Bostodelphia

Cape Wind is approved!

2010-04-30T10:08:00.003-04:00

Get the bumper sticker and (coming soon) other knickknacks at Cafepress!
Now you can get the bumper sticker...stick it to the Palin/BP/offshore drilling crowd in the process...

And oh yes, after this post, we really are retired.

Blog closed

2009-08-12T09:51:00.003-04:00

It was fun, but we're done, and we've taken our Adsense revenue and retired to Nice. Cheers.

Vintage Blue Tees

2009-01-03T23:55:00.003-05:00

Now for a Bostodelphia clothing connection...a Bostonian moves to Phillie, goes native, and produces some wicked cool vintage inspired tees. (aside - does Philadelphia have any local adjectives like 'wicked' that immediately irritate Floridians?) Vintage Blue is producing clothing and totes with 40's and 50's inspired graphics.

Now, my collaborator and I are eco-conscious types, so we are keen to note that VB is using sustainable business practices and materials throughout. The proprietor is also a loyal citizen of Red Sox Nation. Looks like cheesesteaks from Geno's only goes so far, Phillies.

So go and get yourself a new shirt already!

Happy New Year's

2008-12-31T12:13:00.001-05:00

Happy 2009 from all of us (er, all two of us) from Bostodelphia!

Squirrel Burning Power

2008-12-10T00:01:00.005-05:00

Recently I was discussing bike lighting with His Steamy Eminence, Jake von Slatt. He believed that the best bike light would be capable of scorching a squirrel at 20 yards, give or take. Now, granted, he bikes with significantly less wattage than that, but we here at Bostodelphia do not believe in half measures.

A fairly recent entry to the halogen lighting market is the IR reflecting MR16 bulb. Instead of radiating heat in all directions, it reflects the infrared light forward to further heat the filament, increasing efficiency. A 20w MR16 is about equivalent to a 35w MR16.

Therefore, we propose to use such a high efficiency bulb, while overvoltaging it to 14.4V instead of the usual 12V. According to the lumens/watt table from this page, if these are really equivalent to a 35w bulb a pair of IR reflecting 20w MR16 bulbs will deliver a total of 4575 lumens, at a power draw of 49.6 watts and a system cost in the $75 range with NiMH batteries. This may actually achieve the squirrel scorching capability that so excites Jake. The highest output LED bike light on the market, incidentally, is the Lupine Betty 12, at 1500 lumens for $1175.

Little known election results

2008-11-05T23:52:00.002-05:00

My son's preschool held a snack election on Nov 4. It was cheese crackers vs. graham crackers, complete with picture ballots. He was very pleased that his candidate, graham crackers, prevailed 5-4. The graham crackers were eaten that day, the loser today. Yes we can.

Hey Phillies fans...

2008-10-30T23:24:00.001-04:00

Woooooo!

2008-10-30T02:42:00.003-04:00

If you were unconscious last night:

Unabashedly:

And, gotta give props to this:

Philly rulez!

John McCain on the last 8 years

2008-10-25T23:58:00.002-04:00

New ad on our good friend John McCain by the Young Turks. What more needs to be said?

All Sorts of Shit Going Down Today in Philly

2008-10-11T12:57:00.003-04:00

Obama's pulled a whirlwind tour through North Philly. Followed by some fundraisers.

Palin's in town for a puck drop at the Flyer's game, and protests are planned. ACT UP will reportedly be protesting a Palin fundraiser beforehand.

Keystone State Skinheads will be celebrating "Leif Ericson Day" on the Schuylkill.

FBI helicopters with gunmen dangling from them have been and will be seen throughout the city all day, but that's just for a movie.

Re: Yoga for Real Americans

2008-10-07T10:07:00.005-04:00

Blogging in response to YogaForCynics recent "Yoga for Real Americans" post, whose author is soliciting real American yoga poses:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve about had it with these stuck-up elitist “yoga teachers” goin’ on about how they spent all these years “practicing yoga” and “reading books” about it. I’ll learn yoga from a regular American like myself, not some fancy pants “intellectual,” thank you, and you betcha it won’t be somebody who says all all these weird words from other countries. This is America, so I say talk English or go do your cobra pose in Cuba or Iran or somewhere. Lemme ask you this: when they start sayin’ all that foreign crap like surya namaskar and supta baddha konasana how the hell do you know they’re not talkin’ about terrorism?

That’s why now I’m workin’ with my buddy Joe, who’s taught me some real American yoga poses like sittinonthecouchdrinkinbeernwatchingnascarasana and gettindrunknshootinanimalsasana as well as the restorative passedoutdrunkonthefloorasana. Anybody else know any good ones, you be sure to let everybody know about 'em down there in the comments section.

While not quite a pose, we offer YogaForCynics an honest to God American mantra ripped from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Plus it's another debate night, and the last Sunny clip we chose did such a job succinctly making McCain's maverick case than the man himself:

Update: Boo! Fox told YouTube to take the clip down and it ain't on Hulu as a clip. Anyway, the words were: "“gonna rise up, gonna kick a little ass, Gonna kick some ass in the USA, Gonna climb a mountain, Gonna sew a flag, Gonna fly on an Eagle, gonna kick some butt, gonna drive a big truck, gonna rule this world, Gonna kick some ass, Gonna rise up, Kick a little ass, ROCK, FLAG AND EAGLE!”

The writings of KungfooJesus

2008-10-03T16:05:00.002-04:00

From the Digg discussion on the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart. Sometimes you come across a post that just sums up a topic neatly.

KungFooJesus

Remember, we twice voted into office a president we'd like to have a beer with. The republicans are gaming on her to connect with people on a very familiar level. I hate to say it, but she did exactly what she needed to do in the Karl Rove presidential politics playbook. She repeated things over and over, made accusations that sounded bad without having to back them up, and did not go into specifics really on anything except McCain's healthcare tax credit.

The thinking is that the less hardcore information you give voters about your plans, the less chance there is to find something wrong with it. These are the same people that took a one-term Texas governor and turned him into a president, there are striking similarities between him and Palin. Folksy, approachable, want to have a beer with them (or in Palin's case, a bottle of wine and angry sex that brings up insecurities from your childhood), short political career ending with governor, and they debate the exact same way. Why? because this shit works. Granted McCain is a better candidate than Bush but the republicans game politics better than dems. period. it sucks.

South Philly for McCain Doorknob Flier Gets Cockblocked by Rolling Stone

2008-10-02T11:40:00.006-04:00

I haven't seen them on my block, but Philebrity reports McCain supporters hanging doorknob literature trying to seduce South Philly machismo into voting for McCain. The text reads:

SOUTH PHILLY and JOHN MCCAIN

The people of South Philly have long been special to John McCain. He knows the struggles and he knows the strengths of the neighborhood. As he recalled in his first interview after being released from a Vietnamese prison camp:
We had a particularly bad spring and summer in 1969 because there had been an escape at one of the other camps. Our guys carried out a well-prepared plan but were caught. They were Ed Atterberry and John Dramesi. Atterberry was beaten to death after he escaped.
There is no question about it: Dramesi saw Atterberry taken into a room and heard the beating start. Atterberry never came out. Dramesi, if he wasn't such a tough cookie, would probably have been killed too. He's probably one of the toughest guys I have ever met -- from South Philly. "Star and Stripes"

McCain knows South Philly!

VOTE COUNTRY FIRST
VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN
Paid for by Al Schmidt

Philebrity credits "South Philly for McCain" as the source of the doorknocker. There may well be a "South Philly for McCain" chapter of the McCain campaign in Philadelphia, but all we could find was this Phillyblog thread about the opening of a McCain office in South Philadelphia. A quick Google of Al Schmidt indicates he's the executive director of the Philadelphia Republican City Committee though isn't listed on the Committee's relatively minimal website. There's this Citypaper profile of Schmidt when he assumed the role of Deputy Director for the city GOP, though most Google search results for him and the Committee turn up the executive director title.

Anyway, the tactic here is obvious. Dramesi's a tough as nails guy from South Philly! A lot of guys of all ages in South Philly like to think of themselves as tough as nails too. So, hey, they ought to identify with Dramesi and back McCain! Right?

Not so fast.

Before we get into it, it should be noted that this account may not have actually come from "Stars and Stripes," but rather an exclusive oral history McCain gave about his POW experience to U.S. News and World Report. Admittedly, that corrections a bit nitpicky, but the original and actual source of the quotation also includes the mention by the article's editor that at the time of the writing, May 1973, McCain had been assigned to attend the Navy War College that August.

It's unclear in the article what contact McCain had, if any with Dramesi as a POW. That said, about a year after this article, Dramesi and McCain do share a moment together. Rolling Stone writer Tim Dickenson uses Dramesi's perspective on that meeting as the framing anecdote for his unflattering profile on McCain, "Make Believe Maverick" (bold emphasis Bostodelphia's):

At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.

McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.

There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

Later in the profile, Dramesi makes it clear he wasn't interested in removing any honor from McCain's service, though does find the celebration of McCain's POW experience a bit much, given that Dramesi doesn't find McCain an exceptional example of POW conduct. That aside, it's clear Al Schmidt and his South Philadelphia operators pulled a boner in choosing Dramesi as an icon to draw macho South Philly into McCain's camp. Dramesi clearly isn't interested in being a McCain campaign surrogate, so the only really lesson South Philly can take from Dramesi's character is this: Man up, and call out the McCain campaign on its bullshit. McCain might say he knows South Philly, but South Philly should know McCain is full of it.

Maverick Wild Card!

2008-09-26T10:39:00.004-04:00

Who knew that John McCain watched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? I think we at Bostodelphia can be confident behind a guy who's adopted Charlie Day's "Abort and freak out!" Wild Card philosophy as the cornerstone of his maverick policy.

Maybe if the guy knew how to check his e-mail he'd be able to keep up to speed on the economic crisis without going to D.C. to weigh in with his professed lack of expertise on our "fundamentally sound" economy.

Seriously, how can you back a guy who apparently needs to be remedially schooled on everything except how to militarily target other countries with Beach Boys' lyrics?

(I'm Thinkin' 'Bout Nailin') Sarah Palin

2008-09-10T22:56:00.006-04:00

What's an election without catchy satirical songs?

Physicists' Online Typography Changes Fundmental Laws of Nature

2008-09-10T08:48:00.007-04:00

Taken from a boston.com article related to the new supercollider:

Protons are actually pretty complicated objects, made of little bits and pieces, and in a collision of two protons it can happen that two of the little pieces find themselves very close together. Those pieces carry a lot of energy, and due to Einstein's E=mc{+2} one might imagine that a lot of mass in a little space could lead to a black hole. (bold emphasis Bostodelphia's)

Perhaps a copy editor will fix the universe for us, until then any speculations or calculations on just how radically the world apparently changed this morning?

Update: the article in question actually ran back in April, looks like we've been living in an altered plane of reality for some time now....

Update II: With the loss of energy in fusion reactions by a factor of 30,000,000, it appears that the sun has snuffed out. Damn you, Swain and Reucroft!

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 10: Our Mayors Kick Sarah Palin's Ass

2008-09-06T14:40:00.003-04:00

Sarah Palin's put in 20 months as governor of Alaska. What's that worth? There are 670,000 residents of our nation's largest state. How does that stack up with Our Fair Cities?

Let's compare the executive efforts of Mayors Menino and Nutter. Boston has 590,000 residents, with a hair under 6 million in the metro region. Philadelphia has 1.4 million with a metro population the same size as Boston. That's right: being a mayor here on the east coast is a bigger job than being governor of the whole state of Alaska. Menino and Nutter deal with a wider range of demographics, ethnicities, institutions, crime, education, infrastructure, and government issues before their second cups of coffee each morning than Gov Palin handles in a month.

As far as the city of Wasilla, pop ~5469, well, 'round these parts that would be referred to as a 'small town' and no one would mistake running such a place with running a real city.

Score for this round: Boston tag teaming with Phillie 1, Alaska 0.

Bonus round: Menino and Nutter have never suggested that their states ought to secede from the Union. Make that 2 points for B & P.

Jake Von Slatt on Wired Science

2008-09-05T16:14:00.001-04:00

Go check it out, JvS made it onto Wired Science with a well-done video interview!

Link

Gaaaah! Get it out of my head!

2008-09-03T23:19:00.001-04:00

A Ride on the Bedford Narrow Gauge Rail Trail

2008-09-03T09:12:00.005-04:00

Here's a pair of pics from the Bedford-to-Billerica rail trail that's built on the right-of-way for an old narrow gauge line. To my knowledge this is the only narrow-gauge rail trail in the country, please correct me if I'm wrong.

At the start of the trail in Bedford there's a preserved bit of track:
Here's a shot of what much of the trail looks like. It's got a stone-dust bed that's pretty easy to ride on. The 28mm-wide slicks I use were the narrowest I'd want to use here due to the sandy patches.
The trail is 3 miles long. On the way to the end I took it easy with a 10 mph pace. On the way back I picked up the pace to 16 mph. Any faster than that and the handling on the somewhat loose surface got a little squirrelly - a consequence of the tire width.

College supplies: new PC, new clothes, new crossbow compound bow

2008-08-22T23:07:00.006-04:00

Ah, autumn. Those bucolic days when hordes of undergraduates return to college, with their ~~crossbows~~ compound bows with built-in quivers on their backs. Check out what this Brandeis student has prominently displayed on the back shelf of his car...
Maybe it's just my lonesome opinion here, but displaying your hunting ~~crossbow~~ compound bow in a city (where there is no hunting of any kind) when your sedan has a perfectly serviceable trunk strikes me as evidence of severe insecurity. Or at least massive jackass-ery. In any case, this is not the kind of personality that makes me feel real comfortable toting around lethal weapons.

A homemade recumbent bike

2008-08-14T23:18:00.002-04:00

I spied a homemade recumbent bike being ridden in Newton,MA (just west of Boston) this afternoon. Here's the bike from my cellphone... It's a long wheelbase design with underseat steering, and in my brief glimpse it looked like it was put together with some sort of unpainted rectangular tubing or bars. It was definitely not a round frame, in any case.

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 9: Steaks!

2008-08-10T22:15:00.004-04:00

The Travel Channel has recently produced a show titled "Steak Paradise." The show features 3 restaurants - 1 located just outside of Boston, and 2 in Philadelphia proper.

In Saugus, MA is the Hilltop Steakhouse. This is a value-oriented steakhouse with a sort of faux Western decor and capacity for 1250 diners. It's been open since 1961. I swear, sometimes I wish I actually liked steak, aside from the occasional burger. Other people seem to get so much enjoyment out of it.

Philadelphia sports two cheesesteak specialty restaurants, the minimalist Pat's King of Steaks, and the colorful (or garish, depending on your view) Geno's Steakhouse. CtI, you should comment on the relative merits of these two, since I've never been to either.

Ok, a nationwide show does steaks and they pick these ones in (or near) our fair cities. Due to Hilltop not actually being IN Boston, and the 2 in Phillie (across the street from each other), I'm afraid I must admit that Philadelphia has won this round.

Microbes once again take us down

2008-08-08T23:14:00.003-04:00

Cheesesteak goes on vacation...and my family is attacked by Streptococcus pyogenes and Coxsackie A, causing strep throat and hand-foot-mouth, respectively. Oh, and a febrile seizure was in there too for good measure. As you can tell, the results aren't pretty, blog-wise.

