Saturday, January 15, 2011

Rain

Oh, I just heard rain on the windows. It's been raining all day. Nothing special, just a nice hard, solid rain.

But the thing is that tomorrow is supposed to be "really heavy rain" as opposed to this. It will be a good day to be inside.
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Quote du jour

From a HuffPost article on Showtime rejecting a miniseries about the Kennedys:
The network said in a statement that while "'The Kennedys' is well acted, well produced and a quality miniseries, it doesn't fit the Showtime brand."

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Quote ju jour

This is just from around the Interwebz:

"I'm so tired I could sleep a horse."
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Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

"The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics" is a classic cartoon from Chuck Jones and MGM. It's a delicious cartoon, something you'll enjoy terrifically. It won an Academy Award. Watch it until the last second, because it's important for you to see everything. You'll know what I mean when you see it. I would suggest that you also maximize this to fill your screen, as some of the graphics will benefit from it.

It's narrated by the great Robert Morley, noted English actor and writer, who, according to the photos on Wikipedia had three chins even as a young man. (You'll recognize him immediately if you don't know him already just by his name.)



BTW, there's a fair chance that this will get cleaned off of YouTube shortly and the link I've posted will no longer work. The cartoon is copyrighted material, after all, so YouTube is likely to sweep it clear. Not to worry, though: if this proves to be the case, you can always click this link to search YouTube for "The Dot and the Line." The cartoon is 10 minutes long, so be sure to find something that's the right length.
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Why women like "Twilight"

I was looking at The Oatmeal for information on how not to design a shopping cart (which is an exceptional article that is particularly relevant for me at the moment) and I saw they had something on "Twilight." I'm not a "Twilight" fan, having identified it as chick porn with vampires, but the description of how and why it's so appealing is spot on. Here's a video about the plot that was created from The Oatmeal's description and illustrations.


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Monday, January 10, 2011

What books were best-sellers the day you were born?

This fun little application tells you what fiction and non-fiction books were on the NY Times bestseller lists the day you were born.
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The Mapping Stereotypes project

I think this has something to offend everybody, you know? It's maps of the world or various parts thereof labeled according to the popular stereotypes of various countries. Examples are "The World according to USA," "Europe according to Germany," "Europe according to Britain," and "Italy according to Posh Italians."

This is delightfully tasteless.
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Meowmania

This is just strange.
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Robert Frost and Hernando's Hideaway

(I thought I'd posted this many moons ago, but apparently not.) Everything outside is crusty with ice. The roads are slick with black ice; it was a pest just putting the recycle bin out this morning. It's snowing in Seattle, Portland's getting up to a foot of snow on Tuesday night, and we may be in for snow on Wednesday. It seems appropriate to point out that Robert Frost's famous poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," can be sung very well to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway," as the following example shows:

Whose WOODS these ARE I thinkIknow.
His HOUSE is IN the villagethough;
He WILL not SEE me stoppinghere
To WATCH! hiswoodsfillupwithsnow (O-!).
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