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Showing posts from 2009
On the environmental front, Copenhagen hosts a massive international conference aimed at halting manmade global warming, attended by thousands of delegates who flew to Denmark on magical carbon-free unicorns. Dave Barry’s year in review: 2009 - 12/26/2009 - MiamiHerald.com I almost fell off my chair, ROTFLMAO
John Lennon - Oh Yoko! (via ginac715 ) Weirdest #earworm of the year (for me) since as a norm I don’t listen to John’s work regularly.
Queen Rock Montreal Let Me Entertain You (via cryptotom ) This is a semi #earworm for me, I got a few songs cycling in my head, all of them are show opener tunes.
Holiday Rick Roll - Busted by Parents (via copyrighthater ) If you believe in Santa, stop reading now. Everyone else, remember that gap from when you stopped believing, until the influx of gifts shifted from toys (read: cool stuff) to socks and sweaters? Remember trying to open the wrapping just a tiny little bit, trying to see enough of a hint to know what was inside of the package? Watch this video, we are obviously a lot older than what we think we are. Kids nowadays have access to iPhones and other camera phones that can read and look up a barcode. What’s next? X-ray vision?
That’s sad. You know whoever buys the brewery is just going to cut costs and make shitty beer. Pabst Up For Sale | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
Dawning horror tinged with self-loathing crept slowly over the face of claims adjuster Robert Pettlebaum, 42, as he described his job and by extension his life to others during a seemingly innocuous Tuesday lunch meeting. “Mostly what I do is I seek out discrepancies in the property appraisal versus the claimant’s estimate of worth and then I…then I defer outpays…with…oh, God…, Increasingly Horrified Man Listens To Self Explain What He Does For A Living | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source Let’s try this: I am a lead web applications developer. My job is to read my customer’s mind to figure out what she really wants, which is usually different from both what she wrote in the email and what she told my boss she wanted. I then decide the proper course of action to deliver as close as possible to the request, well knowing that since my boss was told a different story, I will have to convince him that I am not retarded and that I am actually doing what...
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter  makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. House Committee on Ways & Means - Republican Ouch, more change we can believe in.
Michael Grippo, a 95-year-old Bronx native, told reporters Wednesday that he is “worried sick” that he won’t live to see the Yankees win another 27 World Series titles. “We came so close in 1955, 1960, 1976, 2001, and 2004. 95-Year-Old Yankees Fan Afraid He’ll Never Get To See Team Win 27 More World Series | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
The USS New York (LPD 21), built with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center wreckage, sailed into New York City on Nov. 2. The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock will be commissioned into the U.S. fleet at 11 a.m., Nov. 7, at Piers 86 and 88 in New York Harbor. USS New York to be commissioned Saturday | American Legion
The Pinker Tones “Karma Hunters” (via Nacionalrecords ) A reminder that today is Election Day. GO VOTE. Thanks to Alex Esoterica for reminding me about this song/video.
Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. ~Ann Landers (via iwannotowidigdo ) (via karlaakins ) I always assumed it was adoration, not admiration. In all my life I never felt like any of my dogs admired me much, but all of them loved me to death.
Let this serve as a warning to us all. Iceland has universal health care and now they have no more McDonald’s. McDonald’s Abandons Iceland | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word. House health bill clocks in at 1,990 pages - Jonathan Allen - POLITICO.com $2.24 million per word in that bill. WTF?
Dress your child in all-black costume to make him/her virtually invisible to potentially dangerous motorists. Halloween Safety Tips | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
Mister Sandman - The Chordettes (via PomplamooseMusic ) It pisses me off to see so many talentless hacks out there with record deals for mediocre “music” while the truly talented stay underground. There should be a line of record executives begging Pomplamoose for the privilege of distributing their music for an obscene amount of money. Dumbasses. If you think this video is awesome, you should also check their Beyonce cover . It is simply brilliant.
Last year, armed UAVs circled Iraq and Afghanistan for 135,000 hours — about fifteen years of nonstop flight time. This year, they will fly 190,000 hours, double that if you include all of the military’s unmanned planes. Even as troops come home from Iraq and Afghanistan in coming years, the Air Force figures it will need more than one million UAV hours annually to be prepared for future wars. There are also drones flying antidrug missions in South America, keeping watch over ships in pirate-thick waters, and patrolling the U. S.-Mexican border. This year the Air Force will train more UAV pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined. And the proof that warfare will never be the same again can be found in the Pentagon budget: Next year, the United States will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, as it expands to fifty combat air patrols over Iraq and Afghanistan, flown from Creech and bases in Texas, California, Arizona, North Dakota, and New York. Unmanned Aircraft - Futur...
