"Hartley says she was particularly impressed that Kyle Stone, the actor who plays Bottom, brayed loudly during his orgasm."
| Pornography |
This must be the kind of story that sysadmins tell their kids at bedtime: The case of the 500-mile email
I was working in a job running the campus email system some years ago when I got a call from the chairman of the statistics department."We're having a problem sending email out of the department."
"What's the problem?" I asked.
"We can't send mail more than 500 miles," the chairman explained.
I choked on my latte. "Come again?"
"We can't send mail farther than 500 miles from here," he repeated. "A little bit more, actually. Call it 520 miles. But no farther."
| Email |
Our own Matt F-B had a piece in the Christmas edition of the New York Times: Their Port in a Storm.
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I'd been meaning to write something on the War!On!Christmas! sometime before the actual day, but hadn't quite got to it, what with the transit strike and holiday prep and all. It would have included a link to this funny "War On Solstice" piece and this anti-Christmas rant (warning: even the URL is NSFW), both picked up from pesky'. It would have talked about how I've celebrated Christmas all my life, as a Jew with a Christian family, and how much I love the traditions and the music and the overall message: peace on earth, goodwill toward all, and God bless us all, every one. How I was able to enjoy a holiday outside of my own religion because of that message. And how the fundamentalists have ruined it by insisting that Christmas is now a battle to be won.
Fortunately, I don't have to write that, because Adam Felber already did. Thanks, Adam.
For your enjoyment, I've copied my favorite Christmas story below.
Continue reading "War on Christmas" » | Holidays | Christmas | Religion | Spencer Holst |
We saw two movies over the weekend: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and TCON: TLTWATW. The two were sort of inverse experiences. TLAWSZ was disjointed and disappointing -- will anything be as good as Rushmore and Bottle Rocket? And no Kumar Pallana? But the soundtrack was great, and Seu Jorge's album of Bowie covers immediately went to my wish list.
Narnia, on the other hand, was undermined by its soundtrack, which was overly "dramatic" and, frankly, sentimental. I kept wishing they'd turn it down and let the fine acting and effects speak for themselves.
More on Narnia (and SNL) in this BLIM with Chris:
. . . .
molanphy: Of course, you could have stayed in town and had a Christmas like this
ishbadiddle: pretty hilarious
ishbadiddle: that was darlene love!
molanphy: Yup!
molanphy: And after they ran the TV Funhouse bit on SNL, Love was in the studio live singing with the band. Sounded good
ishbadiddle: wait, is SNL funny now?
molanphy: That one night, yes, amazingly
* ishbadiddle looks for 4 horsemen, scarlet woman on beast, other signs of the eschaton
molanphy: I think Robert Smigel (TV Funhouse guy) must be bummed, because the "Christmastime for the Jews" bit is the best thing he's done in years, and it got completely overshadowed by "Lazy Sunday" (The Chronic) that same night
ishbadiddle: speaking of which we did see TLTWATW
molanphy: So did I, with my mother-in-law last week (Emily was busy)
molanphy: Pretty much confirmed my memory of the book: setup is great, final battle is great, middle is disjointed and hella mushy
ishbadiddle: i loved when the dive-bombing gryphons looked just like the dive-bombing luftwaffe in the beginning
molanphy: Good catch!
molanphy: I missed that
ishbadiddle: i thought it would have been better but the soundtrack really made it overly ... sentimental?
molanphy: Ehhhhh...yes. I was squirming all thru the middle. Esp. the St. Nicholas bit
ishbadiddle: ho ho ho
ishbadiddle: ~ swinton was great tho
molanphy: Word
molanphy: I also thought the Christian allegory wasn't as horribly on-the-nose as reputed...except in the Aslan-sacrifice sequence, but even there, if you don't know the full Jesus crucifixion story, you can safely ignore the parallels
ishbadiddle: and the "footprints" bit at the end
molanphy: Ah, that
So: Life Aquatic, 2.5 stars, Narnia, 3.5 stars.
| Narnia | Wes Anderson | BLIM |
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Hard hitting journalism, that. See also the General's take.
Via Eschaton.
| Fox News | Race |
How did I miss this? Thanks, Pandagon:
After 23 years of service as an investigator in the Ocean County, N.J., prosecutor's office, Lt. Laurel Hester is dying of lung cancer. She would like her partner, Stacie Andree, to get her pension benefits.
The Ocean County Board of Freeholders would like Hester to get lost. The freeholders, the all-Republican governing body that sounds, and acts, like something out of the "Scarlet Letter," have denied her request for domestic partner benefits. Something about how it would "cost too much." Oh, and something about the "sanctity of marriage."
