Timothy Patrick McMahon

At the entrance of  Edinburgh Castle, there is a statue of William Wallace.  You know, the guy from “Braveheart”.

Here is a picture of the statue that I took the first time I visited the castle…

Well, in the movie “Braveheart”, the character, as played by Mel Gibson, looked like this…

But to me, the statue looks more like another knight from another Hollywood classic.  To me, it looks like the last Templar Knight, who is found to be protecting the Holy Grail, in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.  He look like this…

Am I alone in this?  Does any one else see the resemblance?  Please tell me I’m not crazy.  Thanks!

My son asked to see some photos of me when I was his age.  But, I don’t have any.  My mom has them all.  All I have is an album of baby photos of myself.  While flipping through this book of pictures, I came a couple of interest, that I thought I would share…

That’s my mom, at what I’m guessing is her 9th month of pregnancy.  Take a close look.  Take a look at her hand… Smokes and a Coke.  No wonder I turned out so sickly looking!

Up next, is a photo of my first day home from the hospital…

Yup, the put me right down next to the ash tray.  There’s no better way to celebrate the newest addition to your family then the cool refreshing taste of Marlboro!   -the 70′s were AWESOME!!!

Up next, I have a few pictures for the ladies! (Beware, contains male frontal nudity.  I’m about to go all Full Monty on ya!)

Why yes, I am still that big!  - And for those of you who are wondering what I’ve got out back…

And finally, here is a buncha shots of me visiting my Grandparents.  On a related note, in my baby album, it seems like there are photos of many, many topless men.  Why didn’t gentlemen wear shirts in 1972?

Smart.

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. Two sick kids at home- Not fun.

Anyway, today I’ve selected William Sealy Gosset.

Wiliam Sealy Gosset

Why? Well, let me tell you a tale…

During my first trip to Madrid, I discovered a pretty nice fake-Irish pub (can’t remember name, I’ll have to pull out my photo album later and find the pictures I took when I was there). I say “fake”, because it was one of these “pubs in a box” that bar owners can buy from Guinness. Not quite a franchise, but, Guinness will, for a fee, come an outfit, decorate and stock your pub, with everything from the bar itself to tall the nick-knacks on the walls.

Anyway, in the middle of old Madrid, there was this stereotypical Irish pub straight from County Kilkenny. This place became my oasis for a few weeks; my traveling companions at the time were into going to dance clubs and other loud, youthful places at night. Not my cup of tea. So, I kept going back to this pub.

I managed to befriend one of the co-owners, a guy from Dublin. He was an amateur historian as well as a publican.  Over many pints, he gave me a full history of Guinness.  One of the things he told me was that was mathematics that made Guinness so good.  This came up at the end of a long night, and I never really understood it.  His explanation was a bit… well, like I said, I never understood it.

Anyway, I recently stumbled upon the bio of Mr. William Sealy Gossett.  I still can’t say I completely understand his work, but if a statistician can be the Head Brewer at St. James Gate, then I will have to agree with the statement that is is mathematics that makes Guinness so good!

Enjoy these Wiki-Links: William Sealy Gosset, Student’s t-distribution, Studentized residual, Guinness, St. James Gate, Madrid, County Kilkenny, Dublin, Irish Expats

Today, I am selecting Theodore Hook.

I am not selecting Mr. Hook because I find his biography all that interesting, but because he is the man responsible for the Berners Street Hoax, which is quite possibly the best bar bet of all time!  I’ve always enjoyed that story, so I’m selecting Mr. Hook as my Wiki-Person of the Day as an excuse to share it all with you.

From Wikipedia…

The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London, in 1809.^[1][2] Hook had made a bet with his friend, Samuel Beazley, that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54 Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance.^[3]

On 27 November, at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham’s house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep presented himself, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with “six stout men bearing an organ”. Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.^[4]

Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the chaos unfold.

In an attempt to post more, I’ve decided to start a series of “…of the Day” posts.  I have a few ideas for themes, and the first is the Wiki-Person of the Day.  These are interesting people from history with short entries on Wikipedia.  Hey, they may be short entries, but at least they have a Wikipedia entry, which is more then I can say for myself.

(And please, if you feel the need to make a Tim McMahon Wikipedia entry, go right ahead.  I’ll be happy to help you fill the page with lies and half truth.)

So, first up is Pablo Fanques, a name I’m sure most of you have heard before, but had no clue who he was.

From Wikipedia…

Pablo Fanque (born William Darby in 1796 in Norwich – May 4, 1871 in Stockport) was the first black circus proprietor in Britain.

A famous showman in his time, he is best known today from the lyrics of the Beatles song Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, written by John Lennon based on an antique circus poster that he had bought, in which the Henderson family is described as “late of Pablo Fanque’s fair.” Lennon pronounces the surname to rhyme with “Yankee”.

Pablo Fanque is buried in Woodhouse Cemetery, Leeds next to his first wife Susannah Darby.

