January 2009
1 tag
January 2008!
I’m stuck at work a bit longer than I expected, so here’s a roundup of all the halfway-decent stuff I posted back in January!
Memorable Quotes:
“If you’ve never wept and want to, have a child.” - David Foster Wallace
“Art frees you from the infuriating unfinishedness of the real world.” - Mark Bowden
“Oh snap, she stabbed me!” - a...
December 2008
The Most Important Question of 2008!!!!
On Thanksgiving Eve, my friends and I were at IHOP late at night when a group of hipsters came in and sat down in the adjacent booth. Which raised the question: what do you call a group of hipsters?
The USGS has a nifty list of group names for animals, which gives us the names for:
a gaggle of geese
a murder of crows
a schrewdness of apes
a tower of giraffes
a bloat of hippopotamuses
a...
“If you’re drunk enough, ANYTHING is possible!”
– Earlier this evening, when someone in our group asked if the Sigfried & Roy is even practically feasible.
“One day my father brought a transistor home and he said, and it was about this...”
– A stoned Steven Spielberg being interviewed by Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger. Hilarious, yet entrancing in a vaguely-metaphorical manner.
Whoa, Target has its own forensics lab! →
Wacky but true!
Anyone else watch that Blagovitch news conference...
Blagojevich, the Illinois governor charged with trying to sell an appointment to Obama’s former senate seat, just tried to appoint a former state attorney general to the seat. The whole news conference was surreal, with everyone pretending that the charges against Blago weren’t serious or well-founded at all. Burris, the appointee, was giving off serious Clay Davis vibes as he tried to...
Come walk our labyrinth!
The last two or three times I’ve visited KC, I’ve driven by this strange church at 103rd and Nall that has signs saying “Come walk our labyrinth!” below the usual “Services at X, X, and X” information. I’ve always wondered whether they were speaking metaphorically or literally, so yesterday I swerved off the road to find out.
Heading into their parking...
A ton (and I mean a TON) of Beethoven for only $2 →
It’s the magic of Amazon MP3’s daily deals, man!
WatchThe creepiest creature I’ve seen in a long, long time.
New Year's Eve in Manhattan... KS
I’ve been running around all today getting my affairs in order, because tomorrow morning I get to go back to my college town to work for a few days, see some friends, and enjoy my first (and possibly last) New Year’s Eve there. Manhattan, KS isn’t without a touch of irony on most days - touting itself as “the little apple” in advertising and promotional materials -...
As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor... →
alla1: onemoretimewithfeeling: stupidinboston: sparo:
MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media.
Money...
“Some people, as far as your senses are concerned, just… feel… like… home.”
– High Fidelity (via bowlingalleylawyer) (via capricious) (via hahanotfunny)
RE: My earlier quote on home.
“I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an...”
– Elizabeth Wurtzel (via rainier)
nicotobares:
Björk, Jòga.
This song is, to many...
Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US →
I have doubts about the accuracy of the reporting, but it’s hilarious nonetheless. Also, the “World Superhero Registry” is pretty laughable as well.
“I had a home, of course, when I was a child. But it was not one I had chosen for...”
– Haruki Murakami, in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (paperback pg. 47)
Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks (as played on letterman)
...
Kansas Weather Part III
Yesterday, the temperatures were almost in the 70s.
Last night, we had a storm roll through that produced tornado watches and knocked branches down all over the place.
Today, it’s hovered in the mid-20s all day and we’ve been getting intermittent snow/sleet.
WatchBILLY MAYS HERE FOR ESPN360 DOT COM
Not hatin', just sayin'
langer:
I love a good popularity contest as much as the next guy, but I’ll be sitting out the first annual Tumblr Awards out of protest that I can’t cast a vote for Mills in the category of “Best Original Content/Editorials.”
All this despite the fact that his not being nominated spared me the inevitable paralysis in the voting booth induced by a choice between him and Magic Molly.
Same here....
Update: Mugabe still around in Zimbabwe →
Zimbabwe is one of those absurdly awful situations that’s so awful I become numbed to it and forget it’s there every once in a while. And then I remember, and it’s sad all over again. :(
List of English Reduplicatives →
wordjournal:
Reduplication is a morphological process by which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated. Examples of reduplication: hoity-toity, Joe Schmoe, hip-hop, chit-chat, and no-no. This list sorts them into the following types: Type I are rhyming pairs, Type II are ablaut pairs (the vowel changes and consonants remain unchanged), and Type III are total reduplications.
...
phone etiquette
kattt:
jimmytony:
I was just thinking about all the idiot members of the male species I’ve had contact with.. and it’s a little bit depressing. Currently these few behaviors are really getting on my nerves:
Texting. I can’t stand when people text me 24 hours a day. I may be funemployed and all right now, but I actually do have other things to do. If you have so much to say why don’t you try...
Five-word review of Doubt
It’s good! Go see it!
Architecture's Ten Best of 2008 →
Yeah, a top ten list, bane of the internet. But Noah Brier totally was nice enough to go through the New Yorker’s top ten list of architecture and dig up good links to images, and all are gorgeous.
“After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that’s supposed to...”
– Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (via ismycopilot)
Actual pre-dinner conversation with my mother
Me: I looked up how to get to Panera, since I haven't been there before.
Mom: Oh, you guys are going to Panera beforehand?
Me: Yeah, we're meeting at 6:30.
Mom: Do you know how to get there?
Me: I just...
Mom: Which one are you going to?
Me: The Panera down by Town Center.
Mom: The one on 103rd?
Me: No, the one at 119th and Nall.
Mom: Did you know Town Center's also at 119th and Nall?
Me (under my breath): Fuckin' Samuel Beckett.
Pop Quiz, Hotshot!
I am sleeping 10-12 hours a day, eating everything in sight, and communicating mainly in grunts.
I am:
A college student home for break, or
A bear getting ready to hibernate for the winter?
Kansas Weather Part II
Seriously? Going from highs in the single-digits a week ago (during SLEDFEST ‘08!) to highs in the almost-70s?
Not that I don’t appreciate the warmth, but you’re freakin’ me out man.
Cool story about writing with the non-dominant...
ismycopilot:
I broke my right index finger in 10th grade (on a girl’s head, beat that!) and had to wear a cast for a month; my right hand was imobilized and was excrutiating to write with. I ended up writing everything left handed - it was REALLY hard before I built up the muscle mass and endurance to write more than a few sentences, but after about three weeks I could write legibly for a...
WatchRichard Feynman in “Take the World From Another Point of View” in four parts.
Feynman was an amazing scientist and human being. He’s so excited to learn about the world, and can communicate that excitement to learn better than anyone else I’ve ever seen.
(via 3 Quarks Daily)
“When you know all the names in every language of [a] bird, you know nothing -...”
– Richard Feynman
