2001 August❮❮prevnext❯❯

A minimal update today.

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Joke

A baby seal walks into a club.

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Link
A formal study in lab practicalities entitled Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass.

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News
What happens when people get their understanding of genetics from religious superstition and the Monday Night Monster Movie Madness: The House votes to outlaw therapeutic cloning.

bob s. and i kirk head robotech bodyslam

Bought a Playstation (Not a PS2, just the remake of the original) last night, part of my ongoing plan to buy games when their cheap. (For the record, I bought Ball Blazer Champions, Wipeout 3, Irritating Stick, Asteroids, Bomberman World, Pong, Speedball 2100, Twisted Metal 2, Rogue Trip, Warhawk, Driver, The Unholy War, Tecmo Stackers, Gekido, and Grand Theft Auto. Still looking for the Arcade Pack that has Smash TV, Parappa, and Poy Poy.)

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Quote of the Moment

If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.
If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.
Don't - DON'T think about that sentence for more than three minutes or blood will spurt out of your nose.

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Link of the Moment
According to the little booklet that came with our body fat measuring scale, I'm "obese" though honestly, I don't think that's the word people think of when they look at me. But anyway, at least my struggle is nothing like what these folk are having to go through. Funny You Should Ask...
On comp.risks, found this reference: Husband's internet date turns out to be his wife. Upshot is, a Beijing couple both arranged to meet their secret dates from the website "Green, Green Schoolyard", only it turned out to be each other.

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Make Lego, Not War

Attempt to prolong the life of your vehicle, for you are in it, and if it is destroyed, a few effects of death may be observed.

The quote is from a game known as Lego Wars, playing wargames with the famous little plastic men (and now, women). An even more advanced system, with lots of fun pictures, can be seen at the Brikwars site. Wow, one things about deadlines (like the loveblender that I should be doing right now) is that they allow you can use them to be very productive (doing other things).

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The Things That Make You Go "BOOM"
Hey, remember that "successful missile defense test"? The media hasn't playing up the fact that the test was more rigged than the last election. Well, maybe not. I suppose a "rogue state" might attach a homing beacon to their missile, and only release a shiny balloon as a decoy. Maybe they'll call us up and tell us what city they're thinking of blowing up to, that would be thoughtful. Oh, and of course they'd never just smuggle in a suitcase nuke or a bomb-in-a-boat. (via Bill the Splut's news)

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Quote of the Moment

I've never seen 'It's A Wonderful Life.' I could never get past that title.

from the T-shirt Archive: #12 of a Series
"Fuddruckers". An interesting retrologo design, from the restaurant of the same name. My family always enjoyed Mother Fuddruckers' Mustard. (Sigh, this series is creeping into the mundane. Ah well, it adds a bit of color to the place.) Wanna buy a Y2K Preparation Video cheap?

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Geek Link of the Moment
Slashdot linked to a GameSpy Top 50 games. Interesting commentary from people in the industry.

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Auto Design Ramble
There's this new model Volvo out, and it took me a while to figure out why the design of the rear of the car, specifically the tail lights, was bothering me so much: Then I realized it was because of its resemblance to the cross section of a human, as in the Visible Human Project: The car makes me think its back end has been chopped off a bit. It just ain't right.

The Visible Human project is very neat, with movies starting from the head and moving to the toes, one thin slice at a time.

Interestingly, Hollow Man was on last night, which had some terrific effects of Kevin Bacon and before than an ape turning invisible, with different organs and skeletal structure visible as the process went on. (Though we saw a bit too much of Kevin Bacon's Bacon, if you know what I mean.) Then in turned into a standard "5 people trapped in with a psychokiller, who do some smart things and some dumb things and most get killed" horror flick. Geek Alert
They say the title for the next Star Wars film has been chosen, and it's "Attack of the Clones". I'm not making this up. We can only hope that it will join "Revenge of the Jedi" as a film title that didn't quite make it. This is the worst idea for a Star Wars title since I read that Mark Hamill wanted Return of the Jedi to be call "Star Wars: The Other Shoe Drops". (I remember reading this in a Bantha Tracks interview. He might have been joking, or speaking metaphorically.)

Man, I can hear the "Send in the Clones" jokes already. Not to mention the obvious jokes and political cartoons for the real-life cloning debate.

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Lyric of the Moment

I'm runnin' home...
I'm movin' fast...
Ain't gonna catch me
in no autmobile,
I'm haulin' ass!

I hadn't thought of it for at least a decade, and then it just came to me. As I was leaving work, appropriately enough.

