The Jeter Meter
Found this wonderful article about Derek Sanderson 'Demi-God of the Season Twilight' Jeter and those who hate him. It's pretty amusing:

Jeter Is A Pretty Boy: On the surface this might sound silly, but I think there’s something to it. Jeter is generally regarded by the female population as handsome (my wife does not share this opinion, of course), a desirable catch, if you will. In contrast, the stereotype of a typical SABRite is that of a geek wearing oversized glasses and lacking, shall we say, in the manly charms. Is it possible that some Sabermetricians resent Jeter because of his good looks and Hollywood charisma? Could there be some jealousy at play here? I think so, and that only makes Jeter more of a target for any real flaws that he does have.

That's just one subsection. The best assessment of Jeter I heard came from Mr. Conservative Weasel's sister who remarked: "He's an okay player, but the Yankees win too much."
Well yes, I say "Too much winning is never enough!" :)

- Art Neuro

Odd Trivia
A good friend of mine sent this odd trivia to me:

Why is the Space Shuttle Booster Rocket Two Horses Wide?
Does the statement:"We've always done it that way" ring any bells? Change is something we resist at every opportunity. The consequences of not changing something can effect lives hundreds of years in the future. You might say... but it's unbelievable but true!Did you know the size of the booster rockets on the Space Shuttle were decided by a bureaucrat in the time of the Roman Empire and nobody was game to change the measurement since??

How is that possible... let me share a story with you.The US standard railway gauge - distance between the rails - is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in Britain, and British expatriates built the US railways.Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railway tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

OK. Why did the wagons have that particular wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in Britain, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.So who built these old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long-distance roads in Britain for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

So, why 4 feet 8.5 inches wide? That's because the Imperial Roman war chariots specification was to make them wide enough to accommodate the back ends of TWO warhorses. And that hasn't changed on over a thousand years.

The booster rockets for the space shuttle were built in Utah and sent by train to Florida. The original design called for larger rockets but they had to go through a RAILWAY tunnel. The tunnel was just slightly wider than the railway track, and you know that track is wide enough to accommodate the back ends of TWO ROMAN warhorses.So, for all it's high tech wizardry, the width of space shuttles booster rockets was determined over 1000 years ago, and has never been changed since because "that's how we do it around here!"

Aiyah. The things you learn.

- Art Neuro

Too Close For Comfort?
The most likely candidate asteroid to hit us is asteroid Toutatis which made a nice, close fly by. It has come the closest to us in 651 years:

Measuring about 3 miles by 1.5 miles, Toutatis will speed by Earth at 22,000
miles per hour.

This asteroid makes a roughly four-year trip around the sun that swings from just inside Earth's orbit to outside the orbit of Mars. Because both Earth and Toutatis are in continual motion, the distance between them at closest approach every four years varies greatly.

On Wednesday, Toutatis will be 250 times brighter than it was two months ago, but it will still be 16 times dimmer than the faintest stars that can be seen with unaided eyes.

Toutatis is named after the god that Asterix and Obelix pray to, in hopes that the sky should not fall upon their heads. Essentially it's a peanut the size of Sydney City waiting to smash into us.

Meanwhile In The 'Promised' Land of Branson
As we noted some weeks ago, the Virgin group is willing to take space tourists on SpaceShipOne.
We bring to you this nay-saying report.

"It is something that is technically possible, but space is a very expensive business, and space tourism is likely to remain an expensive business for a very long time," he said.

"The idea is great, I like the idea, but I am very aware that even people like Nasa find it a challenge. Eventually it will come. Whether it will come in Richard Branson's time, and in his way, remains to be seen," he said.

Like that's not hedging bets, right? What is this commentary? :)

- Art Neuro

Staring At Blurry Dots Reveal Origins of Universe
No, you can't do this at home. Staring at any old ordinary blurry dots won't tell you anything about the Universe. However, scientists have been working on Ultra Deep Field images from Hubble and now have some idea of how the first act ended:

Astronomers billed their findings, released Thursday, as a possible glimpse of the "end of the opening act" of galaxy formation. The light from the young galaxies left them when the universe was just 5 percent of its present age, which is now approximately 13.7 billion years.

After the Big Bang, theorists say, the universe was hotter than the Sun. There were no stars, but rather a searing soup of hydrogen nuclei, and electrons that raced around on their own. As space expanded, the universe cooled, allowing the hydrogen nuclei to capture electrons, making what is called neutral hydrogen.

The universe was opaque, blocking the release of light like morning fog.

It's nice to know that the blur tells us it was a cosmic fog. I like that.
It's reassuring that perhaps the Universe was conceived in the mindof a stoned, drunk, hippy-like God. Or not at all.

- Art Neuro

Review: 'The Kids Are Alright'
There are documentaries, there are rockumentaries and there are mockumentaries; beyond that lies 'The Kids Are Alright'. Why this film now? First of all, you have to understand that DVDs have added another layer of merchandising to be exploited by any musical group, and then it becomes inevitable that this rock dinosaurean artifact should come out of the glaciers of film history and see the light of day as a double-disc showstopper. Why am I reviewing it now? Well, I was stupid enough to buy it; kicked myself for my craven materialism, sentimentality, nostalgia and slavish catalogue-chasing; only to be pleasantly surprised by what I saw. You could say it took me by surprise, so I am here to pass on that surprise.

So What's it About? - The Background
First, as with all things to do with The Who, is the history. Sometime in the 1970s, a documentarist by the name of Jeff Stein approached The Who to do a rock-documentary on them. They said yes, and gave him carte blanche access to anything and everything that was shot on film and TV. After four years of sorting through a mountain of mixed formats and reels, Stein emerged from the cutting room with the film that defines the bench mark of rockumentaries. The film premiered in 1979, shortly after the death of drummer Keith Moon. In fact, Keith Moon had seen the film, just before he died of an overdose, but also, the film features the very last time the Who played live with Keith Moon, in a raucous rendition of 'Won't Get Fooled Again'.
There are Beatle fans, there are Rolling Stones fans, Hendrix fans and Clapton fans, Pink Floyd fans and Led Zeppelin fans; each of them have their weird way of expressing their admiration for their musical heroes. The Who fans alone are warped in that they want The Who to themselves and yet they want the whole damn world to know that The Who are the greatest. This is a point made by Director Jeff Stein in the commentary track. I've never understood the origin of this impulse, but I admit I have it too. Don't ask me why. It's just a Who-thing. Stones fans are always trying to sell you the Stones as the greatest Rock'n'Roll band ever, passing this misinformation around like some tired joint at a party. The Who fans know a priori and empirically that the Stone fans are totally, hopelessly, irrevocably wrong. I mean, if the Stones were so good, how come it took them until the 1990's to release their Rock and Roll Circus movie? Wasn't it because it took them until 1996 to get over the fact that maybe,The Who really were a much more exciting, explosive rock act? - That's the kind of smug , superior partisan thinking The Who inspire in their fans.

What I Remember of the Film
I saw the film in 1982, shortly after the Valhalla cinema in Glebe was refurbished and opened for business as a revival cinema. (The first film I saw in the then refurbished Valhalla that year was Hammett; I saw it with the manager of the Alsorans and Mr. Conservative Weasel, but that is another story). It was a regular fixture at the Valhalla, as part of a double billing with Quadrophenia. There was a 'mod-revival' going on in Sydney at the time and so every time they played the Kids/Quadro double, scores of lambrettas with Union Jacks and mirrors would line up outside 'the Val' and these guys with Ray Bans on at night would fill the cinema. As the opening section rolled these retro-mods would yell out to the projection room "TURN UP THE VOLUME!!" It was that kind of movie experience.

The film I remember was jagged, edgy, proto-punk, energetic. I did see this film about 5 times at the Valhalla. Twice with a girl who just hated it. Once with another who loved it, thrice on my ownsome because nobody wanted to go to the Valhalla during a weeknight. It was one of those films that defined and concretised a corner of my existence. It was an important testament to rock music. It made me into Dewey Finn. Of course, after This is Spinal Tap, it became hard to watch Rock Stars on the screen talking instead of just performing. The rise of music-video-clips seemed to make concert footage seem really boring and tame.

After I found myself at Film School, I never returned to watch the film. I did get asked once in a class about documentary what I thought the best documentary was and I insisted this film was it; and got resoundingly laughed at by the other more 'knowing' folks. I have to confess it's been a very long time since I've sat down to watch this movie and a lot of my life has passed between the gates since the last time, so to speak.

