Lady Marmalade (Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi)

One of the bright poins of pop in the seventies was Lady Marmalade, the song which tought us all how to say "do you want to (bleep) me tonight?" in French.

Originally by Labelle.
Many versions since, a good one by All Saints.
And a big one by four big stars.
And a bigger one by four even bigger stars.
(The last one is blocked for minors on YouTube. What, it's inappropriate for kids to see large people in skimpy outfits? Where are the kids in Houston gonna go?)

Sick, Oh!

I just noticed that while the USA's health care system has put it at 37th on the World Health Organization's list, my home country Denmark is barely higher at 34th. And this is a country with some of the highest tax rates in the world. Sales tax is at 25%, a worker pays around 50%, and a manager can pay 68% in tax. And their health care system ranks at 34th? (UK ranks at 18, and they have about 30% less tax pressure.) For shame! It seems that socialized health care is not all that's needed to do it well. Don't ask me what is needed, though, I honestly thought Denmark was at the top, and they have no reason not to be that I know of.

A plastic feel

A plastic feel

Paleo-Future

Paleo-future. How does the future look from the past?

Comic Book Love

Comic Book Love:


Galactic Celebration:

Art from Wednesday

Map of the dark side of Venus:


The view just before coming out:


Rhapsody in Green no. 4:


Scene from a science fiction movie:

My Way?

David Pogue explains how he did a song spoof based on My Way, about the iPhone. He pulled six singers from the crowd waiting for their iPhone and made them sing.

This is fun in itself, but I was greatly surprised by this statement:
"(None of the six, all of whom were under 45, knew the song "My Way.")"

No friggin' way!
(Especially since they were those from the crowd who could sing, and were at least educated enough to want an iPhone.)
I am under 45, I am not even American, not very interested in crooner music, and I can't imagine any adult not being familiar with My Way. I even know the Sid Vicious version. (Which I like better than the version by that mob guy.) Am I more educated than I realize? Or is this the twilight zone? Or does the cliche about the level of knowledge/education of Americans have a grain of truth? I hate to think so. I think I'll go on the street over here (UK) and ask people if they know this song.

Friday 13th

Blogger's maximum image size is 1600 pixels on the long side (quite reasonable). But the detail in the last image is so awesome that I could not resist uploading a super-sized version on my own server.

The Aristocrats

Leviathud mentioned The Aristocrats (not Aristocats*), so I've now seen it. I liked it. If you like dirty jokes and don't mind dirty language, you'll like it, if not, not.

*It says something about changes in the Western world that the title of a Disney movie is now better known than a millennia-old term and what used to be a overwhelmingly important soci0-political phenomenon.

Printers

I was asked about my printer, so.
The small one is the Sony photo printer I wrote about a couple months ago.
The medium one is my faithful HP LaserJet 1200.
And the big one is the Epson Stylus Pro 4800. It's a monster, and built to professional specifications, so it takes a large man to even lift it.
It makes wonderful prints, and in pigment inks, archival quality.
The only problem I have with it is that sometimes I don't use it for a couple of months, and then it starts putting black smudges on the prints. Cleaning the heads is only partially helpful. I hear it's often a problem with Epson printers, they don't handle idle time well. I'm trying to find a solution for it.


Here are the prints from yesterday:

(I put the Nikon F2 in the pictures for scale.)

Speakers

Sunday before last I visited Laurie Jeffery. My friend Ian Webster was there to deliver a set of HiFi speakers of his own design, so I met them both and "helped". (Mostly inane jokes and distracting comments.) Ian also designed the speakers I have. Afterwards Ian and I had a nice lunch. (Laurie was off to work, he seems to be working like a 100-hour week these days, he's in demand.)
Laurie talented and lovely wife Vicky has blogged this.

Nisus Writer Pro released

Nisus Writer Pro released. A deep and flexible word processor for Mac.