May 2004 Entries
The long holiday weekend is here. The beginning of summer. And what better way to kick it off (and honor our nation's veterans) than drinking 1/3 of a domestic beer, cramming it up the back-end of a chicken and grilling it? I suppose you could rig up something similar with a coat hanger MacGyver-style, but this is the official model. The only acceptable alternative to this would be the turkey fryer, but really that's more of an Easter/Thanksgiving occasion. [via Gizmodo]
The Rejection Hotline is a number you can give out to somebody who asks for your phone number if you just don't want to give out your real number. Located in over 30 cities nationwide, and with people having cell phone numbers from all over the place, you never have to deal with telling someone no again. Get your number before you head out tonight. [via MetaFilter]Special props to Amanda who was able to recall the NYC number from memory when it came up in discussion during outdoor drinks @ Bryant Park.
Analogia - You upload your face and complex recognition software returns three celebrities you most resemble. Which are you? [deleted goatsie -> Ben Affleck results, funny but unnecessarily disgusting]
[via MetaFilter]
Here are my results. Baffling right? I'm pretty sure nobody has ever confused me with Eddie Murphy.
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I had forgotten this was today. Hopefully the sun will come out later so we can see it.
A little something from the gee-whiz department for all our friends in Manhattan... did you know that today is a Gotham Equinox? All I can say is enjoy it while you can.
[via MetaFilter]
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From a Moscow Times article about how the world almost blew itself up cold war style: Consider, for example, a fun Cold War-era fact from Bruce Blair, who is president of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information ... Blair was a Minuteman nuclear missile launch officer in the 1970s, and regularly ran through simulations in which he and his colleagues launched up to 50 missiles at the Soviet Union.To launch a Minuteman in those days, one had to "unlock" the missile by dialing in a code -- the equivalent of a safety catch on a handgun. However, Blair reports, the...
Behold a fantastic soda vs pop infographic/mapWhen I was a kid in Southern California we called carbonated soft drinks "coke" in the generic sense. I wasn't introduced to "soda" until I moved to Manhattan in 1985. It looks like California has been slowly working in "soda" but not to the near 100% penetration of the North-East. Does anyone know what they use in the "other" sections of Virginia and North Carolina? [via MetaFilter]
Today I learned:
There are more French restaurants in New York than in Paris [via Snapple bottle top]
Tribeca stands for Triangle Below Canal Street [via some tourists looking at a map]
Note: I've already been told I'm an idiot for not knowing #2, but I'm betting I'm not the only one.
update: spelling
The NYT mentions inside that the military confirmed that a soldier ordered to play a prisoner at Gitmo was beaten by guards who didn't know he was undercover. Here's an interview with the soldier.
[via Slate Today's Papers]
So I'm working on having batteries in every single bathroom product. My latest addition: the Gillette M3 Power razor. Oh my this thing is incredible. AAA battery powered vibrating razor blades sounds scary, but fear not. Also featured is my Oral-B hummingbird vibrating flosser and Sonicare (non-Elite version) which started it all. Pretty soon I'll reach a Jetsons ideal of just walking into the bathroom and letting the robots take it from there. I do wonder what my neighbors make of all that vibrating noise.
Save $24.95; no need to buy Trump's book. John posted Trump's rules... in summary: You have to be born with enough brainpower. Once you have that, you have to love what you're doing. I've never seen anyone succeed who didn't love what they were doing. You cannot stop. If there is a concrete wall in front of you, you have to go through it. You can never, ever give up or even think in terms of giving up. Confidence is a very important thing. But confidence isn't something you just develop by saying "I'm going to do this or that."...
Mike Doughty will launch a full tour with a band in June for the first time since Soul Coughing broke up. Mike Doughty's Band features Mike Doughty on guitar and vocals, Thomas Bartlett (aka The Doveman) on keyboards and Shahzad Ismaily on drums. After warmup dates in Hoboken, New Jersey (June 5) and Brooklyn (June 6), the trio will kick off a three-week tour in Cleveland on June 9. The run continues through two nights at Stubbs in Austin, Texas, on July 2 and 3, and includes a June 11 performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Full...