In 2010, he was honoured in his birthplace of Norwich by a commemorative blue plaque.^[1]

Fanque is also mentioned in the song Ritz by the band Cockney Rebel.

As a bonus, here’s Eddie Izzard, as Mr. Kite in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, attempting to sing “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite”. Enjoy. “Have you seen it? It’s great!”

If you know me, then you know I love the DOWNFALL meme.

Last night, I was reading Newsweek, (The issue from a week or two ago, with Hilary Clinton on the cover, calling her Obama’s “Bad Cop”), a magazine I normally enjoy.  But, a passage about the DOWNFALL meme in the magazine kinda pissed me off.  No, not kinda, it really got me mad!

They called the meme played out, which, okay, sure, it’s been around a while now and I can understand that some people may be sick of it (I’m not), but hey, that’s their opinion, and I can respect that.  What I could not respect was the way they said it was a good thing that Constantin Films, the production company behind the film, had ordered the DOWNFALL clips off of YouTube.

Why am I angry?  Because this is a case of yet another media company claiming “copyright” in an inappropriate manner, and ignoring the fair use laws that protect this form of parody and remixing.  And, I would think that Newsweek, normally an intelligent publication, would be smart enough to understand the bigger picture.

I’m not the most articulate person when it comes to explaining all of this (without writing a five page essay), so go do some research and educate yourself on the topics of remix culture and copyright vs fair use.  Trust me, these are important subjects in todays digital culture.

And on a somewhat related note…

Brandon Hardesty has been re-enacting scenes from films and posting them to YouTube for a while now.  They are interesting, one man experiments in acting.  Recently, he posted his own version of the (in)famous DOWNFALL scene.  Pretty good, for a non German speaker!

I can’t find the link now, but earlier today, I read an interesting observation.  It goes a little something like this…

Do a Google image search using keywords such as “circus” “freak” “fat”.  And then take a look at the photos from about 100 year ago or more.  What you’ll see is photos like this one…

A pretty big guy, right.  Now, take a look around you.  Most likely there is someone in you life who looks this way; a neighbor, a family member, a co-worker, a friend.

The person who used to be an oddity, the person who other people used to pay to see, the person who was once deemed a “freak”, is now rather common place.

What made me go “whoa!” when I read this was not the fact that people are getting fatter (no duh!), but, when you put it terms of carnival side shows, well, that put our growing waistlines in a way that I hadn’t thought of before.

Anyway, just wanted to share.

A couple days old now, but…
The DOWNFALL meme is my favorite meme. Recently, YouTube as starting pulling these videos. So of course, someone posted a DOWNFALL video in response to all of this. Enjoy it while you can.

More info HERE

As a history major, with a minor in liver damage, I love this series of videos.

This stuff made me laugh, or at the least, grin.  And since the internet is about sharing, I’m now sharing them with you.

Too True!

I made a t-shirt with this image. It didn't come out so good. ugh

I haven't seen or read the Twillght Stuff, but I luv a good Twillght joke!

Gory, but funny!

I want a hores for my birthday!

Death + Masturbation = Hillarity!

Were you at first arroused? Congrats, you're a pederphile now!

Possible Lost spin-off. I'd watch it!

Old. But, this explains why I do what I do.

Not blind yet! (But I do need glasses.)

Made me laff!

Superheroes and abbortion jokes; two of my favorite things.

I'm going to get some gruff about this one!

My photoshop skillz are weak, and I feel like less of man due to this. :-(

"Hell is other people." - John-Paul Sarte

Great Parenting!

Bodacious!

I'm a Star Wars nerd and a World War II geek.

The remix had me laughing pretty hard. It’s stupid, I’ll give you that. But I liked it!

“…recently a friend noted that if Universal greenlit and released a remake of BACK TO THE FUTURE today and Marty McFly traveled back the same amount of time as in the original, he would land smack dab in the middle of 1980. Let that sink in for a moment.” Massawyrm, Aint-It-Cool-News.com

I recently found my 4th grade “yearbook”.  It’s just a bunch of photos that were photocopied, printed and then bound together.  I am feeling old because the pictures all square with rounded edges (plus the fact that this was 29 years ago). Do they even make film like that anymore?

