The Great Egg Debate FINAL RESULTS: The Greatest Egg!

The polls have closed, the votes are counted, and in our highly scientific and utterly irrefutable manner, The Great Egg Debate has conclusively determined the best Easter Eggs in the world. You have spoken, and the results are final:

(Drumroll please...)


With 33% of the vote, the best Easter Eggs in the world are:



Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs!

These delicious confections outlasted a last-minute vote run that saw both Cadbury Eggs and homemade peanut butter eggs finish with 20% of the vote each.

Cadbury Mini Eggs took third place with 16%, white chocolate bunnies took 9% of the vote, and a write-in candidate, deviled eggs. finished with 2%.

And so it is decided. My thanks to all who participated in this very important poll.

I wish you all a very Happy Easter! Time to gobble down some of those Reeses Eggs...

New Wave for the New Week #5

Medium Medium (via last.fm)

While many of the bands who were a part of the New Wave scene went on to have long, productive careers (The B-52s, Devo, Blondie, Talking Heads, Siouxsie & the Banshees, etc.), many, many more made only the briefest of splashes in the pond, falling under the radar of all but the most devout scenesters (The Shivvers, Insect Surfers, The Problem Dogs, and so forth). But there was also a middle ground - the bands who hit the ground running and seemed sure to succeed, but never did anything more than one great song.

One such band was Medium Medium, a British post-punk/dance band who showed up in 1981 with a truly fantastic single, "Hungry, So Angry". With a pulsating rhythm and propelled by a funky slap-bass, the single was made to fill the dance floors of clubs everywhere. It did not disappoint, even reaching the lower rungs of the American dance charts. Trying to parlay this cult hit into something more sustainable, a full album (The Glitterhouse) appeared later that year.

Immediate comparisons were made to bands like Gang of Four, thanks to the rather angular song structures and alienated vocals; more than a little bit of Talking Heads influence can be heard here as well. Given the success those bands saw, one would think Medium Medium had hit upon winning formula. It wasn't to be. A few more singles found their way to record store shelves, but that was it. No follow up, no swan song, no goodbye, nothing but this one wonderful song to remember them by.

Here, then, is your New Wave for the New Week, Medium Medium's "Hungry, So Angry":

The Great Egg Debate Great Home Stretch Update

Image via Wikipedia

Only a week to go until Easter, which means only a week more of official voting in The Great Egg Debate, by which we will determine once and for all which are the absolute, inarguable BEST Easter Eggs.

At press time, the standings are as follows:

Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs lead with 30% of the vote.

Cadbury Eggs and homemade peanut butter eggs are tied for second with 23% of the vote each.

Cadbury Mini Eggs carry a respectable 13% of the vote.

10% of voters agreed with my assertion that white chocolate bunnies beat them all.

The "Other" category has 3% of the vote, with the suggestion that deviled eggs are in fact the best.

The race is close enough that a few votes could decide it, so if you have not voted yet, let your voice be heard! The winner will be announced right here on this blog on the morning of Easter Sunday.

Which are the best Easter eggs?
	Cadbury Eggs
	Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs
	homemade peanut butter eggs
	Farmer's Market peanut butter eggs
	Cadbury Mini-Eggs
	candy robin's eggs
	Doesn't matter - white chocolate bunnies beat them all
	Other (describe your choice in the comments)
pollcode.com free polls

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack...

Image by adamr.stone via Flickr

Two of the four sweetest words in the English language are "Opening Day". The other two? "Play ball!" All four will resound tonight as the 2009 Major League Baseball Season gets underway at Citizen's Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia. My beloved Philadelphia Phillies, defending "World F---in' Champions"(in Chase Utley's words)host the Atlanta Braves in a game that will be televised nationally on ESPN at 8:00PM EDT.

This is one of my favorite times of year. The beginning of a new baseball season marks a time of renewal: it is the one day when every team in either league is on equal footing. It means Spring is really upon us (despite the whipping winds and occasional temperature plunges we're still experiencing in my neck of the woods) and Summer is not far away. The sense that anything can happen and anyone could possibly win their division and go all the way to become World Series Champions crackles the air with excitement.

I've just finished one of my annual rituals: each year, during the final week of Spring Training, I re-read Jim Bouton's classic book, Ball Four. Written in 1970, Bouton's book chronicled his life during the 1969 season. What made the book a classic was not only Bouton's surprisingly engaging and conversational writing style, but the fact that Ball Four was the first book to break the code that hung in every baseball locker room: "What you see hear, what you say here, when you leave here let it stay here." Whereas most sports books before this painted the players as heroes, with a flair for the dramatic homerun or near-impossible game-saving catch, Bouton revealed the human beings behind the heroes in all their glory and shame. These weren't role models in the traditional glorified sense. They were ballplayers who spit, swore, got drunk, smoked dope, took amphetamines and chased women. The curtain was pulled back to reveal a bunch of regular joes, not all of whom were the most likeable. You know - like in real life.

