MetaFilter posts by luser.
Displaying 1 through 50. Subscribe: http://www.metafilter.com/user/7650/postsrss 
AskYahoo.
posted on Nov-5-04 at 6:18 AM
An excellent WashPost primer on the lies each candidate is currently telling about the other, and how they hold up to reality. Also, enjoy the many euphemisms employed to avoid the "L" word: (Misleading. Inaccurate. Oversimplified. Exaggerated. Carefully selected. Unfair. etc etc) Who will be the first mainstream media outlet to state plainly that a politician has told a lie? Login: shutyomouf@hotmail.com - pw:shaftbaby)
posted on Sep-30-04 at 1:43 PM
Dick Cheney claims that disappointing jobs numbers are undercounting ebay power sellers. The man is on a tear!
posted on Sep-10-04 at 9:21 AM
Gizmodo + Cool Tools + Whole Earth Catalog = Meta-efficient -a "guide to the most efficient things in the world."
posted on Jun-3-04 at 9:35 AM
Bob Graham, Florida senator and Democratic presidential aspirant, burned 246 calories on his exercise bike on Feb. 7, 1999. Good thing, because he weighed in that morning at 187, up one pound from the previous day. How do we know this? Because over the past 26 years, Graham has filled box after box with journals capturing an incredible, some say obsessive, level of detail about his daily life. Quirky, sure; parody friendly, no doubt; but will the GOP be successful in using it to paint him as crazy? (Salon daypass req. for last link)
posted on Jun-3-03 at 8:16 AM
Star Wars to Bar Wars. The Star Wars kid is suing, and the $4,000 collected for him may have to be returned. Always a shame to see the kindness of strangers pushed aside in favor of litigation. Good thing the money never got turned over...
posted on May-30-03 at 8:55 AM
The WSJ offers tips for slacking off at work. My own favorite: leave an old wallet on your desk next to your monitor. See ya in three hours!
posted on May-15-03 at 8:29 AM
Libeskind's "wedge of light" WTC design isn't what you thought. Specifically, if you thought that sunlight would shine down on the plaza at precisely the interval between the time the first tower was hit, and the time the last tower fell...no. That's not what Libeskind meant after all. Actually, there would be shadows, it turns out. From other buildings! So funny, so pathetic.
posted on May-1-03 at 9:47 AM
I like it when Chinese pigs say "hu-lu hu-lu," it's so exotic. Stupid American pigs just say oink. Also, horses in Thailand say "hee hee (with high tone)"!! How cool is it that, first, they even HAVE horses in Thailand, and second, that they sound like Betty Boop?
posted on Apr-22-03 at 11:13 AM
Based on a software analysis of 250,000 CDs for mathematical patterns, and further analysis of the last 5 years of Billboards' Top 30, Polyphonic HMI thinks they know what it takes to rock your world (i.e., cause a song to shoot up the charts). Of course, major labels are interested (NYT link, scroll halfway down). Will this cause mainstream radio to be overrun with inane, soul-crushingly similar music, and crowd out anything different or interesting? Because I wouldn't like that!
posted on Mar-12-03 at 11:08 AM
How come Dan Rather can get to him, but the CIA can't?
posted on Feb-25-03 at 5:39 AM
Happy Meals No Longer Bringing Smiles To McDonalds. Best news I've heard since December. And to bring Mom ("very important to us") back into the fold, McD may begin including Mom-toys with the HMs. No, no. More like...lip gloss, or sweepstakes entries for spa visits. Stuff that would tip any conscientious mother over into the crap-for-food camp.Other ideas? Fact is, EVERY McDonalds customer should be eating the happy meal. (last link possibly NSFW)
posted on Jan-31-03 at 1:09 PM
Archaeological Collage. Neat old cityscene photographs dissolve part by part into modern shots of the same location. Slide the slider and trollies morph into cars, stoop tragedy is supplanted by stoop dalliance. This site has been my white whale: I spent many months tracking it down after losing the link, asking here, asking there, and finally getting an Answer. SPOILER: In the saddest one, going left to right, you're delighted that the grand hotel survives, until in the last 10% it yields to a parking lot. *sob* (Shockwave required)
posted on Nov-11-02 at 1:17 PM
Ever dream your teeth fell out?? I did. I used to think it was because some of mine really did once (through violence, not poor dental hygiene). Turns out everybody dreams this.
