Big Leather Couch

Go to a hockey game, your team loses...so RIOT! Sure some of the idjits who were in the riot had not even gone to the game...

It appears this 17-year-old member of the Canadian junior water polo team WAS there for the game as he is wearing a Canucks jersey.

This athlete then joined the rioters and decided "Wow, wrecked police car, let's see if we can blow it up!"

Freakin dumb idjit....

What if the car had exploded and people were injured or killed? Would his teary eyed apology mean a damn thing?

NO

Not surprisingly, this has become more than what the law is going to do to those whose images were captured.

The Vancouver Police asked those who were there and videotaped or photographed the incident to post their pictures online along with those from traffic and store camera.

Last week I posted a link to the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States taken with a high resolution camera.  You were able to zoom in on the face - clear as a bell - of the person in the far side of the last row!

Well, people have been recognized and they are taking a beating ONLINE!

Some ore examples..A UBC student photographed leaving Black & Lee Tuxedos with a piece of clothing in her hands has been called out online by one UBC donor, who is threatening to pull his annual donation if she isn’t expelled.

A professional mountain biker, was photographed during the riots with a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of a sponsor. He has since lost multiple sponsorship deals and told The Sun, “I didn’t go there for the riot, I went for the hockey game and got caught up in the hysteria of it afterwards.”

UMMMM yo dude...we's gonna jump in front of that train...wanna get caught up in the hysteria wit us?

With traffic cameras and cell phone cameras and mini recorders, you will get caught...

With the internet...you will be vilified...

Get caught up in THAT hysteria why don't you?

By the way...I had names for the idjits, but why give them any more fame...vilified or not.

Good things do come out of being on Facebook. How you ask? Well, yesterday my dear friend Liz posted a link to this site and how cool is it when you have an entire site dedicated to


Recipes, contests, recipes, photos...all dedicated to the wonderful world of


I found one I think I am gong to have to try realllll soon...


Real simple and it looks like - well, potatoes and bacon and onions and garlic...well that is

Manna (Hebrew: מָ‏ן‎) or Manna wa Salwa (Arabic: مَنّ‎, Kurdish: gezo, Persian: ترنجبين), sometimes or archaically spelled mana, is the name of an edible substance that God provided for the Israelites during their travels in the desert as recorded in the Bible. It was said to be sweet to the taste, like honey.

CONGRATS to the Dallas Mavericks, who after a season of 2,000,000 games lasting 3 years (or so the NBA season seems) beat the Miami heat in 6 games to take the title.

No LeBron bashing here...heck, he does a good enough job himself.

SO, Terrelle Pryor pulled a Giambi the other day, issuing an apology, but never stating why he was apologizing.

“I say sorry to all the Buckeye nation and all the Buckeye fans across the country,” Pryor said. “I never meant to hurt anybody directly or indirectly with my conduct off the field and I am truly sorry.”

OK, Terrelle, was it selling the merchandise to drug dealers? Was it selling merchandise to anyone? Was it the fact you drove a new car almost every week and we are not talking about a 1999 Honda...we are talking brand spanking new luxury cars.

So, you apologize..shouldn't the entire city of Columbus apologize for being blind to the fact that a college student could have so many cars?

It is time to revamp the entire NCAA Scholarship program to allow these kids to work if they can, and to receive a stipend each month.

THEN, there has to be rules in place so when the coach bolts or the player does (as Pryor has done after the allegations arose), they can be sued in court for repayment of the money they gave or took illegally. And go after the boosters too!

Finally, today...another item I picked up from Facebook. This from my friend Jon and it is amazing what we can do with photographs these days...

This is scary and at the same time, with the way of the world, this will help in solving situations in the future - check out the link here.

Amazing how far technology has come. Just pick a person in the crowd and keep double clicking on their face.

Very impressive engineering, this will help law enforcement.

FASCINATING BUT SCARY!!! If you were there, they would know!!

 You used to be able to get lost in the crowd, but not anymore. Double click on any area in the picture to bring the person closer. Or, just click the mouse and use the mouse wheel to bring them closer.

This is a photograph of 2009 Obama Inauguration. You can see IN FOCUS the face of EACH individual in the crowd.

