Quartz City – Page 39 – by Chris Barrus

Strange Owl

Last week we said hello to Knut the polar bear, now say hi to Xenoglaux…

A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means “strange owl” has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday.

Conservationists working in Peru got their first natural glimpse of the long-whiskered owlet last month while working in a private mountain reserve.

The species wasn’t even known to exist until 1976, and since then the only known living specimens have been those caught in nets at night.
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As few as 250 of the owlets are thought to exist, scientists said, and the birds are as distinctive as they are rare.

With their diminutive size, bright orange eyes, and wild, wispy facial feathers, the dainty birds belong to their own genus, dubbed Xenoglaux, or “strange owl.”

Countdown to the first South American speedmetal band to change their name to Xenoglaux in 5… 4… 3…

Ein amerikanischer Münchener forwarded me these listings for commercial property for sale out in Cadiz in the Route 66 area of the Mojave and I ended up wasting a good chunk of time plowing around through all the Loopnet listings.

I noticed that all 3324 acres of the former Rice Army Air Base (which I’ve blogged about and photographed) are up for sale at $5000 per acre. “Perfect for industrial storage, alternative generation, possible landfill.”

This Is A Box…

I was in the UK in 1973 and when I wasn’t running around the elevators in the old Regent Palace (hey, I was eight years old! pushing all the buttons in the elevator is required behavior) I was fascinated by British kids television and distinctly remember seeing an episode of Camberwick Green and some of the associated merchandise over at Hamleys. I can’t place precisely why I remember it well. Maybe it was the apparent mash up of Richard Scarry and Mister Rogers, both of whom were must-see CKB TV back then.

I hadn’t thought about Camberwick Green in thirty-four years. Just one of those odd I-remember-seeing-that-somewhere pieces of memory that rattle around until something jars it loose. Fast-forward to one of the most jaw-droppingly hilarious mental core dumps ever at the beginning of the most recent episode of Life On Mars:

[youtube]Ixsc9POvY7E[/youtube]

Translation is the art of failure

Pileup of semiotics in the Termini train station in Rome.

I have mentally set a goal for myself to learn enough Italian to be able to read one of these in the original language.

The biggest innovation to occur since In A Gadda Da Vida hit the charts just 14 short years ago

R.I.P. Calvert DeForest.

Two things I didn’t know. 1. His great uncle was inventor Lee De Forest. 2. He was still alive. I somehow thought that he had passed away awhile back.

Some obligatory YouTube clips:

Passing out hot towels at the Port Authority bus station

[youtube]fQ7PMG8c2gI[/youtube]

Run-D.M.C.’s “King Of Rock”

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Social Network Fatigue

Irritating side effect of Web 2.1 tech developments: I’m using “quartzcity” (or some variation) everywhere as my online name, so now whenever something new shows up on the web I’m obliged to immediately register to prevent someone else from grabbing it as a user name.

I suppose I should be posting this to Twitter, but Jaiku is superior in every way.

The Fall sitcoms are here

The Fall has always been a peculiar kind of show and it’s a useful shorthand to describe the various iterations of Fall members as a sitcom cast. The cover to the US release of Reformation Post T.L.C. extends this analogy – they actually look like a sitcom cast.
The Fall - Reformation

Compare with:

Freaks And Geeks

Biometric uselessness and security theater

Lorna of Lornamatic attempted to purchase a new BMW and encountered a Catch-22 of identity uselessness and privacy holes. She was requested to submit a thumbprint along with copies of her personal data, but none of it is checked for validity – just thrown into a box apparently. She canceled the deal and walked away, but wasn’t able to have her personal data returned (even though no valid contract was signed).

A380 at LAX

I was at LAX for the visit of the Concorde in October 1974, so I’m obliged to go see the Airbus A380 during it’s visit to LAX this week. Larger photo on the Flickr page.