Smashing guitars and drums featured heavily in my memory. I do recall the appeal was the very wanton destruction of good equipment. Keep in mind, Keith Moon's infamous 'Pictures of Lily' kit was a custom made Ludwig kit. Pete Townshend was smashing Gibsons, Fenders, Rickenbackers with equal nonchallance. Roger Daltrey would swing his microphone and strike unlikely poses. John Entwistle would just let his fingers do the talking. Really, there's not much to see so much as experience.

What's Great About It - Long Live Rock, I Need It Every Night
The DVD is all great. I don't think I've seen this film with this much clarity. Apart from the clarity, what comes across is the historic document aspect of the film. Much more than I imagined, the film has stood the test of time. In fact it is an even better testament to the power that was rock music in the 1960's and 1970's.

Playing music is a passion in all sense of the word. It's a burden, it's a pain, it's agony, it's also great. In this film, you see the passion that you never see anywhere else. It's great playing in a Rock'n'Roll band that just plain kicks butt. There is nothing like it, and if it was ever captured on a film comprehensively, this film is it. Passion, motivation, appetite, sacrifice, creation, destruction, archetypical surrender to the muse are all part of the discourse in the film and so it should be. There is nothing more boring than a rock musician trying to explain this; however, to see it bend these people out of shape (and they are not well people to start off with) makes this a truly historic document of a time and place.

It's all in this film: Pete Townshend wriggling his butt, jumping around, kicking air, swinging his arm, squeezing out feedback and searching for spiritual ecstasy only to be found in the music. Keith Moon flails about like no other drummer but he is visceral joy incarnate; he is a function of his appetite, and he has a large appetite for music. Roger Daltrey was never a natural showman, but as front man, he strikes some poses, that look like shamanic rituals, trying to channel the power of the universe into the song. John Entwistle just plays blindingly well, his posture inert, his expression an occasional smirk or a raised eye-brow. Then, Pete and Keith smash their equipment. It makes sense.

There was a time when Rock Music was it. It was transcendent; it was all encompassing; it contained the potential for all future music; it was alive and with us all. Particularly poignant is the set-closer 'Won't Get Fooled Again' that is played with reckless abandon - the last time the Who played with Keith Moon. Moon sports a headphone, gaffer-taped to his head in order to play in time to a backing tape of the ARP Synthesiser part. So you have the most undisciplined drummer the world has probably ever seen, playing in time to a machine - Enslaved, chained and bound. And yet, he finds something in the rigidness of the set-up that liberates true, joyous, music. You see it in his facial contortions and histrionics, you see it in the twirled sticks, the 15-tom rolls, the smashed cymbals, the clowning around, you see him pour something out that makes machine music into something organic and whole. The last gasp of the rock musician.

Then Keith died. Shit went down. People grew out of it. Rock music passed into history, and today people listen to machines generating all the sounds and think it is music. Think about that. There are kids who have listened to nothing but machines making music and think it's great. The film then, is a Rosetta stone for future rock archaeologists to understand what exactly the brouhaha was all about.

What's Bad About It - I Got Fooled Again
I've never had a problem with this film. When I think about it, it's one of the few films I would unflinchingly give 10/10. Even the DVD package is great. I know I'm getting ripped by the record company one more time for my sentimentality, allegiance and whatnot, but it's still great. It's a bit like being mugged and saying, "I didn't mind the bit where the mugger searched around my groin, that bit felt good" but what can I say? It's the nature of the capitalist beast. It nurtured rock, it killed rock.

Art + Politics = A Kick In The Nuts
I just want to bring up something tangential to all this, which is the footage they could not find of Woodstock. The Who were playing. In between songs, activist Abbie Hoffman got up to make a speech about the leader of the White Panthers getting busted for possession of two joints. Pete Townshend whacked Abbie Hoffman in the back of the head with his guitar, then kicked him off the stage into the pit several metres below. It's a historic moment for the 'counter culture'. In the film, Townshend justifies this moment on account of his state of mind on stage. He hated Woodstock, he hated the crowd, he hated the counter-culture, he hated all of it. In 1987, he re-canted and said that if it happened in 1987, he would stop the music and let Hoffman have his say. He even went on to say that he wanted to re-write the lyrics for 'Won't Get Fooled Again' because it was the dumbest song he ever wrote. This was all in the Rolling Stone 20th anniversary issue.

I remember reading it and thinking, "Pete' you're f*cking wrong." Abbie Hoffman's cheesy little politics did not survive that time and place. The White Panthers (who the hell were these people anyway?) didn't survive. The performance of The Who survives today as an important monument to the times far more than Hoffman's politics. Pete, you were right to kick Hoffman off the stage. In an arena for artistic expression, Art should always have precedence over mere, despicable Politics.
Thankfully Townshend never re-wrote the words to 'WGFA' either. There's something eternally profound about "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". If nothing else, it tells you why Peter Garrett is a far inferior artist and human being for even wanting to run for Parliament. Garrett wants to be the new boss. Oh heavens, spare us.

- Art Neuro

Addendum: I know I made a crack about the Stones in this but I have to report that Roger Daltrey denies the notion that the Stones were cagey about the The Who's performance; the Stones were cagey because of Brian Jones' state on that fateful day of filming.

The other interesting thing to come out of the Roger interview was how KeithMoon reacted to the screening of the film, 3 weeks before his demise. Roger describes it as being shocking for Keith who on the screen goes from an 18 year old lean, good looking kid to a rotund, unsavoury middle aged man. He says it must have been like falling off the cliff and seeing his life flash before his eyes (Which, in the end, it was). Keith, according to Roger came out quite shaken by the experience, and Roger says he recalls telling Keith that he shouldn't worry about it because Keith was the star of the film, and that he would help Keith get back into shape. Sort of an odd anecdote about the days leading up to Keith's death. Roger says "It almost shocked him back into sobriety". Yet, I got the strange feeling that perhaps seeing the film pushed Keith to more extremes rather than sobering him up, resulting in his overdose.

'Key Psycho' Update
As of today, the project has finished all photography. We did our scheduled second unit shots this morning from the crack of dawn and I can say with great confidence, she's now "all in the can". Picture post should finish shortly. Sound post should commence after that, but who knows what the world will bring tomorrow.

There were no space-related news this morning.

El Duque Finally Takes A Loss
What did we think this was? Fiction?
El Duque sort of slipped and let the Toronto Blue Jays grab a lead as the Yankees went down fighting, 5-4. Well, now his record stands at 8-1 and that's still nothing to sneeze at.

- Art Neuro

It's Fart-Gas Jim, But Not As We Know It
The ESA reports that methane in the Martian atmosphere and water vapor overlap. This in of itself doesn't mean much except that methane breaks down under UV light, so if there's methane now, there must be a fresh source for and ergo, there must be some kind of organic reaction going on, which suggests life.

New in-depth analysis of PFS data also confirms that methane is not uniform in the atmosphere, but concentrated in some areas. The PFS team observed that the areas of highest concentration of methane overlap with the areas where water
vapor and underground water ice are also concentrated. This spatial correlation between water vapor and methane seems to point to a common underground source.

Initial speculation has taken the underground ice layer into account. This could be explained by the 'ice table' concept, in which geothermal heat from below the surface makes water and other material move towards the surface. It would then freeze before getting there, due to the very low surface temperature (many tens of degrees Celsius below zero). Further investigations are needed to fully understand the correlation between the ice table and the presence and distribution of water vapour and methane in the atmosphere.

So, it's not life, it's not fart gas, it's just something that might be rising from the depths of the planet. But there are eternal optimists it might be life.

- Art Neuro

But Is it Safe?
There used to be a 'grip' who worked for the Australian Film Television & Radio School by the name of Tony Bosch. he was a truly charming, wonderful man with a down-to-earth blokiness that just totally pissed off the femo-nazis in the sad place. For those who don't know what a grip does, he/she delivers the complex mechanical structures that support the camera moves. Quite often, they will be the ones doing the most lifting and the most dangerous stuff on a film set apart from pyrotechnics and stunts.

Tony said, the most insulting thing for a professional grip to hear from a novice director or producer was the phrase, "But is it Safe?"
"Well of course it's safe. It's my job to make it safe!" he would thunder over the beers we would have at the end of the day in the sound department. Eventually, when the fridge in the sound department was shut down, he had it moved to the staging department so the tradition of end-of-working-day-beer-drinking could continue.
In that spirit, people are asking Zero Gravity about their Zero-G joy-ride, "But is it safe?"