And just for your amusement...a guy biking up Fargo St. in LA - the grade is 32%. Ow.

Bostodelphia's Gone Romanian!

2008-07-31T22:26:00.002-04:00

Our interview with Jake Von Slatt has been translated to Romanian for the online cultural journal Egophobia. Their tastefully designed website also has an interview with Steampunk-er Johnny Payphone.

Go check 'em out.

Cheesesteak's Road Trippin'

2008-07-31T00:18:00.002-04:00

Deadly sandwich is a bit rested up, and returning to a productive blogging mood ... but I'll be on vacation for another week. May warm up for my return with sporadic blogging, don't expect anything regular till I get back. Till then, you're in Cod's fins, hopefully he can ride this blog better than his bike.

Darren Aronofsky has 30 seconds to comply

2008-07-29T00:23:00.004-04:00

First, he brought us Pi. Then, the disturbing Requiem for a Dream. Third up was the spacy Fountain.

Now Darren Aronofsky is going to do the resurrection of...Robocop. huh? I will leave it up to Cheesesteak to discuss this further.

I own a bike!

2008-07-28T08:10:00.004-04:00

In my, oh, 6-week hunt for a bike for mostly commuting purposes (12.5 miles each way, suburban/urban roads), I've ridden several bikes and browsed countless of bikeforums.net posts. Here's my extremely brief impressions of each test tide. I was looking for either a cyclocross or touring bike for maximum flexibility.

Giant OCR3: The first bike I've ridden in 17 years (can you guess my age?). Jittery ride, I was counting my fillings afterwards. 30 seconds into this test ride and I wanted off, although I stuck it out for 10 minutes.
Fuji Cross Pro: Out of my price range, but a very nice ride indeed. Very smooth and comfortable. Ultegra components shift so nicely.
Trek XO-1: This seemed very, well, vanilla. No real impression, good or bad. The particular bike I rode had very sloppy welds with gobs of aluminum sticking out everywhere.
Lemond Poprad: Now we're talking. Also too much $, but this was the 1st bike I test-rode that made me want to just keep on riding. My favorite of all the bikes I rode. Since the immediate future looks grim for Lemond bikes, I may look into a similar quality frame like the Soma Double Cross in the somewhat distant future.
Bianchi Volpe: The frame size I rode was a size too big since that was all that was on hand at the LBS. It seemed a bit twitchy, but I can't say much since it didn't fit too well.
Surly Cross Check: Except for the bar-end shifters, I loved this bike.
Masi Speciale CX: Unfortunately, the LBS didn't get this in stock before I found the bike I bought. Looks really nice in the pictures though.

Finally, the winner: A 1995 Trek 520 from a local LBS (completely tuned up), complete with fenders, the Trek rack, a pump, 2 water bottle cages, 700x35 Bontrager slicks, a cycle computer, underseat bag, steel tire levers, Tiagra STI-style shifters, and a very comfy Avocet saddle. $500, how could I go wrong? I added bar-top brakes for $75. All I need to do is touch up a quarter-sized spot of surface rust on the top tube and maybe get a computer that'll display cadence. Oh, and exchange the Giro Atlas II helmet for a Bell Triton to better fit my pumpkin head. The 520 definitely doesn't have the same sports-car feel of the Fuji or Lemond, but it will be a sturdy and reliable steed. And this price was tough to beat!

In addition I picked up a bright yellow wicking fabric shirt from the New Balance factory outlet ($13 - 20% off sale!), a pair of lightweight gloves, and a basic cable lock. I plan on lunchtime bike rides to build up my endurance and re-learn some cycling skills (like dealing with cars) for a few weeks before buying a pannier or two and moving up to a bike commute or three per week. Ideally I'll be up to 5 days sometime in September, which will see me DIY-ing a light system.

Bostodelphia Hero of the Week: Scott LeHigh

2008-07-17T11:58:00.010-04:00

Previously discussed Obama/New Yorker cover outrage hit Philadelphia media in force yesterday. First up on the Cheesesteak's radar was WHYY's Marty Moss-Coane dedicating a whole hour to the flap. To be honest, the talk was a lot more civil and thought out than the tirade NPR's Talk of the Nation aired the day before. Still Philebrity is largely right in pointing out that the relatively abstract discussion on the nature of satire was largely a waste of time when compared to a discussion the show should have had: addressing the people who actually believe the claims the New Yorker was satirizing. Well, that's not exactly what Philebs was saying, largely because it got sucked up in a "blame the media" campaign while not acknowledging that yes, while a correspondent in the mainstream media did bait the Obama campaign with the cover, the pile-on that splatted out probably wouldn't have happened had the Obama campaign not denounced the cover, elevating it into a position of media legitimacy the ugly anti-Obama aspersions on the margins have lacked outside of bigot choirs.

Looking at philly.com, the Dinqy News consolidation of Philly's two papers of record, reaction was similarly missing the mark. Jenice Armstrong provides offended boilerplate, blaming the New Yorker for injury dealt the Obamas. Earl Offari Hutchinson provides a possibly syndicated Op-Ed (the Philly papers have to do more with less, you see) claiming the New Yorker didn't so much draw attention to the idiotic fear-mongering lurking on social margins against Obama as exacerbate it. Dick Polman tries to mediate the controversy by exercising retro-active art direction ("the cartoon should have been framed by a Fox News set, you see..."). Even Will Bunch expresses disapproval at the cover via this weird comparison that lays Gore's 2000 electoral defeat at the "Al Gore said invented the internet" joke, thereby ruling jokes have no place in American electoral politics.

Well thankfully, I was born and bred in a city that still puts out a relatively decent paper I can turn to for a reasonable perspective. Thus Bostodelphia will award its first Hero(Hoagie?) of the Week, given to a Bostonian or Philadelphian who writes something that "clears the air" over what our first awardee would term a "kerfuffle," to Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh. Lehigh's column, "What's so shocking about satire?" nails the problem of media scandel and false-controversy mongering coverage and the campaigns' playing up to same: they do a complete disservice to the American electorate. From George Stephanopoulos's straight faced request for Obama to confirm his patriotism to this latest sound and fury (and Lehigh does a good job at providing some equal time for some silliness the McCain camp has had to confront), there is an audience looking for substantial coverage being neglected. I'm sure editors and producers may make claims about media markets or what have you. Maybe as an end-run appeal then, I'll ask the advertisers such editors and producers are beholden to: do you think the demographic who buys this bullshit is in the position to buy anything else?

Mr Lehigh may be aware that ~~not too far from Philadelphia is the Lehigh Valley, the~~ his namesake in Kensington, Lehigh Avenue, is also the namesake the Philadelphia Brewing Company's summer season brew, Fleur de Lehigh. If Scot makes it to Philadelphia while the beer's on tap, we owe him one. Or another Philadelphia-based brew of his choice as reviews of the Fleur de Lehigh have been mixed.

Mobilizing the Home Barware for Bastille Day

2008-07-14T21:35:00.003-04:00

So, as Cod's mentioned, while the fish is coping with some sort of fancy polysyllabic version of gout, my running regimen's earned me a stress fracture on my right fibula a couple of inches above the ankle. This has literally crippled my plans to run the Philadelphia Back on My Feet Midnight Madness run this Saturday, the Philadelphia Distance Run in September, and the Philadelphia Marathon in November. If I'm lucky, and my fibula heals in time to pretty much start at training ground zero at the end of the month, I may be able to train to "do" the half marathon on the day of the Philly marathon, and then train slightly more aggressively for the Broad Street Run next spring (and then try my more ambitious schedule of distance running events next summer/fall). Damn frustrating though, but it's either rest up or let my leg grind itself into dust at this point.

Relatively immobilized (can't really walk more than a tenth of a mile without an aircast boot, and the boot's clumsiness doesn't make the act of walking very appealing), I have spent most of the past month settling into the Bostodelphia-Philly HQ literally only a few blocks from Philadelphia's Cheesesteak Ground Zero. This weekend I literally sat out Phoenixville's Blobfest
and Eastern State Penitentiary's Bastille Day festivities. However, today, on Bastille Day proper, I was able to both celebrate a Franco-origin cocktail and imbibe in a bit of eerie, otherwordly light.

While cooking up a casserole of leftover veggies from our Greensgrow CSA share, my spouse and company demanded celebratory Bastille Day drinks. I had planned on making Sidecars, as they have a Parisian origin, fit my liquor cabinet and ingredients on hand, and a recipe flexible enough to accommodate the varied tastes assembled. The sidecar is a cocktail consisting of brandy/cognac (on hand Hennessey VSOP, an orange liqueur (triple sec, would prefer to have Cointreau on hand), and lemon juice (fresh squeezed). Combine, shake, and strain into a chilled and sometimes sugarfrosted cocktail glass. Judgement comes in how you balance the ingredients. The recipes claiming to be the most "historically" accurate say it should be two parts spirit to one part each liqueur and juice. That's what I went with for my sidecar. Spouse of the cheesesteak tends to like bitter citrus, so a whole lemon went into hers, making it almost 1:1 spirit and juice with a half measure of triple sec. My bartending produces mixes "too stiff" for my spouse's friend, so I opted for a simple 1:1:1 mix, which seemed to suit her just fine. Thus Bastille Day was honored at Chez Cheesesteak with a cocktail originally devised at Harry & Harry's New York Bar in Paris during WWI (according to Salvatore Calabrese) and named for an army captain chauffeured to said bar via motorcycle.

During cleanup, I felt like one more. Having looked into French cocktails earlier in the day, I found that a customary end of Day French libation was the absinthe substitute Pernod mixed with water. While Le Bar at Chez Cheesesteak doesn't have Pernod in stock, we do have a bottle of Herbsaint, the spirit used as an absinthe substitute in New Orlean's Sazaracs. Herbsaint and water was my initial plan, but my eye was drawn to a large pile of limes yet to be given purpose in our kitchen. One lime measured out to almost precisely 2 oz. of juice, so I prepared myself a mix of half lime juice, half Herbsaint on the rocks. I like this. It needs a bit more work and fiddling -- maybe another spirit or liquor or maybe just something a bit sweet -- but I think I may have found myself a good summer evening sipping beverage until I pick up another pull of Jim Beam Black. Expect more progress reports on this lime and herbsaint concoction to come.

What the Obama Camp Should Have Said...

2008-07-14T11:17:00.004-04:00

"About what cover? Oh, this cartoon? It's just a dumb cartoon."

There are jokes attempting to tap into the political zeitgeist that fizzle, and then there's "tasteless and offensive." The New Yorker cover is the former. Decrying it by placing it in the latter category does nothing to the cartoon or its publisher (except maybe boost clicks and sales). However, it does put the protester in the camp of those who believe grievous harm can be done to icons and their followers via arguably comic illustrations. I thought Obama's campaign was trying to avoid association with that lot.

Anyone remember this remark at the AIPAC:

"I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. They're filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president. And all I want to say is — let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty scary."

The set up and punchline were a little stilted in delivery, perhaps excused since various right wing anti-Obama smears may have set up AIPAC as the proverbial "tough crowd." Still I think this approach, a slightly more flippant version of the "I have no response to that" Obama initially gave the cover was a workable belittling of the "fear and ignorance" movement online against Obama's campaign.

As for the press corps who opened up this debate, specifically CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic who initially requested comment from Obama, some advice. Learn from Gibson and Stephanopoulos. The "market" you're trying to reach is tired of this bullshit and has been migrating elsewhere for other news. Rather than wasting your access to the candidates on sophomore questions based off the print and mass circulated equivalent of crude bathroom drawings, maybe actually read a magazine like the New Yorker if you're unable to come up with questions on your own. I think seeking Obama's (and McCain's) reaction to, say, Seymour Hersh's article "Prepping the Battlefield" regarding alleged covert operations underway in Iran would provide the substantive information the voting public wants. If you can't do that, move over and give some competent journalists a shot at this beat.

Recumbent bikes are growing on me

2008-07-12T00:18:00.002-04:00

I'm working on buying a bike for commuting to work, following the example of Jake von Slatt. I should be making the purchase by the end of the month, with the final two choices being a Masi Speciale CX or a Surly Cross Check (with a slight chance I'll fit on one of the used touring bikes at the local bike shop, which would leave me with one of those).

After perusing through Bicycle Science and the Recumbent section of Bikeforums.net, I must admit the aerodynamic and comfort advantages of recumbents are pretty clear. The highracer types are particularly interesting. Three disadvantages for me: cost (the recumbents that intrique me are $500+ more than the reg bike), they don't appear to be as good in ice and snow, and I don't know of any local dealers. I'm not buying a 'bent at this time, but future longer commutes may make the higher average speed worth checking into. Then the Masi/Surly bike could be relegated to Trail-a-bike duty.

Note to JvS - yeah, yeah, you've been saying all this for years. You know the saying: you can lead a horse to water blah blah

Bostodelphians laid low by illness and injury

2008-07-11T09:17:00.002-04:00

Well, we haven't updated in a while. Cheesesteak has been down and out with a stress fracture from running. He has ambitions to do the Phillie marathon and the hard streets of his fair city took him down. Hmm, a Bos v Phillie Marathon smackdown post may be warranted soon.

As for me, well, I've got a classic case of epiploic appendagitis. What, never heard of it? Me neither.

More interesting posts are coming, including a possible Romanian translation of our Jake von Slatt interview.

Stupid Jerks on Bikes

2008-06-25T22:26:00.003-04:00

I was nearly taken out by a bicyclist crossing the street today, he was following a bike path that cut across the road. If it wasn't for the people walking towards me on the crosswalk who stopped and looked toward him, I would have been completely blindsided by that moron. Bike paths are the work of the devil.

In a similar vein, this time from that fair city, Philadelphia, comes this post on Craig's List. Here's the original link.

And here's the text for when that ad expires...

luckily missed connection with your stupid ass on a bike - w4w (going the wrong way on passyunk ave)

Reply to: pers-724042017@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-06-18, 10:41AM EDT

you: chick on a bike with no helmet, no riding smarts, and no clue.
me: chick on a bike with helmet and enough skills & sense to avoid getting us both really, really hurt.

so--there i was. tuesday night at about 8:20pm. riding my bike going east on christian, and then turning left (north--you know. the way traffic goes.) onto passyunk ave. i ride my bike--actually ride, and do some racing. i'm not just a hipster poseur who thinks a fixed gear is the be-all end-all of urban coolness--and i laid down a pretty nice hard, flat turn going at about 18mph. i passed your boyfriend as he turned onto christian but thanks to the big van at the NW corner i couldn't see anything on passyunk itself.

but then, i didn't expect to make that hard, fast turn and be confronted with you, wobbling around on your bike in the dead middle of the street, thus forcing me to ride outside you, even as you continued to bear down on me. as soon as you saw me you started screeching and riding straight toward me, forcing me even more outside, putting us both on multiple potential collision courses--me with you, you with me, and both of us with the parked cars on either side of the street. i managed to avoid the crash, but you f-ed up my night, asshole.

so here, my squawking friend, are a few tips:

1. don't be an f-ing MORON. don't ride your bike down streets the wrong way. we all do it occasionally, but frankly save us all the trouble and take your lazy ass the whole, entire, extra block out of your way, okay? your carelessness could not only have gotten up both hurt pretty f-ing bad, but could have gotten either one of us killed if there had been a moving car, pedestrian, etc. in the vicinity. it's one thing if you decide to remove yourself from the gene pool, but frankly i'm pretty smart and nice and good-looking. you have no right to endanger me and my life (not to mention my enjoyment of a lovely evening tooling around town on my bike) with your stupidity.

