Mark's blog
Sporadic blog posts on a wide variety of topics, by Racine, Wisconsin web designer Mark Czerniec.(Also check out my weekly entries in Another Week.)
Red Gold tomatoes and the mysterious emailer
There is a part of me that has always craved old-fashioned American goodness. I could watch endless marathons of Lassie and Leave It to Beaver. I love mid-century style, movies like It's a Wonderful Life, and songs like "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive." I am trying to...
AIG’s $62 billion loss, and a little trouble sleeping
Remember this anxious, sleepless little feller? Today the New York Times describes how AIG (American International Group) is "preparing to report a $62 billion loss on Monday, the biggest quarterly loss in history." After some additional figuring, AIG — already almost...
Deep thought: Happy birthday, Jack Handey!
Jack Handey is a real person, and just to prove it, he got himself born 60 years ago today. Even Wikipedia agrees that "Handey is a real person, not a pen name or a character," so happy birthday, Mr. Handey. Even though Jack Handey has authored books — such as Deep...
‘Lent’ meaning in English
'Lent' meaning in English: What does 'Lent' mean? What is Lent? For Christians, Lent is the period of roughly 6 weeks before Easter. When does Lent start? When is Lent over? For Roman Catholics, Protestants, and churches of the Western Orthodoxy, Lent begins on Ash...
The Oscars: Honoring the movies, our healing stories
I was catching up my backlog of Internet reading and writing on this morning of the Academy Awards when a message from a Twitter followee caught my attention: I just don't understand all the Oscars coverage. It's quite pathetic. For some reason, I was instantly...
Mardi Gras music playlist: New Orleans songs
With New Orleans Mardi Gras coming up, I thought I would post a few New Orleans song suggestions for your listening and partying enhancement. Here, in no particular order, is a treasury of New Orleans and Louisiana music gems. Some are Mardi Gras music classics,...
‘The Darjeeling Limited’ (2007 movie, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson)
There is a style of comedy now in fashion which breaks the long-standing assumption that comedy should be funny. This trend was the subject of a Rolling Stone cover story last September. This new comedy sans drôle is practiced, for example, by the current writers of...
Trader Joe’s commercial: Jobim’s ‘Waters of March’
Above is a catchy little production that's been making the viral rounds for a couple of weeks. Titled "If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe's," it is described on YouTube by carlsfinefilms as an "Unauthorized commercial for Trader Joe's shot on my Palm Treo before I...
Joaquin Phoenix on ‘Late Show with David Letterman’
Let's just say there is a lot of buzz. The world is all a-twitter today over the disoriented demeanor of Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix on last night's Late Show with David Letterman, but I would like to point out a Rolling Stone post from January 20 which details...
The Tylenol murders of 1982: Tylenol killer caught?
It was the night before last that I cursed the Tylenol killer for the seven hundred thousandth time. I had just ripped the plastic wrapper off some hoisin sauce with my one free hand, and turned the bottle bottom up. I started shaking it, but nothing came out. Doh!...
‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007 movie, Javier Bardem)
We have recently endured an insufferable procession of godawful movies. They show up here roughly a year after being added to our Netflix queue, so it's sometimes hard to remember who to blame for muck like Never Been Thawed or Love Actually or Dreamland — or The...
Piñata apples join Honeycrisp apples, Pink Lady on Amy’s apple list
Amy has been a confirmed apple-eater since joining Weight Watchers some years ago. Eating up to three apples daily — about 20 minutes before each meal — is one of the tricks that has helped her lose 120 pounds all told. As a result of consuming apples so regularly,...
Obama inauguration: Breathtaking images
We're ditching the commentators on the various networks and watching C-SPAN's inauguration coverage today on TV. Meanwhile, over on the computer, I am getting blown away by the astounding seven feeds of HD video streaming from CBS2Chicago.com. Breathtaking.
Rachel Maddow: Miracle on the Hudson wrought by jobs well done
Yesterday afternoon, Steve Dahl tweeted that he was already sick of the "Mirace on the Hudson" coverage of US Airways Flight 1549. I know what he means. TV news has mastered the process by which the most astounding occurrence is instantly hyped so full of grandiose...
