Don't let him live in Alabama.

Please indulge me one more off topic post. This one is just too good to be true.

OK, so here's the scoop: There's this chimpanzee in Sweden (at a zoo, NOT in the Swedish jungle)who has had a habit of throwing things at visitors. Can you blame the poor bugger? I was at a zoo in Quebec once and the monkey's there were throwing poop at the gawkers, (or freaking them out by masturbating).

Granted, monkeys aren't apes, but they are practical since they came up with effective ways of making their grievances heard.

Sorry, back to the rock throwing chimp. Called Santino, he was born on 1978 and was known to pitch rocks across the safety moat at visitors, and at other chimps to display his dominance of the joint.

After a few years the other male chimp died and Santino's rock wielding died down. But a few years later the barrage began, with volleys of ten stones or more. Zoo staff conducted a stake out and discovered he was stashing ammo all over the compound in little piles. Some neatly laid out, others tucked away in secrecy.

Canada goose.

A couple of good flying stories coming out in the Canadian press the last few days worthy of snarling at. First, it's the 100th anniversary of the first airplane flight in Canada. Now I ran a few posts a while back that had more than a few planes flying before the Wright Brothers, so no doubt, if you give me a bit I'll find something that pre-dates the Silver Dart's first flight, not just for Canada, but the whole damn empire.

How Canadian can you get? Christ, they flew the thing from a frozen lake, Lac Bras d'Or (the name of a very fine beer too). The machine was designed and built by the Aerial Experiment Association, a committee (how Canadian is that?). The thing was actually built in the states and flown a couple of times in early 1909 before being dragged to the frozen lake for a few circuits around the pond. The projects patriarch, Alexander Graham Bell had his summer home at this lake, which no doubt was much more pleasant in the summer.

At the other end of the spectrum, and no less Canadian, and for some dumb ass reason shares roughly the same anniversary, is the death of the Avro Arrow. Built by the A.V. Roe aircraft company of Malton, Ontario. The company was originally the Victory Aircraft company, and was bought out by Hawker Siddeley of Britain in 1950.

Their first jet was the Avro Jetliner, and it was their last. There were no problems with it, in fact it hauled goods for years. But they wanted to build real sexy stuff like fighter jets cause all those damn commies were just over the horizon. The silly jet liner set all sorts of records for the time and was not prone to falling apart like other early ones.

Turning instead to military stuff, Avro began to design the Arrow, the CF-105. The first flight was March 25, 1958. It could beat pretty much anything going at the time. So, it was scrapped February 20, 1959.

Politicians at the time could not bear the price tag of over a billion dollars and scrapped the project. When I say scrapped, I mean it. The whole inventory of 7 machines cut up and mulched. C'mon. The argument that they were worried that the bad guys would steal the technology doesn't hold water. The damn thing was almost 80 feet long. Couldn't they just take the spark plugs out?

Really big shoe, really big . . .

Seems like January 27th was a big day in history, so big in fact, I gotta write about it. So, let's get going.

Lessee, first we have on this day in 1948, Wire Recording Corporation of America came up with the first magnetic wire recorder called the Wireway.

1926 saw that wiley Scotsman, John Logie Baird, demonstrate the first television. First golf, now this. Shudder.

In 1964 DuPont invented Corfam. Don't remember? Neither does ANYONE else. It was fake leather. Good business move in a world awash with the real item. And the name, Corfam, c'mon.

That scallywag, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was born this day in 1832. Better known as Lewis Carroll. Mathematician, and yes, writer.

And who can forget that in on January 27 1918, the Finnish civil war started?

And that really cool plane above, that's a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, first flown on this day in 1939.

ketchup day

Yeah, yeah. Give me hell. I've been off for nearly a month. Holidays took it's toll, got a new job description and the usual craziness took over and left me too far away from my blog to even think about it. let's get back at it then.

First, the sad stuff. Just who died over the last 3 weeks that this blog takes notice of? (yeah I'm a very huggable guy).

Lessee, Ron Asheton, lead guitar player and sometimes bass player for the Stooges, found dead on his couch at 60. That was January 6th, 2009. Like the 36 inch cannon, the Stooges were not pretty and made a lot of noise. Formed in 1967 with brother Scott on drums, bassist Dave Alexander and Iggy Pop on the pipes, the Stooges got moderate airplay with songs like I Wanna Be Your Dog. Mainly they got a lot of press from their shows, as most radio stations could not find a place for their version of rock n roll.

They keep getting nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (6 times and counting) but have yet to make it. C'mon lets get 'em in there.

On the other end of the spectrum (musical that is) Dave Dee passed away on January 9th at age 65. For those of you who are going who the hell is Dave Dee, here's a clue: Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Nothing yet? How about their monster 1968 hit Legend of Xanadu?

His real name is David Harman and with his band mates actually had a string of British hits rivalling the Beatles throughout the 60's, starting in 1965 with You make it Move and followed by Hold Tight!, Bend It! and Save Me.

And from the stage we mourn the passing of Van Johnson who died Dec 15, 2008, a true living matinee idol. Van spent more time on a stage that in films, but returned to film and television in later life with brief roles in many shows including I Love Lucy and Batman. His portrayal of Lt. Steve Maryk in the 1954 classic The Caine Mutiny was, in my opinion, his best work.

So now that everyone is all cheered up, I better move on tho some serious shit with more exploding steam airplanes.

Good neighbour.

Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer was born in new York City October 15, 1915. Known to the world later on his his life as Fred Friendly, he was a radio and TV pioneer. He started in radio in the early 30's in Providence, Rhode Island. This was when he became Mr. Friendly by the way.

