Your Daily Photo (People Suck Edition)

This photo has nothing to do with people sucking, having some jerk jump your fence, sneak into your garage, and take your TREK, has everything to do with people sucking.

It's one of those crimes that don't hit the statistics cause it's kind of pointless to report it as the chance of recovery is virtually nil.

I hope whoever stole it ODs on the crack he buys with the money he gets for selling my bike for cents on the dollar.

The photo is from my Vegas trip over Memorial Day Weekend, an abandoned structure spotted off of SR 127. According to the linked wiki, SR 127 is the Lost Highway from David Lynch's Lost Highway.



This picture shows the structure in the distance, I had my camera taking pictures every 6 seconds. The plan was to turn them into a movie, but the thing about Death Valley is that the views don't really change a whole lot mile after mile after mile after mile, so even as a 10 minute movie made from still shots that covers hundreds of miles, it's just not that interesting.

Below is a view of the same structure from SPACE!


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Is It the Last Day, or First Day of April?

Everything about this press release suggests that it should have been released on April 1st instead of April 30th (ok it was really released on April 25th, but Drudge only just now linked to it, and for some reason, I'm not on the David Lynch Foundation mailing list, though maybe now I'll make sure to get on it).

We had transcendental meditation in my kindergarten class, only they called it 'nap time' back then.

Some quotes from the press release (with bracketed comments from the peanut gallery):

The National Institutes of Health has granted more than $24 million to study the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique for reducing high levels of stress and anxiety, improving brain functioning, and promoting cardiovascular health.
[Does it really take $24M taxpayer dollars to ascertain that calming and centering oneself has benefits?]
* * *
Lynch will be joined by quantum physicist John Hagelin (What the bleep do we know?!, The Secret), and singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch (Hurdy Gurdy Man, Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow).
[Donovan?!? If his daughter was there, I'd be there in a heartbeat, but Donovan?!?]
* * *
Lynch, Hagelin, and Donovan will explore the anti-violence plan in detail during a national student weekend entitled, “Exploring the Frontiers of Brain, Consciousness, and Creativity” at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, over Memorial Day Weekend, from May 25 to 28.
[Maharishi University of Management?!? in Iowa no less?!? Words fail. This fact set exceeds my ability to poke fun. I've been completely disarmed by the sheer ridiculousness of this. My ability to actually ridicule it has failed. If you don't see any post from me for awhile it will be due to the crisis in confidence caused by this disturbing turn of events. Sort of like that South Park episode where Cartman had seen something so funny that he lost the ability to laugh and feared an anhedonic existence for the rest of his days (not to be confused with the Pee Wee Herman inpsired syndrome of 'so funny I forgot to laugh')]

Another Standard Setter

This metric sickness seems to be contagious. First Bill adds his thoughts, offering some excellent suggestions on fine tuning the funkometer, and now John Podhoretz at the Corner seems to be hinting at a new scale for bad, pretentious film reviews (via Ed Driscoll)

The Dargis would be the unit. Specifically, Manohla Dargis' review of David Lynch's Inland Empire. He warns you that you will be a changed person should you venture into that labyrinth of a review.

(and no review good or bad would keep me away from seeing this film, I'm a Lynch fan, and it's set in the Inland Empire, where I went to college, woohoo!)

Obviously this particular review is a full 1000 millidargis on the pretension scale, while something like her review of AI clocks in at a mere 350 millidargis (I'm following the European method of using millidargis as both the singular and plural form).

In contrast this Christy Lemire review of Deja Vu is downright cogent and concise earning -150 millidargis. Still not as clear as it could be (a truly clear and helpful review would be -1000 millidargis), but certainly better than most reviews you get (even if I disagree with some of what she says about that film).

But enough about them, should I start applying a metric to my own posts?

And what would that scale be?

UPDATE: I've just searched this site for previous mentions of Manohla Dargis, and I had forgotten her ridiculous review of Snakes on a Plane. That's a full 1500 millidargis for that review. It's 50% more Dargis than that Inland Empire review. She's really incredible. She's a master. A.O. Scott ain't got nothing on her. Peter Travers comes close, but who reads Rolling Stone any more?

And so many folks get Lynch wrong, he's not the freak (Dennis Hopper), he's the boy scout (Kyle McLachlan).