2. if you've got time to scream, you've got time to steer. screaming sucks. all you did was freak yourself and me out even more. plus you kept looking at me in a panic, which meant that even as i was attempting to avoid a head-on collision you kept riding toward me. instead of panicking, look and point your bike AWAY from the obstacle. if you look at me you are going to ride into me.

3. wear an f-ing helmet, moron. like i said, i've done some racing. i've seen people dislocate shoulders, break arms, sustain concussions, detach retinas, and receive facial maulings. and those were people **wearing** helmets. clearly you are not a good enough rider to chance it. spend the $$$ and get yourself some protection before you kill yourself.

4. this sort of stupid bullshit bad riding, which i see on a daily basis, makes drivers and pedestrians hate bikes. hell, it makes ME hate bikes. thanks. i spend a lot of time on my bike. thanks for making my errands, my commute, and my training rides more unpleasant, more unsafe, and more dangerous. this kind of shit reflects badly on those of us who ride a lot and do our best to co-exist with everyone else who needs to get around this city.

just remember: next time you--or the person who can't avoid you--might not both be so lucky.

Location: going the wrong way on passyunk ave
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 724042017

So Long OS X, hellloooo Hardy Heron!

2008-06-15T23:37:00.002-04:00

I've been running a Hackintosh for a few weeks now on my half-decent system (Intel Q6600 quad-core Core 2, OC'd to 3 GHz, 4 gig RAM, blah blah). I have just annihilated my OSX install in favor of the Hardy Heron.

Why? Well, it's because I wanted long term reliability, and I can't get that running OS X on non-Apple hardware. There are numerous people hacking away at OS X, but for me (and the routine use of my PC) it was best to get away from the hacks and back onto an appropriate operating system. I use Ubuntu daily at work, now I will do the same at home.

As for my next PC...well, my wife's Windows XP computer won't last forever. I have every intention of replacing it with a nice quiet, compact iMac or next-gen Mac Mini and raising the young'uns on Apples. OS X is indeed wicked awesome - infinitely better than the train wreck that is Vista. I still remember the day my father brought home the 1st gen Macintosh from work and the impression it made on me. Running a Hackintosh has made me into a future paying Apple customer...

Excuse our need to be relevant, please...

2008-06-15T00:56:00.004-04:00

Not sure about Cod*, but your favorite deadly sandwich does think Weezer's "Pork and Beans" is pretty dang catchy, sorta a Foo Fighters' song for the no longer young of the well-adjusted, and arguably well off, middle class (which may or not be what a Foo Fighters' song is anyway, Weezer's just more honest about it). Moreover, your greasy one was blown away by the logistical feat some producer pulled off in assembly the cast of YouTubelebrities for the video, enough at least to reproduce it here in Bostodelphia:

...

Wait. Oh. Apparently Weezer and Universal music haven't yet bought into the whole participatory culture thing (which is kinda the point of YouTube) to allow embedding of their vid. So, if you're not familiar with it yet, you can wonder over to its confines here.

That aside, I think what Peter Coffin puts together below really needed to be said and shot:

May sound like sour grapes, but this ditty is smarter than the pandering pop Cuomo threw out there, belated Harvard degree be damned.

I've been a bad steak, let's see if I can take some of the Bostodelphia burden off Cod's back by getting back to blogging. Regular posts should start up again this week.

This particular post has been brought to you by a couple of bottles of Founders Brewing's Devil Dancer. Founders isn't actually a sponsor of Bostodelphia, but I probably wouldn't have got to this post had I not drunk two bottles of 13% ABV Triple IPA following a 6.4 mile run through a blinding lightning storm. I guess this post was also brought to you by athletic stupidity and Mother Nature. But seriously, if you can find it (thanks Foodery!), and you like a strong yet thirst quenching brew, try out some Devil Dancer.

*Cod should also chime in at some point about his participation in the Coke and Mentos meme.

This post is Cheesesteak's fault

2008-06-08T22:47:00.002-04:00

Damn, I wasn't going to post this because the banality of it makes me throw up in my mouth...but here goes. The Zeal Maestro sunglasses may be out. Zeal's lab doesn't do prism corrections to account for the wrapped lens, so I may end up with distortion on the sides of the lens. Too bad, they're great sunglasses.

Sports Optical in Denver, on the other hand, does do such a correction and in fact pioneered the technique. Interestingly, their lens prices are pretty much the same as everyone else. They also are a Zeal dealer, amongst other brands, so the Maestro may be back in the running. I will be consulting them via phone later this week...

And just as a side note, the Terminator is sporting a pair of Gargoyle ANSI Classics. I am disgusted with myself to even know that, for it is proof that my glasses hunt has hit an unpleasant level of obsession.

Zeal Maestro Sunglasses

2008-06-03T08:50:00.002-04:00

Ah, with a new eyeglass prescription it's time for new prescription sunglasses and a descent into sunglasses shopping HELL. Since I'm contemplating biking to work, I wanted a wrap frame. It also had to be lightweight, and not make me look like a triathlete wannabe jackass when wearing them around town. Due to my modestly bad nearsightedness, most Rx sunglasses that meet this description can't get lenses made for me.

I came across the Zeal Maestro in an online review and bought a pair to try out since they are not available in local stores (yeah, this is slightly unethical since I returned them, but I was desperate. Really desperate.) These are perfect. The brown tint is comfortable, more so than I expected. Now, I also need to adjust the earpieces to raise the left one about 5 mm for a comfortable fit. The Maestro is not adjustable. Fortunately, nylon is easily bendable with the application of a heat gun. I am ordering my Rx pair today and can retire my old Rx Ray Bans which were crappily made by Lenscrafters.

If a vote is counted in Puerto Rico, does anybody notice?

2008-06-01T23:38:00.003-04:00

Now, Puerto Rico's a great place to be and I have fond memories of dashing through its airport trying to catch a connecting flight on my honeymoon, but let's consider the result of Saturday's primary vote. Clinton beat Obama 68-32.

Here's the thing - no one really cares. PR does not vote in the general election, it has no electoral votes, and this victory is purely symbolic for Clinton. Obama didn't even bother to campaign there, to my knowledge. Additionally, there are many factors at play in any campaign. Since Clinton's been asserting that sexism has been a major factor in her inability to clinch the nomination (as opposed to crap like this), let's look at this post from Democraticunderground.com by poster lapfog_1 regarding the general culture of PR:

Dirty little secret of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico
They are extremely racist. Yes, racist. And it's not about skin color. It's about skin color and place of origin.

Continentals... that is what they call stateside black people.

I lived in the US VI for about a year, but it was an incident in Puerto Rico that sticks in my mind... I and my girlfriend were drinking in a bar, having a quiet time... a African American comes up and sits down next to us... he tries very hard to get the attention of the bar tender (also someone who I would say is "black" though obviously Hispanic/black)...

While he is trying to place an order, we strike up a conversation, turns out he is a film producer from LA, here in Puerto Rico to do a commercial photo shoot... times goes on and he still can't get the attention of the bartender. So I now ask him what he wants, he tells me his drink order, I signal the bartender and order it. When the bartender brings me the drink and I hand it to our new friend... the bartender turns to me and says "you cannot do that... you must leave".

I have never been so shocked in my life.

But the film producer from LA gets up and tells me "no, this has been my whole experience here... everywhere I go... I will never return to Puerto Rico". My girlfriend and I also leave but not before letting all of the other tourists know what just happened and making a formal complaint to the management.

But everywhere we went in the US possessions in the Caribbean, we found the same thing. we were treated as walking wallets (ok it's a tourist trap), and US Continentals were treated as less than dirt.

One post on a forum does not a case make (although Google turns up more), but combined with the lack of electoral votes I think the only conclusion regarding Saturday's big win for Clinton in Puerto Rico is: who cares?

Burn that Bridge, Scotty, Burn it!

2008-05-27T22:21:00.007-04:00

Seriously, Scott, the NY Times' excerpts probably don't do full justice to your sentiment. Tell us how you really feel.

Choice quotes coming from the Times coverage of former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new memoir, inner quotes McClellan's own words:

"President Bush 'convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,' and has engaged in 'self-deception' to justify his political ends."

"The decision to invade Iraq was a 'serious strategic blunder,' and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was 'a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.'"

On the administration's response to Hurricaine Katrina, the Times quotes McClellan as "saying it 'spent most of the first week in a state of denial' and 'allowed our institutional response to go on autopilot.'"

On Condoleeza Rice as both National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, "'No matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean,' Mr. McClellan writes, adding that 'she knew how to adapt to potential trouble, dismiss brooding problems, and come out looking like a star.'”

But his guns blaze on everybody including himself, "Mr. McClellan does not exempt himself from failings — 'I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be' — and calls the news media 'complicit enablers' in the White House’s 'carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval' in the march to the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003."

So, does Scotty get a pat on the back for this tell all two years after the fact, or should he be pitied that it took him two years to stop spinning and get his bearings on the damage that's been done?

Completed sandbox

2008-05-27T16:21:00.003-04:00

After moving 3000 lbs of sand to the sandbox, I am pleased to say it is complete. The cover is a vinyl mesh from Backyardcity.com that is attached with stainless steel snaps. My two-year old boy said "sandbox, yay!" every time I uncovered it over the weekend. One nice thing about the 10" of sand is that it is easily deep enough to hold up a beach umbrella, providing instant shade. The left two plywood seats showed some separation of layers on the outer edge, irritatingly enough. I must have picked a poor panel to cut those out of. A handful of nails fixed that, but I will have a heck of a time replacing those seats if I ever need to.

Sen. Kennedy diagnosed with brain tumor

2008-05-20T13:54:00.000-04:00

Boston.com has the story.

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 7: Cameriere, there' s un italiano in mia minestra!

2008-05-19T23:44:00.003-04:00

What city do you think of when you think of Italians...let's see, there's this great section of Boston called the North End which is the historical home of Italian immigrants. It's well worth a visit, despite yuppification and gentrification that's robbing it of the Italian aura. East Boston was also heavily settled by incoming Italians. More recently, people of Italian descent have dominated Boston politics, some recent big names: Paul Cellucci,Mike Capuano ,John Cogliano ,Foster Furcolo ,Joe Malone , Thomas Menino,Joe Moakley ,John A. Volpe , Sal DiMasi.

Stephen Puelo has written a new book on the history of Italians in Boston that is garnering excellent reviews. He has a blog post over at Beacon Broadside discussing the reactions to the book. It's worth a visit and a read.

Now, I'm sure that Cheesesteak will chime with some blather about Italians settling in Phillie and even a movie or two being made featuring Italian-American characters. We'll call this one a tie.

Damn...

2008-05-17T12:12:00.004-04:00

Boston.com links to Ted Kennedy's hometown paper:

HYANNIS -- U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy was rushed by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital this morning after falling ill at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport.

Hyannis fire responded to the compound after a call was made around 8:30 a.m. It's unclear what Kennedy's medical condition is, but after he spent almost two hours in the emergency room a decision was made to transfer him to Mass General Hospital in Boston.

Kennedy, 76, was placed on a stretcher and wheeled out to the MedFlight helicopter around 10:15 a.m. where it took off from Barnstable Municipal Airport.

The Kennedy family is preparing to host the annual Best Buddies Challenge event in Hyannisport this afternoon, which is a fund-raiser for the organization. Best Buddies was founded by Anthony Kennedy Shriver and helps people with intellectual disabilities.

Hundreds are expected to participate in the event, which kicked off this morning with a 100-mile bicycle ride from the Kennedy Library in Boston to Hyannisport.

A concert at the Kennedy compound is scheduled for tonight.

Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-three years.

He was elected in 1962 to finish the final two years of the Senate term of his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, who was elected president in 1960.

Since then, Kennedy has been re-elected to seven full terms, and is now the second most senior member of the Senate.

Bostodelphia will check in after whatever is happening clarifies. There has not been any official announcement, though various news outlets are batting the word "stroke" about in their headlines without sourcing the diagnosis. Given Kennedy's age and medical history, a stroke is surely possible, but Bostodelphia hasn't seen any definitive, or offical pronouncement.

Update:boston.com provides extended account, including reactions from MA and national politicians.

FREE TIX DRAWING: Back Supersnack, Fight AIDS, Friday May 16th

2008-05-14T13:34:00.006-04:00

Your friendly deadly sandwich is a supporter of Supersnack, a non-profit organization primarily involved with raising funds for AIDS Walk New York. This Friday is Supersnack's Big Third Ball:

Here's their own write up about what's going on:

With pesky infectious diseases, the philosophy of Supersnack, a Brooklyn-based charitable organization, is to add insult to injury – and then even more insult – in order to make a difference. Supersnack is pleased to announce a lineup including band The Mountain Goats and comedian/Daily Show correspondent John Oliver for their third annual benefit concert and gala, "Supersnack's Big Third Ball: An Evening of Music, Hilarity, and Hitting AIDS Where It Hurts" on Friday, May 16th at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene. The $25 tickets can be purchased at their website, http://www.supersnack.org/.

100% of the proceeds from Supersnack's Big Third Ball will go to AIDS Walk New York, benefiting Gay Men's Health Crisis and 60 other tri-state area AIDS service organizations. Supersnack volunteers, Redhook Ale Brewery, Goose Island Brewery, and boomBOOM Presents make the benefit possible. Featured performers will include: The Mountain Goats, Rock Plaza Central, and John Oliver ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"). Also appearing will be author Sarah Bunting ("Television Without Pity") and comedians Dave Hill (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, MOJO, UCB) and Rob Lathan (Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre, MTV’s "Human Giant") and a gaggle of performances by additional musicians, comedians, writers, performance artists, and poets. The benefit will be hosted by national sex educators, authors and funny persons Gwenn Barringer and Shawn Decker ("My Pet Virus").

Attendance is mandatory. Music will be heard, good times will be had, and AIDS will be criticized and abused roundly. Please join Supersnack, Redhook Ale Brewery and Goose Island Brewery for an event of massive proportions. Seriously massive. Bigger than the sun, this ball.

About Supersnack: Supersnack is a tax-exempt 501c3-pending charitable organization dedicated to preserving the "fun" in volunteer and the "smart" in community. They have raised nearly 60,000 dollars for AIDSWalk --raising $33,000 in 2007 alone, with no single gift of more than $500. Their mission is to fight everything bad in the world by working to fund research for cures, stopping cruelty (animal, human, earth), and by letting everyone know that making a difference is just as easy as deciding you're going to. For more info visit: http://www.supersnack.org/.

About AIDS Walk New York: Since 1986, AIDS Walk New York has raised $97 million for HIV programs and services in the tri-state area, and has grown into the largest AIDS fundraising event in the world. In 2007 alone, 45,000 participants, many of whom were members of 2,400 corporate and community teams, raised a record sum of more than $6.8 million for Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and 60 other tri-state area AIDS service organizations. www.aidwalk.net.