posted on Nov-8-02 at 1:25 PM
"A man can't just sit around." This summer marked the 20th anniversary of the guy tying balloons to a lawn chair and floating along two miles high, shivering and brandishing his pistol at bewildered passing airline pilots. Also this year, the historic lawn chair was finally found.
posted on Nov-2-02 at 7:08 AM
"Know it well, for it is on this day that we fixed the bug that prevented one from attaching files with apostrophes in the filename. We are living in the best of all possible worlds." Oddpost engineers channel Dave Eggers in one of the most entertaining customer support blogs ever. Oh wait, it's the only one (that I've seen). Are there others?
posted on Aug-22-02 at 6:42 AM
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where all these profits came from, and why all these acquisitions went sour, what our net income is, and why WorldCom stock prices are in the toilet, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." Holden Caulfield, caught up in the boom.
posted on Aug-20-02 at 9:28 AM
The Johnny Carson website, where many episodes are for sale on VHS. Bad news: It will cost me about $3,000 to collect all the Albert Brooks appearances. This week they're playing a (quicktime) monologue from 1977. Anybody else got the warm fuzzies for Johnny?
posted on Aug-19-02 at 12:40 AM
900 now dead in flooding, and 25 million are trapped or homeless. Ha! Gotcha. It's just India.
posted on Aug-16-02 at 7:21 AM
Attractive people planted in bars are being paid to chat you up...about the New Sony Ericsson T68i!
and so am I
posted on Jul-31-02 at 4:02 AM
American West: Don't hate us because we're drunk.
posted on Jul-10-02 at 2:26 AM
Paralyzed H.S. senior works for two years to achieve dream of walking across commencement stage to take her diploma. At the last minute, principal makes her use her wheelchair, citing liability concerns. Lawyers have us all running scared, so sad. (via Romensko)
posted on May-29-02 at 11:53 AM
All pistachio nuts should come shelled. Every time I have a few, I break another thumb... Remember Larry's King's hilariously banal blatherings in his USAToday column? How effortlessly mockable it was? How he finally got shitcanned last fall? Well, he's back. Giveaway that King himself supervised the web presentation: how you have to hit "next" to see each individual, um...thought?...insight?...nugget? Like they're so substantial.
posted on May-28-02 at 6:58 AM
Very cool artwork made out of pieces of toast of various done-ness. "The toaster toasts and when it does this it reproduces itself." If I had a nickel for every time I made that observation. (via Bifurcated Rivets)
posted on May-23-02 at 10:29 AM
TiVo fanatics will know the name of TiVolutionary (Richard Bulwinkle), the official TiVo evangelist who helped create one of the most enthusiastic (independent) user communities ever at AVS Forums. Well, he's either quit or been fired.
posted on May-13-02 at 1:17 PM
'"Would you state your name for the record?'' the man whose visage has now graced the cover of every national newsweekly was asked at the start of yesterday's session. 'Yes,'' the cardinal said. ''My name is Bernard Francis Law.'' Wonderfully written analysis on yesterday's deposition from my favorite paper.
posted on May-9-02 at 9:24 AM
The Magnifier. What a great way to present visual detail and overview at the same time. Why can't Mapquest do this?
posted on May-7-02 at 11:42 AM
Malcom Gladwell's got a new one in the New Yorker about a guy whose investment strategy positions him to profit from unlikely and scary random catastrophes like 9/11. Its' not on newyorker.com, but the story's subject was kind enough to scan it and post it.
posted on Apr-16-02 at 1:48 PM
Babe Ruth threw a piano into a Massachusetts pond eighty-something years ago. Will finding and restoring it break the Curse of the Bambino? Who cares! Life is about the journey, and this is a cool one.
posted on Apr-3-02 at 1:54 PM
Remains of a 2,000 year-old library await funds to restart excavation. "All that now remains of the exploration is a huge waterlogged hole in which float the syringes of local heroin addicts."
