ectoblog.com

Is there ever a reason to buy a ringtone? No.

Freesound Project

Audacity

Also, Iphonebrowser, because Apple is the devil, but it doesn’t mean I have to put up with it.

Consider the classic hypothetical scenario: Your house is on fire and you can take only three things with you before the entire structure becomes engulfed in flames. What would you take?

This one’s pretty easy for me. There’s not a chance in hell that my brain would know what to do beforehand. I don’t have a mental rolodex of things ranked in any kind of way–importance, expensiveness, color, anything–that I can get to fast enough to affect my decision of what to take from my burning house and what to leave behind, once I get past the people and the animals. I’d have to think about it, and the scenario is set up, obviously, in such a way that I can’t think about it.

So in the end, when the firemen arrive, they’ll probably find me sitting on the curb in my smoking clothing holding a banana and a spoon.

Absolutely gorgeous pics of the bridge and beach of Bay St Louis by Steve Martin.

“Can people levitate?”
“‘Can people levitate?’”
“Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have asked.”
“‘Can people levitate?’”
“Don’t…. I mean, it’s ‘No,’ isn’t it?”
“…… Yes, it is ‘No.’”

ginandtacos.com » Blog Archive » A NATION OF WHINERS AFTER ALL

It’s ironic that the author chooses to quote Ms. Bushnell since this article inspired the exact same reaction I had the first time I saw an episode of Sex and the City – I went in expecting mindless distraction and emerged from the experience a hardcore Marxist.

I tried to get my little pickup truck an inspection the other day, but the guy at Snowball & Sons & Daughter–it may have been Snowball–told me the window tinting was too dark. I figured it might be, even though I bought it last year with a valid sticker on it. I guess I don’t know the right inspection guy to go to. So I’ve been driving it around for the last few weeks with an expired sticker, steeling myself to either get a professional tint remover to charge me a couple hundred bucks to remove the tinting, or set aside an entire day to do a bitter, half-assed job of it myself with a scraper and some razor blades. Then I remembered about the Google thing you kids have on the internets today, and typed in “how to remove tinting from a car window,” which returned this, which in turn saved me a bucket of time and money and made me feel very good about myself and the world for a few hours.

In sum, the Google you kids have today is substantially better than the card catalog system at Long Beach Public Library ca. 1979, which is worth remembering from time to time.

“I can hear my mother wailing and a whole lot of scraping of chairs; I don’t know what it is but there’s definitely something going on upstairs.”

At Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror blog: Profitable Until Deemed Illegal

I’d never heard of this thing before. But it is amazing. Somebody called it a tax on people who are bad at math. Jeff Atwood says

In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I’ve ever seen…. It is almost brilliantly evil.

It really is amazing.

Bellamy salute – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bellamy salute is the hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy 1855-1931 to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. The gesture was derived from the Roman salute.

This was originally what American kids did at school when pledging allegiance. They’d still be doing it if Hitler and Mussolini hadn’t happened. Here’s Bellamy’s directions for a proper pledge:

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute — right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.

In my heaven I get to ask Francis Bellamy and dicks of his ilk just exactly what did they think they were doing. Then it’s back to the beer and dancing girls.

114-year-old U.S. woman to be world’s oldest – CNN.com
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.

On the one hand I think it’s great that the governments of the world don’t keep any particular track of who is older than who. Apparently Global Overlord, Inc could not care less that a little old lady in the states has outlived all the other little old ladies and little old men from her time. On the other hand, who the hell gave Guinness Book the authority to say who’s ‘officially’ older than somebody else? “Sorry, ma’am, you’re not how old you are until we officially say so.”

This is one of the very few times where a registered trademark symbol thrown in there somewhere would make me happier. I mean, the woman already is the world’s oldest person; she’s just not The World’s Oldest Person®.

I’m particular impressed with his aim. And while George’s ninja-like duck reflex was impressive too, better still would have been had he actually caught the shoes. Wouldn’t that have been great?

Cereal Box Archive

I remember eating a scary number of these cereals. And I remember seeing an even scarier number while plodding along behind my mother in the only grocery store aisle that made the trek even minimally worth it to my 5 year old self.

I mean, come on: Booberries!

From divisibleby0.com: How to Turn Your Car Into an Unstoppable Murder Machine

Step 3:

Earliest American Scat Found

The earliest-known fossilized feces was found recently in Oregon, placing humans on the American continents 1000 years earlier than previously believed. What do you think?

Sarah Fripp,
Systems Analyst
“I like to think that in thousands of years somebody is going to be looking at my poop.”

Sarah, we’d all like to think that. Or maybe just me.

Farthest South

Farthest South (sometimes stated as Furthest South), describes the most southerly latitude achieved by man before the conquest of the South Pole rendered the term obsolete.

I love stuff like this.

My own personal Farthest South is probably Lima. Farthest North is probably Andoya, Norway. I could confirm, but that would make this post harder than I care to make it.

My letter-writing campaign to the various cartooning syndicates and independents urging more cartoons about visits to breweries has started to pay off:

The World Question Center 2008

A collection of essays from people who know things about things they thought they knew but later figured out they didn’t. For instance, I like Martin Seligman’s essay about the probability of ET because he basically independently came to the same conclusion I came to, but with the added distraction of being Carl Sagan’s friend.

Earthrace – The Boat

In March 2008, Earthrace will attempt to set a new speed record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe running 100% biodiesel, and with a net zero carbon-footprint, in order to increase awareness of the environment and the sustainable use of resources.

“Net zero carbon footprint.” While I don’t want to detract from something cool–I like it when cool things happen– this phrase is beginning to really grate. This boat has a 3,000 gallon fuel tank. A non-trivial amount of energy went in to making it in the first place. It’s only “net zero” because the company buys carbon offsets. I could make a Hummer or a Boeing 727 “net zero” doing that.

You know, if *everybody* bought carbon offsets to reduce their carbon footprint to “net zero,” we’d still have a problem. I don’t care how many trees you plant, a 727 still does what it does.

Before someone says that I don’t understand the concept behind carbon offsets, let me just say this: I understand it. It’s a wonderful way to roll around in your cake and then eat it. It’s a wonderful way to keep doing what you’re doing with a clean conscience. I *understand* that. You gave at the office. You adopted the skinny televised black kid in Ethiopia. What you didn’t do was leave your Hummer at home and walk to the grocery store.

“Net zero carbon footprint.” Jesus Christ. The phrase is about to become absolutely meaningless as every damn company piles on with its own product. It’ll be like what happened to the word ‘retarded’ when it leaked out into the mainstream; psychiatrists had to come up with some other word. A perfectly descriptive term, ruined by squatters.

When a can of coke is advertised as having a “net zero carbon footprint,” the retardeding of the phrase will be complete.

Places I’ve been:

Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela will turn red sometime soon. And I kind of assume I’ll make it to India and China and Australia somewhen, I don’t know why. Antarctica, though, even though it doesn’t show up on this map (a gross oversight on the part of the World66 people), will be a tough nut to crack.

The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World | Cracked.com

#5. Casu Marzu

From: Sardinia, Italy.

What the hell is it?
This, dear reader, is a medium-sized lump of Sweet Fucking Christ.

There are whole nations made up of the weird Anderson kid down the street who’ll put any damn thing in his mouth.