Zero Gravity looked at several possible aircraft, including the Boeing 707, 727, 737, and 757, as well as the DC-9. They settled on the Boeing 727-200, which is used extensively as a cargo carrier. One reason for choosing this aircraft is its similarity in size to the KC-135, but with a large cargo door that allows for easy alteration of the interior. Other advantages were the availability of replacement parts and the fact that the plane's design allowed for a smooth parabola.

The Boeing 727 is certified to withstand between +2.5g and -1g. A parabolic flight aboard G-Force One goes from +1.8g to 0g, well within the tolerances of the Boeing 727.Still, the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) had to approve Amerijet International to operate such flights for the general public. That process, which included evaluations of subsystems and about 1,000 parabolas in test flights, took nearly two years.

“I think the main concern was with the aircraft frame,” said Paul Takemoto, an FAA spokesperson.

To determine the stresses that parabolic flight might impart on the frame, strain gauges were implanted in G-Force One's outer shell. This helped engineers construct an elaborate computer model to simulate the wear and tear multiple parabolic flights could induce. After viewing all the relevant data and documents, the FAA determined that no structural modifications to the 727 were necessary.

The thing is, they don't have Tony Bosch working for them, so I guess I'm a little worried after all.

- Art Neuro

Importance of Sex
Let's not kid ourselves. A Man has sused his wife for being denied sex for 5 days.

The middle-aged man from Seville -- the city of Don Juan and Carmen -- said her refusals amounted to "degrading treatment" and domestic abuse, a term used more often to describe wife-battering.

The judge shelved the case; clearly, he is the weak.

Importance of Beating the Sox
After Mariano Rivera blew that save 2 days ago, the Yankees have put together 2 blow out wins, 14-4 ands 11-1 against the Boston Red Sox, once agian showing why the Red Sox are the weak.
In the first game, Derek Lowe imploded and gave away the contest in the first inning and the Yankees never looked back. In the second game, a showdown of the Aces, Pedro Martinez oflded against the Yankees while Mike Mussina humbled the vaunted Red Sox offense. The Sox might be good at racking up excelent stats, but they certainly look to be weak in the head when the pressure is on.

The Yankees on the other hand extended their lead back out to 4.5 games. The New York Times has this article and this article on the two games. George Steinbrenner is yet to issue a statement but he had this to say:

"Our kids really fought," George Steinbrenner, the principal owner, said. "No, we didn't gain control of anything, but we played well. And we're fighters. We never give up, and that's the main thing with me."

And so the Universe rights itself.

- Art Neuro

Space Shuttle Schedule
The recent Hurricane Ivan sent schedules back at Kennedy Space Center, but the truth of the matter is, they are having problems solving the problem areas inherent in the Space Shuttle plan.

Task group officials said the biggest challenges ahead for NASA pertain to modifications to the space shuttle's external tank. NASA engineers have modified the tank to prevent the shedding of insulating foam during launch, but a complete analyses of the new tank will most likely not be completed until February 2005, Stafford said.

NASA is currently targeting March 2005 for its first return-to-flight mission STS-114 with the Discovery shuttle.

"The long pole in the tent right now is the tank," Stafford said. "The validation of these items on the tank are the major [challenges]."

Stafford and Covey did say that NASA officials are gaining ground in work to develop repair capabilities for astronauts should they discover damage to their spacecraft's heat resistant tiles of reinforced carbon carbon (RCC) panels in orbit. Foam damage to the RCC panels on Columbia's left wing during launch is believed to have led to its destruction upon reentry.

"What they will have is a very limited ability to repair RCC," Covey said of NASA's return to flight missions.

Uh, yeah, but we knew that they couldn't repair the RCC in orbit before we ever sent up the first one into orbit. In fact they don't even have the means to reduce the risk of the RCC getting damaged. In short, they've been throwing dice that it doesn't get damaged for all the launches they've made (and one time, they rolled a bad number and it blew up on reentry). This is nothing new, as it pertains to the structural problem of the shuttle project. Aiyah.

- Art Neuro

Bonds HIts HR no. 700
Yes, it's true, the man of the big bat in the Black and Orange uniform has spanked homerun number 700 and has now set himself up to go after Babe Ruth and then Hank Aaron. People said it was unlikely, but Bonds just keeps re-writing the record books. We live in amazing times if there was nothing but baseball smoke.

El Duque Update
El Duque is one lucky man. He started a game against the Red Sox and gave up a solo homerun in three innnings. he struck out 5 and walked 2. Then, it started to rain and so he was pulled after the rain delay, as is customary. The relievers took over and dragged the game into the ninth with a lead, and handing it over to Mariano Rivera who amazingly, blew the lead.
So El Duque is still without a loss this season.

- Art Neuro

September Is Trailer Promo for Jeter Time
October baseball's around the corner soon. The Red Sox are 4 games behind the Yankees, and are about to hit Yankee stadium for a 3 game series. The hottest hitter on the Yankees right now is team captain Derek Jeter. That's right. After starting the season in that awful, awful slump, he is hitting 25-for-60 (.417) in September which includes 8 doubles, 4 homers, 15RBIs, 21 runs, 8 walks.

Jeter said most of the games this month have been "close" to the intensity of postseason games, which is when he has proven to be at his best. He likes the stakes being high. "We're trying to win a division, so all these games are important," Jeter said.

Jeter has an 11-game hitting streak, has scored at least one run in 11 straight games and has a career-high 40 doubles. His average is up to .288, a far cry from .189 on May 25.He topped it off yesterday with the monstrous home run. He had trouble remembering any homers that traveled farther than that, though he said he hit a shot into the upper deck in rightfield at Yankee Stadium against Esteban Loaiza in 1999. "There haven't been many," Jeter said.

The Yankees believe there haven't been many players like Jeter.

Well, I don't think they exist in abundance in any sport either. Even the New York Times had to write this little piece:

Jeter was answering questions about the Yankees' weekend series with the
Boston Red Sox in the Bronx, not the finale of a sleepy series at Kauffman Stadium. But Jeter used the game as practice for his Mr. October routine. He is getting an early start on his heroics.

As the Calendar rolls around to October, the man steps it up a notch. We're used to this by now, aren't we? Of course all this is coming all too late to save my team in the Jack Kerouac Memorial League, but hey, I take the production as all good.

- Art Neuro

Meet Mr. Joe Hockey, MP, Minister for Small Businesses and Tourism
Mr. Martin Bedford of Bedford and Pearce Management organised an informal lobbying get together with the local member for North Sydney and the North Shore film making fraternity. For some accident of timing and meetings, I was invited by Martin and so was able to listen in and contribute to the din tonight.

The quick and short version of it was that Mr. Hockey was fronting up because there are over 300 small businesses of the Film Industry operating in his electorate, and maybe he ought to get to know their concerns. Mr. Hockey for his part was congenial and tried to explain the concerns the Coalition had with the arts industry in general. It was a lot more productive than I thought.
Mr. Hockey's position could be summarised as follows:
1) The film industry ought to be an industry.
2) To that end, the projects that get developed should be more commercial.
3) There's no point throwing more money at it sporadically, there needs to be structural change. - so he asked "Tell me where it should change."
4) Script development has been identified as a crucial area. So the government is trying to change funding to help develop more scripts.

Well, we had a few things we thought could change. In fact, in classic artneuro fashion, I got up and quizzed him about a few things and got some dialogue going. I pointed out how the FFC had essentially let the industry down. I asked how much money the Federal Government spent on the FFC. He said $150 million per year. I then rhetorically asked him if they ever turned a profit - In fact, how does the government feel about this colossal loss-making operation, year after year? Mr. Hockey responded it's really tough to justify to the electorate that their tax money is being spent this way. He wanted to know why. I pointed out that the bureaucracy was stifling. Others pointed out that there were whole loops of people who were fattening their backpockets while they sat in the FFC offices. The Red Tape; the stupid selection criteria; the miserable forms that never seem to end; the pigeon-holing; the inertness; the commercial insensitivity. The room came alive with those concerns.

There were some industry people present who argued the government spent too much money on sport and not enough on the arts, but Mr. Hockey pointed out that the sports funding budget was $120 million compared to the FFC. In fact, the entire combined arts industries got over $600 million per year; plus the money spent on the ABC and SBS. So obviously it's not as if the Federal Government was short on intent or will to support the cultural industries. It was a point many in the room found hard to take, but I could see the reasoning there. Give credit where it's due; the Federal Government of both the Coalition and Labor varieties have spent tonnes of money on the arts. What was there to show for the expenditure when the head of SPAA says the industry is stuffed. Mr. Hockey wanted to know how did that money get spent?