Now in cooperation with our friends at Supersnack, Bostodelphia will be holding a drawing for free tickets to Supersnack's Big Third Ball.* If you're going to be in New York Friday night, or think you might want to make a trip of it to support a good cause, drop us your friendly deadly sandwich a line at cheesesteak[dot]the[dot]impaler[at]gmail[dot]com by 3:00 pm EST Thursday (tomorrow). Provide your name and e-contact info and Supersnack will contact the winners Thursday night. Good luck!

*For those thinking it's weird to boost free tix for a charity fundriser, keep in mind 85% of the bar take will also be going to the effort, and you can always donate directly to Supersnack via their website.

Defending the Electronic Frontier in Paint

2008-05-14T13:14:00.005-04:00

Around Maker Faire, Bostodelphia was contacted by a representative of artist Suzanne Rachel Forbes to promote her painting, Defending the Electronic Frontier. Below is the artist's note on her work:

DEF is a total labor of love. It features one of my most revered and lovely models, rocking the look she absolutely pwns, and surrounded by the artifacts of both the past and future of internet freedom and creativity. Miss Eva G posed for me in her SOMA loft, dressed in her own fabulous steampunk finery, with an antique crossbow she brought back from China. The painting took several sittings with Miss E and then many hours of work painting in the detailed background. She is defending early implements of the computer revolution, Jacquard punch cards and IBM cards, a CDV of Ada Byron, and Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2. An apple core represents Turing, eaten up by the intolerance of his era. Also prominently displayed are some wonderful modern creations- The Steampunk Laptop by Datamancer and the Steampunk Flatpanel and Keyboard by Jake Von Slatt- who were kind enough to allow me use their work in the painting. The packet-sniffing rat under the desk is a nod to the EFF’s most recent victory; the EFF logo appears among the luggage stickers on the trunk. I added the bullet shells at the last minute when I learned that Miss E. is a crack shot.

Unfortunately, Maker Faire has come and gone; and due to a monstrous infection that plagued the Cheesesteak and Cod's adventures in sandbox building, Bostodelphia just wasn't able to give Ms. Forbes' painting the attention it deserved. That said, it looks like prints of Defending the Electronic Frontier are still available, with $10 from every sale going to benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Good work in support of a good cause. Bostodelphia is happy to lend its endorsement.

Sandbox Weekend

2008-05-11T22:48:00.005-04:00

I spent the weekend building a sandbox for my two little boys to play in. Insane housing prices and an unwillingness over the years to commit to an unpayable exotic mortgage has left me a renter, so it was built at my mother-in-law's house.

There are many options: pressure treated ACQ lumber, plastic/wood composites like Trex, 100% plastic recycled lumber, plain old wood. Of these, I think the 100% plastic makes a lot of sense - it'll last as long as you wish, it can be recycled at the end, no splinters, no toxicity. Wow, that stuff is pricey though - like $10/foot! I have filed away mental notes to revisit that material in the future. Pressure treated lumber, even the arsenic-free ACQ, gives me the heebie-jeebies in the context of constant contact with little hands. Trex type stuff is also expensive, so I went with plain old fir. $22 total for 24 feet of 2x12, cut neatly into 6 foot pieces at Lowe's. If only black locust was commercially available...

For seats I used 3/4 inch red oak plywood. Yes, plywood outside. Very bad, I know. What the heck - it's screwed on, if it rots I'll take it off. Tool limitations prevented me from cutting up 2x6's to make more durable seats. Here's a closeup of a seat. Note the countersunk screws to avoid snagging clothing:
The main boards are attached with Liquid Nails and a trio of 3/8 x 4 inch lag screws. This should be strong enough, eh? Incidentally, ACQ is often used with stainless steel fasteners. The hot-dip galvanized screws I used were 78 cents each...SS was $6.14 each!!
Sorry 'bout the washing out, my cell phone camera sorta sucks. Now, the next issue was finishing the wood. Leaving it unfinished would limit its life. However, being a sandbox about 10 years is all that's needed. I opted to avoid toxic sealants altogether and went with AFM Safecoat Naturals Clear Penetrating Oil. This is basically boiled linseed oil without any lead or other heavy metals that are typically used as dryers in linseed oil. I gave the whole thing 2 coats of oil, top and bottom, dug out the backyard, put down landscape fabric, and will fill the box with 3000 lbs of play sand in 2 weeks when we return. The final pic:
I think it looks pretty nice! I am not looking forward to moving the sand in, 30 wheelbarrow trips will do me in.

ALERT: Bostodelphia Unleashes Von Slatt Cocktail without Proper Clinical Trials, Steampunk Mixological Mayhem Ensues

2008-04-29T16:59:00.012-04:00

I, Cheesesteak the Impaler, having broken out of the Bostodelphia HQ dungeons into which Coddy and his Steampusher Von Slatt had tossed me, bring you the TRUTH. You may have read recently about our alleged libational contribution to steampunk celebration, the Von Slatt cocktail. Beware this concoction Bostodelphians, 'for it is UNTESTED! I have also unearthed the remarkably dull vessel where it was created...

You see, dear Bostodelphia readers, shortly after the posting of the Von Slatt, I, your friendly lethal sandwich, was in the mood for a drink, as I am wont. Being ever interested in free beverages, I figured I'd venture to the Bostodelphia commissary and concoct for myself a Von Slott from the leftovers of my blog-peer Cod Peace's test flights of the beverage. While I found many pressurized canisters of steam, and many a whistling tea kettle on unattended burners, I could find not a drop of peach brandy, not even American peach schnapps. Nor could I locate any Jägermeister or Bass Ale, as required of the alternative recipe.

We posted this recipe Thursday night, our recycling isn't picked up until Wednesday, but no evidence of any Von Slatt tests could be dug up within the Bostodelphia recycling bin. I smelled something fishy, thus knew someone was behind me.

"Cod!" I declared, "The creed of a good mixologist, like a good scientist, is reproducible results. Yet here, I can not see evidence of even the prototype Von Slatt we have delivered to our steampunk audience."

Cod Peace glowered under his top hat, sneared at me through his monocle, and flippered his handlebar mustache. "Oh, I feared you'd come across secrets neither man nor sandwich were meant to know in this commissary, good Impaler," he said as Jake Von Slott emerged from the steam around us, "Von Slatt! Take him out!"

With an elegant, and economically efficient flick of his wrists, Herr Von Slatt drew something from within his waistcoat and let multiple projectiles fly. "What? No!" I exclaimed as what I thought were poisoned shuriken tumbled toward me. Then I realized these tumbling or, more accurately, flopping objects were not well honed steel, but tiny bags of sodden leaf.

While Von Slatt's brewed teabags' heat didn't affect me much, their impact did throw me off balance enough to cause me to slip on the commissary's condensation-slick floor. As I blacked out from the impact, I could hear Cod Peace sneer to his steampunk co-conspirator, "Excellent, now the people will never know the fraud of our creation!" My tenderly sliced rib eye ears were assailed with their maniacal laughter until my consciousness gave up to the ordeal.

Awakening locked in a dungeon chamber, I was first surprised that Bostodelphia HQ indeed had a dungeon, apparently an addition recently excavated by Cod and Herr von Slatt. See the below graphic delineating the underground warren into which I was cast:

Fortunately, I was able to extricate myself in time for Maker Faire so that I can deliver this warning to DIY community comprising much of the Steampunk audience. DO NOT DRINK THE VON SLATT WITHOUT PROPER EXPERIMENTATION. The recipe outlined for you is untested!

To repair the reputation of what is to Bostodelphia's knowledge the first steampunk cocktail, we at Bostodelphia wish to make May a Month of Open Source Steampunk Mixological Mayhem! Experiment with the recipe the nefarious Cod has passed off as tried and true, confirm the hypothesis that it is the libational embodiment of steampunk. Perfect it or even challenge it with a beverage more strongly suited to steampunk tastes. Jake von Slatt makes things. Herein we're asking you to turn the tables on him and make him.

Most importantly, keep us apprised of your activities through comments to this post or through my or Cod's e-mail. Send us recipes, photo or video documentation of your experiments, but give us your input! We'll keep the blog posted with your participation; and after Cod pulls enough penance duty cleaning the tea stains from the Bostodelphia commissary's countertops, we'll decide at the end of the month whose concoction is most worthy of the steampunk imprimatur Von Slatt. Most likely, your reward will consist solely of that honorific. However, if we get literally buzzed on juiced enough about this, and if anyone has particularly on message steampunk beverage paraphernalia they may be willing to dontate to the cause, other prizes may be announced.

Introducing the 1st Steampunk Cocktail: the Von Slatt!

2008-04-24T22:38:00.004-04:00

Steampunker extraordinaire Jake Von Slatt and Bostodelphia interviewee will be in attendance at Maker Faire this year. To celebrate his trip and his new Victorian All-in-One PC, Cheesesteak the Impaler and myself have invented a cocktail in his honor.

Now, a proper Steampunk cocktail needed 3 things, in our opinion: steam, something English, and something German. Steam, well, duh. English, for the Victorian England connection. German, for the association of that country with all things industrious. Oh, and Von Slatt's 1929 Mercedes Gazelle replica. In light of the DIY spirit of Steampunk, consider this recipe merely a suggestion, with a Von Slatt consisting of a drink with one each of the three types of ingredients.

Without further ado, mix the following:

one part unsweetened peach brandy
three parts Darjeeling or Lady Grey tea (optional: iced)
top with foamed milk via a steam wand

The reasoning behind each... Nothing screams "English" more than tea. A real German schnapps (or rather Schnaps in the Vaterland) is more akin to a fruit-flavored vodka. Anyway, peach brandy is readily available here in the US of A and appears to be more similar to a real German Schnaps than American-style liqueur schnapps. Or at least this is so according to Wikipedia, which is the source of about 9/10ths of my entire lifetime of accumulated knowledge. The result: peach aroma, an intact tea flavor, a soft alcohol kick, and the foam tickles your nose hairs.

What? Fruity tea? Not manly enough for you? Not reminiscent of steam whistles, grimy coal miners, and sweaty, be-goggled welders? Fine. Remember, the Von Slatt is a DIY concept. Alternative recipe:

1 part Jägermeister
1 part Bass Ale
apply 1500 psi steam line to ear

There you have it. Enjoy!

County map of PA results

2008-04-24T14:18:00.002-04:00

Here's a county-by-county map using AP data that I swiped from the NY Times political blog. Go there to see this map in interactive mode, which is worth a few minutes of time.

My shallow observation is that Obama voters are densely packed into the more urban parts, modulo Pittsburgh.

Clinton garnered 64 delegates to Obama's 63. Hardly a game-changing event, eh?

Quick glance at the returns

2008-04-22T20:42:00.003-04:00

So Bostodelphia walked by our polling location at Pine Street Pizza just now and saw the returns from our machines. My arms were too full of pizza and beer to take notes. That said, the 7th division of Philadelphia's 5th ward, Obama beat Clinton by about 2:1. In the race I was more interested in (and will probably write on tomorrow) State Senate District 1, Farnese came out about 1.5 to every 1 of Dickers. That's rough math, might have been even better. Any case, Dougherty's count on these machines was seriously dwarfed by his rivals.

Cheesesteak the Impaler Votes at Pine Street Pizza #1: Finally Checking in from the PA Battleground, the Presidential Line

2008-04-22T12:52:00.007-04:00

I admit your friendly deadly sandwich has been AWOL for the entire six week lead up to today's primary fight. I've been here, but keeping my head down. Yeah, the political fire's been flying thick, and not just on the Presidential level, but this cheesesteak has a few things in the pipeline, some related to the future of Bostodelphia, some which may be discussed in Bostodelphia, and still others that I'd love to tell you about but have been handed these nifty patches to ensure I don't.

As Cod pointed out in his p-shop send-up of Clinton's tendency to go crazy hawkish for votes, today is PA's primary day. Having just come back from my polling station/local pizza shop, I'll give you a run through of what it was like to vote in the 182nd PA General Assembly District. Or whatever it's called. Whatever it is, it's the 182nd of them.

Getting there wasn't a problem, it's almost literally around the corner from me. There were more campaign workers outside than voters and election workers inside, almost all sign holders and button wearers representing candidates for one race. If you're from outside of Philly, it's probably not the contest you're thinking, but more on that when I get to that line on the ballot.

Inside, there was a slight stall at the sign in table, as the poll worker had some difficulty finding my name on a card. She got it eventually, and I chalked it off to what's reportedly been and still will be a busy day at the polls. I was #183 to show at my station @ 12:15, which averages out to around 36 people an hour since polls have opened. I think the last time I voted, I was somewhere around 180 too, but while there was also a reportedly "high turnout" election for Philadelphia then, I had showed around 4:00 p.m.

In the booth, I made my run down. 1st up, my pick for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Yes, the cheesesteak has not wavered from Bostodelphia's February commitment to Obama. I actually stood among the 35,000 and heard, since I could see nothing but some bright lights over taller folks, the Friday rally speech:

While I'm not sure what the campaign was thinking when they picked Ed Kowalczyk from Live to play an acoustic version of "Lightning Crashes" as a warm up act for Will.I.Am (ok, Mr. Kowalyczyk may be from PA, but still...), I am still behind this campaign. As I've wrote before, Obama is the Democratic Party's best hope for change in American politics, a rallying figure for those who've felt disenfranchised by the Democratic Party and electoral politics in general over the course of the preceding political generation. Senator Clinton has served the state of New York capably during her terms in office (and I voted for her first term). But to this sandwich the experience she touts strikes more of a political legacy which this country needs to shed. I am not speaking of her name per se. Rather, I find nothing in her record to really distinguish her from the rank and file of the Democratic Leadership Council who sapped the Democrats' progressive soul in exchange for industry-backed or bought electoral security. These are the people who gave us John Kerry instead of Howard Dean. This is the political calculation that stood by and did nothing while a President marched this country to war on false premises.

That said, if the Obama/Clinton signage ratio here in what Philadelphia affectionately calls the Gayborhood is any indication, and also informing this impression via conversations with some close gay friends, Obama's fallen pretty short on presenting a gay rights plank to his platform. I confess to not having studied this issue, but while Clinton seems to have articulated a substantial national strategy on gay rights, Obama seems to treat sexuality, like race and class, as something we as Americans should just be able to "get beyond." There is an appeal in that principle, but I'm sure many gays and honest straights would tell you such a principle is "pretty to think so" unless that principle is attached to a proactive agenda to make it so. I'm told more ambivalence and unease from the gay community toward Obama's candidacy stems from O's support from this guy, who claims to have been "cured" of homosexuality. If Obama gets the nomination, I hope to see something more substantial from the campaign regarding its stake in gay rights beyond lumping it with all the other "divisive problems" of political discourse that should just go away. Divisive issues require work to get past, and sometimes, "let's all just get along" doesn't work. In some cases, some people are, in fact, right and wrong. Seeing Obama actually bringing people together on a divisive issue (as opposed to saying an issue should be divisive) will be his true test on the campaign trail, however long he defers it.

Whew, that was a mouthful. I think I'll end this post here, and follow up with my take on the rest of the ballot in a subsequent post. To close though, yes, I've seen this:

Looks like the producers of this vid are from Los Angeles. Sort of telling. I'm the last person to treat Stallone's Philadelphia Icon with any sense of sacredness or religiosity; but at the same time there's something a lot of people, even those who claim to love Philly, miss about Rocky. In the original, Rocky only wins in the "heart" category, he actually loses the match. He only starts winning in the ring in the sell out sequels. Is that what we want?