posted on Apr-2-02 at 1:43 PM
As someone with a shy bladder, I've always wanted one of these. Thanks for listening, it means a lot.
posted on Mar-14-02 at 2:54 PM
The Hottentot Venus is going home. An African woman named Saarjite Baartman, apparently EXTREMELY overendowed in the buttock/labia department (second floor, next to men's shoes, watch the doors), she did the freakshow thing in Europe for five years in the early 19th c., was edited down at death to her relevant bits and pickled for posterity. Ever been to an actual state-fair freakshow? I saw the alligator lady in the late 70s somewhere in Kentucky. A morally complicated experience.
posted on Feb-21-02 at 12:35 PM
Children's lives insufficiently documented. Video-shunning parent ostracized, jailed. I agree with this parent. Constantly taping your child, it does sometimes feel as if you're sacrificing actually being in the moment to capturing the moment, and this during some of the best "moments" of your child's life. If my understanding of old age is correct, however, memories are all you have. So I'm trying to nail me some shit down, for rocking chair days.
posted on Feb-13-02 at 8:18 AM
There's no better way to go back in time than listening to airchecks -- recorded segments of top 40 radio from years past, often an hour long, sometimes including commercials and news.
posted on Feb-7-02 at 8:31 AM
"Everything's changed"? No, very little has changed. Exhibit A: the upcoming broadcast of the complete "in-the-belly-of-the-beast" WTC collapse video by CBS. Only three "very special" sponsors, and 50 million are expected to watch. Including me. (Hey, I'm a complicated person and/or hypocrite)
posted on Feb-6-02 at 7:59 AM
"The Archdiocese of Boston in the last 10 years has quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests." And that conservative estimate represents about 10% of diocesan priests! Many are priests still. Could there be a safer haven than the Church for these animals? Easy access to children, and if you get caught, worst case is that the church pays off your victims and you get reassigned to a prison or hospital, with no messy publicity. Shameful.
posted on Jan-31-02 at 8:56 AM
John Ashcroft is a-skeered of kitty-cats. Laughs like Nelson
posted on Jan-30-02 at 7:46 AM
Next gen TiVo announced. Apparently "by holiday season 2002" we can look forward to broadband, photos, CD storage/playback, streaming audio, VOD, and something called "video party games" on our TiVos. But will my Wishlist ever learn to refresh in under 15 minutes?
posted on Jan-8-02 at 1:55 PM
Recidivism being what it is among terrorists, we should kill 'em all, sez George Will in today's Washington Post. Does America have the stomach to do what its adorable chipmunk-cheeked pundits advise be done? Is he actually suggesting we line up the enemy against a wall and start shooting? Again?
posted on Dec-27-01 at 9:30 AM
Pre-Fab George. In a fascinating sidelight, it turns out George Harrison and his brother Pete actually visited the U.S. for a couple of weeks in 1963, visiting George's sister, who lived in a small town in rural southern Illinois. Lots of history was made there: He bought the album containing the original version of "Got My Mind Set On You," which he would cover 25 years later; he bought his first Rickenbacker guitar, the sound of which would change rock music, and little WFRX, West Frankfort, became the first U.S. radio station to play the Beatles, thanks to lobbying by George and his sister. Not to mention he played a nearby VFW dance, sitting in with local rockers the Four Vests. There's a Tom Hanks movie in here somewhere. Not to mention the obligatory "George Slept Here" bed and breakfast.
posted on Dec-3-01 at 9:40 AM
Cool high-school science experiment: Mapping The Homunculus. The 15 year old in me wonders why nipples and other naughty bits aren't mentioned, though. Bet they'd be really big!!!
posted on Nov-27-01 at 1:50 PM
Music lessons can improve spatial reasoning in kids. Did you take music lessons as a child? Did you stick with it? Why/why not? Any regrets? Anyone take up an instrument as an adult? How much does my sister weigh?