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Pop Culture Link of the Moment
Erin Peters pointed me to Cartoon Over-Analyzations (one quote: "remember, over-analyzation means being 25% anal!"). Interesting minirants and rambles about various cartoons, mostly of the 1980s. I wrote the keeper with two rants, one on the fact that Peppermint Patty having a crush on Charlie Brown doesn't really invalidate the whole Patty/Marcy lesbian vibe as another poster claimed, and that smurfs being "three apples high" is a pun on a figurative french expression (it's funny in France, but then again maybe Jerry Lewis is too), but it still works as long as you're talking crabapples. Ok, it's really hot. I grant you that. It's too hot. Dangerously hot for some people. But what the hell is it with us and heat indices? C'mon, we can't say it's "95 degrees and humid", we need to pretend it can be mapped to a number? It's like windchill. We all feel much more macho when the windchills way down there "Sure it was thirty degrees, but with the windchill factor, it was like 10 or something!". These numbers aren't as reliable as people assume anyway, based on unreliable assumptions about heating and cooling.

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Your New Best Friend
Read about this in a Wall Street Journal Marketplace someone left in the company kitchen... if you run AOL Instant Messenger, try chatting with SmarterChild, a news-stocks-weather-games-etc chatbot. It's an interesting concept in UI. Ranjit mentioned that the now defunct word.com was thinking about having an alternate frontpage chatbot interface, but the company tanked before he had to implement it.

Online chat is kind of cool, a great testing ground for AI and the Turing Test, since 1. Typing speed and the like can't be a give away and 2. It's awash in semi-literate goofballs anyway.

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Salon Story of the Moment
Man, why can't I get Spam that's this well written?

from the T-shirt Archive: #13 of a Series
"Disfunctional by Choice". Grimm from Mother Goose & Grimm Oh jeez. Always strongly disliked this shirt, part of my general disregard for the general sentiment of "Hey look at me! I'm wacky!" My mom got it for me before she got handle on what kind of T-shirts I liked and disliked. (In general, I don't like well-known cartoon character shirts, though Bill the Cat was my first post-surfing-t-shirt I had.) Tonight Bush announces his decision on federal funding for stemcell research. Let's hope he doesn't screw up (hee hee, Ruben Bolling sums it all up)

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Quote and Link of the Moment

I hope fox starts "a room with a bunch of knives and a pile of money"

This wish (from the KHftCEA) about all those "reality" shows is that much closer to being granted with a new show Danger Island-- convicts and manhunters on a big island... neat! It's still in the planning stages (hoping to get picked up by a network) so if you're a felon or a bounty hunter, there's still time to get on board! (via cruel site)

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Quixotic Art
Wouldn't it be cool if we could get a bunch of people with laser pointers and paint a spot on the moon with light? They're aren't sure if it could actually work, but it's cool that they want to try. Maybe I'll join in. I remember wondering if I could signal aliens with an upward pointing flashlight at summercamp. With my luck I'd probably send the alien morse code for "Attack us! Please! We're barely post-nuclear with our technologies!" (but I'll fool them and upload a virus to their main computer with my buddy's Titanium Powerbook.) You know, I have to admit I'm almost impressed with Bush's Stem Cell decision. On this issue I'm extremely in favor of unfettered research, so I don't think he made the right decision and probably kissed too much pro-life butt, but I admire his trying to find a middle ground. (What with me being an extreme moderate and all.) (And what is this that it's good he was making a moral decision rather than a political one? Isn't this a democracy?)

Comic Book Guy

CBG walks along the road reading a comic book
CBG: But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills, you're from two different worlds.
(CBG sees missile approaching)
CBG: Oh, I've wasted my life.

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Mean Link of the Moment
Hopefully, this will be the meanest link of your day. But funny. (If you don't get it, it's what happens when this previous 'Net fad (which has since been heavily commercialized) meets this one poster currently making the rounds. Though I liked this parody even better...) Hey, could the Wendy Wang who signed my guestbook contact me? You aren't who I guessed you were...

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Video of the Moment
I guess NYC gets a lot of visitors this time of year. Very cool.
(Via mondain on thinkattack)

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The Beauty of Understatement

...the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage...

from the T-shirt Archive: #14 of a Tedious Series
Hard Rock Café. Ugh. Musta been a gift. At yesterday's Smith Family Reunion...
Mo was feeling really unwell yesterday, mostly nausea that her body didn't seem to know what to do with. (She thinks she has been a bit off since Mexico, she's going to the doctor's this week.) I dunno, somehow it reminds me of our mortality, that while this is probably just a passing viral thing, some day there's a good chance we'll going to have to deal with something more serious.

