Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

DVD driver acquitted

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This originally just went into my linklog, but considering my previous rant, I wanted to follow up on this one. The Alaskan driver accused of killing two people due to watching a DVD while driving has been acquitted.

A man was acquitted Tuesday of charges he caused a fatal crash by taking his eyes off the road while watching a movie on a DVD player mounted on his truck dashboard.

Jurors acquitted Erwin Petterson Jr., 29, of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of manslaughter. No law in Alaska prohibits operating a DVD player in view of a driver.

[…]

Stein argued that Petterson and his passenger Jonathan Douglas were watching a DVD movie when Petterson’s pickup truck crossed the center line, hitting the Weisers’ sport utility vehicle head-on. Petterson testified he was not watching a movie and that his truck strayed into oncoming traffic when he reached for a soda.

The Weisers died at the scene.

Marty Zoda, Douglas’ former wife, testified that her ex-husband told her the DVD was running when the accident happened, a claim Douglas denied.

If installed as recommended, DVD players will not work in an automobile unless the emergency brake is on or the vehicle is in park. Prosecutors said Petterson overrode those safety measures when he installed an entertainment system including a DVD player, speakers and a Sony PlayStation 2 in his pickup truck.

All my sympathies go out to the families of the people killed.

I stand by my previous rant, too. Pay attention to the road.

iTunes: “Dancing With Myself (Original 12″)\” by Generation X from the album Devolution: Alternative Rock Classics 1975-1985 (1981, 5:58).

The mysterious H. John Heinz IV

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Of the various children and stepchildren of John Kerry and Teresa Heinz-Kerry, one has been conspicuously absent from all of the various political appearances and shenanigans: H. John Heinz IV, Teresa’s oldest child. As it turns out, he’s a very private man, doing his best to keep him and his family out of the limelight. A difficult task, I’m sure, especially with the current presidential campaign in full swing.

Still, a few details do surface from time to time, and I’ve got to say that not only does John sounds like an incredibly accomplished and very interesting individual, he apparently also has impeccable fashion sense.

What’s known is this: Heinz IV, 37, is an accomplished blacksmith who trained at Williamsburg, Va., and sometimes wears a workman’s kilt, called a “Utilikilt,” at his forge in rural Pennsylvania.

He fabricates custom-made historical arms and armor, tools and architectural hardware, 10 percent down.

He’s a Buddhist who teaches meditation and who practices the Zen martial art of Shim Gum Do.

He was the founder and funder of a school for teenagers “at risk of not succeeding in life,” as Heinz IV himself once described it. For several years, the school was situated on a 136-acre tract he owns in Upper Black Eddy, Pa.

He cared for his daughter, Astrid, now 4, while his nutritionist wife, Kristann, 34, attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.

An artist, he drew the portrait for medallions given to recipients of Heinz Awards, which are offered, along with a \$250,000 grant, in memory of his father, the late Sen. John Heinz III (R-Pa.).

And he sits on the board of the \$862-million Howard Heinz Endowment, chaired by his mother.

[…]

Heinz IV dubbed his made- to-order blacksmith business Herugrim, which in Old English means “fierce in war,” his Web site says. Heinz IV’s forge specializes in medieval-style helmets, cutting tools (swords, knives, axes and chisels), hinges, locks and nails. Most of the hardware he fabricates is for 18th century homes and buildings.

There is evidence that Heinz IV can be generous to a fault. When the Utilikilts team, based in Seattle, showed up for a Pennsylvania festival, they transported plenty of kilts, leather and otherwise, but they had no room for their tent or display racks.

Their Web site says “Utilikiltarian” Heinz IV came to the rescue, fabricating display racks in a four-hour session at his forge.

A festival photo shows Heinz IV smiling and playful in a mock chorus line, with everyone in kilts. For the camera, he coyly lifts his kilt to mid-thigh, far above his scuffed dark workboots and rolled-down socks.

A Utilikilts representative declined to comment, but the company Web site says Heinz IV and his wife “stepped up to take excellent care of us.”

Best of luck to John and his family in the coming months — but at the same time, I’ll keep hoping to see a guy in a kilt show up at some important presidental function eventually…

(via the Yahoo! Utilikilts Group)

iTunes: “White Whisper” by Deep Forest from the album Deep Forest (1992, 5:45).

