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1970 Ford Trans-Cammer Mustang - All BusinessWritten by on May 1, 2010 The Trans-Cammer Mustang Blurs The Line Between Street Car And All-Out Race Car. And We Dig It. A Lot.
There's no better way to say it: This car is just 100 percent badass. Many projects, most notably those of the Pro Touring genre, have combined big-time performance with modern car convenience. This car eschews that in favor of a barely disguised race car with license plates, but also with some creature comforts and serious custom show car build quality.
Remember George Poteet's Sick Fish 'Cuda built by Rad Rides By Troy, the HOT ROD of the year in 2007? That was a pure land speed race car with Ridler-level detail. The Trans-Cammer, as this '70 Mustang is known, is a street car with Trans-Am race car-level performance, and if Cobo Hall allowed muscle cars to compete for the Ridler, this one might make it into the Great Eight.
We first reported on it in the Project Car section of the Oct. '06 issue and saw the finished animal at the '09 SEMA show in Las Vegas. We challenged it in the Mar. '10 issue to accept the HOT ROD Power Tour(r) Challenge and then invited it out to the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational the Saturday after the show to see it run around the road course and to have it pose for Wes Allison's Canon. Builder Philip Koenen of Grand Touring Garage (GTG) accepted. At Spring Mountain Motorsports Park, where the Invitational was being held, he was about 10 back in line to hit the road course as the beauty light hit, so we pulled him out of line to shoot the photos you see here. The bummer is that while he was fully willing to beat the car around the track, we needed the photos so he never got the chance. But look here and you can see that this is no bolt-together car. We have no doubt that it's nasty on-track.
The goal with the project was, in Philip's words, "to create a vehicle that is instantly recognizable yet different, incorporate some of the best features found on the original Trans-Am road racing automobiles utilizing state-of-the-art components and construction techniques, and select a unique and revered engine as the driving force. We designed and engineered the vehicle to not only perform as a street-legal automobile but one that is also capable of competing in open road race-type events and at tracks like Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta, Sears Point, and Willow Springs."
We've seen that done before, but this one blows them all away. At first glance, it would seem that the centerpiece is the real-deal '65 Ford 427ci SOHC motor, which at 600 hp is impressive enough, but look under the skin and it gets way more interesting than that.
First off, the chassis consists of 4130 chrome-moly front and rear clips designed by GTG and fabricated by Fast Eddie's in Orange, California, with Art Morrison 2x4 outboard framerails. The brakes are huge, the chassis is full-on race, there are underbody aero panels, and the fully 'caged and fire system-equipped interior combines racing frugality with a few street car touches (like electric windows from Electric-Life).
The body: Where do we start? There's not a single square inch that hasn't been touched in some way. The bumpers were narrowed, the body was channeled over the frame, the floor lacks any Ford parts, there are several carbon-fiber and fiberglass panels, the custom exhaust goes through stainless-covered rocker panels-and the list just keeps going.
Originally located in the shadow of Mickey Mouse (Anaheim, California), GTG moved to a bigger facility in North Bend, Oregon, and stated its business purpose as "offering a total in-house restoration and fabrication facility with a wide variety of services for the automotive enthusiast, covering the entire range of automotive marques and years from the 1900s through the early 1970s." The Trans-Cammer is an example of what the company can do, from concept, design, fabrication, machining, carbon fiber and mold making, among other things. GTG also does race cars and even motorcycles and has won top honors at such prestigious events as the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island concours. That's big time.
Will we see the Trans-Cammer on this year's HOT ROD Power Tour(r)? The editors certainly hope so, and after checking this thing out, we're sure you do, too.
"I have presented your gracious invitation to join the HOT ROD Power Tour(r) Challenge to my client and am awaiting his reply. Believe me, I am there already with the Mustang."
-Philip Koenen
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
Fast Eddie's in Orange, California, not only fabbed the chassis, 'cage, front valance, firewall, trans tunnel, air ducts, dash, and air cleaner, but the company also made these bitchin' NACA-style ducts for the quarter-panels that feed cool air to the rear brakes.This shot, taken as the car was going together, shows some of the fabrication involved that's hidden when everything is buttoned up. The front suspension has Fast Eddie's chrome-moly control arms, 2-inch-drop Ford spindles, Hyperco 500-pound springs, Penske shocks (not cheap!), a Speedway Engineering sway bar, and a Woodward Steering Components rack-and-pinion.Perhaps the coolest part of the car is the exhaust, fabricated by Jeff Yost of GTG, which was routed through the rocker panels with the exits right behind the doors. There is no exhaust hanging under the car-it's all hidden.Baer six-piston calipers on 14.65-inch rotors (front) are housed in custom-louvered front inner fender panels (shown here being mocked up in cardboard) and are cooled from airscoops mounted into the front valance panel.GTG designed the 6061 billet aluminum wheel centers (they resemble the old-style Jongbloeds) and had Panther Products in Anaheim, California, do the CNC work. Embee Plating anodized the aluminum rims, and Eric Vaughn of Vaughn Wheels put them together. The sizes are 17x9.5 front and 17x11 rear.The axlehousing is a fabricated NASCAR full-floater from Mittler Bros. with 4.10 Richmond gears on a posi held in a Strange nodular Ford 9-inch centersection. Suspension is a Fast Eddie's triangulated four-link with Hyperco springs and Penske shocks. The tires are 315/35R17 (fronts are 275/40R17s). You can also see the partial bellypan and carbon-fiber aero strakes.
A custom foot box was created for more legroom to mount the CNC brake and clutch master cylinders, fed by CNC-machined reservoirs.GTG designed the cowl-induction hood and helped Alberto Gurrola of P1 Performance (Huntington Beach, California) create it out of carbon fiber. It only weighs 12 pounds.That's a legit '65 SOHC motor built by Bud Gilbert at G-Force Racing Engines in Paso Robles, California, with a stock crank, Manley rods, JE pistons, Perfect Circle rings, reground (by Mooneyes) stock cams, and factory heads. Compression is 9.5:1, and with dual 780-cfm Holleys on an aluminum Ford intake, it makes exactly 600 hp at 6,800 rpm and 525 lb-ft at 5,500 rpm on 91-octane gas (which is more than we initially reported in the Project Car section a few years ago). Engine setback is a big 9 inches, putting the heavy motor fully behind the front axle centerline. A Ron Davis radiator, Spal electric fans, and Setrab coolers for oil and power steering fluid keep everything happy.Floor-mounted Wilwood pedals actuate brake and clutch master cylinders. The gas pedal is from Neal and uses a Morse cable system.Philip built this custom center console to hold American Auto Wire switches for the lights, wipers, fuel pump, ventilation system, and power windows. The push-to-start button are a neat modern touch. Also visible here is the master disconnect switch, fire system, and e-brake handle. The traditional white shift ball controls a Tremec TKO-600 five-speed transmission.
Check out the reverse-mounted 90-amp Ford alternator. It charges, appropriately enough, an Optima battery.The interior is all business with a full 'cage (with swing-out door bars), an Auto Meter tach mounted right in front of the driver, and race car-style heat insulation by Thornton Upholstery in Santa Ana, California, but there are also Cobra seats, door panels, an ididit tilt column, a Momo wheel, and even electric windows, no doubt due to the rollcage making roll-down window cranks a nightmare. The Trans-Cammer was chosen at the SEMA show to be digitized for inclusion in the new version of the video game Gran Turismo, so you can even strap into an electronic version of this car and give it what-for.


