don't ride with a mad woman

Singer-songwriter-dancer Chris Brown has had so much success in his young life it’s easy to forget this mega-talented young man is still only a tender 21 years old.

But he also has a felony assault conviction for rearranging a certain beautiful ex-girl friend’s face and yesterday, a bit of a mix up at Good Morning America where his temper sent shards of broken glass crashing onto 43rd street before rampaging Times Square, shirtless.

If he keeps this up, he’s gonna get his ass kicked by the police.

Chris? Take a tip from Chris!

photos, Sony Music and ABC News

C-ya, nice knowin' ya.

Canadian cracks NYT paywall 

By William Wolfe-Wylie, QMI Agency 

Only a few days after the New York Times launched a paywall on its website for Canadian visitors, a Canadian programmer has come up with a free workaround to keep the site open to all, and it only took four lines of code.

David Hayes, a Kitchener, Ont., developer, cracked the paywall during his lunch break.

“It’s just a four-line script, plus a few more to allow me to update it,” he said in an e-mail to QMI Agency on Tuesday. “I wrote it over lunch. I’m a little surprised it took off, over 5,000 people are using it so far and it’s less than a day old.”

The code loads into a user’s browser as a button that looks like any other bookmark. When confronted with the paywall, users can click the button to reveal the full text of the article behind it.

The Times launched the Canadian paywall on March 17. It is expected to launch in the U.S. by the end of the month.

Holland Dozier, 1966

Ooh, this old heart of mine been broke a thousand times

Each time you break away I think you're gone to stay

Lonely nights that come, memories that flow

Bringing you back again, hurting me more and more

Maybe it's my mistake to show this love I feel inside

'Cause each day that passes by,

You've got me never knowin' if I'm comin' or goin' but I

I love you-ou-ou, yes I do

This old heart (ooh) darlin' is weak for you

I love you-ou-ou, yes I do

These old arms of mine miss having you around

Make these tears inside start falling down

Always with half a kiss, you remind me of what I miss

Though I try to control myself

Like a fool I start grinnin' 'cause my head starts spinnin' 'cause I

I love you-ou-ou, yes I do

This old heart (ooh) darlin' is weak for you

I love you-ou-ou, yes I do

(sax break)

Ooh, I try hard to hide my hurt inside

This old heart of mine always keeps me cryin'

The way you're treatin' me leaves me incomplete

You're here for the day, gone for the week now.

But if you leave me a hundred times

A hundred times I'll take you back

I'm yours whenever you want me

I'm not too proud to shout it, tell the world about it 'cause I

I love you-ou-ou

This old heart (this old heart) is weak for you

I love you-ou-ou

This old heart (this old heart) is weak for you

I love you-ou-ou

ready? set... hoe.

the enviable accommodations

Back on March 2nd ClockTowerTenants featured photos of the Queen Mary 2 docked at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, and more were promised.

http://clocktowertenants.com/2011/03/all-way-back-to-titanic.html

I toured that ship in 2004. The QM2 has a “bulbous bow”, explained in Wikipedia:

“The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency and stability. Large ships with bulbous bows generally have a 12 to 15 percent better fuel efficiency than similar vessels without them.”

That tour was pretty cool, more like walking a huge suburban shopping mall than a ship. She boasts three and one half acres in deck space, too big for the Panama Canal. Docked in New York, there were deck chairs on the starboard side...

...but far more chairs on the port side. Know why?

Because on the way over from England, the port side is facing south where the sun would be; “port over, starboard home” are the enviable accommodations on an America-bound liner from London, hence the acronym “posh”.

That row of windows at the very top of the command bridge is where the captain calls his orders. She has five swimming pools on board, too. This shallow one is on the top deck for kids.

And this one, surrounded by liquor bars and live music, is for older kids.

There’s a hot tub on deck, too. She carries 3,056 passengers and another 1,253 in officers and crew, about the entire capacity of Radio City on the water.

At 1,132 feet her scale is just enormous, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall. A standard North/South block in Manhattan is about 264 feet, making her over four city blocks long. Each cubical on the right is a private, furnished outdoor terrace, part of each ocean-fronting stateroom.

Yes, those are people way down there on the dock.

While on the tour I learned that nautical regulation requires that she carry several spare replacement blades for her propellors, but these take up precious interior cubic feet.

So the architects displayed them outside near the bow.

They were bolted to the deck, creating a kind of outdoor sculpture garden.

I don’t know which was more impressive, 

her sheer, gargantuan scale or the layered and cascading opulence of her accommodations.

Decide for yourself when CTT posts more photos, next month from the interior.

Bye, Winter

Trees budding on Bruckner.

Jose’s bulbs coming up.

Fruit dude at the subway entrance.

Tonight at at precisely 7:21 P.M. EDT the Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator.  

Spring forward. :-)

Five facts, one opinion and “billion” with a b

From the NewYorkTimes:

Fact 1:

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced March 8th that it had placed an astonishing 21 priests on leave from active ministry in connection with credible charges that they had sexually abused children.

Fact 2:

This mass suspension was one of the single most sweeping in the history of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in the entire United States. 

Fact 3:

A damning grand jury investigation accused the archdiocese of a widespread cover-up of child molesting priests stretching back over decades, and that as many as 37 priests still remained active in the ministry despite credible allegations of sexual abuse against them.

Fact 4:

This is the first time Roman Catholic leaders have been criminally charged for the cover-up as opposed to the actual abuse itself.

Fact 5:

Although these crimes are well documented around the globe, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States alone has paid out more than $2.6 billion dollars in sexually-related child abuse settlements since 1950.

Opinion:

Good, hard working Roman Catholics in full knowledge of this continue to fund the church hierarchy that hides, relocates and defends the priests responsible for this sexual abuse of young children. And these parishioners do it weekly, in the name of God, and that’s the greatest crime of all.

Photo courtesy news-shark.com