Beef 101

Here's another infographic that I thought was worth sharing, especially considering that my own diet is so protein-heavy:



Source: FrugalDad

RIP Adam Yauch

The fact that 1/3 of the Beastie Boys is now deceased makes me feel very old and very sad.

Rock on, MCA.

Should I even *think* about a THIRD most anticipated movie of the summer?

Let's defy the odds and all conventional wisdom here and -- just bear with me -- assume that I've got Prometheus and Safety Not Guaranteed in the 'ol seen-it movie bank already this summer and the genie in the bottle has granted me a third wish to see yet ANOTHER movie this summer.  I know, far fetched, right?  Well, if lightning were in fact striking for the third time in the same place, I'd see this one, called Looper.  It looks freaking awesome.

Favorite vidoes of the '80's, part III

I owned the cassette for Seven and the Ragged Tiger and listened to it nonstop on my walkman one summer when my family drove down to Disneyworld in, I believe, 1984.  My favorite song on the album at the time was "The Seventh Stranger," but there is no video for that.  But there was one for "The Reflex" and it was awesome.

Oh, what the hell, here's a clip of "The Seventh Stranger" live from 1984:

Homework

Dear readers, you might have wondered why, of all the widgets I could have put on this page, I have three gasoline-price trackers.  Well, the truth is, peak oil is one of my very favorite topics to think and/or write about (although I have not written on the subject in some time), so I like to track the price of oil on its inevitable, ruinous, and irreversible climb upward.  Now, you may be asking yourself, "why should I care about this in the least (aside from the obvious drain on my checking account)?" 

That's where the "homework" referenced in the blog post's header comes in.  Instead of me explaining it to you, why don't I let YouTube do the work for me? 

Watch these movies/clips and all will be revealed...

The foregoing is just ONE of the infinite reasons why Hillcrest is the best neighborhood in Little Rock.  Walkable, mixed-use, close to the city center, close to the Arkansas River, dense housing.  Would you rather weather the Peak Oil Storm in Hillcrest or in Maumelle?  Or Cabot?  Or Bryant?  Or West Little Rock? 

Quote of the Day

"You don't really have a [brown] recluse problem here [Hillcrest] or fire ants, really.  All the things that bite and sting are out in West Little Rock."

-- Tammy, the best Terminix person in the state, explaining to yours truly about the general lack of spider problems in the neighborhood.  It is unknown whether or not she was aware of the spot-on double entendre of her statement :)

Favorite videos of the 80's, part 2

Because of the dwarf, naturally.

Actually, I had always heard that "The Safety Dance" was about anti-nuclear weapons proliferation, which I thought was puzzling unless it was part of a bomb-you-back-to-midieval-times conceit.  Turns out my puzzlement was well-placed, if you believe the song's entry on Wikipedia:

The writer/performer, Ivan Doroschuk, has explained that "The Safety Dance" is a protest against bouncers stopping dancers pogoing to 1980s New Wave music in clubs when disco was dying and New Wave was up and coming. New Wave dancing, especially pogoing, was different from disco dancing, because it was done individually instead of with partners and involved holding the torso rigid and thrashing about. To uninformed bystanders this could look dangerous, especially if pogoers accidentally bounced into one another (the more deliberately violent evolution of pogoing is slam dancing). The bouncers did not like pogoing so they would tell pogoers to stop or be kicked out of the club. Thus, the song is a protest and a call for freedom of expression. Other lyrics in the song include references to the way pogoing looked to bouncers, especially "And you can act real rude and totally removed/And I can act like an imbecile".

Doroschuk disagrees with two common interpretations of the song. Firstly, he notes it is not a call for safe sex. Doroschuk says that is reading too much into the lyrics. Secondly, he explained that it is not an anti-nuclear protest despite the nuclear imagery at the end of the video. Doroschuk says that he considers Men Without Hats "a punk band with one hit song" and that as such they were "anti-everything".

So there you go.  Anyway, bring on the midieval dwarf!

The case against airlines

If you believe Christopher Steiner, air travel is going to eventually become even more and more expensive even as the numbers of carriers dwindles under the sheer weight of their unsustainable business models.  This, thanks to the theory known as peak oil and the inevitable rise in fuel and gasoline costs.  But check out this infographic and note that we're still in the very early stages of the fallout from peak oil.



Source: http://frugaldad.com

My favorite music videos of the 80's, part 1

80's nostalgia has been overdone by just about every pop-culture media outlet since the decade ended over twenty years ago.  But not on HillcrestBlog!  So here you go, just because :)

My first exposure to MTV was when I visited my grandparents house in Oklahoma City back in 1983 and there was this *new* cable TeeVee channel that played music videos that we didn't have in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  I'm not sure if "Photograph" was the very first video I saw, but if it wasn't, I *know* I saw it that first night I watched the channel.  Awesome then, awesome now.

SECOND most anticipated movie of this summer

...behind Prometheus, of course.  I figure that out of the three-month summer movie season, I can safely say that all the stars will align with a babysitter, and willing spouse, to see Prometheus.  A second summer movie outing is less than guaranteed (much like safety...in this movie, apparently).  But if it did occur -- ie babysitter, the movie playing at the right time, in the right theater, and all that -- I would want to see this movie. 

The incredible soccer booze ban

Today Manchester City is hosting Manchester United in the English Premier League.  For the uninitiated, that's soccer.  Basically, the title likely hinges upon who wins this match between these two cross-town rivals.  It is a HUGE game, not only in England, but in all of worldwide professional soccer (I think I heard 650 million people will be watching).  But nowhere is it bigger than in the city of Manchester.  How big, you ask?

The city of Manchester is banning alcohol sales prior to the match. 

Can you imagine a Razorback game so freaking HUGE that the city of Little Rock would ban alcohol sales or consumption at the War Memorial Stadium golf course?  That's a scenario I simply cannot fathom.

And, on top of that, I was in Germany with my wife at the 2006 World Cup and partied with some English in Cologne.  Booze and English football go hand-in-glove.  I remember seeing media reports that the cities where the English were playing in were very literally running out of beer.  Like, the taps and kegs were running dry and the German tourism industry was kinda freaking out because they wanted to make sure there was enough beer for everyone else -- including themselves.  So, I guess my point is, the fact that Manchester has banned alcohol sales prior to the match is pretty freaking remarkable.

We're all unhealthy fatties now

Myself included, although after topping out at 272 pounds last June 20, I'm down to 244.6 as of this morning. I think with newly dedicating myself to diet and exercise recently that I can get down to 230 by June of this year, which I think would be quite the accomplishment, but still only halfway to what I need to lose from my June 20, 2011, total.


Source: frugaldad.com