He became quite an experienced radio producer by the Second World War and teamed up with another groundbreaking radio journalist, Edward R. Murrow, after the war to produce a series called I Can Hear it Now for Columbia Records. What was especially exciting for listeners is that they used as much genuine recordings as possible in the project. Actual battlefield sounds and commentary, as well as news broadcasts put the listener at the very centre of the action.
Friendly was fascinated by a new technology, magnetic recording tape, and went to great lengths to try and get original recordings. When none existed he made them up. What he really did was recreate them as accurately as possible. Not like nowadays. He did not, however, alert the listener as to what was fake and what was real.He was good at it, and many recordings still stump archivists.He did his homework though, reportedly asking heads of state for do-overs of speeches.

Already working for CBS and Columbia Records his first big splash came with NBC's "The Quick and the Dead", about the development of the atomic bomb. Gotta love that title. They had some snot back then too.

Back at CBS they noticed what he was doing and recruited him full time, and that's when he hooked up with Murrow to produce a radio show based on the Columbia Hear it Now records in 1950. In 1951 they took it to television and aptly named the show "See it Now" hosted by Murrow.

The show was mostly live and never shied away from tough news, taking on Joe McCarthy's commie hunting on prime time TV for example.

Always a pioneer, Friendly was at the birth of public access television and the burgeoning cable TV industry in the 60's. No MST 3000 without this guy.

Noose wurthee

Lessee now. Just a jumble of new-ish stuff I wanted to pass on. The owner of a company that does online tarot card and psychic readings, Tom Higgins, bought Charles Dicken's writing desk and chair and plans to use it to write letters on. Oh good. This is the desk Great Expectations was written on. He better not put a TV on it.

Here's one that's dear to my heart: according to the Canadian Press, 43000 railway wheel sets have a "have a high susceptibility to loosen", so says the The Transportation Safety Board of Canada. OK, so fucking tighten 'em. Seems the railway industry has some history with statistics like this. Lets lock the passengers in, or keep driving over cast iron bridges, or make trains too long for the curve. An update to that article claims that the number is actually 12000. I feel better already.

And, CBC sez that "Guy Ritchie, the British filmmaker behind crime capers Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, is set to give iconic literary sleuth Sherlock Holmes a modern-day makeover."

And to top the day off here's an AP story about Bill Shatner. Seems he'd been laid up after surgery and couldn't sleep, so, late at night he found an old episode of Star Trek on. Shatner confess he rarely watches the shows or movies he is in and was pleasantly surprised. "I haven't seen myself playing Captain Kirk in a long, long time," he says. "And I watched it now, from my perspective of 40 years later, and I thought, 'You know, that's rather good.'

The other September 11.

On September 11, 1297, during the First War of Scottish Independence, the Scottish armies of Andrew de Moray and William Wallace met and defeated the English under the command of John de Warenne and Hugh de Cressingham at The Battle of Stirling Bridge.

I came across this little piece of historical bridge history whilst looking up train wrecks. For now, this story, though trainless, is cooler.

Stirling bridge crossed the river Forth near, not surprisingly, a town called Stirling. The English, coming off a victory at the Battle of Dunbar, took the Scottish for granted here. Now the Brits could have easily flanked the Scottish by putting together an attack force to cross the river downstream where it was shallower and would allow reasonable passage. The oddball truth of why it didn't happen is that Cressingham was England's treasurer in Scotland and didn't want the extra expense. He figured they could could just blast over the bridge. Lesson: Never let your accountants run the battle.

The Scottish waited until as many English were over the bridge that they could handle and basically separated them form the bridge, blocked off the bridge (which was easy because it was only 2 horses wide) and hacked them to pieces. They had carefully sawed through supporting timbers (a la Wile E Coyote) and when the bridge was crowded with English soldiers the signal was given and Scottish saboteurs knocked down the final timbers and the bridge went down. After that, whoever tried to cross was on their own. One brave Welshman, Marmaduke Tweng, did cross and as the battle was lost ordered the bridges final destruction and high tailed it South.

I'll see if I can find a war and a train and a bridge next time.

Snap. Crackle.

About a month ago I had one of those "found" moments. That is to say, I found something real cool. The apartment I live in has, in its foyer, a bench on which the newspapers get piled up and where tenants leave free stuff. Usually its romance paperbacks, once there was a real weird light up clock. But . . . . . to my delight someone left a Califone 1450K, and an old colour TV.

I already have a colour TV, so I scored the Califone. For the uninitiated, its a super cool portable record player, but built for the schools as language lab devices. Made in Canada, they are tanks. But they made them in awesome colours like teal, white and cream and brown tolex. Mine's the blue one.

So I plugged it and she was dead. So sad. But tonight I popped the hood and had a good look. I'm pretty good with electronics and can read a circuit. So to my delight it was just the on board fuse. It's soldered on to the circuit board but that's an easy fix. I'll let you know how it sounds. Got my Archie's record ready. Hehe.

Video game frenzy.

Its so hot today I just had to take a time out. Plans were for a piece on a notable leader who had embarassed himself. Instead I went looking for really bad video games. A while back I wrote a bit about how many lines of programming it takes to create a real simple program, so it floors me to know how much time and sweat went into these stinkers. They were all bad for various reasons, and I'm sure some may have been a favourite of yours at one time in 1989 or something. What is incredible is that someone thought they had a hit.

In no particular order, how about JumpMan for the Commodore 64, PC and Apple 2? The character simply jumped.

Or Wild Woody for the Sega, about a pencil that throws dynamite.

Nintendo's Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom.

Um Jammer Lammy. A psychedic guitar playing lamb.

70's Robot Anime Geppy-X: The Super Boosted Armour. What?

Ninja Hamster. The game package has a hamster that looks kinda Hitler-ish. Just too odd.

And, I'm sorry, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf.

I just have to stop.

For a look at these and over 40 other treasures check out http://www.gamerevolution.com/feature/worst_names