WrongAnswer Box
It’s bad enough that so much of the information found online is bunk, but Question Box takes it to a whole new level: In Uganda, they’ve created a knowledge database because the internet runs too slow there, which will only compound internet inaccuracy and human error.
Oxford English Dictionary — 2009 Updates
Among the accepted neologisms: anyhoo and batshit.
My favorite new entry?
Twitter is on everyone’s mind and handheld device these days, but the word “twitterpated” has zip to do with it, and its recent entry is a coincidence. Two meanings—“Love-struck, besotted. Also: thrilled, excited; obsessed” and “Foolish, silly; flighty, scatterbrained”—date from the 1940’s, launched by the 1942 Bambi movie.
The breathtaking significance of 31.2%
This is already old news, but an AIDS vaccine has been shown to be of statistically-significant effectiveness in preventing transmission of the disease. For years (decades!) we’ve had nothing — absolutely nothing. Ask any pharmacologist or biomedical scientist and they’d tell you the same: nothing.
Now we have something. And something, no matter how small, can make all the difference in the world sometimes.
“Recycled” does not mean “clean”
Environmentalists would like us to start being more Norwegian, wiping our asses with harder, recycled paper, since the softer stuff we love is made (largely) from old-growth forests.
The reason for this fight lies in toilet-paper engineering. Each sheet is a web of wood fibers, and fibers from old trees are longer, which produces a smoother and more supple web. Fibers made from recycled paper — in this case magazines, newspapers or computer printouts — are shorter. The web often is rougher.
However, all recyclers know that recycled paper is filthy. Recently, a bunch of workers at a recycling plant found cash hidden in some recyclables:
In 2006, the body of a 50-year-old woman was found on a conveyor belt. “That was the worst,” Gurney said.
But Tuesday, the feeling inside the station at 301 Carl Road was far from morbid.
Sometime between 8 and 9 a.m., sorters who earn nearly $14 an hour discovered a few of the $100 bills getting sorted in a machine called the “in-feed conveyor belt,” Gurney said. The piles of junk then snaked throughout the spacious building, finally getting shot from a conveyor belt, like a mechanical shower head attached to the ceiling.
Hope you caught that part about the dead body, because that’s exactly why you shouldn’t use recycled paper: you just don’t know what’s in it. Indeed, I don’t even wipe my nose with recycled paper — ever — because, as a recycler myself, I know better.
Goddamn Freaks
When I was a kid, I used to watch these movies where people gave out their phone number as 555-yada-yada-yada-yada. It seemed so dumb to me, because ‘555′ makes it so obviously a fake number. (I kinda felt sorry, however, for Jenny, at 867-5309.) It’s sad that it has come to this, that we must protect our fictions from seeming too real, because so many are dumb enough to readily call up your number and tell you what to do (”Don’t go up the stairs you dumb bitch — the killer midgets are waiting there!”).
In Twilight, Bella (the angsty protagonist) moves to tiny Forks, Washington, where she falls for Edward Cullen, an angsty, guilt-ridden vampire. It seems natural, then, that Forks would become a major tourist attraction.
Over the last year or so, Forks (population 3,120) has morphed into a mecca for Twilighters, or Twihards as they are sometimes called. Visitors to this rainy town, whose main industries are logging and two correctional facilities, have more than tripled for the first eight months of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. Lodging occupancy is up, and local merchants sell little-vampire pacifiers and Bella and Edward action figures.
“You used to say you were from Forks and people would stare,” said Marcia Bingham, director of the Chamber of Commerce, referring to the “B.T.” (“Before ‘Twilight’ ”) days. “Now when they hear where you’re from, they’re breathless.”
Just fucking shoot me. Seriously.
(Though I must say the accompanying slide show makes La Push seem like a nice place for a picnic.)
The Red Book
Carl Jung’s Red Book is finally being published. In the movie Seven (starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey, oh my), Brad and Morgan break into Spacey’s apartment to find thousands of notebooks filled with non-sensical musings. The Red Book reminds me of that scene — a brilliant effort of impenetrable worth.
