I remark on the price: "Oh, here it's $2.34--that station up the street was at $2.38." My sister told me that I was acting like an old man. True, but at least I am one who is paying less for gas.
But for now I can keep my old man tendencies to myself and just check Gas before I go out in the car.
Still a 'city in a coma?': "For some Concord-area residents, the words 'night life' bring to mind several of the city's offerings... Others see a grimmer picture: Storefronts, most of them dark. A silent, deserted Main Street. A city in a relentless coma that comes on every night after business hours and drains the streets of all signs of life."
Gay sex dropped from TV adaptation: "Scenes of gay sex have been dropped from the TV adaptation of The Line of Beauty, because the man behind the series felt "queasy" when reading them...
This is despite the book, which follows the story of a gay, cocaine-fuelled Conservative in the 1980s, depicting scenes of sex between the main characters."
The story will be a lot less interesting without the sex. Perhaps the writer chose the wrong job--surely there must be some Henry James novel with subtext to adapt.
How Orson got out of jail:"He had a great pleasure in playing tricks. He was a presti ... prestigi ... pretigidigi ...' Teresa Cavina, deputy director of the Locarno festival, struggles for the right word to describe Orson Welles, whose career is celebrated in a huge retrospective at Locarno, Switzerland, over the next fortnight. When Welles died 20 years ago, he left his estate in a fearsome tangle. Family members, producers and distributors have all been bickering over the rights to his films, many of them incomplete, ever since. Locarno's achievement is to have persuaded the various warring parties to call a temporary truce - at least for the duration of the festival... 'He was tying and untying chains,' Cavina says as she contemplates Welles's extraordinarily complicated business and private life. 'He wasn't a crook and nobody perceived him as a crook. But he was a . . . prestidigitator.'"