Image via Wikipedia

The book holds up today, 40 years later. The names may have changed, the substances of choice to abuse may be different, but you get the sense the clubhouse of 2009 probably isn't all that different from the clubhouse of 1969 in personality or in vulgarity. And that's what makes the book so wonderful. It's timeless, it's funny, it's real. And I have long contended that to call it a "sports book" is to do it a great injustice. It's a book about a guy learning to enjoy what he does within his own limitations and at the hands of the limitations of others. Baseball just happens to be the vehicle to tell the story.

If you've never read it, please do. Were I in charge of such things, I would make it required reading for everyone in the country, despite it's rough language and frank approach. It really is a classic.

As I write this, the 2009 Opening Day game is about seven hours away, and I'm counting down the hours and minutes! For the first time in 28 years the Phillies are entering the season as defending champions, and I would love to see them repeat. I think they have a good chance to. In fact, let me close by giving you my picks for the 2009 season - check back with me in October and see how I did:

AL East - Boston Red Sox
AL Central - Cleveland Indians
AL West - Texas Rangers
AL Wild Card - Minnesota Twins

NL East - Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central - St. Louis Cardinals
NL West - Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Card - Chicago Cubs

I'm predicting a Phils/Bosox Series with the Phillies repeating as champs. OK, it's a combination of prediction and wishful thinking, but it's what I'm going with!

How about you? Who are your picks?

Lunch Amongst the Twitterati

Another check mark on my Life Experiences List: today I attended my first Tweetup.

For those of you who have not yet been inculcated into the Twitterworld, "Tweetup" is an overly-cute term for an organized meeting of two or more Twitter users, in the Real World as opposed to online. OK, I'll accept the overly-cute term. At least it makes me feel better about myself than if I were to tell you I attended a "Twitup".

Anyhoo, there is an ever-growing group of Twitterers here in Lancaster, PA who have been deemed Lancaster's "Twitterati". And how, exactly, does one become a part of this esteemed group of highfalutin' folk? Live in or near Lancaster (or at least, be able to locate Lancaster on a map), be on Twitter, and ask to be listed. As curator of the list @danielklotz notes,

"On the whole, we are a coffee- and beer-loving crowd that can be easily coaxed into spontaneous Tweetups. If you’re from out of town and need a recommendation on what to do or where to go, these are good people to ask...We’re also useful if you’re bored, or want to know what the weather’s like, or if you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in Lancaster when you’re away."

I can attest to the fact that it's a warm, friendly, and accepting group of people, and I've gotten to know several of them well online. But, despite the fact that we are all local, I had met very few of them in person before today.

Our Tweetup was organized for lunch at a little "see-if-you-can-find-it" Spanish restaurant called Antojitos, which opened up on West King Street about three months ago. I am a fan of Spanish cooking, and the food that was served was very tasty...but it was clear that the 20+ folks who attended the event were a larger group than the staff was prepared to handle. Our first clue to this appeared when we were asked for our drink orders. Those who asked for water were promptly served bottled water; those who asked for regular sodas were given cans of Pepsi or Sierra Mist; those who asked for diet soda sat waiting until one of the staff came running in with a plastic shopping bag filled with cans of diet coke. Had he run down the street to the store? Probably better not to ask.

After initial attempts to provide each person with their own plate as ordered proved futile, our hosts began bringing us large platters of rice, beans, pork and chicken to pass around and share. Oddly, rather than bringing salad, they brought us one large plate of lettuce, one large plate of tomatoes, and a dish of lime quarters, prompting me to comment that we had reduced them to bringing us random plates of food. It added to the conviviality of the event, though -- so many of us meeting each other for first time were passing food and laughing like a family at a holiday meal. Really, the owners of the restaurant went out of their way to make us feel welcome and did their best for us -- even providing the table with a complimentary flan (and how often do you get complimentary flan?)

My fellow Twitterati proved to be as enjoyable a group in person as I have found them to be while interacting online. A range of ages, backgrounds, occupations and hobbies provided a wide variety of conversational topics. This is a creative, intelligent, and downright funny group of folks, and I am honored to be among them.

I am one who, especially over the past several years, has dealt with sometimes horrendous social phobia. I am diagnosed OCD (far more obsessive than compulsive), and hand-in-hand with that has been a growing fear of social situations. It has caused me to go from a once very social life to very hermit-like one. In recent times, I have consciously made efforts to turn that around.