Mr. Hockey further pointed out that people in the Liberal Party feel very leery about the cultural industries because compared to other business sectors, the cultural industries alone choose to never acknowledge the efforts the Coalition Government make. And so over the years the Liberal Party has become even more distrustful of the cultural industries than when they started this run of terms of government. What did seem to make an impression on Mr. Hockey was the fact that the industry people present wanted to have an industry that was viable as an industry, as opposed to a sheltered workshop sucking out government money. "We don't want more funding; we want it organised so we can raise money to make the films we want to make." was the take-home message for the minister.

Yes. That brings us to the ATO... The other big issue that came up was indeed the Tax Department and their inconsistent rulings on 10BA tax concessions which have all but scared off investors. To Mr. Hockey's credit, he did say he wanted to come back and meet us again, next time with the Tax Department boss in tow to face our concerns in person. He said it stuck in his craw to hear of all the stories where people had lined up investments only to see them evaporate as the tax department made wanton rulings. He even said, who ever we wanted to talk to, he would try and bring them into this discussion.

After the general rhubarb session, I had a chance to discuss a few things with the minister, and I found him to be very receptive to the ideas being presented. Okay, so he's a politician; he might even not be a cabinet minister after the next federal election. However it seemed that he had decided to take on board the cause of the Film Industry because so many film companies operated in his electorate; and that's a nice, encouraging thing to see. The feeling was that we would all meet again and air our grievances and concerns and what-not, and he wanted to be part of an on-going process of starting a dialogue with the cultural industries on behalf of the Liberal Party.

I figure I'm going to continue attending these things if I can. LOL, if nothing else, being on first name basis with a Federal MP can't be too bad. - So suddenly yours truly is part of a lobbying group for the Film Industry, and a very vocal member at that. And you thought I was just some rank outsider crazy/crank when I was writing about why the Australian Film Industry was 'stuffed'. :)

- Art Neuro

George Lucas' Marketing Empire Strikes Back
The DVD of the original 'Star Wars' trilogy is getting released. The term 'original' is rather confusing because George Lucas is releasing the altered versions we saw for the 20th anniversary in the late '90s. With the new fangled special effects surreptitiously inserted all over the place. The truly original originals are now consigned to the dustbin of history as a kind of early draft. Many people object to the 'rewriting' of the Star Wars experience. My landlord for one entirely despises some of the editorial changes and supports the 'South Park' crew's horror at the alterations. Personally, I am rather more sympathetic to the film-maker's plight that motivated George Lucas to do what he did. A very telling comment is found in this article where he is interviewed:

AP: Why not release both the originals and special editions on DVD?

Lucas: The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on
VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I'm the one who has to take responsibility for it. I'm the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they're going to throw rocks at me, they're going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.

Yeah, I understand that part of it all too well. I'd like to throw rocks at George Lucas for his sad-ass efforts at directing that still net him gazillions; even though 'Star Wars' was one of my earliest movie loves, I can't bring myself to forgive the guy for what his films have done to cinema. In fact, this is the problem I have with Both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg: How come if they're so great, I only like their old shite? To quote a great phrase from Regurgitator, "I like your old stuff, better than your new stuff". Why is that?

I used to put it down to how I grew up and it wasn't so great in retrospect, but I tell ya 'Jaws' is still a kick-butt film, as is 'Raiders...' in a way that 'Minority report' is not; 'Star Wars' and 'Empire...' are still miles more exciting than 'the Phantom Menace' or 'Attack of the Clones'. I don't think it's me; it's them! All their pathetic attempts to grow up has revealed that they never had grown up themselves, and here we are sitting and waiting for the moment cinema re-appears as an artistic expression rather than a hostage to marketing departments. So let me be the first to throw rocks, George, for if nothing else but for cinema itself, you do deserve it from all of us. Aim for the head guys.

- Art Neuro

Can't Help Myself
Just to illustrate how NASA and the MIC are complicit, they have transferred the X-37 project to the Pentagon. Which I guess means we won't be seeing private enterprises working with scramject crafts in the near future. Instead you're more likelly to hear about it on the conspiracy-nut webpages about a new military craft in the next Gulf War or something.

Braukus said Scaled Composites would be involved in the X-37 approach and landing demonstrations next year, but could not say whether the Mojave-based company would be using the White Knight or some other aircraft. The B-52 aircraft that NASA normally uses for such drop tests would not be used, a decision made by the agency now in charge of the X-37 program, he said. "The cost analysis favored Scaled Composites," Braukus said.

Scaled Composites spokeswoman Kay LeFebvre would not confirm the company's involvement in the planned dropped tests and referred questions about the White Knight's role in the X-37 program to American Mojave Aerospace Ventures. That company, a Paul Allen and Burt Rutan partnership that owns SpaceShipOne and its carrier aircraft, recently announced that it would make its first official try for the
$10 million Ansari X-Prize Sept. 29.

So at least Scaled Composites are still involved, but it strikes one that this is just not right that scramjet technology should fade behind the curtain of military secrets.

We Can Get Together
The Germans are building an Icehouse down in Antarctica based on the ESA's space tech.

ESA's original designs for a SpaceHouse-based Neumayer III called for a tough outer shell of extremely lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), used in spacecraft solar arrays and antennas, as opposed to the traditional steel or aluminum.

Despite its spindly-leg appearance, the structure is designed to withstand earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale as well as howling wind gusts of 136 miles (220 kilometers) an hour. The size of a SpaceHouse can be scaleable, anywhere from 39 feet (12 meters) to 131 feet (40 meters) in diameter and up to five floors.

"The old, buried station was just a simple structure in terms of construction, a steel tube with no windows," said Gampe. "You may wonder what people would see outside in the Antarctic but, although it's bare and naked, looking outside can be comforting."

In addition to providing a glimpse of the outer world, SpaceHouse's smooth, aerodynamic exterior would also prevent snow from accumulating around the structure. The new station's vehicle garage, however, will most likely still be beneath the surface.

So it's interesting that the Europeans are working on such projects. Which brings me around to our pet rant around here, "Why can't Australia contribute to this sort of thing..."
It's the vision thing, isn't it?

Crazy - The Greatness of Barry, The Greatness of Randy
Barry Bonds is on target to join the 700 Homerun club, inhabited by only Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. Sadaharu Oh of Japan is in the 800 Homerun club, but he didn't do it in the majors so he gets no respect here. It's all about respect, you see?

Milwaukee manager Ned Yost can't fathom why the public doesn't embrace Bonds. "Man, if you don't have respect for Barry Bonds by now, something's wrong somewhere," Yost said.

The same fans who boo pitchers for walking him, however, jeer Bonds at every ballpark other than his own.

"I just think if you're getting booed in every ballpark, you're doing something right," Yost said. "I remember Dale Earnhardt told me his goal, when he was real good, was as soon as that black car got pushed out on the racetrack that everybody in the
stadium would boo like crazy. Then he started struggling and everybody loved him. ... His goal was always to get his boos back because he knew he was really (ticking) people off by being dominant. I think booing in a visiting park is a great form of respect."

Damn it, the man is like a homerun hitting machine. Unyielding, unstoppable, and somehow unpopular. Go figure, but it must be racism, right? Or am I going too far in spelling it out,
R-A-C-I-S-M!!!!! - *Ugh*

And then there's Randy Johnson (a.k.a. the only good mullet-wearer) who is having one of the best seasons a lefty-hurler has had, on a team that is putting up the worst record this season. The link is to a freeibie out at baseball prospectus withe Derek Zumsteg writing, but here's something he's quoting that is interesting:

As Rany put it: "I dare say that Johnson, as much as Barry Bonds, is redefining
what a player can do in his 40s. There is not only no reason whatsoever to think
Johnson is slipping, there's reason to believe he's actually getting better. In particular, his control has improved markedly, much as Nolan Ryan's did at around the same age. The difference is that Johnson had better control to begin with, and now he's actually one of the best control pitchers in the league. Since the start of last season, Johnson has walked 68 batters in 329 2/3 innings, or 1.86 walks per nine."

Yes, that's dominance in a can; Dominance in a nutshell; Dominance in a easy-to-open package; Dominance as authentic and vintage as they come. Would you like some Dominance? Johnson is having the ninth best seaosn a pitcher has had since 1945. As Mr. Zumsteg says, it is indeed history in the making.

Today's Theme is...
Inadvertently, today's theme seems to have been Iva Davies and Icehouse. Don't ask me why. Maybe I'll post up a review of one of their albums soon. Guess I'll have to do a Rob Gordon and root around for it. :)

- Art Neuro

First Day at New Job
I'm back in the workforce, so now I'm only technically a part-time unemployed person. There's a lot I can say, but I will say this: Sometimes it's a mixed blessing that you don't get the directing gig you went looking for, because you might not have wanted to make those kinds of pictures.

