February 29, 2016

In the U.S., leap year coincides with presidential election years.

February 28, 2016

I will watch the Oscars tonight, I always do. Of course, if the Knick game is close, they get first dibs. I did see Mad Max: Fury Road and Bridge of Spies.



Received 20% off coupons and just ordered a free $25 Barnes and Noble gift card. The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness by David Gelernter looks interesting. He was a Unabomber victim. A deep thinker and mostly conservative, he is also an artist:

"Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ... The geniuses of the computer field, on the the other hand, are the people with the keenest aesthetic senses, the ones who are capable of creating beauty. Beauty is decisive at every level: the most important interfaces, the most important programming languages, the winning algorithms are the beautiful ones."
David Gelernter

February 27, 2016

Huayna Picchu from on the way to the Sun Gate,(Inti Punku.)



Hugh Griffith is one of the best in Tom Jones.

February 22, 2016

Happy Birthday George !



Watching the last season of The Good Wife,learned about NSA's Three-Hop policy on phone surveillance:

"According to declassified documents, the NSA operates under a rote legal procedure for querying domestic phone metadata. The agency begins by identifying a “seed” number, with reasonable and articulable suspicion of terrorist activity. Next, the NSA has discretion to follow up to three degrees of calling separation (“hops”.)The NSA is authorized to retrieve a complete set of phone records at each hop, and just one call in the past five years appears sufficient to make a hop."

February 21, 2016

Listen to Me Marlon on Showtime on demand was interesting. Budd Schulberg's 2007 piece in Vanity Fair puts the same perspective in writing.



Happened to be in Staten Island, a pepperoni pie from Nunzio's to go.



Indian Restaurant mixed grill.



When it gets cold the pigeons go indoors. Here, a garage.



Bob Dylan 1964 sounds a lot like Brando. The article is about the recording of the above album.



Just watched Capote to remember Harper Lee.

February 16, 2016

$17.50 win !



A Clockwork Orange was on demand. Still thought provoking and good.



My favorite reality series begins tomorrow: Survivor Kaôh Rōng. Again they feature Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty.

February 15, 2016

Happy President's Day ! Leftover Bloody Marys hit the spot.



Perfect score. Real easy answer.



Cake was good.

February 14, 2016

Happy Valentine's Day !



This is on the inside above a radiator. Biting cold outside, you really feel it after about 2 minutes.



Bloody Mary time.

February 13, 2016

Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles Artist: John Vanderlyn.



A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has been a long time. Still great. I have my routine: Egyptian wing, Impressionists, Panoramic view of Versailles, the sculpture gardens, and Greek/Roman wing.

February 12, 2016

Happy Birthday Abe !



Gothamist(SF) had a piece on Kim Novak. She paints well.



Uptown Funk Movie mash-up, sent around after Bruno Mars' Super Bowl appearance. Better than That's Entertainment.



New clips.



Matthias Buchinger: "The Greatest German Living": By Matthias Buchinger Whose Peregrinations in Search of the "Little Man of Nuremberg" are Herein Revealed by Ricky Jay and Matthias Buchinger

Of course I bought the book. Mostly because it is not available until February 23rd. The exhibit was cool, magnifying glasses were available for use.



The Repast of the Lion, Artist: Henri Rousseau.



The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning by Camille Pissarro.



From a fountain.

February 11, 2016

My reading list is full but someone just gave me this. Looks good.



The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibition on Matthias Buchinger. Will be checking it out.



A new coupon and next to last of books I had my eye on.

February 10, 2016

Start of my fasting, 40 days of no snacks.



Bought an exercise bike in the beginning of the month, just finished assembling it. My boys asked for it. I am good at following directions but next time I think I will pay the store to do it.

February 9, 2016

Received 6 scratch-offs in a birthday card. Won $65,$40 in this poker game.

February 7, 2016

I usually like the Coen brothers' movies but not this one. Some very amusing scenes but for what purpose ? “No Dames” reminded me of Blazing Saddles' "French Mistake."



Super Bowl L, 4' hero and accompaniments.



Köstritzer Schwarzbier growler.

February 6, 2016

On TCM later this month, will DVR it. I remember seeing it in Watertown in 1978. Thought it was great. Will see how time and experience may shift my view. TCM is all Oscar winners this month.



TCM on demand. I can't help myself, watching it again.



Donald Wolfit
General Murray: [on the Arab Revolt] It's a storm in a tea cup, Mr. Dryden - a sideshow. If you want my own opinion, this whole theater of operations is a sideshow! The real war's not being fought against the Turks, but the Germans. And not here, but on the Western front in the trenches! Your Bedouin Army - or whatever it calls itself - would be a sideshow OF a sideshow!

Mr. Dryden: Big things have small beginnings, sir.



Star Wars toast.