December 2009
61 posts
10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling →
Heavy-Duty Wine Glass →
Uh…who would ever suppose that the odd item is actually a wineglass? And what is more surprising is that the wine doesn’t spill out at all. You know why? Check the pictures below, and you’ll find that’s due to the equivalent atmospheric pressure inside the left spherical vessel and the glass on the right.
[Twitter] FakeAPStylebook →
A few recent entries: Quotes from Kirk Cameron are always unnecessary. Note to film reviewers: The studio’s PR people may call it “squeakquel” but you were raised better than that. Avoid impacting colons by choosing words that are rich in fiber. When referring to yourself in a story, always be sure to include the modifier “mild-mannered.” Typing in all capital...
Learn Something Every Day →
A great Reader stuffer for the holidays. The above is the Something from December 19.
“FAA Considering Passenger Ban”
– The Onion
a few English language haiku
[The following are selected from The Haiku Anthology, ed. Cor van den Heuvel (which I received as a Christmas gift, and have posted excerpts of on this tumblr before when I borrowed it from the library). The attributions can be found therein. I’ll do my best to render the typesetting, but it’s sometimes difficult to do justice to it in the tumblr interface.] Snow falling on the...
What Song Should We Sing
The massive overhead crane comes when we wave to it, lets down its heavy claws and waits tamely within its power while we hook up the slabs of three-quarter-inch steel. Takes away the ponderous reality when we wave again. What name do we have for that? What song is there for its voice? What is the other face of Yahweh? The god who made the slug and ferret, the maggot and shark in his image. What...
A Brief for the Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between...
First Sight
Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, waiting too, Earth’s immeasurable surprise. They could not grasp it if they knew, What so soon...
SturgeonFace.com →
Crib
From the Greek for woven or plaited, which quickly translated to basket. Whence the verb crib, which meant “to filch” under cover of wicker anything—some liquor, a cutlet. For we want to make off with things that are not our own. There is a pleasure theft brings, a vitality to the home. Cribbed objects or answers keep their guilty shimmer forever, have you noticed? Yet religions...
[Infographic] Climate Change Skeptics vs. Science... →
A point-by-point summary of arguments made for and against the hypothesis that the global climate is rising at an accelerating rate as the result of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
The Fourth Wise Man
The fourth wise man disliked travel. If you walk, there’s the gravel. If you ride, there’s the camel’s attitude. He far preferred to be inside in solitude to contemplate the star that had been getting so much larger and more prolate lately— stretching vertically (like the souls of martyrs) toward the poles (or like the yawns of babies). — Kay Ryan
“Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in...”
– Jean Sibelius
Very Small Array →
Interesting infographics. The most recent:
Current Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives
Their photograph as featured on Wikipedia, reduced to the size of one pixel by one pixel
These pixels arranged in alphabetical order and then enlarged by 400%
OVERALL RATING 5 of 5
Pet Satisfaction 5 of 5 all gone, November 7, 2006 by tiger from Onterio Ca. (read all my reviews) “My cats love sophistacat cat food , they eat it all. when I buy other cat food the leave some in there bowls. with sophistacat they always want more, each cat have there own bowl in its own place , when there bowl is empty they scurry around to other bowls looking for more, so I...
“I will receive [the gift of Love] because I am unworthy. [As I read (into) it: I...”
– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, p. 100
“Humility goes to pray and finds silence through words. … Even when it...”
– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, pp. 88-89
The Excluded Animals
Only a certain claque of beasts is part of the crèche racket forming a steamy-breathed semicircle around the baby basket. Anything more exotic than a camel is out of luck this season. Not that the excluded animals envy the long-lashed sycophants; cormorants don’t toady, nor do toads adore anybody for any reason. Nor do the unchosen alligators, grinning their three-foot grin as they laze in...
[craigslist] minimalist seeks girl →
best photo caption →
Season’s greeting cards spread a bit thin this year “A lot of my friends aren’t sending real cards this year,’’ said Peg Willingham. “I suspect every year it will decline, just like the rest of Western civilization.’’ (Jonathan Newton/ Washington Post)
Twitter Trending Topic: #youknowyourfat
a few entries from the last few minutes (restoring my faith in America): JustinTrueblood RT @DaRealWhytboy: #YouKnowYourFat if u cant sneak up on sumbody !!! Lol Denzel_Jr #youknowyourfat if you follow resturants on twitter rahboogie74 #youknowyourfat when you can’t take bubble bath in the tub. half a minute ago from UberTwitter
CHRiSTAPiNKY #youknowyourfat if you look like piece of...
Stars of Bethlehems
[In the 4 days leading up to Christmas, I’ll share one a day of Kay Ryan’s four published Nativity poems (that I know of). Here’s the first.] Throughout the sky there are cinders black as the night. These are unborn stars awaiting their source of light. The night is gritty with things to hit, should something go on in a ciy or the outskirts of it. — Kay Ryan
[The Onion] Duane Takes Off Owing Roommates 1,300...
[Note: this article is #4 in The Onion’s Our Annual Year: The Top 10 Stories of The Last 4.5 Billion Years.] Duane, the dirtbag, circa 1986.
In what scholars generally consider to be one of the biggest dick moves in recorded history, 28-year-old convenience store cashier Duane Hoyt hastily departed Olympia, WA in the summer of 1987 still owing roommates Luke Dalrymple and Kyle Strickland...
First Sight
Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, waiting too, Earth’s immeasurable surprise. They could not grasp it if they knew, What so soon...
Invertebrate Observed Using Tools →
Amphioctopus marginatus (pictured) is observed to store and modify coconut shells, assembling them to use as shelter, making it the first invertebrate known to use tools.
Meditation in an Olive Garden
No Mencius-threaded grove restful with pan pipes and shepherd life, just the chain restaurant off Sherman Street. But the manager intends to make me think so—pastas on the posters, carafes of Mantuan wine lined up by shades of red and gold and white. In Palo Alto, Sunday sunlight stimulates the atmosphere as do the lively, prerecorded violins’ piazza overtures. I order a moscacelli entree a...
Like as a ship, that through the Ocean wyde
I take a taxi to the DMV on free weekdays, and like a stowaway observe the goings on, this long ennui. Too many lines inch forward to convey futility at 10 a.m.—”Come stay awhile and meet some interesting folks,” joked one employee on the phone that day. They stare, endure the P.A. drone, and coax returning predecessors like an axle’s spokes. Across the room someone hollers at a...
Midomi →
Can’t remember the name of a song? Sing or hum a few bars and Midomi will tell you.
ABC Replaces Scenes In 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'... →
Truth is more ironic than fiction. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
