February 2004 Archives

Just in case you ever wanted to know. Here's instructions on how to fuck a dolphin. Also, did you know that Tonya Harding Shot JFK? Thank you Insolitology for sharing this with us.

Spongmonkeys are Love.

Saw this on Living Reflections From a Dream a few days ago and it made me laugh because I can just picture the chef running around screaming that.

Whatever Gets You Through the Day..

I just had this IM session with a guy I work with:

Guy: Word of the day: hypnagogic
Guy: something I have right now
Me: what does it mean?
Guy: sleepy feeling
Me: I was going to guess: sense of vertigo brought on by being surrounded by lunatics
Guy: did I ever tell you about the Italian chef I worked with in Germany?
Me: no
Guy: The only thing he could say in German was "I'm surrounded by idiots, please kill yourselfs". Like, why would anyone go to the trouble of only learning that, it was pretty funny. He would scream it a the top of his lungs when someone made a mistake
Me: that is awesome!
Guy: he was also about 4 foot 1
Guy: Little Danny Devito

I have to learn how to say that in German so I can say it too! [Living Reflections From a Dream]

/usr/bin/girl found a cool contest over at bash.org.

Apparently bash.org had a contest in which everyone sent in pictures of their mess (specifically their messy computer desks, I guess).

I was amazed at how stark some people's rooms are. That sort of thing would drive me crazy. Now I must take an informal poll: do you have stuf on your walls (specifically near your computer)?

# mess link via grepcomputers. [/usr/bin/girl]

Speaking of commercials, Fedex has all their TV spots online, including one of my current favorite commercials.

Cool article on Slate about the spongmonkeys ad for Quiznos. I actually recorded the moon song the other day and it is now sitting happily on my ipod.

Today I got a call from my parents that I'd been expecting for months. It seems that my grandmother most probably will not live through the week. Given that I'm trying to get moved in a little over that time it's making my parents all twitchy with that and when they will have time to move me. Strangely, I'm feeling more relieved than anything. In the past two years I've watched my grandmother slowly wither. She's lived over a year and a half longer than anyone expected after her last big surgery. The last few months there have been numerous times I've gotten a call like this, but this time it feels like it is really it. I wish her well on her journey into whatever may wait and I will miss her. I'm also relieved that my parents will be able to have some time for themselves. Since they retired they really haven't had much time for them. And while I am going to need lots of help from them in the coming year or two, my hope is that it won't be as stressful as this has been for them.

This whole experience has made me think a lot about what I want for myself if I were to be seriously ill. I've had a really hard time going to visit her when I've gone down to visit my parents because I just don't like to see someone slowly wasting away. My mom said this morning that the person from the hospice said that hearing is the last sense to go, even if the person is unresponsie. I don't think I'd want to be laying in bed being able to hear people speak and not being able to react.

Are people so lame now that they can't peel a hard boiled egg without a machine?

Someone mentioned this link online and like most silly web games it has sucked me in. The idea of Grow is to drag certain materials onto this ball. As you drag more pieces on, the ones you have dragged on may evolve. As far as I can tell the goal is to max everything out. I'm doing okay so far, my score is around 10,000. Supposedly the max is 20,000. The damn propeller and tornado are driving me nuts.

Posted as part of my evil plan to distract people from life with silly web stuff.

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but have been way too scatterbrained. At the end of the month I'll be moving out of my apartment. Where am I going? Here and there. I've been moving all my stuff down to my parent's place in CT, but I'm not thinking of myself as moving in there. I'm more thinking that I'll be a bit of a wanderer, spending my time in Hartford and Boston as need be. I'm still hoping to find work up here in Boston, but I need something pretty solid. I've got two consulting gigs that are going to help me keep my sanity.

I was quite stressed when I was in the process of making the decision to move, but now that I'm in the process it isn't that bad. The hardest thing was putting my records and turntables into storage at my parent's place (Btw, Special Pete, you still have my headphones!). Right now big biggest issue is finding a way to move my desk down to my parent's place. It's the one thing that's too big for my dad's station wagon. Do any of my friends in Boston have a truck and are free either this weekend or next to help me move it? Let me know.

Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to set up the TiVo when I get down there.

This is just too disturbing for words.

Drive-Thru Molestation

Here’s the scenario:
You’re a middle-aged manager at a fast food restaurant in a large Western South Dakota city. You’re no stranger to fast food, having owned restaurants before and managed employees for much of your life. On your shift, a man claiming to be a police officer calls your restaurant. He tells you, hey, there’s a girl who works for you that stole a purse. I need you to conduct a body-cavity search.

Though your restaurant is one block from the police station, you listen to the caller’s instructions. Strip this 19 year-old girl naked? Ok, done. Ask her to bend over and inspect her back side? Ok, done. Have her sit on your lap, and also perform exercises in front of you? Ok, not a problem. Since this is a restaurant, after all, you decide to lock yourself in an office with this girl. [MeetMyAttorney.com]

The original news story is was in in the Rapid Story Journal, and has even more bizarre things. Here's the one that jumped out at me.

It was an insidious hoax, perpetrated by someone who had duped other restaurant employees into similar actions in other states and locations in South Dakota.[RapidCityJournal.com]

So the phone call was a hoax, but it was one that tricked even other people than just this guy. Are there really that many people who are that stupid out there?

From a mailing list I'm on. Can you escape the Crimson Room? (requires flash)

I'm just about escaped, I think. I'm stuck on the last puzzle.

Posted primarily for me for future reference. The Globe ran an article about NMH closing their Northfield,MA campus.

Northfield closure has blood boiling

NORTHFIELD -- When half of Northfield Mount Hermon closes next summer, reminders of tea dances, May Day plantings, and Trish Dolben could disappear too.

Dolben was a 1954 graduate of the former Northfield School for Girls. After she died in 1985, her husband, Don, donated $1 million to create a library in her honor. In a year and a half it will no longer be a part of the school.

"What damn fool would give money for a memorial to his wife that would be used for just 15 years?" Don Dolben said. The former trustee is angry with school leaders. "To cavalierly abandon a campus without stating a purpose seems to be a breach of fiduciary duty, if not a legal duty then a spiritual one." [boston.com]

I know that I'm still annoyed about the whole thing. I feel like I need to road trip out there again soon when it is warm out and just spend some time strolling around taking pictures.

The Devil he has a plan.

One of the best ebay auctions ever. I personally think some radio station should snatch it up. It would be a great promotional thing.

Oh my god. This explains everything! I think I have NADD!

[Link via Kasia]

Oh no! The world is coming to an end!

Barbie and Ken splitting after 43-year romance

After 43 years as one of the world's prettiest pairs, the perfect plastic couple is breaking up. The couple's "business manager," Russell Arons, vice president of marketing at Mattel, said that Barbie and Ken "feel it's time to spend some quality time -- apart."

"Like other celebrity couples, their Hollywood romance has come to an end," said Arons, who quickly added that the duo "will remain friends." [Boston.com]

I actually wish it was a messy breakup. Like Barbie finding him in bed with another man and going postal.

Today's New York Times has an article about H.R. Pufnstuf that's pretty cool.

The Evil Geniuses of Kiddie Schlock

Have you ever thought you liked a terrible song just because you remembered it, mistaking mere recollection for actual nostalgia? That's the way it is for me and "H. R. Pufnstuf." I thought I had fond memories of the show until I had a chance to see it again, to hear the shrieks of an angry Witchie-Poo (the actress Billie Hayes in a ketchup-red wig), to be assaulted by swirling Day-Glo colors and a Freudian plot featuring a talking flute. Turns out that when I was 7, I had really, really bad taste.

