June 7-12, 1999

DeForest Kelley has died. He acted in a lot of westerns, but will always be best known for playing Dr. McCoy on Star Trek my favorite Star Trek character.

I never met Kelley, but from all accounts he was a true southern gentleman, a kind soul, the nicest of anyone to ever work on anything Star Trek. He retired years ago and is survived by Carolyn Kelley, his wife of 55 years.

Associated Press Obituary.

Emerchandise has marked down their Homicide stuff. Pr'y your last chance to get t-shirts, mugs, hats, etc.

For what it's worth, I've ordered from emerchandise before . . . the order took quite a while, but the product (a Homicide mug) was cool and worth the wait.

The Ectophiles Guide to Good Music is very cool. And I'm not just saying that 'cuz I'm an ectophile from way back. Confused? Um, er . . . it's a long story. This page may have the best explanation, maybe.

I've been on the ecto mailing list for years, though I'll admit I've not read or posted much recently. I used to be a regular on #ecto on IRC (EFnet and DALnet). Those were the days (or something). I still feel residual guilt for not contributing more to the Guide (perhaps one of these days in my copious free time). I'm still proud of introducing ecto to Richard Shindell (one of the few male artists revered by ectophiles-- him and Peter Gabriel, mainly).

The font I used for "Windowseat Weblog" (above) is fontdinerdotcom, one of the fine fonts available from http://www.fontdiner.com/ (imagine that). I also used it for the asterisks, in case anyone was wondering.

I love fonts, especially free retro fonts.

An excellent question, posed by Mike at the Backfence:

Quick question: What does "legally drunk" mean? If it's legal, then why do police give you a ticket? If I'm "legally drunk," shouldn't I get some sort of praise from the police?

Greg Knauss:

So who, exactly, collects the TV Guide Collector's Covers? Is there some hidden percentage of the population that sits, in darkened rooms and sweaty anticipation, just waiting for the opportunity to buy not one squat little book with a weekly expiration date, but four copies of exactly the same book because the cover plate was changed between printings? And would they do the same thing with half-gallons of milk if Gillian Anderson were featured on the carton?

The answers are, of course, "geeks," "yes" and "Oh, my God! Do they make Gillian Anderson milk? Where can I get it? Oh, my God!"

I've often wondered if anyone buys more than one issue based on these covers (someone must). And what's the deal with people buying four copies of The Phantom Menace novel for the four different covers? Ack. I know I'm a collector, but even I can't imagine going that far. Well maybe if they were on sale . . . (no no no no no, I wouldn't).

I know I have a tendency to champion underdogs (have no fear, Laurel is here!), but perhaps it'd be taking it too far if I registered a pro-Jar Jar domain name. Had I any extra money right now, I'd be tempted. That's my new motivation for finding a job, extra money so I can register jarjar-rocks.com. Or not. (I didn't mind him . . . much, for what it's worth. Don't think him worthy of all the backlash. Though the monster candy tongue is truly frightening).

Sitcoms Online [via memepool]

Salon interview with Jim Romenesko of the Obscure Store:

With a good log, you get to know the person behind it a little bit, the person's taste, the person's attitude toward society.

Yeah, I'm in the middle of a redesign of this particular page. Like it? Dislike it? Are the asterisks too much? Got a better idea? (I'm so so so sick of horizontal rules). Hate this color scheme? Like it? Help me, oh faithful readers, you're my only hope.

I got socked today with a nasty cold, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to redesign webpages when drugged to the gills with cold medicine, but you never know . . .

I told a friend via ICQ that I had gone through almost a whole box of Kleenex today, says he "I hope you have the kind with lotion in them." My reply: "Alas, no. What, you don't want me to be Laurel 'sandpaper nose' Krahn?"

James Lileks on Tom Swift and Star Wars.

I wasn't the only one trying to watch the series finale of Deep Space Nine while storm warnings were splashed all over the screen. Lileks:

Now, let's think. I'm watching TV. Indoors. Granted, I might be watching a portable in the back yard while I run around with a 10-foot metal pole, shouting, "Look, Ma, I'm stirrin' the clouds!" But most TV watchers are indoors, and have access to a recent innovation called a window. Thus, when the skies darken and the rain comes, most people act accordingly. When the hail starts, they do not frantically move all the good china onto the front lawn. When the trees bend low with a shrieking wind, most people don't run outside and start packing parachutes or folding mainsails.

