According to Boing Boing:
This is music made by four postal workers as they cancel postage! When I listen carefully, I think I can actually hear the spring mechanisms as the stamps hit the ink. I love it as an example of music turning what is normally seen as a boring, repetitive task into something this joyful.
Mesmerizing.
This is how the Albuquerque Journal’s website looks in Google Chrome. In a word, pathetic.
That’s a screen shot of the browser window at resolution 1200 X 700. I omitted the toolbars, etc., only.
So far today, one, three, seven bank failures bringing this year’s total to 37.
That’s 17 more than last year through March 20th.
I watched NCAA men’s tournament games last night and have them on in the background as I write. Not long ago I reported here on the amount of actual action in NFL broadcasts (11 minutes of action, but 17 minutes of replays and 75 minutes of commercials). I’d hate to see the same numbers for NCAA tournament games. The clock is clearly off more that it’s on during the broadcast, even excluding half time.
So it comes down to whether one can deal with all the ads, or in one word, ARGHHH!
First, all cell phone companies. I would do without cell service just out of spite over their ads if it were possible in today’s world. Can these commercials possibly have any impact on what cell service people choose?
Then there’s Buffalo Wild Wings. They’re the ones extending the TV game into overtime because the crowd at the restaurant is having such a great time. The ad currently in rotation has a camerman shooting off an immense photo-flash to blind a player so that he misses the game-winning shot. Hence, overtime. Waitress, over here, another round please.
If you’ve never been you could undoubtedly guess, but otherwise do you have any idea what kind of food they have at Buffalo Wild Wings? Is it tasty? Is it different than any other chain sports restaurant? (No.) Is it, god forbid, healthy?
No, the ad is strictly a fantasy that has nothing to do with the actual restaurant. Oh, it’s a cute ad the first few times. But not the 30th and 31st times.
And there’s the Enterprise car rental ad. You know the one, where the couple is off for their romantic getaway. Why exactly they need a rental car for this is beyond me, but what is really annoying is when she asks him does he want her to take the red negligee or the black negligee. He gives a goofy, shit-eating grin that should get her to reconsider her weekend plans (if not her life), and says, “Both.”
Moron.
The correct answer is, “Neither.”
“What if all 300,000,000 Americans lived in one place, packed as densely as Brooklyn? Where would we fit?”
That is, which state is the correct size to hold all 300,000,000+ Americans if it was populated as densely as Brooklyn?
Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Florida or New Hampshire?
“The early consensus among the well-informed is that [Nancy Pelosi] is the most effective Speaker since Tip [O’Neill] and potentially one of the three or four greatest ever. (There have been sixty. She’s the first woman.)”
Earlier this week, the world’s shortest man, He Pingping, age 21, died after developing chest pains while filming a television show in Italy. Pingping suffered from primordial dwarfism, a condition which kept him from ever growing taller than 73 cm (2 feet 5 inches) tall. Pingping was recognized by the Guinness World Records organization, who also held a “World Records Day” last November, encouraging people all over the world to set their own records. Collected here are a group of superlatives, recent photos of world records and record attempts around the world. (31 photos total)
“That the N.C.A.A. would consider tinkering with its gem of a format in pursuit of the mirage of more television money is the real March Madness. Just think, a 96-team tournament might have included all 16 teams from a horrendously overrated Big East.”
Congress approved Daylight Saving Time on this date in 1918.
Word still hasn’t reached Arizona.
The spring equinox (for us in the northern hemisphere) is tomorrow, March 20th, at 11:32 AM MDT (17:32 UTC).
The weather forecast for Albuquerque:
Breezy. Numerous rain and snow showers in the evening… then numerous snow showers after midnight. Snow accumulation 1 to 3 inches. Lows in the mid 20s to lower 30s. North winds 15 to 25 mph becoming east 10 to 20 mph after midnight.
Denver is forecast to receive 6-10 inches of snow today.
“Obama may not yet have the defining legislation of his presidency on his desk, but he’s already pulled off a small miracle: getting the holier-than-thou purists of his party to realize that they have to govern every now and then.
“No such problems on the Republican side.”
There’s now free software — Kindle for Mac — that let’s you read electronic books from Amazon on your Apple computer.
The Consumer Reports Cars Blog takes a look at the usual hype that accompanies year-to-year sales figures — comparing vehicle sales to February 2009 is a lot like comparing Phoenix to Hell and saying Phoenix isn’t so bad. Looking back before the great recession gives us a more realistic view.
As you can see, a few manufacturers have even reached and surpassed their numbers from back in February 2007 and 2008.
- Hyundai-Kia had a negligible gain compared with 2/07, but a 9 percent gain compared with 2/08 sales figures.
