Bo Diddley has a stroke

From today's Indianapolis Star:

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Four days after suffering a stroke, Bo Diddley walked around the intensive-care unit at Creighton University Medical Center, and doctors were encouraged that the singer-songwriter-guitarist would be able to perform again, his manager said.

I suspect this ends Bo Diddley's career. If you do not know Bo, then you should know Bo - or rock and roll. I saw him in 1991 at The Vogue in Indianapolis. One truly amazing show. He had the crowd in his hand and he worked that crowd.

Another on Anderson restaurant's suck

A friend of mine sent me this e-mail rather adding to the comments:

I don’t know how to comment on your site: Art’s in North Anderson is still the best pizza I have ever eaten. Roast beef and Italian sausage sandwiches are outstanding too. Frazier’s in Meadowbrook. Everyone’s right about Gene’s. Want a greasy burger or chicken, health professionals be damned? Nick’s also in North Anderson . Dolenski’s for “fine dining” in Madison County . Good’s chocolates ranks with any fancy chocolatier. Scampy’s (from whom the original Art learned). Does anyone still make Flatt’s chicken or ribs for catering? They were both great. I loved Chuck Quish (why didn’t you people patronize it more?). On Broadway’s burgers were very good. To me Grandview was not that great.

Also, today I had lunch at the Shrine Club with my youngest step-son. I got the double cheeseburger and the step-son got a grilled cheese. He has become a connoisseur of grilled cheese sandwiches - as befits a five year old. The grilled cheese looked and was eaten without much persuasion. I wish I had left off the cheese on mine - Velveeta, I think and lots of it dibbling down the burger like a yellow lava flow. The service was good bu the crowd was small - about 25 spread over a large room. A pretty quiet lunch in a pretty quiet place (I think the nosiest person there was with me) for a reason seven dollars and some change. For the penny pinchers that is cheaper than Quiznos.

More about Anderson restaurants sucking

Anonymous and I have been having a bit of dialog going in the comments but no else seems interested in the questions I posed here.

So, let me put this in a bit of a political/business perspective for you, dear readers. The following I got from Mayor Smith's Meat and Potatoes newsletter for April 13:

Forbes’ recognition of Anderson as one of the best cities in the country to do business lends us tremendous credibility. The magazine’s considerations were colleges and universities, the cost of doing business, the cost of living, crime rate, culture and leisure, educational attainment, income and job growth, and net migration.

The items that served us best were:

• Culture and Leisure – Anderson ranked seventh among all cities. Our symphony orchestra, the Fine Arts Center, the Paramount Theatre, Hoosier Park, Anderson Speedway, our parks, trail system and many more - these offer a quality of life that is immensely valuable to companies and potential residents.

Our restaurants fall into the category of culture and leisure, they do reflect on our city, and businesses do look at these quality of life issues.

I offer this as my reason for why we are such a haven for fast food: in the days when everything revolved around work at the GM factories, people were too tired, too short of time to cook at home or sit down at a restaurant. As with everything in this city, the eating habits were based on our work habits. What we are going to do now when GM has vacated their premises?

Anderson restaurants suck

Really, they do. We have all these fast food places and then we have the chains like Red Lobster and Anderson restaurants Applebee's. For years, even decades, I hear the same story: Anderson is a hamburger town and never anything more. So I now I am going to ask some questions, feel free to hit the Comment button below and let me know if you have any answers to these questions.

1. Does Anderson really favor chain restaurants or are we just being told that is this all we can have here?
2. Why can we not keep a decent barbeque place in this town? Muncie has QL's and Pitts and a bloody great barbeque festival in August, but we had nothing stay for any time since Chuck Quishes (sorry about any misspelling there) went out. Daleville has a great place, though.
   
3. What are your favorite local restaurants? And I mean those that are not franchised from outside Anderson.

Here are my list of places for a good steak in Anderson:

1. The Three Pigs
2. Abel's
3. The Boat Club.

I know, I know, only The Three Pigs is family friendly but go out without the kids some time.

