Fresh Loaf

YouTube user musicfreakcc has racked up hundreds of thousands of page views with short videos of elevator rides he’s taken in Atlanta.

To the untrained eye, not much appears to happen in the videos.

He enters, rides, then exits. Occasionally, he comments about the elevator’s lights or buttons. You don’t even see the person recording the images. All you see is elevator.

To elevator buffs, however, musicfreakcc’s videos are an apparent treasure trove of lift-centric fun

For example, the two-minute-long video “Schindler Traction Elevator at Atlantic Station in Atlanta” has been viewed 13,177 times and has elicited comments like:

“I could tell this was a Schindler because of the look of the buttons”

“Hydraulic elevators are ok but WAY to slow and can be loud sometime”

And

“how come on schindlers like this has the same bell for the floor indecator as the dirrection indecator when othere companys use differnt for dirrection and floor?”

Watch and wonder:

The rest of his videos are here.

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If you’re driving near Midtown Promenade this weekend, be on the lookout for protesters holding signs saying, “Support Our Troops.” You may have to look really hard. Why? Because Landmark Midtown Art Cinema will be showing Brian De Palma’s Iraq war drama Redacted, a fictionalized account of the rape and murder of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi in Iraq in 2006. Orwellian Big Brother Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has singled out Redacted for picketing for “inciting hatred against the United States.”

Frankly, I suspect that any fervor for or against Redacted cooled off over Thanksgiving, with more pop-culture interest focusing on the return of “Project Runway” and whether you can see anyone’s CGI naughty bits in Beowulf. Thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine, however, we can recall the Redacted feud of early November. Primarily it involved volleying insults between Redacted producer/Dallas Mavericks owner/Internet zillionaire Mark Cuban and O’Reilly, who went after Cuban on “The O’Reilly Factor” Nov. 12. Incidentally, note the way an O’Reilly producer uses yellow-journalism tactics along the lines of “Are you still beating your wife?” in the segment. Imagine what they don’t actually put on the air.

In response, Cuban articulated an answer to O’Reilly and a defense of Redacted on his blog (“Bill O’Reilly just a wonderful, confused guy”), while MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann derided O’Reilly’s fulminations on “Countdown” Nov. 13:

I have my own criticisms of Redacted and, at any rate, suspect that the conservative protesting bloc is getting more wound up about the anti-religious content in the upcoming fantasy epic The Golden Compass. The fact that O’Reilly is so much more concerned with a low-budget indie film about the Iraq war inciting hatred against America than he is about, you know, the actual Iraq war inciting hatred against America is an irony that will be lost on no one capable of experiencing irony.

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“You won’t believe your eyes! You won’t believe your ears! You won’t believe your mind!” Who knows if Infra-Man can live up to such hyperbole, but you can find out on Saturday, when the Silver Scream Spook Show presents the Hong Kong sci-fi fantasy from 1975. This vintage trailer from YouTube offers just a hint of the tough cyborg squaring off against “Princess Dragon Mom” and an army of mutant monsters. What’s not to like?

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The NBA draft is tonight, and the latest from ESPN.com’s Andy Katz is that the Hawks could roll the dice on a trade. Or two:

The proposed deal between Seattle and Atlanta, with the Sonics sending Luke Ridnour to the Hawks for the No. 11 pick (which would have likely been used for Eastern Washington’s Rodney Stuckey), is dormant but may not be totally dead. Multiple sources told ESPN.com that the Hawks weren’t interested in the deal. The Sonics were waiting for the Hawks to show their interest Wednesday but to no avail. But if the Hawks can’t move their two lottery picks (Nos. 3 and 11) for Amare Stoudemire with Phoenix, who in turn would get Kevin Garnett with the Timberwolves receiving the picks, then the Ridnour trade could resurface.

However it shakes out, the Hawks have the chance to go a long way toward pulling this team together … or setting back the franchise another five years.

Hours before the draft, here are YouTube clips on the ones that could have been: Greg Oden and Keith Durant.

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In today’s AJC, Hawks beat writer Sekou Smith predicts the team will draft 19-year-old center Yi Jianlian, a 7-footer from China. Under Smith’s scenario, Memphis will then draft Al Horford rather than Ohio State point guard Mike Conley, allowing Conley to still be available at the No. 11 spot, where the Hawks will nab him.

One presumes Smith’s picks are “informed,” since he covers the Hawks. I actually like the way this could shake out. Jianlian has very nice physical skills and Conley has the potential to be an impact player. Plus, the Hawks’ two glaring needs are at center and point guard.

If the Hawks do go in this direction — and most mock drafts have them selecting Horford with the No. 3 pick and Memphis selecting Conley at No. 4 — it could well be the draft that finally turns the team around.

Or am I just being overly optimistic?

Here’s Jianlian at his NBA workout:

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Sex advice from Alexyss K. Tylor, star of Atlanta public access television, and her mother. Warning: This one requires parental guidance. From the expressions on the face of Tylor’s mom as she discusses “vagina power” and “penis addiction,” there may have been some parental guidance offered after the show was over.

Proceed with caution:

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In honor of Baton Bob, who will grace the cover of our Summer Guide issue that comes out tonight, we offer this fascinating mini-documentary on the man who has devoted his life to giving us all a better day. Meet the man behind the tiara:

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Is that two-time mayor, three-time felon Bill Campbell triggering the July 1997 implosion that leveled the Omni Coliseum, making way for Philips Arena?

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David Cross comes home to Atlanta, reads the AJC and can’t resist sharing the article with his audience. The story? Will you know people in heaven? The AJC not only answers that question, but describes the traffic situation in heaven, too.

As Cross says, this fuckin’ rocks.

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A new feature for Fresh Loaf: We comb the files of YouTube to find cool videos from Atlanta.

We debut with Jimi Hendrix from the second annual Atlanta Pop Festival, held over the Fourth of July weekend in 1970, which also featured the Allman Brothers Band, B.B. King, Spirit, Richie Havens and a slew of others. An estimated 300,000 people showed up at a raceway in Byron for the festival.

Said then-Gov. Lester Maddox: “This festival is one of the worst blights that has ever struck our state.” Or, translated for the rest of us: “This is the coolest thing to ever hit Georgia.”

Here’s Hendrix, doing a blistering version of “Red House.”

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