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide Where I stop and turn and I go for a ride Till I get to the bottom and I see you again Yeah, yeah, yeah The Beatles - Helter Skelter Lyrics
This is ridiculous — embarrassing, even. I admire President Obama. I like President Obama. I voted for President Obama. But the peace prize? This is supposed to be for doing, not being — and it’s no disrespect to the president to suggest he hasn’t done much yet. Certainly not enough to justify the peace prize. “Extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?” “[C]aptured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future?” Please. This turns the award into something like pee-wee soccer: everybody wins for trying. PostPartisan - A Nobel for a Good Two Weeks?
The #earworm of the day is brought to you by my Netflix instant queue, I am watching  a movie where Joan Crawford is an axe murderer.
Good News - Windows 7 Commercial (via WindowsVideos ) Bad day to be working for whatever ad agency handles Apple marketing. The ad is simply brilliant.
Researchers have developed a device that can automatically identify autistic children as young as 24 months using the vocalizations they make during a normal day at home. Instead of waiting months or years for an appointment with a specialist, parents could get an objective diagnosis by mail in a couple of weeks. Technology Review: A Device to Spot Autism Early
What could Barack Obama do to help Massachusetts? He owns a 14-room, 6500 square foot house in Chicago (using fossil fuels to heat 6500 square feet for a family of four in one of the coldest parts of the U.S. is apparently a demonstration of one’s commitment to reversing global warming) that presumably sits vacant nearly all year. The house is guarded 24/7 by Secret Service agents. The street is closed to non-residents. Why can’t Aunt Zeituni live there? She wouldn’t be bothered by the rabble or the press. She wouldn’t be a drain on Massachusetts citizens. Philip Greenspun’s Weblog » President Obama: Please take your Aunt Zeituni off our hands Fantastic essay by Phil Greenspun. He even offers to pick her up at her public housing, drive her to the airport, buy her a ticket and arrange for a friend to pick her up at the airport.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Date With The Night (via universalmusicgroup ) This is my #earworm for the morning. It could be worse, at least it is a song I really like.
Glenn Beck, to date, has not commented on drawing a cartoon depiction of the prophet Muhammad on a cocktail napkin at Lefty’s Pub in the early morning hours of 17th September, 1990. Unnamed source, when asked about the new Glenn Beck internet meme.
One of these things is not like the other things. (via yumchuckit ) Also known as the “programmer’s song.” It is a dirty little secret for those of us that debug code for a living. And yes, we sing the song while troubleshooting, and yes, we say “I’m so smart!” when we find the bug.
My job is so farking unbelievable. I’ll try to sum it up by first telling you about the folks I work with: First, there is this supermodel wanna-be chick. Yeah, okay, she is pretty hot, but damn is she completely useless. The girl is constantly fixing her hair or putting on makeup. She is extremely self-centered and has never once considered the needs or wants of anyone but herself. She is as dumb as a box of rocks, and I still find it surprising that she has enough brain power to continue to breathe. The next chick is completely the opposite. She might even be one of the smartest people on the planet. Her career opportunities are endless, and yet she is here with us. She is a zero on a scale of 1 to 10. I’m not sure she even showers, much less shaves her “womanly” parts. I think she might be a lesbian, because every time we drive by the hardware store, she moans like a cat in heat. But the jewel of the crowd has got to be the farking stoner. And this guy is more...
Santigold - Lights Out (via ShootUpTheStation ) #earworm of the day. And I have a migraine, I am amazed that it is a relatively soft song and not some heavy metal.
Blue Man Group - One of These Days - Pink Floyd cover (via Krillinish2 ) I ran into this completely by accident, we were looking for shitty covers of Pink Floyd songs. This isn’t one of them.
The #earworm of the day is actually a Freudian Slip : I was in a conference call with my boss and my ops manager and I started humming it, without thinking about the title. The boss asked me if I was humming that for the customer that I was complaining about just a minute or so before.
thedailywhat : Epic Failure of the Day: Figuring out how to operate foolproof technology — UR doing it rong. Best part? He’s supposedly an engineering student. [ via .] I can’t believe even my dumbest classmate in engineering school doing something THAT stupid.
Skip James sings “Crow Jane” (via ledzepp461 ) If you like Eric Clapton’s music, you need to watch this video of one of his strongest influences.
Watch the pilot of ABC’s Defying Gravity on Hulu. I just finished it and so far it looks great. Let’s hope that it survives at least two seasons.
“Weird Al” Yankovic - Craigslist (via alyankovic ) Fantastic homage to The Doors, and Ray Manzarek is playing the keyboards!
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking. Clifton Fadiman
South Park - Kyle’s mom is a bitch (NSFW) (via kanew1992 ) I don’t understand why, but I started singing this song while playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. Worse, I was actually doing great in the game, no idea what triggered this.