posted on Nov-8-01 at 8:28 AM
Dogs on treadmills. Dogs wearing diapers. Dogs watching TV. Dogs depressed about Sept. 11. Dogs on dates. No point really, there just seems to be lots of cool dogs out there doing human stuff. Rock on, dogs!
posted on Oct-23-01 at 12:52 PM
"Sex without love is an empty gesture. But as empty gestures go, it is one of the best." Woody Allen, quoted on Aphorisms Galore. Kiss the next 15 minutes bye-bye.
posted on Oct-12-01 at 8:01 AM
Startlingly beautiful girl. What is her life like? Does she resent it? How uncomfortable must life be for this girl's boyfriend? Why do restaurants give her a 75% discount if she sits at a window table? Rhetorical questions all, but sometimes you gotta ask. Be sure to click the slideshow thingie. (NYtimes link)
posted on Oct-4-01 at 12:31 PM
Remember those "let's all chip in" posters from WWII? Of course you don't. Well, we're starting to see updates for the Present Situation. Don't sell fertilizer to swarthy males! (Ann Coulter's words, not mine)
posted on Oct-3-01 at 7:36 AM
Sen. John McCain’s eulogy for Mark Bingham, one of the passengers who apparently caused Flight 93 to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Whether or not you support him politically, McCain is a good man. (via Kausfiles)
posted on Sep-27-01 at 6:58 AM
The only "war" I can think of in U.S. history anything like the present situation is the U.S. Navy's war on Caribbean piracy (1814-1825). Stateless, decentralized foe, no defined fields of battle, no "high-value targets"...Again, 1814-1825: eleven years. Any U.S. history majors out there?
posted on Sep-19-01 at 6:19 AM
Browsing the results of Time's "Worst Ideas of the 20th Century" poll (Daryl Hall's solo career, Ugandan Space Program) made me wonder whether we've got a candidate for the next one already: (more...)
posted on Sep-17-01 at 2:02 PM
Billy Graham is supposed to be passe, a relic of whitebread protestant America, but his sermon at National Cathedral on Friday moved me. He is unsophisticated, plainspoken, sincere, and scandal-free. We will miss him when he’s gone.
posted on Sep-17-01 at 1:37 PM
posted on Nov-5-04 at 6:18 AM
An excellent WashPost primer on the lies each candidate is currently telling about the other, and how they hold up to reality. Also, enjoy the many euphemisms employed to avoid the "L" word: (Misleading. Inaccurate. Oversimplified. Exaggerated. Carefully selected. Unfair. etc etc) Who will be the first mainstream media outlet to state plainly that a politician has told a lie? Login: shutyomouf@hotmail.com - pw:shaftbaby)
posted on Sep-30-04 at 1:43 PM
Dick Cheney claims that disappointing jobs numbers are undercounting ebay power sellers. The man is on a tear!
posted on Sep-10-04 at 9:21 AM
Gizmodo + Cool Tools + Whole Earth Catalog = Meta-efficient -a "guide to the most efficient things in the world."
posted on Jun-3-04 at 9:35 AM
Bob Graham, Florida senator and Democratic presidential aspirant, burned 246 calories on his exercise bike on Feb. 7, 1999. Good thing, because he weighed in that morning at 187, up one pound from the previous day. How do we know this? Because over the past 26 years, Graham has filled box after box with journals capturing an incredible, some say obsessive, level of detail about his daily life. Quirky, sure; parody friendly, no doubt; but will the GOP be successful in using it to paint him as crazy? (Salon daypass req. for last link)
posted on Jun-3-03 at 8:16 AM
Star Wars to Bar Wars. The Star Wars kid is suing, and the $4,000 collected for him may have to be returned. Always a shame to see the kindness of strangers pushed aside in favor of litigation. Good thing the money never got turned over...
posted on May-30-03 at 8:55 AM
The WSJ offers tips for slacking off at work. My own favorite: leave an old wallet on your desk next to your monitor. See ya in three hours!
posted on May-15-03 at 8:29 AM
Libeskind's "wedge of light" WTC design isn't what you thought. Specifically, if you thought that sunlight would shine down on the plaza at precisely the interval between the time the first tower was hit, and the time the last tower fell...no. That's not what Libeskind meant after all. Actually, there would be shadows, it turns out. From other buildings! So funny, so pathetic.