The warnings ran nonstop for an hour, consuming half the screen. A small inset box showed the affected counties, drenched in red, throbbing like infected teeth. (The storm, as usual, walked right up to the edge of county borders and never stepped over.) Scrolling text gave us the latest news of this horrible, horrible crisis. At one point, the text listed the canceled warnings near Duluth. In other words: It's no longer not raining where you don't live.

The stations can, and will, insist that their zeal reflects their devotion to public service. I'll believe that the day they run the warnings during the commercials. Odd how the crisis passes when it's time to sell cars.

I don't think I have any use for a tilt sensor for my Palm Pilot, but it's good to know it's possible . . .

NBC to invest in/partner with TiVo. I'm most intrigued by NBC's comments that they might air "desirable shows" outside of primetime to benefit TiVO users (or folks who use other means to timeshift/archive shows).

If I only had a lawn, then I'd get my very own HoseyCow. Thanks to David Letterman for helping me see the light, and Cam for providing the link.

http://www.lyrics.ch/, the international lyrics server, is back online . . . sorta. Lyrics to songs are made available as they get approval to list them online . . .

A fine piece about Marilyn Monroe and the many women who are now writing about her (and the differences between their books and older ones by men) [via Robot Wisdom].

Women saw Monroe differently, but, according to Gloria Steinem's Marilyn, they were rarely heard. Ms. Steinem writes that Ladies' Home Journal reporter Margaret Parton tried to do a profile of Monroe, turning in a sympathetic story about a "sick little canary" working hard to be a "peacock."

"Beneath the sickness, the weakness and the innocence, you find a strong bone structure, and a heart beating. You recognize sickness, and you find strength," Ms. Parton wrote.

The article was rejected as too favorable, and for years female authors steered clear of Monroe - often by choice.

Oh-oh! Law & Order fans who thought they finally knew for sure (maybe) this year that Claire died can think again. Maybe Sam Waterson is messing with people's minds? Rumor was posted to Ain't It Cool News and presumably to the Law & Order newsgroup and mailing list that Jill Hennessy may return for at least an episode or two next season. 'Course it could be flashbacks or a different character or or or . . .

Harry Knowles on meeting Bruce Campbell and the Evil Dead film festival.

Might as well plug Bruce Campbell's website while I'm at it.

Whatever happened to "there can be only one"? Sounds like there may be a fourth Highlander movie (I've only seen the first one).

Okay, I think I'm finally going to redesign this page. It's a very, very simple page in the first place and I'm inclined not to add another column or any bells and whistles. Mostly I think I'm gonna change background/text color and make a new (probably smaller) header graphic. If you've got any suggestions, now's the time to send 'em in. I'm leaning towards something as simple as white background, black or navy text. Too boring?

I was intrigued by Ira Glass' appearance on the Late Show w/ David Letterman a week or so ago. Perhaps I'm behind the times, or I simply don't listen to the radio enough, but I hadn't heard of his show before. Here's the website for This American Life, I'm gonna try to catch the show next time around.

What the? An article about luring girls into the technical arena, titled "Geeks are from Venus, too." Do you all still think there's a shortage of female geeks?

Doesn't seem like it to me at all, but then I've been online for 15 years and remember how few women there were around in those days. 'Course maybe fewer women are opting to try to get net related jobs. Or fewer are getting hired . . . (Hire me!)

Rob Owen lists 9 good reasons Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series [via Bradlands].

Excellent. And yeah, I agree (and I agree with Brad's assessment of the finale at Bradlands, FWIW).

There's too much potentially good or outright good TV on tonight (Tuesday). And I'm going to a Twins-Reds game. Time to set the VCR (and wish I had a couple more).

Were I one of the lucky geeks to make megabucks off of a website or a cool bit of software, I'd probably be tempted to buy the Star Trek Camaro [via camworld].

More spiff stuff from memepool: GameFAQs has, well, you know. And AMC's website for their American Pop series is, indeed, really cool. If you're a pop culture junkie like me (and if so, you do read Retro, right? And Teletype . . . mentioned here many months ago).

You should also visit the rest of James Lileks' website when you go there for his bleats (or for the Gallery of Regrettable Food, or the Ghost Ads, or or or . . . ) Pleased to see parts of it mentioned in a bunch of weblogs in recent months.

Cool. I've been playing Zork on my PalmIII for a while now, Rafe links to a PalmPower article about running Infocom games on Palm Pilots.

Is it real or did they make it up? The Save Everything! email is hilarious, regardless. Especially if you've seen a lot of Save our TV Show campaign letters.

An article about Homicide's east coast actors, quotes Pat Moran and extras and supporting players from the show.

