Author: NewMexiKen

Best line of the day, so far

“Jesus says Christmas shouldn’t be about picking fights and organizing boycotts. All that legalistic nitpicking just reminds him of the Pharisees. Do you really think that if Jesus returns to Earth tomorrow, his priority is going to be organizing a boycott of Target stores? You think he’s going to appear on Fox to say, ‘Worry about genocide and hunger later – first, let’s battle with liberals over what holiday greeting to use’?”

Nicholas Kristof channeling St. Peter in a conversation with President Bush

C’etait un Rendezvous

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

Now, thanks to the miracle of the Internets, you can watch it in your browser.

This footage is really rather incredible; more exciting than typical movie car chases because you see the view from the car the entire time.

Link directly to the nine minute video. Here’s another link. The film has the car noise, which isn’t to be missed, but be aware.

Source for information above and links: Jerry Kindall: C’etait un Rendezvous.

Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes they don’t tell the truth

Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, contends that Americans and the English smile differently. On this side of the Atlantic, we simply draw the corners of our lips up, showing our upper teeth. Think Julia Roberts or the gracefully aged Robert Redford. “I think Tom Cruise has a terrific American smile,” Keltner, who specializes in the cultural meaning of emotions, says. In England, they draw the lips back as well as up, showing their lower teeth. The English smile can be mistaken for a suppressed grimace or a request to wipe that stupid smile off your face. Think headwaiter at a restaurant when your MasterCard seems tapped out, or Prince Charles anytime.

… Several years later, Keltner went to England on sabbatical and noticed that the English had a peculiar deferential smile that reminded him of those he had seen among the junior American frat members. Like the frat brothers’, the English smile telegraphed an acknowledgment of hierarchy rather than just expressing pleasure.

New York Times Magazine

Another way of looking at it

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

From an essay by Penn Jillette, explaining that he isn’t an atheist. He is a believer. He believes there is no God.

Internet Siphons Readers, Ads

From a report in today’s Los Angeles Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — When Jeffrey Zalles needed a new cashier for his coin laundry in the South of Market district, his help-wanted ad in the San Francisco Chronicle brought just four responses.

So Zalles posted a notice on Craigslist, a San Francisco-based network of websites that specialize in classified advertising. His cyber-ad drew 400 applicants.

Zalles found his cashier and hasn’t relied on the Chronicle since, advertising instead on the Internet and the city’s array of free papers.

Even NewMexiKen has made $8.41 from ads in the first 10 days of December. Not much, but I guess it’s $8.41 that some more traditional advertising outlet didn’t get — and there’s a new website every second (or some such statistic). The internet is changing everything.

It’s the Thought That Counts

Scott Adams on gifting:

I asked my fiancé what she wants for Christmas and she was nice enough to e-mail me a specific suggestion for a hard-to-find item.

I copied the product name from her e-mail, pasted it into the Froogle search engine, and found the cheapest one on the Internet. That took about 12 seconds. It took another minute to enter my address and credit card information.

When it comes to gift-giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. So far I had 72 seconds invested in my future wife. I wondered if that was enough.

Adams continues.

Heisman factoid

Two schools have had 20 percent of the Heisman Trophy winners; seven each at USC and Notre Dame.

USC: Mike Garrett (1965), O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981), Carson Palmer (2002), Matt Leinart (2004) and Reggie Bush (2005).

Notre Dame: Angelo Bertelli (1943), Johnny Lujack (1947), Leon Hart (1949), Johnny Lattner (1953), Paul Hornung (1956), John Huarte (1964) and Tim Brown (1987).

In all, 70 men have won the Trophy; one of them, Archie Griffin of Ohio State, won it twice.

Indiana

… entered the Union on this date in 1816, the 19th state.

Motto: “The Crossroads of America.”
Nickname: Hoosier State.
Capital: Indianapolis

Bird: Cardinal.
Flower: Peony.
Poem: “Indiana.”
Song: “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away.”
Stone: Indiana limestone.
Tree: Tulip tree.

Indiana

Total area: 36,418 sq. mi. (38th), including 551 sq. mi. inland water.
Population: 6,159,068 (14th) (2002 estimate).

It’s the birthday

… of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The Nobel Prize winner (for Literature in 1970) is 87.

… of Rita Moreno. The Oscar winner — supporting actress for Anita in West Side Story — is 74.

… of Tom Hayden. Royal Oak’s most famous native, co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society and Jane Fonda’s one-time husband is 66.

… of John Kerry. He’s 62.