Then again, maybe that's the glory of being 7 years old: there are no clichés, and the crassest riddles rock your world. The brighter the colors, the better the set design. This was the evil genius of Sid and Marty Krofft — the Canadian-born 70's TV hucksters whose invariably short-lived Saturday morning series included "H. R. Pufnstuf," "The Bugaloos," "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl," "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters," "Land of the Lost" and the deeply strange "Lidsville." They weren't making shows that parents could watch with their kids. They were making shows that kids could watch alone, while severely addled by Cap'n Crunch. In another league entirely from the witty Muppetry of "Sesame Street" or the gentle pleasures of Mr. Rogers and "The Magic Garden," the Kroffts dished up a swirl of psychedelia, vaudeville and cheesy production values that might be described as brown acid for the toddler soul. [New York Times]

While talking about these shows online someone pointed to the list of writers for Land of the Lost. It's pretty impressive. Though it might help explain why I can still remember that one.

Yay! Viz is going to be releasing Bleach here in the US starting in June. Lyn turned me on to Bleach and I love what I've read so far. This is another title that I wish they'd have in Shonen Jump. I don't mind it coming out in graphic novels, but Jump needs one or two more titles in it.

Oh dear. I glanced up just now and saw that Shazam! was on. Billy Batson rides around in a Winnabego and talks to the elders (Zeus and the other gods) using some weird device with flashing lights. I guess even the gods have gone kinda high tech now. The lesson today is that even a white lie can turn into something much bigger. Billy has the worst hair too.

I wonder if TV Land also shows Isis too.

Just checked TV Land's web site and it seems they will be showing a bunch of Sid & Marty Krofft stuff on the 17th. Must remember to TiVo Electra Woman & Dyna Girl.

David Harris links to a study on drinking eight glasses of water a day. Looks pretty interesting.

Last year I reported on a paper from the American Journal of Physiology that dispelled the myth that people should drink eight glasses of water per day. Now this has been supported by another study published by the Institute of Medicine.

The new report recommends that thirst be the main motivator for drinking more. One of the urban myths of water consumption was that if you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated. This study helps put that myth to rest.

Another common myth about water consumption is that water from caffeinated beverages should not count. The new report repeats previously published findings that say you should count all water intake, including from caffeinated drinks such as coffee, tea and soft drinks, and also from food.

A more significant health finding is that Americans are consuming far too much sodium (usually in the form of salt in foods) and too little potassium. [David Harris' Science & Literature]

A link to the actual article is included.

David Pogue has a nice rundown of the iPod and the other hard drive mp3 players. The iPod seems to come out in front, but it is clear that its competitors are innovating right behind them.

Apple could have been some character from Greek mythology: blessed with ingenious, culture-changing innovation yet cursed with seeing its ideas co-opted by rivals who wind up making all the money. In the iPod's case, though, none of the companies who lust for some of Apple's pie can deliver the elegance and convenience of Apple's music trinity: iPod, the iTunes software and the iTunes music store.

But if an iPod isn't for you, you could do worse than buying the Dell for its simplicity and economy, the iRiver for its super-geeky feature list or the Rio Karma for its excellent design and compact dimensions. In this election, at least, there can be more than one victor. [New York Times]

Safari 1.2 was released around a week ago. Dave Hyatt's Surfin' Safari details some of the highlights of the update. He also talks about some things that are broken in a later post. Why can't more companies let their people blog like this?

Thank you Apple for having Lemon Jelly.

Sophocles: "The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities." [Quotes of the Day]

Mae West: "You're never too old to become younger." [Quotes of the Day]

I was reading a review of Miracle this morning and had a sudden movie idea. Disney needs to make another Dexter Riley movie with Kurt Russel. It could be a sequel to Now You See Him, Now You Don't or The Strongest Man in the World (I wasn't as big a fan of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes). Dexter and his pals are all working for some research facility trying to recreate some of those past accidents or create some new one and you have the typical hijinks. Get as many of the original actors who were in those movies as you can. Unfortunately you wouldn't be able to get people like Joe Flynn and Cesar Romero for it. Maybe they could be digitally recreated. I think it would rock.

