Dave Mancuso dot Com

Read it and weep with joy…

“The company has given final approval to the vehicle, and it will be here in mid-2006 as a 2007 model…A camper version also will be offered, as is the case now with the EuroVan.”

This is such awesome news! They’re supposed to retune the look to make it more like the 60’s split windshield vans–I hope so.

I think there’s something in my eye…(sniff sniff).

I had a nice conversation today with the staff at the liquor store today, discussing the merits of various brands of tequila (for instance, I showed them that 1800 isn’t made by Cuervo anymore, and they told me that paying $50 for a bottle of Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo isn’t at all worth the name–not that I would have ever paid to find out, frankly). It struck me funny later, though. I guess I’ve been living in conservative Lancaster County too long or just grown too old not to wonder about conversations regarding the qualities of hard liquor.

Oh well. It was good stuff, anyway. I got the Sauza, although I think the Monte Alban would have been just as good–I like the more flavorful stuff. It’s been a long week. I’m actually looking foward to replacing my front brake pads, calipers, and hoses on the van tomorrow. Working on cars has become a zen-like experience for me–as long as the weather is agreeable.

My wife has begun to collect iTunes bottle caps for me at work. In fact, she’s put up a sign in the faculty room that she’ll pay her coworkers 50 cents for a winning bottlecap if they don’t want it (and has paid several times now). Wow–I am humbled. That’s selfless committment for you: a wife that will “feed your music song obsession,” to use her words. I used one of the caps she gave me to get the song Denise by Fountains of Wayne (the Stacy’s Mom song band).

By the way, many thanks to Brad for advising me on the last few songs I bought from the iTunes Music Store (ITMS), although he says it was for the sanity of the office (they apparently can’t stand feeling the floor’s bass beat of Oye Como Va while I’m in the office working).

Thanks also to my friend John Davies, who brought a pretty cool song and band to my attention: Mass Romantic by The New Pornographers (unusual name for a band, but great music).

Here it is. Harold and Maude is a great film–I’d recommend it to anyone who liked Rushmore, although I can’t exactly put my finger on why (it’s not just the Cat Stevens music in both films). Harold and Maude is a darker comedy and is a bit more out there as a film. It’s well worth the watch, though.

I’ve heard of G.K. Chesterton a number of times over the past decade, but I’ve mever done much to explore his work or life. Here’s a good start, though.

It may be an interesting race after all.

Here’s a more interesting link–a site that claims to predict the 2004 November general election by way of polls. Bush wins the electoral vote by a landslide, although the popluar vote is pretty even. I think it’s far too early to predict the final election, but I’ll be interested to see if this prediction changes (and how) toward the fall.

…who thinks Rushmore is reminiscent of Harold and Maude. Just look at some of the hits on Google.

More appropriately, prisoner of my own radio. I drove down to York today, and I caught This American Life on NPR. This week’s episode was The Fix Is In, and I was riveted by the story of ADM’s international conspiracy to price fix lysine (a chicken feed ingredient) and how Mark Whitacre (a vice president of ADM) became an informant for the FBI over the matter. This thing lasted over three years (and longer for the trial) and every time I thought it couldn’t get any more twisted, it warped again. I sat in the Lowes parking lot for twenty minutes to hear the end, and it wasn’t anywhere I thought the story would go.

The implications of the story are scary. Consumers weren’t hit badly by the price-fixing, but farmers were put out of business. One FBI agent visited his sister and brother-in-law (who were farmers) during the investigation. The brother-in-law mentioned to the agent how he didn’t think that his farm could keep going much longer–the price of lysine was driving his feed costs too high. The brother-in-law knew nothing about the investigation, but the agent knew–and he couldn’t say anything.

This event changed completely the face and nature of antitrust investigation for the United States federal government.

If you’d like to hear the broadcast, This American Life will have the REALAudio version out in a few days, or you can go to the iTunes store and buy the episode for $3.95 (you can listen to a sample, but it’s from an earlier prologue to the story).

Or you can wait for the movie–I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. This thing was wilder than a John Grisham novel.

From Neil Gaiman’s site today:

“When I tell Mac people this, they smile their secret smile. They know that after we die, we go to a special place, and that those who used Macs will be raised on high, where they can sip their cappucinos and look down and see the virus-infected writhings and screamings of those who used PCs, as the damned Windows users are forever bombarded with boiling projectile vomit from the thousand-foot high screaming thing that used to be Bill Gates.

But I’m sure even the damned people down in the mud will be laughing up whatever’s left of their sleeves at those of us who secretly like fountain pens best.”

A link from Brad and a conversation with Dan led to this page about a typical recording industry contract deal. Talk about eye-opening (although a little hard to read, since the right-hand houses border ran over text in my browsers). No wonder the RIAA is scared to death of the Internet and technology. Their fat cat profits are in real danger–what a shame. Let’s all shed a tear for them. I’ve heard that you give more money to a band by going to see their shows instead of buying their CDs, but I never knew it was literal and not exaggeration.