posted on May-1-03 at 9:47 AM
I like it when Chinese pigs say "hu-lu hu-lu," it's so exotic. Stupid American pigs just say oink. Also, horses in Thailand say "hee hee (with high tone)"!! How cool is it that, first, they even HAVE horses in Thailand, and second, that they sound like Betty Boop?
posted on Apr-22-03 at 11:13 AM
Based on a software analysis of 250,000 CDs for mathematical patterns, and further analysis of the last 5 years of Billboards' Top 30, Polyphonic HMI thinks they know what it takes to rock your world (i.e., cause a song to shoot up the charts). Of course, major labels are interested (NYT link, scroll halfway down). Will this cause mainstream radio to be overrun with inane, soul-crushingly similar music, and crowd out anything different or interesting? Because I wouldn't like that!
posted on Mar-12-03 at 11:08 AM
How come Dan Rather can get to him, but the CIA can't?
posted on Feb-25-03 at 5:39 AM
Happy Meals No Longer Bringing Smiles To McDonalds. Best news I've heard since December. And to bring Mom ("very important to us") back into the fold, McD may begin including Mom-toys with the HMs. No, no. More like...lip gloss, or sweepstakes entries for spa visits. Stuff that would tip any conscientious mother over into the crap-for-food camp.Other ideas? Fact is, EVERY McDonalds customer should be eating the happy meal. (last link possibly NSFW)
posted on Jan-31-03 at 1:09 PM
Archaeological Collage. Neat old cityscene photographs dissolve part by part into modern shots of the same location. Slide the slider and trollies morph into cars, stoop tragedy is supplanted by stoop dalliance. This site has been my white whale: I spent many months tracking it down after losing the link, asking here, asking there, and finally getting an Answer. SPOILER: In the saddest one, going left to right, you're delighted that the grand hotel survives, until in the last 10% it yields to a parking lot. *sob* (Shockwave required)
posted on Nov-11-02 at 1:17 PM
Ever dream your teeth fell out?? I did. I used to think it was because some of mine really did once (through violence, not poor dental hygiene). Turns out everybody dreams this.
posted on Nov-8-02 at 1:25 PM
"A man can't just sit around." This summer marked the 20th anniversary of the guy tying balloons to a lawn chair and floating along two miles high, shivering and brandishing his pistol at bewildered passing airline pilots. Also this year, the historic lawn chair was finally found.
posted on Nov-2-02 at 7:08 AM
"Know it well, for it is on this day that we fixed the bug that prevented one from attaching files with apostrophes in the filename. We are living in the best of all possible worlds." Oddpost engineers channel Dave Eggers in one of the most entertaining customer support blogs ever. Oh wait, it's the only one (that I've seen). Are there others?
posted on Aug-22-02 at 6:42 AM
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where all these profits came from, and why all these acquisitions went sour, what our net income is, and why WorldCom stock prices are in the toilet, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." Holden Caulfield, caught up in the boom.
posted on Aug-20-02 at 9:28 AM
The Johnny Carson website, where many episodes are for sale on VHS. Bad news: It will cost me about $3,000 to collect all the Albert Brooks appearances. This week they're playing a (quicktime) monologue from 1977. Anybody else got the warm fuzzies for Johnny?
posted on Aug-19-02 at 12:40 AM
900 now dead in flooding, and 25 million are trapped or homeless. Ha! Gotcha. It's just India.
posted on Aug-16-02 at 7:21 AM
Attractive people planted in bars are being paid to chat you up...about the New Sony Ericsson T68i!
and so am I
posted on Jul-31-02 at 4:02 AM
American West: Don't hate us because we're drunk.
