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It's Groundhog Day! Again.

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Like, my God is not an old man in the sky. It's a metaphor. For a mystery. That absolutely transcends all categories of human thought, including being and non-being, but that's too many words for the back of a quarter. That's Joseph Campbell. I got all the best teachers later in life. Like Barry Taylor, the road manager for AC/DC, said, "'God' is the name of the blanket we put over the mystery to give it a shape." Shouldn't I have learned that... in church? Why am I learning this from Barry Taylor...the road manager for AC/DC?

But it doesn't matter if you're an atheist or a theist. I actually think we're all kind of in the same boat. Really I do.

Some people think God created the universe. Some people think Nothing created the universe... which is the funniest guess.

And the nothing people make fun of the God people. They say, "God doesn't exist". I'm like, "okay, maybe". But you know what definitely doesn't exist? NOTHING. That's the defining characteristic of nothing, is that it doesn't exist.

So what are we talking about? Either you think it's God... something you can't see touch taste photograph and science can't prove, or you think it's nothing... something you can't see touch taste photograph and science can't prove. But I think we can all agree, if your nothing sometimes spontaneously erupts into everything, that's a pretty goddamn magical fucking nothing, you guys.

And ask... ask the "nothing" people "what happens when you die?" They'll tell you "Nothing. You go into nothing." I'm like, "You mean you merge back with your creator? ...That's heaven, bitch."

So no one, no matter what you believe, you shouldn't be afraid to die. 'Cause if you go into nothing, and one of the things nothing does is explode into EVERYTHING, nothing isn't the end, it's just a pit stop on the way to a new beginning. Let's pray. "Heavenly Father, you are in fact no-thing..."

(I previously quoted the first bit, but realized the second part is a nice and sympathetic issue of the hand waving both sides do. The God people don't want you to ask "then what created God", the Nothing people need to believe that "maybe nothing is, like, unstable" - which still implies some kind of something of a framework...)

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layoffs.fyi tells me dot-com-bust-ii is still ongoing and it's a miserable time for techies, though the US added many jobs in January.

Still I wanted to add this image I ran into on tumblr after failing to search for it a few weeks ago, about how productivity growth and wages have violently forked, starting in the late 70s.

The punchline of the musical "Hello, Dolly" is that mean old Vandergelder share's Dolly's view that "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow.". I think even that racist anti-semite Henry Ford got that paying better wages is better than waiting for "trickle down" to magically occur.

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A history of MAD

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via Statista - I've really been wondering about this chart, especially hearing how the USA added a surprising chunk of jobs in January.

Tech jobs took a massive hit at the start of quarantine but was back where it was in about a year - and kept on going.

This chart makes it look we're still about about where we might have been otherwise, but this is as of October 2023... and I haven't seen too many signs that the roller coaster back down leveled out or resumed its ascension. It's groundhog day. Again.

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There are certain words you don't want to see in a weather discussion, such as "historical."

It's Groundhog Day. Again.

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Or should I have said, Groundhog Day too. two two two-two.

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Never tell a tiny frog wizard the odds. Tiny frog wizards do not understand statistics.

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The fact that our fingernails are naturally color coded to shows us exactly how far we can trim them down without injuring ourselves doesn't get enough credit.

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Papers "Academia.edu" thinks I may have written (an ongoing list):

• "2P062 Heme Binding Affinity of Iron Response Regulator (Irr) and its Regulation Mechanism"
• "Prevention of relapse of histoplasmosis with fluconazole in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome"
• "Prevalence of Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis in Children, Zahedan, Iran"
• "Life Writing (2010)"
• "Names and Stories: Emilia Dilke and Victorian Culture"
• "Phase II Trial of 10-Edam in Patients with Advanced Colorectal Carcinoma"
• "Foresight and hindsight: The case of the telephone"

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My favorite Nintendo DS deep cut - Electroplankton

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I was having this discussion
In a taxi heading downtown
Rearranging my position
On this friend of mine who had

A little bit of a breakdown
I said breakdowns come
And breakdowns go
So what are you going to do about it

That's what I'd like to know

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Why Britain Brexited While I don't think Brexit is a good thing (not to mention the lies told to drive it) this article goes into how over the past half-century the issues of control (internall) vs influence (externally) involved have come up in different forms...

