The Post-Postmodernist

Medical Humor

2010-08-05T22:57:00.001-07:00

Our first app... look for it to be coming to a late night talk show near you.

Earth in 250 Million Years

2007-09-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

From Astronomy Picture of the Day comes this look into the future of Pangeia that closely resembles its past...

About 250 million years from now, the plates are again projected to reposition themselves so that a single landmass dominates.

The above simulation from the PALEAOMAP Project shows this giant landmass: Pangea Ultima.

At that time, the
>Atlantic Ocean will be just a distant memory, and whatever beings inhabit Earth will be able to walk from North America to Africa.

PoMo Heels

2007-09-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Ah my achin' feet.

Mustard Faced Dancing Guy

2007-09-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

In which an internet video successfully walks the tightrope between stupid and funny and makes it across to the other side.

Free Earl

2007-09-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

Check out this video: NBC My Name is Earl / Music Video

Add to My Profile | More Videos

I'm touched to the very bottom of my colon.

Souter Cried Repeatedly After Bush v. Gore

2007-09-04T07:44:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, he didn't resign too, as he threatened to do while blubbering like the momma's boy he turned out to be:

According to Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the Supreme Court, Justice David Souter nearly resigned in the
wake of Bush v. Gore, so distraught was he over the decision that effectively ended the Florida recount and installed George W. Bush as president.

In “The Nine,” which goes on sale Sept. 18, Toobin writes that while the other justices tried to put the case behind them, “David Souter alone was shattered,” at times weeping when he thought of the case. “For many months, it was not at all clear whether he would remain as a justice,” Toobin continues. “That the Court met in a city he loathed made the decision even harder. At the urging of a handful of close friends, he decided to stay on, but his attitude toward the Court was never the same.”

Getting Free Food from Burger King

2007-09-02T00:53:00.000-07:00

On hacking the Burger King couponery:

Miss Teen South Carolina Calls 911

2007-09-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

I personally believe that such miscommunication could never occur in The Iraq if South Africa had never invaded it.

Mythbusters: The Case of the Bull in a China Shop

2007-08-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

That's Not a Screensaver. THIS is a screensaver.

2007-08-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Click image to enlarge, and then save as a screensaver. Just a suggestion.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Portishead

2007-08-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Press the play button at the link to hear TSE himself reading his poem over a sample of Portishead's hypnotic ambient riff.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --
[They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin --
[They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'-- 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
'That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.'

Lasse Gjertson Does it Again

2007-08-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

You remember Lasse. He did these two brilliant vids, with no prior knowledge of how to play either intrument prior to shooting.... thus forever codifiying the expression, "We'll fix it in post."

Piano and Drums

The Real State of the Union Address

2007-08-21T00:14:00.001-07:00

Pure moonbattery, but hilariously great editing.

Touchy, Touchy, Touchy: BBC Changes Plot "To Avoid Offending Muslims"

2007-08-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

The BBC has dropped plans to show a fictional terror attack in an episode of Casualty to avoid offending Muslims.

The first show of the hospital drama's new series was to have featured a storyline about an explosion caused by Islamic extremists.

The stars of Casualty won't be dealing with an explosion caused by Islamic extremists in case it offends Muslims

Now the bomb will be set off by animal rights campaigners instead.

A BBC spokesman said: "With any storyline there are lots of ideas that get put forward but don't make the series."

Usually when they do this, the terrorist becomes a neo-Nazi and/or a rich, white, male, Christian from the South. The big switcheroo this time is that the villain becomes an animal rights activist. This is not going over well, and we know this because the grievance mechanism is firmly in place.

Just out of curiousity, I decided to google the phrase, "to avoid offending [insert religion here], and see who the touchiest religion was, and who the least touchy religion was. I would brag that the home team won the latter title, though to do so would cease to make me a member of that hometeam. Ah, paradox.

Results 1 - 10 of about 18,700 for +"to avoid offending Muslims". (0.17 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 200 for +"to avoid offending Christians". (0.11 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 56 for +"to avoid offending Catholics". (0.39 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 52 for +"to avoid offending atheists". (0.36 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 29 for +"to avoid offending Hindus". (0.32 seconds)
Results 1 - 1 of 1 for +"to avoid offending Buddhists". (0.53 seconds)
Your search - +"to avoid offending Taoists" - did not match any documents.

UPDATE: I know, I know, I somehow left someone off the list. I don't know how, but I did. I guess I got so excited by the Taoist return that I lost my sense of greater purpose. Here ya go, cruisin' in at very distant number #3...

Results 1 - 10 of about 133 for +"to avoid offending Jews". (0.36 seconds)

The Cadaver Calculator

2007-08-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

$3900.00

Mingle² - Dating Site

An Essay by Phillip K. Dick

2007-08-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

...My first story had to do with a dog who imagined that the garbagemen who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food which the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal container. Every day, members of the family carried out paper sacks of nice ripe food, stuffed them into the metal container, shut the lid tightly — and when the container was full, these dreadful-looking creatures came and stole everything but the can.