There's apparently a bit of a loophole in New Jersey's Domestic Partners Act of 2004. According to NJ.com, while that law covers state employees, it "also changed state law to permit -- but not require -- counties, cities and other local government entities to provide pension and health care benefits for domestic partners of their employees. More than 100 agencies have since adopted such resolutions, including Bergen and Hudson counties, NJ Transit, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and a dozen towns, from Stone Harbor to Jersey City. Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said not requiring local governments to adopt domestic partner benefits was 'the only way to get the bill through. We were well aware of the difficulties; that it was only a small step forward,' she said. 'It is something that we will have to come back and address in future legislative sessions.' For now, it has created a patchwork of law applied inequitably to public employees depending on local politics, according to Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization."
Posted today at the Big Gay Picture: the first in a series of three interviews with Hester, who has otherwise shunned most press. The Republic of T. also has lots more info.
Without the benefits, by the way, Andree stands to lose the couple's house.
Hester has about six months to live.
Merry Christmas!
| LGBT | Police | New Jersey |
This is the kind of story that should be printed out and given to every grad student on the first day of school. It's the scary story that we tell to little academics around a campfire to give them nightmares.
"When Linda Cerniglia went back to school, it took her almost seven years to get through all the prerequisites, the labs, the research. And it took a thief just moments to grab her purse, with the only copy of her master's thesis stored on a tiny jump drive inside."
Happy ending, but still, people -- BACK IT UP.
| Backup | Maryland |
In only the most recent ridiculous linkage and attempt to feed the Americans as much FUD as they can stomach:
“I would argue that the actions that we’ve taken there are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president,“ Mr. Cheney told reporters Tuesday aboard Air Force Two en route from Pakistan to Oman. ”You know, it’s not an accident that we haven’t been hit in four years.”
True enough: The United States (as defined by its North American landmass) also hasn’t been hit by an asteroid the size of Rhode Island, a general strike, or an ICBM from an evil genius with a pet cat. Such efficacy!
| Distortion | Magic |
The Inscrutable 8-Ball Revealed
Slightly disturbing, yet still fascinating in that morbid kind of way.
| Toys |
The Art of Illuminating by Staffan Vilcans. "Based on an image scanned from The Art of Illuminating As Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times by W. R. Symms, with an Essay and Instructions by M. D. Wyatt, Architect. London. Published April 2nd 1860 by Day and Son, Lithographers to the Queen." Via Luc Devroye.
| Freeware | Calligraphy |
Ben: "That's so cute!"
Zach: "I like that! I like all!"
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Lock Grooves and Parallel Grooves. Just because a record's got a groove don't mean it's in the groove.
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Installed the two ATA cables last night. (This required sliding the DVD player out to get at the motherboard.) Zipped up the cables with nylon ties so they weren't lying on the heat sink, fan, etc. Plugged in. BIOS! Yay! It works!
Now on to Phase III -- OS & software installation. I threw a Ubuntu CD in and it loaded, but it won't recognize the USB keyboard I was using. So I'll have to borrow a keyboard (got rid of an extra in our last move I think) to get it set up.
| Mikebox |
Via Coudal, a series of maps depicting regional differences in how places are named. Pictured: Branch (orange) vs. Brook (green) vs. Run (purple).
I think I just like saying "toponymy."
| Geography | Names | Language | Toponymy |
Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas.
-- Sam Seder on CNN, via Eschaton.
| Religion |
To bid on this Christmas Angel Miracle Image (or Mother Mary?) Frisbee!
| Toys |
Pictured: Adventure. Via things mag.
| Atari | Programming | Tufte Alert |
| Copyright | MP3 | DRM | Your Blank of the Day | Inheritance |
My personal favorite, from the Dallas Morning News:
Norma Adams-Wade's June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.
Via Poynter.
| Media | Lists |
At least no fake superscripts were involved!
| RNC | Fakes |
I'm out in Hanover, PA now -- my grandma passed away on Friday. She was 92. Will write more on her soon.
Download at Meine Schrift
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Remember super-string bean Sudanese Basketball Star Manute Bol? Well, it seems he may have been the origin of this phrase:
... the phrase was first used by the Sudanese immigrant basketball player Manute Bol, believed to have been a native speaker of Dinka (a very interesting and thoroughly un-Indo-Europeanlike language of the Nilo-Saharan superfamily). Says Arneson, "I first heard the phrase here in the Bay Area when Bol joined the Golden State Warriors in 1988, when several Warriors players started using the phrase." .... rummaging in the newspaper files down in the basement of Language Log Plaza produced a couple of early 1989 quotes that confirm this convincingly:St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he [Manute Bol] throws a bad pass, he'll say, "My bad" instead of "My fault," and now all the other players say the same thing.USA Today, Jan. 27, 1989: After making a bad pass, instead of saying "my fault," Manute Bol says, "my bad." Now all the other Warriors say it too.