posted on Jul-10-02 at 2:26 AM
Paralyzed H.S. senior works for two years to achieve dream of walking across commencement stage to take her diploma. At the last minute, principal makes her use her wheelchair, citing liability concerns. Lawyers have us all running scared, so sad. (via Romensko)
posted on May-29-02 at 11:53 AM
All pistachio nuts should come shelled. Every time I have a few, I break another thumb... Remember Larry's King's hilariously banal blatherings in his USAToday column? How effortlessly mockable it was? How he finally got shitcanned last fall? Well, he's back. Giveaway that King himself supervised the web presentation: how you have to hit "next" to see each individual, um...thought?...insight?...nugget? Like they're so substantial.
posted on May-28-02 at 6:58 AM
Very cool artwork made out of pieces of toast of various done-ness. "The toaster toasts and when it does this it reproduces itself." If I had a nickel for every time I made that observation. (via Bifurcated Rivets)
posted on May-23-02 at 10:29 AM
TiVo fanatics will know the name of TiVolutionary (Richard Bulwinkle), the official TiVo evangelist who helped create one of the most enthusiastic (independent) user communities ever at AVS Forums. Well, he's either quit or been fired.
posted on May-13-02 at 1:17 PM
'"Would you state your name for the record?'' the man whose visage has now graced the cover of every national newsweekly was asked at the start of yesterday's session. 'Yes,'' the cardinal said. ''My name is Bernard Francis Law.'' Wonderfully written analysis on yesterday's deposition from my favorite paper.
posted on May-9-02 at 9:24 AM
The Magnifier. What a great way to present visual detail and overview at the same time. Why can't Mapquest do this?
posted on May-7-02 at 11:42 AM
Malcom Gladwell's got a new one in the New Yorker about a guy whose investment strategy positions him to profit from unlikely and scary random catastrophes like 9/11. Its' not on newyorker.com, but the story's subject was kind enough to scan it and post it.
posted on Apr-16-02 at 1:48 PM
Babe Ruth threw a piano into a Massachusetts pond eighty-something years ago. Will finding and restoring it break the Curse of the Bambino? Who cares! Life is about the journey, and this is a cool one.
posted on Apr-3-02 at 1:54 PM
Remains of a 2,000 year-old library await funds to restart excavation. "All that now remains of the exploration is a huge waterlogged hole in which float the syringes of local heroin addicts."
posted on Apr-2-02 at 1:43 PM
As someone with a shy bladder, I've always wanted one of these. Thanks for listening, it means a lot.
posted on Mar-14-02 at 2:54 PM
The Hottentot Venus is going home. An African woman named Saarjite Baartman, apparently EXTREMELY overendowed in the buttock/labia department (second floor, next to men's shoes, watch the doors), she did the freakshow thing in Europe for five years in the early 19th c., was edited down at death to her relevant bits and pickled for posterity. Ever been to an actual state-fair freakshow? I saw the alligator lady in the late 70s somewhere in Kentucky. A morally complicated experience.
posted on Feb-21-02 at 12:35 PM
Children's lives insufficiently documented. Video-shunning parent ostracized, jailed. I agree with this parent. Constantly taping your child, it does sometimes feel as if you're sacrificing actually being in the moment to capturing the moment, and this during some of the best "moments" of your child's life. If my understanding of old age is correct, however, memories are all you have. So I'm trying to nail me some shit down, for rocking chair days.
posted on Feb-13-02 at 8:18 AM
There's no better way to go back in time than listening to airchecks -- recorded segments of top 40 radio from years past, often an hour long, sometimes including commercials and news.
posted on Feb-7-02 at 8:31 AM
"Everything's changed"? No, very little has changed. Exhibit A: the upcoming broadcast of the complete "in-the-belly-of-the-beast" WTC collapse video by CBS. Only three "very special" sponsors, and 50 million are expected to watch. Including me. (Hey, I'm a complicated person and/or hypocrite)
posted on Feb-6-02 at 7:59 AM
"The Archdiocese of Boston in the last 10 years has quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests." And that conservative estimate represents about 10% of diocesan priests! Many are priests still. Could there be a safer haven than the Church for these animals? Easy access to children, and if you get caught, worst case is that the church pays off your victims and you get reassigned to a prison or hospital, with no messy publicity. Shameful.
