A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Public service, alerts, and information that just needs to be known
As a reminder, the Knoxville Juggler’s Club meets the first Sunday and third Tuesday of every month. All skill levels welcome. Come and learn! Everyone can juggle. Juggling is good for the body, mind, and spirit. It also is a great social tool.
Naturally, my attendance is dependent upon my work progress. I do hope to get a short break as I could use the exercise!
Will you be attending tonight’s Blogfest at Wild Wing’s Cafe in West Knoxville? Starts at 6pm. See you there!
The American Red Cross (ARC) has set up a website in response to the Tennessee tornadoes. I learned this because I follow @Redcross on Twitter as you should.
This site is for public information about the American Red Cross response to the Tennessee tornadoes of February 2008. [Source, Tennessee Tornadoes, American Red Cross] [more info]
They had a similar site for Northwest Flooding 2007. If you are looking for loved ones or have been displaced by a disaster, please use the Safe and Well List to help inform family and friends. Safe and Well is easily accessible through your phone using Twitter.
As a reminder, ice moved last week’s support group meeting to tonight. Details including directions to new location here.
UPDATE! Due to the icy conditions, Lake Shore has canceled meetings tonight! They have moved the Asperger Support Group meeting to next Tuesday, January 29th. Starting in February, the meeting will return to the 4th Tuesday of each month.
The Knoxville Asperger Support Group has a new location and date!
We meet the fourth Tuesday of every month Next meeting:
Tuesday, January22nd29th from 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Lakeshore’s Peach Cottage
Corner of Northshore & Lyons ViewLiving with or caring for someone with Asperger’s Syndrome can be challenging. The primary objective of the group will be to provide support for each other through discussion and the sharing of experiences at the monthly meetings. Please join us for an exchange of information, ideas and resources.
Are you going to blogfest tonight? If my coughing is under control, I’ll be there giving away a Seesmic invite and a wireless router.
Blogfest.
This Friday.
6:30PM
Baileys in West Knoxville.
[Source, Shots Across The Bow]
Since you do not have enough to worry about, I suppose you probably want to hear about the Zombie Amoeba. That’s right. There is an amoeba that wants to eat your brains! If I recall my science lessons correctly, an amoeba is a single celled organism. This simple thing is taking people down.
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. [Source]
Where does it thrive? Heat and stagnant water. So as global warming worsens and people flock to the lakes to cool themselves, the Naegleria is going to eat their brains.
Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment. [Source]
How do you know your brain is being eaten? Basically you have the same symptoms as everything else.
People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages, they’ll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes… [Source]
And how does it eat your brain? Through your nose!
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. … Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. … "Usually, from initial exposure it’s fatal within two weeks," [Source]
Can this be prevented?
"You’d have to have water going way up in your nose to begin with" to be infected … The easiest way to prevent infection … is to use nose clips when swimming or diving in fresh water. [Source]
Thanks to BoingBoing, my wife will never let the children near water again.
Programmers, particularly those Adobe fans, know about AIR apps. People who deal with websites know about Google Analytics. Now AIR meets Analytics and you can get in on the beta!
I was reading 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free and liking the suggestions. Perhaps it would be fun to promote a little extra traffic to the site. I despise watching websites get overloaded with Javascript widgets and gizmos. However, I am guilty of doing that to Reality Me. It is bogged down with useless, behind the scenes Javascript. My list of round tuits includes cleaning up Reality Me and Domestic Psychology. Things like RobotReplay and PhpMyVisites are no longer of use to me but they remain behind the scenes slowing the site down. The Twitter widget and the MyBlogLog widget I find enhancing to the functionality of the site. I see Google Analytics as a necessary evil and I still debate the value of Adsense on a blog such as Reality Me (although apparent it protects – Can someone help me find that citation? I think Michael Silence carried it a while back. Some law was passed saying that if you run ads on your website you are protected the same was as traditional journalists.).
When I read 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free, BlogRush was in the number one or two position. I should have taken a warning when I noticed the author was not using a referral link. Today I noticed that the Javascript code I put in my sidebar to validate Reality Me with Blogrush had changed from a box of links to other sites to become a Google Adsense box. Now, I have Google ads that run on Reality Me (when the ad isn’t encouraging you to buy the shirt off Cathy’s back) so I think Blogrush put me in danger of being in violation of my TOS with Google. Granted, I was supposed to read the Blogrush TOS and I’m sure they revealed that putting ads on my site is part of the agreement. But I do not agree with that! So I will be parting company with Blogrush. I wonder what is in the #3 position on 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free?
Remember! Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Special thanks to Aaarrr mate at file under awesome.
Do you have your chalk ready for tomorrow? Writing on the sidewalks is not vandalism or graffiti, it’s art! And it washes away.
Campaign to shift the paradigm from conflict to UNITY. From a double negative "No to War" To a double positive "Yes to Peace" [Source]
“Chalk4Peace” is a very simple, fun and inexpensive peace action
that you can implement in your local community [Source]
Get out tomorrow and draw a peace sign or a heart on the sidewalk!
Twitter is awesome. That comes from someone who hated the concept in the beginning. Yuwie is no trying to make the scene. Yuwie is a referral based, paid social network. Personally, I don’t see myself using it much but I still want everyone to sign up under me!
The new Regal Cinema on Gay Street opens this week. I will be juggling from 5pm to 6:30pm at the Opening Night Celebration. My understanding is that it is a street party although the first press release I read implied invite only. Same press release, different location.
Ah! Here is some better information. Looks like the events within the theatre are invitation only while a street party is being held for the public. I will be juggling in the street party. Watch for the fire! Michael Messing will be performing magic and there should be other entertainers.
