Quartz City

I just posted this final message to the Pure-Impure mailing list:

Folks -

I've been in a housecleaning mood recently so unless someone can give me a good reason to keep Pure-Impure around, I'm going to delete the list. There's not many people here and the only posts over the past year have been the occasional "buy my crap" ads.

*turns the pair of keys and hits the red destruct button*

*awaits message from high command*

-c.

The only replies back encouraged me to go ahead and push the button, so I finished it off. If you’re poking around quartzcity.net looking for archives, there weren’t really any messages – only the occasional ad for “buy my Cocteau Twins rarity on eBay”, but some googling will turn the occasional archive.

Way back prior to 9/11 and the current state of national FUD, The Onion published a famous satire titled “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over”. Dan Chak revisits the article now and finds that most of the Onion’s predictions have come true.

I had no idea just how unhappy the lives of rural mailboxes were until I read this Boing Boing thread. I’ll leave the obvious “rural yahoo stupidity” comments as an exercise for the reader, but the follow-up thread on rural mailbox fortification techniques is a hoot.

John Wilson sez: I remember seeing an article in a magazine (popular mechanics?) about 4 or 5 years ago about a guy who went through three mailboxes in quick succession.  He was a welder, so he bought one of those great big mailboxes, and modded it by replacing the sides and bottom with 1/2 inch thick steel, and the top with a section of 1/4 inch steel pipe cut in half.  Mounted it on a big-ass pole, deep hole, lots of concrete, etc.

Couple days later he found a half broken baseball bat at the foot of the mailbox.  Not a dent in the box itself…

check to make sure that you’re impersonating a legitimate god at GodChecker.com. By the way, say “yes.”

The 2005 colors are in, and the theme for next year are “colors that convey a respectful, serious nature, yet touch the soul.” Yet at the same time “by 2005, the attitudinal cycle will swing toward indulgence and away from the current mood of abstinence.”

What does this mean? Prepare for colors such as Bucko, Atomic, Fire Copper, Northern Lights, Thistle Bloom, and Sulphur. Did you purchase a silver car? Gotta sell it now because for transportation:

The popularity of silver evolves to anodized metal finishes, grays, and color tinted silvers. However, cost reductions and technology limitations challenge designers to be creative and innovative. Weatherized, burnished patinas and finish alternatives replace silver and chrome. Embossing creates new textures and new technology facilitates variable color effects. For interiors, special effects enhance “touch and hand” of surfaces.

Briar – Straight from the European high-fashion runways, this natural interpretation of red moves to automotive interiors and exteriors.

Miami Ice – Light, clean, and sophisticated, this retro blue, without special effects, is new to transportation. Inspiration for Miami Ice comes from the usage of this warm blue in fashion, graphics, home furnishings, and cosmetics.

Silver Leaf – As silver evolves, this minty pastel is a new way to do green. Silver Leaf is inspired by the widespread usage of glass in architecture, electronics and product design.

Driftwood – Borrowed from fashion, electronics, and architecture, this complex warm gray is more conservative than silver. Driftwood is a cost-effective and comfortable alternative to nickel, chrome and stainless steel.

Chiblonde – A fresh interpretation of gold, with white highlights. Inspired by European fashion and cosmetics.

Who the hell is behind this? The shadowy Color Marketing Group:

CMG members forecast Color Directions one to three years in advance for all industries, manufactured products and services. These Consumer/Residential and Contract/Commercial products include: Action/Recreation, Consumer Goods, Technology, Home, Visual Communications, Transportation, Juvenile Products, Fashion, and environments for Office, Health Care, Retail, Hospitality/Entertainment and Institutional/Public Spaces.

R.I.P.

IVANPAH, Calif. (AP) – Al Dvorin, the concert announcer who made famous the phrase “Elvis has left the building,” was killed in an auto accident. He was 81.

Dvorin was thrown from the car he was riding in Sunday after it swerved off a desert road near Ivanpah, the California Highway Patrol said.

The night before, Dvorin performed his signature closing line at Trump 29 Casino in Coachella, with “American Trilogy,” a concert by Elvis impersonator Paul Casey that included conversations with Dvorin and other Presley friends.

A former bandleader and talent agent in Chicago, Dvorin was with the King from his early days as a performer and was on his last tour in 1977, the year Presley died.

I’ll spare the obvious “Al has left the…” headline here. What I find interesting is that this is the only time I’ve ever seen Ivanpah namechecked in a news story. The “town” is basically just an intersection with some cows and joshua trees with little else around. I used to camp out that way quite a bit.