Veteran travellers to Hong Kong had recommended that we investigate custom tailored suits during our visit. Based on a recommendation for a specific tailor (there are hundreds) from a very senior executive at my company several of our team members had pants and jackets made for them. Since my trip was two weeks I decided to wait and use their goods as a baseline for my purchase. After whitnessing the process and deciding that everything was on the up and up, I took the plunge. I knew I wanted a very dark blue suit and proceeded to hunt through the fabric...
From Hollie's Vonage bill: (to Hong Kong)International Minutes: 24International Minutes Charge: $0.48 From the Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel Bill: IDD Call: ~15 minutesCharge: HK$265.00 ~ US$34.00
Last week our team was invited out on a yacht owned by the MegaCorp that owns the software company we are out here to visit. Apparently the boat was built in 1957 and is one of only four left in the world. Good times had by all continued through cocktails and dinner. The chairman had mentioned when we arrived that we should have brought our bathing suits for waterskiing and swimming and prodded me again at dinner on going swimming. At this point I'm seriously considering the logistics and the career damage potential. Then he throws in a "I'll go if you...
I know this is going to sicken a portion of my audience, but the pork challenge is still running at 100%. Here was a side dish for dinner last night in Lan Kwai Fong.
The closest call came after a sushi lunch I had to resort to some dried pork coated in sugar.
I just found out I have until November 28th for my reunion diet goal. That's quite a long way from now. Maybe I should expand my mission? Reunion Ferrari? Reunion ZZ-Top-Beard? What else?
Near the end of day two in Hong Kong we collectively noticed there is an awful lot of pork in our meals. Pork dumplings at breakfast, sweet fried pork dumplings for dessert, minced pork Shanghai dishes and on and on and on. I thought about it for a moment and realized that I had eaten some form of pork at every single meal since I arrived. Immediately I took it on as a challenge to see if I could eat pork at each meal for my entire ten day stay. I'm about half way there and I'm optimistic I'll succeed...
So over here in China, we've all been noticing that the Diet Coke, which they call Coke Light, is much much more like regular Coke than what we get in the US. We've almost had drinks sent back at the restaurant because we were convinced it could not possibly be diet. Enter Google. I searched for the "sodium cyclamate" which the can listed next to Aspartame (NutraSweet) and discovered Stevia. Its name is Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni. ... 300-400 times sweeter than sugar and not artificial anything. Stevia...
"Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You're doing a superb job. You are a strong Secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude." -Bush
Dick Cheney says, "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had. . . . People should get off his case and let him do his job." [via Paul Krugman]
Really best ever? Huh. I disagree.
UPDATE: Also read Slate's War Stories - Fred Kaplan
I have long suspected that Karl Rove has been dreaming about engineering a high profile arrest close to the election. Even if they captured somebody now they'd probably just come up with some bogus reason to hold him in secret until the political climate is more attractive for maximum possible votes. Just to pass on some added information, about which we'll be saying more. There is chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging 'high value' al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten...
So I made it to the other side of the world. The flight is fucking long - no joke. 21 hours with a stiff head-wind. Thankfully our otherwise stingy company flies us business class internationally so we get to sit upstairs on the 747 and sip champaign and eat warmed nuts. Personal on-demand video provided me with a few movie options and I chose 21 Grams based on a recommendation from my traveling coworker compainion. I liked the movie, but I don't know if I would have made it through the whole thing if I had not been captive. (Side...
I'm a big Formula One fan. Tivo is taking care of recording this Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix race, but I won't be home for two weeks to watch it. The one side benefit of the almost total lack of state-side F1 coverage is that most likely I'll be able to make it that whole time without finding out who wins and spoiling it for me.
Side F1 note: When I first met Hollie's brother (1995?) who introduced me to the sport, he called me Schumacher cause I kindof look like him. He still calls me Schumacher, which is fine by me because he...
I was just introduced to the binary scale. Assign 0 for you wouldn't, 1 for you would. Excruciatingly beautiful in design and execution. Replace your outdated, inefficient 1-10 opposite sex ranking today.