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Happy Palindrome Day!

Regardless of if you write the date DMY, MDY, or YMD, the date will still be a palindrome (02/02/2020 or 2020/02/02). This (a palindromic date on the Gregorian Calendar regardless of date formatting) won't happen again until 12/12/2121 on the Gregorian Calendar.

On top of this mathematical palindromy, today is the 33rd day of the year with 333 days left in a year. This "super palindrome" will never happen again on the Gregorian Calendar

It's groundhog day. Again.

Last month was ok for music. 4+5 star stuff in red...

One 5 star:

• Think (About It) (Lyn Collins) The song "it takes two" sampled from. Such a variety of multilayered funk going on in there....

A lot of hip hop (much of it kind of raunchy) last month:

• Young, Wild & Free (feat. Bruno Mars) (Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa) CarGurus got Snoop Dogg to do their holiday party (!)
• Twerk (feat. Cardi B) (City Girls) Cardi B is in the news!
• Bad Boy For Life (Black Rob, Mark Curry & P. Diddy) - Brady and Gronk, usually on offense, were kinda big D in this instagram but I got to
• We Ready (Archie Eversole) - this song is making the rounds in an NFL commercial
• Ti**ies (feat. Tech N9ne) (Krizz Kaliko) - the video I saw this on was NSFW, but I appreciate the exuberance.
• Scuse Me (Lizzo) I think I saw this on "Broad City" - it's so repetitive that I almost bumped it down, but now I kind of like it.

Two songs my honk band is working on:

• Easy (The Brass Funkeys) - we're basically playing is arrangement straight up.
• Joy to the World (Little Richard) - change of pace from the Three Dog Night version - lotsa monologue to kick it off....

Most of the rest came from shows I watched -

• Cool Water (Tim Blake Nelson) - If you haven't seen "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" (and you don't mind very dark humor) you should....
• Yub Nub (Star Wars cover) (Jordan D. White) Looked this up after watching RotJ (unfortunately the director's cut leaves it out.)
• Pins and Needles (Margaret Glaspy) - she opened for Neko Case
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Regina Spektor) - I didn't actually watch the movie this was made for, but Spektor doing an asian-tinged cover of such a good song is amazing.
• The Hero (from "One-Punch Man") (Tsuko G.) Really liked this anime.
• Remember Me (Lullaby) (from "Coco") Coco was a lovely Dia de Muertos animated movie... highly recommended
• Jálale (Instrumental) (Mexican Institute of Sound) I think the skeleton DJ was playing this at a party in Coco...

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[For Trump] dominance does seem to rank at the top. "I love to crush the other side and take the benefits," he wrote in a book called Think Big. "Why? Because there is nothing greater. For me it is even better than sex, and I love sex." He went on to observe: "You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win. That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal you win--not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself."

LOL President Conan the Barbarian - "What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

This is why he ok as a reality tv star or WWE guest, and a shit politician. I pray to god he is bluffing with declaring a damn national emergency... declaring national emergencies - like to paraphrase Archer: “DO YOU WANT A BANANA REPUBLIC DICTATOR? BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU GET BANANA REPUBLIC DICTATORS.”

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"Oof, it's 18 degrees out!"
"That's not enough degrees. We need more degrees."

On his blog and podcast, John Gruber is delighted by this Steve Jobs anecdote by Bethany Bongiorno:

At one point Steve wanted to turn UIKit elements orange. Not just any orange, he wanted a particular orange from the button on a certain old Sony remote. We got a bunch of remotes from Sony with orange buttons to try and find the right one. In the end, Steve hated it.

Gruber describes it as one of the greatest concise Steve Jobs stories and how there's this philosophy of "Strong opinions loosely held."

