Silflay Hraka

Hurry up. Bidding on this wonderful item ends on Wednesday. It will cost you your immortal soul…. and they take PayPal!

British scientists grow human liver in a laboratory.

Hat tip to The Greek for sending this along.

Today was shopping day on Emusic.com. I signed up for the premium annual subscription last month and I haven’t had time to download anything since my 90-song allotment renewed last week. You can imagine my giddy anticipation. I had 59 albums stored for purchase consideration and managed to add two more albums to that list before downloading anything. After today’s spree and after removing some items I purchased last month, that list is now down to 56 items.

I’m listening to the new albums now and I can’t figure out which one is my favorite. It’s a three-way tie between Jay Farrar’s “Sebastopol“, Lucero’s “Tennessee” and the Pernice Brothers “The World Won’t End“. Jay Farrar and Pernice Brothers were my favorite downloads from last month, along with Plain White T’s. Oh, and Dillon Fence. Robbie Fulks’ stuff was pretty good too.

I also downloaded M. Ward’s “Transfiguration“, Bob Mould’s “Body of Work” and Ray Charles “The Essentials“. I haven’t gotten through all that yet but I look forward to it.

I am continually amazed at what a great deal Emusic happens to be. On top of the 90 tracks I get with my monthly subscription, I download maybe 15 to 30 free tracks each month. I probably pay under $.19 cents a track for music without any kind of digital rights restrictions and it’s music I genuinely enjoy. I’m already looking forward to November 21st when my monthly subscription renews again. Emusic does sell “booster packs” I could use to buy music sooner, but I’m trying to avoid those. I almost wish Emusic had a $24.95 per month subscription plan. If they offered 120 tracks per month at that price, I’m sure they’d get plenty of subscribers to sign up. They’re probably missing out by making $19.95 their premium level.

ESPN.com – NCB – College Basketball Rankings

Since football season ended for UNC somewhere around the first weekend of play, UNC fans have been looking forward to the beginning of basketball season. It should be a good season for UNC and they premier at #2 in the first USA Today Coaches Poll.

I’m glad they’re ranked #2 rather than #1 as we have a history of being knocked off when we get the #1 ranking. Just ask Georgia Tech. They always seem to beat us when we have the top ranking. Bastiges.

The poll seems to suggest a down year for the ACC. UNC is the only ACC team in the top 10. Duke comes in at #11. BC is 15th and Georgia Tech is 21st. Maryland and Florida State make the “others receiving votes” category. I guess I’m used to seeing three ACC teams crowding the top 10.

It’s still early, however. There are two Big 10 teams in the top 10 and that shouldn’t last long. The Big 10 always chokes come tournament time. The Big East also has two but those two are Pittsburgh and Georgetown, two perennial strong-start, weak-finish teams. The PAC 10 gets UCLA and Arizona into the top 10. That sounds about right.

The other two spots go to top-ranked Floriday and 7th ranked LSU. I suspect the SEC will be tough, especially come tournament time.

No matter though. I am excited about seeing what a young and athletic UNC team can do. Roy Williams, as always, has promised that UNC will run like hell the entire season. Win or lose, it should at least be exciting.

Duke sucks! Go Heels!

Oops: USC coach was ignored for UNC job

North Carolina fired Coach John Bunting this week, which is ironic because six years ago Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll tried to get the Tar Heels job that eventually went to Bunting.

“They never called me back,” Carroll said. “I never got a smell.”

Maybe Pete Carrol is interested in coming to UNC now. He’s only won two National Championships at USC.

Alien Loves Predator #209

Alien Loves Predator #210

Welcome to the 214th installment of the Carnival of the Vanities. This edition of the Carnival is a little late in arriving as yours truly was on vacation until a few hours ago. In order to impress you all with my dedication, I’ve spent the last few hours reading the Carnival entries for the week so that things won’t be delayed any longer than necessary. It’s been my first priority.

I notice a lot of new posters to Carnival of the Vanities this week. That’s a good thing. I love those that submit on a weekly basis but the Carnival was at risk of becoming a little stale. I thought I might use this Carny to highlight some of those newer entrants this week and give them the exposure they deserve.

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That being said, I’m going to start the Carny with Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah who, even though he isn’t a “new” entrant, wins Best of the Week for The Game of the Rough Beast in which he skewers mainstream media for bias and for burying a controversial story about recent violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Creative, intelligent, insightful and thought-provoking, Koranteng shows us what a CoTV post can and should be.

Also on the topic of media, Adam at Sophist Pundit spells out the New Media paradigm, comparing the Washington Post website to Wikipedia. Specifically, he talks about their relative coverage of the Mark Foley scandal.