I also have to say that maybe my time at Classroom Video wasn't such a bad thing, in spite of the crazy boss and unwarranted persecution from evil-bitch-cow-fart-brain executive producer RL. I'll have to cogiatte and mediate on that. Oh well, it's all too late anyhow.

For US$3000 , You Can Become Weightless
At least, you'll be able to experience that sensation thanks to Zero Gravity corporation. The FAA of the USA approved this venture and it is now news for the world (if you are that way inclined). We for one tend to poo-poo space tourism here, but we're noting it here all the same.

Diamandis said in a press statement that his firm has teamed up with Diet Rite "to provide Americans with the first opportunity to experience the fun and exhilarating feeling of weightlessness, an experience previously available only to astronauts."

The Zero-G Experience offers a full-day program led by a veteran astronaut. Each flyer -- the customer -- experiences Martian gravity (1/3 Earth's gravity, referred to as "g"), lunar gravity (1/6 g) and zero gravity, the sensation of floating freely with no pull from terra firma.

I know it's a bad pun, and some people do like thier puns, by why Diet Rite?
NASA refer to their own version of this experience as 'The Vomit Comet'. I can't imagine a better way to blow US$3000; go up in the air with a bunch of people with the wrong stuff, and watch them throw it up all over the place in the queasiness. Mmm'mm; cue the Katrina and the Waves smash hit with changed lyrics:

Now I'm floating in vomit, whoa-oh,

Now I'm floating in vomit, whoa-oh,

Now I'm floating in vomit, whoa-oh,

And don't it feel good, hey all right now,

And don't it feel good.

Goodness, I am cynical today.

- Art neuro

Finally, Something With Global Vision
Six months after we started this blog, finally we've come across something that involves a global, genome-based view of life on earth as part of space policy. Just so we don't lose it, I should be quoting the whole lot, but I'm too lazy. The gist of it is to set up a DNA library on the moon in case of Catastrophic events on planet Earth.

There are several known threats to life on Earth, and perhaps some that no one has yet imagined.

"Everybody tends to think of it in terms of a big dirty rock," Burrows said. Scientists estimate that a kilometer-sized boulder could cause planetary-wide devastation. There are hundreds of these large asteroids that astronomers are keeping an eye on. And a significant fraction of the estimated population of potentially deadly large asteroids -- those whose orbits cross in the vicinity of Earth's path around the Sun -- have yet to be found, other experts agree. Burrows said there are "rogues" – asteroids outside the plane of the solar system – that are harder to spot.

Besides the Armageddon that a large impact would unleash, there are nuclear wars and pandemic viruses to worry about. Foing, the European proponent of lunar living, believes there needs to be a self-sufficient colony on the Moon that can wait for the fallout of the disaster to subside.

"It would need to be able to survive independent of Earth for many years," he said.
Foing thinks that a biosphere on the Moon would be the primary function of a lunar base, and only then could a DNA library be worth contemplating. Burrows agreed: "You need to have people [on the Moon] to rescue Earth."

Why it has to be Luna and not Mars is something that escapes me. However in terms of timescales, setting something up on Luna maybe closer than Mars. Anyway, there are signs out there that people are thinking on the bigger picture. It's just a shame that you can't win elections on the back of these issues.

- Art Neuro

The Life of A Dog
A friend of mine forwarded this article about a filmmaker who got named in a book as being a fraud and a charlatan.

Would-be Australian filmmaker Danny DeMoreta will seek over $15 million in damages from the taxpayer-funded regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Powerful Hollywood players, including Star Wars and Indiana Jones producer Robert Watts could be called to testify. "In terms of the damages that we quantify and we claim, I have no doubt that this is the biggest defamation claim made in Australian history," Mr DeMoreta's solicitor, Barrie Goldsmith, said yesterday. The lawsuit stems from the book Scams & Swindlers, published by ASIC in 1998, which alleges Mr DeMoreta broke the law when raising money to make the movie.

I don't know this DeMoreta guy from a bar of soap. I will say this though, and it is that ASIC and its regulations make it nigh impossible to raise capital for any feature film projects. The problem is, if the Australian Film Industry is ever going to function as an industry, its' going to have to raise money from the markets somehow and ASIC ain't helping. The amount of money it has cost some of the people I know in the industry is mind-boggling; and they still haven't got their films up after 12-15 years. And they wonder why the industry is 'stuffed'. It's not that surprising something like this came up, but I can also predict that the courts will not rule in favour of Mr. DeMoreta because to do so would cost taxpayers too much money even if the people who run ASIC might have f*cked up on this big time. (By the way, I said might, not did!!!).

Life of a Doc
My mother has been ill with polymyocitis for a good 10 months now. The only thing that has worked for her treatment has been regular injections of immunoglobulin. The good doctor who organised that was a neurologist who has recently been appointed an Associate Professor at a major 'sandstone' university in Australia. Recently, the Federal Government decided that immunoglobulin does not work for polymyocitis patients. I don't know how this works, but the good doctor has continued dosing my mother with immunoglobulins because he believes that what works, works and you don't screw around with what is working. To be sure, my mother has regained a lot of strength, even in the last few months. I mention this not to knock the Federal Government, but to point out this doctor's virtue.

The good doctor (and those who know me understand it is no mean feat to get those two words together from me) was recently diagnosed with Liver cancer. He is withering away before my mother's eyes, and said that Friday was the last day he would see her for it was the last day he would be at his office. We are all a little stunned by this turn of events, and so we wish him all the best in his battle with the evil disease. Good luck, good doctor.

Life of a Bum
I've decided to sign on with a company in North Sydney that makes corporate videos. They've got me penciled in for 2 days a week for 10 weeks leading up to the silly season, being their business manager. Laugh if you like, but cashflow has a nice ring to it. :)
Consequently, I may be writing less in this space in the coming weeks.

- Art Neuro

2M1207
As a wise man once said, "...in all its Heavenly Glory".
What? You thought I was going to post up another picture of Orlando Hernandez? p'uhlease! :)

- Art Neuro

'El Duque' The Slayer
Our Favourite Magic Cuban Orlando Hernandez continues to surprise with his comeback season, beating the Baltimore Orioles for his 8th win. Hernandez pitched 7 innings of 5 hit ball, giving up only 1 run on a solo homer; he struck out 4, walked 2, whihc are not great numbers in of themselves, but the Yankees got their 5 runs and the rest went into the record books for yet another win in El Duque's loss-less season. Runs this amazing don't come that often, so we should stop to consider this pitcher was wanted by nobody except the Yankee family as he came into the 2004 season.

"I knew when we signed him in the spring that if anybody's going to be able to make it back, he's going to do it,'' Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He's been terrific, he really has.''

Hernandez has proven to be a savior to a rotation that had to endure injuries to Kevin Brown and Mike Mussina; New York is 11-1 in games he starts.

"He certainly has picked up the slack with Brownie down and with Moose down for a time,'' Torre said.

Even the New York Times who have expressed nothing but doubt have concceded that Hernandez is the man on the mound right now.

Hernández is not too proud to avoid the most dangerous hitters in a lineup, pitching them carefully enough to concede a walk and go after a hitter less likely to hurt him. He walked Mora on four pitches, but standing in next was Tejada, one of the most productive hitters in baseball.

Tejada does not hit Hernández especially well, with 6 hits in 24 career at-bats after grounding out in the second inning. Catcher Jorge Posada went to the mound before Tejada hit, and with a 2-2 count, Posada made another visit. Hernández spun a slider and Tejada swung and missed for strike three, ending the threat. It brought about
the burst of excitement from Hernández, who again showed the kind of survival instinct that seemed missing with José Contreras.

What's interesting about this described scenraio is how Hernandez works himself into a 2-2 count on Tejada. Posada goes to the mound to remind or check with him that Hernandez has to throw his 'money pitch'. Hernandez does not hesitate to throw his one big amazing pitch, his slider on the outside low part of the plate even if Tejada is looking for that pitch. The chutzpah of the guy is astounding.

And Now For the Space News
A group of European astronomers have released the first photograph of a planet outside of our solar system. The article is here.

"Although it is surely much bigger than a terrestrial-size object [like Earth], it is a strange feeling that it may indeed be the first planetary system beyond our own ever imaged," said Christophe Dumas, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory.