Finally, in the story, the dog begins to imagine that someday the garbagemen will eat the people in the house, as well as stealing their food. Of course, the dog is wrong about this. We all know that garbagemen do not eat people. But the dog's extrapolation was in a sense logical — given the facts at his disposal. The story was about a real dog, and I used to watch him and try to get inside his head and imagine how he saw the world. Certainly, I decided, that dog sees the world quite differently than I do, or any humans do. And then I began to think, Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world, a world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. And that led me wonder, If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe, it's as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown of communication... and there is the real illness.

I once wrote a story about a man who was injured and taken to a hospital. When they began surgery on him, they discovered that he was an android, not a human, but that he did not know it. They had to break the news to him. Almost at once, Mr. Garson Poole discovered that his reality consisted of punched tape passing from reel to reel in his chest. Fascinated, he began to fill in some of the punched holes and add new ones. Immediately, his world changed. A flock of ducks flew through the room when he punched one new hole in the tape. Finally he cut the tape entirely, whereupon the world disappeared. However, it also disappeared for the other characters in the story... which makes no sense, if you think about it. Unless the other characters were figments of his punched- tape fantasy. Which I guess is what they were.

It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question "What is reality?", to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." That's all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven't been able to define reality any more lucidly.

Great stuff from the master. Read the whole thing.

Laurel and Hardy Go Digital

2007-08-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

This represents the sole time I haven't resented having my browser resized. Also features a different angle (and more, uh, capable performance) of the ol' Man Getting Stuck Inside Giant Balloon trick.

Saving the Best for Last

2007-08-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Like it or not, reality programming is here to stay, because you never know when you're going to get something like this.

Paying the Verizon Bill

2007-08-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE: A most excellent lesson in turnabout-as-fair-play.

Johnny Cash's Rusty Cage

2007-08-19T20:15:00.001-07:00

I'd never heard this song before tonight. What a great song.

The First McDonald's Commercial

2007-08-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

With an extra creepy Ronald McDonald version 1.0, whose magic serving tray magically replenishes itself of hamburgers, fries, and shakes and doubles as a fetching hat.

Judging from this first ad, you would never guess just how hot his daughter turned out to be.

The Most Important Ham in Spain

2007-08-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Talk about pigging out:

World's costliest ham triggers pork envy
By AMANDA RIVKIN, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 18, 2:20 PM ET
ALBURQUERQUE, Spain -

...Hard-core foodies are drooling over the prospect of something truly superlative from Spain, at least in price: a salt-cured ham costing about $2,100 per leg, or a cruel $160 per pound. It's a price believed to make it the most expensive ham in the world.

Don't grab your wallet just yet. And forget about asking for just a slice.

The 2006 Alba Quercus Reserve (as this pricey pork will be known) won't be available until late 2008 and you must buy the whole ham or nothing at all. But that hasn't dissuaded gastronomic Web sites and blogs from buzzing with talk of the farm where it is being produced, likening it to a Mount Olympus of pork.

"It is the most important ham in Spain," adds Pedro Soley, a Barcelona connoisseur who is among the lucky few lining up to buy one. Indeed, this is a limited edition piece: Maldonado will produce just 80 to 100 legs.

...Maldonado has yet to set a price for customers who buy the 13-pound hams directly from him, but the food site Ibergour.com has a dozen for sale at $2,100 each, and is accepting $250 deposits.

Is it ridiculous to pay that for a piece of pig?

No, says Maldonado. A ham like this can be shared among 20 people, he notes, whereas a bottle of the finest wine going for the same amount goes down quickly among just a few.

For four generations, Maldonado's family has been making ham from high-quality hogs in this town of 5,000 in Spain's southwest Extremadura region.

Their herds of black Iberian beauties are kept on a handful of acorn-rich farms in the surrounding meadowlands, walking freely up to 6 miles daily without any swineherds to look after them.

After the pigs are butchered, they are cured in high-grade sea salts and refrigerated at 39 degrees. The salt is wiped off after about 12 days. Over the course of the next three months, the temperature is gradually raised to 68 degrees.

The hams then are brought into one of Maldonado's two warehouse-size cellars where they cure for two years, hanging on a series of interconnected hooks from floor to ceiling, like curtains.

Maldonado will only give a ham the top-grade seal if it passes his olfactory test after the curing process. He drives a small rod through the outer layer of fat and into the meat to see if he considers it up to snuff.

In his cellar, Maldonado drew one of the hams close and rubbed his thumbs gently against the smooth roundness of the ham's firm base.

"Ham provides us with life," he said with a smile.

Bitterroot Fire

2007-08-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

That's a photograph. Definitely click to enlarge. Background:

"This awesome picture was taken in Bitterroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000.The photographer, John McColgan, is a fire behavior analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska. He took the picture with a digital camera. Because he was working at the time he took the picture he cannot profit from it; however, we feel the picture is a once-in-a-lifetime shot and should be shared."