George W. Bush legacy: 8 years in 8 minutes, by Keith Olbermann
On Thursday evening, before President Bush's farewell address, I spent some time searching YouTube for an apt retrospective of his eight years leading our nation. There were some possibilities, but nothing really summed up the George...
An economic stimulus package of your own: Grease is golden
I was lying in bed here a few minutes ago, and there was darkness on my radio. The latest unemployment report is due out today. It is expected to be very grim, and the news reader said that employers need to see exactly how bad it is before deciding whether to cut...
Roland Burris, Senate Trail Blazer
No matter what else I try to do today, my feeble little brain won't stop singing the song in the video above — "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" by Warren Zevon, shown here in his last public performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. [includeme...
Barack Obama restaurant review: Chicago’s Dixie Kitchen
I just saw this video, one of two posted yesterday by Steve Johnson at ChicagoTribune.com. Apparently, there is no end to the man's coolness. Not only is he appearing on Check, Please!, one of my favorite TV shows (seven years ago, before anyone knew how cool it was),...
Kuhn Rikon Duromatic pressure cooker
Kuhn Rikon Duromatic pressure cooker Why a pressure cooker is like magic I f you ask, many people will tell you that you cannot find Indian food in Racine, Wisconsin. The one Indian restaurant we did have closed a while ago, and it was not spectacular to begin with....
‘Hone in’ vs. ‘home in’
“Hone in” is wrong. You will hear a lot of people these days saying that they're “honing in on” something or other. These people are wrong in their use of the expression. This type of misuse is known as an eggcorn. Honing refers to the use of a honing steel to...
Snuggie, Slanket, Heat Surge: My TV monk life
The Great Recession and its effect on our household budget have started producing some bizarre yearnings in me — especially when combined with the influence of our TV set. This began with a video that arrived here from Netflix. I don't know how it got added to our...
‘Auld Lang Syne’ by Robert Burns: New Year’s song lyrics
As the sun sets here in southeastern Wisconsin, I thought I'd share a recording of the New Year's song, "Auld Lang Syne" (people often search for "Old Lang Syne," perhaps because "Same Old Lang Syne" was one of Dan Fogelberg's greatest hits). My favorite version of...
Where the ducks walk on the fish: Pymatuning State Park on NPR
Since radio is dead, I've been listening to even more public radio than I already did anyway. Just now on NPR's All Things Considered, I heard a little thing about some carp and ducks that was unlike anything I have ever heard before. [includeme...
New Year food, New Year traditions for good luck
As the last moments of 2008 evaporate like a mongrel's marking on the fire hydrant of hope, I'm doing a little extra-credit research into New Year food and New Year traditions — including any which might attract good luck next year. I just might be willing to eat a...
Rick Sanchez and baby talk news
Rick Sanchez has that special something. It's more complicated than simply being someone people love to hate. There is a certain rare balance of unimaginable awfulness and underlying vulnerability that makes some of the world's biggest egos simply irresistible....
Snow in Wisconsin: December 19, 2008
This was the view outside my window at about 9:20 this morning. I think I'm going to send it to Charles Osgood and ask him to use it as the last minute of this week's CBS Sunday Morning. The snow has since stopped, so now we're going...
‘The Digg Reel’
Here at the Mark Czerniec Internet Testing Laboratories, we like The Digg Reel. As a matter of fact, we have secretly been enjoying The Digg Reel since — well, since September 6, which is when we discovered Miro, the thing we use to download and watch The Digg Reel....
Digital antenna: Could free TV make a comeback?
Consider the case of our neighbor Mary Jean (pictured above in warmer days). In her roughly 90 years as an American, she has seen all sorts of technological and economic waves break, splash, and recede. While not afraid of the latest and greatest, she also values the...
It’s blowing, it’s freezing
We didn't get a very good sleep. All night long, the wind was plying the trees and testing for loose roofing shingles, flinging garbage cans and neighborhood Christmas decorations, causing much fitful tossing, not to mention frequent turning. Giant Hawaiian waves were...
‘Black Dynamite’: Next big movie buzz?
Amy's job puts her in regular contact with a number of software developer-type people who regularly wade in certain offbeat, cultish humor channels. She tells me that, among these plugged-in folks, there is a strong, giggly anticipation about a movie called Black...