Clinton to Iran: WE WILL BURY YOU

2008-04-21T22:28:00.006-04:00

Hillary Clinton, channeling her inner Nikita Krushchev, made the following threat recently:

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Them's some tough words from someone who will not be the Democratic nominee. The math's not there, Hillary fans. And even if it was, a choice between Clinton bombing Iran and McCain bombing Iran wouldn't be much of an election in the fall.

Pennsylvania votes tomorrow. Go Bostodelphians, go vote Obama!

A very cool Tivo

2008-04-15T22:49:00.008-04:00

My Series 2 Tivo lives inside a cabinet, atop a VHS player, with the cabinet doors closed and locked to defend the electronics from my two young children. The stereo amp and DVD player are on the other side of the cabinet separated by a partition.

The Tivo gets hot. It's got a 2nd hard drive installed, and it routinely reports 60-66C as the internal temperature. It seems to work fine, but in the interest of component longevity I decided to add some additional cooling.

With the small dimension of the case, the only logical spot was a top mounted exhaust fan, over the Tivo motherboard. I wanted to use a low speed 120 mm fan, but it wouldn't clear the second hard drive. I opted for a 92 mm fan in an 80 mm bracket, a Silverstone FN82 for $3.99 from Newegg. I added a finger-proof grill to the order. The fan is rated at 36 CFM and 26 dBa. Since it's in the closed cabinet I figured I'd never hear this noise over the background, not to mention the TV volume.

Here's picture of the fan with the grill laid on top:

Pretty snazzy lookin', huh. Next step was to put a hole in the top of the Tivo case. Using a handy hole saw at work, I discovered that old, worn out hole saws are ineffective on sheet metal. On to the Dremel, which promptly used up all its cutoff wheels before the hole was complete. Finally, I grabbed the tin snips. Ahh, all finished. A little bit of grinding smoothed out the edges. Check out this fine craftsmanship:

Here's the finishing pics, both inside and out. The black square inside the case is a piece of vinyl damping material left over from an old project. The fan fits nicely in the hole.

All of this would be for nothing if the Tivo wasn't running cooler. Here's the result...

Stock Tivo with its exhaust fan and 2nd hard drive: 60-66C
Tivo with its cover removed: 48C
Tivo with top mounted exhaust fan: 40C

Not only is the Tivo temperature sensor, wherever it is, running cooler, but the two hard drives are significantly cooler to the touch. I am satisfied.

So I wanted a new PC...

2008-04-13T22:49:00.006-04:00

Recently I bought a PC via the parts catalog over at Newegg. Intel Quad core Q6600 CPU, micro-ATX motherboard and case, blah blah. I intended to make this a Hackintosh to try out Mac OSX. Simple, right? Well, as it turns out the motherboard is not (yet) completely compatible with OSX. And then I thought, hey, why not overclock a little bit? Yeah, well, the perfectly decent motherboard I had, an ECS G33T-M2, is a crappy overclocker. Between that and the OSX issues I ended up deciding on a replacement, an Asus P5K-VM.

Then the problems continued. After trying Windows Vista and recoiling in horror, I whipped up an Ubuntu Linux installation. Then I wondered..."how does one check CPU temperature on Ubuntu?"

So I google this, and a brief "apt-get install lm-sensors" plus a few commands later could check the CPU temp on the new PC. Naturally, I whipped up some Python scripts to max out the 4 cores and started them running. I noticed the cores all hit a max of 62.2C. I google this number...and discover this is the max temp the core will let itself get to, after which it'll insert null operations into the running code, and if that's not enough, it'll turn down the clockspeed.

Argh! Now I need a better heatsink/fan for the CPU so I can get the performance I paid for...and so that it'll run full tilt when I bump up the front side bus and the cores at 3GHz instead of 2.4GHz. This is the one I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106087

and for $10 more I need to get this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185042

Newegg's shipping debt is sending some packages my way.
While I was at it I ordered an 80 mm fan to add a top blowing cooler to my Tivo.

I couldn't quite bring myself to ditch the microATX case while I was at so will live with that.
In all the times I have built PCs, I cannot think of one I have screwed up more than this one.
Oy.

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 6: St. Patrick's Day

2008-04-02T22:15:00.002-04:00

Ok, it's a little late for St. Patrick's Day, and the pic above is from 2003, but what the heck. Now, Phillie may have a zombie shuffle on Easter (amusing play on the Resurrection, that), but they got nothin' on Boston's St. Patrick's Day Parade. Boston, of course, has a long history of ethnic strife, including a tough reception for the Irish in the mid 1850's:

A Boston Committee of Internal Health studying the situation described the resulting Irish slum as "a perfect hive of human beings, without comforts and mostly without common necessaries; in many cases huddled together like brutes, without regard to age or sex or sense of decency. Under such circumstances self-respect, forethought, all the high and noble virtues soon die out, and sullen indifference and despair or disorder, intemperance and utter degradation reign supreme."

These days being of Irish descent in Boston is not only accepted but celebrated. Since 1947 there has been a veteran's group-sponsored St. Patrick's Day Parade which has been going on since 1902. And what's a good Massachusetts holiday without bitter argument and division? In the 90's a GLB pride group sued the organizers of the parade for the right to be included and the case wound up at the Supreme Court in 1995. In 1994 the state Superior Court had ruled that the organizers could not exclude anyone. The parade was cancelled that year.

More recently, Veterans for Peace were not allowed to march in the parade. Instead they followed the trash trucks... A column by Kevin Cullen in the Boston Globe tells the back story.

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day!

Oh, and in terms of the latest B vs. P: this round goes to Boston for encompassing all that is ugly and beautiful about the city in a single event.

Fox News compares Steampunk to "trenchcoat mafia"

2008-04-02T14:36:00.002-04:00

Over at Coilhouse.net you can view a Youtube video from Fox News on the view that steampunk is really a "trenchcoat mafia for adults." Worth a click.

April Fool's ... Or Badly Timed Comeback?

2008-04-01T10:24:00.007-04:00

This has got to be a joke. According to Boston.com, these guys are making a comeback on the twentieth anniversary of this:

Thing is, the counting down to launch NKOTB website looks more legit and sophisticated than the sort of pranksterism Boston.com's capable of. Maybe Boston.com's been persuaded or duped into playing along with someone else's joke. In which case Boston definitely will win a round in Bostodelphia's Boston vs. Philadelphia Battle of '08 for best prank. If this is legit, Boston may well lose every point it's earned to date, and possible every other point it's capable of winning over the year, as consequence for its shameful resurrection of this musical monstrosity.

Harpooned score: $8805

2008-03-25T23:34:00.003-04:00

My high score on Harpooned is $8805, and somehow all the whales went extinct at the end. Weird. But hey, if whales aren't killed in some number they'll eat all of Japan's fish, right? Or something.

Cynical Video Gaming: Harpooned!

2008-03-25T09:33:00.003-04:00

My post a few days back on the market for cynical video gaming reminded me of a recent Steve Jackson post on his company's Daily Illuminator. Following his "literature search" for evidence of the "scientific research" that the Japanese claim to be conducting in order to justify the continuation of their whaling industry, Jackson was pointed to Harpooned, a video game satirizing the Japanese scientific agenda by putting the player in control of a "research vessel" mounted with an explosive-tipped harpoon gun. Sample of gameplay below:

It's a gory and blunt statement, and I suppose it may provide a sort of rude education to a few people not already informed about Japanese whaling. That said, given games like Army of Two, I wonder what the ratio will be between those "enlightened" by the game's grisly subject matter and those getting a momentary cubicle rush out of turning whales into chum slick during their lunch break.

Democratic Primary Battle of PA '08: Registration Deadline

2008-03-24T09:18:00.003-04:00

For anyone in PA interested in voting in the Democratic primary, this is your last day to register.

Easter Listening

2008-03-23T18:02:00.004-04:00

Check out Benjamin Walker's Resurrection Rashomon. Not just the smartest and funniest extrapolations of the Easter story in audio format, I'd argue it stands as an exemplary form of speculative fiction regardless of medium. From Walker's description, posted March 25, 2007:

This week on the radio program: Resurrection Rashomon. This is something I made a few years ago, for YRNL. It's uh.. well... as the Chinese authorities would say "sensitive material" - so beware ye of sensitive mettles. It is the story of the Resurrection told Rashomon style. Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathaea, Mother Mary, the disciples Thomas and Peter and a Roman Centurion, all tell conflicting stories about what exactly is the meaning of the empty tomb. Where does all this Sacrilegious blasphemy come from? well, your host had quite the religious upbringing, and this show is what the therapists call "working it out."

The Cheesesteak came across this in '06, and it's become a part of your cruciform impaling sandwich's Easter ritual ever since.

If Resurrection Rashomon isn't significantly blasphemous to you, let us remind you of Bostodelphia's parting shot when we called Scifi.com to task over its obsequious deference to judeo-christian theism. Scroll down to the end for the music.

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 5: On Easter Sunday...

2008-03-23T12:24:00.005-04:00

Easter '08 brings to the Philadelphia basket and its basket-cases the third annual Philly Zombie Crawl! In honor of civilization's ur-zombie, Jesus Christ, Philadelphians made up and attired in Sunday best Zombie couture converge upon Tattooed Mom before stalking South Street in a shambling bacchanalian celebration of the (and their) resurrection.

What's Boston got on this? Sad to say the city founded by Puritans has no shamble, just a pedestrian observation of Christendom's highest holiday. Zzzzzzz without suffixed "ombies" bores me to the grave. Philly takes the Thriller crown on this one.

Army of Two and the Question of Moral Evaluation in Video Game Criticism

2008-03-21T09:36:00.004-04:00

Gamers among the Bostodelphia readership are probably aware by now of Electronic Arts' Army of Two, released a couple of weeks back:

Your friendly deadly sandwich learned about it via banner ads placed on SciFi.com. While I'm not much of a gamer, I do like following thematic and mechanical trends in games. Army of Two's promotional material had my interest piqued enough to read SciFi's review of the game this week.

First off, yes, we've been critical, maybe a bit overly harsh on SciFi in the past. That said, I've never doubted SciFi's basic integrity as a source for genre news and criticism; and it's good to see Eric T. Baker's B- review of Army of Two as further evidence of SciFi as a resource not beholden to its sponsors.

What interests me in Baker's review is not so much his evaluation of the mechanical play of the game. He's thorough on that front. I've never played Ao2, just seen the commercials; but having read Baker I now got a "feel" for it. What's interesting about his review is a premise guiding him about what might be called the "role playing aesthetic" or "ethic" of the game:

Despite the many attempts to differentiate them through gameplay and graphics, first-person shooters always have been and always will be about who the player's character is and about who it is shooting. So right up front, Ao2 has a problem. Because however much fun it is to use one character to boost another character up onto a balcony, it is hard to get behind the idea that it is better to kill al-Qaeda terrorists for cash than it is to do it as a sworn soldier of the U.S. military. Somehow the mix of a real-world enemy, a real-world war and two unkillable mercs in hockey masks just isn't as compelling as, for example, Call of Duty 4. The two games have similar plots, but CoD4 has the player killing for something besides the money to buy gold plating for his guns.

Baker likes to engage in first-person shooting play under the pretext that said shooting is being done for "noble ends." U.S. soldiers fighting for American geo-politcal hegemony freedom, Jedi fighting the Dark Side, etc. Nothing wrong with that premise in game preference. However as a general criteria in evaluating a video game, I don't think the notion of a morally righteous protagonist is by any means universal to the first-person shooter genre. In fact, I'd argue it tends to be more often the opposite.

Sure, sequels to Doom had something of a "save the world" theme to them, but they grew out of game whose theme was more desperate survival in a very hostile environment (and yes, that game was derived from a game that was premised on escaping a Nazi stronghold). But exactly where was Duke Nukem's moral rectitude? Those examples and the tendency for players to want to explore "Dark Side" powers and Sith lightsabers in Star Wars games are admittedly flung too far into the an imagined future or a mythic long time ago in a galaxy far away to foster much moral reflection in terms of contemporary reality. Still, is being on the side of right the motivation for players engaging in practically anything published by Rock Star Games? To move from the incredibly popular and lucrative Grand Theft Auto streets to the military context where Baker's more comfortable running and gunning with the sanction of the U.S. flag, games where characters with military backgrounds are involved in conflicts projected from the real world isn't new to video games. In fact, Baker's claim called to mind one of my favorite game commercial campaigns as a counter example:

Army of Two may well be a very mundane game with an interesting collaborative mechanic that doesn't quite overcome the game's genericness. However, Baker's claim that there's something objectionable in the moral nature of the characters players assume in game doesn't seem to speak to the broader culture of first-person shooter players. I'd go so far as to argue that players are drawn to games like Ao2 precisely for the opportunity to dwell in their own cynicism. There's certainly a market, and I'd have to explore this further but I think it may be a good thing.

Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters

2008-03-18T22:48:00.003-04:00

Saw Scanners last night.

Reminded me of one of my favorite SNL sketches:

Obama in Philly

2008-03-18T10:28:00.005-04:00

Well, this event is invite and media only apparently; but as I write this minutes before Obama's delivery, the Drudge Report is already posting what they claim to be the speech's text.

Update: Philebrity's live-blogging it, seems to be unimpressed. The cheesesteak is not as disappointed, but lukewarm to it.

Bring back the El Camino!!

2008-03-15T13:30:00.005-04:00

Pontiac is having a "name their truck for the US" contest. Jalopnik is shooting for "El Camino" of course - what else could it be named??

Since Cheesesteak is AWOL, I bring you...VLAD'S DAILY GLOAT

2008-03-15T13:14:00.003-04:00

Vlad's Daily Gloat is a Russian blog. Worth a read if you're in the mood for some virulently anti-American ranting. Or maybe worth printing out if you're short on TP.

One more on HRC

2008-03-10T23:34:00.004-04:00

I couldn't resist some comics...this whole "Obama for VP" absurdity from the Clinton campaign has me royally peeved.

Hillary at 3AM

2008-03-10T09:05:00.002-04:00

A remix of the now infamous(ly stupid) ad:

The next 30 years are going to SUCK

2008-03-08T23:51:00.006-05:00

The Boston Globe recently ran a list of the 30 fastest growing jobs in the US. Their source was the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook and Career Guide to Industries.

Here's the list:

physician's assistants
physical therapists
manicurists and pedicurists
environmental science and protection technicians
Gaming and sports book writers and runners
software engineers
database administrators
computer system analysts
dental assistants
marriage and family therapists
mental health and substance abuse social workers
mental health counselors
dental hygienists
forensic science technicians
pharmacy technicians
physical therapist assistants
gaming surveillance officers and gaming investigators
social and human service assistants
financial analysts
skin care specialists
substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors
veterinarians
medical assistants
theatrical and performance makeup artists
personal financial advisers
veterinary technologists and technicians
computer applications software engineers
home health aides
personal and home care aides
network systems and data communications analysts

This is depressing. Apparently over the next 30 years we're going to be waiting on the damn Baby Boomers in their dotage (having fucked up the whole country on their watch, now they want us to take care of their aches and pains in retirement too, while paying us shit). To distract ourselves from our economic pain and dead-end jobs, we'll be dousing ourselves with drugs and begging therapists to put us back together, murdering each other in droves (hence the forensics), gambling heavily, and owning a lot of pets . Meanwhile, a few computer types will get some careers outsourced from India once their standard of living and payscale exceeds ours. At least with all the makeup artists, pedicurists, and manicurists we'll look fabulous while the nation circles the drain.