The Civil War in Four Minutes

2007-08-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

I think I may have shown this before, but it's worth a second look. Beautiful and tragic.

Michael Vick's Confession on Video

2007-08-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

Rated PG-13 for strong language and simulated violence perpetrated by McGruff, the Crime Dog.

The Genius of Roger Federer

2007-08-16T15:41:00.001-07:00

Amazing FEDERER Tennis Shot - Click here for more amazing videos

Jimmy Kimmel's Roast of Flavor Flav

2007-08-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Update: Youtube link is dead. Milk and Cookies has the whole routine.

"Flavor Flav is responsible for more homeless black children thane Hurricane Katrina... When I first saw you sitting up there, I thought it was an open casket funeral for James Brown."

Great stuff.

The Philosophy of Alan Watts, as told by the South Park Guys

2007-08-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Hauntening

2007-08-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

an amusing diversion brought to my attention by the willowy Willow at Small Planet Partners.

On Chef Kaz Yamamoto, Xtreme Cuisine and Allegations that Sen. John Kyl Eats Mexican Babies

2007-08-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: HOAX

From a publication begging to be sued out of existence comes the story of extreme cuisine Chef Yamamoto -- whose fans allegedly include Alice Cooper, Angelina Jolie, and Ted Turner -- and whose dishes include Emperor Penguin, Mountain Gorilla, Bichon Frise, and various organ-meats of something called "Mexcan" that is allegedly especially favored by Arizona's Senator, John Kyl.

Yamamoto hails from a country surrounded by water, and nothing in the sea is off limits to the Japanese, including sea urchin, whale meat, and dolphin. I myself ordered whale meat in Tokyo once, and though I didn't think it terribly appetizing, I was intrigued by how easy it was to find in the bustling Japanese capital. As mentioned, Yamamoto is half-Korean, and Koreans continue to delight in the taste of canines, often served in a hearty soup. Dog meat is also popular in China, but then the Chinese really do eat just about everything under the sun, from bird's nest and snake bile to monkey brains and the bronchial tubes of cows.

But Yamamoto is going beyond the pale, traversing boundaries at which even his fellow Asians would surely balk. Everyone's heard about Tom Cruise joking (supposedly) about noshing his newborn baby's placenta and umbilical cord. But placentophagy is nothing new, nor is it illegal to chow down on some umbilical carne asada, as long as it's postpartum, of course. Placenta pâté has long been a part of Yamamoto's repertoire, but it's not the only human flesh he's willing to prepare for customers eager to experiment with cannibalism.

"There many Mexcan immigrant need money," confides Yamamoto during my inspection of his Anthem residence. "Sometime they sell me kidney, arm or leg, or just slice of liver. Very, very expenseeve. These Mexcan never have to work for year, I tell you. And Mexcan liver with onion? Is sooo deleeshus. You must try."

How could I resist? Actually, at another of his clandestine spreads, Yamamoto presented me with three plates, one with a slice of human liver sautéed with onions, another with a hunk of muscle torn from a human leg that had been deep fried, and a third of a side of poached hufu, a faux human flesh product that bills itself as the "Healthy Human Flesh Alternative" (available online at www.eathufu.com).

"I give the hufu to people who don't wanna eat Mexcan," claims Yamamoto. "Hufu not bad, but nothing like real Mexcan."

I sample a bit of each, and I must admit that Yamamoto is correct. Mexican liver is exquisite, a thousand times tastier than its bovine counterpart. The leg muscle was a little chewy, sort of like gnawing on a fried chicken gizzard, but not bad. ("Marlon Brando and Phil Gordon only person who really love leg muscle; they like on bone and then rip off with teeth. Moan in pleasure, then spit out gristle. I serve Brando many time at Hollywood home. Mayor Phil very good customer here. Say Mexcan better than osso buco.") As for the hufu, it was awfully gelatinous in places, and blubbery. I don't think broiling was the best way to go, but Yamamoto says hufu is too fatty to fry, though sometimes he does this, and ends up with bits of meat similar to lardons, which he will then add to a salad.

The whole thing seems so Sweeney Todd-ish to me. Like something out of that 1973 sci-fi cannibal flick Soylent Green. But apparently, there have been precedents in real life as well. Why, New Times' own Paul Rubin, recent winner of the Arizona Press Club's Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award, wrote a series of articles beginning in April 2003 ("Rent a Patient," April 24, 2003) exposing a health-insurance scam involving Mexican immigrants receiving unnecessary surgeries for cold, hard cash. The only difference here is that the desired organs are refrigerated for later consumption.

As if these revelations were not bizarre enough, I'm a bit grossed out by Yamamoto's admission that he has an unsavory agreement with some local mortuaries to harvest kidneys and other internal organs for him from children and teenagers who have died in car accidents. But Yamamoto's ultimate desire to prepare the most unthinkable of dinners is what really sends shivers down my spine.

