Randomness

[neadods]

I'm going light on the Internet this week in the hopes of seeing Big Bang unspoiled, but it's impossible to miss the number of links pointing out that Thinkgeek has been hit with a real cease-and-desist letter for a product that is not only fictional, but was obviously an April Fool's joke. Some lawyer had an itcy trigger finger!

But it reminded me of a story that must be, oh, 30 years old by now. The Society for Creative Anachronism has a member's magazine called Tournaments Illuminated. Many moons ago as a joke, they came out with the Tournaments Illuminated Martial Extravaganza issue mocked up to look like an illuminated version of Time magazine... and apparently someone sent a copy of the tribute to the editors of Time.

Their lawyer's response boiled down to: "Cute. But do it again and we'll sue your ass off."

Other than that... I knew when we had a Code Orange* day in April that it was going to be a hard summer. The heat index is supposed to hit 102 tomorrow.

Finally, while I was typing this, the new Dr. Pepper commercial came on. Speaking of 30 years ago, wow, nobody (including them!) would have dreamed that KISS would end up peddling soft drinks.



*air quality, not threat level

Comments

[chibiaingeal.livejournal.com]

And apparently we've had the warmest Spring on record. I'm not liking how this is boding for Summer - especially since we've had code orange air quality since the weekend....

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm assuming tomorrow's going to go red. And then the A/C will be on continuously until November.

The garden is perilously close to dying of heat stroke whether I water it regularly or not. I can't shelter the tomatoes from the air.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

By the end of the month we'll probably have more 90°+ days In the Washington DC area than we had all last year. But remember, climate change is just a vast left-wing conspiracy! (though the more expert you are in climatology, the more you accept the fact of climate change: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/22/the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change-stronger-and-stronger/ )

[neadods.livejournal.com]

To be fair, last year was unusually cool for us. I remember going to the Folklife festival without being cooked alive.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

At least the folks in the Folklife Festival are coming from Mexico and other warm places. In previous years those people from Wales, Scotland, and Bhutan nearly died. One year at the Potomac Celtic festival, poor Andy Stewart, just off the plane from Scotland, had two big fans on him while performing and still cried, "How do you people LIVE in this climate?!" The sad thing is that it was only 82° and we were all walking around with big smiles saying, "Isn't this great? It's not hot the way it usually is!"

(I realize that "had two big fans on him" could be misinterpreted. Try to resist the impulse.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I will always remember an internet friend describing coming to DC and "being hit in the face with a hot, wet blanket." It's a good description of the air.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've used that analogy, though more being wrapped in the hot wet blanket than being merely hit in the face with it.

"Weather like the inside of a cow" is another useful image.

Could be marginally worse-- from Ulysses Grant's memoirs, an account of passing through Panama on the way to California before the Civil War:

In eight days [Panama] was reached. At that time the streets of the town were eight to ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons. I wondered how any person could live many months in [Panama], and wondered still more why anyone tried.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sounds like New Orleans, the first time I was there.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I'm baffled - it's the first week of Wimbledon and it's not pi$$ing down! That's just WRONG!

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

And the Glastonbury Festival isn't a sea of mud like Woodstock, which seems even more wrong....

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

LOL That's true! I'd forgotten about Glastonbury Festival!

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I would have assumed that a TIME "tribute" issue as described would fall under fair use due to being a parody, but lawyers can and will sue where they may... even if they did not win, it would be costly and annoying for the Tournaments Illuminated people, so the threat would have a chilling effect.

I never would have dreamed that KISS would end up peddling soft drinks, but then I never would have dreamed of Bill Shatner fronting for something like Priceline! The power of nostalgia!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Tournaments Illuminated thought it was a parody; Time thought it was a little too close for the casual viewer to distinguish, I think. But I found it worth noting that they didn't actually send a C&D - more of a throat-clearing hint.

Shatner doesn't surprise me so much - he flushed his pride years ago only to discover that he's even more popular & in demand doing self-parodying comedy. So it's win-win for him. As opposed to KISS so obviously having run out of money and pride. Does half of the audience even know who they *were*? Knights In Service to Softdrinks? Seriously?

[pinkribbonwench.livejournal.com]

I noted the good weather in my journal last year - something to the effect of: "Now watch - next year when I'm training, it'll be brutal."

I hate it when I'm right.