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Current Events
Have you seen Al Gore's Beard? He looks like Riker on Star Trek. (Geek Humor: Maybe people mapped Picard/Riker to Clinton/Gore, so he lost when he tried for the commanding spot...ok, that may be a geeky observation, but that previous link was from a PlanetRiker tribute page. At least I'm not that bad.)

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Link of the Moment
The Baltimore CityPaper Online has a weekly Summary of the Comics Section. I love the idea of it: the writer is very analytical and sarcastic, but is reading the stuff anyway. When it comes to the comics page, I know that feeling. Except I don't get paid for it. (via Comics I Don't Understand, another interesting comics study.)

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Quote of the Moment

There is a general place in your brain, I think, reserved for "melancholy of relationships past." It grows and prospers as life progresses, forcing you finally, against your better judgement, to listen to country music.

Link of the Moment
A site on Censored Cartoons, with a special focus on Warner Brothers. Kind of interesting reading what racist and violent stuff they cut out, though some of it seems to be edits for length.

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Quote of the Moment

Not Everything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well

Words to live by, a new philosophy of "sometimes 'good enough' is best", at least in the big picture which includes resource allocation and the like.

from the T-shirt Archive: #15 of a Tedious Series
New Orleans Jazz. Probably a gift from a trip my mom took. Not a bad design, but black, which I don't wear often. Warning, pretty much every link today is rated R or at least PG-13. Don't look at it if you're not supposed to.

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Link of the Book
Wow, remember Madonna's 1992 Sex book? I really respect what she was trying to do with this book, it was really daring, and talked about things that many people feel but far fewer admit to. Sure it was a skin book, but that was half the point!

That 'Sex book' link seems to an amazingly comprehensive web reproduction of it (down to closeups of collages, and HTML-text versions of some of the wordier pages) though I wonder if it's missing a page or two.

Below is my favorite image from it but this one is also pretty amazing and I never thought I'd so wish that I was Vanilla Ice...

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Quote of the Book

The best way to seduce someone is by making yourself unavailable. You just have to be busy all the time and they'll be craving to see you.

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Image of the Book

I love the feeling of fatigue and "what have I gotten myself into" this picture has, especially in the context of the pictures that seem to be from earlier in the same session. (Hint: the slack rope over her legs.)

Wow, wow, wow. I am TEN THOUSAND DAYS OLD this very day. (As always, I have a tool to figure out your own 10k day.) Alas, life is too hectic now to do anything but have a small fun party tomorrow. And this update is gonna be nothing special (especially compared to yesterday's... yowza.)

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Quote of the Moment

85% of life is just showing up.

I think this especially can apply to human relationships, showing up is hugely important.

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Image of the Moment

Just a big ol' turtle that was crawling across the road Tuesday, near where I work. John Sawers and I kind of stood guard as it made its slow way. It didn't seem to have any kind of undershell, but it had cool spikes on its tail.

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Link of the Moment
Tackamarks exposed! Those aren't just harmles dates and labels attached to the back of traffic signs, but a secret code to direct the black helicopters and UN troops! (I especially like the photos on this page... all I can think about is the old line that "oh, that Stop sign had a white border? That means it's optional...") (via cruel site) Well, my 10K day has come and gone, by 4 digit days are behind me. The funny thing with a "big event" like that, or say, Y2K, that unless you really work at it, nothing you do will seem quite big enough to live up to the occasion.

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Quote of the Moment

Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.

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Links of the Moment
Wow, Some people are way too into roshambo, more commonly known as rock, paper, scissors. All this via an alt.fan.cecil-adams Usenet thread which talked about extended versions of the game:

	Rock (fist) Blunts scissors.
	Scissors (pointer and middle extended) Cuts paper.
	Paper (fingers extended, flat) Covers rock.
	Bomb aka Dynamite (thumb up) Blows up rock. Scissors cuts Fuse. Unclear relationship with paper.
	Fire (fingers up and wiggling) Burns everything, but you can only use it once in your life.
	Devil (pinky and pointer extended) Beaten by everything but beats Fire.
	Fish (like paper, but sideways and wriggling) Rock smashes, Scissors gut, Paper wraps. When you're playing to lose.
	Bird (middle finger extended) "F*** you, I don't want to play your game, I win."