Why are the Finns so smart?

2008-03-03T23:54:00.005-05:00

The following is an exchange between Cheesesteak and myself regarding a fasci nating article from the Wall St. Journal regarding the Finnish educational system:

CtI: On the other hand, whenever I hear about these Scandinavian utopias I always recall a counterpoint the New York Times wrote a year or so back, pointing out the signs of pending outright collapse for these social welfare systems.

A greater proportion of Scandinavians, you see, brown bag their lunches as opposed to power lunching in a restaurant to such a horrible degree that many restaurants in the Scandinavian peninsula or whatever you call that geographic formation ARE NOT OPEN FOR LUNCH.

Seriously, the Times was covering this like it was the harbinger to a cascade of failed states.

CP: There's a common meme in the US media (and no doubt economic/biz circles) that the Scandinavian social democratic system is perpetually on the verge on collapse due to their high taxes, high degree of regulation, and generous welfare benefits, as opposed to the US system in which we tax the middle class the heaviest (and the most wealthy hardly at all), allow industries to write their own regulations (until some major disaster, and then the new regs last til the next Republican administration), and generally fuck the poor.

The Scandinavians then have the poor grace to whip us in educational quality, standard of living, social mobility, entrepeneurship, lifespan, and even happiness (Iceland scores highest in the world on happiness surveys).

There is of course the factor that they have homogeneous societies in hostile climates, leading to a sort of "cooperate or die" attitude, which is an accident of geography and history, but it makes one wonder...

CtI: Are you saying Global warming is some vast socialist conspiracy to create a hostile climate throughout the whole planet, thereby forcing everyone to "cooperate or die"? I knew Gore and the Swedes were cooking up something more than a tease at a Presidential run. "Bork, bork, bork" is the new shibboleth. Whose side are you on?

The Finns are in, because it's all going to be done with cell phones....

CP: Cell phones will give you ear cancer, unless they are steam-powered. You heard it here first.

Cheesesteak in New Orleans

2008-03-03T11:18:00.003-05:00

Maybe the Cod got packed in ice or something. As for me, since Friday, the Cheesesteak's been operating under Po'Boy colors in the Crescent City. Week-end's been roullezing avec trop plus de bon temps to regularly update. For example, meant to update this over an hour ago, but my fingers were too caked with beignette sugar to use my keyboard. Will try to report in later today with reports from what's looking like a seriously epic po'boy trek this afternoon, and maybe my self-guided cocktail tour of the French Quarter.

Bostodelphia Steampunk-A-Go-Go: Steampunks are Upon Us!

2008-02-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

Wow.

Having regenerated Cod from his incinerated scales and patented Bostoldelphia cloning technnology, and reconsituted myself from Jake von Slatt's digestive process through ... other means, we've been impressed with the number of readers who've tuned into our interview with Jake, and flattered by the positive impression our works made among the Steampunk community.

Now what do we do?

We know Coddy's going to offer up in the near future his own Steampunk machinations for the study of any Steampunks who've decided to hang around here, he's our resident technological tinkerer. While I confess I came into our interview with Herr von Slatt relatively cold, with only a passing understanding of Steampunk, and still don't have a full handle on all the viewpoints attached to word, I've come to find the "ethic" of Steampunk fascinating so far, and would like to keep writing on it, exploring it.

We'd like some feedback though.

We know our interview with Jake was just the tip of the iceberg, or more appropriately the threshold of the furnace. Jake also admits to be speaking of only his personal philosophy, so there's plenty of room for other perspectives, and some Steamers may have responded to our questions very differently.

Do let us know what you think. Bostodelphia is a mash up of Boston and Philly, two cities with claims to Ben Franklin, arguably the grand-granddaddy of Steampunk. So Steampunk could easily be one of our regular "beats" here. We got comment threads or you could drop us an e-mail. While obviously, those avenues are not as fluid and flexible as some of the Steampunk communities' own forums, and direct input to us, or tracks to your discussions of our work, will help us make decisions on this possible new editorial direction for Bostodelphia.

Stay tuned, and we're listening.

Note, if you haven't done so, definitely check out issue 4 of Steampunk Magazine. The open letter to Jake von Slatt and Datamancer dovetails nicely with some of the points Jake addresses in our interview.

MY DEAR

2008-02-28T10:52:00.003-05:00

In all my years on the internet (since 1993) I have never, ever received that Nigerian bank scam email.

At last, I've got one, although it's a variation of it involving Gambia. I've finally joined the club, how exciting! I'll say no more, let the spam speak for itself:

My dear, I am miss Melina Salman from Juba, Sudan, presently in the Gambia prison, single and 19 years old. After accessing your details in the internet site i copied out only your email address. Immediately after going through your information i made up my mind to contact you for long term relationship, because you are my choice of trust and i see nothing wrong with the choice that i have made in you. Now that i am in a state of absolute confusion I must let you know that my daddy was the Financial controller to the Common Wealth North African Region.
About my parents; My mummy died in labour when she was giving birth to a baby in the hospital in Juba, and both my mummy and the baby died together, then i was only 11 years of age. My daddy died in a car accident and the car driver that jammed my daddy's car ran away and my daddy's lawyer and my daddy's brother are among the suspects, and they are all against me because of my daddy's properties in Sudan.The following information is my purpose of choosing you. Before my daddy died he made me the beneficiary of the amount of 9 Million gbp£ in his account with Islamic Bank in Dakar, Senegal. On my way travelling to Dakar, Senegal i arrived this country called Gambia on transit, on the same night i arrived Gambia i was attacked by 2 big boys in my guest house (hotel) room, they robbed me, collected my hand bag that contained all my travelling money, as if that was not enough, they tried to rape me so i collected the nearest object in the room and heated one of them on the head and shouted to the hearing of the neighbouring compounds and people came out and descended on the criminals, the next morning the police came to the guest house and arrested me, since then i have been kept under awaiting trial here in this central prison Gambia because the criminal i heated paralysed as a result of the severe beating given to him by the neighbourhood.

I am among the girls newly appointed to head the girls sector in this prison, hence i have the advantage to use the prison computer to communicate with you, and i will be very glad to also have a detailed information about you. From here i communicated with Islamic bank and they said that because of the written agreement that my daddy signed with them that i must be present in their bank to withdraw the money by myself OR that i should appoint a foreign partner who will receive the money on my behalf. the money is my only hope in life. as soon as Islamic Bank transfers the money into your bank account, you will use some of the money to get me out of here, then the same week of my release you will fly down here in Gambia and i and you will depart to your home in your country together.

If you cannot come to gambia you will send down enough money from my money in your account for my freedom and my journey to meet you in your country airport and you will be at your airport to welcome me. I want you to help me receive the amount and also be my financial and investment manager. I dont want islamic bank to transfer all the money at the same time, i want the bank to transfer only 4.5 million first and after they will transfer the remaining 4.5 million.
I am waiting your reply
Miss Melina Salman

Bostodelphia Steampunk-a-go-go: Taking a Steam with Jake von Slatt

2008-02-26T08:23:00.005-05:00

Our inaugural Steampunk article, an interview with Jake von Slatt.

Key

JVS: Jake von Slatt
CP: Cod Peace
CTI: Cheesesteak the Impaler

Enjoy! And we welcome your feedback.

Taking a Steam with Jake von Slatt

CTI: Cod Peace and I have toweled ourselves up and reported to Dillons Russian Steam Bath in Chelsea to conduct our interview with Boston area steampunk posterboy (or perhaps daguerreotype gentleman?) and Weekly Dig "Good Bostonion" Jake von Slatt. After some bickering with Cod on the way here in the Bostodelphiamobile, I've come to realize that this setting may not be the ideal thematic location I had envisioned. Turns out steampunks, in fact, do not mill about in clouds of steam. Well, Herr von Slatt's just going to have to do it this once for Bostodelphia. Besides, while I'm a little worried what all this hot moisture's going to do to my roll, Cod's actually starting to give off this tasty, poached smell.

Herr von Slatt, thank you for taking the time to meet with Bostodelphia.

JVS: My Pleasure Mr. Impaler and please call me Jake. Lovely place this! it reminds me of The Gellert, a wonderful 19th Century spa in Budapest.

CTI: Going over your broader array of projects, it seems like you've been doing DIY tinkering for a while before "steam punk" was really in the vernacular. I'm wondering how you fell into the word, and how or if you've reconciled your work prior to encountering steampunk. Have you always been "steampunk?" What did you call your work prior to encountering the term? Has your involvement with the word affected the aesthetics or production techniques of your work?

JVS: "I've been Steampunk all along, I just never knew what it was called" is a common refrain on the Steampunk message boards and is true for me as well. When I was 11 or 12 I got into electronics in a big way and I would spend hours in the 621 section of the Public Library. Invariably the books that appealed to me were the works from the early 20th century that contained "projects for boys" that would get the authors sued or shipped off to gitmo if they were published today.

While other nerdy kids were playing with their 101 Electronic Project kits from Radio Shack with PNP and NPN transistors, my earliest experiments were with leyden jars, home-made lead acid batteries, vacuum tubes, and high voltage coils. I built a spark gap transmitter with which I could send Morse signals some distance, of course it also obliterated television reception in the entire neighborhood when in operation.

So I've always had a passion for the old tech and part of the reason for that is its accessibility to the tinkerer. 19th tech can be recreated with tools you can own or build. I don't need a vapor deposition chamber or a wafer fab facility to build a radio, the most sophisticated thing I need is a good vacuum pump.

As for the word itself; when I'm working in my shop and I need, say some sort of linkage, I look through my junk box and see what similar to the part I'm looking for and I modify it to serve. I'll admit to co-opting the term Steampunk in a similar way for my website.

CTI: To me, those invested in the word "steampunk" -- and my knowledge base stems from Sterling and Gibson's collaboration on The Difference Engine which introduced steampunk aesthetic to a mass audience -- are forced into a comparison with cyberpunk "culture," if sucha culture can even be isolated and identified from mainstream technological aesthetics anymore. Broadly sketching cyberpunk as a meshing of a subgenre of science fiction (and music and other arts), "information wants to be free" ideology and its Orwellian counterforce, and a hacker culture involved in technological exploits and play for fun and profit regardless to matters of law, we can see a movment that was forecasting, or maybe trying to force, massive societal changes through information technologies. Is there similarly grand world-thinking among practitioners of steampunk crafts or arts (mad scientist megalomania?), or are steampunks engaged with something more personal or intimate? Maybe nostalgic?

JVS: Certainly some are primarily interested in the nostagic. However some of the harder core fans think more in terms of lifestyle. In many ways I think Steampunk is a reaction to Cyberpunk, its a desire to inject an element of humanity and passion into something cold and virtual and as such I think it will have a longer run.

Making things is also a central theme among (what I am going to start calling) Steam Punks, as is a general anti-corporate, pro-individual attitude. We're anti-corporate not because big companies are evil or anything, but because they are boring and promote sameness and we see too much of that in the world. We treasure unique things.

CTI: To follow up on that, Jake, or push it differently: I get Steam Punks are similar to at least the first cyberpunk iterations in the anti-corporate, pro-individual, what we may call a "techno libertarian" outlook (and by libertarian I mean more DIY than "Republicans who want to smoke pot"). However, other than the fact that a lot of yesterday's "cyberpunks" have more or less sold out to contemporary digital capitalism, the other thing was that the cyberpunk technological savvy was seen by the movement as an imperative. Some formulation of a "cyber" future was inevitable, they were just leading the way and the rest of the world would have to catch up. Some saw it as a mission to sort of "evangelize" the future and help the luddites bridge the digital divide, etc. Others saw themselves as future princes with those not hip to the movement their future serfs, etc. In other words, whether you got cyberpunk or not, the cyberpunk movement would ultimately affect you; and arguably, some element of it actually did. I'm wondering if the average Steam Punk sees him or herself as providing an example to the "masses" as yet untouched by steampunk, or seeing themselves having a broader social impact than their individual craft and apparent niche audiences?

JVS: Of course there is a great deal of variation among those that would identify themselves as Steam Punks, there is a definite Anarchist contingent and a lot of Steam Punk identify with the green movement and see the re-visiting of the old tech as a path to sustainability, steam power is, after all, perfect for bio mass energy conversion.

CTI: Howso?

JVS: In a nutshell, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels which result in the release of ancient carbon (in the form of CO2) into the atmosphere. Biomass is any solid or liquid plant product that will burn. The carbon that is released to the atmosphere when these fuels are burned is carbon that was fixed from the atmosphere last year, not 10 million years ago. The process is essentially carbon neutral. The advantage steam has is due to the fact that steam boilers can easily be designed to burn multiple types of fuel, whereas internal combustion engines require a liquid form with particular characteristics. A Stanley Steamer will run fine on veggie oil, kerosene, gasoline, diesel or paint thinner and it would be fairly easy to add a fire box to allow one to burn wood chips, peat moss, whatever.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/electrical_power.html

Large scale power from biomass is a proven technology, Steampunks are interested in downsizing such systems to power individual homes or compound, just in case there's an apocolypse or something.

I describe myself as a "bleeding heart libertarian" and think that's consistent with Steam Punk. We promote the blending of science and romance, technology and humanity.

CP: Is there an international appeal to SteamPunk or is it more limited to Anglo countries?

JVS: I hear it's huge in France and Germany right now, also in the U.K. where the blend of fans is really quite fascinating. To see 50-something railroad steam enthusiasts discussing pocket watches and goggles with 20-something Goths in psuedo Victorian parlance is trippy as hell. Yah just gotta love Teh Intarweb.

Right now the busiest forum on the web is run out of the U.K by a young lady who sports the moniker "TinkerGirl" she's the force behind the Brass Goggles Blog and the forum can be found at http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/bg-forum/index.php

CP: Is it popular in the UAE yet? If it is you're going to make a sh*t load of money.

JVS: Not that I know of, but recent articles in Ocean Drive and Vegas magazines may change that. As aside, it tickled me greatly to see a link for steampunkmagazine.com, a publication with some definite Anarchist leanings, in a pair of over-sized, super glossy, hyper-capitalist luxury goods magazines - now that's punk.

CTI: Why would you want steam in the desert?

CP: Because there's an obscene amount of $ (and, er, euros these days) floating around, and if a tiny percentage gets steampunked JvS will be driving

a gold-plated steampunked Yaris to his day job.

CP: Is the essence of being a "steampunk(er?)" in the creation of steampunk crafts or in the mere consumption of them? How significant is the do-it-yourself model to steampunk, as opposed to something like goth where there's a ready market of fashion accessories, music, etc. to decorate one's self with, and thus no need for DIY? Relatedly, does the burgeoning market for luxury steampunk goods (JvS's keyboard can be purchased from another steampunker, Datamancer) detract from the DIY, homespun air to most steampunk websites?

JVS: Not at all! Being an individual artisan making unique items and selling them to the non-player characters is very much in line with my view of what makes a Steam Punk. I firmly believe that all artists should be able to make a living wage plying their art and the internet has given us the platform to do so.

