Endymion's Pontchartrain Beach Float Impressed Me (Video)

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Endymion's Pontchartrain Beach float is soooo long that it couldn't make a corner turn. The Krewe of Endymion debuted its massive Pontchartrain Beach float at its 2013 parade, three days before Mardi Gras.

The float has multiple cars, is 375 feet long, and holds at least 230 riders, and it pays tribute to a local amusement park that closed in 1983. The cars represent different attractions and memorable rides at the park, as well as its clown and lighthouse.

The float stalled for a while, as you can see on the first video, because it could not make the turn on Orleans and Carrollton avenues in Mid-City. Two or three of the cars had to be separated and moved by themselves around the corner. In addition to a host of programmable colored lights, the float plays music and releases scented air that smells like popcorn, cotton candy, and someone said "hamburgers" too. The Haunted House car of the float and the Wild Maus brought back some memories for me. I remember that skeleton that appeared to climb out of the top of the building and now appears to climb out of the float.

As you'll hear from a conversation I had with a man more than 10 years older than I, this float brought back childhood memories. You can't see him on the video, but he's white, and I am black. He was a complete stranger to me, but started a conversation. It says something that we discussed Pontchartrain Beach memories together.

Pontchartrain Beach, which opened in the 1950s was segregated. African-Americans went to Lincoln Beach. So that's where I went until around age five. When Pontchartrain Beach was forced by law to integrate, Lincoln Beach closed down.

Also in this post, for those who did not grow up in New Orleans before the 1980s, I've embedded video of the old Pontchartrain Beach commercial. The Zephyr car at the beginning of the float represents the roller coaster most of us from that era loved to ride. You can see it in the commercial.



Finally, here is a slideshow of the renderings of the float from Kern Studios (float designers and builders). You can compare the drawings to the final product.

If Russia's Meteor Had Hit the American South, People Would Have Thought It Was the End of the World (video)

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Some students in a physics class in Chelyabinsk, Russia, thought war had broken out when this week's blasts from a meteor broke windows at their school. If such a cosmic event had happened here in the American South, I think our Fundamentalist Christians would have thought not war but the end of the world.

Read more at CNN where a "witness says flash shone 'like 10 suns,' felt shock wave pass through his body".

I have stopped paying attention to the schedule of heavenly phenomena because the few times I've gone out to see anything, I've seen nothing. The New Orleans sky remains clouded with city light pollution.

Amber Holcomb Sang My Funny Valentine For Real, Like a Natural Born Star (Video). But See Also Melinda Doolittle

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Amber Holcomb - Vegas Singoff - American Idol 12 by IdolxMuzic

I would buy Amber Holcomb's rendition of "My Funny Valentine" right this minute if it were for sale. The young Texan performed the jazz classic on tonight's sudden death round of American Idol, proving that she deserves to be on the show and in the music business. I enjoyed Kree Harrison and singer/songwriter Angela Miller as well.

Also, take a look at the joy shining on Keith Urban's face while he watched Amber sing. Talk about singer love!

I don't watch Idol like I used to, but I'm happy I tuned in tonight.

Based on something someone said on Twitter, I decided to add Melinda Doolittle's performance of My Funny Valentine on Season 6 of American Idol. She also did an excellent job with the song, but as we know, she was also voted off the show despite being an early front runner. However, some Idol voters thought she didn't "look" like a star. Seriously, this idea about "having the whole package" is the death of real music. Fortunately, there are some who have been voted off Idol who don't let stupid voting stop them from go on to better things.

This Is What It Means to Get Better with Age: John B. Williams and Nancy Wilson (audio)

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" type="audio/mpeg" /> " Amber Holcomb's rendition of "My Funny Valentine" reminded me how much I love the song, and despite already having multiple copies of the classic by different artists, I went in search of other versions. As a result, I discovered bassist John B. Williams's cut of "You'll See/My Funny Valentine" with the incomparable Nancy Wilson on vocals. You'll find the track on the musician's Gratitude (2005) album/CD, which I strongly urge you to buy.

The song "You'll See" precedes "My Funny Valentine," flowing right into the latter with Nancy Wilson crooning out "Valentine" at such a high pitch I had to wonder, What motivates that kind of choice from a seasoned singer?" It works, though, it really works. If you can listen to the sample embedded in this post, you'll see what I mean. It's duende at work. She'll make you truly comprehend what it means to call a voice "an instrument." Her choices astound me, and the two tracks blend well together.

Wilson and Williams groove like old lovers, and that should not surprise me, considering how long they've been together. On track 6, "Blame It On My Youth," Wilson jokingly sounds rather proprietary about the musician. Calling him "my bassist," she says that he's been with her for 22 or 23 years, only leaving when she's "allowed him to go" play a gig or two on television.

