by John D. Harvey on March 8, 2010
by John D. Harvey on February 27, 2010
Going to a homespun beer tasting tonight with a bunch of friends. This is just an informal thing where we all bring 5-6 beers that we can all sample while we sit around and shoot the bull.
Here’s my choices. Click the images for reviews at Beeradvocate.com:
Rogue Chocolate Stout
Smuttynose Imperial Stout
Long Trail Imperial Porter
Hooker Imperial Porter
St. Peter's Cream Stout
You can tell that my tastes run toward dark brews. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not beer unless a mouse can walk across its surface and not sink.
At my local package store, the checkout clerk looked at my selection and said “Dude, you have Jedi Beer Powers.”
Why yes I do.
by John D. Harvey on February 22, 2010
Remaking “Death at a Funeral”
So, I saw “Shutter Island” last night, and while watching the previews I was disappointed to discover that they have remade and Americanized the 2007 British comedy “Death at a Funeral” directed by Frank Oz.
The 2010 remake stars Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence. I enjoyed the original so much that I can’t imagine getting too much out of the new version. As mentioned by Bev Vincent, the remake appears to be quite nearly a scene-by-scene copy of the original, but with some rewrites to showcase Rock and Lawrence comedy bits. Peter Dinklage reprises his role from the original film.
The only thing that attracts me to this film is that it includes Zoe Saldana in the cast. Is that enough to convince me to pay for a matinee ticket?
No.
Pee, Art, and Animal Welfare
These three things come together on “PEE-ces of Art by Tucker.” Long-story kept short, Tucker is a German Shepherd with the canine equivalent of multiple sclerosis. As a result, Tucker cannot “lift his leg” to pee. So, he walks and waggles his way down the path leaving elaborate streams in his wake.
His foster mom saw beauty in these patterns and began photographing them. Her lens captured the compositions as they spontaneously occurred in the natural course of their daily strolls. These photographs are actually very good. But don’t take my word for it. Go visit the site to see for yourself.
The artist (Tucker) will have an open house on Sunday, March 7, 2010 from Noon to 6:00 pm at the Bela Dubby Art Gallery & Beer Cafe, 13321 Madison Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio.
New Blog Recommendation – The Selvage Yard
In the course of my cruising hither and yon across the internet, I came across this blog from Jon Patrick.
The Selvage Yard includes great articles and images on retro pop culture, vintage styles, branding, and other cultural topics. Honestly, it’s hard to provide a good nutshell description of The Selvage Yard. It’s best to just go visit and see what you think.
by John D. Harvey on January 14, 2010
This feature has been out since September 2009, but I still occasionally have people ask me about it. Essentially, this is one of the ways where Facebook set out to mimic a very popular Twitter feature.
The ability to tag your friends when you posted photos, videos and notes is not new. But, with the ability to tag in status updates and other posts you can notify specific people of things you want them to see or read.
WHY USE THE “@” TAGGING FEATURE
Generally, status updates reflect thoughts, activities, or link to interesting things found online. Within these updates, you may want to make sure that certain people see them, or give a “shout out” to someone who provided you with the source material for your status update (but there’s a caveat with that last one … more on that later).
HOW TO USE THE “@” TAGGING FEATURE
It’s simple. If you want to tag a friend’s Facebook profile to something you post, just enter the “@” symbol and start typing that person’s name immediately after (no spaces) the symbol. As you type the name, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications, and pages. Simply use your cursor to select the correct profile from the list. When you finish writing your post and hit the “Share” button, the “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post. View the thumbnail image below for an example.
Click image for larger view.
HOW THE FACEBOOK “@” TAGGING FEATURE APPEARS
Profiles you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your update. They also have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts. Let’s be clear, your status update will be visible on their wall, meaning that all of their Facebook friends can see your status update.
So, please think ahead before you post something like:
“Hey, I have pictures of @John Smith streaking nude in Tijuana right after our naughty antics in a strip club. Geez, you’d never know he’s getting married in a week!”
If John’s Facebook friends include co-workers, professional peers, family, fiancé, and family of fiancé, then you’ve officially made John’s life incredibly complex. And within days, John might be your new (jobless) roommate.
WHEN NOT TO USE THE FACEBOOK “@” TAGGING FEATURE
When a friend posts an image, video, or other piece of media to their own wall, it will show up in your news feed. Using the “Share” button, you can copy that media to your wall and share it with your friends. The “Share” feature also allows you to write your own intro caption to the post, where you do have the ability to use the “@” tagging feature. Except here’s the thing … don’t.
If you write “I got this great video from @John Smith” then your post, including the video, will appear on John’s wall. Meaning, the video will appear twice on his wall. Once when he posted it, and again when you tagged him in your post. This clutters John’s wall with redundant material, and really … hasn’t he suffered enough because of you?
That’s it. Tagging in status updates is a very useful feature, but it does have it’s drawbacks and potential for mischief. I hope this is useful to all of you!
by John D. Harvey on January 3, 2010
So, it’s been a while since I’ve put anything in this blog. That’s mostly because of the life static arising out of the holidays, work, and family. Well, the good news is that two out of those three complicating factors have been eliminated.
Yes … the holidays are over. No … I didn’t kill off my family.
Though, I did get laid off from my full-time job (along with about twenty other people) on December 19. Fa la-la la-la, etc., etc.
While this looks like bad news on the surface, it really isn’t. The fact is that I did not enjoy the work at my former employer. It is safe to say that technical writing does not float my boat. So, I’m looking at 2010 as the year I nail down what I’m going to do when I grow up.