I have a hard time with that, that there can be so little correlation between how strongly you feel about something and your tenacity in keeping to that belief. It's difficult for me to think of an opinion as "just" a subjective opinion, and not "one's best guess as to what is objectively best or true".

I guess I can allow myself...preferences, more so than opinions?

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It's Groundhog Day. Again.

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The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt--
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

It's Groundhogs Day. Again. Aw jeez. Cruz is a "sweet lovin' son of a preacher man" too? Dammit. Lets hope this doesn't get out.

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January 2016 One Second Everyday

Besides the usual "lots of music", I liked the aquarium in the 9th and the slow motion water bubbler on the 30th.

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Obama fortifying East to deter Putin. This doesn't feel like a good idea to me, just feeding into Russia's paranoia about our possible intentions on offense.

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How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off Intriguing.... besides obvious possible suggestions for my friends-with-kids, I think about how much I love the concept of "JUST MAKE A GAME DO IT NOW NOW NOW" of http://glorioustrainwrecks.com/ . I gotta get back to that site. January was a low quantity, high quality month for new music finds

****:

• Ghost of Stephen Foster (Squirrel Nut Zippers) The menace of this song! And the awesome early-animation-style video. I wish I knew what "if we were made of cellophane we'd all get stinkin' drunk much faster" meant.
• Log Driver's Waltz (feat. Ann Downey) (John Kirk, Dan Berggren & Chris Shaw) I grabbed a different version of the song, but this cartoon is terrific. I love the subtle suggestiveness of the lyrics "What pleases her most from her head to her toes / She'll say, "I'm not sure that it's business of yours", "A log driver's waltz pleases girls completely", and the "again" in "And when the drive's over, if he asks me again, I think I will marry my log driver"
• Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) (Mark Ronson) Slate's analysis of this song sounds about right: The early 80s sound that never hit the top of the pop charts finally there.
• Feeling Alright (Joe Cocker) For dumb reasons I dug up the Dave Mason version of this earlier, but Joe Cocker's piano and bongos version is more awesome.

***:

• Love Is Endless (Mozella) ADmittedly this is the McDonalds shortened version... but I love all the characters they threw into it!
• Fat Bottom Girls (Live) (Tufts sQ!) I'm in with the alums singing this on stage at Tufts' Goddard Chapel.
• Good Times Bad Times (Led Zeppelin) I don't like much of the guitar rock genre, but they have a lot of percussion stuff going on.
• Stupid Hoe (Nicki Minaj) Much of her music and her delivery is so great. She is "the female weezy"
• The Chills (Peter Bjorn and John) An older(ish) song? But good.
• I Want To Hold Your Hand (Al Green) Somehow a little better in theory than practice.

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We were on defense.

Even when goaded with the "hypothetically", he's all "we're different teams". New songs added. More "clumped" than some months, with a big row of awesome female vocalist cover and originals.

Soft Covers and Female Vocalists

• Hold Me Tight (Scraps) Heard this track in in merrit kopas' HUGPUNX, a hugging simulator
• Black Horse and the Cherry Tree + Seven Nation Army (KT Tunstall) More acoustic covers... I had know idea KT Tunstall had that accent.
• Seven Nation Army (Vyvienne Long) A woman, a cello, a great cover.
• Toxic (Juliet Turner) Terrific acoustic cover of a pretty good song.
• Listen to Your Heart (Edmee's Unplugged Vocal Edit) (DHT) Shmaltzy, but I like it.
• Material Girl (Walk Off the Earth)
• Love Has Come for You (Steve Martin & Edie Brickell) Banjo and one of the sweetest voices in music.

Harsh and/or In Need of Justification

• Techno Syndrome (Tha Immortals) MORTAL KOMBAT... (if it's good enough for Batman....)
• Shake a Lil' Somethin' (2 Live Crew) Really, Kirk?
• Timber (feat. Ke$ha) (Pitbull) The Cotton-Eye Joe for our time.
• Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Kevin and the Octaves) After struggling to id this song that was in my head, I decided I preferred a shortened rock cover.
• Vato (Snoop Dogg featuring B-Real) About twice as long as it should be, but a nice loop.
• Woke Up This Morning (Vinne Pauleone and the Ba Da Bing Orchestra) Been on a Sopranos kick.