I say that The Lemon Drop's hamburgers are better than any place in town. Gene's remains the place for hot dogs. The Boat Club has great hamburgers.

Frankly, The Three Pigs has great food, great service and an ambiance that is pretty much embalmed. On the other hand, I can take a little less than great ambiance for great food. You cannot eat ambiance.

I just do not buy the idea that Andersonians are so uncouth and ignorant that they will eat only fast food. Take The Nile in Park Place. The place opened something like fifteen years ago and is still going strong. Grandview used to be good for seafood but I do not think it gets the promotion that it deserves.

Break from the politics - chow down

I must admit after Albert Gonzales' testimony, of even more deaths in Iraq, and having gotten an earful of Sean Hannity on my car radio, I have no mood to think rationally or write rationally about politics today. A nice quiet meal sounds good. I would even take a good beer (regardless of how much I find "good beer" to be an oxymoron.)

Starting with Feed Me/Drink Me. Which bills itself as a blog about "Indianapolis food, wine, and commentary." Nice to think of taking the wife out for an evening of a nice dinner in Indianapolis and without the kids. The five year old can explode when the food is not to his taste. The other boy has acquired a taste for sushi but does not really like the spicier food that I do.

Feed Me/Drink Me lead me to the Indianapolis Ethnic Food page. If you want something besides Applebee's take a look here.

Which always raises a question with me about Anderson - why are we stuck with so many whitebread, franchise restaurants? Murano's had tolerable Italian food - well, it was authentic Italian food. Our Chinese restaurants have caught the buffet craze. The Mexican restaurants are good but the wife does not like them and the five year old has declared war on burritos. Yet, Noblesville and Muncie have Japanese/sushi restaurants, Noblesville and Muncie have Italian restaurants, and Muncie had a Thai restaurant (I think that has closed), Kokomo has an Indian restaurant, but Anderson has only The Nile. Sorry, Olive Garden and Fazio's do not count for ethnic food. Is it that we are too close to Indianapolis making it too easy for us to care about our local eateries? Is it that we really are a hamburger town?

Speaking of Noblesville, they have a brewery over there. The name is Barley Island. You can read about it at HoosierBeerGeek.com. I was there several years ago when I was involved in a failed attempt to open a microbrewery in Anderson. I thought the food very good and the beer was good for beer.

I do not remember which of the above two blogs sent me to the page for the Fifth Annual Indiana Wine Fair - April 28, 2007. I knew Indiana's wineries were increasing in number but the page lists a lot I did not know about.

The new wineries include Madison County's own New Day Meadery! I think I got to check this place out. I wrote a piece on this local winery here: http://eclecticdem.blogspot.com/2007/01/herald-bulletin-finds-another-new-local.html

If you feel compelled to find a consistent seriousness here, you can read HoosierBeerGeek and the Indiana Wine Fair page as being about economic development. Otherwise, just enjoy them for themselves and have a good night. Politics will return tomorrow.

What a hellacious sh*thole Indiana must be

Our local Congressman goes to Iraq and makes an ass out of himself. Then The Daily Show gets in the act and highlights Indiana. I saw these first on TDW but stAllio's Way got them first and so the link is to that site. Start with the second one. That is where I got the title for this post.

Yep Roc records - Southern Culure on the Skids

Okay, it is colder than it ought to be for April in Indiana. Politics will just have to take a break. If you have never heard of Southern Culture on the Skids, you should. Lots of fun. Very inventive. So here is a cut from their latest album. Anybody old enough to remember the original weeper version and hated it of this ought to be impressed by this cover. Gee, that description fits me to a T.

Water heater generating electricity

Turning a water heater into a home generator. At least, that is my understanding of this article from Extreme Tech magazine:

The freewatt system includes a cogeneration unit developed by Honda that produces 3.26 kilowatts of heat and 1.2 kilowatts of electric power, and can be paired with either a furnace or boiler produced by Climate Energy.

According to both companies, the micro-CHP approach to delivering energy to homes can reduce overall energy usage as well as lower the impacts on the environment by actually using the fuel used to heat a typical home twice.