That said, today was a bit of a personal victory for me. There was a time - as recently as six months ago - when I would have found or created out of whole cloth any excuse at all not to go by myself to have lunch with a group of people I'd never met in person before. And sure, this morning, I had the nerves going and had to give myself a bit of pep talk to get moving. But I went, and I had a great time! And you can bet I will be at the next one!

If you are in the area, or even just on Twitter, and want to find and follow a great group of people, you could do a lot worse than those listed on the Lancaster Twitterati page found here. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter - I'm @berutt.

New Wave for the New Week #4

Image via Wikipedia

The line between what was "new wave" and what was "punk rock" was, at times, an intentionally blurry one. Punk rock couldn't sell in the States in the late '70s and early '80s - radio programmers wouldn't touch a record by a "punk" band, and in those pre-MTV days, if you weren't on the radio you weren't going to sell records.

Hence the term "new wave" came into vogue circa 1976/1977 in the hopes of getting past this genre block. Of course, this didn't work either because American radio at the time was still sleepwalking through the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, about to turn the oh-so-safe corner to meet Journey and REO Speedwagon. Zzzzzzz....

Meanwhile, there were myriad bands who were being labeled as both Punk Rock AND New Wave - The Ramones, The Dickies, Blondie; I can still pull out my copy of the Wave News new wave compilations which included obvious punk bands like The Exploited and Dead Kennedys under the umbrella!

So it was with this weeks NW4NW entry, 999.

Named for the British equivalent to America's 911 emergency phone number and consisting of Nick Cash (vocals/guitar), Guy Days (guitar/vocals), Jon Watson (bass), and Pablo Labritain (drums), 999 starting playing the British punk clubs in 1977, being one of the umpteen-hundred bands inspired by The Ramones and The Sex Pistols to pick up instruments and began thrashing away. While they are often included in the list of first-round UK punk bands, they always had a bit more of a melodic sense than some of their contemporaries. Indeed, by the time their self-titled debut LP hit the shelves in 1978, they had already taken to wearing the bright neon colors and skinny ties that came to be more associated with new wave than with punk rock.

The clip this week, for their fifth single, 1978's "Emergency", also shows off that new wave look. It's a classic bit of early video production - just the band in front of an all-white background, with a basic wash-out effect on the picture. But it's a clip that's hardly seen anymore, and it's a great song, so...your New Wave for the New Week is 999's "Emergency":

The Great Egg Debate Great Egg Update!

The Great Egg Debate is far from decided...and right now it is a dead heat between Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs and homemade PB eggs!

YOUR VOTE COULD SWING THE CONTEST!

Vote for the egg of your choice, BUT VOTE!

Which are the best Easter eggs?
	Cadbury Eggs
	Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs
	homemade peanut butter eggs
	Farmer's Market peanut butter eggs
	Cadbury Mini-Eggs
	candy robin's eggs
	Doesn't matter - white chocolate bunnies beat them all
	Other (describe your choice in the comments)
pollcode.com free polls

Favorite Five Places to Find Great New Music for FREE!

Image via Wikipedia

If you are even half the music fan I am, you're always on the lookout for new and exciting stuff to fill your iPod with. A lot of the music I have discussed on the blog to this point has been from my own "Golden Era" of punk rock and new wave, and that is the music that I truly love the most. But I do try to keep an ear to the ground to hear what's bubbling under the mainstream these days, and every now and then something catches that ear.

Most of what's catching my ear these days I'm finding by regularly visiting a few free-and-legal mp3 sites. Doing so is the high-tech equivalent to spending hours picking through the dollar bins at used record shops. You're going to have pick your way through a lot of crappy records to find the gems, but that only makes those wonderful finds sound that much better on your turntable....er, iPod.

I'd like to share with you five of my favorite online sites to find those gems, along with a gem I've found from each in recent weeks. Start poking through the bins yourself - you may just find the next big thing!

#5 - 3Hive
3Hive is a site that was started by three friends who wanted to share good music with others. They brought a few more friends on board over time, and these days a team of seven do the footwork of visiting innumerable record label websites from all over creation and finding the best free promotional mp3's. They link directly to the labels' websites and do very nice, consice and informative write-ups about the artists they feature.

Bryan's Recent Pick from 3Hive: "My Balloon" by Men Without Pants

#4 - Free Albums Galore
Nothing beats truth in advertising! This site is exactly what its name implies - a collection of complete albums and EPs (as opposed to individual tracks as you'll find on many sites) that are offered online, free for the downloading, sometimes by a label but more often than not by the artists themselves. Our mono-named host, Marvin, supplies a widely varied selection of music from jazz to classical to psychedelia to rock to the utterly undefinable. This is the kind of site you can lose hours logged into!

