207 Words about “Who Let the Dogs Out”

Info mined from the Wikipedia…

“Who Let the Dogs Out” is the one hit by one-hit wonders, the Baha Men (who are so named because they are Bahaman). The song is super-infectious and thoroughly grating and guess what? It’s not an original Baha Men composition. It was written and first recorded by Anslem Douglas, a musician from Trinidad and Tobago. But then it turns out that Douglas actually took the chorus from another song by two guys named Patrick Stephenson and Leroy Williams. They wrote the chorus for a radio jingle. Douglas lost a suit in 2001 over authorship for the song.

It’s appropriate then that the song is now mostly heard in commercials and sports events, and the chorus is the only part that’s played. Personally, I don’t even know how the rest of the song goes. Of course, it’s also a staple of shitty movies like Miss Congeniality, Rat Race, and Garfield. For their part, the Baha Men have become staple artists in Disney’s Disneymania series of music collections, appearing on volumes 1, 2, and 4.

The Baha Men made a movie appearance six years before their big moment. In 1994, they made an appearance as themselves in My Father the Hero with Gerard Depardieu.

200 Words about Chinese Paper

All of this information (and a lot of the phrasing) is from the Wikipedia:

Joseph Needham was a British biochemist who wrote about the history of Chinese science. His Chinese name is Li Yuese. According to Needham, the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China are paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

By some accounts, a Han Dynasty court official named Cai Lun created the first papermaking process early in the second century, but there is also evidence that the ancient Chinese military was using paper a hundred years earlier. The main purpose for paper in the second century seemed to be for packing.

Writing on paper became widespread by the third century, and toilet paper was around by the sixth century. During the Tang Dynasty, which lasted from the seventh to the tenth century, paper was used to make tea bags. At the same time, tea was sometimes served in paper cups with paper napkins. In the Song Dynasty that shortly followed, the government produced the first paper money, which was often wrapped in paper envelopes.

The first printing press was invented China, and the first printed newspaper was available in Beijing in 700AD. It was printed with wood blocks.

203 Words about Godzilla

Whenever Godzilla attacks the city, it reminds me of the beginning of the Atomic Age. Oh those carefree days. I was a professional bowler back then. I was mostly know for a bit of shtick I had where I would get really worked up and then rip one of my competitors’ heads off and roll a spare with it. Not sure how I came up with that. I just did it one day, and the people went pretty crazy for it. You just do what you need to do to stand out, you know?

So there was this one day that I was just taking a walk — just totally minding my own business. And guess who shows his scaly green face? Right.

So I’m like: “Hey, atomic breath! What the hell?”

And Godzilla says: “Look buddy, I’m just chilling.”

“No. I’m the one chilling. You’re the one destroying the city.”

“Inadvertently.”

“Granted. But still.”

And then he got this really sad look on his face. He hunched over, and he looked right at me with these puppy dog eyes.

“I’m just so big,” he said. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew that he was right.

He was big.

289 Words about Hillary Clinton’s Chances for the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination

April 17th: Depending on who you ask, Hillary Clinton is endorsed by about 25 more Democratic super delegates than Barack Obama. This is down from nearly 100 in the beginning of February. Since the Iowa caucus, back in January, Obama has maintained a lead in pledged delegates, and that lead now stands at 163. That leaves Clinton with a 138 delegate deficit to make up before the Democratic nominating convention.

There are 877 delegates still unspoken for. 566 are pledged and will be awarded based on primaries and caucuses, and 311 are super. To close the gap with Obama, Clinton needs 508 of these. If she secured the endorsement of every single remaining super delegate, she would need to win 35% of the remaining pledged delegates — she could suffer across-the-board 30% losses in all the primaries and caucuses from here on out. If she gets half of the remaining supers to endorse her, she’ll need 62% of the pledgeds — across-the-board 24% wins.

It goes without saying that she’s not going to get every single remaining super delegate, so she’s going to have to do a little better than 35% in the remaining primaries and caucuses. But then she can’t expect to do as well as 62%, so she needs more than half of the supers. How well can she actually expect to do? Well, she would have to be pretty happy to average 55% to Obama’s 45%. That’s about how well she did in just Ohio. 55% of the remaining pledged delegates is 312 (rounding up). In this case, she would need 63% (196) of the supers. Her chances of getting 63% are slim. (Though maybe not as slim as her chances of getting 55% of the pledgeds.)

Hmmm….

212 Words about Kim Deal and Frank Black

The new Breeders album is fine. Out of three, it’s my least favorite of theirs. Which is not terrible considering how much I like the other two. Then again, it always sucks to tarnish a perfect record like that.

I think the main problem is a lack of kick-ass pop songs. Last Splash is full of great, shiny pop songs, and Title TK has the rough, tossed-off (and even greater for it because they’re so irrepressibly pop) pop songs. Mountain Battles has few pop moments, but is mostly subdued weirdness. And sometimes I like subdued weirdness, but here my expectations were disappointed.

Speaking of being disappointed, let’s compare Kim Deal to Frank Black. When I learned to love the Pixies, I also learned to love Frank’s first two albums, and I definitely saw them as carrying on the Pixies’ legacy while the Breeders were a separate thing. But then Frank started aggressively following his personal muse (good) and made increasingly boring music (bad). The only thing that prompted me to buy his last album was curiosity as to why he credited to Black Francis rather than Frank Black. And to be fair, it was his most interesting album in a while. But still, the guy has lost it, I’m sad to say.