Wow. My 10k+1 party turned out great... better than my gut instinct said it was gonna be especially given a lightish turnout and Mo not being able to cohost (feeling under the weather, but her vietnamese spring rolls and homemade guac and salsa and death sangria and later cookies were big hits.) Shmoozing on the back porch in a distant storm, video games (especially 'Worms Armegeddon' for DreamCast), and then I found out you can get some good dancing by insisting and also making a good mix cd.

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IMDb Quote of the Moment

"There's an old Italian saying: don't burn your tongue on another man's soup."
"Yeah? There's an old Irish saying: don't listen to old Italian sayings."

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Link of the Moment
Man, there are some weird videogames in Japan. (via Bill the Splut) Links of the Moment
penismightier had some links on Biblical skepticism. One was the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. Although this kind of thing seems pretty comprehensive, some of the things they pick on are pretty penny ante, and others can be attributed to poetic license. But it is a fairly strong rebuttal to a very strict Bible literalist viewpoint.

This quiz is a bit of an eye-opener...I had no idea that what we view as the 10 Commandments are not what was chiseled in stone. The rules on the tablets, clearly labeled as "the 10 commandments" involve mostly what Christians see as strictly "Old Testament" and "Kosher" rules (against cooking a goat in its Mom's milk, making the right sacrifices, a week of unleavened bread, etc), Exodus 34:1-28, but the "Thou Shalt Nots" are mostly from what God said to Moses (Exodus 19:23-20:18).

Some of the quiz commentary is sour-spirited. ("Hah, would a Good God do this?" which assumes that a divine being can be judged by the same standards we use to judge human war criminals, which denies the idea that there might be a bigger picture we can't see.) Other things I've realized are quirks of translation... if you read Judges 1:19 in the KJV it sounds like God can be stymied by chariots made of iron, but more recent translations make a bit more sense. But Jeremiah 10:2-5 seems to be speaking poorly about Christmas Trees, a pretty good trick for the Old Testament.

Finally, logical rebuttals to Pascal's Wager, the idea that since belief in God will save you if there is a god and cost you little if there isn't, you should believe. (Found this link while searching for information about Invisible Pink Unicorns, a jokey strawman religion some online Atheists/Agnostics use to make rhetorical points about faith and proof.)

Incidentally, many of the Bible links above are from The BibleGateway, a really fast and powerful verse look up tool, covering many translations into many languages.

from the T-shirt Archive: #16 of a Tedious Series
Kenneth Cole. A gift from a gay friend. I think it was a bit small for me. Also a bit gay. But stylish! (And 'minimalist', which is always a plus.) Quote of the Moment

Talking and listening to the people in this marketplace is the best way to learn. The trees in the countryside can teach me nothing.

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Image of the Moment

I'm usually not a big "aww, isn't that cute" kind of photographer, but... "aww, isn't that cute?" Taken at a barbecue held by some friends. I love the concerned expression, the "stop with the cameraing and make with the drink-getting!" Link of the Moment
Going along with the other day's theme of Rock, Scissors, Paper, it's an online rendition of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Spock, Lizard. (you can see original game diagram here... Spock vaporizes Rock, smashes Scissors, is disproven by Paper. Lizard eats Paper, is crushed by Rock and decapitated by Scissors. Finally, Lizard poisons Spock.)

This was on the asymmetric.net games page, I also liked the alien math puzzle there. (And the line about the slot machine: "The money you lose is fake, but the time you waste is all too real.")

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A Bad Joke

Q: What does Snoop Dogg use to clean his laundry?
A: Blee-yotch.

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Commercial of the Moment
I already rambled on about how much I love that VW Pink Moon Commercial. They've scored another emotional hit with the wedding themed "Big Day" spot... so many of the VW Commercials make such good use of music, and they tell stories...I hope they sell a hell of a lot of cars. Online Software for the Kirk Friendly Masses
Ok, I've finished up a revamp of k/link, my online bookmark system. This new system is multiuser! Basically, if you think you count as a "Friend of Kirk" drop me a line, and I'll set you up with your own username and password, and you can keep your links online.

K/link has the following features:

• Have the same set of bookmarks at home, work, school, anywhere you have a 'Net connection
• Add a comment to any bookmark (I think it's nice to annotate a link without having to jam it in the link itself)
• An easy 'category'/'subcategory' system lets you easily organize bookmarks in one step, at bookmark creation
• For IE users: a javascript 'bookmarklet' lets you add a single 'Favorite' that grabs the URL, title, and any selected text and stuffs it into the edit form
• Autogeneration of a non-password protected static version of your bookmarks collection. (Like mine!)