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15 Nov 2012 11:33 PM #41
16 Nov 2012 10:22 AM #42
My test
I did my test; with Sencha Architect I created brand new ST2.0 and ST2.1 projects. They contained just a 'hello world' label in their default views.
In both of their automatically generated index.html files, I wrote the 'include phonegap.js' line that PGB requires me to write. That is the only modification.
I uploaded the ST2.0 project to PGB, and it produced a perfectly functional app.
I uploaded the ST2.1 project to PGB, and it produced a white screen garbage app.
ST2.1 *clearly* caused some sort of incompatibility with PGB, though I don't understand why yet. Sencha folks, there are many of us affected by this.. not a word?
16 Nov 2012 10:48 AM #43
PGB Version
As for the PG version I use in their Build service - I don't specify the version, so PGB automatically provides me with the latest version that PGB supports. The 'phonegap.js' file they automatically inject into the output package(s) are whatever the latest version is.
16 Nov 2012 12:05 PM #44
16 Nov 2012 12:10 PM #45
More advanced tests
I have dived into using the all-powerful PGB 'Debug' tool. Basically it allows you to create a Debug build, and then you use their online debugging tool to see the console/elements/etc. in real time, as if you were running the app in Chrome.
When I include the phonegap.js, I notice several things:
- There are no console errors or warning messages. There are no include problems. In fact, I see evidence that the application's init() is at least firing, from an info log that I write out.
- The DOM is *not* being fully generated. Inside the <body>, it is basically empty. ST2.1 fails to populate it with all its magical stuff - if and only if phonegap.js is included.
16 Nov 2012 3:02 PM #46
Oh look something similar (but also unresolved) involving ST2.1 and PhoneGap = White Broken App:
18 Nov 2012 4:58 AM #47
Hi everyone, on request I updated my article Packaging a Sencha Touch 2 application with PhoneGap for Android to explain how to make it work with 2.1. I did not read this whole thread but I got my simple PhoneGap example to work fine using 2.1 and the Sencha Command utility.
Hope that helps!
18 Nov 2012 10:34 AM #48
Hi, is there any further info about this? I have 2.1 app, which in production build is not working (build using sencah cmd). Thanks for any info.
19 Nov 2012 12:32 AM #49
19 Nov 2012 12:34 AM #50
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BOSTON – A probation official testified Monday that he begged out of the hiring process at the department after he noticed that individuals whose names were passed on by superiors were increasingly receiving jobs – after he made sure they advanced past the initial interview stage.
Questioning of Richard O'Neil, a regional administrator who oversees probation officers in family courts, began the seventh week of a federal trial for former Probation Commissioner John O'Brien of Quincy and two of his former deputies, Elizabeth Tavares and William Burke III.
The three are accused of operating a surreptitious patronage program, granting jobs to politically backed applicants in exchange for "political currency" from state lawmakers and others.
The jury also heard how a candidate in the western part of the state heard about his promotion while bartending at a popular Northampton restaurant, and was later told to thank a legislator for it.
O'Neil said he was surprised to see Doug MacLean as the preferred choice for a job at the Bristol Probate and Family Court in 2005 because O'Neil had attended a Bristol County district attorney's office briefing where MacLean discussed his drug use and his time in jail.
Prosecutors claim MacLean is one example of a fraudulent hiring system that operated within the public safety agency.
Defense attorneys have tried to demonstrate the qualifications of the allegedly fraudulent hires, and show that recommendations and influence were not limited to the probation department.
The trial continues at the Moakley federal courthouse in Boston.
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text:
Being comfortable
Over at Our Sunday Visitor, my friend Greg Erlandson has posted a thought-provoking column, entitled Parish the Thought, which raises the question of where one should go to Mass: One's geographical parish, or a parish where one is "comfortable."
I think the question is an important one, but it occurs to me that I'm fairly uncomfortable most of the time, and particularly uncomfortable at Mass. I live in an area (within a mile of the campus of the University of Notre Dame) where Mass is celebrated frequently and with widely variegated presiders, all sorts of liturgical quirks and preferences, surrounded by every imaginable kind of congregation. In my geographical parish, there is a daily "red-eye" Mass at 6:45 a.m. where we all tend to mumble and make minimal eye contact, exchanging the sign of peace sincerely but perfunctorily. The daily campus Mass is "high church" enough to delight any Anglican, and the cantor always leads us at a pitch which forces churchgoers like me to choose between falsetto and basso profundo. It's often difficult to remember the homilies given there. Most Sundays, my wife and I go to Mass at the chapel of Holy Cross College, where there is usually no music and usually a good and nourishing homily. Most of our fellow congregants there are active members of other parishes, but refugees from their more elaborate Sunday liturgies.
Greg concludes that "a parish isn't about 'how good it makes me feel.' It is about me getting outside of myself and caring about others who are not like me at all, yet are brothers and sisters in Christ. For those defending geography, the pick and choosers risk making the Mass an entertainment that we vote for with our presence, rather than a miracle we are privileged to share." I agree, mostly, but it seems to me (and I pick and choose even more widely than most Catholics are able to) that it's not necessarily "entertainment" value that we nomadic Catholics are pursuing. The Mass is indeed a miracle we are privileged to share, but if we are to behold and share that miracle, might it not be the case that we know some venues to be less distracting than others?
About the Author
Michael O. Garvey works in public relations at the University of Notre Dame.
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It seems to me that, ideally, a parish is a community of disciples. I have no problem with the notion of 'parish shopping' when one is new to an area; everyone needs to find a home. But shopping for a parish shouldn't take too long - maybe a couple of months at the most? - and once the home has been found, it's incumbent on the shopper to become a member of a community. Not just a regular attendee of sacramental services, but a member.
The expectation for both parties - the individual and the community - should be that the individual settles into the community, puts down some roots, and stays for a long, long time. Circumstances may not permit it to play out that way, but it should be expectation. And that lengthy membership in the community should involve doing the things that a community of disciples does for one another: forming friendships in love (maybe even falling in love), visiting community members who are sick, comforting community members who are grieving, helping community members who are in need, sharing faith with one another, strengthening the life of the community in any or several of the many ways that this can be done.
And here's the thing: being in a community, like being in a family or a marriage, means that a modicum of zits and warts comes with the package. Some parishes may seem to have better preaching or better music or more singles or whatever the criterion is than other places. Pick the one that seems like it's the closest to a good fit, and understand going in that it will never, ever rise to perfection.
It would be easy to criticize Erlandson's behavior, as quoted in this post, as being consumer-oriented - vacillating between one church and another as if looking for the best deal on jeans or the best cup of coffee. But it may be that he hasn't lit yet on a place that feels like home to him. If that is the case, my advice would be, pick a place even if it falls short of perfection, and try to make it your home. Stop shopping, and go there, week after week after week. And find other ways of getting involved. Ask not what your parish can do for you etc.
Thanks for raising this issue. I like my friend Jim Pauwel's astringent thoughts on what one owes one's parish. Good food for thought.
It's not clear. Sticking to one's geographical parish forces you to mingle with Catholics who have different ideas, and in principle it's good for unity (especially in the US, where Catholics are so polarized!). But what if the Mass is not nourishing?
These days I spend at least half of my Sundays exploring, going to parishes where I have never been before. I feel like a little bishop, witnessing the incredible diversity of Catholic Mass liturgy, yet learning to recognize what constitutes the common core. They have in common that if I prepare the readings in depth, get there early, watch everything, listen to every word of the liturgy and try to pray them, then at some point during Mass I will be filled by a sense of profound peace, of being refreshed, of having a new start for the week; and that's independent of the specifics of that particular celebration. So my impression is that this peace is the core experience of going to Mass. The other potential perks - uplifting architecture, moving music, arresting homilies, smiling pew neighbors, etc. - are just bonus, occasional unexpected gifts. That, it seems, would argue in favor of sticking to one's geographical parish, wouldn't it?
Yet in my wanderings, about once or twice a year I stumble upon a place that directly feels like home, and it is a completely different, thrilling experience, that pulls me so strongly that I can hardly think about anything else afterwards for several days. (Never so far at a church where I could stay as a regular parishioner, unfortunately). But that, it seems, would argue in favor of patiently looking for a home, wouldn't it?
Then there are some Sundays when I don't do my homework, and when everything about the Mass is banal, I essentially sleep through it with nothing to wake me from my slumber, and afterwards I find myself exactly as though I had not gone. What's the point? And did anything really happen? I fear that that's the normal Sunday experience of many, and that is not nourishing. If one needs something special in order to participate, say, a particular style of music for example, then why shouldn't they go where they can find it?
A parish isn't about "how good it makes me feel." It is about me getting outside of myself and caring about others who are not like me at all, yet are brothers and sisters in Christ.
But what if the liturgy is the source that causes me to want to do that? Isn't it worth going elsewhere else, precisely in order to attend a Mass that pulls me outside of myself and makes me care about others "who are not like me at all, yet are brothers and sisters in Christ"? Itn't that part of what it means for the liturgy to be nourishing?
My parish is not in my city. My parish is not in my diocese! My parish is my community and it happens to be in a place where my community is welcomed, celebrated and fostered.
If it wasn't for this particular parish I wouldn't be going at all.
Who are we talking about? One of our deacons was at a conference where the presenter said about 18 percent of the parishioners will be involved, 50 percent apathetic but they will show up on Sunday, and the rest -- 32 percent -- actively hostile. The 18 and 32 both sounded high to me, but some of the others in the discussion pointed out that the 32 can be counted one by one. They are the ones who park off campus and go out of their way to enter by a side door where they won't meet anyone who wants to make eye contact. The idea that that is almost one-third didn't seem too far-fetched to several of the guys in the discussion.
The 18 percent seemed high to me because I had heard of another study that said the number of active Catholics in any parish is 7 percent. As it happens, I can name just about 7 percent of the good people in our congregation (220 of 3,000) and tell you something about them. So 7 or 8 sounds right to me. In any event, those people are happy where we are. And having lived in 13 other parishes for various periods of time, I am here to tell you they'll have to do a lot of shopping to find a better one than ours. Among those, I, and I am sure many others, did the due diligence Jim Pauwels suggests and ended up here.
BTW, when it comes to "others who are not like me," we have two Spanish Masses on the weekend, and when we get another pastor, the 6-2 ratio of English to Spanish Masses probably will switch to 5-3. What's preventing that now is the shortage of a bilingual priest, which the next pastor will be. Michael, if you need an expanded demographic where you are, try St Joseph's if it still is in existence; we found it refeshingly different from the campus Masses, but that was 42 years ago.
That leaves the 50 percent (which I think is higher) that comes on Sunday, punches its card, and goes home without signing up either for a bus trip to an Indian casino or a pack-the-county-commission-chambers action or a rosary during the 40 Days for Life, all of which are possible for those using the main door and looking to either the right or the left.
I wonder if any of those people could be happy someplace else -- maybe at a parish which is quieter. (Ours is noisy, even at the 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass which usually has no music, although it occasionally has entrance and closing hymns.) Maybe at a parish where they wouldn't run into people trying to make eye contact and invite them to join the K of C. Maybe at a parish where everything is in Latin, and they can be content that all dialogue is between the priest and God without involving them.
I know I am living in what the seminarians waiting for assignement to a parish for the summer refer to as "The Promised Land," and I am so content it's disgusting. Bugt even in the Promised Land, I am in some kind of minority.