In essence, the electric power produced by the system is a by-product of its own heating functionality. That electric power displaces the electricity that consumers would otherwise purchase from a local electric utility provider, Climate Energy said.

This can save the average homeowner $500 to $1,000 per year on their electric bills, both companies said. What's more, when a customer replaces his or her typical 80 percent efficiency home heating system with a freewatt system, that they can still see an average of 30 percent cost savings.

In Massachusetts, the thing lists for $13,500.00

Muncie Arts

I signed up for the Muncie Downtown e-mail newsletter. Really a good thing - it gives info on what is going on at the Muncie Children's Museum (hey, when you got a five year old you will do the same thing), Doc's (really good live music but because of the aforementioned five year old, we do not get to hear), and Minnestrista Center. I also get news releases like what follows.

For those of you remembering Anderson's stillborn Florentine city concept, here is how it could have been implemented. Remember that all the arty stuff does not replace the other commercial ventures in Muncie but compliments the commerce. Something the Florentine city concept did not seem to address (my memory is a bit vague on how it was to be implemented or was implementation just vaguely disclosed to the public?

News Release – April 2, 2007
Meet the Artists at First Thursdays in Downtown Muncie
Contact: info@munciedowntown.com


Downtown Muncie, Indiana celebrates the arts on the first Thursday
evenings of every month from 5 to 8 pm. Our many art galleries spotlight
their exhibit openings for the month and host meet-the-artist receptions;
and our specialty shops are open late on this evening for a free,
family fun event. Visit www.munciedowntown.com for details.

Some of the gallery events at the next First Thursday, April 5, from 5
to 8pm:


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

~ The Artist Within, 313 S Walnut Street - 765-289-7895 ~

April at the Artist Within will feature artwork by three Ball State
University seniors. Megan King will exhibit multiple exposure photographs
in her solo show entitled "Unconscious Prompts". Ben Beaty and Troy
Reutebuch will have a two-man Senior Thesis Show of drawings and
paintings. Both will be graduated from the Ball State University Art Department.

Megan is finishing her B.F.A. in photography at Ball State this May.
Megan's work has been in several juried shows in this area. The
Minnetrista Juried Show, the Ball State Student Show, and the LaFontaine Arts
Council Regional Show are just a few of the places she has exhibited her
work. Her work was also selected for national publication in
Photographer's Forum Best of College Photography.
The photographs in this show are the result of her exploring
spontaneous and uninhibited image making. All of the images are multiple exposure
panoramics taken with a simple toy camera.

Ben is a Muncie native and attended Muncie Southside before entering
Ball State. His love of comic books, especially the edgier and/or the
more artistic ones has helped with his creativity and motivated him to
find a way to incorporate cartoon-like imagery into a "high art" realm.
Ben has exhibited work in various student shows at Ball Sate and at the
Artist Within. He has also had work in the Minnetrista Juried show.

Troy has exhibited his work in several Ball State student shows, at the
Artist Within, and will be in the Watercolor Exhibition forthcoming at
the Lamp Gallery in Indianapolis. He has also had work published in The
Child Stealers: A Jack Riley Adventure, 2005, Publish America.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

~ Gordy Fine Art & Framing, 224 E Main Street - 765-284-8422 ~

The intricate sculptures of BSU professor of art, Bill Zack, and
landscapes and still life oil paintings of Margie Prim will grace the walls
and pedestals of Gordy Fine Art and Framing during the month of April.
An artists' reception will be held on the regular First Thursday, April
5th from 5 to 8 pm. Light refreshments will be served and the public is
invited to meet the artists and view their works.

Bill Zack's sculptural pieces are architectural fantasies upon which
figures play, dangle or dance. As a teacher, Zack has been inspiring
students at Ball State for over twenty years in the classroom and as the
Atrium Gallery Director since 2003. As an artist, he has been
consistently active in both creating and exhibiting his works, and has won
numerous awards throughout the United States. He is represented in numerous
private and corporate collections.