I've used a previous, one-user version of this script for years and am very happy with it (although it's not as important as it used to be in my pre-Blog days). Some other people grabbed and started using it too. And you can 'try before you buy'. Go to http://alienbill.com/klink/edit/ with "test" for the username and password. Feel free to add new links, and edit or delete some existing ones (don't go crazy on the deleting, for obvious reasons.) The resulting static page will be at http://alienbill.com/klink/page/test.html. Like I said, if I know you, and you're interested, drop me a line and I'll give you your own account.

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Quote of the Moment

We could smell death... and death could use a mint.

(Nothing else was on...man, did you know those guys had the power to bring aliens back from the dead and repair space station interiors just by linking hands and, I dunno, thinking about it?) Myth about Taxes
You know that tax rebate, them $300 so many of us are getting? T'aint a rebate at all! Rather, it's an advance on next year's refund! Now, it's not all smoke and mirrors; the amount of the refund ties into how much larger they expect people's refunds to be because of changes in the taxcode. Still, they're being pretty quiet about the true nature of the checks people are getting.

UK Teen Myths About Pregnancy:

You can't get pregnant on a boat
You can't get pregnant if you drink a lot of milk
You get pregnant if you take folic acid
Keeping your eyes closed stops you getting pregnant
A boy is only fertile if his testicles feel cold
There's no risk if you're standing on a telephone directory
If you drink a lot of alcohol you won't get a girl pregnant
You can't get pregnant unless you have sex every night
Coke douches work and you can use crisp bags as condoms
You can't get pregnant if you don't have an orgasm
You can't get pregnant if you have sex in the bath

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Quote of the Moment

I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.

I had a brilliant but completely unworkable idea yesterday...wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of slashdot-esque moderation/rating system for drivers? Like, if someone does something nice, you could beam them a point of good karma? Or subtract a point if someone was being a jerk? And you could somehow see someone's rating, on their car? There are many reasons why this system wouldn't work and would be abused, but still, it seemed like a good idea. Sigh, I guess polite driving has to be its own reward.

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Quote of the Moment

There's a lot to be said for a lack of communication and so many problems we can't talk about simply go away after a while, such as the problem of mortality, for example.

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Link of the Moment
This was in slashdot the other day: A Physicist with the Air Force in World War II. I appreciate his cleverness in math, materials, and psychology. Makes me wonder what similar stories there were for the 'bad guys' as well.

from the T-shirt Archive: #17 of a Tedious Series
"Birdpoop". A friend gave this to me. Various bird poops, all labeled. A bit too tacky too actually wear, but...err...a nice color at least. Quote of the Moment

There is no justice in this world. Anyone disagrees, I'll punch their stupid faces in...QED.

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Link of the Moment
Ever have the urge to molest a statue? Reminds me of Henry Miller's narrator in "Tropic of Cancer", talking about being destitute in the city park, getting erections looking at the statues there.

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Dirty Cartoon of the Moment
Why Stick Figures are in danger of dying out:
(via mandirt, one of the statue molesters.) Image of the Moment
We got the wedding picture proofbooks this week, and Mo spent a big chunk of yesterday scanning them all in so long distance friends and family could select what they want prints of. This was probably my favorite picture of the lot:

--copyright 2001 Allison Evans Photography
In some ways it's an odd shot; it's after we all had changed our clothes (though Mo is still in white) and I'm soaking wet, but from the chest up only. (There was a Wrath-of-God style thunderstorm with hail and heavy rain for the last half of the reception.) Plus I have kind of a goofy expression. The photographer says she was just fooling around with a plastic lens camera she has. (No built-in flash, she held the shutter open as the assistant did the flash. I always wonder how photographers got that blurred-but-with-something-well-lit look.) Still, I like the feeling it captures, and it's visually interesting.

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Quote of the Moment

Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.

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'Blackhole' Puzzle





include diag.

size: 3 5 7 9 11 13 15

I found this javascript puzzle I made last year. The goal is to get all the stars 'unlit'. I think; the goal might also be to get all the stars lit, but that's pretty easy. The 3x3 version of this game (you can change the size of the grid with the select box) is pretty trivial. To be honest, I'm not positive the center star -> none game is possible; after 20 minutes of fiddling with it I didn't find the solution. Anyway, assuming you do solve it, you can use the "Random" button to come up with a new puzzle, or see if it's any different if you include the diagonals in. It's kind of fun to play with in any case, messing with the symmetry and asymetry of it. Quote of the Moment

I rehearsed once again in my mind exactly how I would go about making love, changing some details, tossing in a few improvements, and I practiced making ecstatic cries. I'd never made love before and had never cried out in an ecstatic way (except one Christmas when I got a Lionel train, but "Oh, boy, thanks, Mom and Dad" was wrong for sex) and I wanted to do it right.