Laura Veirs - Phantom Mountain (via dougsavage ) This music video was made by Dough Savage, the creator of the Savage Chickens post-it comics.
Star Wars vs. Saul Bass (via bhilmers ) This is pure genius. What would the Star Wars title sequence look like if it was filmed two decades earlier?
Be the lamb or be the knife. Try to be both and you may end up slaughtering yourself. This is a line from Kings episode 1.9 , I would love to know if the writers just lifted it from the Bible or elsewhere.
An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play, it is always possible to get worse quotes about Golf
The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is bowling. The sport of choice for front-line workers is football. The sport of choice for supervisors is baseball. The sport of choice for middle management is tennis. The sport of choice for corporate officers is golf. Conclusion: The higher you are in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become. Author Unknown
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. James Nicoll (via srsly ) For Karla.
Paul Simon - Kodachrome (via ann6079 ) Mama didn’t take my Kodachrome away, but Kodak just did . Do I miss it? Not really, Kodachrome was always a bit too expensive for me, so I shot almost all of my slides in Elitechrome. Plus I lost interest the second I was allowed to shoot some samples with what almost immediately became my first digital camera, a Sony DSC-S70.
Midnight Special - Creedence Clearwater Revival (via kvs123 ) Got this song stuck in my head. Yeah, you’re welcome.
Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers. Dave Barry
Hulu - The Colbert Report: Mon, Jun 8, 2009 - Watch the full episode now. Colbert visits our troops in Iraq, gets his head shaved By Order of the President.
I can’t get wolfram alpha to tell me how many nobel prize winners were born under a full moon, so I’m calling bullshit. WorkinGui
Baby never born, mother never pregnant Coded message from Allen Dulles reporting back to the OSS that the Nazi nuclear bomb program never really took off.
Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version (via dascottjr ) Mullet with headlights? Thanks to Paul for ruining my keyboard.
tuneage : Regina Spektor - “Dance Anthem of the 80’s” Off her latest album, Far , out June 23rd. In a shocking, SHOCKING, turn of events, there are still some artists out there that sound distinctly unique instead of the homogenized crap that is being fed to this generation’s kids. The sad thing is that artists like Regina Spektor are maybe one in 200. Worse it is to look back at the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Even with all the crap, there were still a LOT of talent acts out there. I guess that music is also going through some kind of recession. If you haven’t tried it, check out some of her previous work. Regina Spektor is a fantastic musician, not just a pretty face singing somebody else’s lyrics to the tune of somebody else’s music.
V - Upfront Trailer (via rabbidtelevision ) This is too awesome. I guess Holywood did run out of ideas, so it is OK to stop trying and instead start remaking everything. The funny thing about remakes is that there’s always a camp that will resist them with furious anger. Just take a look at Star Trek: awesome remake, anda small segment of the fans hate it under general principles. Galactica? same thing. And now “V.”
These children had a meeting with the President of the United States and were told to be there by 9:30 AM. The staff waited for them until 10:30 AM. When they finally showed up, more than one hour late, they were of course turned away because President Obama HAS TO GO BACK TO THE BUSINESS OF RUNNING A COUNTRY, and can’t sit with his thumb up his ass waiting for people to show up for their meetings, late. Lesson learned: be on time. You can’t possible tell these kids it is OK to show up one hour late for something that is so important, then whine when you lose your appointment. The real world does NOT work like that. You schedule a meeting with me and you don’t call me to tell me that you are late, I won’t move anything in my schedule to make room for you, regardless of who the hell you are. If I find a hole later, fine. If not? Not my problem, I was at my desk on time. This is something that I am glad that the US Army taught me. The whole idea of being late ...
SEBASTIAN’S VOODOO (via nfb ) A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. Calvin & Hobbes quotes I totally get this.
Obama money (via rootsarama ) “We are out of money now” said Obama in his interview by Steve Scully on CSPAN.
I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters. George A. Romero
If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: 1: Take two aspirin 2: Keep away from children Unknown
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed in Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday’s code Dan Salomon
Let Me Entertain You Queen Not only do I have this song stuck in my head, but it is the version from “Live Killers” instead of the one from “Jazz.”
July Morning - Uriah Heep Back in the dot-com days I used to share an office with a really nice guy who by pure chance happened to share my weird tastes in music. Probably in part because back when we were younger and dumber he used to play for a glam metal band (and as far as I can tell, he still plays to this day). We would close the office door and blast Uriah Heep and Deep Purple for hours, we used to call it our “decadent music” time, which was great because nobody bothered us except whenever we annoyed the people in the offices at either side of our hall.