Classics of their Time

• Army Life (Leadbelly) I remember hearing this on M*A*S*H... and Leadbelly is an important figure.
• Stayin' Alive (Bee Gees) Had this in a few mashups, but the original is pretty good.
• Get a Job (The Silhouettes) My friend Zack in middle school sang a variation of this.
• Doo Wop (That Thing) (Lauryn Hill) Pretty cool video.

Other

• Kids In America (Tiffany) Not sure why I liked Tiffany's version more than Kim Wilde's original.
• Caravan (Fanfare Ciocarlia) Saw these guys live at Johnny D's-- great brass band from Romania!

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Too early to ask the Carroll vs Belichick thing? #kiddingithink It's Groundhogs Day. Again.

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Either I am losing my mind, or my aunt's new laptop just ate a printer driver CD, causing it to vanish without a trace. (It will still accept a new CD, and shining a flashlight into the open slot reveals nothing.) I am not exaggerating when I saw it is causing me to challenge some of my assumptions about the laws of time, space, and physical objects. It's like a magic trick I pulled on myself somehow, and hell if I know how I did it. (Maybe I should try pulling it out from my aunt's ear, or something.)
Wow, sister painting of "Mona Lisa" found?

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We just got a Roku 2 XD box. (A bit like the AppleTV, for streaming.) It's so wee! And the UI so charmingly sparse- nicer than the PC we had hooked up to the tv for Netflix and Hulu etc.

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http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/02/01/darkness/ - best 24 hour comic I've seen. Really great.

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The videogame EDF:Insect Armageddon and how it Fails to Go Up to 11. Click to see:
sredavnicity source - built with processing

One final miniproject based on sredavni -- we came up with a cute little city generator, and this applet just scrolls it forever.

This applet has a secret though - each piece also has a destroyed version, so if you press the mouse, you see the alternate-reality, post-apocalyptic view of the city.

Again, I think the city pieces are mostly the work of Kelly Atwood.

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Really, sex and laughter do go very well together and I wondered-- and I still do-- which is more important.

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http://tinyurl.com/yf73ff9 Norman Rockwell, The Photographer

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http://strn.gr/1459327 http://bit.ly/hyOJVn -- Michael Jackson's Stuff. Not as appealing as the old shots of his arcade, but still.

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Cracked pointed me to info on Octave Chanute - besides being an information sharing aviation pioneer, he has a totally awesome name.

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http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/mickey-mantles-outstanding-experience.html - it's fellatio.

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Snow moval is a much more accurate term than snow removal. #justpushingitaround #SnOMG

--Ah, Spike Jones. Warning, the goofy noises starting around 1:38 can get stuck in your head.

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Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.

Sometimes I'm worried I've taken that idea too much to heart.

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http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/02/tf-the-illuminati.html - on Mike Warnke (can't believe I got suckered by him too...) and Tim "Left Behind" LaHaye

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7 is the W of the numbers ten and under. Maybe we could all start abbreviating it to "sev".

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Oh and Happy Groundhog Day. Again.

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http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n12/htdocs/berkeley-breathed-273.php - Bloom County Berkeley Breathed, nice counter point to yesterday's Calvin and Hobbes retrospective interview.

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http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html - but, UI wonks, if you're thinking of "Fitts' Law" first, you've already lost the game.

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Slogan idea... "Toyota: You Can't Stop Us!" (I guess it's not much worse than their old "Toyota. Moving Forward.")

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With poorly documented, under-studied, or forgotten APIs, a coder's sole hope is to guess at what SHOULD be there and go find evidence of it- bad luck if you think differently than the person who wrote it...
FLING - relaunching soon

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http://klausler.com/cargo.html - the "American Cargo Cult". A bit facile, but some good points, esp. re: celebrity and "authority"

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Sitting at "Jam N Java", a cafe w/ wifi in Arlington. Place is pretty hopping at 10:30! The semi-social aspect is nice, kind of new to me. Yay. Weekend.

