Dynamic Stall

Agatha Christie is one of my favorite mystery authors. Her home, Greenway House, is up for major renovation by the National Trust. I want to visit Greenway very much after everything is done.

The restorations are scheduled to be completed by 2009 so I have some time to get myself living there. The house would be a lovely weekend adventure! Bring a few books to ‘get in the mystery mood’ and then hit the tour. Fun!

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Is more than just a CD but a whole multi-platform marketing extravaganza with roughly 30 websites such as Another Version of the Truth and Art Is Resistance. Each site is an image puzzle with hidden clue to solve in order to determine the meaning.

See lots more info here at the Wiki.

I can’t decide if Trent’s just using this as a marketing stunt or to bring about meaningful change. Perhaps he’s doing this as a bit of both. However, I do believe he has overestimated the interest in his listening public. Why would this CD compel people to “Wake Up” and “Get Involved”?

It’s a great message. I certainly feel that more political involvement is needed from every social group in our country. But so far American citizens have demonstrated that they get involved because they have role models as close relations and are ‘trained’ from a young age to be active in their community, or because of some intense personal experience. Not because of a single multi-media event. It certainly would be more powerful if other artists expressed themselves along with Trent supporting the message and keeping any momentum gained going.

I also think the message may be lost on many a NIN fan. I certainly hope that I am wrong in thinking that there will be young people who will take this message as a basis for random acts of violence in the name of free speech against authority figures. And possibly a stereotyping and targeting of military and law enforcement personnel.

I hope that the message of “Wake Up And Give a Shit” isn’t lost on NIN fans. But they may think its just a fun thing to do right now. And not make “Watching the Watchers” a lifestyle. Because in the long-run being politically active and vigilant is hard work. I think many young people have other things on their minds.

All in all, I’m interested in what happens next. Go for a listen.

I was over at Defective Yeti, par usual, and was reading the comments to one of Matthew’s posts.

Now Matthew is dang funny and I like reading his work. But I also really enojy reading the comments as there are a few funny and/or interesting folks putting in their two-cents.

But this one comment made me chuckle out dang loud - and I haven’t done that in a while. Here’s the setup!

The original post was on the word e-social as defined by Matthew’s Aunt V:

e-social: A subset of asocial, where someone is so distracted by electronic devices that he ignores the people around him.

Inspired by watching a high-end SUV pass us one night with both flip down DVD players on for the back seat. I felt sorry for the kids, who will grow up never knowing how to fight with a siblings in the back seat.

The commentor Lost Poke wrote:

It is sad that today’s e-social children will grow up without the true roadtrip pleasures of:

- Complaining that Bobby is on my side of the seat
- Playing fun car games like “Billboard Alphabet” and “All My Cows Are Dead”

Billboard Alphabet (where you had to find a billboard or road sign with a word starting with a particular letter, moving alphabetically from the letter “A”) had a simple strategy to it for our family: Be the person who got to find the first letter if you weren’t going to Denver Stapleton Airport. The only sign with “Q” on it between Laramie, WY and Denver, CO was the Quebec Street exit near Stapleton Airport.

And that’s all he/she said! No instructions at all on how to play “All My Cows Are Dead”. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only person needing this critical information. After several requests to Lost Poke by fellow commentors, an answer came.

Holy cow sportsracers! What fun! Here’s Lost Poke’s explanation of how to play:

All My Cows Are Dead: This was a road trip game my Grandfather taught us.

Each kid or team of kids picks one side of the car. They get to count and add up all the cows they see on that side of the car along the way. If they pass a cemetary on their side of the car, then “All your cows are dead” and they have to start again at zero. Whoever has the most cows at the end of the trip wins.

Similar to the “Q” problem, we knew where all the cemetaries were on our regular routes, so we ended up fighting over who got the right side of the car (there was a cemetary on the left side near LaPorte CO), and the game had to be abandoned unless we were going on trips to previously uncharted territories.

Me and my brother played “Slug Bug”, “Bug Light”, and anything that would end with me getting the ‘Indian Rope Burn’ torture as a penalty.

But no playing some crazy game about cows dying. No sirree bob! We didn’t have anything as cool as that!

Yea…thank goodness we didn’t play such crazy games and be wierd or anything.

at this video then we can’t be friends.

and the azalea blooms are out in full force around town. Happily, this also just happens to coincide with the Azalea Festival this year. Yay! Some years there isn’t a bloom to be seen in town. The weather gods have been good so far!
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