You can scan and zoom to any section of the crowd. Wait a few seconds. Double click anywhere. And the focus adjusts to give you a very identifiable close up.

The picture was taken with a robotic 1474 megapixel camera (295 times the standard 5 megapixel camera). Every one attending could be scanned after the event, should something have gone wrong during it.

This Week - a dinner we posted here last September:
"Grilled Salmon with Crunchy Sweet Mustard Vinaigrette"

In the last week, I have been on other sites and been involved in discussions on the music industry and recording technologies, and specifically two certain aspects.

My friend TRAVIS from "Trav's Thoughts" also sent me a link to an article which I thought made some excellent points regarding the first technology.

The article is by Tony Sclafani, msnbc.com contributor, and can be found HERE, discusses the frequent use of AUTO-TUNE.

Some of the tuneage at the top of the charts today would not exist without Auto-Tune.
“Blame It” by Jamie Foxx and T-Pain, “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga and “Right Now (Na Na Na)” by Akon - all Auto-Tune Tuneage.

You American Idol fans...remember the night your ears bled when Paula Abdul sang her new song? Well, the recording you listened to as Paula lip-synced her way through a bevy of young nubile men, was all Auto-Tune.

How much of the music we, the consumers, purchase today can be recreated in a concert environment? Well, that presumes you are not watching a recording-aided concert anyway. What happened to the days when singers sang, using their own voice?

Did it all really begin back in 1988 when that evil villian Frank Farian duped the world into the fantasy of Milli Vanilli?

Or should we go all the way back to the year 1976 when one Peter Frampton used the sinister Talk Box to hypnotize the rock world with the song "Do You Feel Like We Do"?

Is this just the progression that is inevitable in the music industry with technology taking the 'artistry' out of writing and recording music? Or does it take the artistry out of the music?

That depends upon the listener I suspect. I can tell you that I was one of those mesmerized by Frampton's use of the talk box. Would we have the hits of the 50's and early 60's without the over-dubbing being done in the studio?

Les Paul was a pioneer in the art of layering guitar parts, one on top of another, in the studio And his introduction of the 8-track recorder in 1958 shot the music industry ahead. Now, it was possible to record each instrument independently (Up to 7 of course - one for the vocals), allowing the drummer to 'fix' that run they missed on the first take.

So from the days of over-dubbing, we are now buying music that just might be totally 'mechanized'.

In so many ways this new technology is a tremendous bonus for the music industry, or rather for the music-buying public. The ability for an artist to record their own music, edit it, burn it to disc and market it, has put us all smack-dab in the middle of the renaissance age of music.

Do a Google search for music recording software and the number of hits is over 22-million. Now, I will not tell you there are that many different programs you can use, but there just may be half that amount!

Audacity, Acoustica, GarageBand, n-track...take your choice...those are just four...become a recording star...

Or will you? In the end, I would like to think that the music lovers of the world will ensure those who are trying to get famous will only do so if they have talent.

OK, before I get, HEY, U2 sequence their CDs...I am talking in general here, ot specifically. And I understand why it does not really matter what song follows the one before it for most artists today.

They feel that their music will be bought on i-Tunes or Rhapsody or downloaded illegally and in 80% of those cases, the buyer will be purchasing one or two songs form the CD.

Those of you closer to my age will remember when you would pluck your money down for that new album - vinyl, large, came in a cardboard wrapper with pictures and sometimes that cardboard opened and there was even more magic inside with words from your 'heroes' or more pictures to see - and running home to tear off the cellophane, putting the disc on the turntable, gently lowering the needle to hear that initial scratch, the the stylus fed into the groove and the first strains of music would fill your room.

As you listened, you looked at the album...read the liner notes...and listened. When the sdie ended, you flipped it over and listened.

Start to finish. An artist could tell you an entire story. Could let you escape into a world they created for a little over an hour.

The most known of those would be The Beatles ground-breaking SGT PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND and TOMMY, The Who's historic rock-opera...but albums like King Crimson's COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING and Led Zeppelin's first three albums are all creations made to be heard start to finish.

I am sure you can add to that abbreviated list and will do so in comments, and I encourage you to do so.

This is not so much "I miss the old days" as much as "I miss when they did it for real"...

What do you think?