"One day I hope I can cook whole Mexcan," sighs Yamamoto. "Maybe baby Mexcan that mother sell to me. Then I make for my good friend Jon Kyl. I know Senator will like to eat Mexcan. He only like Mexcan when on his dinner plate."

I at first hoped he was joking, but Yamamoto was not smiling.

Despite the patronage of Senator Kyl, I suspect the days of Le Menu are numbered, but until Yamamoto flees for Europe, one step ahead of Sheriff Arpaio or the feds, his black-market banquets will continue unabated for those with the bankroll and gall to consume endangered species and even human flesh with all the aplomb of swells sipping rare vintages at the Pointe Hilton or The Phoenician. As Yamamoto knows, when it comes to pleasing adventurous palates, pretty much anything goes.

I See a Full Moon A-Risin'

2007-08-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

Sacre Bleu!

2007-08-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

What's the French word for vertigo?

Spare Me My Life!

2007-08-12T13:00:00.001-07:00

How the Japanese learn English. This seems to be real. Who knew violent assault could be so funny?

Patches the Wonder Horse

2007-08-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

This is years old, but I just ran across it again, which was a pleasure.

Confessions of a BBC Liberal

2007-08-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

BBC legend Sir Antony Jay, John Cleese's partner in the brilliant Media Arts company, reflects on the effect of media on changing British views about authoritarianism from when he was a pre-WW2 child, to now:

We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual elite, full of ideas about how the country should be run. Being naive in the way institutions actually work, we were convinced that Britain’s problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge of the country.

This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world.

We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. We also had an almost complete ignorance of market economics. That ignorance is still there. Say “Tesco” to a media liberal and the patellar reflex says, “Exploiting African farmers and driving out small shopkeepers.” The achievement of providing the range of goods, the competitive prices, the food quality, the speed of service and the ease of parking that attract millions of shoppers does not register on their radar.

Happy Frank Zappa Day!

2007-08-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Frank Zappa Day Declared
08/09/07
.
(PR) Thursday, August 9th is Frank Zappa Day in Baltimore, MD, as proclaimed by Mayor Sheila Dixon. Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore in 1940 and, coincidentally, wrote and recorded a song entitled “What's New In Baltimore?” Dweezil Zappa, his son, is bringing the ongoing Zappa Plays Zappa/“Tour de Frank” to the Ram’s Head Tavern there on the day designated to honor his late father. Far from a “tribute band,” Zappa Plays Zappa underscores the compositional genius of Frank Zappa much as a symphony orchestra would perform pieces by a master composer.

The Mayor’s proclamation, to be presented at the concert reads, in part, “The City of Baltimore is proud of its rich musical heritage, and is honored to claim the prolific composer, musician, author, and film director Frank Zappa as a native of our fair city; and

WHEREAS, Frank Zappa’s artistry involved many musical genres, including rock, jazz, electronic, and symphonic music, and his lasting impact has left an indelible mark on the art and all those who attempt to follow in his footsteps; and

WHEREAS, Frank Zappa has received world-wide recognition for his talents and innovation and defense of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States of America; and

WHEREAS, representing the Zappa Family, Dweezil Zappa is here today to embody his father’s music and legacy on stage for the first time in Baltimore, making this an appropriate day to honor Frank Zappa’s memory and his many great accomplishments.”

Dweezil’s self-imposed mission is to bring Frank Zappa’s music back to the live concert stage, explaining, “I think my Dad's music deserves to be heard by a wider audience. I really think he's been misunderstood for far too long, which brings me back to why I'm doing this: I'm so in awe of his accomplishments and want more and more people to know about him, and I think the best way for people to first discover his music is on a visceral level in a live situation. I think you have to be confronted with the complexity and the beautiful subtlety of all of it to fully appreciate the artistry of it."

Kevin Mitnick's Business Card

2007-08-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

The world's most famous ex-hacker/computer genius is also either a marketing genius or has hired one.

Or, he had a LOT of time to think of what his next business card would look like while he was inside.

That's a lock-picking set, for those terminally uninformed in the ways and means of criminals.

Singing Tesla Coil

2007-08-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

via youtube:

This is a solid-state Tesla coil. The primary runs at its resonant frequency in the 41 KHz range, and is modulated from the control unit in order to generate the tones you hear.

So just to explain a little further, yes, it is the actual high voltage sparks that are making the noise. Every cycle of the music is a burst of sparks at 41 KHz, triggered by digital circuitry at the end of a "long" piece of fiber optics.

What's not immediately obvious in this video is how loud this is. Many people were covering their ears, dogs were barking. In the sections where the crowd is cheering and the coils is starting and stopping, you can hear the the crowd is drowned out by the coil when it's firing.

This Tesla coil was built and is owned by Steve Ward. Steve is a EE student at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He and Jeff have been going to Teslathons, which is where they met.