posted on Jan-31-02 at 8:56 AM
John Ashcroft is a-skeered of kitty-cats. Laughs like Nelson
posted on Jan-30-02 at 7:46 AM
Next gen TiVo announced. Apparently "by holiday season 2002" we can look forward to broadband, photos, CD storage/playback, streaming audio, VOD, and something called "video party games" on our TiVos. But will my Wishlist ever learn to refresh in under 15 minutes?
posted on Jan-8-02 at 1:55 PM
Recidivism being what it is among terrorists, we should kill 'em all, sez George Will in today's Washington Post. Does America have the stomach to do what its adorable chipmunk-cheeked pundits advise be done? Is he actually suggesting we line up the enemy against a wall and start shooting? Again?
posted on Dec-27-01 at 9:30 AM
Pre-Fab George. In a fascinating sidelight, it turns out George Harrison and his brother Pete actually visited the U.S. for a couple of weeks in 1963, visiting George's sister, who lived in a small town in rural southern Illinois. Lots of history was made there: He bought the album containing the original version of "Got My Mind Set On You," which he would cover 25 years later; he bought his first Rickenbacker guitar, the sound of which would change rock music, and little WFRX, West Frankfort, became the first U.S. radio station to play the Beatles, thanks to lobbying by George and his sister. Not to mention he played a nearby VFW dance, sitting in with local rockers the Four Vests. There's a Tom Hanks movie in here somewhere. Not to mention the obligatory "George Slept Here" bed and breakfast.
posted on Dec-3-01 at 9:40 AM
Cool high-school science experiment: Mapping The Homunculus. The 15 year old in me wonders why nipples and other naughty bits aren't mentioned, though. Bet they'd be really big!!!
posted on Nov-27-01 at 1:50 PM
Music lessons can improve spatial reasoning in kids. Did you take music lessons as a child? Did you stick with it? Why/why not? Any regrets? Anyone take up an instrument as an adult? How much does my sister weigh?
posted on Nov-8-01 at 8:28 AM
Dogs on treadmills. Dogs wearing diapers. Dogs watching TV. Dogs depressed about Sept. 11. Dogs on dates. No point really, there just seems to be lots of cool dogs out there doing human stuff. Rock on, dogs!
posted on Oct-23-01 at 12:52 PM
"Sex without love is an empty gesture. But as empty gestures go, it is one of the best." Woody Allen, quoted on Aphorisms Galore. Kiss the next 15 minutes bye-bye.
posted on Oct-12-01 at 8:01 AM
Startlingly beautiful girl. What is her life like? Does she resent it? How uncomfortable must life be for this girl's boyfriend? Why do restaurants give her a 75% discount if she sits at a window table? Rhetorical questions all, but sometimes you gotta ask. Be sure to click the slideshow thingie. (NYtimes link)
posted on Oct-4-01 at 12:31 PM
Remember those "let's all chip in" posters from WWII? Of course you don't. Well, we're starting to see updates for the Present Situation. Don't sell fertilizer to swarthy males! (Ann Coulter's words, not mine)
posted on Oct-3-01 at 7:36 AM
Sen. John McCain’s eulogy for Mark Bingham, one of the passengers who apparently caused Flight 93 to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Whether or not you support him politically, McCain is a good man. (via Kausfiles)
posted on Sep-27-01 at 6:58 AM
The only "war" I can think of in U.S. history anything like the present situation is the U.S. Navy's war on Caribbean piracy (1814-1825). Stateless, decentralized foe, no defined fields of battle, no "high-value targets"...Again, 1814-1825: eleven years. Any U.S. history majors out there?
posted on Sep-19-01 at 6:19 AM
Browsing the results of Time's "Worst Ideas of the 20th Century" poll (Daryl Hall's solo career, Ugandan Space Program) made me wonder whether we've got a candidate for the next one already: (more...)
posted on Sep-17-01 at 2:02 PM
Billy Graham is supposed to be passe, a relic of whitebread protestant America, but his sermon at National Cathedral on Friday moved me. He is unsophisticated, plainspoken, sincere, and scandal-free. We will miss him when he’s gone.
posted on Sep-17-01 at 1:37 PM