Otherwise, all the other known planets, which now number 120 have been detected indirectly.
NASA also has an image of a distant object that could be a planet, but they have not confirmed.
Still, it's exciting to see 2M1207, so I'll post up the pickie shortly.

- Art Neuro

Taking Delight In The Suffering of Others
I know, it's not dignified, it's not good, it's not polite, it's not even about space exploration. However, it's somewhat of an endearing sport. Like dwarf-throwing or wet-T-shirt competitions or female mudwrestling. It's called, Watch Red Sox Nation Cry. The Red Sox have gone on a 22-2 surge, closing the gap with AL East leaders (and Perennial Red Sox Nightmare), the New York Yankees. Last year, the two teams met in a record 26 occasions, and in the game that mattered (ALCS Game 7), Aaron Boone hit that legendary homerun in extended innings to go into eternal baseball folklore; he will forever be a hero in the Empire State area, and he will always find a a new middle initial that he shares with Bucky Dent. Ah, the joyous memory of that one.

So in the spirit of laughing at the Red Sox, Jim Baker at Baseball Prospectus had this to say:

About a month ago I was punishing myself mentally and physically for having picked a Boston/Houston World Series. Now I do not feel so quite ashamed.

By now, the Red Sox have put themselves in a position where not making the playoffs seems unlikely. What that means is this: as we speak, the following memo is
going around the corporate headquarters of The Fates:

Colleagues:
I am assuming that most of you haven't noticed that our frequent past project Boston Red Sox have gone on a 20-2 run. Because of that, we must begin planning immediately for their ultimate undoing. It's much too late to dash their hopes à la 1978 during the regular season. Clearly, we are going to have to come up with something for the playoffs, instead. Last year's work was extraordinary but we don't have a Grady Little on hand to make our jobs easy, so this is what we need:

I want the boys down in R & D to give me four scenarios of doom. I need marketing to gauge the level of expectation of the Red Sox nation. How high is the cynicism factor? What can we do to overcome it, in order to maximize heartbreak?
Creative: Your thoughts? Can we top Bill Buckner without making it too obvious?
You have your assignments. I need your preliminary ideas on my desk in one week. In terms of priority, put the Cubs aside until further notice.

It's only funny because it's happening to somebody else. This may be the year the Red Sox go all the way. Then again, it may be just another year where they fall on their faces. History is either in the making or the repeating. :)

The Steve Bartman Seat
If 1918 seems like a long time ago for Red Sox Nation, try 1908. Yes, that's how long the World Series drought has been for the Chicago Cubs. Last year, the Cubs were 5 outs away from beating the Marlins and going to the World Series when disaster struck. Steve Bartman, an ardent Cubs fan stuck his hand out to catch a foul ball, interfering with a play Moises Alou had on it. Had Alou been able to catch the foul ball, the Cubs would have been out of the inning. Insted, the inning turned ugly and the Cubs lost. In fact, the Cubs lost the series and bowed out in the National League Edition of 'The Big Tragedy'.

Sine then, the seat Steve Bartman sat in that night has turned into a shrine of sorts, according to the New York Times. It's a nice article about a guy who at the right place at the right time, but managed to stick his hand into the wrong place at the wrong time. Poor Fella.

After the fateful play in Game 6, he was showered with abuse, with obscenities and beer, and was escorted by security out of Wrigley Field, his jacket covering his face as if he were on a perp walk. He received telephone death threats at the financial consulting firm where he works in suburban Chicago, and his home was patrolled by police cars. He issued one statement on the morning after Game 6, and has not been heard from since in any type of public forum.

The governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, knocked him. The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, perhaps adding salt to the wound, offered Bartman sanctuary in Florida.

Now that was a bit much, last year. Seriously folks, if Steve bartman got in the way of the Cubs winning, how good could the Cubs have been anyway? isn't that an insult to your team? Anyway, maybe this will be the year the Cubs face off against the Red Sox in the all-bad-karma World Series? Or maybe it's just another heartache in a long line of heartaches that reaches back to the days before World War I. It's this kind of morbid fascination that keeps baseball so interesting.

- Art Neuro

Mo' Moneyball
Here's another article, this time from the New York Times regarding 'Moneyball' main character, and Oakland Athletics' General Manager Billy Beane.The small-market miniscule Budget A's are winning in the AL West once again with an 81-58 record. On the subject of becoming the subject in the book, Billy Beane has this to say:

"Sure, I became the subject of criticism, and there were people who said my ego
had run amok," Beane said. "I went through the whole thing. But I didn't really care because those people talking about me didn't even know me. I still say that it was a great experience, a grounding experience, and I wouldn't trade it for anything."

It's a soft piece mainly because the New York Times was originally the paper who commissioned Micahel Lewis to write an article about the suprising Athletics three years ago. Even so, it's nice to know that the organisation is still running strong on its philosophies. The proof of any team is in the winning

- Art Neuro

How To Get Ahead In Politics
O-o-o-o-kay, so there's a Federal Election going on. One of our readers sent in this link that seems to indicate that it's all in the head.

A Catastrophe By Any Other Name Is A...
The NASA boffins are trying to extract something or anything from the Genesis probe wreck. It's a bit like trying to figure out the lifestyle choices of a car accident victim after they've been smeared across the road.

The capsule's outer layer broke open like a clamshell but survived mostly intact. The damage was far worse for an inner cylinder, which also ripped open and was left grotesquely twisted. The brittle atom disks inside were packed together so tightly that it was hard to assess the damage.

"There's a lot we still don't know about the contents of the capsule," he said.
The capsule held billions of charged atoms — a total haul no bigger than a few grains of salt — captured from the solar wind on five disks during the 884-day mission.

Indeed.

'Key Psycho' Update
Principle Photography is finally finished. We still need to shoot second unit scenes, but the actors are all 'done'. Hooray. Thank you for all your support.

Jobsearch Update
I thought I had a gig going into September, but it has seemed to have vanished into the clouds. Consequently, I am back on the search. It's really disheartening crap.

Knee Update
"I'm waking here, I'm walking here. " Now I know why Ratso Rizzo gets so angry with that driver as he hobbles across the intersection in Midnight Cowboy. I'm getting better, but I discovered this week that I'm still weak when it comes to climbing.

- Art Neuro

Freaky Story 1
The guy I'm sharing house with is an audiologist. He comes home with stories of deformed kids who need to have their hearing checked out in the public hospital. Sometimes, he finds they have a lot more wrong with them than hearing. 'Pineapplehead' was such a case. 'Pineapplehead' had some strange disorder of bone growth which meant his skull was growing more bone tissue than was necessary. There was a bone growth on the top of his head that resembled a pineapple. The doctors in Samoa couldn't diagnose what his condition was so he was sent to Sydney, arriving with a medical carte stating his case to be 'Pineapplehead'. The doctors in Sydney found out that at the rate his bone growth was taking place, his eye-sockets would close and pop the eye-balls out. The vestibule was not functioning, so the poor baby was in constant vertigo. needless to say, he was deaf as they come.
"But I guess if vertigo and nothing else is all you ever know through your senses, then you must get used to it," my housemate says.

A few weeks ago, my housemate saw a baby whose shrunken head was exactly like an orange, with dimpled skin. The baby was born that way. He too was deaf and blind. There seems to be a bit of a fruit theme developing here, but my housemate says, "When you see these kids, you either laugh or you cry; and really I can only laugh because crying is too hard to do in a workplace."
Surely he sees some normal kids I asked. He told me of the mother who brought in her son who she claimed had hearing problems.
"He just doesn't clean up his room when I tell him to"
"Really?"
"It's obvious he can't hear me"
So he checks the kid who turns out to have absolutlely no problems with his hearing.
"Are you sure?"
"Completely."
"There must be something wrong, because he just doesn't seem to hear a word I say."
The kid pipes up and says "That's because I hate you mum. I can hear every word you say. I'm not deaf. I just hate you."
"No, check him agian... I'm sure he's deaf..."

Freaky Story 2
My other housemate works in Mental Health. The latest person he tells me about is somebody who was made King of Australia in 1972 when the late Queen HRH Elizabeth II abdicated in favour of this fellow who is now King George VII. And if the folks at Mental Health Centre won't listen to what he says, they will all be tried and shot for treason. Needless to say this person was tackled by a bunch of guys in white coats. The guy seems to have been the victim of a psychosis induced by ecstasy tabs. As more people do ecstasy tabs, the more he sees the psychosis created by the drug. My housemate thinks in the future, the streets will be filled with nutcases who have done too much ecky. They are nothing like the casualties of acid from the 70s and early 80s; they are nothing like guys with advanced addiction to THC; they are genuinely psychotic.
"Craziness is on the rise," he says. "The future wil be psychotic."