“Jam Wow” featuring Vince Offer (Steve Porter’s Sham Wow remix) (via djsteveporter ) 60% of the time I say WOW every time.
Possibly The World’s Smallest Car (via 6MadeInEngland9 ) Good luck trying to drive anywhere in a place like DC in one of these things.
In this galaxy there’s a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all that, and perhaps more…only one of each of us. Dr. McCoy, Star Trek, “Balance of Terror” The Greatest Star Trek Quotes
Martha My Dear - Phish I got this song stuck in my head, was pleased to see how Phish managed to mangle the hell out of it while it still sounding very close to the Beatles’ original. This is the true mark of a great cover song.
Mayo Clinic atrium piano, charming older couple… (via jodihume ) Fran & Marlo Cowan (married 62 years) playing impromptu recital together in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic.
There’s a little box on Amazon that reads ‘Tell the publisher I’d like to read this book on Kindle,’ ” she said. “I hope no one tells the publisher. Is a Book Still a Book on Kindle? - NYTimes.com Am I the only one that read that and ran straight for Amazon to click on the damn checkbox?
You have three people telling project engineers what to do, and nobody’s fucking doing anything,” Bartz said on a conference call with analysts. “We have to … get them focused on the right stuff. That’s the most important thing Yahoo’s going to do to become a big, strong, growing company. Yahoo to cut 5% of workforce - Apr. 21, 2009 It is sad that this kind of leadership was brought into the company so late. I especially like how she finds bloated management offensive.
1983 Ronnie James Dio “Man On The Silver Mtn” (Rock Palace) (via music3874 ) I managed to get Pink Floyd’s Echoes unstuck from my head, but now I gotta deal with this crap. GRRRR.
The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has charged the foundation building a monument to the civil rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 for the use of his words and image - an arrangement one leading scholar says King would have found offensive. News from The Associated Press Stay Classy!
Reston Tea Party—Opening Remarks (via lesliecarbone ) Let me tell you about irony: These people were doing their little tax day protest about 1/4 mile from my house. We live in one of the richest counties in the country, Fairfax County, Virginia. Not only it is loaded as hell, but it is VERY liberal (one would expect it to be as conservative as say, Midland, Texas). The people that were in this protest probably drove to it in Volvos and Audis, to complain about paying taxes, when they support a political party that believes in raising taxes and increasing government spending. Ironic. I would understand blue collar workers in an economically deprived city complaining about getting taxed to day, but rich people in a rich county complaining about taxes is just weird.
THE CYLONS ARE COMING OMFG THE CYLONS ARE COMING! If life-like robots freak you out, check out the Uncanny Valley theory.
It must be really tough being a stupid company on the Internet. Once you make a silly decision and it’s out there, travelling via the Interwebs, you’ll pay for it very dearly - and probably would be paying for it forever, as it is likely to become the first thing that customers discover about you on Google. #Amazonfail and the politics of anti-corporate cyberactivism | Net Effect
Sprint’s Now 4G Network Featuring Palm Pre & The Most AMAZING Sprint Commercial EVER! (via VivaLaBamEpisodes ) I love the part about Twitter.
The notion that physical books are ending their lifecycle is upsetting to people who hold them to be synonymous with literature and terrifying to those who make their living within the existing structures of publishing. As an editor and a lover of books, I sympathize. But why should a civilization that reads electronically be any less literate than one that harvests trees to do so? And why should a transition away from the printed page lessen our appreciation and love for printed books? Hardbacks these days are disposable vessels, printed on ever crappier paper with bindings that skew and crack. In a world where we do most of our serious reading on screens, books may again thrive as expressions of craft and design. Their decline as useful objects may allow them to flourish as design objects. How the Kindle will change the world. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine Outstanding article by Jacob Weisberg. A lot of people are freaking out about the Kindle due to a misguided idea that p...
Diet Mountain Dew Abe Lincoln (via Themilkman1986 ) Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight was as frickin awesome as Wreslin’ Abe.
At first I didn’t understand why everyone was drinking lots of beer and wearing green today, but now I realize it’s because of Patrick Duffy’s birthday. Happy Birthday Patrick Duffy | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
…France, he said, had made peace with Germany, had forgiven Germany for the brutality of invasion and the humiliation of four years of occupation, but it could never - never - forgive the British and Americans for the liberation. BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | France’s rendezvous with history Very good read with the historical context of the strained relationship between France, the UK and the USA.
Jon Stewart takes a look at CNBC (via soundofflute ) You need to watch this video so you can see how terrible economy news reporting has been for the past couple of years. It is sad that we have to rely on a comedian in order to get the unvarnished truth in the news, because all that the “real” news networks are giving us is fluff.