Just in case I haven't offended enough people yet. Average IQ by state and how they voted in 2000
State
Avg. IQ
2000
1
Connecticut
113
Gore
2
Massachusetts
111
Gore
3
New Jersey
111
Gore
4
New York
109
Gore
5
Rhode Island
107
Gore
6
Hawaii
106
Gore
7
Maryland
105
Gore
8
New Hampshire
105
Bush
9
Illinois
104
Gore
10
Delaware
103
Gore
11
Minnesota
102
Gore
12
Vermont
102
Gore
13
Washington
102
Gore
14
California
101
Gore
15
Pennsylvania
101
Gore
16
Maine
100
Gore
17
Virginia
100
Bush
18
Wisconsin
100
Gore
19
Colorado
99
Bush
20
Iowa
99
Gore
21
Michigan
99
Gore
22
Nevada
99
Bush
23
Ohio
99
Bush
24
Oregon
99
Gore
25
Alaska
98
Bush
26
Florida
98
Bush
27
Missouri
98
Bush
28
Kansas
96
Bush
29
Nebraska
95
Bush
30
Arizona
94
Bush
31
Indiana
94
Bush
32
Tennessee
94
Bush
33
North Carolina
93
Bush
34
West Virginia
93
Bush
35
Arkansas
92
Bush
36
Georgia
92
Bush
37
Kentucky
92
Bush
38
New Mexico
92
Gore
39
North Dakota
92
Bush
40
Texas
92
Bush
41
Alabama
90
Bush
42
Louisiana
90
Bush
43
Montana
90
Bush
44
Oklahoma
90
Bush
45
South Dakota
90
Bush
46
South Carolina
89
Bush
47
Wyoming
89
Bush
48
Idaho
87
Bush
49
Utah
87
Bush
50
Mississippi
85
Bush
[Via MetaFilter "Morons for Bush?"]
UPDATE: Great quote from the comments on MetaFilter
It is well known that IQ is not a relevant way to measure "true" intelligence, and that many factors go into determining the political makeup of a stare's electorate, including historic tradition, perceived affinity with the candidate, differences in campaign targetting, media influence, and haha ha hahaha ha ha ha!
Lettin' off a little steam ...
Rush Limbaugh from yesterday ...
This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?
Should we take a look at the photos again Rush?...
I’m going to be leaving for Hong Kong on Saturday and will be there for not quite two weeks. As much of a cultural shock it can be, it falls down when you compare it to the Japanese. I had seen Lost in Translation right before my previous trip to Hong Kong and had really high hopes it would be just-like-that.
Whether there’s a labor shortage or people there simply dislike having to interact with another person, we don’t know, but we do know that you can buy almost anything from a vending machine in Japan: rice, toilet paper, eggs, fried...
Like most people I made a November 1st pledge to myself to step it up next Halloween. Here's my effort in 2003. In this spirit I offer this: [link](You might need to see the rest of them for the logistics to make sense)[Via Boing Boing + Geisha Asobi]
I know Christian Finnegan and he’s quite funny, but given his “host” title, he’s probably only on stage for 10 minutes. I don’t know the other guys.
christian finnegan hosts his monthly show "sob stories"TONIGHT at the marquee.come watch your favorite comics talk about this month's theme:"tragic drunkeness"here's our lineup...host:CHRISTIAN FINNEGANfeaturing:JONATHAN CORBETT (comedy central's "premium blend")EDDIE PEPITONE ("last comic standing")JOEY GAY (director of the upcoming comedy documentary,"the owner heckles") and more!here are the detailstuesday may 4SOB STORIES AT THE MARQUEE356 bowery (between great jones and e. 4th) 8pm, doors at 730pm$ 5call 212.664.5892 for more information.
From this article
You can imagine the scene: a well publicized funeral featuring a NFL star turned soldier. Flags everywhere, lots of "true-American-hero", "with God in heaven now" talk.
Then this happened:
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead.''
Awkward...
Seriously though - I can imagine his brother...
Funny video clip demonstrating why you ought to be careful when you are holding anything that's "one-of-a-kind" Link.[Via Chris Pirillo]
Bush recap for the week:
[Fake] Via The Onion: WASHINGTON, DC - In an internationally televised statement Monday, President Bush modified a July 2003 challenge to Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces. "Terrorists, Saddam loyalists, and anti-American insurgents: Please stop bringing it on now," Bush said at a Monday press conference. "Nine months and 500 U.S. casualties ago, I may have invited y'all to bring it on, but as of today, I formally rescind that statement. I would officially like for you to step back." The president added that the "it" Iraqis should stop bringing includes gunfire, bombings, grenade attacks, and suicide...