Wtf, it's called a doodlebug.

And I never knew that calling the roads paralleling a highway a "feeder" was just a Houston thing.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 9:07 AM on May 2, 2008

Agreed, Mister_A. A coworker of mine is a diehard Republican (and Rush listener), and he came to me a week or so ago to discuss Rush's idea that Republicans should vote for Clinton in the open primaries. I pointed out (diplomatically, I hope) that (a) it was a stupid idea because a competitive Democratic primary results in free press for the party for the next two months; and (b) that most of the Republican establishment has a vested interest in Clinton being the nominee not because she's a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 11:13 AM on March 17, 2008

billyfleetwood, most Rockets fans (myself definitely included) are eminently aware that the only reason we won the championship that year was because we didn't have to face the Sonics (4-16 against them from '92-'96, and 3-8 in the playoffs, including five straight series losses between '82 and '96). I still have a vivid recollection of the image you describe (Dikembe lying on the floor, clutching the ball overhead, camera sideways), realizing at that point that given the way The Dream was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 8:18 AM on March 14, 2008

What's wrong with the Over Her Dead Body one?
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 9:12 AM on March 6, 2008

Corrected link -- looks like they fixed the typo in the URL.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 7:47 PM on February 8, 2008

What's this about "many not forgiving him" for surviving?

I'm genuinely curious. And a bit ignorant. Not snarking.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:28 PM on August 1, 2007

I remember hearing once that when the grounds of Howard University (?) were being designed, a discussion of how to lay out the sidewalks came up, and someone suggested that they put in no sidewalks -- just grass. Over a period of several months of regular use, the paths trod through the grass would then indicate the best placement for sidewalks. It may be purely apocryphal, but it's a story that always appealed to my libertarian sensibilities.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:15 AM on April 17, 2007

This seems like as good a place as any to tell about going to a new restaurant in town last week, ordering calimari (the kids love it), and finding at the bottom of the order a fully-formed, deep fried (presumably baby) squid about two and a half inches long from tentacle to tentacle (with the head intact). I begged my wife to let me take it home and snap a picture of it, but she wasn't having it. I too doubt I'll be eating calimari again any time soon, but for entirely different reasons than... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:32 PM on April 14, 2007

octothorpe:
The easiest way to tell if someone is from Western Pennsylvania is to listen for the dropped infinitive. "To be" does not exist west of the Susquehanna and east of the Ohio border. People say, "the lawn needs cut" or that "that car needs washed" (or wurshed).Oh god, don't forget about the use of "awhile" as a shortened form of "while you wait." The first time I heard that (a month or two after I moved up here from a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:02 PM on March 24, 2007

The guy in the lead was grinning like the cat who ate the canary while the answers of the other two were being revealed, so I think he was deliberately angling for a two- or three-way tie -- and why not? He had to know the other two had bet it all, and regardless of whether he ends up with $16,000 in a tie or $16,001 as the sole winner, he gets his money. By bidding the lower amount he gets to make one or two other people very happy at no cost to himself.

In fact, you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 6:32 AM on March 17, 2007

In that Jeopardy thread, the guy who bet $2600 weighs in:
Hi, everybody. I was interested to see what kind of reaction my wager would get; you all have not disappointed me. :-)

So why did I do it? I knew that there had never been a 3-way tie before in the history of the show. (OntarioQuizzer is right that a kid had asked if there had ever been a 3-way tie before. I honestly don't remember hearing that question; maybe it registered subconsciously.) I saw the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 7:56 AM on March 17, 2007

Thorzdad:I mean...c'mon...when you first heard the name "Obama", are you saying your mind, somewhere down deep, didn't think "Osama"? Not in a way to connect the two but, rather, in a "hey, they rhyme!" way?

hoverboards: Absolutely, especially considering his middle name's Hussein. But I don't buy that it will influence voters - even the most viciously ignorant drooling morons - any more than the haw-haw-bush-looks-like-a-monkey crap.Don't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:05 PM on February 10, 2007

/eyeballs the trifecta of BusinessWeek links suspiciously
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 1:19 PM on February 9, 2007

roll truck roll: Look what WWF.COM is now. Stupid lying environmentalists.

Surely the World Wildlife Fund wasn't responsible for turning that domain into a link farm, but has it always been like that? Why isn't it owned by WWF?

Also, great post milquetoast.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:02 AM on February 8, 2007

Admit it; you just posted this so we could stress-test Mondo Image.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:36 AM on January 28, 2007

On a certain level, I can appreciate what Michelle Wie is trying to do (or rather, what Michelle Wie's parents are trying to do to/for her), and it sickens me a little to see the media trying to tear her down, when the hype was their doing in the first place.

That being said, I'd think that golf has to be pretty high on the list of sports where playing in a league above your ability won't really help you much.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:41 AM on January 18, 2007

My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16k of RAM that my dad bought us when I was about six. One of the very first programs I wrote was a BASIC program that drew a swastika (!). My dad, a gentle man of Jewish descent was horrified. It took my mom quite a while to explain to me what was wrong. I remember us hooking up a tape drive from radio shack to load and save programs, and the joy when we got our first 5.25" floppy drive. Our next upgrade was this bad boy. Man, that was a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 11:29 AM on January 7, 2007

Man, I love this stuff. My son's just gotten interested in space shuttles; does anyone know where I can find high-quality videos of launches and/or landings? All I can find on the NASA website are QT and RM files.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 7:05 AM on December 23, 2006

delmoi: Anyway, posting the blacked-out text probably makes bush look a lot worse then it would if they'd just ignored it.