McCain, President Obama, and the Republican Base: Impeachment and Voter Fraud Again? (video)

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The video above shows Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain in a pickle again, having to defend President Obama to the fringier folks of the Republican base. The first clip is from a 2008 neeting when a McCain supporter says then-candidate Obama is an Arab. The second clip comes from footage of a McCain Town Hall meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, held this year, 2013.

First a Cuban-American woman named Angelica asks, Why hasn't President Obama been impeached yet? Right after her, another woman stands and says President Obama won election due to voter fraud. McCain dismisses the first question and attempts to refute the second comment.

His moves are correct for the current political climate: Republicans are trying to avoid a seeming alignment with the peoples of Crazyville. But he walks a tightrope. While the GOP calls such people (like the women speaking) their fringe, they must be careful not to antagonize them the same way some Democratic candidates in the South try not to antagonize constituents they know to be racists (Yes, there are racists in both parties). Politicians are always mindful of who butters their bread.

Who is more Nerdy? IT Staff or Accountants?

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Hey yall!

This article is just for fun... gits and shiggles if you know what I mean.

But anywho, seriously... who is nerdier?

IT Staff or Accountants?

Well, its such a tricky question...

You see IT staff work with computers... so in theory they should be pretty nerdy right?

But accountants work with numbers constantly, and they do work ON computers... and since accountants are pretty boring at the office, ye gotta figure they are anything but boring in their private lives, right?

You know, Mr Tweed at work... goes home and he becomes Super Toy Railroad Construction Man!

The same thing with the IT guys... sure they like their computers and gadgets, but what happens when they go home? Dungeons and Dragons Online? Do they invite friends over and play Magic the Gathering? Do they watch the latest episodes of Big Bang Theory repeatedly (like I sometimes do...)?

Or do they go to the archery range? (Seriously, a whole lotta of IT guys at the archery range... its like golf for nerds. Note: I have yet to meet an accountant at the archery range however.)

The point I am trying to make is that accountants and IT staff don't sit at home in their sunrooms reading Agatha Christie novels... (Agatha Christie to me is the epitome of boredom.)

And then again they're not exactly jumping and down to go play basketball, baseball, hockey on the Rideau Canal when its iced over and slapshot a puck through some Ottawa windows... although frankly, hitting hockey pucks or baseball balls in the direction of 24 Sussex does sound quite entertaining.

Well... how about we let the INTERNET decide which is nerdier... lets pick two companies, one which does IT staffing Toronto and the other with Toronto accountants. I say Toronto because at least then we narrow the field for local bias. ie. Cleveland accountants might be more boring than Las Vegas accountants, for obvious reasons.

Next we go to their websites and see which website looks nerdier.

The accountants apparently like row boats, or in this case sculling.

The IT staffers apparently like to shake hands and sit around drinking coffee, occasionally stretching their muscles judging by the one girl flexing.

Next we do a Google image search of their domain names:

Accountants

VS.

IT Staff

Difficult to say which looks nerdier.

Post your vote in the comments section!

She's back! ...With an iPad

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As I attempt to start using this blog more than once a year, I think a good place to start might be with my latest investment: the iPad 2.

As some of you may or may not know, I work for a company that develops for iOS devices. So while the iPad may not be the tablet of choice for everyone, it certainly is quite an advantage for me.

What I wanted it for:
- Writing (using a stylus)
- Editing
- Gaming
- Reading
- Various types of web browsing.

What I've used it for so far:
- Gaming
- Blogging (I just found a solid blogging app)
- Watching TV - apparently all the major Canadian networks have apps now. Who knew?

Writing
I bought a stylus and I tried both Bamboo (by Waccom) and Penultimate but I've yet to really get comfortable with it, despite having spent several years pining away for a tablet I can write on with a stylus. I just find the lack of tactile feedback hard to adjust to.

Reading
Having been pretty satisfied with the iPhone version of GoodReader, I bought the iPad version of it, and I love it. I'm still discovering the various features it has available. So far, I've used it to review chapters for my writing group.

I also gave Stanza, Bookman and the Kindle app a try. Combine those with the fact that public domain books on Google can be downloaded in PDF, and well...let's just say I'm kind of excited about it.

Video
I discovered a VLC app on my hard drive that has long since disappeared from the app store but apparently works flawlessly on the IPad. So I can now play avi files on my iPad!

Games
There are tons. My company's games look fantastic on the iPad and I look forward to posting reviews of random apps that I find.

Hardware
At some point, I intend to buy an iPad keyboard case (to make this a whole lot easier). But there are so many (all of which seem to only be available on the web), that I need to look carefully to separate the quality cases from the cheap merchandise. With the amount of writing I do, I would certainly get a lot of use out of it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad