Dolphy Day

In a world where college officials are hyper sensitive to the students having actual fun once in a while, I salute you, LeMoyne College of Syracuse NY, for you have balls. Wizard-sized balls.
It's called Dolphy Day, and it's been around since the 1970's. It's a "celebrate spring" party, with some very cool aspects that most colleges severely lac. The event is kept a secret until the day-of, so it is shrouded in mystery and excitement for both in students and staff. The event is run by a Wizard, and he or she sets up the whole thing up on the sly, although apparently they do work in some way with school administration. The criteria for being selected as wizard is secret, but something inspired the previous year Wiz to pass the baton in private, and require the new one to remain under cover until the big day. Then I imagine they strut around like the guy from the tv ads yelling "I'm the WIZ!"

A lot of schools hold spring flings, but they are not all as cool. For example, SUNY Albany has Fountain Day which has become a corporate version Dolphy Day. It is structured, run mostly by the administration, and has a schedule of events with times that things start and no alcohol please. I've been to a few, though years back when the beer flowed, music pounded, and people were jumping in the giant fountain bareass. Things got "out of hand" in the late 1990's, so the event was turned into the "new and improved" Fountain Day that caters to the new sensitivity of the times - good clean fun. That means no alcohol, hijinx, or bare chests. Just the fact that the administration approves of the event casts a pallor over the festivities. Unsanctioned parties are so much more... fun.

Dolphy Day isn't officially sanctioned, but there is an unspoken agreement to let the students have this tradition to do with as they will. Classes are quietly cancelled that day and the campus Security and Residence Life offices essentially 'turn their heads' while events take place. Like the 'scares' preformed on the Freshman - starting in March, the Wizard and other seniors pretend it is Dolphy Day and create a fanfare in the campus quad and sometimes storm through the dormitories to wake everyone up. Hilarious!

Some of the neighbors don't agree, which tells me the event is as fun as it seems. The students run around lighting off fireworks all night which is kind of crazy and annoying to non-students residents of the area, but it's one night a year. Deal with it. (This, said by me, living nowhere near the chaos.)

The band of people I hung out with tried to inject a sense of fun into the comatose campus we inhabited. We cooked cheese dogs on a grill on the dorm patio on warm spring days and THAT was promptly shut down by security. We still did it. And other stuff too.

By the way, what's the statute of limitations on streaking?

Tangled Web Woven

An item on the company bulletin board caught my attention yesterday:

LIGHTS - ACTION - CAMERA'S AND TRAFFIC DETOURS!
Columbia Pictures is currently in production of the upcoming feature film entitled SALT. In the coming weeks, filming will take place on various sections of the I-787 Route 20 interchange and connecting ramps and roadways in downtown Albany.
Filming work will require carefully planned road closures and detour routes to be implemented.

The movie stars none other than Angelina Jolie. I have heard conflicting reports that she is or is not in our fair city. The newspaper reports only her stunt double (pictured) will be here to film the action sequences on the tangled nest of road that is Interstate 787.

I guess I see a resemblance to Angelina. If she is here, I'm sure she is counting the minutes until she can jump back on a plane at the "Albany International Airport" (International is used very loosely - we once had a flight land from England by accident) and get the hell out of here.

The reason they are filming here is for a single car chase scene. The sequence called for the most gnarly, confusing, twisted ribbon of road that exists in the North America (including Mexico!) and Albany's I-787 won the search contest. What's that? You're not familiar with our famous highway? Let me fill you in.

Back in the 60's a governor named Rockefeller (yes, the one made famous by the tv show "30 Rock") built a mammoth plaza and office building complex in downtown Albany. To free up the amount of space needed to build the plaza, about 10,000 people were "relocated" and their houses razzed to clear a 100 acre site. The huge granite buildings that rose from the smoldering ashes became the location for the majority of NY State government workers, a large museum, 20 hot dog vendor carts and a giant concrete Egg.

Anyhow. To feed this complex, they needed to update the roads. So they build I-787 to connect the Thruway and run right past the Plaza. The down side was the hiway divides Albany from the Hudson River, and the poor placement came back and haunt the city in the years to follow as "waterfront property" took on a new meaning when rejuvenating cities. Since Albany is effectively cut off from the river, it cannot capitalize on the resource, unless you hoof it over bridges or under the highways to get to the river.

No big loss, as the river front always carries a whiff of the Menands sewage-plant. I bike in the Corning Preserve which is a strip of land along the Hudson north of Albany, and the "fresh air" carries traces of the plant up and down the river.

But I digress. Aside from the bad placement of the hiway, the design of the road itself are a hot mess. The on-ramps and off-ramps are confusing and voluminous.

Sometimes you turn south to go north, east to go west. Just try riding the on and off ramps around the downtown and you'll get dizzy going around and around like the scene of the roundabout in European Vacation. "Hey kids, the Capital Buildings!"

The locals here that are all fired up about a movie being shot in Albany should just settle down. The final scene may be a whole 2 minutes of screen time, and none of the Albany landmarks will stand out. You'll have to rent the DVD, then freeze the credits to catch "Albany NY" listed as a location.

