Travels with Grumpus

Thoughts and considerations coming into The Bourne Ultimatum

Mickey: So, who do you think would win in a fight? Jason Bourne or James Bond?

Maya: Huh? Jason Bourne, without a doubt! Bond is a wimp.

Mickey: Excuse me!

Maya: Oh! You mean the Daniel Craig Bond! I think it would be an even fight.

Mickey: Of course I meant the Daniel Craig Bond!

Thoughts and considerations after seeing The Bourne Ultimatum

Maya: Wow! That was awesome!

Mickey: Yeah! Now I’m convinced that the only person in the world who could beat Jason Bourne is Batman.

The “Computational Engine” for short. Link to the Datamancer’s webpage. What’s it all about, Alfie? Watch the explanatory vid here.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s greatest accomplishment in advance of this week’s G-8 summit had nothing to do with global warming or easing tensions with Russia, reports the Washington Post. Rather, it was just persuading her reclusive husband to show up.

Since his wife’s election, Sauer — whose name means “sour” or “grumpy” in German — has issued no public statements, granted zero interviews and has only occasionally been seen in public with his wife. So it was big news in Germany when he agreed to serve as an official host during the Group of Eight summit and appear in public to face the cameras, a chore he clearly dislikes.

On Thursday, Sauer took the wives of other national leaders on a tour of cultural and historical sites along the northern German coastline. First stop: a 19th-century castle in the village of Hohen Demzin, where the group of seven first ladies and one first gentleman had lunch and heard a lecture on demographic trends in industrialized nations.

Awwwww.

Look who daddy shares a birthday with!  Me likey.

Since I can’t seem to find the funny in me, I’m outsourcing it for now.

Here’s the funniest joke in the world. Careful it might kill you.

Runners-up here.

This song always made me smile.

capped from The New Yorker

You all know that famous story. The Nike folks even turned it into an ad in the late ’70s (sorry, I don’t remember the tagline). You know, the scandalous shoe-banging incident at the UN in 1960. Having avoided discussing the incident all her life, his granddaughter finally decided to do put the embarrassment behind her and look for photos and first-hand reports of the actual event. Finding conflicting and inconsistent references, however,

made me suspicious: Why are the versions so different? And there are no pictures! What if it had never happened? A supposed 40 years anniversary since the scandalous UN shoe banging could be a great chance to commemorate an event that never happened. In my zeal to uncover the truth, I felt very much like Sherlock Holmes.

Magazines from October 1960 covered Khrushchev’s visit to the United States better than books. They reported on everything, but still there was no shoe . . . My heart was pounding. For so many years, I had been ashamed in vain. What if the whole incident was just an anecdote based on the general mode of Khrushchev’s behaviour? He was known for strong language, interrupting speakers, banging his fists on the table in protest, pounding his feet, even whistling. None of this, however, was enough to be transformed into a physical symbol of the cold war.

She narrates her efforts at historical research here, but to save you the trouble, dear reader, I’m skipping ahead to the punchline.

On Wednesday 12 October 1960, there it was, on the front pages of all national papers: Nikita Sergeyevich and his famous shoe. … The head of the Philippine delegation, Senator Lorenzo Sumulong, expressed his surprise at the Soviet Union’s concerns over western imperialism, while it, in turn, swallowed the whole of eastern Europe. Khrushchev’s rage was beyond anything he had ever shown before. He called the poor Filipino “a jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism”, then he put his shoe on the desk and banged it.

That paragraph is five kinds of funny, not least because the target of dear Nikita’s anger was a kababayan. Of course if I even cared about Lorenzo Sumulong before this day, I would have wikipedia’d him and discovered his main claim to fame.

Hilarious.

I said I was keeping away from the madness this year, and so far I’ve been good about that. But for old times’ sake, and because I still think he’s adorable, here’s my official Elliott announcement: ELLIOTT YAMIN’S ALBUM WAS RELEASED IN THE US YESTERDAY AND IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON I-TUNES! As usual, all the good stuff on Rickey’s blog.

Yes, I have my copy. No, I haven’t listened to it through. Yes, I like my R&B free of cheese and schmaltz. Yes, this album has both in copious amounts. Yes, despite this, he still sounds heavenly. No, I do not like his version of “Whiter Shade of Pale.” Yes, I still love him.

Glad that’s out of the way. In only tangentially related news, I was reading the Journal article on the decline in CD sales - down 7 years running, 20% this year alone - only slightly offset by the increase in digital downloads, and had to laugh out loud when I read this:

Jeff Rabhan, who manages artists and music producers including Jermaine Dupri, Kelis and Elliott Yamin, says CDs have become little more than advertisements for more-lucrative goods like concert tickets and T-shirts. “Sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream,” says Mr. Rabhan. “It’s the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that’s it. There’s no money.”

Elliott Yamin. In the Wall Street Journal. Who woulda thunk?