Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has thrown our city’s hat into the ring of cities courting Google to test their new fiber network with the launch of a site, a Twitter page and a Youtube video.
“Google’s “Fiber to the Home” experiment would deliver the Internet at speeds 100 times faster than what most people now have access to, with blazing download speeds of 1 gigabyte per second.”
His YouTube pitch is a bit dry, but the last part is actually very cool, utilizing a bit of Google Earth video.
Orlando Jai Alai has a new champion, and it appears the venerable gambling establishment where grown men bounce tiny balls against walls will remain open, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Slated to close last December, shortly after the new year I started to hear this buzz about Pelot Políte reporting on the goings and comings of the Orlando Jai Alai with such helpful advice as:
If you are a visiting Jai Alai player, from Spain perhaps, please feel free to mingle with Americans. Many Americans appreciate a good joke about one of its icons, like Fred Astaire, Phil Spector, Rita Hayworth, Charles Brown (comic strip) or Andrew Warhol (artist). Fifty percent of all American jokes involve the word…”ass.” And if you bring your kids, don’t forget to go to the Circus across the street from the FRONTON. Fun for all.
Shortly after I started seeing these strange messages…suddenly the Jai Alai is back again with a new season! Coincidence? I think not.
I received the following email from Steve Goldman, who as many of us geeks know, was CEO and founder of DPT in Maitland, helped create several computer interface standards for ANSI including SCSI, and is a huge patron of music and arts in and around Central Florida:
Friends:
We NEED your help to get the word out to all young musicians in the central Florida area who could benefit from the FREE Young Composers Workshop being held at the UCF Center for Emerging Media on Saturday, March 13th. This is a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for young musicians between the ages of 13 to 18 interested in learning how to write music for orchestral instruments.
This year, the Young Composers Challenge is now open to young musicians nation-wide. Workshop seating is limited and available on a first-come-first-serve basis. We want to give our Central Florida young musicians an opportunity to register first, so please forward this email to everyone you know who may have a connection to a young musician between the ages of 13 and 18.
For more info, see this video or visit the YCC website:
I’ve heard quite a bit of ruckus, both positive and negative since Obama’s State of the Union announcement that Central Florida would be receiving $1.25 Billion in Federal funding to connect a high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando.
Initially I thought this was awesome…but as the details unfold, I became less enthusiastic about the project. Primarily because it doesn’t really connect Tampa to Orlando…it connects Downtown Tampa to the Orlando International Airport (stopping in Lakeland, Disney and International Drive).
Downtown Orlando, which is a good 25 minutes from the Orlando International Airport is not part of the equation. This troubles me greatly…. because that’s where I live.
AND, there are no plans to connect the recently approved SunRail Commuter train to any of the stops on the proposed HSR line.
Hopefully this is just a temporary disconnect. I don’t think the SunRail designers knew that the HSR would be approved. But is it too late to do anything about it?
High-speed rail: How will downtown Orlando fit into high-speed rail – OrlandoSentinel.com.
One of the “conservative right’s” loudest crusades has been their effort to undermine the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), following the release of a series of videos showing ACORN employees behaving inappropriately (something Haliburton employees never do).
Hypocritical “conservatives” in Congress have done everything possible to strip ACORN of all federal funding. Many legal experts have warned that these measures may be unconstitutional because lawmakers cannot punish a group or individual without a trial. They even have a term for it…”bills of attainder“:
Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. – James Madison
So here’s 5 minutes during a hearing of the Science and Technology committee where Alan Grayson gives Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia a beat down about the constitutionality of “bills of attainder”.
And now a court ruling supporting Grayson:
December 12, 2009: A federal judge today issued an injunction preventing the implementation of a congressional ban on funding for ACORN. Judge Nina Gershon concluded that the ban amounted to a “bill of attainder” that unfairly singled out ACORN
So last Friday @mixiemoxie calls me up as I am driving home from playing the 15th Annual Police Charity Ball. She was practically hyperventilating when she asks if Amanda Palmer (or, AFP as she’s lovingly referred to) can borrow my keyboard for a few days.
A.F.P. Amanda. Fucking. Palmer. Of the Dresden Dolls. Anyone who’s heard me play more than once has heard me play “Coin Operated Boy” (the guys at Howl poke fun at me to no end anytime I play it)…that song was written by Amanda Fucking Palmer.
My ex, Mixie Moxie, is a SUPERFAN of AFP. She gets text alerts anytime AFP farts. I am a fan, but I opted to turn off her fart alerts, and while I was aware AFP was coming to Orlando for a solo show, I was unaware of her need for a keyboard to practice on while she’s on holiday with her boyfriend, Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) in Melbourne (Florida…not Australia).
Mixie Moxie and AFP in my living room, eyebrows and all
So in exchange for an autographed “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” book, a couple of tickets to her show, and fortune and fame of incalculable amounts, I agreed to let her borrow my Roland FP-3 for a week.
Unfortunately I wasn’t here when she came to pick up said keyboard with aforementioned boyfriend…the very reason that I own a keyboard of the sort that AFP would deem appropriate to practice on for her big shindig with the Boston Pops on New Years Eve (how about a couple tickets to THAT that show, Amanda???) is that I play professionally and I was fortunate enough to have had a paying gig that night (or unfortunate, from the perspective of NOT being home when AFP and NFG were in my F’n house.)
But they were here, and they left me a very nicely signed copy of the printed third of their first collaborative effort, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (also an album and a series of videos), and tomorrow when I go see her perform at her sold-out show at The Social, she will be playing my FP-3. And I will be wishing I was on that stage with her and my keyboard, but I know I have been on that stage before and I know I will be again…it is, after all, the Social. And Amanda Palmer certainly needs no help from the Diggz in the entertainment department. Heck, you should see her “living statue” act. To. Die. For.
Today I logged on to Twitter and noticed AFP had posted a new blog from her working vacation wherein she wrote:
i twittered for a piano and was graciously lent one by a nice man, @johnnydiggz. thanks, @johnnydiggz.
See? I am a nice man.
Because Amanda Fucking Palmer fucking said so.
Here’s some video I shot of AFP performing Creep (on a ukulele) with Vermillion Lies in Atlanta last year. You can hear me singing along, so TECHNICALLY, I think this qualifies as our first co-collaboration.
Wednesday, March 10
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is that I play professionally and I was fortunate enough to have had a paying gig that night (or unfortunate, from the perspective of NOT being home when AFP and NFG were in my F’n house.)