Like my other housemate, his case folder just keeps expanding. There are positions in the mental health system, that cannot be filled because it doesn't pay enough and nobody wants to do that work. When you add it all up, the future of our society is looking far more psychotic than we have imagined to date, with nobody to look after them.

Freaky Story 3
My good friend Casey has a relative who is a Psychiatrist. He was given a case by another shrink who was retiring from the business. The case involved a teenage Chinese girl. In the first session, he went through the case history and found an overachiever who had given up on academia through her inability to beat everybody at a selective school. Her traditional and conservative parents are worried sick about her, but what is there to say now that she is out of school? Now she has a boyfriend with whom she lives, and an oddly vague manner about her. The Psychiatrist thought she was a sweet girl who probably needed some minor counselling until he noticed some burn marks on her wrist. He asked her what the marks were. She said:

"I got them at the brothel where I work as a masseuse. I wasn't getting any customers even when all the other grils were busy getting customers. I got bored so I wanted to go home, but the madam wouldn't let me. So I decided to burn myself."
The brothel thing came out of the blue, as her case notes had nothing written down on the matter. The Psychiatrist asked how her boyfriend saw her work. She said, "he works in a gay brothel. In fact I'm depressed because he gets more customers than I do. I'm thinking of going into full service soon".
Well, that was something her praents had no idea about. As the Psychiatrist told it, she was borderline personality with a strong , competitive desire to be liked; hence her competitiveness with her boyfriend who was getting more customers.

I'm only writing this down because if I don't write it on my blog, I'll forget these freaky stories. As you can see, they have absolutely nothing to do with Space Exploration, but they freak me out all the same.

- Art Neuro

The Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Men
...didn't work, as the Genesis probe crash landed in the Utah desert.

The catastrophic descent left the Genesis capsule buried halfway underground and
exposed its collection of solar atoms to contamination. The capsule held billions of atoms collected from the solar wind during a mission that was designed to reveal clues about the origin and evolution of the solar system.

Scientists were hopeful they could salvage the broken disks that held the atoms, and perhaps still unravel the mystery of the solar system. "This is actually not the worst-case scenario," said Andrew Dantzler, director of NASA's solar system division, noting the capsule embedded itself in soft desert soil and avoided hitting anything harder that would have made it a "total loss."

Oh yes of course. Somehow it still does feel like it wasa botched effort and they are putting a smiley face on the ctastrophic disaster. Aiyah. The thing is, it's not as if they rehearsed the manoeuvre prior to the mission. They seem to have done it based on the notion of 'we could do it so we would be able to do it'. How did they expect it to suddenly work on the day?

- Art Neuro

Here She Comes, Here She Comes
The Genesis probe is returning, the world is watching, two stunt helicopter pilots are standing by.

All systems are go," Don Sevilla, Genesis payload recovery leader, said Tuesday when the capsule was 134,000 miles above the Earth's surface. If all goes as planned, the mid-air capture was to take place Wednesday.

The capsule's charged atoms — a "billion billion" of them — should reveal clues about the origin and evolution of our solar system, said Don Burnett, Genesis principal
investigator and a nuclear geochemist at California Institute of Technology.

"We have for years wanted to know the composition of the sun," Burnett said. "In some cases we will be analyzing it one atom at a time."

- Art Neuro

Viking Burial Site Found
No, it's not on Titan; nor Mars, as you would expect from a vaguely space related blog as ours. Archaeologists have uncovered this amazing archaeological find in a place called Cumwhitton near Ingleby in England. I report this as I know some of our readers have an avid interest in Viking history and cultural customs and so on.

The burial ground was unearthed when Adams found two copper brooches. The grave of a Viking woman was found underneath, and further excavation led to the discovery of the graves of another woman and four men.

Among the items found in the graves were weapons, spurs, a bridle and a drinking horn, as well as a jet bracelet and a copper alloy belt fitting.

Adams described it as "the find of a lifetime."

Which is great to read. This find may turn out to be as significant an event in our learning more about the Vikings in England, as the ship burials found at Sutton Hoo that shed light on the early Anglo-Saxon kings.

Monkey See Monkey Do
Yeah. There's this report that says the more kids watch TV, the more likely they are to have sex compared to kids who don't.

The study covered 1,792 adolescents aged 12 to 17 who were quizzed on viewing habits and sexual activity and then surveyed again a year later. Both regular and cable television were included.

"This is the strongest evidence yet that the sexual content of television programs encourages adolescents to initiate sexual intercourse and other sexual activities," said Rebecca Collins, a psychologist at the RAND Corp. who headed the study.

"The impact of television viewing is so large that even a moderate shift in the sexual content of adolescent TV watching could have a substantial effect on their sexual behavior," she added. The study found that youths who watched large amounts of programming with sexual content were also more likely to initiate sexual activities short of intercourse, such as oral sex.

"Oh My God!!! Teenagers are having sex!!!"
For heaven's sakes, I wonder where all this energy comes from in trying to stop teens from having sex. If I had teen age kids, I'd want them to have sex and to make sure that they have it safely. Who funds research like this?
And, no, I couldn't find any space news today.

- Art Neuro

David Turns 500
The most famous sculpture at the hand of Michelangelo Buonarotti turns 500 this week. Michelangelo sculpted this work from a single slab of marble that was considered not good enough for such exquisite work. 500 years later it stands in the Academia Museum, sheltered away from the elements, but Michelangelo originally conceived this work to be shown in public in the Piazza Vecchio outside the Palazzo Vecchio. Of course his contemporaries, Leonardo DaVinci and Sandro Botticelli disagreed that such a great work should be left to the elements and so it got stored indoors.

Since then, the Florentines have created a facsimile of the work which now stands in place where Michelangelo conceived it; but there is also a bronze version which stands above the city of Florence across the Arno River. What's more, you can see an exact duplicate in a shopping centre on the Gold Coast; which is disconcerting to say the least because when you sit by it, hardly anybody seems to care or notice what the big white nude bloke is meant to be. I guess you might call it a post-modern experience, but I found it more tragic than anything else.

When you encounter a work of art you have studied as a student, there is a strange ripple of recognition as well as a feeling of alienation. Florence is full of that weired conflicted feeling. When I saw the three "Michelangelo's Davids" in Florence, I was struck by the feeling that, wow, they have three facsimile's of the statue of David on the Gold Coast. That is to say, authenticity in of itself seemed utterly meaningless. Then, of course they try to sell you little statuette replicas as souvenirs all over Italy whether you are in Florence, Milan, Rome or Naples; and so one wonders what 'authenticity' in of it self is, as a critical 'value'.

Anyway, pardon the personal observation about such an important work of art turning 500. It's been a good half-millennium for the boy in the nude. Happy Birthday Dave.

Another Kind Of Genius
Our favourite Magic Cuban won again, this time against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Okay, it's only the Devil Rays, but a win is a win even if you get ejected arguing strikes and balls with the umpire; and he now El Duque has an astounding 7-0 record since coming back. The Yankees are 10-1 in the games he has started. He is the top dog, the pillar of strength, the dependable Ace in the very shaky Yankee rotation.

- Art Neuro

Catch a Falling Star
I've been following this story for a few weeks now, but I don't know what to make of it. In a nutshell, the Genesis probe is coming back with extraterrestrial matter, so NASA wants to collect it falling out of the sky before it touches down. To this end, they have hired stunt pilots from Hollywood. I guess this is one of those moments where fact and fiction-making start to blend into a weird zone.

The return of the Genesis probe will mark the first bits of extraterrestrial matter retrieved from space by human means since the 1970s, when moon rocks were carried back to Earth by manned U.S. Apollo and unmanned Soviet Luna missions, NASA said.

If successful, it also will make aviation history as the first man-made object captured by aircraft as it entered Earth's atmosphere from space, said Roy Haggard, an aerospace research executive hired by NASA to design the Genesis retrieval project.

He said helicopters were used in thousands of missions to grab parachuted canisters of film shot by spy cameras over Vietnam and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Which goes to show it's not as crazy as it all sounds.

What Separates The Morons From Men
The Yankees are now in the thick of the penant race, faced with the challenge of holding off the charging Red Sox. Of course Kevin Brown, the man they really need to pitch to form punches a wall in frustration after a bad outing and breaks his left hand. Now they say he is vowing to return this season. If this isn't silly enough, he has this to say for himself:

"I don't know how much you want to know. I've pitched in more pain than I have right now," he said sternly.