Two other good posts about the Foley scandal come from John at Hells Handmaiden and mw at Divided We Stand, United We Fall. John knocks the Republican response to the scandal and mw bemoans the fact that Dennis Hastert is third in line.. Be sure you watch the video mw has put together. It’s a little long but fun.

I hardly know where to go from here. There seem to be several good ways to categorize posts this week. Rather than put the miscellany at the end, I think I’ll start with those posts first.

One of my favorite comes from Reb Chaim HaQoton who talks about the book The Fire Within. I have to confess that I’m having some troubles with BlogSpot and can’t revisit the post for specifics but he and the book speak to the importance of the examined life. I agree.

Ashok lives every English major’s dream and extricates a three-page paper from a two-line poem and rethinks Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”.

i, squub writes An Open Letter to Axl Rose, asking him to rethink the name of his forthcoming album. Axl Rose is still working in music? I thought Kurt Cobain assisinated his career in 1992.

Getting To Enough asks Will Hybrids Solve Our Oil Problems? and talks about how hybrids could change the global economy.

smilerz emulates MC Hammer in Stop! It’s Budget Time! He also shows the difference between the government and a business when it comes to budgeting. It takes depressingly little space to show what’s wrong with our government.

The next few posts all have a familial ring to them and are presented by some fine women. My favorite comes from Mama Duck who relates the lengths to which she’ll go for her Lil Duck.

ZenKitty talks about her experiences at Her First Kung Fu Tournament, with pictures. Women with swords are hot.

Kailani asks someone to pull her plug. She talks about what must be a common issue in this wired day and age, overconnectedness. Speaking as someone who just got back from three days of nearly wireless vacation, it’s good to be back.

Miriam talks about her shoe problem. I suspect this is also a common issue in this day and age.

The next two posts represent the best of the self-help advice posts of the week.

The first comes from Hueina Su who advises on moving From Self Sacrifice to Self Love and uses traditional Chinese culture as context.

Patricia has good news. She tells us How To Know Who You Are In 20 Minutes. I bet some of you thought it might take a lifetime to figure that out. Let’s just hope you don’t change after that twenty minutes.

And that’s it except for the stuff from our dearly beloved regular posters. I include their stuff below sans commentary except for one exception from Jack Yoest who wishes U.S. employees would show a less egalitarian and more deferential attitude towards their bosses. He suggests that it is rude to not acknowledge the boss or business owner when he or she walks through the room. My response is that 1.) it is a huge productivity killer to stop working just because the boss is in the room and 2.) frequently, the boss is simply undeserving of the recognition. Any boss worth his or her salt would prefer productivity to ass-kissing any day of the week. My piece.

I skip commentary on the rest because it’s late and I’m tired and I’ve given all I can give to the Carnival this week.

Avant News presents Turns Out God Doesn’t Particularly Care About Humans posted at Avant News.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Wine Tasting Robots, Oh My! posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Peace Moonbeam presents DPRK: A Worker’s Paradise posted at The Peace Moonbeam Chronicles.

Andrew Ian Dodge presents Ola Gerin advises posted at Dodgeblogium.

Francois Tremblay presents The Moral Razor- Slashing Moral Nonsense. Part 1/2 posted at Check Your Premises.

David St Lawrence presents Uncomfortable questions about generating income from your own efforts… posted at Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures.

Wayne Hurlbert presents Staffing Problems: Ending Employee Disputes posted at Blog Business World.

Thanks to all participants for their hard work and dedication. Be sure to check back next Wednesday for the 215th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities and, as always, send me your posts via Blog Carnival.

I generally like to have the Carnival of the Vanities up by noon every Wednesday but, because I’m on vacation and, ironically, haven’t had the time to deal with it, CoTV will be delayed. I may have it up tonight but I suspect it will be Thursday before CoTV is posted to the board. My apologies to all those eagerly awaiting the Carnival.

The fishing trip hasn’t been a total waste of time. We haven’t caught a whole ton of fish but yesterday was a pretty fruitful day. Below are some of our more notable catches. You may find more today at the Tradewinds website.

Farkin’ Icehole’s best catch in years, by request.

Curtis’ Drum. More on Curtis later at Silflay Hraka.

Mangum’s Puppy Drum. It’s a little smaller than the others, but he’s fishing with smaller bait.

The Oxymoronic Scotsman with a cigarette and his pride and joy.

Big Dumb Cousin’s catch. He smells a lot like flowers.

Bigwig’s best catch of the trip. He fought for half an hour before finally landing the beast.

By request. Farkin’ Icehole with the best fish he’s caught in 7 years of fishing. He’s generally better at catching a few Zs than at catching fish, something we share in common. More pictures up at Fishin’, Drinkin’ & Stinkin’ and possibly later at Tradewinds.