Margie Prim is best known for her "plein air," or on site paintings of
landscapes, river and cityscapes of east central Indiana.  If Prim's
earlier works remind viewers of the popular Impressionism, the newer
paintings may favor the controlled wildness of the "Fauves," or "wild
beasts" of the early 1900's: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne.

The exhibit may also be viewed during normal business hours: Monday
through Friday, 9 AM to 5:30 PM, Saturday, 9 to 3, or by appointment.
Gordy Fine Art & Framing is located at 224 East Main Street, next door to
Civic Theatre in downtown Muncie. For more information call 765.284.8422
or visit www.gordyframing.com.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

~ Gallery 308 (formerly MPG), 308 E. Main Street - 765-289-8575 ~

Watermedia artist Marilynn Derwenskus will display new works in a new
exhibit at Gallery 308 from April 4-28. The opening reception for the
exhibit will be April 5 at the gallery. The event is a chance for the
public to meet the artist. Light refreshments will be provided. Admission
is free.

Derwenskus is a widely exhibited, award-winning artist. She holds a MFA
degree from University of Chicago and currently is a painting professor
at Ball State University. Prior to her BSU appointment, she taught at
various other institutions including Wayne State University, Macomb
Community College, and Henry Ford Community College. She has been the
recipient of several study grants that have allowed her to travel throughout
the US and abroad to pursue her research and experimentation. This has
included work with egg tempera and encaustics. Her passion is teaching
and she instills in her students a high degree of enthusiasm and
confidence.

Gallery 308 is a nonprofit, community-supported art gallery, located at
308 East Main, Muncie. For information about Gallery hours and
volunteer opportunities, call 765-289-8575.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

~ Artworks, 301 South Walnut Street ~

Artworks is an artist owned and operated sales gallery, featuring
original works for sale by outstanding Indiana artists.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Other downtown Muncie businesses that may also have art exhibits or
special events during First Thursdays include:

~ Blue Bottle Coffee Shop, 206 S Walnut Street - 765-284-36300
~ Cortex Hair Salon, 112 W Jackson Street - 765-288-6685
~ Danner's Books*Gifts*Yarns, 1316 N Wheeling - 765- 288-1122
~ David Dale Designs, Interior Designs & Fine Art Gallery, 421 S Walnut
Street - 765-284-4987
~ FB Fogg, 418 E Main Street - 765-289-7464
~ Glitterati in the Rose Court on Charles Street
~ Minnetrista, 1200 N. Minnetrista Parkway - 765-282-4848

Additionally, all of our independently owned bars and restaurants will
be open and ready to serve you. For more information, visit
www.munciedowntown.com.

Online news readers have longer attention spans

Reuters by way of PC Magazine:

The EyeTrack07 survey by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, found online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read while broadsheet newspaper readers read an average of 62 percent, and tabloid readers about 57 percent.

For the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. fans out there - Films at IUPUI

From yesterday's Indianapolis Star:

The “Writer’s Mind” film series is part of Indianapolis’ Year of Kurt Vonnegut celebration.

The IUPUI events begin April 17 at 6 p.m. with a screening of “Slaughterhouse Five” in the Lilly Auditorium on the first floor of University Library. Discussions about the film will be held before and after the screening.

On April 19, two interviews with Vonnegut will be screened at 6 p.m. in the Lilly Auditorium. “So It Goes…” is a BBC production in which Vonnegut discusses his family’s Indy history, his service in World War II and how he began writing.

“Writer’s Workshop: Kurt Vonnegut,” a PBS film, is a taped discussion between the author and students at the University of South Carolina.

For more information: http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/vonnegut.doc

More commentary on the movie 300

I mentioned the movie below. Surfing the web over the weekend, I found some more interesting comments. I started with A Don's Life (no, it is not a blog from a mafioso but an English history professor).

Nido writes about the fascist and racist themes in the movie without criticizing the book. He does link to this Guardian Unlimited book review from 2005, for Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. Then there is The Whitepath.com and gives a Turk's view on the movie. Whitpath mentions but does not link to Victor Davis Hanson. A Don's Life does and here is the link.