August 11th is National Underwear Day

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At least, according to Freshpair.com, it is…

Underwear isn’t something we talk about much. For a long, long time it didn’t get mentioned at all, except as “unmentionables”, and it was seen even less. Today, it is very different. Increasingly, women are showing glimpses of bra straps and lingerie under a see-through shirt. Likewise, men don’t worry about keeping their underwear waistbands below their pants. In fact, far from being hidden or inappropriate, intimate apparel now fits snugly into pop culture-through fashion, through retail, through celebrities’ attire, and a million other ways. Even when you don’t think about it, underwear reflects a mood, a personality, a sense of style, a special occasion, and so much more. It’s more revealing than anything else we wear-which may be why it’s so rarely revealed.

[…]

This is the day when underwear becomes not just the first thing you put on and the last thing you take off, but the most important thing you wear all day. Go on an underwear shopping spree to dress yourself. Dress from the inside out.

Call your favorite radio station and tell them about National Underwear Day, and how listeners can go to www.freshpair.com to sign the petition urging official recognition of a day to honor these invaluable but underappreciated undergarments.

Treat yourself to that new thong you’ve been eyeing. Break out your favorite pair of boxers. Take a few minutes to find what’s in your top drawer and revisit your underwear history. Start a conversation around the water cooler. Proudly display a bit of your skivvies for all to see. Don’t be shy about it. Underwear is one thing we all have in common (unless you’re one of those people who don’t wear any).

Ahem. ;)

(via Len)

iTunes: “Theme, The (Hot Tracks)” by Black Girl Rock from the album Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition (1997, 5:56).

Tigger cleared of all charges

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In a recent trial in Florida, a Disney employee was found not guilty of fondling a 13 year old girl while posing in a Tigger costume for photographs. My favorite part of the article was a series of photos in which the defense attorney tried on a Tigger costume in order to demonstrate how difficult it can be to know exactly where one’s hands are placed while suited up. The photos are priceless…

Book him, Dan-o

“Book him, Dan-o.”

Tigger being arrested

“This creep’s been pouncing on people all over the Hundred Acre Wood again.”

Check everywhere

“Hey! Is the full-body cavity search really necessary, guys?”

I'm innocent!

Tigger pleaded innocent, claiming that pouncing is “what Tiggers do best!”

The Tigger macarena

After being let go with a warning, the courtroom quickly cleared as Tigger celebrated by performing the Macarena.

iTunes: “Macarena (Mezcla Guerrillera)” by Los Del Rio from the album Macarena Non Stop (1996, 5:36).

PvP takes on the comic syndicates

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The author of PvP, a webcomic that I really don’t read often enough (though that should change now that I discovered their RSS feed), has decided that the newspaper comic syndication racket isn’t for him. So, instead of giving up all the rights to his strip, he’s going to investigate syndicating it himself for free.

This last year, I was contacted by Universal Press Syndicates about PvP. They know the strip and were very interested in syndicating it as a feature. I would love to see PvP in newspapers and we started talks. I let them know that there were six years of archives available and that I could edit the strips to conform to family paper editorial standards. The only thing I could not do was give up my ownership and rights to my creation.

Under no circumstances would I relinquish my copyright, book deals, merchandise deals, rights to market my strips, etc. If they wanted PvP, we would agree to a newspaper distribution deal and that was it. After six weeks the syndicates returned with their answer: They wanted PvP…all of it. If they could not have the rights to the feature, they weren’t interested. So we parted ways.

But I’ve already become attached to the idea of seeing PvP in the papers, and that’s why I’ve decided to start a new program. In the coming months, I’ll be putting into effect, a program in which papers can receive PVP for free. That’s right, free. They don’t have to pay me a cent for it. I will provide for the papers, a comic strip with a larger established audience then any new syndicated feature, a years worth of strips in advance, and I won’t charge them a cent for it.

Best of luck on this project. From the sound of it, if this is a success, it could be the first step in rather radically changing the comic strip industry.

iTunes: “Love on Haight Street” by BT from the album Movement in Still Life (2000, 6:18).

What’s the profit margin on this troll hunt?

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Okay, yes, diff’rent streaks for diff’rent freaks and all that, but — without meaning any offense — I’ve got to admit that an all-economists Dungeons and Dragons game just might rank fairly high in my personal descriptions of hell. ;)

Is it really financially prudent to go after this troll?

What’s the expected profit-to-loss ratio if we attempt to capture the dragon’s hoard?

Does our raiding party’s net worth really justify attacking in this instance?