It's been suggested that a good name for this coil would be the "Zeusaphone". "Thoremin" has also been mentioned, though personally I think we need Theramin type inputs for that.

To answer a few questions I've received, YES, someone did yell "Play Freebird!" after the first round of music.

The Minnesota Bridge... Before

2007-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Which would you rather drive over? I guess that question has now been answered. Also, there is something disturbingly French-looking about the failed bridge, but maybe that is just my own prejudices.

The Onion's Symposium on Not Hurting Africa's Feelings

2007-07-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

In The Know: Is Our Wealth Hurting Africa's Feelings?

Redneck Tenors Do Beethoven's 5th

2007-07-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

The Grim Reaper Is Real... And His Name is Oscar

2007-07-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths

By RAY HENRY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A Genius In France

2007-07-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Majority of French People Are Dumb - Watch more free videos

Meet your moral and intellectual superiors.

Peanuts, By Charles Bukowski

2007-07-24T15:40:00.001-07:00

LUCY

It began as a mistake.

The first time that Charles Branaski met Lucy Van Pelt, she was holding a football. He didn’t care for the game, baseball was his thing. Still, she held out that old football.

“Just kick the fucking thing,” she said.

“Listen, babe. You just hold that thing steady and I’ll kick the shit out of it.”

She threw her head back and laughed. She laughed long and hard and propped up the football. Charlie took a running start and he reared back his leg and kicked as hard as he could. Lucy was laughing too hard to hold the ball steady and it slipped out of her hand. Charlie missed the ball and flew straight up in the air and landed flat on his back.

“AUUUGGGGHHH,” he said.

“You should have seen your face, Charlie Branaski,” she said. Then she laughed twice as hard.

“Listen, you crazy bitch. I think I broke my ass. Jesus Christ!”

She helped him up. “Look, I’m sorry about that. You try it again and I’ll hold it real steady this time.”

“O.K., Lucy. I’ll do it on more time, but that’s it. You hold it this time, got it?”

“I promise,” she said.

Read the whole thing. Or die in a sewer. I really don't care.

"Honey, I'd Like to Have a Threesome" - The Powerpoint Presentation

2007-07-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

Created on SlideShare by the man, the myth, the magic of... Steve Revare.

Speed Climbing

2007-07-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

By Dan Osman. RIP.

Self-Defense in Countries Where Guns Are Illegal

2007-07-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

An unbreakable umbrella makes quite a nasty weapon, yet looks so innocent. Perfect for a stroll in sunny England.

Adolph Ballmer and Young FrankenSteve

2007-07-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

file under: greatest mashup ever.

Patton Oswald on Red State Values

2007-07-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

The Light Side of the Moon

2007-07-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

ABSOLUTELY-AND-MOST-DEFINITELY-CLICK-IMAGE-TO-ENLARGE

Then save it as a screensaver.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first to walk on the Moon. This panorama of their landing site sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Moon's Sea of Tranquility, with their Lunar Module, the Eagle, in the background at the far left. East Crater, about 30 meters wide and 4 meters deep, is on the right (scroll right), and was so named because it is about 60 meters east of the Lunar Module. Armstrong had piloted the Eagle safely over the crater. Near the end of his stay on the lunar surface Armstrong strayed far enough from the Lunar Module to take the pictures used to construct this wide-angle view, his shadow appearing at the panorama's left edge. The object near the middle foreground is a stereo close-up camera.

Marilyn Manson and Danny Elfman Interview

2007-07-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

Who Still Loves You Michael? 1500 Philipino Prisoners, That's Who

2007-07-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

A Proper Toast

2007-07-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

And so a star is born.

Here, the same Mick Tohill displays how a proper toast should be made with The Knot:

You can make him your virtual drinking buddy at, uh, VirtualDrinkingBuddy.com, a site that quite nicely answers the question posed on a placard above a friend of mine's home bar which reads, "Who says drinking alone isn't fun?"

The greatest American since John Wayne knows better than to tolerate the fools who don't know the right answer to that question. So does Mick.

Okay, so the campaign worked. I'll buy a bottle.

Entire Novel Written on Cel Phone Keyboard During Daily Commute

2007-07-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

There are no excuses left.

There is no such thing as down time.

A guy just wrote a 384-page science fiction novel on his mobile phone while commuting back and forth to work over 17 weeks. Robert Bernocco wrote it in short paragraphs on his Nokia 6630 and saved them on the phone. Then he downloaded the text to his computer to proofread and edit. The book is called Compagni di Viaggo ("Fellow Travelers"), which he self-published on Lulu.com.

The Beautiful Melissa Theuriau

2007-07-11T22:57:00.001-07:00

I've just dropped an Ambien and half a Xanax, and watching the tres belle French newscaster should do an excellent job of programming my subconscious for a perfectly wonderful night, or should I say, "bon noir."

Man, is she perfect, or what.