That said, I have put out a shingle as a full-time freelancer in the fields of copywriting, marketing/PR, and web design. Come visit me at http://www.medialogical.com. Oh by the way … if you’re a web developer with proven skills in Wordpress and/or Drupal CMS systems, get in touch. I need to offload a large chunk of the webdev duties so I can concentrate on business development.
I’m also planning out several fiction projects that went from front burner, to back burner, to counter top. In January and February this year, I’m also going to launch two monthly podcasts.
More on that later …
Cheers,
John
by John D. Harvey on November 13, 2009
It’s interesting to watch the migration of genre actors from one geek show to the next geek show. It’s almost like there’s a temp agency in Burbank, CA, that specializes in transitioning our favorite scifi actors. For example:
Hoban “Wash” Washburne (Firefly) begat Dale Maddox (V)
Inara Serra (Firefly) begat Anna (V)
Charlie Pace (Lost) begat Simon (Flashforward)
Penelope Widmore (Lost) begat Dr. Olivia Benford (Flashforward)
Juliet Burke (Lost) begat Erica Evans (V)
Am I missing anyone?
I have to admit that it’s fun watching Tudyk and Baccarin in the same show again (though in wildly different roles). Honestely though, I’m generally happier when I see Baccarin in any form or fashion . Hubba, hubba!
Now, if you want to see Tudyk at his comedic best, then check out Death at a Funeral. Though it has an American director (Frank Oz), I would still consider Death at a Funeral to be a British comedy. Tudyk steals almost every scene he’s in. If you don’t believe me, then the picture below should add some weight to my claim.
by John D. Harvey on November 11, 2009
by John D. Harvey on October 19, 2009
It never ceases to frustrate me that some men insist on talking to me about sports even though they KNOW I don’t follow or even care about sports. The conversation typically goes something like this:
“Hey, did you see the game last night? Wasn’t that play by … ?”
“I don’t like sports. You know this,” says I.
“Yeah, but you should have seen this pass by … !”
“I’ll explain myself AGAIN,” I reply with open annoyance. “I’m not going to recognize any of the names you rattle off. I won’t care about their individual accomplishments with ball or puck. And, I further don’t care how these individual accomplishments help their team get to the spin-offs.”
“Um, play-offs.”
“Play-offs, spin-offs, jack-offs … the point is that I honestly don’t give a flying fuzzy #$%&. The only way I could be convinced to care is if a team spontaneously decided to donate 50% of their collective salaries to the ‘John Harvey Charitable Beer & Kung Fu DVD Fund‘ if they win the play-offs. Even then, I would only watch the final play-off game.”
“Okay. But the thing is this one player got traded and now he’s…”
“Right. The reality we’re slowly spiraling towards is that you have a small, tight bundle of synapses, probably snuggled right up against the pineal gland, that drives you to have this sports conversation with someone penis-endowed. And this drive mimics the brain-stem insistence that forces salmon to spawn up the same stream every year and Joan Rivers to get more plastic surgery.”
Long, introspective pause.
“Yes.”
“Fine,” I say. “Go on then. I’ll just lie back and think of England.”
Bloody hell.
by John D. Harvey on October 10, 2009
My sister, Sharon Harvey (executive director, Cleveland APL), has been very actively campaigning against Proposition 2 in Ohio. This agriculture bill would amend the Ohio state constitution to create a Livestock Board with unchecked power over livestock rules and regulations. While masquerading as an attempt to improve food safety and animal welfare, Issue 2 would give a dozen political appointees broad and unchecked power to decide rules on how animals are raised, tracked, or traced.
The official site for the ‘No’ campaign is here.
This HSUS blog post spells out their position on the issue.
This article posted to the Center of Consumer Freedom (CCF) site is the only ‘pro prop. 2′ statement that I could find. It becomes a bit empty when you realize that CCF is a shell non-profit primarily funded by the thousand-pound gorillas within the tobacco, restaurant, and agriculture industries. See here, and here.
In any case, I know that I have friends, followers, and contacts in Ohio who see these posts via the intertubes. I encourage you to vote NO on Proposition 2.
by John D. Harvey on October 10, 2009
Generally, I don’t put much politics out there on this blog. Perhaps I should. Rumor has it that if you want over a hundred comments on a blog post, you need to either go political or say something bad about Mac computers.
Anywho, this “Bend It Like Beck” clip from the Stephen Colbert is a classic and, in the form of satire, sums up how I feel about all the current “rodeo clowns” (Beck’s term, not mine) posing as conservative political thinkers and commentators. For me, this most prominently includes Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. I place O’Reilly and Hannity at the more sensible end of this spectrum, for what it’s worth. On the other hand, Beck and Limbaugh are crazy people.
What I find most interesting is that you really can’t find anyone on the liberal side of the broadcast media equation who used vitriol, theatrics, and fear-mongering to the degree utilized by these four commentators. People will sometimes mention the names Janeane Garofalo and Al Franken, but even in their “heyday” on Air America Radio, they never approached the audience size garnered by any one of the four conservative commentators mentioned here. Also, Garofalo and Franken bug the hell out of me, too.
Perhaps the best known and most widely watched liberal political commentators are Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. Here again, I find it interesting to compare what galvanizes liberals in popular culture versus conservatives. Somebody smarter than me should take some time to figure out what makes liberals flock around satire while conservatives seem to be drawn toward shock jockery.