Disclaimer: I am neither an economist nor a D&D player, so I have no real personal experience to draw upon for this — though while my exposure to economists is nearly nonexistent, I’ve known, been around, and lived with enough D&D players to know how wacky they can get on their own — I just thought that the combination of the two was simultaneously amusing and frightening. Please take this post as the good-natured ribbing that it’s meant to be. ;)

Pay attention to the road, you idiots

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Years ago, while driving around Anchorage, I glanced to my right and saw a couple guys driving around with a portable DVD player sitting on the dashboard of their car, quite happily watching a movie as they motored around town. Very unamused by their obvious disregard to the safety of themselves and those around them, I made sure to move a lane over so that I wasn’t next to them, and then spent the next few minutes ranting to whoever I was in the passenger seat about the idiodicy of trying to drive and watch a DVD at the same time.

Well, with the boom in fancy car toys over the last few years, including things like in-car DVD players, the inevitable has finally happened: two people in Alaska were killed by a driver watching a movie on a dash-mounted DVD player.

In what may be the first trial of its kind in the nation, prosecutors have accused the pickup truck’s driver of second-degree murder for watching a movie instead of the road when he crashed head-on into the Jeep.

The pickup’s driver, Erwin J. Petterson Jr., denies using the DVD player as he drove north on October 12, 2002 and contends he was only listening to music from a compact disc, said his attorney, Chuck Robinson.

[…]

After the crash, Petterson and his passenger, roommate Jonathan Douglas, were transported to an Anchorage hospital. Within hours, Douglas called his ex-wife and told her he was not sure how the collision occurred because he was “spacing out on a movie they were watching,” according to prosecutors. The woman is scheduled to testify.

David Weiser, 34, the son of the slain couple, said only two people know what happened in the cab of the truck. But equipping a truck with entertainment options that can be used while driving goes beyond a momentary distraction of putting on makeup or using a cell phone, he said.

“This takes forethought, this takes methodical steps,” David Weiser said. \”You have to go to the store, plop over money, install it, and install it so it can be used without a brake employed.

“I view it as no different than walking into a bar, having five beers within an hour and getting behind the wheel,” said Weiser, who quit an eight-year career as a loan originator in Boston to attend the trial.

It’s very simple, people. If you’re driving a car, then drive the damn car. Don’t jabber on a phone (I don’t care how many times you tell me it doesn’t affect your driving — studies show that cell phone usage while driving is at least as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol, and if I know that you’re calling me from a cell phone while on the road, I will hang up on you), don’t watch a damn movie, and for God’s sake, pay attention to driving!

(via /.)

iTunes: “Entrada and Shootout” by Goldenthal, Elliot from the album Heat (1995, 1:45).

Buckminster Pinhead

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Buckminster FullerPinhead

Yesterday was the 109th birthday of Buckminster Fuller, inventor of Geodesic domes and many other nifty technological goodnesses.

However, in a rather bizarre turn of events, the U.S. Postal Service chose this date to issue a commemorative stamp featuring the visage of famed Hellraiser Cenobyte Pinhead.

iTunes: “SickAspFuck (Full Gimball #1 Club)” by Pigface from the album Preaching to the Perverted (1995, 4:59).

So then — off I fucked.

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Slate has a wonderful look at the history and vernacular of our Vice President’s most notorious favorite four-letter word in A Very, Very Dirty Word.

The following anecdote appears in one of Niall Ferguson’s absorbing studies of the British Empire. On the eve of independence for the colony of South Yemen, the last British governor hosted a dinner party attended by Denis Healey, then the minister for defense. Over the final sundown cocktail, as the flag was about to be lowered over the capital of Aden, the governor turned to Healey and said, “You know, Minister, I believe that in the long view of history, the British Empire will be remembered only for two things.” What, Healey was interested to know, were these imperishable aspects? “The game of soccer. And the expression ‘fuck off.'”

(via Buzzworthy)

Spamalot

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Coming to Broadway in early 2005: Monty Python’s ‘Spamalot’, \”the musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.\”‘

Starring David Hyde Pierce as Sir Robin, Hank Azaria as Lancelot…and Tim Curry as King Arthur.

If there’s any way I can find the time and money, it just might be time for me to find a way to visit New York.

(You’ve just gotta love the picture caption in that CNN article, too….)

(via Dori Smith)

iTunes: “Starship (Raumschiff) Edelweiss” by Edelweiss from the album Wonderful World of Edelweiss (1992, 4:02).