I nearly wrote a column on this question myself, or at least I tried to. I didn't come up with anything as thoughtful as what's in Michael Garvey's post and comments here so far, but I find myself coming down in the same "in principle...in practice" place as many of you. In principle I would like to be an active and grateful member of the parish in which I live; in practice, we gave up on that after a year and found another parish, not too far away, where we feel full and active membership is really possible. I keep examining my motives, because I think Erlandson is right that being too comfortable can actually defeat the point of being in a parish in the first place. But the answer hinges on how "comfortable" is defined, doesn't it? I was uncomfortable with the fact that none of the homilists at my old parish ever seemed to spend any time thinking about that day's readings, and in fact one of them actually managed to read the wrong Gospel one Sunday before giving a "homily" on another subject entirely. Escaping that discomfort is not something I feel bad about. Sometimes the challenges a parish presents -- uninspiring liturgy, terrible homilies, lousy music -- aren't the kind that make you grow in faith; they're the kind that make you want to give up on going to Mass at all. And Erlandson's dichotomy (territorial parish or someplace where you're surrounded by like-minded people) overlooks the fact that our society also self-segregates geographically. If I want to be surrounded by people like me, staying in my neighborhood is a great start.
So where I think I come out in the end is: Catholics ought to try belonging to their geographical parish. Give blooming where you're planted a fair shot. But if you're not blooming, for heaven's sake find someplace where you can.
Here's the weird thing, though: I'm not actually certain that the parish we gave up on was our territorial parish. We thought it probably was, and it was the easiest one to get to from our house, but there are a few others nearby. We asked at the rectory when we went there to register, and the person at the front desk waved off the question cheerfully: "Oh, it doesn't matter." And, in my experience, most parishes and dioceses proceed that way. It doesn't seem to matter, at least not enough to make it easy to find out. Why isn't there a page on the archdiocese's website where I can punch in my address and find out what parish I live in? Why doesn't every parish secretary have a map of the parish boundaries handy, to answer that question when people ask? And if it's of no real significance to them, why am I driving myself crazy asking questions like the one Erlandson poses?
I tend to agree with geographic parish connection for all the reaons mentioned above. When we first moved to the community, we went to the local parish and it was a good way to get to know people in the community too, However, my wife is native and so now we attend the native parish in the city. It incorporates some Oji-Cree elements in the liturgy where possible (e.g. traditional drumming, come prayers prayers in Oji-Cree. sweet grass ceremonies before baptisms, etc). Also native art and so on.
The priest has been involved for decades with native ministry in most of the First Nation communities in the area and so knows all of the families and extended families and in-laws and out-laws. The deacons are leaders in both the parish and community and that is always good to see.
The congregation is mixed with native and non - native. Also some people are charismatic and others are not. So you have some people with arms outstretched, etc. during prayers and others not. I would say that it is fairly diverse.
We know the people and have been part of the community for years. My wife drums at times as well.
Like with everything else, there have been, at times, personality clashes among some of the people in the parish, and differences with the visiting priest.
But like every community it is about persevering and growing together.
I like the idea of territorial parishes for the reasons everyone cited above; I like to be part of a community of people that are different from me. The only place in my life I meet Republicans face-to-face are at Mass or when I go home to visit my family. I do not mean to be flip about that; we need to be around people who think and act differently than us, it is the only way we can develop mutual respect and understanding and unity despite our differences.
I think there might be a silver lining- a very thin one- in all of these parish mergers. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia,in its ongoing dismantling of the diocese, recently closed my parents parish', St Leo the Great in Tacony. Our own parishes in the Bronx are now going to begin parish planning, with some inevitable parish closures at the end..
But so many of our parishes are just struggling to survive, they don't foster that community we all seek: congregations are shrinking, there are no youth ministries, no social justice ministries, limited worship programs. Theyr'e just a place to go to Mass and be buried out of.
I very much hope after the planning, my own parish is allowed to stay on the island, and that it can grow its congregations and launch new efforts to build community, serve the poor and strengthhen our faith. But if not, it will give my family a chance to pick a parish. Before kids, I had pet dogs; all of my dogs were strays from the street. I adored all of my dogs, but sometimes thought it would be nice to actually go buy a dog and pick a breed I liked. I feel that way about parishes; my parishes were always the one covering the area where I live; I've always been happy in them, but it might be nice to go out, shop around, and pick a parish.
Years ago in Magnificat there was a short bit from the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien that talked about this issue. I wish I'd cut it out (but somehow Magnificat doesn't lend itself to being cut up), but the jist was being a Christian is easy in a nice parish where everyone is friendly and the liturgy is personally pleasing. But where you really find your faith is often in a disspirited parish where the turnout is low and the women are wearing trousers (which I suppose would have been a terrible gaffe in the 1940s and '50s).
I think that's a great observation and certainly a gift of special grace if you can walk joyfully into any parish and know that God wants you to be there.
Moreover, Catholicism isn't like some forms of Protestantism, where you go to church nourish your relationship with Jesus as your Personal Lord and Savior with other members of the Elect. Catholicism is where you go to work on the salvation of everybody; doesn't matter if you like them; God does and expects your help. At least that's what I tell myself my mind wanders along uncharitable lines at Mass. Sometimes it helps.
It is important to note here that the boundaries of a parish can be quite arbitrary and in some cases are obsolete. I remember a time when you could not register in a parish that was outside of your boundary - at least it was the case in Philadelphia.
In addition, there are parents who send their children to a nearby parish school because their own parish has closed its school or never had a school. In that case, they attend the parish where their children go to school. (Actually, in Phildelphia where I was brought up the parish school was the community.)
There are people who travel miles away from their designated parish because they want a Latin Mass; I know some people who live in the suburbs, who travel to an inner city parish to support a priest who has stayed there.
Are they not free to worship where they please?
Warning: I am getting on my high horse.
There is no way that I will attend a parish where the pastor gives off the cuff, rambling, non-scriptural homilies that last for 30 minutes or more. I will not be part of a parish where the priests are so political that they constantly preach using political statements undermining this or any adminstration.
I attend an established parish, not technically my parish but it could be since it is quite close. It has families with young children, teenagers and retired folks. We have Baptisms that are well integrated into the Sunday liturgy. I love watching these babies each Sunday as they grow by leaps and bounds. At the end of Mass the pastor will say: "It has been a joy to celebrate this Mass with you." Sometimes we clap.
Two cents worth:
1) Responding to the danger that the new "ecclesial movements" would weaken the sense of the Church as embodied in dioceses and parishes, theologians such as Hervé Legrand, Gilles Routhier, and Severino Dianich have written theological defenses of the territorial principle in delineating dioceses and parishes. Their main point has been that in principle delimited territories ensure that anyone within them has a right to belong and to be welcomed into that local Church. They fear that making movements (I would add what are called "intentional communities") the focus runs the danger of elitism and self-selection, both of which run counter to the catholicity of the Church, that is, to the notion and the reality of the Church as redemptive integration of diversity.
2) "The Mass is the Mass" is the response people used to hear from some priests if they complained about the quality of the liturgy in a particular parish. My reply to that was, "Yes, the Mass is the Mass," but if you can get a good homily or good music, too, why not go for it wherever you can find it?" I think introducing a bit of competition among parishes might not be a bad thing. (A few decades ago, a priest complained that some of his parishioners were leaving his parish to attend liturgies at the cathedral on account of the better music there. I disappointed him by commenting that if his parish was content with the songs of the St. Louis Jesuits, the Weston friars, and Ray Repp, I would drive them myself to the cathedral. The priest wasn't happy with my response.)
I wonder if the web will encourage parish shopping. There are sites that provide reviews of liturgy, sermons, architecture, activities, etc. There must be a nerd who is devising an algorithm for an optimal parish search strategy.
Here's a site recording visits to 96 parishes in Manhattan:
"Our Mystery Worshippers are volunteers who warm church pews for us around the world."
Mostly protestant but there is the occasional review of a Roman Catholic Mass, e.g. http://www.ship-of-fools.com/mystery/2013/2507.html .
The answer to every question you might have, from "Was your pew comfortable?" to "Which part of the service was like being in heaven?"
How much of an option is parish shopping in other places around the country? As a city dweller ,I certainly have a lot of choices, 3 Catholic parishes and a Catholic College within walking distance, but there must be a lot of places with only a single church in the town or county.
I found Michael Garvey's comment about "less distracting" to be particularly interesting. Amidst all the liturgy wars, I sometimes wonder if what is really going on are debates over what counts as "distracting" and what does not. Everyone does not seem to agree on what counts as distracting.
Lebron James left his parish and won a championship. He'll never experience the awe of creating something from nothing, like the 1969 Mets, or the 1973 Broad Street Bullies.
The 73-74 Flyers were the most exciting sports team ever. Champions in a city with a tradition of chokes. My girlfriends would wait in the parkng lot of the Spectrum hoping to see Bernie Parent or Bobby Clarke leaving.
But on the flip side, you have poor Archie Manning who stayed in his parish and,so, was never in a playoff game...
Patrick Malloy @11:02 AM. Thanks for the link. Looked up my parish; post is accurate--except that the pastor was transferred a year ago. Somebody should post on the travails of new pastors! On the travails of old parishioners! And the juggling to keep things going.
The second most famous player on the Broad Streeet Bullies could barely stand up on ice skates, miuch less move, much less move himself and a puck simultaneously. I just mention that s a prelude to seconding Jean Raber's point on the "good liturgy" thread above about not starting the homily with a sports preview. It's oprobablly also better if the celebrant doesn't wear a stole in the home team's colors.
Tom: But he was our enforcer; everyone needs a Cardinal Ratzinger.
Irene, Blessed arer the peacemakers, for they shall be called Blackhawks.
Irene—But he got to watch his sons win 3 rings, which is even better than winning a ring of one's own. God works in mysterious ways.
For the record, in helping his team to their 2nd straight Stanley Cup in 1974, the Hammer scored 20 goals—not bad for a guy who can barely stand up on his skates.
Claire: thanks for bringing the Ship of Fools' "Mystery Worshipper" to people's attention. I have been a denizen for years.
Some of the reviews can be painfully frank. Parishes really need to know how they come across to outsiders when they think that they are doing things right. In most cases they are not. It's just that the "locals" are used to the status quo and no longer see things through fresh eyes.
Mystery Worshippers should visit each parish at least once every two years and send a detailed report to the pastor AND parish council. A little fresh air can go a long, long way.
And, no, the MWs should not be appointed by the diocese! An independent party could organize the visits and hope for donations to keep their movement alive. Offical sponsership brings official constraints, censorship and control.
1) Responding to the danger that the new "ecclesial movements" would weaken the sense of the Church as embodied in dioceses and parishes, theologians such as Hervé Legrand, Gilles Routhier, and Severino Dianich have written theological defenses of the territorial principle in delineating dioceses and parishes. Their main point has been that in principle delimited territories ensure that anyone within them has a right to belong and to be welcomed into that local Church. They fear that making movements (I would add what are called "intentional communities") the focus runs the danger of elitism and self-selection, both of which run counter to the catholicity of the Church, that is, to the notion and the reality of the Church as redemptive integration of diversity.
I'm not sure if this is an objection to or an affirmation of the above, but I'd like to say a word in the defense of "intentional communities". I was for several years a member of a parish gathering the castaway Catholics of Rhode Island, gays, divorced and remarried, former religious who had married, etc. (Its motto: "All are welcome".) The few geographical members were delighted that those outside parishioners added enough numbers to prevent the parish from being closed. The castaways had been ignored or worse in their home parish, and were delighted to have a place to worship as Catholics, There were more volunteers, more ministries, and the parish was much more lively than normal. If they ever want to change their motto, my nomination is: "The stone which the builders rejected became the chief corner stone".
