Day 344

Disney buys out Marvel Comics/Entertainment for $4 billion.  Match made in heaven or deal with the devil?

Too Many to Choose

There is lots going on in the world today. 

• Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by the senate yesterday afternoon and will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.  
  
• Pakistan's Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, is thought to be killed in an attack which also claimed his wife.
• Filmmaker John Hughes dies at the age of 59. He is a sentimental favorite of mine- Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles will always bring me back to my childhood. 
• More attacks targeting Shiites in Iraq.  Over 36 people reported dead.
• The Cash for Clunkers program gets $2 billion in new funding from Congress.  

Day 214

Craigslist

The "Craigslist Killer" and Boston University medical student, Philip Markoff, has sparked concerns about services provided by the popular online community forum.  CL is expected to implement strategies to prevent advertisements for erotic services.  

Influenza A Virus Subtype H5N1

A bird flu case has been found in a 29 year old man in southwestern China, the sixth case to be documented in China this year. It is reported that he had contact with live poultry markets.

Repetition

Yesterday's Circuit City handkerchief was the first time I consciously repeated a monogram. Today I realized I already did an NFL hanky when I was half way finished stitching the 'F'.  The previous hanky is from December 6, 2008 and was mined from a story about 3-D cheerleaders. Commentary from that post also mentioned a relief from stitching more grave subject matter. I guess sports has become my fallback for "light-hearted" news.   

Groundhog's Day?

I've been invoking the spirit of Bill Murray for a while now.  I wake up. Click on Google News Feed. Read the same stories with no resolutions in sight.  Unlike Bill Murray's character, I'm beginning to believe that there will never, ever be any resolutions, that these stories are destined to be repeated over and over again. Then I guess it becomes a matter of "baby steps". So today, I will embroider an NFL handkerchief just to have a break from the war in Gaza, the looming financial crisis, the conflict over gas with Russia/Ukraine, ect.

 

Bail Me Out

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke suggests that more bailouts are needed in order to revive the economy.  What concerns me is there is no talk about how the money is allocated and managed.  $800 billion is a hefty amount of money, very hefty indeed. Too hefty to just be given away to institutions that made very bad lending decisions that, for the most part, were based purely on greed.  

Social Networks on Politics

Obama Facebook user stats: 2.4 million users

McCain Facebook user stats: 624,000 users

I remember first joining Friendster 2003, then MySpace in 2004.  I made a Facebook profile just last year.  I don't use my Friendster or MySpace account anymore and barely have time to play around with Facebook.  It seems about time for a new social networking fad.  Twitter seems like it might be the next one to catch on.  We've come a long way as far as the internets are concerned.  It feels like yesterday when I sent my first e-mail and had my first IM- that was less than 10 years ago during my freshman year of undergrad when things were still running in MS-DOS. 

Material Girl

Here it is.... my homage to Joe "Plumber".  I worked very hard to finish early today because a friend of mine was gracious enough to give me a ticket to the Madonna Concert tonight.  I'm hopping on the T as soon as I make this post. 

ET Phone Home

I ran out of black thread last night and wasn't able to fill in Elliot's head.  

In Need of Something Lighthearted

Woke up this morning NOT wanting to read the news.  NOT wanting to read about more bailouts.  NOT wanting to read about corruption of governments.  NOT wanting to read about the failure of humanity.  

I was pleasantly surprised when the top 5 for today were quite positive in tone: increased voter registration in Mississippi, NLCS victory for the Phillies, Asian and European markets rallying upwards, Spielberg and Universal, and upcoming MacBook announcements.  

After reading the articles, I had a clear vision of today's handkerchief.......an homage to ET.  ET changed my life.  At risk of sounding overly dramatic, it was the first movie to show me the emotive power of cinema.  I was 5 years old, sitting in the back of my family's manilla yellow station wagon at the local drive-in theatre.   On the screen I see ET, pale white and dying.  I start to sob uncontrollably.  I was utterly unconsolable.  I knew what was unfolding on the screen was a complete fabrication, but my logic had no control over my physical reaction.  

A professor once told me, "We cry when we still have hope, laugh when all hope is gone."  I had an abundant amount of hope that ET would survive and return home.  My tears were not in vain.  

The Light That Never Goes Out

Pac Man, Pong, and Centipede

This is dedicated to anyone who played on an original Atari Game System. 

Life is a Game

Top story on Google News when I got up this morning was about Electronic Arts pulling the plug on a game under development.  I could never claim to be a gamer, but I do remember the day my uncle bought the Atari console for my cousins.  Boy, was I jealous.  Even after incessant pleading from me and my sister, my own parents would not budge.  My fate as a non-gamer was sealed.  Gaming is a big business.  EA reported 3.67 billion in revenue last year.  That's a lot of video games sold. 

When I lived in LA, I used to drive by the EA building all the time. 

The Wisdom of Simon and Garfunkel

Stitching and more stitching.  This morning's soundtrack: Simon and Garfunkel- Greatest Hits.  I haven't listened to this album in a while.  I wish I had put this album on yesterday as it would have been perfect background music while working on the handkerchief.  One line, in particular, screams out to me.  From Mrs. Robinson:

"Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

Who are our heroes?  Who will become our heroes?  Big questions, indeed, especially during a time where vision beyond base concerns seems to be sorely lacking.  

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme........

Busy Day

The bulk of my day was spent in the silkscreen shop at school preparing for next month.  I can't believe it is almost October.

I wasn't able to sit down and really stitch until this evening, but I was able to multi-task at a lecture at Gasp Gallery by a Swedish curator.  Overall, it was a very productive day.  

Nouveau Rouge

I read this article earlier this morning and it reminded me of a classic movie from my childhood:

excerpt from article:

"We have trade missions back and forth," Palin told Couric. "We, we do, it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state."