Telemarketing the Web 2.0 via Biriyani BS Upgrade

2007-07-11T01:50:00.000-07:00

With Eight installs of iPhone 2.0, you get one free order of Vista Vindaloo.

Instant comedy gold.

The Great Commercial Never Made

2007-07-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Patton Oswald on Stella Dora Breakfast Treats.

Smidi Pens the Theme to Live Earth

2007-07-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Can't seem to embed the video, but here's the link to my old buddy Smidi's theme for Live Earth that some two billion people listened to recently, apparently.

All that talent and a wife who looks like this:

Some guys got all the luck.

So That's What an Electron Looks Like, eh?

2007-07-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

To observe the motion of an electron – an elementary particle with a mass that is one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a gram – has been considered to be impossible. So when two Brown University physicists showed movies of electrons moving through liquid helium at the 2006 International Symposium on Quantum Fluids and Solids in Kyoto, they raised some eyebrows.

The images, which were published online on April 28, 2007, in the Journal of Low Temperature Physics, show scattered points of light moving down the screen – some in straight lines, some following a snakelike path. The Matrix it’s not. Still, the fact that they can be seen at all is astounding. “We were astonished when we first saw an electron moving across the screen,” said Humphrey Maris, a professor of physics at Brown University. “Once we had the idea, setting it up was surprisingly easy.”
Maris and Wei Guo, a doctoral student, took advantage of the bubbles that form around electrons in supercold liquid helium. Using sound waves to expand the bubbles and a coordinated strobe light to illuminate them, Guo was able to catch their movements on a home video camera.

A free electron repels the atoms that surround it, creating a small space, or bubble, around itself. In conventional liquids, the bubble shrinks to nothing because the surface tension of the liquid works against the repulsive force. Superfluid helium has very little surface tension, so the bubble can become much larger. The two opposing forces balance when the diameter of the bubble is about 40 angstroms – still far to tiny to see.

The researchers used a planar transducer – basically, a loudspeaker that produces flat, not focused, sound waves – to pummel the whole volume of liquid helium with sound. As each wave overtook an electron bubble, it alternately increased and decreased the surrounding pressure. Under negative pressure, the bubbles expanded to about eight microns, the size of a small speck of dust, then shrank again as the next wave of high pressure washed over them. A strobe light, synchronized to the sound pulse, illuminated the bubbles without overheating the chamber.
Running a camcorder in “super night mode,” Guo and Maris were able to record the approximately 2,000 photons they estimate were scattered by the expanded bubbles, producing a series of electron-bubble images on each frame of videotape.
“The results are very original and really spectacular,” said Sébastien Balibar, research director for physics at l’Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, “imaging single vortices of atomic size with a sound wave is an astonishing achievement.”
To be sure they were seeing electron bubbles and not just trapped dust, the researchers gradually increased the power to the transducer. They detected no points of light at low power and then a rapid increase in the appearance of bubbles at a particular voltage, just as their calculations predicted. Dust particles would exhibit no such threshold.

The researchers had planned to introduce streams of electrons into the chamber from a radioactive source, but found that even without a source, a number of electrons could be seen moving through the chamber. Most traveled in a fairly straight line leading away from the transducer, which produces a flow of heat down through the liquid.
A few of the electrons, however, followed a distinctly different snakelike path. Maris and Guo hypothesize that those electrons are following the lines of superfluid vortices – a phenomenon akin to a tornado in which the liquid spins at high velocity around a line. “The vortex is like a piece of string running through the liquid,” said Maris. “The electron bubble is attracted to the core of the vortex and gets attached to it. It’s as though it’s sliding down this rope that winds through the fluid.” By following the path that the electron takes as it slides along the vortex, the researchers were able to observe vortex lines for the first time. “People never thought it would be possible to visualize the vortex lines,” said Guo, “but then, almost by accident, we saw them.”

NASA Patch Sewn on in Peace-Time Direction...

2007-07-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Notice anything unusual in this FANTASTIC shot of Astronaut Steven Swanson during the last International Space Station's mission's second space walk?

I'm assuming this breach of the normal wartime flag-direction protocol is a bow towards Wilsonian internationalism blah blah blah, but it sure seems like to me that those stars on the flag should be on the other side, facing into battle, even among the stars.

50th Anniversary of "What's Opera, Doc?"

2007-07-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Brilliant. Would not get past the first round of development at any of the networks today. Tragic and pathetic, that.

Watching this cartoon again reminds me of The Great Dane, Victor Borges, here doing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, which was a favorite of the WB folks in their prime:

Hacking an Elevator

2007-07-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

http://view.break.com/327059 - Watch more free videos

Perfect for turning the local into the express.

Buddy Rich vs. Ed Shaughnessy, Drum Showdown

2007-07-05T02:20:00.001-07:00

A Tense Moment

2007-07-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

Time for Michael Fine to invest in a bigger boat.