As long as some categories of people are unwelcome in many parishes, I think that there is a need for special parishes ("intentional communities") for them.
Parishes really need to know how they come across to outsiders when they think that they are doing things right. In most cases they are not. It's just that the "locals" are used to the status quo and no longer see things through fresh eyes.
Although I'm not a reader of Mystery Worshipper, I've seen enough examples to get the general drift. And while there is a lot of truth to Jim McCrea's observation, it's worth noting that the primary reason for a parish's existence is to serve the "locals", who, as I commented above, really should be thought of as a community of disciples. To be sure, parishes should also be concerned about their outward face, and how the world, including visitors, perceives them; after all, local parishes also are our primary instruments of evangelization. But the whole premise of "mystery worshipper" seems to be that a worshipper can just "pop in" to a place he or she has never been before, and judge a parish according to some preconceived criteria. But I don't know why an outsider's criteria should be thought to be superior to whatever criteria the community of disciples has adopted.
And the mystery visitor's criteria are necessarily faulty to the extent that he or she is not a member of the worshippnig community. The visitor can't possibly get a sense of membership in the local community in a single visit. But I would argue that community membership is critical to worship. We don't, or shouldn't, worship in isolation; we should worship as members of a local community. (All of us know that it is possible to be surrounded by people and yet be isolated, and certainly that happens in Catholic churches, too, but it is very far from what we should be striving for).
To judge a parish worship service while not a member of the community is to miss one of the most important dimensions of the reality. It would be like watching a film for the first time with the sound turned down and then writing a review of it.
I would be interested in knowing how large the parishes are of hose who have commented . Is that a factor in choosing a parish? How does it impact being "community"?
How large is your parish, Jim P? Do you think that your role as a deacon (you are a deacon, right?) influences your perception of how community-like your parish really is? Would it be less community-like if you were a 42 year old, never married and childless single adult? Or maybe a 72 year old couple who have joined the parish because they have decided to move to a nearby retirement community? Does it feel like a community to gay people? How about to divorced people?
What are the factors that create "real" community?
Hi, Anne, my parish has about 2,800 registered families, and our aggregate attendance at the five weekend masses each week, according to our official count every October, is somewhere in the 2,500-3,000 range. So based on what you had written previously, you might consider ours to be a large parish (as I think it would be according to national averages), but it's pretty typical for the suburban area where I live. While I've been a deacon for nine years, I've belonged to this parish for over 20 years, so my perception is based on both the clergy and the lay point of view. I have always been in an involved/leadership role in one way or another (primarily as a musician before I was ordained), so I believe that does influence my perception.
The reality is that there are several hundred parishioners who are involved in a ministry or parish organization in some way; the rest are, for whatever reason, not involved in that way. And when I say "the rest", I'm cognizant that it's a hard group to define, as not everyone who is registered actually shows up, and many who show up never register. In addition, unlike most parishes in this area, ours doesn't have a school; Andrew Greeley's research has demonstrated what I think most of us know already, which is that when a parish has a school, the school tends to be the "glue" that unites, not only the schoolchildren, but the other generations as well.
Not all of the community ties are formally fostered by the parish leadership. There is a group that prays that rosary and does other paraliturgical stuff before daily mass every morning; they're a little community unto themselves, as are the daily mass "regulars". And family ties account for a lot. One of the things I do is run our baptism ministry. In my estimation, about half of the young families who bring children to be baptized truly are local residents who live inside or close to tbe parish boundaries. The other half are sort of 'legacy families': one of the young parents grew up in the parish as a kid, received all his/her sacraments there, and still has family and/or emotional ties to the parish, even though they now live many miles away (and very likely haven't joined a local parish and quite possibly go to church seldom or never). I mention this as a testament to the reality of the community ties; as I think you intuit, family-oriented ties are important in this respect.
Your point about unmarried/childless members is well-made. I've personally been chided (very nicely) for preaching about family matters but neglecting persons who are unmarried / not in a traditional family. Regarding gay persons, I honestly don't know. I assume that, by the sheer laws of numbers, there are a certain number of gay persons in our assembly from week to week, but it's never been an area of focus, neither parish-organized nor grassroots. We certainly wouldn't do or say anything intentionally to make gay persons feel uncomfortable or unwelcome (ours is not a parish that pounds the pulpit about sexual propriety week after week), but no doubt we're not as sensitive as we could be - we're probably about as inclined to be well-meaning but blundering men as any other group of parish clergy. As for divorced people - there are many in our parish. On the other hand, there are many other divorced Catholics who have joined the vast array of less strict denominations that are available in our area, including one, Willow Creek, that has a national reputation as an evangelical megachurch. We try to be sensitive and helpful to people who are divorced. The jubilee year, in 2000, we offered to pay the annulment fees for anyone who wanted to pursue one. We had something like a dozen takers. To my mind, it's such a no-brainer, I don't know why more parishes don't do it every year. But I don't make policy or set the budget.
Thank you, Jim. Your observation about the school may make some feel part of a community, but I have heard complaints from some about their parish because all the focus is on the school and school families and everyone else feels more or less left out.
But, even in your parish it seems that there is not one overall sense of community - but sub-groups who say the rosary or do whatever together that involve a couple of hundred people. And the rest? Do they feel on Sunday that they are worshipping with "their community" or simply that they are at mass.
What are the factors that create an overall sense of community - not just for small, separate sub-groups?
Anne - you ask great questions about community, to which I don't know the answers. I expect that the sense of community belongingness is pretty complex and has a number of factors. But my overall view is pretty straightforward: belonging to a parish is a bit like going to high school. If all we do is show up for class, and then go home at the end of the school day and flip on the television or the iPad or whatever and don't get involved in the school in any other way, we're missing out on enormous and critical dimensions of the high school experience. Ón the other hand, if we join a club or play a sport or somehow get involved in the school community (as you note, all of these things necessarily are subgroups), then we greatly strengthen our social bonds and create lasting friendships within the larger community.
And while I'm highlighting here the things we get out of the experience by being involved in the community, it's equally important to the health of the community that we be involved. It's how social capital gets generated. I'd even posit that there is an analogous thing, spiritual capital, that happens in a parish when people get involved and make connections with one another. For example, I'm more like to pray for someone who is ill if I know them and love them.
JIm, I agree with you - and I was involved in my former Catholic parish for 30 years. But even though I was involved with a couple of ministries, it was a huge parish (3200 families). Sunday mass with 500-700 other people never felt like "community" but more like being in an audience. Very often I never saw a face I knew in the pews. These questions were prompted by the other article on liturgy, because so many mentioned there that in a "good" liturgy, the Sunday mass was an experience of community. But, in large parishes, it seems most people just come to mass and leave again, and feel no more part of a "real" community than if they prayed along with a televised mass.
I was once asked by a Jewish friend why a neighbor of hers, going through severe challenges, had not been assisted by the parish. In her religious community, the members always helped one another out. But her synagogue had only a hundred or so families and everyone pretty much knew everyone else and what was going on. She asked me to tell the parish about this family because they were "sinking". She was doing what she could, but she was surprised that the parish wasn't providing more support - a system to provide regular meals, someone to stay in the house while she ran out, help with getting kids to and from places, etc. She lived only a block away from the church and knew that it has many members - yet her neighbor was left without assistance. As Catholic parishes in cities and suburbs continue to be merged and get larger and larger, maintaining a sense of community will get harder and harder.
Anne - it's an excellent point. Catholic parishes in the US don't seem to be well-organized for helping their members. As it happens, I am part of our outreach ministry in our parish, and we do help some parishioners in need, with some things. But many more of the people we help, for example, with food pantry, are not parishioners. And there are some parishioners whose needs would bankrupt us - for example, if we needed to pay their mortgage payments every month until they found a job. And here is something else that probably is symptomatic of the general problem: in some instances, parishioners who need help don't come to us until it is too late for us to intervene effectively. Why wouldn't they come to us earlier, before they were months and months behind in their payments and in danger of being evicted? In part because they don't think of themselves as the kind of people who need to go, hat in hand, to a parish for help; and in part because they don't think of the parish as an agency that can help them.
The kinds of concrete things you mention could be done in parishes, if parish leadership is imaginative and driven enough to put them in place.
in part because they don't think of the parish as an agency that can help them.
That reminds me of my parish priest when I was a teenager. As he liked to say while eating at our house: whenever some stranger rang the rectory bell to ask for help, he wouldn't open the door "because there are all sorts of people on the streets nowadays, you have to be careful" and would instead quickly turn them away, saying: "Go away. I am not a social service agency!" I disliked him with a passion. Now I see that at least he was unusually honest. He died alone in front of his TV.
Jim, I was not clear in the situation I described. The distressed family in the parish did not need money or mortgage help etc. They did not need a social service agency just some thoughtfulness and kindness.
The husband was gravely ill, the wife was caring for him at home and it was so time-consuming as well as emotionally and physically exhausting that she really didn't have time to cook proper meals (a lot of take out and frozen), to have a break from caretaking, or help with her kids, especially trying to keep their lives more "normal" as their dad was dying by getting them to and from their sports and music and other activities. The Jewish neighbor was surprised that there wasn't a spontaneous action within the parish to help - people to bring nourishing meals, or offer to carpool the kids where they needed to go, or even to stay in the house while the wife took a nap. Because that is what happened in her own congregation, small enough that if a need arose among the members, the congregation knew and could organize support without the person in need having to ask for help. Her religious community seemed to be a real community, whereas the mega-parishes that are so common in the US these days seem to be too large and too impersonal to be real communities. The "real" communities within them are really a bunch of sub-communities, composed of those with a strong interest in a particular ministry, but as mentioned before, they are less than 10% of the congregation in most cases. Everyone else is anonymous.
I don't know what can be done to make Catholic parishes into real communities instead of just a place for the Catholics in the neighborhood (all 3200 familes) to assemble for mass on Sundays without any other connection.
Claire - I instinctively dislike such responses as the one your old pastor gave. Yet I also have seen that priests are a target for panhandlers, because they are easy to track down and because most priests are less inclined to say "no" than the average person. Most priests are not rich and may actually need the few dollars in their pocket for living expenses. Also, once a priest shows himself to be a "soft touch", he will be "touched" over and over again.
These are all excellent reasons for a parish to have a laity-run and -supported outreach ministry, like a St. Vincent de Paul Society or something similar. A priest with such a ministry available neither has to turn away those who come to him, nor give away is own living allowance. He can simply say, "Please come back to the parish office in the morning, and someone from our outreach ministry will speak with you."


