Being around a television at work most of the day, I usually see enough infomercials to want to gouge my eyes out. Most infomercials go in one ear and out the other, barely registering in my mind. Some, however, linger. I haven’t seen this infomercial in at least a month, but when I saw it air on ESPN for the first time, I had to laugh at the banality. I give you: the Freedom Tray.
Made and assembled in America using 100% recyclable materials, the Freedom Tray is the revolutionary food and beverage tray. Whether you’re in your car, watching TV, boating, camping, at the game or serving up the burgers at the tailgate party, the Freedom Tray will make your life easier. Simply pop it open, lock it in place and, instantly, you have a portable and versatile table to meet your needs.
Useful product I suppose. What struck me about the infomercial, though, was the blatant and undisguised jingoism something right out of 2002. Even the name evokes a somewhat embarrassing episode in the excessively anti-non-American era that came post-9/11. Watching the infomercial, I wasn’t sure if I should take this product seriously or if I should file it under ‘f’ for “farce.”
And I’m pretty sure I saw their tagline “Made in America, Used Everywhere” describing democracy on one of those giant, poorly-designed banners behind President Bush.
Totally random thought here. While browsing through some recent uploads to the White House Flickr account via my RSS reader, I came across this photo:
These are pens for a bill-signing. What intrigued me about this photo is the direction of the signature on each pen. Because the signature reads from the top of the pen to the bottom while the pen’s tip is pointing right, this pen is a left-handed pen. If you pick up this pen to write with your left hand, the signature is right-side up; pick this pen up with your right hand to write, and the signature is upside-down. A left-handed pen for a left-handed president? No detail overlooked or just a coincidence?
Just for the heck of it, I tried to find some presidential pens in official use by past presidents. I found President Bush’s pens here:
These are right-handed pens. If you take the cap off and stick it on the non-tip end of the pen, the signature will remain upright in your right hand but upside-down in your left hand. A right-handed pen for a right-handed president?
My guess is that the Bush pen likely used a standard direction because a majority of people are right-handed, but the Obama pen was specially made to be a left-handed pen. How’s that for an exciting Friday night?
I came across something today I was unaware of: a rejected theme song for the Bond film Quantum of Solace. As I noted in my review of the film (which was also a review of the music), the title song was performed by Alicia Keys and Jack White and was written by White. In my review, I wasn’t shy about my distaste for the song and its lack of a discernible melody that composer David Arnold could use in his score for the film.
Well, today I learned that not only did David Arnold write a song for the film, he used pieces of the song throughout the score like a Bond score should when a decent tune is written and recorded the song with the legendary Dame Shirley Bassey, who is no stranger to the Bond universe with performances of the title songs for Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, and Moonraker. Arnold’s song, though, was rejected. Thankfully, Bassey has included it on her new album, The Performance.
Some wise YouTube user decided to strip the title sequence from Quantum of Solace of its gag-inducing song and replaced it with the Arnold/Bassey song. I posted the title sequence for Quantum of Solace a while back, but the YouTube video I linked to was taken down, so for comparison’s sake, here’s the original:
And here is the title sequence with the Arnold/Bassey song:
The song, titled “No Good About Goodbye,” is a classic Bond song with sweeping strings and a sultry voice and is far superior to the mess of a tune that was the White/Keys “Another Way to Die.” Perhaps the film’s producers didn’t think this song fit the edgier feel of the film, but the song fits with the classic Bond persona and is a nice throwback to the Connery films: edgy film (as compared to latter entries in the franchise) plus Bassey anthem.
If you’re interested in a digital copy of the Arnold/Bassey song, unfortunately, as of this writing, an MP3 version isn’t available from either iTunes or Amazon. Hopefully one will be available soon.
Day 10, the final day, of my road trip back in October was a spent driving from DC back to Connecticut and of course I had some stops planned!
First stop on the return leg of my trip was to Fort McHenry in Baltimore MD. Interestingly, Fort McHenry is the only site in the National Park System that is designated as an Historic Shrine.
The fort from a distance:
Looking out to the harbor:
Cannonballs:
Inside the fort (several years after the War of 1812, the second story and porches were added):
The guns of war:
Rampart (as in “o’er the ramparts we watched”) #4:
An interesting bit of historical trivia I learned at Fort McHenry was that in 1861, several members of the Maryland state legislature were imprisoned in the jail cells at the fort to prevent them from voting to secede from the Union.