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Quandry of the Moment

Kirk find out for us in a daily entry why it is that lazy, good for nothing people keep their jobs and those of us that work our tails off get no recognition.

I don't know if I know Ann C. or not. I also don't know if I might not be one of the good for nothings, so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask.

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Quickness Test of the Moment
Test how fast your 'net connection really is. I've always wondered about this, actually, it's kind of reassuring to see. Quote of the Moment

I beat up my boyfriend when he told me he likes sex rodeo style! I asked what rodeo style was and he said "I'll show you". He got in me from behind and then whispered "your sister likes it like this too" - then he tried to stay on for 8 seconds!

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Link of the Moment
Actually, lowbrow.com is the link of the moment. An interesting site, people posting their humiliating or just plain dumb moments. You can reload and reload and hardly ever get any repeats. For a while I was amazed at the consistency and quality of the works, but they've been slipping lately, especially with some schmuck who doesn't really get the idea but posts a hell of a lot: "sorry_e_e@hotmail.com". (He (or she) tends to rip off the style of Don Marquis more than e.e.cummings, actually.) Still, I like it because it's generally always an interesting way of spending a few minutes, but it doesn't really tend to suck me in.

from the T-shirt Archive: #18 of a Tedious Series
"NEOSA tanktop". Camp Neosa was my summer bandcamp during middle school and high school. (NEOSA stands for North East Ohio Salvation Army.) I had some great times there, from my first girlfriend to the reign of the Water Mafia (I still have the old combined WM logo from that) which is part of why I was so partial to this shirt. Weapons
Salon on why zero tolerance in schools sucks. Typical anecdote: "An arbitrary search of his car by school officials in the spring revealed no drugs, but a scraper and pocketknife that his father had inadvertently left there the night before when he was fixing the rearview mirror. Despite anguished pleas of extenuating circumstances by the desperate father, the school system has so far adamantly insisted that automatic punishments for weapon possession in school are inviolate." Isn't that awesome? Once in third grade some guy gave me a moneyclip with a tiny little foldout pocketknife in it, and I was showing it to the other kids, and the dumbass bully (Tim Brown, I think) managed to cut himself with it. I was amazed at how seriously the principal took it... I'd hate to think what would've happened now. I mean jeez! Zero tolerance for guns, yes-- though even that would be problematic in some rural communities, but knives in any way shape or form? Maybe they can ban books as well, they're so big and hefty with those sharp corners, you could really do some damage.

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Kittens
Heh. PETA is really ticked about a video this site had, where a very small kitten is shown slaughtered (in the clinical sense) and then fried up in a wok. Now, PETA in general has a reasonably consistent stance on not eating animals, but I don't see what's so bad about a video, or a young cat. I think the fuss has more to do with this quote from the tick:
"Eating kittens is just plain...plain wrong! And no one should do it, ever!"
then any real moral issue. But the fact is we as a culture eat some animals, and other cultures eat other animals. Having a videocamera on either doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

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Calories
Science, is there anything it can't do? The other day I bought a bottle of CALORIE FREE BLUE CHEESE DRESSING! It's by this company. And on their Dressings Order Page, you can even get Calorie-Free "Hot Bacon" or "Bacon Ranch"! That blows my mind! Almost as much as the lovely veggie woman to the left, lovingly stolen from their frontpage. This is truly an age of miracles, I never would've guessed they could Diet Coke-ize the thing that make salads so bearable. They have zero calorie chocolate syrup as well. Advice of the Moment

Conversations not to have when pulled over for speeding by a Georgia state trooper:
"Lookie here, darlin', nobody blows through Georgia that fast."
"Sherman did."

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Adventure of the Moment
Got between $3000-$8000 burning a hole in your pocket, a strong taste for adventure, and maybe a bit of a deathwish? You too can pilot a Russian jet... (via Portal of Evil)

Their answer to a link labeled "Is this dangerous?":

This is a words of Russian president after Su-27 flight: "Excellent jet" You will make sure that is the real truth!

2001 August❮❮prevnext❯❯