I think that's the whole point. Snarking in the other thread to the effect of "where the hell were you guys for the last six years" aside, I applaud the NY Times for this.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:51 PM on December 22, 2006

Nice post. I never knew Stagger Lee as anything but one of the many low points in Houston sports history.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 12:53 PM on December 19, 2006

dhartung: Anyway, while I hail "truthiness" (and I bet it becomes smudged as a word long before it becomes banished)...

Speaking of co-opting the opposition's vernacular, I periodically overhear snatches of the Rush Limbaugh show in a co-worker's office; he (Limbaugh) uses "strategery" like it's a real word. I'm impressed anew by the tactic each time I hear it.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:56 PM on December 9, 2006

Any idea that economic laissez-faire policies are either fair or helpful to everyone is just fantasy, and ignores real social disparities.Friedman would argue that those "social disparities" are more frequently caused by government intervention in the market.
His philosophy was dangerous and morally bankrupt.Morally neutral, maybe. It's easy these days to equate laissez-faire economics with neoconservative "economic" policies that have little semblance to anything... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 11:49 AM on November 16, 2006

As sonofsamiam alluded to, it's easy to forget these days that there is a long history of "conservative" economic thought that can stand on its own as a coherent, logically consistent whole. The fact that modern Republicans (who have no right whatsoever to call themselves "conservative") have appropriated the elements of its philosophy that will serve their immediate short-term interests should not tar its legacy or influence. Blaming Friedman and his ilk for what passes for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 12:56 PM on November 16, 2006

until Congress is a majority of (L)'s (ie: people actually working for the VOTERS), there will never be socialized anything in this country.If that (L) stands for Libertarian, I don't think that word means what you think it means. And what makes you think that Libertarians have some sort of monopoly on faithfully representing their constituents (and I ask that from the perspective of a pretty committed libertarian)?There are only two industries that should be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:57 PM on November 9, 2006

I'm totally with ortho on this one. Following up on Pastabagel's intent/motive distinction, however, I could see a justification for hate crime prosecutions in the narrowly-defined instances where the criminal action was determined to have been intended to threaten or intimidate other members of the victim's subpopulation.

Thus e.g., burning a cross in someone's yard would be a felony hate crime, not just a misdemeanor destruction of property, but the fact that someone... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:16 PM on November 9, 2006

Don't waste your energy following the PA race. I know Santorum's a favored foe of the left, and nothing will be sweeter than seeing him go down in flames, but he's been out of the race for months -- the last poll I saw (Quinnipiac, I believe) had him trailing by 15 points. The fact that the Republicans tossed out a sacrificial lamb (yes, that Lynn Swann) to get slaughtered by Ed Rendell in the gubernatorial race probably didn't help the GOP GOTV cause here.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 3:58 PM on November 7, 2006

The counts from Missouri are starting to come in.

Allen's lead in VA has been cut to 7k.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 6:05 PM on November 7, 2006

Ouch. I'd definitely be more inclined to trust the VA SBE page. Why such a big discrepancy, when CNN & MSNBC are both reporting at about 68%, while the VA SBE page is at 72?
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 6:10 PM on November 7, 2006

They've already called MD for Cardin? I thought Steele had been pulling away in recent days.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 6:25 PM on November 7, 2006

In the boston.com article, why are the words "number," "one" and "zealot" in bold throughout the entire article? Or am I going Russell-Crowe-as-John-Nash crazy?
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 12:19 PM on September 26, 2006

Trae also used Microsoft technology to apply for scholarships that are helping fund his college education.

If this doesn't sound like a bullshit autobiographical blurb of someone with limited technical skills, I don't know what does.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:32 AM on September 22, 2006

WTF? Rick Santorum is the leading money raiser among all Republicans??!? Jesus Christ, Pennsylvania.In Pennsylvania's defense, that race might as well be a national race, and I doubt much of the money is coming from within Pennsylvania; here they're hyping it as a bellwether race, and Casey (his Democratic opponent) is leading in the polls (44-39 last I checked) -- but fading.

And ditto what BP and bardic said. Western Pennsylvania might as well be a separate state from... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:02 AM on September 20, 2006

Two wrongs don't make a right.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:14 PM on September 11, 2006

I grew up on Ron Stone and Doug Johnson on KPRC. A little piece of me dies every time I go home and see the drivel that passes now for a newscast on that once-mighty station.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 7:23 PM on September 7, 2006

Previously, I think, but the link in the prior post no longer works.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:32 AM on September 1, 2006

The most compelling (and obvious) argument against this idea is in the final link:

Another point to consider ... is the equally acknowledged fact that Senator Atchison himself never took the oath either.

posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 4:21 AM on August 10, 2006

Do bigger goals, no goalkeeper, fewer players or changed rules need to be considered?

In the mid-90's, FIFA toyed with the idea of enlarging the goal. I think one of the reasons that the proposal never went anywhere was simply because it would necessitate the removal and replacement of goalposts on hundreds of thousands of pitches worldwide.
posted to MetaFilter by Doofus Magoo at 5:24 PM on July 6, 2006