And of course inevitably:

When asked what made him throw a left at the wall instead of a right, Brown said: "Years of experience.''

Now where was I in the process of separating Morons from real men?
Is it really an issue of chooosing to punch the wall with your left hand rather than the right?

- Art Neuro

More Planets in Other Systems
As you can see, science suddenly decides to release results after the Olympic Games finish. Here is another report on more discoveries of planets in other systems using the Doppler-shift method:

The planets were found using a Doppler-shift method that notes a wobble in a star caused by the gravity of the orbiting planet. No pictures are available. The two newest discoveries were led by Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley and Paul Butler from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, this globe's most prolific planet-hunting duo, and will be discussed in papers to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Why do They Call Them Virtual Humans Instead of Androids?

I don't know. But do have a read of this one anyway.

Roll out the welcome mat for the virtual astronaut and enter the 3D space of Peter Plantec, a consultant in virtual human design and animation, as well as a leading expert on visual entertainment. He also initiated the "Sylvie" project -- the first commercially available virtual human interface.And if dispatching virtual humans from Earth doesnt turn on your thrusters, think about this. Its likely that extraterrestrial civilizations might send surrogate entities our way instead of propelling their delicate, soft-shell selves across interstellar mileage.

I'm going down to Canberra for the next few days so I won't be posting anything up in that time.

- Art Neuro

Roll Up For The Magical Mystery Tour, Step Right This Way
The Chinese allowed Western journalists to tour their launch facility for the first time.

It was the first time China let foreigners enter, though officials forbade photographs of the command-and-control center with its rows of computer screens or the mammoth assembly hall where workers built the spacecraft that lifted China's first astronaut into orbit last October.

For the secrecy-conscious national government, Jiuquan houses treasures to be guarded closely. But to local officials, Jiuquan is a blue-ribbon brand name just waiting to be marketed far and wide.

"No matter what products are named after Jiuquan, they will sell," said Hao Yuan, assistant to the governor of Gansu province, where part of the space center is located.

"We welcome foreign cooperation in the fields of aerospace and aviation," Hao said. "We would also like to provide launch services to foreign companies."

At competitive prices, no doubt. Considering China are only the third nation to send a human being into orbit through its own launch facility behind Russia and the USA, it stands to reason that they would like to front a shop in one corner of the burgeoning market place.

The question remains, why can't Australia open shop? After all, we have the real estate and the know-how. Why is it so hard for our government and industries to re-embrace the vision?

- Art Neuro

Slide of the Yankees
The Guy who runs league leader 'Alsorans' in the Jack Kerouac Memorial League is a real wag. He rang me up to let me know he knew how badly the Yankees lost yesterday because he started Jake Westbrook against the Yankees for his fantasy team. Well, I'll let you know that my Yankee hitters, Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui went 1-for-2 each and were pulled, so stat-wise they did okay by me, even amidst the huge loss. :)
He also sent me the pickie above, for which I thank him; it's quite a work of art.

Alsorans' manager pointed out that the Australian ABC also ran (pardon the pun!) a story on the historic loss; which goes to show, everybody loves an underdog even if they don't know the underdog from a bar of lead piping. Being an ex-ABC man myself, I can see the kind of screwy 'Left-wing-media-bias' (as Mr. Conservative Weasel would put it) in reporting the historic Yankee loss. Afterall, if the said team won 22-0, would they be reporting it? No. You're expected to win EVERY game with a roster featureing the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, and Hideki Matsui. I don't know what you call that, but blank expectation of the best outcomes with no caution for real-life accidents. The thing is, the Australian ABC wouldn't know any of them if they swung their bats at their heads at fullspeed, but they're happy to report the historic loss. A bit of crappy editorial-ship, no?

Well, here's a bit of history for you. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the worst losses in the 101 year history of the New York Yankees are as follows:

Cleveland 22, N.Y. Yankees 0, Aug. 31, 2004
Cleveland 24, N.Y. Yankees 6, July 29, 1928
Detroit 19, N.Y. Yankees 1, June 17, 1925
Texas 20, N.Y. Yankees 3, July 19, 1987

What sticks out on the list is that two of the worst losses featured in the 1920's were wrought with Babe Ruth (arguably the best player ever) on the roster. Two of them were done unto the Yankees by the Cleveland Indians, and two happened on George Steinbrenner's watch as Owner, while, obviously the other two happened with Colonel Tom Ruppert as team owner. That's not too bad for King George, he's now in vaunted company.

Here's even more to ponder from Larry Mahnken who wrote:

What do you say about a 22-0 loss?Well, you can say it counts the same as a 1-0 loss. You can say it's less frustrating than a 22-21 loss. Um, nobody died.

Well, LOL yeah. It's not like it's the casualties taken in the War in Iraq. As for King George, I was able to find this:

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner chimed in with another of his statements, part of which appeared on some of the boards. "Sure, we got punished badly last night, but winners never quit and quitters never win,'' Steinbrenner said. ``New Yorkers never quit, and we reflect the spirit of New York."

Sure, George. I'm not sure New Yorkers want to idenitfy with historic losses, but then there's all that stuff about 9/11, so I may be wrong.

All Hail 'El Duque the Stopper'
In the mean time, I'll tell you this much. our favourite magic Cuban Orlando Hernandez pitched 7 strong innings today, striking out 7, walking 2, scattering 3 hits for a run in the first after which, he shut down the Cleveland offense; he got the win in a solid 5-3 Yankee win. Mariano Rivera got the save. So much for that one; and it goes to show life does go on after historic losses, whether it be 22-0 ballgames or 9/11 attacks.

- Art Neuro

Taking It On The Chin
The US 189 million Dollar New York Yankees are in trouble. They lost 22-0 to the Cleveland Indians, setting the franchise record for worst loss. Ever. How did this happen? The mind boggles, but basically, the starting pitching faltered, then the relief pitching staggered and the last guy out of the bullpen, let it all slip into the sea of ink. This is the most expensive roter assembled in baseball history. 8 players on the 9 starting position are All-Stars from the last few years. This is supposed to be a stacked team, and yet one night in September, they found the worst form to drop the worst game in their franchise history on the lap of their owner. The New York Times has this description:

It would be difficult to pinpoint the most teeth-grinding moment for the Yankees owner or for any of the 51,777 in attendance who had to painfully watch this game. Was it Vazquez raising red flags once again about the team's starting pitching? Was it Kenny Lofton staggering after an Omar Vizquel double, misreading the flight of the ball until it was too late? It could have been Hideki Matsui, after scratching out one of the team's five hits, being picked off second base as he leaned too far after Indians' pitcher Jake Westbrook mishandled a Posada ground ball. Was it when Vizquel picked up his sixth hit of the night, in the eighth inning, giving him one more than the Yanks to that point? Or was it just the numbing task of staring blankly at the scoreboard?

Tanyon Sturtze topped Vazquez for futility, giving up seven runs in three innings and Nitkowski allowed three runs in an inning and two-thirds. Then Esteban Loaiza, who was an All-Star a year ago, was handed the task usually reserved for a backup infielder, finishing off the embarrassing loss.

While the Yankees could not find a way to get the Indians out, Westbrook, the former Yankee farmhand, coasted as he retired the first 11 hitters before Gary Sheffield softly lined an 0-1 pitch into the left-field corner for a double. But there was never a hint that the Yankees would mount a rally, much less a comeback. Westbrook pitched seven masterful innings, surrendering just five hits, and never allowed a runner to reach third base.

By the sixth inning, Manager Joe Torre was yanking starters from the lineup, sending the white flag up with the removal of Matsui, Posada and Jeter.

And the tale of the tape says, 22 hits, 22runs to 5 hits and no runs. Ouch. Worse still, Boston gained another game on them, shrinking the Yankee lead down to 3.5games from the once mighty 10.5 games on the 16th of August. Yankee starters have not recorded a win in that period. Is it time to panic? Or was it the dog days of August catching up with a veteran-laden team?

I sure don't want to be in the vicinity of King George right now. I guess this is the day the colossal sporting monster came to a shuddering halt. Something is wrong in the evil Empire, and nobody is able to pinpoint the blame. How did this day come to be? The fall out from this is going to be interesting to say the least; but it's been that kind of year. Even if they had managed to land Randy Johnson, this day would have happened, given the cast of characters out there. Which goes to show, a 162-game season can produce some mighty fine interesting results. Earlier today, I tried to get onto Baseball Think Factory, but their server was overloaded. The simple fact is, the AL East race is back on; the quesstion now is how will this team regroup, with Boston yapping at their heels?

- Art Neuro