Leave it to the Germans to create a giant waterslide with a 360 degree loop that begins with a trapdoor chamber. Warning: Speedo alert.
It may or may not be funnier or more interesting if you speak German.
Monthly Archives: June 2008
Holy Crap! or, Full Circle
I just got actual useful information from Houstonist. This is shocking and, frankly, almost unprecedented.
Near my house, or near-ish, anyway, is something called the Carolina Collective. It’s a virtual office for the self-employed and work-at-home types who may need office-type support on an ad-hoc or less-than-renting-a-space basis, or who crave the occasional water-cooler aspects of office life. I can actually conceive of using this from time to time, especially since it appears to include available meeting space if you become a member.
Casual, ad-hoc use is free. Usage more than a couple times a week appears to mean you need to pony up $125 a month, but that includes nontrivial benefits like access to food and the aforementioned conference rooms. There are other packages available as well.
WANT
This cube toy is made entirely of rare-earth magnets, and therefore requires no mechanism other than magnetism.
Dept. of Important Parenting Resources
Ask Calvin’s Dad. The accumulated HeathenNieces can expect us to use the dickens out of this. Our favorite:
Q. How come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then? A. Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just that the world was black and white then. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too. Q. But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way? A. Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane. Q. But… But how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn’t their paints have been shades of gray back then? A. Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the ’30s. Q. So why didn’t old black and white photos turn color too? A. Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?
And:
Q. What causes the wind? A. Trees sneezing.
How To Tell If You’re An Idiot
You buy or sell books explicitly as home decor without regard to what’s inside.
Our Danish printed, European imported books are sold specifically with interior design in mind.
Many people feel that it’s silly to purchase books for pure decorative value. While we certainly understand this, we also savor the opportunity to change the mind of such individuals! Our books are so beautiful on the outside that their interior ceases to be important.
Jesus wept.
EFF on Orphaned Works proposal
They like it. It sounds reasonable. Take a look if it interests you.
Best sunset picture EVAR
Check it out. It’s on Mars.
Apropos of today
Dear Baby Boomers: Please go away now, kthxbi.
Bush III
Meet the new Russians. Same as the old Russians.
On a talk show last autumn, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail Delyagin offered some tart words about Vladimir Putin. When the program was televised, Delyagin was not.
His remarks were cut and he was digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily; they left his disembodied legs in one shot.)
Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from television news and political talk shows by the Kremlin.
The stop list is, as Delyagin put it, “an excellent way to stifle dissent.”
More:
And it is not just politicians. Televizor, a rock group whose name means television set, had its booking on a St. Petersburg television station canceled in April, after its members took part in an Other Russia demonstration.
When some actors cracked a few mild jokes about Putin and Medvedev at Russia’s equivalent of the Academy Awards in March, they were expunged from the telecast.
Political humor in general has been exiled from television here. One of the nation’s most popular satirists, Viktor Shenderovich, once had a show that featured puppet caricatures of various politicians, including Putin. It was canceled in Putin’s first term and Shenderovich has been all but barred from television.
Senior government officials deny the existence of a stop list, saying that people hostile to the Kremlin do not appear on television simply because their views are not newsworthy.
Ha!
Via Rob and in light of candidate Clinton’s ongoing behavior, we bring you A Sports Parable.
Best Trek Wedding EVAR
In the wake of the California ruling, George Takei and his partner of 20 years will wed in September. His best man? Walkter Koenig. Matron of honor? Nichelle Nichols.
Linc Chafee on the tax cuts and the early days of the Bush Administration
Months before 9/11, those in Congress knew well what sort of president the newly-sworn-in Bush would be in how he handled his irresponsible and absurd $1.65 trillion dollar tax cuts; former Republican senator (and Obama endorser) Lincoln Chafee tells the story:
But even back in June, before we knew the president would soon lead our response to the murder of nearly 3,000 American civilians, something very disturbing came through for me in his demeanor and attitude in the Oval Office. I want to describe it as insecurity, but even that is not the right word.
Several times, the president went out of his way to remind me that he was the commander in chief. You don’t have to keep telling me that, I thought. I know who you are. Like others, I have been around people who are good at wielding power. They never have to tell you they are in charge. They just are, and you know it. What I saw and heard that day really unsettled me. I’m the commander in chief… I’m the president… I’m the commander in chief… It was unpresidential.
That September, as I watched the Twin Towers collapse in smoke and dust, I had a sinking feeling about the president’s capacity to respond wisely.
What’s not to like?
Someone has created a loving parody of WoW as a sidescroller. Check it out.
This is bizarre and wonderful
And, unsurprisingly, also a Clayton Cubitt find. Check out Death to the Tin Man, a 12-minute undergraduate film by a 24-year-old director. Really. Close your office door and watch this thing.
As long as we’re talking about Cubitt…
He also found this fine poolside photo of, we kid you not, Tippi Hedren, her pet lion, and her daughter Melanie. We will not make the obvious why-didnt-the-lion-bite joke.
Goddammit.
Fellow Mississippian (b. McComb, 1928) Ellas Otha Bates died today. You knew him as Bo Diddley.
Clayton Cubit found this video, which you should watch, and ideally dance to, as a memorial.
At least we still have BB.