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Blog of the Moment

--from the FAIL blog - the Fail macros are kind of a cousin of LOLCats. Funny stuff, if sometimes in a kind of mean way.

Huh. I need to figure out how to make that kind of lettering, with the outlines...

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Bryson of the Moment
So Bryson talks about Thomas Midgely Jr., an Ohio inventor ("with an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny") who brought us both leaded gasoline (great for stopping engine knock, but does terrible things to people, especially children... and the industry's coverup makes the tobacco lobby look like a bunch of saints) and chlorofluorocarbons, aka CFCs (again with a laudable goal, a stable, nonflammable, non-corrosive, and safe-to-breathe gas that might have prevented a 1929 refrigerator leak at a Cleveland Hospital that killed over a hundred -- but the damage these things have wrecked on the ozone layer is horrendous!)

Unfortunately, it's hard to make a punchy illustration for the FAIL of CFCs and leaded gas...

I was awoken this morning by an odd sound... the school across the street must have been having a fire drill or some kind of mass field trip, because there were tons of kids right in front of the apartment. I'm not sure why the sound of it was so striking, maybe just because my brain wasn't that awake, but all those voices merged... it was different than, say, a typical audience murmur, because some of the kids were shouting and what not. For some reason it was odd how you could pick out individual voices (thought none of the words) but was also one big burble.

Hmm. Apparently I can think like a stoned hippy first thing in the morning.

Oh hey, is it Groundhog's Day? My favorite not-quite-a-holiday!

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Video of the Moment

--When Harry Met Sally: The Psychological Thriller. Brilliant recut.
Sometimes it hits me that making even normal movies trailers must be an interesting challenge.

So....next week I'm in Washington D.C., baby!

Oh, and lest I forget... here's how to Celebrate Groundhog Day. I've always loved this day, even before the movie that goes along with it.

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Gross Education of the Moment
How a Hen Lays Her Egg...a lot of detail. A little gross in a too-much-detail kind of way, but interesting. (via Candi.)

Man... that can't tickle.

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Speculation of the Moment

Finally, many readers weighed in on the topic of why time seems to accelerate as we age. Don Scott suggested, "When we are younger, each unit of passing time is fractionally larger. One year of my 16-year-old daughter's life is 1/16th of her total life span, while one year of my life is 1/46th, which is why it seemed to her to take forever to get her driver's license, and it seems to me like I just got mine." He adds, "At least for us older readers it will seem like no time before the 2006 season starts." Deanna Julich of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, similarly supposed, "As we age, each year seems to pass faster because it becomes a smaller percentage of the life already lived. When you're four, a year is 25 percent of your life, so it feels like a long time. When you're 25, like I am, a year is four percent of the life you've lived. When you're 63, a year is only 1.58 percent of your life. Each unit of time seems to go by faster because it shrinks as a portion of your life." Barry Fox of Helena, Mont., adds, "To a three-year-old, living until the fourth birthday requires living 33 percent of their entire life span again. To a 60-year-old the same year represents less than two percent of life span. The 60-year-old would need to live to 80 to pass through 33 percent of life span again -- and that too would seem like quite a long time." Don Kemler of Alkmaar, the Netherlands, supposes it's not the passage of time but changes in the supply we are sensing: When there's a lot of your own life ahead, time seems plentiful and when there's less ahead, time seems scarce. Sean Thompson of Burton, Ohio, supposes that with each passing year, we have more memories; the memories get stacked and squeezed in our brains and hence seem closer together. Douglas Harms of Hollywood, Calif., supposes, "As we grow older, we gain more responsibilities and unavoidable nuisances that must be dealt with; nothing makes valuable time disappear faster than a set of dodge-proof chores." Greg Miskin of Bellevue, Wash., suggests time seems to accelerate because we become accustomed to its passage: "The first occasion you drive to a new location seems to take a long time. Subsequent trips pass more quickly. This can be attributed to the amount of attention paid during the first trip that is not required afterward. During the first run, we don't know what is important so we pay attention to everything. After the first time, the mind only needs to keep track of the few significant landmarks. Much of life is this way." Ken Leiphart of Camp Hill, Pa., supposes, "Time drags when you are a kid because you can't wait to grow up, then flies when late in life because you'd much rather not get older."

