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8 May, 2004

Barney Kessel, R.I.P.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune: Barney Kessel, 'Mr. Guitar,' dies at 80.

Kessel, who suffered several debilitating strokes in 1992, died of a brain tumor that was diagnosed three years ago. His death, at about 7 p.m. Thursday, was peaceful, according to his wife, Phyllis Van Doren, who was by his side.

"I had music on all day, and he was actually listening to one of his own records, 'Barney Kessel Plays for Lovers,' when he died," said Van Doren, 70, whose 1992 marriage to Kessel came just four months before his first stroke and three years after he had moved to San Diego.

"The last breath he took was in time with the last chord of the last song on that record," continued Van Doren, a senior editor at San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles magazine. "The song was 'I'm Through With Love,' which is not an inappropriate title. It was such a beautiful ending."

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Elvis Is Dead - Again

From the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: An obituary for Elvis A. Presley.

Elvis A. Presley, formerly Herbert A. Baer, age 67, of 19127 S. CTH C, Valders, died Monday afternoon, April 26, 2004 at North Ridge Medical & Rehabilitation Center, Manitowoc.

According to the Blog of Death...

Presley legally changed his name in 1978 to honor his idol, Elvis. He spent 27 years working at the Neenah Foundry Co., a supplier of gray and ductile iron castings, until his retirement in 1998. In his spare time, Presley was an Elvis impersonator.

The Irish Elvis Presley Fan Club lists Baer as the "first Elvis-impersonator to change his name to Elvis Presley legally."

(Thanks firq)

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Crack His Knuckles

Rob Manuel invites you to crack his knuckles.

(via DIVERSIONZ)

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Yoz Grahame On Excel

This was posted about six weeks ago. How did I miss it? When you're holding Excel, everything looks like a spreadsheet.

So the need to handle spreadsheets gave birth to spreadsheet applications... but these days, 90% of the time, people are using them for something else. My dad uses Excel as a lightweight database, storing the details of all the ground rents he manages. I've seen Sean drag it out when he wants a random data munging job done quickly. Chris and Dom have a mate who composes letters in it. During this rant I had yesterday about mocking up UI using Visio someone said that they sometimes used Excel for that purpose as well. For crying out loud, this Japanese bloke has even made it play Pac-Man.

And while we're on the subject, check out all of the reader comments regarding Anil Dash's Excel Pile post (which I linked to last month).

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Racial Discrimination At Cracker Barrel

I thought this kind of stuff ended about 40 years ago: Cracker Barrel customer says bias was 'flagrant'.

The government said its investigations showed that Cracker Barrel segregated customers by race; allowed white servers to refuse to wait on African-American customers; and seated or served white customers before seating or serving similarly situated African-American customers. Justice further alleged that, in many cases, managers directed, participated or acquiesced in those practices.

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Lensbaby Photos

I bought one of those Lensbaby lenses for my camera. Here are two shots I took yesterday.

It's fun, but there's definitely a learning curve. I'm getting the hang of it, though, and I'll be taking a lot more today.

I also found the Lensbabies Forum, which has discussion and lots of photos.

Posted on 8 May, 2004

Recycled Links, Part 28

These links were posted on the J-Walk Blog about a year ago. Good stuff that you may have overlooked.

Posted on 8 May, 2004