So all of this is compatible with a date of origin for the phrase around or somewhat after 1985, when Manute Bol first joined the NBA. [Link]
Embarassingly, I used to think the phrase was "my bag" (not that this made much sense) and was corrected by some kids from the 'hood. I still blush with shame ...
Thudfactor on the silliest salvo in the "War On Christmas": The campaign to send Christmas cards to the ACLU.
| Religion | Crusaders | Christmas | War on Christmas | Kulturkampf |
For those of us with an office supply fetish, the Levenger's catalog is a good dose of p0rn. A ways back I saw this Five Year Journal and immediately wanted it. The idea is, you write a brief précis of the day's events each day over five years, so that you can see on one page what you did on December 6th in 2005, 2006, etc. In high school I had a weekly planner which I used for a similar kind of summation-diary (for only one year, though). It's great to be able to jog your memory about what happened on any particular day. I didn't keep up with it, though. Part of the problem is diary pressure. This is what has kept me from keeping a regular journal. If I have a big space to fill, but not much happened, it's intimidating. If I miss a few days, I feel guilty -- and missing a week, well, you might as well throw out the whole diary and start over next year. That's why I like the 5-year journal, because it's only meant for a short note for each day. There's the added joy of seeing what you did on a particular date across several years.
But $78 is a bit steep, and while the leather binding is nice, I really want something more portable and less imposing. Here's the $17.25 solution! You'll need:
1. A Moleskine Pocket Daily Diary.
The Moleskine is the perfect size and should stand up to several years' use. And since you only plunked down $13.95 for it, you won't feel guilty if you end up leaving pages blank. It's not specifically designed for a multi-year journal, of course, but it works fine once you ignore the day of the week and the (unobtrusive) hour. I write the year in the left margin and fill a couple of lines of text for each day. Or not.
2. A Uni Signo Bit 0.18 mm pens.
These pens are incredibly thin. Yes, you can write on a grain of rice, although I haven't yet tried it. The advantage of using these pens is you can fit twice as much text by doubling up on every line. It's still legible! Of course, you don't have to use one to have an MMM, but it does mean you can write more about each day (if a lot happened). Did I mention my office supply fetish? You can buy the pens online but if you don't want to spend $25 on a pack of 10 (and don't want orange) you can get them singly upstairs at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Rockefeller Center for $3.30.
Why have I tagged this post GTD? I find that writing about my week, even briefly, is an important part of the weekly review. Since I'm writing about home and work it helps keep things in perspective. Plus, it's a low-commitment way to keep a journal that doesn't take up much time.
There you have it. Go forth and journal!
| GTD | Diary | Journal | Pens | Moleskine | MMM | Lifehacks |
Vintage GI Joe View Master Reels. Via happy palace via Speak Up.
| View Master | Toys | Ephemera |
Lesson One: How to treat the public well. Six Apart does their customers right.
Lesson Two: How to treat the public with contempt. Angry BellSouth Withdrew Donation, New Orleans Says.
| BellSouth | Customer Service | New Orleans | Hurricane Katrina |
Received in our inbox:
Hey guys:Sorry for the mass email. Greg is writing for Marvel comics (he's the new writer for the Incredible Hulk!) and he's written a new character for them called "Mastermind Excello". They're having this online poll whick will decide if a miniseries will get made about the character, Amadeus Cho, who is Asian American.
If you have a moment in the day, please go to http://www.marvel.com and vote for him! "Mastermind Excello" tells the story of Amadeus Cho, a genius teen on the run from a nefarious government agency. TheFourthRail.com calls it "the shining star" of the "Amazing Fantasy" comic book in which it appeared this week. Four preview pages can be viewed online.
Thanks so much!Best,
S.
I haven't picked it up yet, but Greg's story is getting much good press. His story is currently in the lead in the poll, but "Blackjack" is coming up close behind.
I admit, I was sort of disappointed with his 1602 -- partially because the art was kind of muddy and it was difficult to make out what was happening some of the time. The writing was stronger on his Iron Man: House of M 3-parter, although again with the not-so-good artwork. But hey: go Greg! I'm looking forward to this one, as well as the upcoming Hulk.
Update: I picked this up, and "Mastermind Excello" is defintely worth your vote (even if Greg didn't write it I'd still have voted for it!) Also worth reading is "Blackjack", which reminded us both of "the Avengers" (TV series, not Thor et al.)
| Greg Pak | Marvel |
