Monty Python's 40th Anniversary

Wired has a nice little article including some video clips of their reunion in New York, and Fresh Air/NPR also had a good piece.


Wired article

NPR article with link to audio clip


I was first exposed to/corrupted by Python in the late 70's whilst in high school. They had probably already completed their BBC run at that point and the Phoenix PBS affiliate, KAET, ran the entire series. I don't recall the first sketch that I saw, but I was hooked pretty much immediately. I bought a few of their albums, including the original three-sided album (Matching Tie and Handkerchief) which I think I still have around somewhere, not that I have a functioning record player.

While in Tucson a couple of weeks ago, I was quite happy to discover two albums at one of the greatest used bookstores in the world, Bookman's, and drove back to New Mexico listening to the soundtrack to Holy Grail and an album called Monty Python's Previous Record (1972). I had many segments from Holy Grail from other CDs, but I was missing one of the most brilliant: the Professional Logician. It didn't appear in the movie, it was a comment on Sir Bedeviere's logic, but was nonetheless hilarious. I played it for Russet the other evening and it blew her mind ("Sex is more fun than logic. One cannot prove this, but it IS, in the sense that Mount Everest IS, or that Elmer Cogan ISN'T. Goodnight."). Sadly, with the Previous Record CD, although the album had something like 26 tracks on it the CD has two: Side 1 and Side 2. *sigh* If I get ambitious some day with a good sound editing program, maybe I'll break it in to chunks.


(and for the record, Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR is the greatest used bookstore in the world. Bookman's is quite good, but it ain't Powell's.)

Walmart does something that I like?!

I'm very glad for this, it shows that someone at corporate is doing a good and ethical job.

Walmart was hacked. It happened around the same time as the TJX and Dave & Busters hack, but there's no evidence that it was the same crew. Their infrastructure was penetrated and information about their point of sale system was compromised, but apparently it was caught early and no customer information was compromised. Because nothing was compromised, they did not publicize the hack, they just quietly sealed up their systems and became very vigilant about monitoring and PCI compliance.

How vigilant? They're required to undergo a PCI audit annually: Walmart does it twice a year.

I still don't like Walmart as a corporate entity because I believe that lowest possible prices and highest possible profit are ruinous to the world, but I gotta give 'em props for doing good on this issue.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/walmart-hack/