However, if a corporation starts manufacturing steampunk keyboards in large quantities it's likely that the Steam Punks will eschew them even if fans of Steampunk buy them up by the hundreds. That's OK too, we love our fans and understand that not everyone would want or can afford a handmade keyboard.

I myself sell nothing, I consider my product to be the entertainment my website provides to my visitors. In fact, I will shortly be publishing a licensing notice on my site which will state that my designs are licensed under Creative Commons, Non-Commercial Attribution, Share-alike license with a commercial exception for individual artisans. That is to say people are welcome to make copies of my work and sell them as long as they credit me for the design and the profits are supporting an individual or family.

But to answer your question; the essence of Steampunk is the infusion of technology with romance.

CTI: On that licensing, do you see any affinity in the philosophy of Creative Commons, NCA, "share" licenses and the "gentleman tinkerer" steampunk may be a throwback to? A techno-romantic idea, as I'm really not sure how well this is supported by history, that technology is simply an expression of an open scientific community, so all technology should be fundamentally open, non-proprietary to better facilitate the exchange of ideas. This notion of course flies in the face of the contemporary model for "product development". Key to this is whether this is simply romantic (or hyper intellectually liberal) thinking, or can we really point to steam-age precedent.

JVS: Ah, it's a common mistake to think we care about what the past was . We're much more interested in what it should have been and what the future can be. I like Cory Doctorow's "reputation economy" concept a lot and I see something of it in the way the current crop of Steampunk enthusiasts interact on the net. A "gentleman" would not outright copy someone else's work, if only because the the community would recognize it and his cred would drop.

As for the real world, I feel that there should be some patent protection to give companies the incentive to be first to market with a new technology, but it should reflect typical product development times, nothing longer.

Ultimately, desktop fabrication is going to eliminate much of manufacturing and then it will be only ideas that hold real value (see here and here). Recently an economist at Cambridge published a paper on optimal copyright length - his conclusion is that 14 years is optimal in term of economic benefit. That sounds about right to me.

CP: It seems like there's a sort of "whimsical utopian" vibe to Steampunk. Jake, you've mentioned elsewhere that in the Victorian era the "amateur" could significantly contribute to scientific and technological understanding. However, the Victorian era was marked by huge human suffering at the hands of industrialization. For example, the railroads in England cost something like 1-3 human lives per mile, factories routinely ruined worker's bodies, and coal smoke was a key factor in producing the infamous London "pea-souper" smogs. While this "dark side" to Steampunk's genealogy is acknowledged in the fiction, do the more "hands on" as opposed to storytelling steampunks acknowledge this, or do you yourself envision any acknowledgement of this in future steampunk projects?

JVS: Well, what is wonderful and exciting when done as a hobby can really suck as a career. I'm currently working on a blast furnace project for melting aluminium, brass - and I hope - iron. This is going to be dirty and dangerous and because I'm only playing at it, fun as hell. But it will give me a peek into the life of a foundry worker of an earlier era.

I guess I am starting to make a real distinction between Steampunk as an aesthetic and genre of fiction and Steam Punk as a lifestyle. The utopian vibe you're referring to is indeed part of Steampunk, and its the source of the design aesthetic that we draw on when we craft our devices. But we Steam Punks are far more interested in the lives of those toiling in the factories and workshops of the 19th century then what went on in the manors of the high born and wealthy.

Our top hats are filthy and our goggles have cinders melted into the lenses.

CTI: Pardon the coarseness of this followup, but isn't this a form of slumming? I'm trying to find a way to formulate this without sounding more flippant than I intend, but isn't this coming at the possibilities of techno-romanticism with the high mindedness of a Dr. Frankenstein, but one wanting to get grimy with Igor? Maybe it's not fair to push you along this line, and it should be saved for a rant. Still let's see where this goes. You personally are curious about the 'raw forces' at play in the foundry, so you're building this furnace project. Cool, and your colleagues or associates or friends will probably say "cool" too, but what I think Cod Peace is getting at is the material nostalgia represented by "brass and clockwork" vanity consumable ... stuff through which the owner can claim a removal from the ugliness of late capitalism and a contact or intamacy with an age when technology was more romantic ... without acknowledging the actual social ugliness of that era?

CP: Jake, could you elaborate on your conception of the "personal industrial revolution"? Does this include putting your children to work digging coal seams and your wife to work smelting iron ore? Actually, aside from the difficult work of coal and iron production, this reminds me somewhat of the people reviving ancient building techniques using clay/lime plasters, wattle-and-daub, and so forth, since well into the 1800's the average American (the vast majority of whom were not city dwellers) were capable of building their own shelter. With the export of the manufacturing sector and the cultural denigration of blue collar work over the last 30 years the average American these days can barely swing a hammer.

JVS: There you two go with the History again! ^_^ Really what we're discussing here is my phillosophy rather then what Steampunk actually is. But I delight in declaring my phillosophy Steampunk and if people agree then, well that how language evolves.

It's more about humanizing technology so that people are comfortable with it, understand it, embrace it, love it. The best way to do that is to start with the basic physics that most 19 Century tech directly exemplifies. Once you understand a light bulb, it's a short step to understanding a vacuum tube. Once you understand a vacuum tube it's a short step to the transistor, then the integrated circuit. Stir in the concept of binary logic and you have the basis for all digital tech. But you have to start with that electro'nic(?) switch that was invented in the late 1800s.

Steampunk is as much about the future as it is about the past.

CP: Why doesn't steampunk involve more, well, actual steam, like Crab Fu's projects?

JVS: I-Wei is brilliant isn't he!? I love his work. Well, I can tell you that it will [involve more steam] for me and that I think you will see more of it as the old time steam afficinados discover Steampunk. Can you imagine the elder statesmen of steam hobbies suddenly discovering they have young fans on the net? Many will not know how to take it, but a few will rise to the acclaim.

CP: What makes a band steampunk (e.g. Abney Park )? Do they perform on steam calliopes?

JVS: They are Steampunk because people said they were Steampunk and they decided that was cool and that they would be Steampunk with all their hearts. At least that's my take on it. You're asking a garage tinkerer for music critism? ;-)

CTI: As I've thought about this interview, and my initial "steampunk is derived cyberpunk" opening line of questions, I keep coming back to J.F. Sebastian in Bladerunner. You've got the quintessential man alienated by "futureshock capitalism", skilled to do a job in the "real world"; and at home: he tinkers these clockwork "friends". On the other end of the spectrum, you have the portrayal of Tesla in The Prestige (and lots of other speculative and alternative history fiction) who pretty much embodies the idea of the "technomancer" a literal magician of technology. His tragedy is a lot different from Sebastian's, his thinking and technological wonders could "utopianize" the world, if he wasn't thwarted by "the powers that be" usually represented by Edison, and so since we live in a world whose technology and intellectual property framework can be seen as more derived from Edison than Tesla, the Tesla tragedy is one for everyone. So I guess I have outlined here two "archetypes" for the Steampunk. On one hand there's J.F. Sebastian, a pathetic figure. On the other, you got Tesla, the tragic noble figure buried by more worldly men. Is this a a workable framework for Steampunks?

JVS: Nah, the guy I think of is the Blade Runner merchant who "only does eyes." The individual craftsman trading in bio-tech in the back alley.

CTI: Is there one (or two or three) technologies or industries you'd rather see produced or replaced by Steampunk craftsmanship? If so, could you discuss their implementation (either alt historical or in a contemporary "revolutionary" moment) and any socio-political-economic ramifications?

JVS: Again we're crossing over from for Steampunk "proper" to my personal phillosophy, but so be it. Desktop fabricators are going to bring the downfall of mass production and will allow physical object to be developed by communities of enthusiast int the way that Open Source software is developed today. It will allow collaborative product design and personal customization of anything. It will be a return to the days whe you went to the local blacksmith or carpenter with a sketch of what you wanted and he would make it, often imbuing it with his own design aesthetics as well as your own.

CP: One might imagine Steampunkers going a bit overboard with the steam lifestyle and Victorian nostalgia. Or perhaps following in the footsteps of two trapped Chinese coal miners, who survived by eating coal. Which brings me to the question, what's the tastiest type of coal: brown, bituminous, or anthracite?

JVS: Anthracite is nice and crunchy and good for getting up a good head of steam, but you want that nice gooey bituminous stuff if you're going to do any serious forging of iron.

CP: If you keep heating steam you'll eventually create plasma once you hit a few million degrees. Do you think plasmapunk is a viable future design style? If we heated you in a closed vessel to several million degrees could you make us a plasmapunk monitor?

JVS: I think "Plasmapunk" is already used by the Hemogoths . <shudder>

CTI: Let's say this steambath and steampunk teachin were assaulted by Daleks, because well they hate all forms of individual expression and I imagine the only thing a Dalek may hate more than a Steampunk is a Time Lord. How can you Steampunk your way out of such a scenario? Bonus points if this sandwich and my fishy collaborator survive too.

Cheesesteak's hypothesis becomes reality as a squad of steampunk Daleks burst into the bath, destruction of the artisan and his interlocutors at the top of their task list.

Daleks: Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!

JVS: (Grabbing the sandwich and reaching for the poached fish) Quick, this way, up the stairs!

CP: Hey, is Steampunk even a verb? NGGGGGGGGG!

JVS (Hunkered nearby Cod's incinerated scales, Jake scarfs the Cheesesteak, opting internal carriage as the best way to protect the sandwich from the waste of Dalek destruction. Making his way to the bridge of his unleaded Zeppelin, he answers the Dalek fried fish final question): To paraphase Doc Brown "It's whatever you want it to be, Marty!"

Daleks fume, left behind in the hot mist by Jake as his Zeppelin debarks the bathhouse.

(Dalek image from http://promus-kaa.deviantart.com/art/Steampunk-Dalek-45896043

For further reading, issue 4 of Steampunk Magazine has just gone been released, including an open letter to Jake von Slatt and Datamancer.

Clinton Swings a Bit Too Wild?

2008-02-25T13:40:00.004-05:00

Wow. I have seen such "pretty to think so" cynicism about "the way of it" since Rumsfeld stepped down and Cheney retreated (further) from the light of the public eye. Anyone thinking she's prematurely auditioning for a Zell Miller moment at the Republican Convention?

People backing Obama see themselves in fight. If nomiated, and elected, those people expect Obama to fight for the new politics he's envisioned. Clinton, among a crowd of supporters, may have thought she was just tossing a barb at Obama. But as phrased, she's not just attacking Obama, she's attacking the very idea of optimism and hope. There are ways of demanding more specifics on how Obama wants to enact "change" in America. This isn't one of them. To the minds of many outside of the old guard DLC Democratic party, this is a highly effective anti-Clinton ad courtesy of the Clinton campaign itself.

Someone Didn't Get This Message

2008-02-24T11:35:00.001-05:00

Snow Day

2008-02-22T12:43:00.002-05:00

So it seems a whole lotta stuff is just shutting down around Philadelphia. Apparently, contrary to Mr. Wahlberg's assertions in The Happening trailer, the administration does not in fact make the teachers teach when there’s a foot of snow no the ground. Rather the whole state acknowledges no one knows how to drive in bad weather anymore and makes harbingering the apocalypse an extra curricular activity.

We're getting a perfect hooky storm here in PA folks, a bit of snow last night and this morning, nothing now, but an oncoming rush of rain turning to ice and then more snow to complicate thing during what would be evening rush hour. Total anticipated accumulation about 4-8 inches from what I've been reading on weather.com. In other words, things are pretty much ok here, but the ride home could be deadly so employers that value their employees' lives and school districts wanting to avoid lawsuits from their charges' parents are calling today a wash.

Things in Boston are getting nasty. Perhaps the Cod is in for another epic ride home.

The Happening is Happening

2008-02-21T00:56:00.006-05:00

SciFi Wire writes that M. Knight Shyamalan's new film is slated for a Friday the 13th, June 2008 release. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, and shot in around Philly, last summer, looks to my eyes to be giving another take at what Shyamalan would likely call the metaphysical, theological or philosophical underpinnings of Signs. After Lady in the Water, let's hope he's got producers or editors willing to give him a frank assessment of his recently faltering, if not outright bloviating craft. The fact that the script went through one total rewrite after Shyamalan shopped it around as the The Green Effect may hint that Shyamalan may not have as free a reign as he had been rewarded with after the success of The Sixth Sense and Signs (and maybe the Hollywood powers that be are with me on liking Unbreakable). I think that may be a good thing in his case.

More to our concern, with this and Invincible, it's sure looking like Philly's stealing Mr. Wahlberg from his him hometown. Probably not worth a full round of points in our ongoing Boston vs. Philadelphia bragging rights battle, but like the Damon-Silverman Hollywood Affair, this poaching may garner something akin to a field goal or safety points.

Use that Cuba Libre to Wash Down a Cuban!

2008-02-20T10:09:00.003-05:00

Well, if you're going to drink a Cuba Libre, you need something tasty to go along with it. Why not a Cuban sandwich, an invention of Cuban-Americans in south Florida?

To make: Take a loaf of Cuban bread. Slice about 8-10 inches in length, then cut lengthwise. Butter the crust a bit, add yellow mustard to the bread, and then layer on roast pork, glazed ham, Swiss cheese, and sliced dill pickles. Finally, toast and compress in an un-grooved sandwich press.

Now, kick back with your mixed drink, and enjoy Cuba's marginal moves towards a more free society.

Cuba Libre?

2008-02-19T16:12:00.003-05:00

No idea whether Castro's bowing out of official power will make any difference in modern Cuba. After all, his brother and likely successor has been technically in charge for over a year now. Still, at least one half of Bostodelphia is always interested in an occasion for a celebratory beverage, so we'll recommend the Cuba Libre.

Rum drinks aren't the cheesesteak's specialty, but the Cuba Libre is easy, and easy on the palette to those who don't have the Impaler's stronger tastes. Basically we're just talking about a rum and coke with lime.

Ingredients:
1 1/2-2 oz. rum, any kind.
up to 2 oz. lime juice
cola

Instructions:
Half fill a highball or collins glass with ice, add lime juice, rum, fill remainder of glass with cola, and garnish with lime.

Now I know at least one cola bottler is making their coke with lime flavor. I won't recommend that shortcut, but I wouldn't stop you. In fact, I'd be curious how it goes. I also prefer fresh lime juice to the Rosie's stuff, which is really lime juice and sugar syrup. I'm ok with Rosie's in Margaritas and the like, but if the juice is being added to a sugary soda, I think you may be overdoing it.

Now according to Salvatore Calabrese, the Cuba Libre's creation coincided with the creation of Coca-Cola and the presence of U.S. troops in Cuba. His recipe then insists on white Bacardi rum and Coca-Cola. My other bartending manual, which I treat as more authoritative simply because it's more battered, isn't as specific and I'll follow its lead. On hand I only have a bottle of Bacardi and a bottle of Sailor Jerry. While historically of the Island, Bacardi's wikipedia entry casts them very much as a "rum maker in exile," so is probably the more appropriate. Who knows, maybe I'll mix both. Any case, my more trusted book says your rum's up to you.

Again, while your cola should "technically" be Coca Cola, there are so many smaller bottlers out there doing interesting, and corn syrup and caffeine free things with cola. Boylan's Natural Cane Cola is what I'd recommend if you can find it. For tonight, I found two bottles of cricket green tea cola in the refrigerator case of Potbelly Sandwich Works. Just had one bottle on it's lonesome: good, light, refreshing taste that stayed with you without any caffeine buzz or bite. Should make a good mix with the rum and lime flavors.