On Monday, August 27, the Regal Riviera will host an Opening Night Celebration. On this evening, there will be an invitation-only party to celebrate the new theatre and recognize those who made this theatre project possible. The public is welcome to enjoy a “Street Party” on this evening as well. This free event will be held on Gay Street just outside the new Riviera. The “Street Party” will feature a live performance by East Tennessee’s own RobinElla and a ceremonial ticket tearing to commemorate the opening of the new theatre.
The exciting week of promotional events continues on Tuesday, August 28, Wednesday, August 29 and Thursday, August 30. Everyone is invited to these Preview Events for $1 movies, $1 popcorn and $1 soft drinks with proceeds benefiting local charities. Through September 30th Riviera patrons will be able to enter Regal Cinemas “Rediscover Downtown” Sweepstakes to win a $2,000 prize pack: $500 Regal Cinemas Gift Card, $500 Mast General Store Card plus $1,000 to spend as you like downtown. No purchase is necessary. Sweepstakes rules are available at the theatre.
On Thursday, August 30 there will be added entertainment available at the Riviera Stadium 8 with a free fireworks show presented by Pyro Shows. The night-time sky will light up at 9:30pm with a spectacular display choreographed to popular movie theme songs simulcast on WIVK 107.7 FM. The “Salute to Cinema Fireworks Show” will be easily viewed from all across downtown Knoxville with additional fireworks accentuating the Regal Riviera’s marquee on Gay Street.
[Source]
I think it is very interesting that the site of the theater is the same as the 1920’s Rivieria Theater. Good move Knoxville! From the Knox Heritage site:
510 South Gay Street – Riviera Theatre (1920)
Art Deco, two story brick with corbelled cornice, projecting engaged pilasters. Chicago window in central of three bays, flanked by two smaller windows. Vertical mullions divide top side and all windows are topped by transoms divided vertically. Flat roof. Altered storefront. GONE-Demolished in 1988.The Riviera was built in 1920 into an existing Victorian building that stood on the east side of the 500 block of Gay Street. It featured a Wurlitzer organ and the innovative “Typhoon” ventilation system. It seated more than 1,000 and was hailed as “a shrine of the silent art.” It christened what would be more than half a century of movies with DeMille’s silent film, Conrad In Search Of His Youth.
Like most theaters, the Riviera featured its share of live entertainment, from dancer Ginger Rogers to early jazz bands like the popular local orchestra Maynard Baird’s Southland Serenaders.
In 1927 the Riviera showed what was almost certainly the only big-studio film shot in this area during the silent era, Stark Love. The star of the controversial film, which included a brief nude scene, was Helen Mundy, a reluctant actress whom the director had discovered in a downtown Knoxville soda fountain. The movie was a national sensation for about a week, hailed by some critics as one of the great films of the year; then, like its ambivalent star, it was forgotten.
The Riviera burned in 1963, sending an audience who had come to watch the special-effects adventure film Jason and the Argonauts fleeing into the street. Except for the façade, it was considered a near total loss but, remarkably, was restored, less grandly, in a matter of months, and reopened with the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant thriller, Charade. It continued showing films until Adios Amigo in early 1976, followed by a series of second-run films the following summer; after that came a dozen years of broken dreams, as one developer after another proposed reopening the Riviera as a performing arts center, a dinner theater or an “ultramodern” office building. Though there was a sentimental effort to restore the theater in the 1970s. The rear of the building, for years, displayed a large black-and-white mural of Charlie Chaplin, clearly visible from James White Parkway.
The building was torn down around 1988 with little comment. The site is now paved for a parking lot.
[Source]
They should update that bit about the parking lot. Cinema Treasures has another reference to the 1920s Riviera. See you in the streets!
First, no I am not on a condom kick. This story just came out coincidentally close to my anecdote on shopping for condoms with Evan.
You read that headline and think "ew" or "what a cool job!" I whip out my copy of the Kama Sutra to try to figure out what positions they could have possibly left out!
Durex is a great company with the funniest commercials. They impress me most with their website. Unlike their competitors who use bloated, slow loading flash sites, Durex has a clean, fast loading website packaged with educational information (except for their image downloads which despite numerous back and forth emails I cannot convince them that they are broken).
The position is not paid, but successful applicants will receive a free $60 selection of Durex products and will be required to provide the company with honest feedback about the products’ performance. [Source]
You know, I could picture the feedback going something like this: "The condoms were very comfortable. Like they weren’t there at all. Oh, and let me introduce you to Junior. He was conceived about half way through testing. Btw, I recorded that you have about a 43% breakage rate."
I would love to take the children to the Bijou Theatre on July 11th! On a side note, if anyone every watched the "Save the Bijou" video, I’m the juggler.
Ariele Ebacher’s Funambulist Fantasy *** Joel Baker, Clown *** The Musical Wizardry of Frederik Iversen, the world’s only Reverse Organist *** A.J. Silver, the Cowboy from the Boogie Down Bronx Magic Hat Variety 12-Pack
*** Bubbling Burlesque *** Ring Mistress Philomena’s Precision Target Bullwhip Cracking *** Red Hot Fire Eating **** Mr. Pennygaff’s Solid Steel Sword Swallowing *** Unbelievable Orificular Love Poetry: A Wordless Tribute to Love’s Ins & Outs *** Audience Members Risking It All in Our Amazing Beer Drinking Contest *** Arresting Aerial Artistry on the Trapeze *** an amazing All Juggling finale… And MORE MORE MORE! [Source]