Richiardi's Chamber of Horror and Illusion

2007-07-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

The second illusion is great. This guy is Teller's favorite magician... and in this video he actually talks about why:

CONTENT WARNING: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

Man Gets Trapped Inside His Own Giant Balloon

2007-07-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Can't describe it much more accurately than that headline. An insanely perfect visual metaphor for modern life. Hilarious. And yet madmen like this guy, who absolutely will not give up on their peculiar visions, are responsible for just about every facet and convenience of modern life that we all take so blithely for granted.

Funniest comment about it so far on Digg:

And that is probably how the EMT's will find my body, trapped inside a balloon with my hands inside my underwear and the TV on the Disney channel showing something with Hannah Montana.

UPDATE: here's his third try:

Whigger Fantasist Discovers the True Meaning of "Keeping It Real"

2007-07-01T01:42:00.000-07:00

A scene perfectly cinematic in its construction and execution, and I don't think it's even fake. If it is, there's a brilliant social satirist smugly smiling somewhere out there... a better metaphor/comment on the effects of the thuggification of cool would be hard to create.

Croc Eats Dog: A Master Class in Great Direct Marketing

2007-06-30T00:09:00.001-07:00

A flier-handout campaign on the streets of Germany boosted attendance at the local zoo by 15%.

I love a great cheap idea. That works.

Lawn Order Afoul of Law and Order

2007-06-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

A Newaygo County man spent the past two weekend behind bars because of his yard, and he faces more jail time.

David Burch says he tried to seed the yard last fall but it wouldn't take root. This all stems from a contractor who failed to sod the yard in the first place. Now a judge is saying, do the yard or do the time.

"The people who work at the court, at the jail, thought it was funny," Burch said. "They said there had to be more. I said, 'No, it's just because I don't have grass growing.' They said, 'You're in here for that?'"

He claims he is not skirting the law. Burch said the contractor for his new house is responsible for the lawn. But a White Cloud city ordinance states otherwise.

"This has been in the courts for over a year," said White Cloud Police Chief Roger Ungrey. "I believe Mr. Burch has made an attempt. He did bring me in some receipts for grass seed."

But when it didn't grow, a county judge ordered the yard planted. It never happened. Again this April - no sprouts. Then, in jail, an inspiration. Burch is sodding his yard with donated turf.

"He has been working on it," Ungrey said. "However, he remains to this day noncompliant."

That is because the backyard must also be green.

Senator Switchback (Y & N, Kansas)

2007-06-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

The death of Sam Brownback's national political aspiration, caught on tape. Good riddance.

Kelly, More Stuff Like This Here

2007-06-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

Kelly Clarkson's new song is out, and it's pretty easy to see why managers are getting fired and tours cancelled.

Watch the minute and a half video above to see what she should be doing. Brilliant and sexy in a way that few women since the 60s have understood.

Pwned

2007-06-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

Turn off the volume to avoid the horrible music, then enjoy the many moments of laughing at the pain of others.

Astroneat

2007-06-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

More great images from the last shuttle mission here.

Who's the Biggest Jerk and/or Faker -- one of these professional wrestlers or Noam Chomsky?

2007-06-23T16:36:00.002-07:00

Great piece in the New Yorker on linguist Dan Everett's decades-long study of the Amazonian Piraha tribe's odd language and how it doesn't fit into the perfect Universal Grammar world of our Lord Noam quite perfectly.

Ping Pong King Kong

2007-06-22T18:59:00.001-07:00

Grand Piano

2007-06-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

Alkanian and Isaacholbrook messing around after 4 beers.

Mozart and Beer Bottles

2007-06-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

I guess one day you wake up and decide this is your destiny. Ah, fame.

Life Imitates Idiocracy - Redux

2007-06-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Watch him count all the way to one million. A star is born!

Maybe the Islamists are right. Maybe it all needs to come down.

Denial Isn't Just a River in Europe

2007-06-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

St. Louis Today's Dan O'Neill has dug up Yogi Berra's doctoral dissertation:

"You're probably wondering, how does a kid from the Hill become a New York Yankee and get in the Hall of Fame? Well, let me tell you something, if it was easy nobody would do it. Nothing is impossible until you make it possible.

"Of course, times were different. To be honest, I was born at an early age. Things are much more confiscated now. It seems like a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. But let me tell you, if the world was perfect, it wouldn't be. Even Napoleon had his Watergate.

"You'll make some wrong mistakes along the way, but only the wrong survive. Never put off until tomorrow what you can't do today. Denial isn't just a river in Europe.

"Strive for success and remember you won't get what you want unless you want what you get. Some will choose a different path. If they don't want to come along, you can't stop them. Remember, none are so kind as those who will not see.

"Keep the faith and follow the Commandments: Do not covet thy neighbor's wife, unless she has nothing else to wear. Treat others before you treat yourself. As Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt once said, 'The only thing you have to fear is beer itself.'

"Hold on to your integrity, ladies and gentlemen. It's the one thing you really need to have; if you don't have it, that's why you need it. Work hard to reach your goals, and if you can't reach them, use a ladder. There may come a day when you get hurt and have to miss work. Don't worry, it won't hurt to miss work.

