point:
You’re mind is like a parachute, it functions best when open.
counter-point:
Great Moments in Bumper Sticker Politics
11
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Obsessable
My homie Barb started a new blog called Obsessable, definitely worth checking out if you’re into tech gizmos. Barb knows the best ones.
Word: Dolorous
do·lor·ous (dlr-s, dlr-) adj.
Marked by or exhibiting sorrow, grief, or pain.
Quote of the Day: Garrison Keillor
“So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, “Throw the bums out!””
- Garrison Keillor
Quick Thought: David Foster Wallace
The quality of the obituaries for David Foster Wallace are enough to make any good writer diligently avoid suicide.
Quick Thoughts: Current Trends
The trend across the nation is towards tight pants. I have given this trend a try: it’s stupid. Primarily because it prevents access to items in my pockets but also because it crushes my balls a little bit when I sit down which makes me grumpy.
Quote of the Day: Heinlein
“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how pure their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”
–Robert Heinlein in “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”
Ranty McRanterson: I really just don't care about the Olympics
++ I wrote this in an airport while it was still relevant but then couldn’t get wireless access to post. ++
Personally, I just can’t bring myself to care about sports in general, but the olympics specifically. I mean, it’s certainly impressive that a fucking dolphin disguised as a man won 8 gold medals but I don’t think it’s really worth more than a passing nod of recognition. I’m sure this is an unpopular opinion but usually the ceaseless pandering commercialism of the olympics is just the regular tedium of televised spectator sports on overdrive. Today at the airport I saw a headline that a famous chinese runner hurt himself and that he will now lose millions worth of endorsements.
First, the idea of a celebrity endorsement is a goddamn psychological trick employed by advertising hacks. Companies that use it should be shunned. It is of zero bearing on the quality of the product that the world curling champion likes the new brand of swiffers. And anyone seeing it should know that any meathead would endorse anything for a million dollars. That this transparent fraud is somehow seen as persuasive is deeply troubling to me.
Second, the corruption of pure sport for “endorsements” is disturbing. Whatever, I could rant about this for a while.
///That is all
Quote of the Day + Headline of the Day (all in one story, YES!!!!)
The investigations reveal a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” by a small group of individuals “wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards,” wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.
okay, wait for it, wait. for. it…
Government Officials Probed About Illicit Sex
I would just like to personally thank the associated press for brightening my hangover with the best possible use of the word ‘probed’ in a headline. Thank you, thank you very much.
:: I’m In The Wrong Industry via the AP ::
///Singapore///-Global Lives Project Screening
My friend David is working on an awesome film project called the Global Lives Project. They’re having a screening in Singapore on Friday if you happen to be around it’s definitely worth checking out!
Event: Global Lives Singapore Screening: Malawi, Japan, Brazil, US (Fri 8pm 12/9)
What: Preview
Host: Global Lives Project
Start Time: Friday, September 12 at 8:00pm
End Time: Friday, September 12 at 10:00pm
Where: The Arts House
To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=33979158922
This is How I Roll: BibloProceduralAnalysis
I find it extremely helpful to keep notes on every book I read and store them in a personal wiki. I review the notes a couple times a year to remind myself what the heck I’ve been learning and thinking about. Then I read a bunch of amazon reviews of the books and sometimes I write my own (usually I write 3/4 a review and then get absorbed in checking email). Now that amazon allows people to comment sometimes I make snarky remarks about other people’s reviews, it’s quite gratifying. Previously I would take notes on index cards and then transfer those contents to the wiki but I just decided it’s way faster to just underline and make comments in the margins and then transfer to the wiki directly from the book. This process helps a lot with information retention, which is good since I can barely remember what happened yesterday.
In a perfect world I would post a link to the amazon review I write for every book I read. I’m not convinced that’s actually worth my time.
Quick Thought: Post-Burning Man
I’m really feeling the urge to climb up on tall things and bump the biggest sound system I can find. I have a strange feeling that if the general populace could only hear dubstep at the proper volume they would really appreciate me for opening them up to something new. sigh, I guess that would get me arrested. I miss burning man.
Demetri Martin
:: Via Matt GeutenHosen via google reader ::
Granted, they don't really make sense anyway but…
An official with Air Canada’s regional carrier Jazz says the airline is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel.
:: cutting back via cnn ::
This Day in {Awwwkwarrd} History
“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care … The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
— DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, September 6, 1988
Ooops, kinda sucks when your own judge holds extensive hearings and concludes that the whole mission of your organization is bogus. AWWWWKWARRRD!!!! Luckily the DEA just ignored him, which spawned a hilarious lawsuit questioning the DEA’s right to put it’s hands over it’s ears and shout “NHAHAHAHHA I CAN”T HEAR YOU.” In a staggering opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit actually ruled that was chill from a legal perspective.