I know this is old news, but before it disappears into the void, I’d like to revive it. Back in 2000, someone discovered the Butte County School District #111, in Arco, Indiana Idaho, which surprisingly enough, had a website! In the logo presented on their school website, it was clear that their high school’s mascot was a pirate — slightly less common than the ubiqutous bulldog, but still not unusual. What was unusual was the perhaps accidental but wholly sophomoric humor value in what the name of their athletic teams might have been referred to: The Butte Pirates. Here’s the logo:

The reason I’m bringing this up again? I tried to Google for this old bit of history and it was nearly impossible to find. The school’s current website (which is horrible from both a design and usability perspective, compared to the simpler site of years earlier) lacks any mention of the school’s mascot — probably due to the attention it got several years ago, but that’s just a guess. Luckily, Google had this gem buried in amongst the 26,900 results for “butte pirates”, which contained the original URL to the school’s site with the mascot on it. Unfortunately, Google’s cache didn’t have the site’s contents, but the trusty Wayback Machine did! So, I was able to retrieve the logo and share with you links to the original site circa 2001.

Here’s to my attempt to prevent this little tidbit of trivia from getting lost. Maybe I’ll even make it to the first search results page for “butte pirates,” too.

So, today on ABC News, they’re running an article entitled ‘Deep Throat’ Is Identified. I’m somewhat skeptical about whether Mark Felt is the real ‘Deep Throat,’ but I guess it really doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Could be a red herring to throw the conspiracy theorists off the trail. Who knows? Apparently, it’s still newsworthy, regardless.

After the two crashes earlier in the year, the folks flying in and out of Teterboro, NJ, ensure we get our fix of John Denver-esque news with yet another crash today.

From the wire copy:

The Swearingen turboprop was on final approach to the airport when the pilot reported engine problems, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane crashed at the end of a runway and caught fire. The blaze was soon extinguished, police said. Airport operations were suspended after the crash.

According to the aircraft’s tail number listed on an FAA Web site, it is registered to Maci Leasing Corp. in Edison. There was no phone listing for the business.

You know, if I fail to update the contact information on my driver’s license within two weeks, the DMV can serve me the royal smackdown. It’s comforting to know that in the days of “heightened security” (cough, cough) that potential terrorists can still crash turboprops into a highly active airport runway without needing to ensure all their documentation and contact information is up to date and accurate, if they wanted to. [Note: I’m not saying that the victim of this airplane crash is a terrorist. Read the paragraph again if that’s what you think I’m saying.]

America is the epitomy of penny wise, Pound foolish. But, it’s still the greatest country in the world.

OK, some marketing genius really should get their props for this one. I’m searching for something in one of the Yahoo! Groups that I’m a member of, and I see this banner ad:

Anyone who knows me understands why I even looked at the ad (mmm, blonde). Why would I click on it? Because the headline text read “THE PARIS HILTON PODCAST” — and, what avant garde geek isn’t at least curious about something that mentions podcasting, especially when the podcaster’s a blonde? (Mental note: start a new “blondecaster” registry.) So, I clicked through and followed the podcast link.

Yes! It’s for real! Their podcast is syndicated with RSS. What’s even cooler is that Warner Brothers is distributing a customized version of iPodder! I’m sure the iPodder team is thrilled about this cross-promotion of their project.

Now, the only decision left to make: do I actually subscribe and listen to Paris Hilton‘s podcast? Hmm … it’s a pity you can only see blonde, not hear it.

Figured some of you may be Beatles fans and might appreciate this … I saw this come across BoingBoing today from Cory Doctorow:

Revolved: Beatles mashup album

CCC’s “Revolved” is an album of Beatles mashups with some real standout tracks, like Here, There and Everywhere (mashed with Claudine Longet’s version), That’s All Yellow (Yellow Submarine and Genesis’s That’s All), She Said Traffic (She Said She Said and Jimi Hendrix’s Crosstown Traffic), and the best track of all, Got to Get You in the Mood — Got to Get You Into My Life with a punchy Glenn Miller’s In the Mood.

Link

(Thanks, Oscar!)

Update: Dave provides this torrent of all tracks and cover art.

The whole “album” is freely available for download. Quick, go and download a copy before Sony sends them a Cease and Desist order like they did to Beatallica.

Philip Greenspun blogs about this article about Ingvar Kamprad, the guy who founded IKEA. In the article, I ran across this sentence:

One in ten European children are conceived in an IKEA bed.

Even if this statement is wildly inaccurate, what would actually motivate someone to try and compute it and publish it?

The article also makes some reference his having some kind of “involvement with a pro-Nazi movement” — not sure what that exactly means, since lots of European people in the 1940s had some kind of “involvement” — the way history goes, it sounded pretty damn hard to avoid. But, why pass up an opportunity to make a drive-by smearing in the last paragraph of an otherwise worthless article, right?

On one of the many mailing lists I subscribe to, someone sent a plug for an interesting concept called Cuddle Parties. From their site:

What’s a Cuddle Party? you ask. It is an event for adults to get together and explore affectionate touch and communication without it becoming sexualized. At these events, we create the safe space to talk about and explore what our needs are as adults when it comes to affection, intimacy and welcomed touch. In other words, CUDDLING!

That’s right, C-U-D-D-L-I-N-G.

…

We are touch-and-snuggle deprived. Our need for touch has gotten so packed down and warped and pressurized that we fear its release. These years of “cuddle oppression” have become explosive. The more pressurized the situation, the more the need to suppress it, and the cycle feeds on itself.

I think this a great movement and I hope it gets some legs. Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet REiD and Marcia one day.

Some opportunities come once in a lifetime. Tonight was one such opportunity: I got to see A Halo Called Fred, play live, again! The last time I saw them was sometime around 1998.

If you don’t know who these fine musicians are, you should be ashamed of yourself! Go check them out, right now. Listen to some of their songs.

Here are some pictures that were taken from their performance tonight at Jeff Mach’s Cult Movie Overnight. Enjoy!

Almost exactly two months ago, I blogged about my flight home from Dulles, VA, to Teterboro, NJ, being cancelled due to a plane crash at Teterboro.

Well, there was apparently another plane crash at Teterboro this morning:

A small jet skidded off the runway while taking off from Teterboro Airport on Wednesday, crossing a highway and striking cars during the morning rush hour before slamming into a warehouse.

State police said two people were missing and 11 were injured in the crash. It was not immediately clear whether all those people were on the plane.

A traffic helicopter pilot for New York radio station WCBS said the plane went off the runway and broke through a fence. It appeared to strike at least one car.

Fortunately, I wasn’t even planning on flying down to VA this morning, and from the few details about the operating company of the plane that crashed, it wasn’t even the plane that I would have been on, anyhow.

However, perhaps these two crashes in short succession somewhat validates one of my co-workers behaviors. He refuses to fly, insisting on driving the five-odd hours from northern NJ down to northern VA, each way. But if you ask me, I’ll take my chances in favor of the fourty-five minute jet ride, but maybe not today. :-)

EDIT: Apparently, you can now search the NTSB aviation accident database online. Here’s the synopsis of the crash I blogged about on 1 Dec 2004.

EDIT: Here’s the synopsis of this crash.

Oh, the weird and wacky things people find and post links to. Stumbled upon this one today and it’s given me a new found respect for Amazon.com. And it’s only $9.95, act fast before it’s all gone! :-)

Update: It seems that previous link is no longer valid (Amazon.com must have discontinued the product), but here’s another one that’s available for $11.95.