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The 10 Most Ridiculous Album Cover Trends of All Time
#6. Ironic Innocents
Putting a child on your album cover is a no-lose proposition for rock bands. "We are sensitive souls who feel the universal pain that runs through all things," it screams! "Doesn't this child contrast with our rough-edged image in a way that's ironic?" it asks? "We try not to think about how much closer in age our groupies are to this child than to us," it adds, while staring off at nothing in particular.
Led Zeppelin put an additional mist of creepiness on their already creepy Stonehenge vibe by setting a horde of albino children loose on a formation of stone toilets:
Unlike Stonehenge, our descendants won't give one-third of a rat's ass about what this meant.
U2 got things started with a cute 6-year-old boy on the cover of their first album. To stress the point, they named the album Boy:
Bono wanted to call it Boy Face Hands to cover all the bases, but this was back when the rest of the band had veto power.
The trend both peaked and got a new ironic twist with Nirvana's Nevermind, which juxtaposed a baby with a clear symbol of the destructive adult world:
It was a brilliant album cover because of how unabashedly symbolic it was, and because fishing for babies in swimming pools is one of those things we've all done before, but are usually too ashamed to admit. OK, so it was regarded as a brilliant album cover mostly because of the greatness of the music inside. In all likelihood, it probably didn't matter what political cartoon the band decided to photograph for their cover, a fact that was immediately and completely lost on the designers of every alternative rock album cover from that day forward. Suddenly, innocent children in ironically adult circumstances were showing up on albums accompanied by guns and gas masks:
Cracked.com only supports giving children firearms in dire emergencies or when it would be super funny.
Because how else are you going to capture the essence of the band that sings that "Laid" song from American Pie besides giving a baby a gun?
Those covers are subtle when compared to the "ironic children" album covers of Korn, whose debut album showed a young girl on a swing and a threatening adult shadow, sending America a powerful message about the underreported problem of child abduction by crab-people:
The look worked out well for them, judging from their subsequent albums, which gradually built up the idea of "innocent children surrounded by threatening-looking things":
From one-trick pony to multiple-restraining-order pony.
Their peak was probably "animal-masked adult figures ripping the head off a sad boy's teddy bear":
It was all enough to make you miss the days when rock bands like U2 knew that the only badass thing you needed to contrast with the kid was your name, and the badass baby making music inside. Of course, by the time they released their first greatest hits album in 1998, U2 was no longer the most subtle band in the world:
You can almost hear Bono yelling "The children are too young to be soldiers!" in the background.
#5. Jesus Christ Pose
The image of Jesus Christ being crucified has stirred the souls of millions and inspired some of the most revered artists of all time to create masterpieces. It's also become shorthand among musicians as a way to signify that they are described as controversial somewhere on their Wikipedia page. If there's been even indirect criticism of your lyrics, according to the recording industry, you have earned the right to photographically nail yourself to a cross. This allows you to simultaneously frustrate your uptight critics while proving correct any whose main complaint is that you're a self-important jerkoff.
Not that you have to be an iconoclast like Ozzy or Marilyn Manson. Being in vaguely the same genre of rock music as them is good enough.
Perhaps "good" isn't the proper word to use there.
Or maybe you're just worried that naming your band Death SS isn't shocking enough on its own, and your lead singer already has a beard, soooo ...
Or you're a Spanish heavy metal band whose concept album about Jesus returning to the Spanish neighborhood Chamberi needs a cover, and you lack any sense of subtlety:
Or a complete grasp of Photoshop.
Perhaps the only artist who earned his persecution claim was Tupac, who had the common decency to release his nailed-to-a-cross album cover well after he was murdered and before he became the most widely rumored resurrectee since Elvis himself. Of course, all gravitas lent by the circumstances surrounding the album were somewhat undermined by the placement of the Parental Advisory warning over his crotch area, as if to suggest that his balls were hanging below the sash he was crucified in:
And while a disclaimer on Tupac's cover clearly states that it is not meant to be an expression of disrespect for Jesus Christ, we can't help but wonder if Jesus held the in-poorer-taste copycat album covers against him:
This might piss him off more than the whole crucifixion.
#4. Nekkid Women With Guitars
Putting pictures of naked women on album covers has been the go-to method for sweetening album sales since record executives realized they could attend the photo shoots. The idea was apparently that the mere presence of a guitar would transform a photo shoot from "the set of a porno before Ron Jeremy shows up" to "classy and shit." Some women were willing to believe that lie harder than others:
More modest nude women have appeared covered by a cello, which we have to assume is the one-piece bathing costume of string instrument body coverings:
In rare instances, the model wouldn't even use the guitar to cover her boobs, although the executives apparently went to some pretty extreme measures to make that option untenable:
This is basically the worst possible situation in which to be caught wearing heels.
Modern women appear to be getting either smarter or less turned on by guitars, because these days, the only naked women covered by a guitar we were able to find from the past few years were Ana Popovic, a Serbian blues guitarist who does not look at all sold on the idea ...
"Unconditional" refers to a legal clause in her record contract that forfeits human rights.
... and Liz Phair's famously nude-seeming album cover, where if you look at her right leg, you can tell she's actually wearing a dress:
It probably didn't help the sleazy record executives of the world when they let the rock band Boned tip their hand about what the guitar actually symbolized:
#3. Progressive Rock and Metal's Fantastical Creatures
At their best (and worst), progressive rock and metal bring fantasy to life like no other music. So while it might seem strange that supposedly "prog-ressive" musicians would define their albums with imagery off the side of '80s arcade cabinets and Trapper Keepers, there was at least a topical tie-in.
Naming your prog rock band is as easy as opening Tobin's Spirit Guide.
And yes, it's strange that the titular Gryphon is seated in the position of a movie character who is rocking back and forth in the shower after something horrible has happened to him, but it's not going to haunt your dreams unless you spend too much time thinking about it. The same can't be said for the album covers that resulted when prog rock bands went off prompter and started creating their own mythological creatures:
At times, the prog rockers seemed to be in a race to see who could come up with the tackiest thing ever conceived on drugs:
The world may not have needed to see what Epcot Center would look like if it fucked an armadillo tank, but not all prog rock album covers were so pointless. Asia's Aqua album forever changed the black light stoner art industry ...
... and there was an entire suite of albums that doubled as warnings about the very real dangers of dropping acid inside a bird sanctuary:
Not even once.
And in case you ever wondered what it's like to be the type of high that God never intended the human mind to return from, it's like being a baby ...
... with wings that are connected to a sunfish with spindly bird legs, floating through a red sky while the moon hovers about 30 feet above Earth.
#2. X-Rays (But Only of the Head and Neck)
X-rays make as much sense for album covers as any other gimmicky photographic format. We're sure there's a few album covers out there that are photographic negatives, too. What makes this trend so strange is how little variety there is from one to the next. For instance, here's three separate albums from three unrelated artists that all use the same X-ray:
The one on the right shook it around a little bit to make it look like he was rocking. So, y'know ... good show.
We suppose skulls and attached neck vertebrae say "spooky and luminous and sciencey and stuff," while scans of other body parts just remind people of the pictures the doctor showed them after they tripped over a cat:
Does that dude have three rows of teeth?
But if you're going to use an X-ray to summarize your album titled Bridge Over the X-Stream, why not have an axe sticking out of the neck part or something? We're not medical experts, but that guy who's taking the Bridge over the X-Stream appears to be doing just fine. Our guess would be that it's a routine dental X-ray if the skeleton in question didn't have such perfect teeth. The skeleton on the Sweet Savage album Killing Time is a little blurrier, and his face appears to be made out of cigarette smoke, but otherwise, he's no worse for wear:
"It is my medical opinion that you are wearing Kool Moe Dee glasses under your face."
But that's as ugly as it gets, for the most part. Which is baffling, until you see how badly things can go when you try just a little bit too hard. For instance, we bet the doctor freaked out when he saw this one:
Sammy, you are either the best or the worst hit man ever.
The only way people have figured out to make their album X-rays more distinctive is by including some object clearly associated with them. For instance, John Lennon's glasses, or those weird DJ headlamps the guys from Orbital wear:
Stay classy, Yoko.
As cigarette smoking has shown, nothing screams rock and roll like needlessly increasing your statistical likelihood of getting cancer.
#1. The Sign Says "Fire Your Graphic Designer"
OK, we'll give Pearl Jam the benefit of the doubt on the Yield cover. It's the title of the album, and there's something off about the photograph of a yield sign out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the image of a lone car forever trying to yield to nothing suited the album's existential angst. Or perhaps it was a semen joke, like the band's name.
When the band that's named the logical equivalent of Man Chowder is the high point of an album cover trend, you know you might be in trouble. And you are. What could any of these covers possibly mean? Well, besides "merge left," "slight curve ahead" and "straight up now tell me," respectively.
There is simply no excuse for the number of times these signs have popped up in circumstances where they have no discernible meaning, other than "Hey, here are some recognizable shapes and colors":
Other covers fail by going too literal:
You're right, that is another way to go. And there was probably another, less retarded way to visually communicate that.
We're certain the Dirty Beatniks were trying to say something about the modern human condition and how we're all confused and stuff, but the message you come away with is "Driving in the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area can be a pain in the ass."
The trend gets more confusing when you consider how often nonsensical road signs are used in the genre of Southern rock:
Nothing says freedom like a sign telling you what to do.
We've never met Blip Pilot or the Skinny Rider, so we have no guesses as to who they buried there.
Follow C. Coville's awful Twitter here. Chris Holmes roams the Internet as the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. You can catch him on his website or on Twitter.
For more just really terrible album sleeves, check out The 19 Most Hilariously Failed Attempts at Sexy Album Covers and The 15 Worst Album Covers of All-Time.
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The 4 Least Anticipated Albums of September 2012.
And stop by LinkSTORM to see Christina's Kool Mo Dee sunglasses.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed. Are you on Google+? So are we!
Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infographic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!


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Volleyball Dude
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DescriptionPose these dudes for a fun conversation piece on your desk!
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* A great inexpensive gift for your volleyball enthusiast
* Personalize with a sharpie for witty messages
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Standard delivery time is between 1-4 days (see map below for delivery estimates).
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I've tried and installed loads of free WP plugins that can't do what I would like them to do.
I write a fictional news blog and I'd like to be able to display about a dozen or so adverts that I've made myself. They are each going to be 250x250px and need to be in the sidebar of my site. I figured it would be easier if it was in a widget.
I'm not using a external service like Adsense. It's not necessary that my adverts keep record of impressions and they don't have a hyperlink.


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Presidents CupWed, October 2, 2013 - 8:00 AMMuirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, OH
We are sorry, the date for this event has already passed. This event took place on 10/2/2013. Click here to view upcoming events for Presidents Cup.
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Have a question? Need help? Call us at 800.477.5285


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I've seen programs in the past that were able to check the SMART status of a hard disk drive but it wasn't easy for me to find. Also, I think I had to boot into the CD in order to check on it. What is your preferred method for getting this data to hopefully preempt any disk failures?
I think "S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring tools" is the one I've used before. They give you all the parameters.
If you are going to be fooling with SMART, I'd recommend looking at the Google paper on drive failures. They are one of the few groups on the planet that have enough drives to do any real analysis, so their comments on the usefulness of SMART are probably the best research you'll find on the subject.
I like the free version of HD Tune.
From the website:
For Unix-like systems there is
SeaTools for this and several other health tests. Other vendors have similar free testing utilities available.
I use SMARTReporter on my Mac to put an icon in the menu bar. As long as it's green I feel OK.
I just got Disk CheckUp but I am still figuring out how to use it.
If it's a Windows system, I recommend SpeedFan - it also lets you submit your SMART data to the SpeedFan website and gives you a nice little online analysis.
CrystalDiskInfo is my preferred SMART info tool now, simply because it's less hassle than downloading and installing smartmontools and is available as a portable application (so you can easily stick it on a USB drive or Dropbox). You can also configure it to actively monitor your drives and report any issues in a popup notification, as well as show each drive's temperature in a separate taskbar icon.
Update: make sure you download the portable edition. The "Installer edition" has OpenCandy adware built-in and the "Shizuku edition" features anime art on the left side of CrystalDiskInfo's main window. The Shizuku edition's installer also tries to install the Amazon browser bar by default during setup, but you can opt not to install the browser bar.


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I am just going to re-wrap my road bike's handlebar tape tomorrow. Before I do that I was wondering what the proper place is to put the brake levers. I know they should be pointed vertically, however I was wondering if there is a rule of thumb.
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In the olden days one idea was that the bottom of the levers should be along a line projected from the bottom straight section of the bars. I don know why, and that was often an uncomfortable position for me. So I am a long-term follower of the "what feels comfortable" approach.
This is connected to what angle your handlebars sit at, so it's important to get that right at the same time. If you were happy with how they were before you started, leave them there.
My first step would be to attach the brake levers to bare bars, ideally without cables (it's easier if you're doing new cables at the same time). If you have a wind trainer, put the bike in that because it will make evaluating the feel of the bike easier.
Then try the two positions that matter to me - resting on the hoods, and standing up pulling on the levers. The latter is harder because it's usually something I do on hills or in sprints, not cruising along the flat. So I focus mostly on the resting position.
Sit on the bike, rest on the hoods and see how you feel. Lift the levers a little and see if that feels better. Then drop them back. Only a few millimetres at a time. Once you have somewhere that works for you, you're done.


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I'm trying to get a list of jobs and their most recently completed step from the MSDB database. For a single job, this is pretty straight forward, something like:
SELECT TOP 1 j.job_id, j.name, h.step_name, h.run_date, h.run_time, h.step_id
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobs j
INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.sysjobhistory h ON j.job_id = h.job_id
WHERE j.name = 'my favorite job'
ORDER BY h.run_date DESC, h.run_time DESC, h.step_id DESC
But how can I get a list of ALL jobs and their most recently completed step?
Note this is SQL 2000, so I can't use PARTITION OVER. I also can't do a SELECT MAX() because its not a single RunDateTime field, I have to sort descending by two fields (OrderDay, OrderTime).
Edit: Probably not possible, but I'd love to be able to something like:
SELECT j.job_id, ...
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobs j
INNER JOIN (SELECT TOP 1 step_name, run_date, run_time, step_id
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobhistory
WHERE job_id = j.job_id
ORDER BY run_date desc, run_time desc, step_id desc) as H
or something, but it doesn't seem to like syntax like that...


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Home › Scene › Eat, Drink, Be Merry! ›
Eat, Drink, Be Merry!
THE PARTY To celebrate the NS summer issue release and to kick off the season, more than 100 friends, supporters and partners joined together at Room & Board's gorgeous Skokie showroom. THE HIGHLIGHTS Attendees enjoyed cocktails provided by Moët Hennessey USA, bites passed by Pure Kitchen Catering, and specialty food stations by E+O Food and Drink in Mount Prospect and Saranello's in Wheeling. Fig Media provided music to entertain guests while they mingled with the Modern Luxury editorial and marketing team and admired Room & Board's 28,000-square-foot showroom of handcrafted American-made furniture, lighting, rugs and accessories. Photography by Sum Lao


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Shop Task Force 140-Piece All-Purpose Tool Set with Case - Save $20 for $19.98
140-Piece All-Purpose Tool Set with Case
• General-purpose selection of the most frequently used tools
• Best Selection of basic tools for general maintenance
4 Comments add a comment
Hmmm, Lowe's site is currently down for maintenance. Hopefully it'll be back up soon...
Is Shop Task Force to tools, like Kings Point or Realistic was to Stereos?
@mkentosh: Mostly not something you'd do a major rebuild on, but for something just around the house for putting together furniture, etc. they're fine.
This is a very complete "suzy homemaker" set. Perfect for occasional use when you randomly run across the need. But for those looking to do routine semi-daily work with them, look elsewhere. 10 bucks says the socket wrench is the first to go.


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Some rooms in my house have a pretty bad draft along the edge of the floor, where it meets the outside walls. But I am less than thrilled (to put it mildly) about the prospect of ripping out carpeting and moldings just to seal the draft. Is there any simpler solution out there?
Wait a minute... that may be a very, very bad idea. sorry kacalapy. All I can see is messy carpet after that try. If this carpet is laid on concrete, then the tack strip is fastened with masonry nails, and if installed properly is chiseled over the edge. No way caulking is going to seal the gaps causing the air leaks. If your leaks are that bad, then do the right thing. Take off the baseboards, see if you can access the sills, if not, pull back the carpet, and caulk the gap between the sill plate and the slab. Reinstall the baseboards, then re-stretch the carpet to the tack strip. It sounds like no sill seal foam or sealant was installed under the sills. There is really no quick fix to a problem like this. BTW, foam padding and carpet carry and "R" value of about 3 to 5 max. Carpet is never even considered as an insulating material.
jam the nozzle of a silicone tube in between the carpet and baseboard and fill the gap with silicone. this is a fast and efficient way to eliminate the drafts. i had the same thing in the room over my garage.
Foam backer rod can be a reasonable improvement. Just experiment with various sizes and placement to determine if a solution for your situation.


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Excitebike: World Rally for 200 coins for $0 + free shipping
Excitebike: World Rally is an updated version of the NES classic with better graphics and online competitive play. If you are a member of Club Nintendo and have registered other games from Nintendo, you can own Excitebike: World Rally using coins instead of cash.
3 Comments add a comment
I'm sorry, I didn't read the price. I just saw the title and went "toot toot toot tootoot tooooooo. toot toot toot tootoot tooooooooo. tutoo tutoo tutoo tooo tootle too too. toot toot toot toot tutoot"
Too bad I don't have enough coins, looks fun!
got it! and playing it! now I will school my 9 year old!!!


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Let $S\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ and let $f(x)$ be a continuous function over $\mathbb{R}^n$. Furthermore, define $s_{\text{max}}:= \sup_{x\in S} \{f(x)\}$ and let $f(x)$ attain its minimum for at least one element in $S$.
Under what conditions on $f(x)$ and $S$ does it hold that $f(x_1)\leq s_{\text{max}}$ $\Rightarrow$ $x_1\in S$?
In particular, does this hold if $f(x)$ is a convex function and $S$ is a convex set? If $f(x)$ is convex and $S$ is an arbitrary set?
Unfortunately I am far from my comfort zone here, so any help is much appreciated!


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New York University has a wide variety of resources that you can use to enhance your skills and advance your career. Take advantage of these opportunities to build your career at NYU.
The Human Resources Division, through the Office of Talent, Learning and Organizational Development, offers an array of career and skill development programs. New programs are created frequently, so see the Professional Development Programs schedule.
In addition to regularly scheduled classes, HR staff also provide one-on-one career and job search preparation coaching. This coaching helps NYU employees identify job openings that match their career interests and skills and successfully compete throughout the application and interview process.
Each school and division at the University has designated Human Resources representatives who are responsible for administering University human resources policies within your school or division. Human Resources staff are also available to discuss career-related concerns including any interest that you have in seeking a transfer or promotion within your school or division.
The Center for Career, Education and Life Planning in the School of Professional Studies (SPS) can support your career development at NYU. The Center offers individual career counseling and testing, and career-related workshops to help you to clarify your professional goals. The Center also provides advisement on a broad range of courses, certificates and degree programs offered by SPS for those interested in enhancing their careers through education. Full-time employees at NYU receive a 10% discount on individual career counseling and are eligible for 80% tuition remission on SPS courses. For more information, please visit www.sps.nyu.edu or call us at 212-998-7060.
New York University offers employees a unique opportunity to take courses through its tuition remission program. You can use tuition remission to:
As part of the University's collective bargaining agreement with Local 3882, skill-building courses are offered to Office and Clerical and Laboratory and Technical employees at 100% tuition remission. (Employees pay 20% at the start, and get reimbursed upon successful completion of the course.) Watch for emails at the beginning of every semester announcing the latest course offerings for UCATS members.


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We are trotting the globe to bring Agile Business Intelligence to a city near you. The latest Pentaho seminar series, Fast Track BI, spans over 40 cities around the world, bringing half-day complimentary training sessions to companies looking to implement BI. With Pentaho's unique Agile BI approach, speed of thought reporting and analysis, and out-of-the-box data integration capabilities, you'll learn how to put your business intelligence projects on the fast track to success.
5. It's free! Each half-day seminar is packed with information, training, and business intelligence best practices. Who doesn't enjoy free education these days?
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See the full schedule of cities and register today for a seminar near you. We look forward to seeing you on the road!


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Paste Polish 1.8oz.
Item # H75675
Special Offer:
Loading Recommendations
DetailsRockport Polishes are the absolute top quality in shoe polish. They contain the highest grade of waxes and oils, as well as rich colors for restoring faded footwear. Comes in black, brown and neutral.
Paste Polish 1.8oz. is rated out of 5 by 2.
Rated 1 out of 5 by volleycrc from Very disappointed Based on the rather expensive price, I thought that the shoe polish sold by Rockport would be of the same quality as their shoes and be a perfect match in color to their shoes. The polish arrived on time, but the cans were not sealed properly and the polish is all dry and cracked. They might perfectly match the shoes, but I will never know for sure because they are unusable. I guess I've learned my lesson.
Date published: 2013-06-30
Rated 1 out of 5 by Zachabby from Disappointed I purchased a black and brown 1.8 oz. polish. The black was fine, but when I opened the brown polish I found about 15 small, broken pieces of hardened polish, as if it were several years old. After reading a few websites I learned to add moisture to and heat the polish to make it somewhat useable. I will not purchase this product again.
Date published: 2014-09-02


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Main Content
A hardcore surfer like you needs some topnotch gear to tackle those gnarly waves. To keep up with your lifestyle, Volcom used the best modern-day technology to bring you the Colorblock Rashguard. Built with the same power and precision as their best-selling boardshorts, this rashguard is from Volcom's thrashguard line—the next level of performance surf gear. It features a screen print logo on the chest and back, branding on the right arm, flat lock stitching for comfort, 50+ UV protection, Volcom's modulator technology and contrast color panels fading down the sides so you can hit the waves with style.
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- Brand: Volcom
Volcom Customers also liked:
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Sit back, relax, and take an extended vacation from your internal dialogue while I entertain your brain with fresh new images. I want to touch and move your heart. Isn't that the point before we die? I know it is.
DARK'S DAUGHTER, HOPE Fantasy trilogy exploring consciousness and energy, appetite and indulgence, in a world of violence, despair, and perverted order.
Are you allowing demons of yesterday and tomorrow ruin present moment peace of mind? How much time do you really have left?
THE WIELDERS UNION A separate fantasy trilogy exploring appearances, memory and identity, divinity and mortality, in a fast-action thriller.
Who were the gods before there were gods?
BRONWEN THE TROLL A campy and highly improbable odyssey of transformation and triumph. The journey of a loving heart. In spite of all our accidental and arbitrary conceptual programming, the soul makes symphonies of its own arrangement.
MAIDEN MADE ME Sometimes dying to the past is the only chance of a future.
BOOK OF KINDNESS A revision and expansion on the classic work by Swami Gee Whiz concerning the possibility of unconditional Joy and global harmony in an irreverent and 'crazy-wise' manner.
MAY I BE Sixty-nine short poems, living pictures of feeling.


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Creeping climate change in the Southwest appears to be having a negative effect on pinyon pine reproduction, a finding with implications for wildlife species sharing the same woodland ecosystems, says a University of Colorado Boulder-led study.
The new study showed that pinyon pine seed cone production declined by an average of about 40 percent at nine study sites in New Mexico and northwestern Oklahoma over the past four decades, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Miranda Redmond, who led the study. The biggest declines in pinyon pine seed cone reproduction were at the higher elevation research sites experiencing more dramatic warming relative to lower elevations, said Redmond of CU's ecology and evolutionary biology department.
"We are finding significant declines in pinyon pine cone production at many of our study sites," said Redmond. "The biggest declines in cone production we measured were in areas with greater increases in temperatures over the past several decades during the March to October growing season."
Temperature and precipitation were recorded at official long-term weather stations located near each of the nine sites. Overall, average temperatures in the study areas have increased by about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the past four decades, she said.
A paper on the subject by Redmond, Assistant Professor Nichole Barger of CU-Boulder and Frank Forcella of the United States Department of Agriculture in Morris, Minn., appeared in a recent issue of the journal Ecosphere, published by the Ecological Society of America. The new study was funded primarily by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to Redmond.
The cones in which the pinyon seeds are produced are initiated two years prior to seed maturity, and research suggests the environmental stimulus for cone initiation is unseasonably low temperatures during the late summer, said Redmond. Between 1969 and 2009, unseasonably low temperatures in late summer decreased in the study areas, likely inhibiting cone initiation and development.
The study is one of the first to examine the impact of climate change on tree species like pinyon pines that, instead of reproducing annually, shed vast quantities of cones every few years during synchronous, episodic occurrences known as "masting" events. Redmond said such masting in the pinyon pine appears to occur every three to seven years, resulting in massive "bumper crops" of cones covering the ground.
In the new Ecosphere study, the researchers compared two 10-year sequences of time. In addition to showing that total pinyon pine cone production during the 2003-2012 decade had declined from the 1969-1978 decade in the study areas, the team found the production of cones during masting events also declined during that period.
Some scientists believe masting events evolved to produce a big surplus of nut-carrying cones -- far too many for wildlife species to consume in a season -- making it more likely the nuts eventually will sprout into pinyon pine seedlings, she said. Others have suggested masting events occur during favorable climate conditions and/or to increase pollination efficiency. "Right now we really don't know what drives them," Redmond said.
"Across a range of forested ecosystems we are observing widespread mortality events due to stressors such as changing climate, drought, insects and fire," said CU's Barger. "This study provides evidence that increasing air temperatures may be influencing the ability of a common and iconic western U.S. tree, pinyon pine, to reproduce. We would predict that declines in pinyon pine cone production may impact the long-term viability of these tree populations."
Wildlife biologists say pinyon-juniper woodlands are popular with scores of bird and mammal species ranging from black-chinned hummingbirds to black bears. A 2007 study by researchers at the University of Northern Arizona estimated that 150 Clark's Nutcrackers cached roughly 5 million pinyon pine nuts in a single season, benefiting not only the birds themselves but also the pines whose nuts were distributed more widely for possible germination.
Read the full press release here.


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If the polynomial : $f(x)=x^3-3x+2$ have the roots :$a,b,c$
How to find the value of :$$ ((a-b)(b-c)(c-a))^2$$
If the polynomial : $f(x)=x^3-3x+2$ have the roots :$a,b,c$
How to find the value of :$$ ((a-b)(b-c)(c-a))^2$$
We have $f'(x) = 3x^2 - 3$, so $f'(x) = 0$ when $x = \pm 1$. We also have $f(1) = 1^3 - 3(1) + 2 = 0$, so $1$ is in fact a double root. Can you now determine the value of the desired expression?
Notice that $f(x)=(x+2)(x-1)(x-1)$. This means the polynomial has three real roots which are $-2$, $1$ and $1$. Therefore you have that $((a-b)(b-c)(c-a))^2=(a-b)^2(b-c)^2(c-a)^2$. Notice that you have a cyclic product of squares. This means the product will be invariant of your choice of $a$, $b$ and $c$. You get $((a-b)(b-c)(c-a))^2=(-2-1)^2(1-1)^2(1-2)^2=0$. Finally, if you are wondering how to get the factoring of the polynomial, a good strategy is to guess a root and then if the root is $a\in\mathbb{R}$ divide the polynomial by $x-a$. The likelihood of guessing the root in little time will come with exposure to such polynomial ring exercises.
$1$ is a root of $f(x)$. Use long division to get the other roots. Finally, substitute for $a,b,c$
That is the discriminant of your polynomial. It's straightforward to calculate if you're comfortable with resultants: $\text{Disc}(f) = \text{Res}(f, f')$ when $f$ is monic.


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I downloaded the desktop version of Ubuntu 12.10 32-bit and installed it in my computer with the "Universal Usb Installer". I restarted the computer and the computer automaticaly ran the Ubuntu Instalation. I set it to install alongside Windows 7. I was planning to leave 80GB for Windows and 170GB for Ubuntu. After I set everything, I cliked to install and then came my problem. It wouldn't install. It was taking an awful lot of time so I saw there was an error message (I don't know what exactly) appearing on the instalation screen. I had to abruptly stop the whole operation because there wasn't a button to cancel! My Windows seems to be fine and I'm not having any problems with it. And you probably should know that there are no more than 10GBs of files and software on my computer.
P.S.: Sorry, if it was hard to understand. I don't really know much about computer and I'm new to Ubuntu and obviously English isn't my first language!