On the lime, besides my Rosie's ban, lately, I've been using a whole juiced lime in my drinks and have got nothing but praise. Could be the time of year has everyone craving a little more citrus, or simply the fact that limes in Philadelphia in winter just aren't as juicy as they would be other times of year. Whatever the case, while I'm more careful with more subtly balanced drinks, when a drink has called for more than an ounce of lime this time of year, I just juice the whole lime and add it to the drink, scooping the pulp into the shaker if it's a shaker drink. In this case, I think I'll let the juice, spirit, and cola stand without the pulp, though some of my recipes suggest tossing your rind into the glass as well.

(Incidentally, one of my "bartender's card decks" suggest just club soda for the libre. That would certainly make for a lighter, less sweet drink, but I don't know how the card deck's manufacturer got the cola brown color for its illustration.).

update: Coddy grills up a food pairing that completely slipped my mind.

Bostodelphia's Unaccountable Lost Week

2008-02-19T15:27:00.005-05:00

Did you miss us?

It's been about a week since we last checked in from Bostodelphia HQ. Here's what we've been missing:

I, your friendly deadly sandwich, had an editing freak out which threw a wrench into our plans to deliver you Steampunk Mania last week. Fear not, it appears we've salvaged the work and are just tinkering up a revitalized Steampunk-a-go-go to be unveiled any moment now.
Coddy's been sick. It was expensive, he told you about that.
Ron Paul has significantly scaled back his campaign to protect his Congressional ~~ass~~ seat.
PA's governor may or may not have played the race card against the Obama campaign.
MA's governor lent some words to Obama's rhetorical arsenal, apparently in good faith as like minded people are sometime wont to do. Someone else wants you to think otherwise.

We'll cease belaboring our apology and stick with those five. Now for those of you still tuned into us, this is what we got coming:

The aforementioned Steampunk-a-go-go. Jake von Slatt. A Steampunk Monstrosity from the twisted mind of Dr. Cod Peace. And from me: a free associative think piece on all this hot air waltzing the waters to the Stooges. (Hopefully this week.)
Some thoughts from yours truly regarding Gov. Rendell's aforementioned hand, if he was even playing. (Mos' Def this week.)
Having seen it on opening night, I've been wanting to write on Cloverfield since it first came out. With Diary of the Dead in theaters this week, I'll probably be able to do so. (In a couple of days).

That's just what I can think of right now. We're back, and our more unstructured musing are too. First up though, who needs a drink? Have one.

On Message

2008-02-12T15:04:00.000-05:00

The $400 flu

2008-02-12T09:27:00.001-05:00

Between doctor's visits and prescriptions, largely for things like inhalers so that we could continue to breath, the influenza virus that took down my whole family ended up costing me just under $400. Sure, I can draw on my FSA account, but it's still money out the door and the FSA account doesn't last forever.

It makes one wonder what our intrepid presidential candidates would do about sub-par insurance and high co-pays for those of us with at least half-decent health care. As Michael Moore pointed out in Sicko, we all think we have good health care until something big happens and then we discover how screwed we really are. I checked up on the Republicans first since, well, I wasn't expecting much.

First, the presumptive front-runner, John McCain. His prescription: more competition between health insurers and some other reform at the edges while claiming the whole system needs to change. Note: claiming you're a reformer while leaving the whole corrupt system in place is just lies, lies, lies.

Next, Mike Huckabee. His web page accurately notes: "The health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a "health care" system, not a "health" system." and then goes on to dump on universal health care and provide nothing of substance other than more talk of free markets. Hey Republicans - I DON'T WANT health care competition between insurers, or to pick different hospitals based on which one treats a heart attack more cheaply, I just want to be able to go to my doctor when I'm sick and get needed medications without paying through the nose, and be able to do that regardless of employment status. Seriously, is this so complicated?

Finally, the Dems. Both Clinton & Obama have very similar plans. Paul Krugman says so. Both predict that they will lower premiums for the insured, but both maintain the current corrupt and inefficient insurance scam.

It's almost enough to make one want to learn the lyrics to 'O Canada.'

Romney Bails?

2008-02-07T12:30:00.000-05:00

NY Times and other outlets are reporting that Romney is suspending his campaing.

Dang. Bostodelphia had a secret yearning for a Romney/Santorum ticket for the shear mockery potential.

Hang in there Ron Paul! You can out mad dog McCain! Ron Paul to St. Paul! Ron Paul to St. Paul! I want the center of Minnesota's urban core to be as unruly and contested as Chicago '68 was for the the Democrats! Load that blimp up with rocket fuel and take it to the moon!

Ash Wednesday Exchanged for Brimstone Rub Day?

2008-02-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Those of you with any contact with the Catholic Church may be aware that today was Ash Wednesday. Today, around Philadelphia at least, the observance seemed literally bolder.

I remember growing up Catholic in the Boston area, and on Ash Wednesday, the ashes applied to the forehead were "ashen", that is, grey. People were "marked" at the mass, and went about their day with the reminder of "ashes to ashes", etc. Always thought it was an interesting day in the Catholic calendar.

Today, in Philly and the surrounding area, the ash I'm seeing isn't grey, but a deep volcanic, pitch black. Is this how it's always been done in the Philly area? Has the Philadelphia diocese been using, or are now using a different sort of tree from the Boston area diocese. Has global warming affected the ash supply market?

Seriously, I'm curious about this.

The Steampunk Pressure Intensifies!

2008-02-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

We know. You got a brief hit off the steam pipe after hearing the NPR piece.

Steampunk. You've breathed it, and the steam's gone through your ears.

And you want more.

And now you're here.

We got it for you. But we're going to let the pressure build just a wee bit yet. See, our gauge has got our greater depth interview with Herr von Slatt in the pipes but only in the green. We're not going to unleash it on your, our dear and perhaps our new readers, until we're past the red line and the gauge dial has shattered from the rattling monster it's been keeping tabs on. Then, and only then will come our steampunk torrent.

Stay tuned. Maybe we'll give you a little taste Friday. It'll be worth. There will be steam, there may be some blood, and absolutely there will be Daleks.

Super Tuesday Republican Primary Endorsement Reminder

2008-02-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Republicans: KEEP THIS GUY AND HIS ENTOURAGE THEATRE AROUND ALL THE WAY TO THE CONVENTION! I want to see V. for Vendetta guys and people in colonial tri-corners standing in the rafters of the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. Oh come on! The conventions going to be in St. Paul! The Party needs at least a keynote from the one wizened prophet daring to speak the truth given the namesake. Send Paul to St. Paul!

Cheesesteak the Impaler Shifts to Barack Obama for Dem Primaries

2008-02-05T08:54:00.000-05:00

To our knowledge, the flu-stricken Cod Peace is going to defiantly hold onto our endorsement of John Edwards all the way to his MA primary polling station today.

That said, I am taking my share of Bostodelphia's awesome endorsement power and swinging it to Obama. With Edwards bowed out, I believe Obama is the Democratic Party's last, best hope for change in American politics, a rallying figure for those who've felt disenfranchised by the Democratic Party and electoral politics in general over the course of the preceding political generation. And, yes, I'll insert the ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas fronted deluge of celebrity endorsements vid here:

While Senator Clinton has served the state of New York capably during her terms in office, to this sandwich the experience she touts strikes more of a political legacy which this country needs to shed. I am not speaking of her name per se. Rather, I find nothing in her record to really distinguish her from the rank and file of the Democratic Leadership Council who sapped the Democrats' progressive soul in exchange for industry-backed or bought electoral security. These are the people who gave us John Kerry instead of Howard Dean. This is the political calculation that stood by and did nothing while a President marched this country to war on false premises.

Obama is a move away from the DLC's philosophy of maintaining power regardless of how principles must be compromised to keep one's office. It's difficult to see exactly how much change an Obama presidency may bring contemporary politics; but this sandwich has faith that whatever can be ushered in will be an improvement over the current situation.

Influenza sucks

2008-02-04T17:21:00.000-05:00

I highly recommend the annual flu shot, however, it does not guarantee protection as I have found out to my great dismay the last 4 days.

The worst part is being tortured by chills, so I throw on a sweatshirt, then the chills go away and I sweat through every bit of clothing. What fun.

New Debit Card Borrows Against 401k

2008-02-04T17:16:00.000-05:00

This is almost too insane to be true, but unfortunately it is.

"The Reserve Solutions ReservePlus debit card lets employees borrow against their 401k plan by making withdrawals at ATMs, paying interest on the money withdrawn."

And just to confirm that this is not a prank, here's the actual corporate website. The above photo is one of someone (taken from the Res Sol website) who has not yet realized that buying that big-screen TV just torpedoed his retirement.

Sometimes reality is just too bizarre to allow for even a smidgeon of satire.

Everybody's 'Effin Matt Damon

2008-02-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

This was on Jimmy Kimmel earlier in the week. Bostodelphia got clued into it via a post by Wesley Morris on boston.com's Movie Nation:

While Sarah Silverman's confessional vid is the first time Matt Damon has been directly named in the media as a party to infidelity, Wes may remember that this is not the first time the actor's been implicated in such a role. While it never made mention in Wes's own review of Eurotrip, to my mind one of the most memorable scenes in that flick is another musical confession on the part or Mr. Damon:

Coddy may want me to mention that both Mr. Damon and Ms. Silverman are Boston area hometown heroes. That may be, but since neither of them mention their roots in the vid, I don't think this qualifies as one of our "rounds" in the ongoing Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 bout. I say that despite Boston's need to pull ahead on the bragging rights front. Really, the only thing Coddy's been able to dish out is a Mayor who can get elected?

Still, ~~in the spirit of the pending Super Bowl floor wiping the Pats are about to perform with the Giants,~~ perhaps we can rule that the "rounds" of the 2008 contest will be scored as "touchdowns" points wise, and local kids done good will warrant something akin to a field goal or maybe a safety.

Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 4: We got WING BOWL, Boston's got .... beans.

2008-01-31T21:40:00.000-05:00

Warning, nudity, debauchery, and vomiting below:

FRIDAY. WIP's Wing Bowl 16 goes down with door's opening at 5 a.m. It may look like bedlam in the vid, but there are rules, for spectators and participants. Most of you reading probably slept through all this. Fortunately for those of us who missed out, Philly.com covered the qualifying stunts and will be keeping some feeds from the frenzy.

Really, what's Boston got on this? A hockey tourney called the Beanpot, that finks out on incorporating actual baked beans into the event? The Scooperbowl? Please. It's childsplay, a noncompetitive event. No way peace love and ice cream is going to beat out strippers, early a.m. beer chuggin, and extreme competition eating. Sorry. Boston gets hosed here. In Philly, we can do all this and still make it to work by 9 or catch our Friday a.m. classes. Wait, uhhh, yeah, we'll be in, just a couple of minutes late. Really.

John Edwards speech

2008-01-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

John Edwards' bowing out speech in New Orleans from yesterday. It's worth watching.

Real Estate Denial in Boston

2008-01-31T09:16:00.000-05:00

With some moderation in the decline of the Case-Shiller housing index, a discussion was started on the real estate blog on Boston.com.

One commenter in particular is quite amusingly unaware of how the housing market works:

#9: I've been trying to sell my home for some time - and have also drastically dropped the asking multiple times, I can tell you that I'm done reducing the price. I literally can't afford to drop it anymore. Therefore, I'll just sit on my property and ride this out. Why should I continue to drop my asking price, only to have potential buyers come in, lowball me even further (who's being greedy then?), only to find out later that they can't even qualify for the loan! Anecdotally, I'm starting to hear many fellow sellers out there say the same thing. I don't think I'm being "greedy" for trying to sell my home for the assessed value (in my case, CONSIDERABLY less than the assessed value) - I'm just trying to get by, same as everyone else. Once the rest of the sellers out there get fed up with this situation - and see that houses aren't selling even when they make large price reductions - they're also going to stop dropping their prices. Then this market will finally bottom out. Posted by jack January 30, 08 10:27 AM

Well Jack, that's not the way it works. Home prices remain ~30% above the historical norm, and lenders, having stopped smoking the crack pipe of cheap credit, are returning in a big way to historical lending standards. Actually, they're being really tight with mortgage approvals - a mortgage broker told me recently that if your score is under 650 good luck finding a decent rate if you can get a mortgage at all. Traditional loans means that buyers won't be able to pay for houses that cost them 50%+ of their gross income...which means that sellers will inevitable come down to earth, screaming and kicking about their lost bubble equity. Boo-hoo. My heart bleeds for them.

On the bowing out bandwagon...

2008-01-30T17:11:00.000-05:00

Joe had a point, Rudy G's message was just a bit too limited. Former Hizzoner should have rolled with this:

Well Rudy backers, you all knew when you look at the man through clear lenses, you knew backing him was completely insane. You still can maintain the madness though. Bostodelphia advice: stick with the GOP's race's one true wild man.

Edwards Bows Out

2008-01-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

NYTimes is reporting Edwards will formally withdraw from the Democratic primary race today at a 1 p.m. EST speech in New Orleans. The setting is (still) a fitting location to remind voters and the remaining candidates what and who he's been fighting for.

Bostodelphia needs to discuss whether we maintain our common endorsement of Edwards through Super Tuesday, or shift to a different candidate. We'll let you know our decisions shortly.

For what it's worth, for those of you on the other side of the aisle, despite a 3.2% showing in the Florida primary, this guy apparently ain't going anywhere. So, for the repubs out there, keep with Paul. He makes this election coverage fun, and on our side of the race things have got a little bit less fun.

For what it's worth, Edwards pulled in 4X as many Dem votes as Paul did Republican votes.

Bostodelphia Super Tuesday Republican Primaries Endorsement: Ron Paul

2008-01-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

How can we not love this guy? He characterizes those who oppose his movement as "Tolkien's Orcs." Where's all the money going? Who knows? But he's just now able to add his political friends to paid staff positions. People are not just giving up mad props, they're putting blimps up there for him!

Full disclosure, since our tangle with the Ron Paul movement over matters of basic media literacy, we've actually had more to say about Ron Paul's campaign than either Coddy or I have had time to really broach. That Orc thing, for instance. Please, those of you not putting a word into the good fight of the Democratic primary, we beg you. Drop your ballot for Ron Paul. The longer he stays in this thing, the longer we'll have a ready topic to blog about for you, dear readers. This is about more than Ron Paul. This is about you. And us. Specifically us having something for you to read.

Bostodelphia Super Tuesday Democratic Primaries Endorsement: John Edwards

2008-01-29T09:32:00.000-05:00

As Super Tuesday approaches, Bostodelphia is sticking with our New Hampshire decision to back John Edwards.
Perhaps prior to the big primary shakedown, Cod Peace may step out to give a fuller explanation of our Edwards support. For now, in a nutshell we find Edwards the most progressive candidate.

Edwards is the most consistent among his competition in recognizing the need for economic justice/fairness as the most pressing issue facing a broad majority of Americans. While Senator Clinton touts her experience as most suited to running the ship as currently engineered, and Senator Obama strives to motivate Americans past the divisions that have plagued the country as far back as the 60s, we commend Edwards for recognizing that the present tax and economic regulatory system designed to maintain and further the wealth of America's richest exists at the expense of the country's middle and working class.