My favorite guitarist, the great Robert Quine, died three years ago today. He is missed.

If you’re not familiar with his work, here’s a few samples from YouTube:

Quine did the lead guitar on Richard Hell & The Voidoids’ “Blank Generation,” though the famous intro was by Ivan Julian, the band’s other guitarist. This particular video sucks, but the audio quality is decent.

Here he is playing “Sister Ray” with Lou Reed in Italy, 1983. Quine and Reed worked together on The Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts. I blogged about The Blue Mask awhile ago.

The lead guitar on Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend” was Quine’s work…

… and on Tom Wait’s “Downtown Train” he played rhythm, with G. E. Smith on lead. (Yes, “Downtown Train” was Tom’s song. The horrible Rod Stewart version is a cover.)

A brilliant, under-appreciated artist. If you should ever find a copy of his album Basic, snap it up.

Got a call for a job interview last Friday but didn’t get the message until after 5, so I couldn’t follow up until yesterday. Finally talked to them this morning and I’m scheduled to go in this Friday at 11 AM. Some kind of “management trainee” program with an insurance company.

I’ll do the interview, sure, but I’ve learned to be VERY suspicious of any entry-level positions in financial services. A lot of them are basically cold-calling boiler room operations, which is NOT a job I’m willing to do; I’ll work for McDonald’s before I do that. Hell, I’ll be the janitor at the local porno theater before I start cold-calling little old ladies and pressuring them to buy insurance they don’t need, want or even understand. So we’ll see.

The plan is still to leave Michigan for Tennessee; I’m still job- and apartment-hunting there and working here to get my stuff ready for a move. But hey, going to an interview won’t cost me anything but time and gas. And I do look damn good in a suit.

Google Maps has a cool new Street View option available for some major cities. Click here for the demo.

I spent a little time tonight flying around New York City, revisiting favorite places:

Papaya King at 86th & 3rd. A New York landmark; great hot dogs.

The late, great CBGB at Bowery & Bleecker.

Manitoba’s, my favorite New York bar. Owned by Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators.

And just a block away, the little Joe Strummer memorial mural. I blogged this last December.

Every once in a while, I miss New York. For about five minutes.

Lindsay Lohan, passed out drunk in her car. Sharp-eyed readers will spot the collection of AA sobriety chips hanging from the rear-view mirror. That’s supposed to be 30 days IN A ROW, Lindsay.

In response to not one, not two, but THREE of my friends having recent adventures with nutjob stalker-types, I started writing up a little post about internet security as it relates to bloggers.

Well, that little post is rapidly approaching the 2,000-word mark with no end in sight, and I’m on a roll. I guess I have more to say on the subject than I first thought.

So instead of the usual trivialities, there might be silence here for a couple days while I flesh out and polish a post that’s chock-full of real, useful, significant INFORMATION! Yes, we’re turning over a new leaf here at The Unforgiving Minute and entering a Bold New Era of Worthwhile Content. At least for the duration of one post.

Actually, this thing is getting so lengthy that I might have to split it into 3 or 4 parts. In any case, there’s some good stuff on the way.

I am not a professional photographer or even a talented amateur. If you want pretty gun pictures, go look at Oleg Volk’s site. I do play around with The Unforgiving Digital Camera quite a bit though, and occasionally I capture something kinda cool.

The first one is my response to the endless “9mm vs. .40 S&W vs. .45 ACP vs. .357 SIG vs. whatever” flame-wars found on gun boards across the Internet. It’s a 10mm Winchester Silvertip round next to a .416 Rigby cartridge loaded with a 410-grain Woodleigh solid.

And here’s the same 10mm round next to a recovered .416 solid. The Woodleigh bullet was fired into a sand pile and, after a LOT of digging, recovered. As you can see, the bullet’s surface has literally been sandblasted. Impressively, the big slug maintained its shape perfectly and penetrated deeply. Notice how the sand eroded away a ring of material around the bullet’s tip, but the tip itself is intact. Cool!

This is an alternate version of the previous picture, this time showing the other side of the .416 bullet. It could practically be reloaded and fired again. The Woodleigh solids use a heavy steel jacket over a lead core, making them virtually invincible. There’s a cutaway view here on the Woodleigh website.

An old friend who escaped Detroit for Texas last year.

Here’s the sushi experiment from earlier tonight. Regular maki sushi roll, filled with a minced shrimp/mayo/Sriracha mixture and some crisp, smoky bacon. My friend John came up with the idea and named it The Kurgan Roll, after the villain from Highlander. No real connection between the two, but hey, The Kurgan was a kick-ass bad guy, so he deserves a sushi roll named after him. Or something.

And if you click right here, Master Shake will explain to you that Highlander was, in fact, a documentary. “Oh, you think you’re the expert? Let’s see how much your ass knows about flying!“

In retrospect, teriyaki pork chops, beef kebabs AND homemade sushi are just too damned much food for one meal. But that’s what happens when the guys get together to cook dinner.

The sushi experiment worked out pretty well. We went with a filling of minced (cooked) shrimp, mixed up with mayo and Sriracha hot sauce. And, since pork chops and beef just weren’t enough meat for a proper dinner, we put some crispy bacon in the rolls for good measure. Pictures to follow.