Morgan Webb asks "Which do you like better? Sweet or Salty"

I really hate sugar. It’s not because my dentist tells me it’s bad (which she does), or because of the Atkins Revolution (where we can all of the sudden eat pork rinds again). It’s because I don’t like the taste (smarties excepted, though I’ve eaten so many now I’m over them too). I don’t like sweet things, cakes, desserts, ice cream, candies, and I most definitely don’t like chocolate. When the waiter winks and proclaims that he’ll bring “two spoons” for me to steal off my friend's dessert plate I just ignore him and the spoon. Chocolate is terrible. It’s nasty, but the worst part is people always try and stuff it down your throat because they just can’t believe you don’t like it.

That’s not to say I don’t have my vices. I seek out the salt. The jerky snacks, the saltiest soups, the french fries, salt and vinegar chips, and flamin’ hot cheetos (mmmmmmmmmm my fav). What do you guys like better, sweet or salty? I’m gonna try turning the comments on again. Maybe it’s because I’m in a good mood today, or maybe I’m just a fool. [Morgan Webb]

Myself, It depends on the mood, but in general I'm more of a salty person. I love popcorn and pretzels and chips. I like chocolate and sweet things, but only in moderation. I can't finish a 20oz bottle of soda, it's just too heavy. I've become more a fan of flavored seltzers or just plain water. For desert I'm usually happy with a scoop of ice cream, but not a lot. Though, every once in a while I do have a massive sugar craving and things get ugly.

On the other hand, I love salty sweet things. Like pretzel bits mixed with chocolate, mmmmm.

Network World Fusion Compendium asks:

You canning spam?
The CAN-SPAM law has been in effect for about a month now. Noticed a dramatic reduction in incoming spam? Noticed any reduction? [Compendium]

I know I haven't. I'm getting just as much spam in my spam box as I have been, if not more. Though it isn't like I expected the law to accomplish anything to begin with.

Last night and today I found myself browsing through the iTunes Music Store because I won a free song. I haven't looked in a while, but their selection just keeps getting better. First I noticed they had a number of things by Jeff Mills (on the Tresor label). Then I started wondering if they were handling more independent artists yet so I did a bit of searching and found stuff by Andrew Kerr, Edie Carey, and Anne Heaton (Unfortunately, nothing by Teddy Goldstein or LFNY). I'm quite impressed.

First there was The Sims, now we have SINGLES: FLIRT UP YOUR LIFE.

The adults-only PC adventure puts gamers in control of up-for-it housemates Mike and Linda with the challenge of keeping the pair happy in their daily lives.

If they succeed, the wild couple will eventually fall in love and cop off, jumping into the sack together or heading off to the bathroom for a saucy shower.

But if players forget to empty the bins, wash the dishes or fail to clear up the lounge, it's all going to end in tears. [The Sun Newspaper Online]

I'm sure there will be an online version before too long.

Here's something to try that will get your cow-orkers looking strangely at you:

Trick
This is kind of dumb, but fun. While sitting in your chair, lift your right foot slightly off the ground and move it in clockwise circles. Now draw the numeral “6” in the air with your right hand. Your foot will involuntarily reverse direction. (via hanging-fire.net) [via Making Light] [via Boing Boing]

Note, It doesn't seem to work for all people. I'm sure there's some explanation for all of it.

(I typed this all in last night, but got distracted by somthing and forgot to actually post it. oops.)

So I finally got around to participating in the Monday Mosh. Even though I can't really dance that vigorously without falling over coughing and gasping for breath, I did bop around on the couch quite a while. For those not familiar with the Mosh, here's a description.

This week:

1. READY STEADY GO - L'Arc~en~Ciel
2. I didn't step on anything but I hit a (closed) container of duck sauce from last night's dinner and sent it flying. Luckily it didn't open on impact

3. To. Much. Coughing.

Even with the coughing and such I call it a success for my first time. I felt immensely silly but it helped boost my crappy mood that was still hanging on from the weekend.

This is what I've been waiting for. I always have various condiments in the fridge and wonder if they are any good or how long I should even think about having them around. Thanks to Boing Boing via TechTV for the link to the Periodic Table of Condiments.

http://www.powergenitalia.com/. I really can't say much more without spoiling it. Oh yes, and it is worksafe. really.