Lileks reviews The Phantom Menace in today's (Tuesday) bleat (it's not archived so read it Tuesday or miss it). Does contain spoilers.

I think I like Katie Couric, here's what she had to say about a certain Guv Jesse Ventura [via tvbarn]:

"I don't think he's that fascinating," Couric shrugged. "I think he's interesting, but I don't think he warrants quite the amount of news coverage he's received. I think you have to see what he does in the actual act of governing before he deserves more attention."

Amen. Not that most Minnesotans I know are sick of hearing about Jesse Ventura (and his book tour in particular) or anything. And tired of the international media paying him so much attention. It was cool for a week or two maybe, but now it's just tiresome. Not that I'm not looking forward to the tax rebate.

Arrrgh! Another confounding piece about Steven Bochco's new drama. Why confounding? Oh because of the usual, talk as if he's doing something oh-so-groundbreaking by creating a drama with a lot of black characters. Nevermind that Homicide is the first (and so far only, near as I can tell) show to have a realistic racial mix (or as close as anyone has got) among regulars, supporting players, extras . . .

Two new half-hour series to replace Hercules when it goes off the air [via tvbarn]:

Jack of All Trades is an action series set on a Caribbean island in the 18th century, where the citizens are fighting for a stake in the New World. The series revolves around Jack Styles, a British Secret Service agent who gets into a number of sticky situations, Studios USA executives say.

Cleopatra 2525 follows the adventures of an exotic dancer who is cryogenically frozen and then thawed in the year 2525 by two female warriors.

No, I didn't make that last one up. I like the sound of the first one, but then I'm a sucker for spy/adventure type things. The second one surely sounds like a joke, but then you never know . . .

Free Kevin

2600 coverage of last week's demonstrations, they've got links to the press coverage, too. As does HNN.

Dates, times, and locations for Richard Belzer's book tour.

Julian Barnes spends an ettiquette-conscious week in the United States [via ald]:

Etiquette is not about life but about creating a simulacrum of life; and manuals of etiquette, even in their democratised, multiple-choice manifestations, have a similar essential unreality. The Book of Life, being non-fictional, always ends in death, whereas the Book of Etiquette, being pastoral or romance, ends in marriage. For all its appearance of diurnal helpfulness, its underlying function is to offer an ideal vision of the world: suburban, prelapsarian, pre-Cheever - a world of serious light comedy in which James Stewart always wears his hat at just that angle.

And Emily Post apparently has nothing useful to say about pet pigs (or other pets, for that matter):

Yet how should the Invaded Guest respond? Should he (a) keep silent, (b) mildly complain, i.e., snitch on the pig, or (c) mildly apologise for some indefinable guestly failing? Emily Post was no help; indeed her whole section on pets is all to do with ownership and training, as if animals were recalcitrant minor human beings, needing to be educated in Etiquette. She fails to treat the equally valid matter of how a guest should respond to provocation by his or her host's pets. Most of us have experienced the damp canine nose heading for the wrong place, the feline claws clenching and unclenching on the groin area, the goat or rabbit hungry for shoelaces.

There is a campaign to save Homicide: Life on the Street, in case anyone is interested. I've decided not to support it as I think there's little hope (I did my part writing to NBC while the show was still on the air) and because I felt the finale was a decent end for the series.

I hope Richard Belzer does get to play Det. John Munch on one or both of the Law & Order series. And I wouldn't mind a Homicide movie in which Kay Howard returned and caught Beau Felton's killer (and arrested Falsone for his part in that), but somehow I don't think there's a snowballs chance in Hell of it happening. Ach well, a girl can dream.

Tip:
A recent discussion on alt.tv.homicide reminded me of one of my fave web-related tips (perhaps it's old news for you, but if it's a new idea for any one person, 'tis worth posting). Save any webpages you reference frequently-- that aren't updated frequently-- to your harddrive. That way you can access them offline or save download time. It's also a great way to have the page handy in case it goes away when an account goes dead or the maintainer takes the page offline.

I've saved a ton of TV show episode guides, for instance. And the Jargon file, of course. And some definition lists. It can be an incredible timesaver. And I know I've been very relieved to have saved some obscure TV websites-- once they disappear with no forwarding URL.

Useful reference:
Zagat Restaurant Guides [via Camworld]

James Lileks on Deep Space Nine:

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" turned out to be the best show of them all. Sure, it started slow. Yes, it wandered, it droned, it bored, it drove off the casual viewer. But then it got good. Very, very good. Tonight's two-hour finale doesn't just end a show -- it ties up a story that's been running on TV for 30 years.

