News and news

I tend to assume that everybody reads as many current-events blogs as I do, so I don’t do a lot of current-events blogging, since Jim Henley and the Nielsen Haydens say just about anything I could say better than I would. But actually, a bunch of you read as much or more, and another bunch read pretty much none. Anyway, since I’m home sick (I felt pretty crappy when I got up this morning), a couple of recent items:

In comedy news, the BBC did a recent bit on the Apple (Music) vs Apple (Computers) trademark dispute (which Apple won). They invited over Guy Kewney, an IT expert, to talk about it. Due to some mix-up at reception, they wound up interviewing his cab driver instead, thinking it was him. YouTube has the hilarious footage. I love the sequence of expressions that flashes over the cabbie’s face when the introduce him, and he realizes what’s happened. You can actually read his mind in that second: Oh no, they think I’m that other guy! Should I tell them? Nah, I’ll brazen it out. (Update: Not actually a cab driver. But still the wrong Guy, and still pretty funny.)

And for the latest government outrage, ABC News is reporting that they were told by an anonymous “senior federal law enforcement official” that the government is examining news media’s phone records to try and find confidential sources through traffic analysis. Props to Jim Henley for pointing out that “there always turns out to be more to [these revelations] than we’re initially assured”, and Gary Farber for having been all over this FISA/NSA/data mining thing since December.

More about Pitt markers

Like I said before, I wish Faber-Castell made a portrait set of their Pitt brush markers, with some pale pinks and oranges. They seem to think the terra set is suitable, but it’s too dark and saturated for caucasian fleshtones. Yeah, I know, at long last a set of art colors that leaves us white folks feeling excluded.

But here, I’m thinking a set like this:

Or maybe drop one of the rightmost colors in favor of a blender! That’d be pretty cool. Maybe I’ll hunt around and see if any of the blending markers I’ve already got work on the Pitts.