Fire + Soundwaves = Ruben's Tube

2007-06-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

Rubens Tube - More amazing videos are a click away

Bat for Lashes - 'What's a Girl to Do'

2007-06-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

Siouxie meet Donnie Darko. Hang in there for 40 seconds or so and you'll see what I mean.

More TV Nostalgia - Carson Drops in on Letterman

2007-06-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

TMBG - BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL

2007-06-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

From 1990, will a wailing solo by Doc Severinson.

Old TV Production Company Logos

2007-06-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ah, youth.

TV Genealogy

2007-06-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

An old "Taxi," featuring a flashback to Jim's days at Harvard with his stoner roommate, a young Tom Hanks.

Gore Criticizing Bush (41) on Ignoring Iraq's Connection to International Terrorism

2007-06-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

In 1992.

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

2007-06-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

With perfect audio, from a Canal DVD, circa 2001. Thanks to the anonymous reader for the tip.

Bambi Lives

2007-06-12T20:17:00.001-07:00

Worst shot. Ballsiest deer.

Conan Pulling His Walker Texas Ranger Lever

2007-06-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

Comedy gold. The "one with the kid" had me laughing as hard as I can remember laughing for a while.

If Fox News Had Existed Throughout History

2007-06-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Click image to enlarge.

A funny concept via Kontraband.

Funeral Goes Bad

2007-06-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

Funeral Goes Bad - Watch more free videos

File under: Comedy is not pretty.

Tom Waits - "I Don't Want to Grow Up"

2007-06-10T01:52:00.001-07:00

Deconstruction Construction

2007-06-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

Outer wall rotates on this building. Quite cool.

Bikini Truthers

2007-06-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Reductio ad Smoking' Hot Posteriori: A line of reasoning so, er, stacked with logical fallacies of so many different kinds that one must resort to delivering it to the public out of the mouths of girls in bikinis.

On Foiled Terror Plots

2007-06-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

A good editorial on why the JFK terror plot, though planned by morons, still needs to be taken seriously.

Foiled terror plots often will seem ridiculous and unlikely, especially when they are pre-empted. What could be stupider than Ahmed Ressam, ''a petty thief'' according to Wright, running from border guards in Washington state after explosives were discovered in the trunk of his car? He wouldn't have seemed so risible if he had exploded his bomb at Los Angeles International Airport. If the 9/11 plot had been disrupted at its very inception - with jihadis playing flight-simulator games in Afghanistan - it would have seemed laughable.
This is why even foiled plots deserve to be taken seriously. The New York Times notoriously played down the scheme to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy Airport on Page 37, pleading that the amateurishness of the plot limited its newsworthiness. As former prosecutor Andy McCarthy points out, the FBI is a victim of its success here. Moving from an emphasis on prosecutions to an emphasis on pre-emption necessarily means that terror cases will be weaker, thus tempting us to discount the threat altogether.

The Democrats have schizophrenia on the question. On the one hand, they argue that President Bush has inflated the terror threat to make us accept fascistic restrictions on our liberties; on the other, they say that he hasn't made us safer (safer from what? one wonders, if the terror threat is so exaggerated). In the recent Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton stood alone in maintaining we're safer since 9/11, demonstrating that - whatever her flaws - she's the adult supervision in the Democratic field.

YouTube Hosts First Feature-Length Movie, "Four Eyed Monsters"

2007-06-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is a really interesting way of monetizing video on the net.

The filmmakers made a deal with a new Web 2.0 movie-review/social-networking site, spout.com, to receive $1 for every person who registers on spout.com as a result of/as compensation for being able to watch the movie for free on youtube.

They've received $5397 so far, with me helping to contribute that last buck.

To learn more about distributing your film this way, go to bside.com/filmmakers

Athens, Georgia: Inside/Out -- Documentary from 1986

2007-06-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

This 10-minute trailer for a documentary about the golden age of Athens includes early footage of REM, B-52s, Pylon, Flat Duo Jets, most of which were managed and/or booked by my late friend Ian Copeland, a Wild Thing who is deeply missed....

REM's Mike Mills Does Acoustic Version of "Don't Go Back to Rockville" on Regis and Cathy Lee

2007-06-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

From February of 1992, when they were promoting "Out of Time," (the album that launched REM's "sucky phase" which continued until, well, now) here is Mike Mills singing a song from their "pre-sucky phase," off their second album, "Reckoning."

My favorite maxim about REM: they started to suck when they started to take themselves seriously, whereas U2 started to suck when they stopped taking themselves seriously.

Lions and Buffaloes and Crocodiles, Oh My

2007-06-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

The Ten - PoMo Movie Trailer for PoMo Movie

2007-06-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

The VO at the end is the greatest thing ever. Because what else is there left to do when all the possibilities have already been exhausted?

Plus, you know, Jessica Alba.