And he nails the heart of it, with this:

Aside from adding the Borg to the list of bogeymen, "TNG" left the Federation story as it found it. "DS9" provided what every Trek geek has wanted: a great conflict that brought the Federation, the Klingons and those prissy technocratic totalitarians the Romulans together on one side. The producers can thank Gene Roddenberry -- for not being around, that is. "DS9" broke all of Roddenberry's rules. The officers argue. The Federation is revealed as fallible, even corrupt. Characters actually change as events shape them.

I miss the show already. I'm glad that I know there are episodes I've missed, so I can look forward to catching them in reruns (assuming some local channel would air reruns at a decent hour with some frequency . . . sigh).

I like Lileks musings on regrettable hues from Sunday's Backfence column, but I'm quoting this part 'cuz I'm curious what y'all think:

From Christine, who started the whole duck-duck-goose controversy awhile ago, another regional peculiarity:

It's the "binder" bugaboo. Again, I wonder if Minnesota was just plunked down in the middle of the country from some alien place and the language simulator went out of whack. I don't know of anyone else besides Minnesotans who calls one of those skinny rubber circles a rubber binder. I'm a native Californian and I admit I've succumbed to some Minnesota language oddities, such as hot dish and "Do you want to come with?" but I can't bring myself to say rubber binder. Plus, I have a slight overbite thus making this way too many bbbbb's in a row.

Pity the poor person who has a slight overbite and has to order a box of black rubber binders for the Brainerd Better Business Bureau; there would be enough airborne spittle in that conversation to soak a phone book. So: Is Christine right? Are binder-speakers the norm around here? You tell me. Wednesday: Return of the rabbit's feet. See you then.

Arrgh! I'm one Minnesotan who loathes the use of "rubber binder" instead of "rubber band," I'd hoped it was a regionalism from somewhere else . . . because I truly hate it. If I hear anyone say it, I want to hurt them. And I'll give them a withering look (to put it mildly). Thems fighting words? Something like that.

A particularly fine piece from the often-fine Jon Carroll (read the whole thing, darnit):

I REMEMBER BEING 10 years old and watching a man -- I am not sure which man; my childhood had a lot of shadowy male figures, camp counselors and other people's fathers and gentleman callers -- decisively rapping on the walls of some home, not my own. I asked what he was doing.

"I'm looking for the studs," he said.

This struck me as a wholly wonderful answer, although entirely mysterious. "Studs" was not a word I had encountered in any context at that age; "studs" could have been rodents or wraiths or pieces of eight.

He said he was listening for the hollow noises. When the hollow noises stopped, that's where the studs were. A responsible homeowner would hang pictures only where the studs were, he said. This sounded entirely supernatural, an appeasement of gods I had not even known existed.

I still believe in the studs in the walls. I hear them sometimes at night. When a picture falls off the wall, I think: angry stud.

Many cool links at memepool this week, I could link to a bunch myself, but I'm gonna be lazy and just tell you to visit them already (if you haven't). You can play "guess which links Laurel likes" if you'd like.

Rave:
I love Lush, their solid shampoos are fabulous (and makes me wonder why on earth I used bottled shampoo for so many years). I adore their Crush shower gel (it smells like orange juice). And while I'm not generally the kind o' gal who goes ga-ga over lotions, I'm ga-ga for their "Sympathy for the Skin". Lots of other spiff products, I'm sure. Order from the website (I've had only good experiences the two times I've ordered) or visit their stores in Canada and the U.K.

Review of Laurie Anderson's Moby [via Robot Wisdom].

New profile of Suzanne Vega from The Irish Times [via Robot Wisdom]:

I started to read when I was about three. I guess I must have started writing things when I was just a bit older than that. I had a very active imagination and I took pleasure in putting it down in some way that I could remember what I thought. I liked thinking and I liked being in my own world - something I was constantly reprimanded for!

On New York:

I used to run into John Cale at the gym of all places! That's the kind of gym it was - a very weird intellectual gym where you'd find Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, John Cale and Joe Jackson - none of whom look like they could lift a weight at all. It was a very downtown kind of gym. But it's New York itself that is the huge presence - not any of these individuals. Everybody draws their energy and their style from it and it's kind of give and take. Yes, if you think about Lou Reed, you think about New York but the city is a much bigger presence than any one person. The city is like a puzzle that you can never leave alone because it can never be done.

Theremini is a Theremin-emulator (sorta) for Palm Pilots. Thanks to Felix Strates for the link.

Jar Jar Binks Monster Tongue Candy and other, um, interesting stuff in last week's log.

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