When I think about 4th grade I think about Atari, sledding at Jason Abare’s house and sliding through dog poop, the video game cabinets also at his house and the rope swing he had that scared the crap out of me, learning how to play football (and liking it), being pushed into little league (and hating it), Bob Osgood’s awesome tree fort, maple syrup, really liking school and really liking the school building (is it weird for a nine year old to appreciate architecture?), seeing my first movie on a VCR (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory) at Marianna Luring’s house (it was a class trip after we read the book), Marianna Lurings fingers (the were long and skinny and the image of the has stayed in my head for years), the three legged dog who lived two blocks away,  the recorder, having to go to speech therapy because I lisped and my TH’s sounded like S’s, taking piano lessons, learning to play Dungeons and Dragons, the silver short band radio I had which at night received signals from very far away, the dog we thought was a stray and took in and named Sheba only to find out it belong to the neighbors and her name was Jesse, playing tag on our bikes with tennis balls in the summer, being really into Casey Kasems top 40, sliding at Vermont Academy, thinking Vermont Academy was a college, waiting for The Return Of The Jedi to come out the next year, first noticing girls in that “special way”, playing with firecrackers, being able to go out and explore the town in ways I would never let my 4th grade daughter do now, getting into my first (of only two) fist fights as a kid (not counting the ones I had with my brother), swimming at the rec, the YMCA day camp, Shel Silverstein & Japanese styled ink paintings, monarch butterflies and milk weed, making crystals, the bad school sandwiches that were on stryrofoam plates and wrapped in plastic, that cool big blue house (again, what’s with the architecture?), learning to blow my nose without a tissue, getting my first alarm clock (which is still on my bedside table and still works!), the silver triangular climbing thing on the playground, the big concrete sewer pipes on the playground, the grocery store in town with the scary old couple and the dusty shelves who had the best candy, and the other grocery store in town who would sell me cigarettes (for my mom).

I’ve scanned the yearbook.  You can see the pages on Flickr

Last week, BoingBoing linked to this article from 1995, published in Newsweek magazine.  I liked it, so I’m reposting it in it’s entirty.

The Internet? Bah!

Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana

By Clifford Stoll | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Feb 27, 1995

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”

Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.

Point and click:

Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.

STOLL is the author of “Silicon Snake Oil–Second Thoughts on the Information Highway” to be published by Doubleday in April.

…but I find Nazi’s to be waaaaaaay to funny sometimes. What the hell is wrong with me.

51 years ago, Buddy Holly, along with Richie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, were killed in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa.  51 years.  damn.  I remember the 2oth anniversary. I was just a little kid, but we lived in Texas it was kinda a big thing at the time down there. My, how 31 years has flown by.

Buddy was an amazing Rock & Roll innovator. A true legend. I have been a big fan for a very long time.

A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.

But February made me shiver
With every paper I delivered,
Bad news on the door step,
I couldn’t take one more step,

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside,
The day, the music, died.
So…

Refrain:
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ol’ boys were drinkin’ whiskey ‘n’ rye
Singin this will be the day that I die.
This will be the day that I die.

Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above,
If the bible tells you so.
And do you believe in rock ‘n’ roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Well I know that you’re in love with him
Cuz I saw you dancin’ in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes
And I dig those rhythm and blues.

I was a lonely teenage bronkin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pick up truck
But I knew I was out of luck,
The day, the music, died.
I started singin…

Refrain

Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin stone
But that’s not how it used to be,
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me.

Oh and while the king was looking down,
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned;
No verdict was returned.

And while Lennon read a book on Marx,
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark,
The day, the music, died.
We were singin’…

Refrain

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and fallin’ fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance
Oh but we never got the chance.

As the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed,
the day, the music, died?
We started singin’…

Refrain

Oh and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack Flash sat on a candle stick
Because fire is the devils only friend.

Oh and as I watched him on the stage,
My hands were clinched in fists of rage,
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan’s spell.

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight,
The day, the music, died.
He was singin’…

Refrain

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.

And in the streets the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken,
The church bells all were broken.

And the three men I admire most,
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast,
The day, the music, died.
And they were singin’…

Refrain

They were singin’…

Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ol’ boys were drinkin’ whiskey ‘n’ rye
Singin’ this will be the day that I die.

Buddy Holly was awesome.  You have to read/listen to this.  From Boing Boing…

Baboomska mcGeesk sez, “In 1956, Buddy Holly traveled to Nashville to record several songs. One of the songs he recorded was “That’ll Be The Day”, but the producer assigned to his sessions (Owen Bradley) hated rock n’ roll, and did a terrible job on the song. After that, Buddy traveled to New Mexico and re-recorded “That’ll Be The Day” (the version that became the monster hit) at a different studio with his own (superior) arrangement, but according to his contract with Decca, he couldn’t release it, because Decca owned all rights to his music. He decided to call Decca, to try reason with them, and he secretly taped his conversation. They refused to give him the rights to his own song, but he went ahead and violated his contract. Here is the conversation he secretly taped.”

Here is what people in 1972 (the year I was born) though 2010 (the year I am in) might be like – http://ping.fm/i1l53

Watched “Earth 2100″ & “After Armageddon” this week on The History Channel. Thanks History Channel for officially freaking me out!

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Star Wars Holiday Special aired one day before the Jonestown mass suicide.”

Once you see it, you will always see it.

So, what do you think Michelangelo was trying to say about God?

ROFLCon II!! – Who’se coming with me? – http://ping.fm/9AsYw