My comments on the commentary? First, I think everyone overestimates the film's ability to propagandize - the audience in Muncie was just not going to sign up for a Spartan training camp. Second, a lot of the blame heaped on the film's makers that might be better heaped on Frank Miller's graphic novel really belongs heaped on another fellow; Herodotus. See, he wrote down the story that came to us.

The bare bones story of the 300 is this: the Spartans were a badass bunch who really were good for nothing else but killing, the Spartans went north, met with their allies, Spartans and allies are stuck at the pass because the Spartans and their allies could not agree on what to do, Spartans and allies get outflanked, the Spartans and the Thespians fought a rearguard action so that the other troops would not be slaughtered and could fight another day, and then Spartans and Thespians get killed. The story has the same appeal as David and Goliath. The little guys held off the big guys. Spartan law did not allow a retreat, so these are guys who just walked into a meatgrinder and stayed there. Good, bad or indifferent, the Spartans held on long enough for the Athenians to defeat the Persians at Salamis and start European civilization. Luckily for us Westerners, Athens had more to with that civilization than Sparta.

Just for fun - an electric car

Seriously, how else can I think of a $92,000 car as anything but a bit of humor? The Tesla Roadster. From PC Magazine of all places:

Equipped with an AC induction motor that's no larger than a watermelon, it does zero to 60 in about 4 seconds. But it's not just the acceleration that amazes. It's the way this car accelerates. Unlike a gasoline-powered car, which has very little torque at low RPMs, the Tesla reaches 100 percent torque from the instant it starts forward. You don't wait even a moment for that acceleration to kick in. It kicks in immediately. The effect is like nothing you've ever experienced.

And that's not the half of it. Even as it reaches the performance of leading sports cars, emissions are non-existent—when I say 100 percent electric, I mean 100 percent electric—and according to the company, the car gets the equivalent of 135 miles to the gallon. Translation: If you charge your car at night, during off-peak hours, when it makes the most sense to charge it, you're paying as little as one cent per mile.

The Tesla has yet to be independently tested—the final version doesn't roll off the assembly line until the fall—and what you may save powering the car is certainly offset by the initial $92,000 price tag. But it's hard not to admire the Tesla simply as a feat of engineering.

Got to give the writer credit for a gift of understatement in that last paragraph there. Go, take a look. It does look cool.

Readers? Book lovers?

Found this site Library Thing from this article in Australia's The Age.

The website caters to readers worldwide. To sign up, all you do is to provide a user ID and a password - no personal information is required. Once signed up, add the books you own or like best to your digital library. You do this by clicking the Add books tab and type some information about it in the Search dialogue box. This takes the title, author name or the ISBN number and searches amazon.com, the Library of Congress in the US or other sources throughout the world for information on the book you're searching for. When the book appears in the list, click it to select it and it will be added.

Back from my seminar, news and invitation to an open post

A long week in Indianapolis. The amount of free time I had shows in the posts I made to this blog. Well, I have about a week of work to get caught up on still - been at that since yesterday morning - and so not much here today and probably not a bunch tomorrow. Which is annoying.

There has been a lot going on and I am feeling a need to vent. So, readers, and I guess there are now some of you, I am going to copy Taking Down Words and suggest that there will be an open thread here. Just click on the Comments to this post and write about anything you like. Just try to be polite, rational, and go for it.

I also found a new site that might be of interest - Congress.org. Check it out.

Finally, some fun stuff

Having expelled the crankiness of the morning, I'd like to share some fun stuff I found:

John Wayne in Glasgow

Pop music in Britain (and this should warm the hearts of anyone who remembers vinyl)

Clint Eastwood's new movie (I've not had time to see any movies at the theater since King Kong but I want to see this one and Casino Royale).

Highland High School's girl's basketball team.

And a horror movie to look forward to - Last Man on Earth.

Fishing in Scotland here and here.

Antidotes to a gloomy day.