That last speculation gets, I fear, to the core of the matter. When we're young, we want time to speed up and therefore it crawls. When we're old, we want time to slow down and therefore it flies. Nature's revenge is giving us the opposite of our wish. My 10-year-old, Spenser, cannot wait for VI:XXXVIII Eastern on Sunday and the start of the Super Bowl -- he says it's taking much too long. From my perspective, kickoff will come all too soon.

Some neat theories in there I thought. So, the laptop seems more or less fine...a little stinky, and some of the keys were a bit sluggish 'til I exercised them. I wonder if any local PC place does laptop cleaning. Nick mentions "you should be able to clean your keyboard by washing thoroughly with de-ionised water then letting it dry completely". It sounds like some people even dunk components and then let them dry, which would be a lot easier than prying stuff apart. I'm not sure how well it would get at the beer residue however.

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Link of the Moment
Finally back from a recent thorough slashdotting, OSviews on Apple's Top Ten Flops. It seems a little mean-spirited to focus on the failures on a company that has done such neat stuff, but it's still an interesting article.

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News of the Moment

--Photo of alleged abducted US Soldier "John Adam" that looks suspiciously similar to a GI Joe-like toy sold in the area. Wouldn't it be great if the whole situation in Iraq really has deteriorated into a big "I Love Lucy" episode?

Happy groundhogs day!

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Photo of the Moment

--Dreaming of warmer weather...Lena and Bjorn's summer vacation. I love this picture.

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Poem of the Moment

When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
Wretched, bored, dejected; only
Here's the rub, my darling dear,
I feel the same when you are here.

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Controversy of the Moment
So at the end of the overall pretty lame Superbowl halftime show, Justin Timberlake reached over to Janet Jackson's rip-away top, pulled, and her right breast was exposed, for national tv to see for 2 or 3 seconds before they cut away. Supposedly accidentally and all that, but yeah right. If you're interested, Drudge has the story with a few photos. The most striking thing is the nipple ring she was wearing, some weird spiky sun shaped thing that circled the entire nipple. (Which makes you wonder, why would she be wearing that if there was no plan on it being seen...)

Now, I don't think anyone would think I'm a prude, but come on; if something is going to be billed as family entertainment, it should be free of this kind of crap...along with the entire PG13 pseudo-burlesque semi-sexuality of the rest of the performance. I could almost see a moslem cleric pointing to this kind of thing as Where The West Is...tits a-flying on our internationally televised sporting events. And not only that, but it was such a stinker of a halftime show...so many of this songs were from years ago, but not long enough that there's warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia or anything. Janet Jacksons Rhythm Nation was like 19991989 thanks Eric, this was probably the first work Puff Daddy--err, P.Diddy--had in years, etc etc. The only part I liked is that they had some nice integration with the (University of Houston?) marching band, especially the drumline.

Ah well. I actually missed the exposure on television, my interest in the spectacle evaporating when "surpise guest" Justin Timberlake showed up, though I saw the video of it later. (I like Justin's description of the problem: "wardrobe malfunction") And it was a nice bit of bobble...it's just annoying that it's going to dominate the conversation of what was in many ways one hell of a good football game.

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Article of the Moment
An article on the differences in the corporate cultures of various countries, and how they might impact international collaborative software efforts. I always dig hearing about this stuff...it really makes you think of how many of the conventions you think of as logical and "just normal" are really rather arbitrary and culture-specific. I don't mean to discount the loss our nation feels, but man, the media is back in no-news-news-mode:
"This just in--Space Shuttle still destroyed!"
"Breaking news--a lot of people are greatly saddened, and saying so!"
"Newsflash! Those astronauts were brave and will be missed."
This is going to be a long, slow investigation. Definite answers aren't going to come quickly or easily. If we don't get back to our regularly scheduled programming, the unknown structural damage and hitting the atmosphere at 18 times the speed of sound will have won...