… of Brenda Lee. She’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Holiday Tree this year at age 61.

… of Terri Garr. The Oscar nominee (supporting actress for Tootsie) is 56.

Richard Pryor

Digby gets his tribute to Richard Pryor off to an appropriately iconclastic start.

If you would like to have a surreal experience akin to the effects of downing ten shots of cheap tequila, tune in to FoxNews as they eulogize Richard Pryor. Apparently he invented dirty words. (It’s going to come as a helluva surprise to Lenny Bruce — not to mention Redd Foxx.) He rejected the comedy of the good comedian, Bill Cosby, and went down the “wrong path” that led us to where we are today with all this R rated badness. One of the commentators said that when he went on TV in the mid 70’s he “wasn’t ready for prime time.” (Actually, prime time wasn’t ready for him.) Another said that “every black comic owes him something.”

(Is it possible that right wingers are all actually zombies who died sometime before the 60’s and have been walking among us as the undead ever since then? I just don’t know what else can explain their terminal cultural obtuseness.)

Go read the rest.

Mississippi

… entered the Union as the 20th state on this date in 1817. From the Ojibwa misi sipi, “great river.”

Nickname: Magnolia State.
Capital: Jackson.
Motto: Virtute et armis (By virtue and arms).

Mississippi

People: 2,871,782 (31st) (2002 estimate)
Total area: 48,430 sq. mi. (32nd), including 1,523 sq. mi. inland water.

Beverage: Milk.
Bird: Mockingbird.
Fish: Largemouth or black bass.
Flower: Magnolia.
Fossil: Prehistoric whale.
Insect: Honeybee.
Mammal: White-tailed deer.
Song: “Go, Mississippi.”
Stone: Petrified wood.
Tree: Magnolia.
Waterfowl: Wood duck.
Water mammal: Porpoise.

Note that Mississippi is a poor state that needs to use magnolia as both its state flower and state tree.

920 Biography, genealogy, insignia

Melvil Dewey was born on this date in 1851. You know — Dewey, as in Dewey decimal system.

Read Dewey’s obituary in 1931 from The New York Times.

Here’s a website that seems to be the Dewey Decimal Classification headquarters.

Oh, and here’s 025.431: The Dewey blog.

NewMexiKen has been considering jettisoning the Categories for this blog and replacing them with a classification scheme. I’d probably use the Library of Congress system, though. Sorry, Melvil.

Best line of the day, so far

The familiar pattern of a decade ago begs the question that Bill Gates was asked when he met last month with a group of executives and journalists from The New York Times: Will you do to Google what you did to Netscape?

Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and chairman, paused, looked down at his folded hands and smiled broadly, as if enjoying a private joke. “Nah,” he replied, “we’ll do something different.”

From Can This Man Reprogram Microsoft?, an article in Sunday’s New York Times about the new internet and Microsoft’s re-invention. Interesting look at where we may all be headed.

The “man” in the title is Ray Ozzie.

Sports talk

These two items via Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

Here’s what another former Trojan had to say about [Reggie] Bush:

“Best college football player I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched college football for 25 years. I’ve spent over 25 years affiliated with the USC program in athletics, all the way back from my ball-boy days and stuffing envelopes in the sports information office to being an All-American and first-round pick.”

Speaking those words on his Sirius Satellite Radio show was Keyshawn Johnson, born July 22, 1972.

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, on the outcome of the Rose Bowl game: “First team to 50 — loses by 14.”

What is your favorite holiday-season beer?

Colorado Luis suggests four (from two years ago) and calls for nominations. His suggestions:

New Belgium Frambozen

Anchor Christmas Ale

Goose Island Christmas Ale

Breckenridge Christmas Ale

Luis explains:

Some of these beers change from year to year, for example, this year Goose Island’s Christmas Ale will be an IPA. My vote for best holiday beer is still the Frambozen, which reminds us a good ten years after fruit beers were trendy that introducing real fruit into the brewing process can create a sophisticated and tasty product without too much residual sugar.

If I were emperor

I would command a 16-team Division I-A football playoff system and today would be the first round:

USC vs. Texas Tech
Texas vs. UCLA
Penn State vs. TCU
Ohio State vs. Alabama
Oregon vs. LSU
Notre Dame vs. West Virginia
Georgia vs. Virginia Tech
Miami vs. Auburn

How cool would that be? As it is, there are no Division I-A games scheduled today.

(My schedule is based on BCS rankings with a few modifications for teams in the same conference.)