Class, Thy Name is Mikebot
Ponder the following Beck lyric (in Hollywood Freaks):
Hot milk...
mmm, tweak my nipple
champagne and ripple
shamans gone cripple
my sales gon' triple
What is "Champagne and Ripple"? What is Ripple?
Enter Bum Wines, which documents the many types of low-price, high alcohol wines available.
Turns out Ripple is a fortified wine and one of the characters on Sanford and Son (#3 in link) loved to mix champagne and Ripple. Little high class and a lot of low-brow.
Once, at an Oakhurst reunion, I gave my friend Ellie a ten dollar bill for a booze run. And I said "I don't care- get me something interesting!" What did she bring back but Wild Irish Rose. Grossest drink yet, terrible hangover.
There was another time in college where there was a gas station that didn't card on Ivy Road. What was available there, but MD 20/20. Perhaps my memory fails me on this point, but I remember "MD" standing for "Mad Dog". According to Bum Wines, MD now stands for "Magen Dvid", or "Star of David". Did it undergo a little brand tweaking? I think so.
I had assumed for a long time that Gn'R's song Night Train was about a hard liquor. But nope, it's another kind of fortified wine.
Ready to crash and burn
I'll never learn
I'm on the Night Train
I would like to leave you all with the brilliant insight of one Dr. A Price, PhD of mixology, "Dude, the 'fortified' in 'fortified wine' does not mean that they added vitamins and minerals to your wine!"
Now, Ellie, what happened to the rest of that Hamilton I gave you? Or was it a Lincoln?
(hat tip to Mud Latte for the turn-on to bumwine.com)
mike sold out at - 20:40
Arrested Movie Renting
Dangit! I totally was going to be super-sneaky and get Arrested Development Season 3 first on Netflix, but now there is a "Very Long Wait". Sad.
PS- I was going to write a post about how I'm reading David Halberstam's The Fifties and some unsettling parallels to today, but instead I give you a complaint.
mike sold out at - 10:08
8.27.2006
Dinner and a Show... and a "Show"
Went to rooftop films on Saturday night, which was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Awesome venue, pretty good films.
Fun fact I learned: there was actually a house under a roller coaster in Coney Island (the Thunderbolt, not the Cyclone a la Woody Allen). It belonged to the owner of the roller coaster, no less.
Thence to a late dinner at Relish, a silver diner in Williamsburg, with Anna and her friend Erica. As we finished our dinner and most other diners had cleared out, we were rocking to the very decent classic rock blasted by the jukebox. And then "Love In An Elevator" came on...
So out of nowhere, a dude dressed like Steven Tyler starts dancing on the bar, with lots of grinding in the face of the bartender (it was apparently a "gift" for his birthday). No one really knew what was going on. Then, the dancer started to strip and writhe on the bar. I half-expected some "hot cops" to come in and shut his dance down (a la Arrested Development), but apparently the end of the song was the end of the show.
mike sold out at - 23:58
8.23.2006
Need Work?
FUGITIVE RECOVERY AKA BOUNTY HUNTER TRAINING
mike sold out at - 20:47
Stupid Telemafone
Net Neutrality Platitudes from the FTC: "On the same day (August 21) that Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said there is no evidence to show the broadband market is failing [at providing a competitive market], Verizon and BellSouth each announced they were going to add surcharges to the bills of subscribers of their broadband service...
Technically, Verizon and BellSouth didn’t raise their prices to consumers. What they did was fail to lower them. As part of the reclassification of broadband service, the Federal Communications Commission told the telephone companies they didn’t have to levy universal service charges on Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service. The charges vary, but are generally $1.25 for slow speeds and close to $3 for higher speeds. But the companies told subscribers that although the Universal Service Fund charge would be dropped, a new charge would take its place."
via Talking Points Memo
This has kind of always bugged me when I pay my DSL bill, as the Universal Service Fee (USF) that they are charging is a program that only applies to telephone landlines. The USF program is one of the most successful liberal programs next to Social Security. Telephone carriers are charged a fee by the government to fund poorly-served areas to get telephone service (mostly rural areas). This program almost singlehandedly got us to the point where every American can expect to have land-line telephone service by the mid-20th century.
It is left up to the companies how they want to pay for it. Most have opted to pass it on by a line-item in customer's bills, even though it is not a per-customer tax, it is a bulk fee charged to telephone companies.