I guess it won't last though. Bush'll push this to the backburner as soon as he thinks he can get away with it to make way for his big (war) drum solo.

I guess the tragedy has kind of pushed Groundhog's Day to the backburner. No front page coverage of Punxsutawney Phil today. (More winter...not surprised, given the slush I was shovelling this morning.)

Oh, and Dylan of the Sidebar has decided to pick on my putting the punctuation outside the quotation marks yesterday. Yes, it's true I adhere to the UK standard rather than the US standard in this matter, mostly because it makes sense to my programmer side. What's inside the marks should be what's quoted. Letting the punctuation drift inside just because it looks better, even though it's not what's being quoted, rubs me the wrong way.

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Inappropriate Funny of the Moment

"I have to admit I get a little angry when I read about the starving family consisting of a mother, father, and TWENTY-THREE children.
For Christ's sake, lady! It's a vagina, not a clown car!"

A funny line, though it lacks the grace of Groucho's supposed response to a lady in a similar situation who said "Well, because I love my children and I think that's our purpose here on Earth, and I love my husband."
"I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."
More information on that at snopes urban legends site. Also, an even less raunchy and more versatile response that was definitely on the air:
"Well, I like pancakes, but I haven't got closetsful of them..."

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Adult Link of the Moment
As long as I'm already out of due-respect mode, I might as well go for broke. It's IMDb's raunchy cousin: the Celebrity Nudity Database. On the one hand, it has the rather depressing tendency to think of all movies on a single scale: "how much celebrity skin is there?" -- and the comments reflect this. On the other hand...well, I've always finding the occasional sex scene in normal movies as opposed to just watching porn. Somehow seeing sex as a facet of a fully realized character captures my interest more than "I've come to fix the sink" "Ooh I'll show you where you can lay your pipe" wawow-chikka-wow-wow...it's probably akin to me preferring women in tanktops and jeans than in fancy lingerie.

Come to think of it, the comments are pretty amusing "This was a horrible movie to sit through for nudity." "I've seen her breasts so many times on film I feel like I've slept with her." "It's obvious who her fans are, but jeezus folks, let's be real. Here we rate the quality of the NUDITY (of which there is none), so as to not lead people into thinking there is more than exists. This scene barely deserves one star, just because of the major hard nip action"

It's like that guy in "Throw Momma From The Train" who's writing a book "100 Women I'd Like To Pork". Hmm, this is one of the more interesting full dates for Groundhogs Day that I've seen in a while, 2002/02/02.

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Link of the Moment
Drokk.com has been sitting in my back log since July. There's a lot of good stuff here...trouser ads from the 60s, creepy cards, and disgusting homestyle food. I think my dad (who came in second in the men's division of a national counter cross-stitch competition) would have appreciated the dungbeetle cross-stitch project.

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Quote of the Moment

When turkeys mate, they think of swans.

Link of the Moment
www.ventrella.com is a site by Jeffrey Ventrella. I took a class from him in Artificial Life (simulating life on a computer, usually by starting with simple rules and hoping to see some complex, lifelike behavior) at Tufts' innovative Experimental College. The site has a variety of artsy little projects. One of the coolest things there is a program for Windows called Gene Pool. Little multisegmented critters, like the two fellas shown here, swim and evolve. Each is defined my a few numbers, the joints you can see, plus a few sine wave like rules that control how their 'muscles' push against the water they swim in. The eat and reproduce, and eventually evolve into very efficient swimmers. You can select what the population generally finds attractive in a mate, and changing that variable lets you different features prominent in the evolutionary mix. Very cool stuff.

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Followup
Heh, you know what? If yesterday's wrinkle thing really became an issue, I could always get a facelift! I don't think I ever would, but it's nice when there's a solution to a 'big life problem' waiting in the wings, even if you'd never want to use it...

Ahh, cleared out my inbox in Pine. That always makes life feel a little less chaotic.