UPDATE- I was a gawker driving under the shoot yesterday. Have to admit it was cool seeing the giant crane and the stunt person on top of a gas tanker pretending to leap off. News is that Angelina will be there on Sunday to film her scene. They certainly have awesome weather do work - we're having a freakishly spectacularApril weekend.

The Real Story

You may have read that the crew of a captured freighter dramatically turned the tables on a band of Somali pirates who had taken over their ship. It's quite a story, and the news you'll read in the blatantly partisan media is NOT the real story.

How do I have the REAL story? Twitter, of course.

That's right, I'm a Twit, and I follow one of the crew of that ship who I'll call "Popeye". Popeye gave me the complete, unedited story and I'm going to share it avec vous.

You're welcome.

The attack came in deep dark night, under a quarter moon. The crew had been up late playing the drinking game version of "Balderdash" and so the usual guard was less than attentive to the small craft that creeped up on the ship from it's wake. Grappling hooks were tossed and the guards were awoken to the gap-toothed grin of the Somali pirates.

Herding the crew into the dining room, the leader proclaimed their ship under his control, and promised they would not be hurt if they behaved. Popeye, having woke from his impromptu bed on the sacks of potatoes where he had passed out after the game, kept his head down and recalled his training.

What training, you ask?

Segal. Steven Segal.



Don't let the panda fool you. He's an expert martial arts 6th degree black belt, which means he's practically a full-blown ninja.





Did you ever see this movie?


That's right. The Hollywood blockbuster "Under Seige" was spun off as a training film for ship crews from Russia to New Zealand. The film depicts a Navy chef (who turns out to be an ex-SEAL) who disrupts a plan to take over a Navy ship.

Not everyone is chosen for the training. It is offered only to the cooking staff, and among them, only the ones that pass a personal interview (via Skype) with Mr. Segal himself are enrolled. My friend Popeye passed that rigorous screening process and was soon on his way to learning the secrets to repelling a hostile force from your sea-going vessel.


After multiple viewings of Under Siege 1 & 2, including the dvd extras from both productions, Popeye then had to submit to a 2 hour online test during which he had to show in-depth knowledge of all the ways in which a cook can subvert such an attack, by all methods of burning, knifing and kicking.

Popeye, unfortunately did not pass the final test, failing miserably in the section on scalding and neck-snapping.

Much like Luke Skywalker, Popeye didn't let his incomplete training prevent him from coming to the aide of his drinking buddies/friends. He fashioned a crude bomb from kitchen cleaning ingredients and set it on HI in the microwave. The two pirates that came to investigate the kitchen were seriously hurt when it exploded, spraying them with red-hot uncooked popcorn.

As the pirates dashed about in confusion, Popeye's second boobytrap came into play. Lard-slathered stairways caused 4 pirates to slip and fall down in various locations, leaving them sore and one with a nasty-looking egg on his head. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Popeye couldn't prevent himself from laughing as he witnessed the men trying to pull themselves up by the slippery railings only to tumble down on top of each other like a Benny Hill skit.

Bruised, hobbled and stunned from the subversive assault, the pirates abandoned ship much like the bad guys in Under Siege 1, although instead of escaping on a stolen submarine, they jumped onto shoddy-looking skiffs and jon boats. Somewhere, on the set of a movie destined to go straight to dvd, Mr. Steven Segal smiled quietly to himself. Yeah, he knew.



The jubilant crew taunted the fleeing scabbies, striking Segal-like poses on the deck and hurling lines from Monty Python's Holy Grail; "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!".

My friend Popeye is now a big believer in this maritime defense art, and swears he will try again to complete the full course. How many lives could he have saved if he knew all the skills Segal has laid out in these and other courses?


Take falconry, for example. How useful would it have been to have THAT for sending secret messages among the crew? Or maybe have the graceful raptor pick off a few of the lighter pirates and drop them overboard.


I'm just theorizing here, I have no idea the skills taught in that class.

Real Future Life

Way back in the year 1979, a young filmmaker named Albert Brooks put out his first feature film. It was a spoof of the 1973 reality television program An American Family called "Real Life". In the film, a documentary filmmaker attempts to live with and film a dysfunctional family for one full year. Albert wrote it with his pal Harry Shearer, and plays the main character, the neurotic producer.

Think of it as a cross between the Real World, Wife Swap and John & Kate plus Eight, except there's only 2 kids, no troubled 20-somethings, and there's just one family and the mom doesn't really go anywhere. Other then that, it's EXACTLY like that.

This movie was on AMC the other night and I had to watch. It's such an amazing spoof of the reality tv boom that was to occur 20 some odd years later, but on it's own it is just excellent satire. Especially hilarious is the "all in one" film cameras used by the camera people which they actually wear, and which record to "digital chips". Ironically, Albert shot his most recent movie on digital cameras, 25 years after he jokingly predicted the media.

Which brings me to this - a guy at work found this clip, which shows off something that will be as common as a cell phone within 10 years. Not just a wearable computer, but one that anticipates what kind of info we need. They call it a "Sixth Sence technology", where information is generated before we know we need it.

Amazing shit right there.

Animals That Hate Baths

Here's the list.



Number 34 is my favorite.