DSL providers recently started charging this fee to their internet customers on top of the USF fee paid for telephone service. The problem is that the USF program does not direct this fee towards building out infrastructure for areas underserved for broadband. It's anybody's guess as to where the money goes!
mike sold out at - 17:00
The Great Train Race
Two UVA alumni are doing a full subway system trek today.
I love this quote from from NY1 where they mock the media.
"We have [been surprised by the response]," said Green. "I don't know what's wrong with you guys, but apparently you think this is a story worth covering. I guess nothing else is going on in the world now."
mike sold out at - 15:59
8.17.2006
Is it because he's not Scottish?
Bush is "crap", says British Deputy Prime Minister.
mike sold out at - 10:15
8.14.2006
This space available
So after NinjaJames example, I have decided to do a test run of blogads to see what happens. Hopefully the random content of this blog will lead to hilarious results. So far there is an ad for a Christian singles dating site which is, frankly, an awesome example of the kind of irony we seek to support here at mikebot.
mike sold out at - 22:56
8.07.2006
What's Missing Here?
Here's two stories from 60 Minutes this Sunday:
The global warming piece was one of the most comprehensive television stories I've seen on the reality of the threat. It noted that America uses the most energy and gives off the most greenhouse gases of any country in the world.
The 20-minute-long piece on giant houses (we're talking houses +8,000 sq. feet) did not by any means endorse large houses. Most of the piece questioned what people would do with houses that large and asked if houses that large were vulgar.
What it did not do is talk about the massive increase in energy usage per person that such giant houses bring. Nor the stretching of public infrastructure (roads, power, water, sewers) to serve such monstrosities. Nor the effects such supersized sprawl has on the environment.
Consider the possibility that these giant houses are only possible in an economy where energy is cheap and policies that promote sprawl are paramount.
mike sold out at - 15:08
8.06.2006
Side-effects: May cause 'Cabin Fever'
I have been pretty grossly sick this weekend, and on one that my family came up to NYC, so I didn't get to see them much. While I've got some antibiotics in the arsenal, being inside has used up almost all my patience. Some selected activities that you may also enjoy:
Photo of Atlantic Basin, which is here in Red Hook.
mike sold out at - 22:24
8.05.2006
My Atlantic Yards Article is Finally Out!
It's in The Next American City: Aug 2006
A New Dynamic: Atlantic Yards Challenges Brooklyn Progressive Politics
Here's taste of the article:
Because of the many delicate issues involved - scale, density, traffic, the sale of public land, inclusionary housing, and gentri?cation - the community has split over support for Atlantic Yards in unusual coalitions. The far-right Manhattan Institute, generally expected to toe the developer’s line, has come out vociferously against the project’s proposed use of eminent domain and state subsidies. In turn, progressive groups often seen as anti-development have supported the project because of its inclusion of affordable housing and its commitment to hire minorities during the construction process. A closer look at the Atlantic Yards debate sheds light on the complex, changing politics of development in New York.
Although much has happened since the article went to press in February (the draft EIS was released, Forest City Ratner reduced the density by 5%, someone did a calculation that revealed this to be the most dense residential community in the world, ACORN turned down the volume of its support of the project, and Assemblyman Green decided to run for Congress) the political coalitions haven't changed much at all.
mike sold out at - 10:09
8.02.2006
Liberte et Gastronome
TPM Muckracker: In Congress, the French Fries Are Back
In an unannounced move, the House cafeteria has removed the terms "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" from its offerings, and has reverted to using the dishes' more common names, "french fries" and "french toast."
Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who had implemented the change in 2003 in a fit of hollow but PR-friendly patriotism, refused to comment on the switch. "We don't have a comment for your story," a spokesman for Ney said.
Owing to his notably unpatriotic involvement in the Abramoff scandal, Ney was several months ago forced to step down from his post as chair of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the cafeteria menu, among other things. The change appears to have been made by Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), although he too declined comment.
In an unannounced move, the House cafeteria has removed the terms "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" from its offerings, and has reverted to using the dishes' more common names, "french fries" and "french toast."
Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who had implemented the change in 2003 in a fit of hollow but PR-friendly patriotism, refused to comment on the switch. "We don't have a comment for your story," a spokesman for Ney said.
Owing to his notably unpatriotic involvement in the Abramoff scandal, Ney was several months ago forced to step down from his post as chair of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the cafeteria menu, among other things. The change appears to have been made by Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), although he too declined comment.