(But the story behind Sonu Shamdasani’s editing of the Red Book is mindbending. That’s a life’s work right there.)
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
Gogol Bordello, arguably the greatest live rock band on Earth (or ever. seriously.), is the subject of a new documentary by Margarita Jimeno.
Hotness.
Dubai Sucks (in case you didn’t already know)
For all the hype, few people know that you can be jailed in Dubai for being in debt. What’s crazy is that you’re jailed for the life of the debt, which means you can’t be let out to work, so you can’t earn money to repay the debt.
Kampala Burns
Juanita calls me this morning to tell me Kampala is burning to the ground. The Daily Monitor reports that the riots are the result of a tribal squabble between the Buganda Kabaka (king) and settlers in the Kayunga district.
While my factory (Namuwongo) is still operating, TIC Plastic (Nalukolongo) is running at half staff, with management sleeping in the rest areas, unable to leave. We figure the trouble will last until Monday (either that or it blows up and lots more people are going to die).
Cut those tails
Harvard’s endowment took a $11Billion hit this past year.
Now will you please stop waving those “Harvard is rich, don’t cut our jobs” signs?
The Tao of Nutri-grain
This commercial captures the inertia and despair inherent in office life very well, I think.
No matter what you change, how much you change, the cycle only perpetuates itself.
Shawne Merriman, I’m your newest fan.
Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman has been arrested on suspicion of choking Tila Tequila.
Someone had to do it.
Dying To Do Letterman
Comedian Steve Mazan, after being diagnosed with cancer, gives himself one year to accomplish his dream: doing a set on Letterman.
He just nailed it. (Note: he comes on at 30:56)
Time to eat.
A pair of studies (including a KO) suggests eating when you should be sleeping helps pack on the pounds.
Together, the papers suggest that there’s no simple answer to why people gain weight. Says [biologist Fred] Turek, “It’s clearly not just calories in versus calories out.”
Harvard Yard
From the NY Times:
“It’s a modern rendition of a classic American heritage,” said John Fowler, the creative director. “We want to combine the power of Harvard with the power of a plaid shirt.”
A plaid shirt? What a douche.
Bullet For My Valentine
Fantastic.
Monogamous Mating
Diane Doran-Sheehy, a primatologist at SUNY Stony Brook, thinks pregnant female gorillas use sexual intrigue as a tool to enhance pair-bonding. In essence, the female keeps the alpha male busy so other females can’t get any. This research, if validated, can add a new facet to our understanding of the evolutionary bases for monogamy and, indeed, love.
Euphemism
I had to buy restraints today (for unspecified reasons — it’s been that kinda day). You’d think that’d be a chore, but I had a fine time shopping for them. And here are some reasons why (links are NSFW):
1. Putting a toilet seat on a steel frame so someone’s face can fit under your ass means only one thing.
2. This is not a toy. Not at all.
Faux Fashion
In high school, I dated a Parsons alum with tiny hands. (It was great: everything — ahem — looks huge when handled by tiny hands.) She designed luxury handbags, which is what we talked about sometimes when I wasn’t busy with her b-cups. What I took from those conversations (other than that all models are b-cups) was that most fashion design is just embellished imitation. In other words, most fashion is bullshit, made for those who lack the creativity needed to truly express themselves.
Case in point: say you’re watching Sons of Anarchy and just need to recreate that American-rebel-biker-badass look for your own cubicle-based life. No need to go out and buy the newest SoA-inspired crap at Armani; instead, go get the real thing from Lil Joe’s Leather (sic). And, while you’re at it, get yourself a real Hell’s Angels biker wallet (made by Little Joe before his passing). For once in your life, try being that guy, the guy everyone wants to be like, and not the little bitch who talks incessantly, annoyingly about the new iPhone.
There’s something in my throat.
Sometimes, while watching America’s Got Talent with Mom and Sister, you happen upon an article so disturbing it makes your skin crawl. Tonsilloliths, better known as Tonsil Stones, are described here for your pleasure. Enjoy.