Bryan's Recent Pick from Free Albums Galore: Without You I'm Napping by Japanese Gum

#3 - MP34U
This site uses an open door policy that allows anyone to become part of their team of "sources" who are constantly scouring the Internet for free-and-legal mp3's. Here, you have the option of streaming or downloading each track, and again the variety in genre is wide. So is the notoriety of artists and timeframes for the songs - anything might show up here, so long as it is being offered free and legally somewhere on the web: an early-20th-century blues 78, late 70s punk rock, and country standards sit alongside bands you've never heard of before and may never hear of again. It's a potpourri of music, almost mind-spinning at times but well worth the time to pick through!

Bryan's Recent Pick from MP34U: "My Maudlin Career" by Camera Obscura

#2 - RCRD LBL
As the description from their own FAQ page says, "RCRD LBL is a network of ad supported online record labels and blogs offering completely free music and multimedia content from emerging and established artists." Much of the music offered here is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which means it's already pre-cleared to be shared or remixed, so long as neither are done for commercial purposes. Lots of nifty stuff to find here, and each artist gets their own page worth of description and info. Again, both streaming and downloading options are offered.

Bryan's Recent Pick from RCRD LBL: "Lalita" by The Love Language

#1 - Fingertips
A weekly selection of three free-and-legal mp3s culled into blog form from their main site, each with a well-written explanation of the music and artist. Very often the stuff presented here has not yet been officially released. The music here tends towards the more indy-pop sound on the whole, but the occasional surprise rocker shows up, too.

Bryan's Recent Pick from Fingertips: "Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh" by Say Hi

Larry, Moe and...Jim?!?

Image via Wikipedia

Oh Good Lord! Is no one in Hollywood capable of coming up with an original idea? Why must we be subjected to unnecessary, ill-conceived and poorly executed rehashings of classic material?

There have been the attempts to turn classic TV shows into current movies: George of the Jungle, Lost in Space, Bewitched and Land of the Lost have all been rendered as misguided movies that failed to deliver on even the most basic elements of entertainment, failing both as tribute and as parody in each case.

There have been the attempts to up date classic movies: Did we really need a new Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? A new King Kong? A new Planet of the Apes fer crissakes?

No, we did not - we needed none of these. As a rule, these attempts at nostalgia (which are often done with the same faux irony that programs like VH1's "I Love the 70s" have made people believe passes for wit and insight) result in cheaply done grade-Z crap that seldom has even the most minuscule bit of the original's personality and wit. They tend to be written on a lowest-common-denominator level, and are played so broadly by casts who are obviously there only to pick up a paycheck.

And now...well, now they've gone too damned far!

Now they're planning to remake The Three Stooges. Attempting to cast three new Stooges would, in itself, be an affront, but what is being planned borders on blasphemous. Are you sitting down?

How about Sean Penn as Larry Fine? Tough time picturing that? Then you'll have an even tougher time picturing Moe Howard as portrayed by Benicio del Toro. You think I'm joking, don't you? It gets worse: how about arguably the most beloved of the four "Third Stooges," Curly Howard, played by the horrifically overbearing Jim Carrey?

The announcement was made yesterday on Variety.com. Come on, people! Who greenlighted this? Who on Earth is this aimed at? Long time Stooges fans are going to be offended; those who never got the Stooges to begin with will have no need or desire to see this; kids who never saw the original Stooges will have no frame of reference for this. And could a worse cast be chosen?

Am I alone in my sorrow here? Tell me what you think - would you go see this? Would these be the three actors you would have chosen? Is there any chance whatsoever of this being a good thing?

AIG Executive's Public Resignation Letter

Image via Wikipedia

Saw this over at The Consumerist (a site you really should bookmark and read regularly!) The letter, which was puiblished in the New York Times was enough to give me pause in my anger at AIG in general, though I'm not sure it swings me around to their side; the reader comments are even more interesting. Does it change your mind at all? As the poll question asks, do you feel bad for this guy? Or is he grandstanding?:


DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in - or responsible for - the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company - during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 - we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I'd like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute's generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.'s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable - in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.'s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity - directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country's call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn't defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That's probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would "live up to its commitment" to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts "distasteful."

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts - until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It's now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made - tacit or otherwise - with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

You've now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.'s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.'s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to "name and shame," and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats - even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There's no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn't disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.'s or the federal government's budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less - in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company's diverse businesses - especially those remaining credit default swaps. I'll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what's happened this past week I can't remain much longer - there is too much bad blood. I'm not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I'll leave under my own power and will not need to be "shoved out the door."

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis