Welcome to Picks, where lately we've been wallowing in our own failure. Failure to stick to our New Year's resolutions. Failure to keep our approval rating up. Failure to garner a single Academy Award nomination. Not that we expected Picks to be as well-recognized as, say, Titanic. Still, a nod would've been nice. At least we can take comfort in the fact that Titanic's success is going to be hard to repeat. Perhaps that's where director James Cameron will have to deal with failure. We hear that his next picture is the story of the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Leonardo DiCaprio is the young, idealistic toll-taker. Kate Winslet is the beautiful yet naive passenger in a 1938 Cadillac. Romance. Mayhem. Ah, sweet failure...
Of course, some failures are more serious than others. For example, we once played a game of Risk and kept trying to attack the Pacific Ocean. Still, that's nowhere near as grave as the current failure of diplomacy between the U.S. and Iraq. If you want to trace the recent history of this dispute, there's no better place than C-SPAN's The Situation in Iraq. Using RealPlayer, experience press conferences, hearings, and special reports as they appeared on C-SPAN's cable TV channel. Especially interesting is the recent joint Clinton - Tony Blair press conference. (Editor's note: The fact that C-SPAN links to our own Full Coverage of the crisis has nothing to do with its selection here. Additionally, the Picks staff will flatly refuse any gifts of money, real estate, rare coins, postage stamps, or size-36 suits, long in the sleeves and perhaps navy blue.)
Some would call the 1960's a huge failure, what with its radical reassessment of cultural paradigms, anarchic socio-political modes of thought, and the TV show "My Mother the Car." Others would call the decade a cosmic success because it eventually lead to Orange Sunshine Psychedelic 60's Radio, a trippy shrine to the music of the San Francisco Flower Generation. Tune in to the groovy webcasts to hear Country Joe, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the rest of the far-out gang. Also check out cool exhibits on the Fillmore, Woodstock, and Haight-Ashbury scenes. Your host, the Sunshine Man, urges you to "be kind, try a little harder, and find your way." We concur, with one caveat: "A 6% annual rate of return is not the same as a 6% yield." Er, we mean: "Peace, man, dig."
Another dismal failure that we were forced to acknowledge this past week was the wholly substandard fare at the annual Yahoo! Picks-nic. We apologize for serving cold, raw hamburgers. We knew that Yak dung was a viable barbecue fuel source, we just didn't realize that it needed to dry for at least a week. Anyhoo, as per your suggestions, we've checked out The Brain Eater, a fascinating look at Mad Cow Disease from NOVA Online. The site offers food safety tips, scientific research demos, and a sobering essay on the recent cattle troubles in Great Britain. We learned about the parallels between Mad Cow and AIDS, read transcripts of scientific debates, and even tried out one of the suggested research activities. By the way, all the material we've read suggests that THE TEXAS CATTLE INDUSTRY IS A-OKAY BY US.
What we have next, um, is a failure to communicate. And, uh, obviously what we'll need to do is visit the Filled Pause Research Center to get to the heart of this failure. We realize, of course, that we've got a lot of work ahead of us. And we realize that there's, um, no need to make excuses. But, um, we do want to say that sometimes a failure to communicate is not really a failure at all, it's just a pause. So, um, we suggest you head on over to the site and give pause to this issue. It's all about what we don't say when we're, um, saying something.
Of course, there are many sides to every story! Sometimes the failure is that we communicate too well! Take for example everyone's favorite tabloid, The Star! No lack of communication there! But do we honestly want to know about singer LeAnn Rimes and her latest puppy love? Or about England's Fergie and what her kids fear most? Or, for that matter, about "Friends" star Matt LeBlanc and what he does in his down time?! Hell, yeah! Bring it on! And now that The Star is online, it's an information orgy and everyone's invited! We'd just like to say that we're thrilled.
Seems like we're not alone when we admit to being a failure at housekeeping. Our laundry piles up. We forget to do the dishes. Strange forms of mold evolve, crawl into the living room, and hog the remote control. So thank goodness we don't have to contend with the sort of conditions that terrorized the Great Plains in the 1930's. On Palm Sunday, 1935, an enormous cloud of dust descended on the already parched plains of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Using images, audio, and first-hand accounts, Discovery Online recreates the Day of the Black Blizzard. From the dust blues to the proliferation of jackrabbits, the site shows how entire communities were slowly destroyed by the severity of the drought and dust.
But still, with all of our shortcomings, we couldn't fail to be amused by Alex's Box of Crayons. We fired up the old Java-ready browser and spent many a happy hour puttering through Alex's virtual coloring books. In fact, we have to admit that we've colored some minor masterpieces to hang on the virtual refrigerator. We printed them out and even emailed our favorite, "Blotchy Triceratops With Head Cold," to the Museum of Modern Art. Hopefully, they won't fail to appreciate it...
So there you have it: our homage to failure, success's ubiquitous pal. Next week, we'll be back to our usual, upbeat selves when we tackle the theme "Great Plagues Throughout History." Until then, embrace failure, see Titanic four more times, and don't forget to take your pick(s).
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