- Subaru saw gains of 42 percent compared with 2/07 and 40 percent improvement over 2/08.
- Volkswagen Group increased sales by 4 percent over 2/07 and 6 percent over 2/08.
- Despite its challenges, Chrysler appears to have held its own. However, Automotive News reports that 58 percent of Chrysler sales this February went to fleets, rather than consumers. These are low-margin sales that are not sustainable.
In contrast, the major manufacturers with hyped February 2010 sales figures are still down significantly compared with February 2007 and 2008 sales:
- Chrysler–down 52 percent and 44 percent, respectively
- Ford–down 32 percent and 28 percent
- General Motors–down 54 percent and 47 percent
- Honda–down 27 percent and 30 percent
- Toyota–down 47 percent and 45 percent
As a whole, the industry is down 38 percent compared with 2/07, and down 34 percent compared with 2/08.
“It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier…”
The Well Blog has more.
Video shot by the Columbus Dispatch from [Tuesday’s] Honk and Wave in Support of Health Care at Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy’s district office contains a segment wherein the teabaggers mock and scorn an apparent Parkinsen’s victim telling him “he’s in the wrong end of town to ask for handouts”, calling him a communist and throwing money at him to “pay for his health care”.
Progress Ohio has the video.
Kurt Russell is 59 today.
John Sebastian is 66.
Oscar-nominee (for Forrest Gump) Gary Sinise is 55.
Rob Lowe is 46.
Mia Hamm is 38.
Author Gary Paul Nabhan is 58 today.
He dropped out of high school, but he ended up going back to college and studying environmental science and botany. He said that coming from an Arab family, he was attracted to the desert, so he moved to Arizona when he was 19. And he was fascinated by all the ways that food was a part of life there — for ranchers, Native Americans, immigrants.
Excerpt from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor
Author Penelope Lively is 77 today. According to The Writer’s Almanac, she is “the only writer who has ever won both the Carnegie Medal (for outstanding children’s books) and the Booker Prize (for fiction written for adults).” Lively’s The Ghost of Thomas Kempe won the Carnegie Medal. Her Moon Tiger won the Booker Prize.
It’s the birth date of two greats who died young — Nat “King” Cole (1919-1965) and Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993).
Bobby Jones was born on this date in 1902. This from his obituary in 1971.
In the decade following World War I, America luxuriated in the Golden Era of Sports and its greatest collection of super-athletes: Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb in baseball, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney in boxing, Bill Tilden in tennis, Red Grange in football and Bobby Jones in golf.
Many of their records have been broken now, and others are destined to be broken. But one, sports experts agree, may outlast them–Bobby Jones’s grand slam of 1930.
Jones, an intense, unspoiled young man, started early on the road to success. At the age of 10, he shot a 90 for 18 holes. At 11 he was down to 80, and at 12 he shot a 70. At 9 he played against men, at 14 he won a major men’s tournament and at 21 he was United States Open champion.
At 28 he achieved the grand slam–victories in one year in the United States Open, British Open, United States Amateur and British Amateur championships. At that point, he retired from tournament golf.
A nation that idolized him for his success grew to respect him even more for his decision to treat golf as a game rather than a way of life. This respect grew with the years.
Just another Briton who conquered Ireland — though in his case spiritually.
The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession and the indignant Letter to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: “We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more,” he recalls in the Confession. He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland.
He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick’s Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18th-century fabrication.)
There’s much more; follow the link.
Sofia, one of my Wild Irish Sweeties, celebrates St. Patrick’s Day.
“The usual suspects have been attacking Obama for ‘demonizing’ insurance companies; but saying that people do terrible things isn’t demonization if they do, in fact, do terrible things.”
… was established on this date in 1938.
Salem Maritime, the first National Historic Site in the National Park System, was established to preserve and interpret the maritime history of New England and the United States. The Site consists of about nine acres of land and twelve historic structures along the waterfront in Salem, Massachusetts, as well as a Visitor Center in downtown Salem. The Site documents the development of the Atlantic triangular trade during the colonial period, the role of privateering during the Revolutionary War, and the international maritime trade, especially with the Far East, which established American economic independence after the Revolution. The Site is also the focal point of the Essex National Heritage Area, designated in 1996, which links thousands of historic places in Essex County around three primary historic themes: colonial settlement, maritime trade, and early industrialization in the textile and shoe industries.
First posted here six years ago today
Man treated after attempting to nail himself to cross
NewMexiKen wasn’t going to post this lunacy until I saw the money quote:
When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911,” Boucher said.”
Read the story from the Portland Press Herald [link no longer valid].
Sheriff Greg Solano visits the set of True Grit to see Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Worth a click if you like Jeff Bridges or Matt Damon or the Sheriff (and who doesn’t?).
