Today’s Photo
Jason took this photo across the Potomac River from Washington with a Canon PowerShot G3 in May 2003.
Best line of the day
“I realize that there’s a concerted Democratic campaign to portray Republican Senate nominee Sharon Angle as a nut. That does not change the fact that Sharron Angle is, in fact, a nut.”
Best line of the day
“I’m a Nebraska native, and when I first heard rumblings of a conference switch, I thought, well, it’s only a number; in my youth, the Big 12 was only the Big Eight. And it’s all about money, anyway.
“But this realignment disrupts rivalries that are central to the pleasure sports give to fans—especially Nebraska fans, who are inoculated with an unusually pure strain of fandom. As far as high-profile sports go, the Cornhusker football team is literally the only game in town. At school on Mondays after a Saturday loss, everyone was still a bit depressed. And I’m talking about elementary school. …”
Best huh? line of the day
“We have the opportunity to send a very positive message, and that message is dump Harry Reid.”
Nevada Republican senate nominee Sharron Angle as reported by Hendrik Hertzberg
Best Strasburg line of the day, so far
“Stephen Strasburg’s 14-strikeout debut performance for the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night didn’t just meet expectations, it took those expectations out on a date, romanced them, and then married the expectations in a lavish beachside ceremony attended by Tom Cruise and Barbara Streisand.”
Best line of the other day I forgot to post
“I started the Sarah Vowell book on the plane yesterday and I am almost done with it. I LOVE it. I want to go find her and be best friends with her.”
Jill reporting from Grand Cayman regarding Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation
Idle thought
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It’s Donald Duck’s birthday. (He’s 76.)
I think we should all walk around in a sailor suit and no pants today to celebrate. Donald is one of three Disney characters with an “official” birthday. The others are Mickey and Minnie, who debuted on November 18, 1928. |
Irony
The defintion of irony: Bob Costas doing the play-by-play of Stephen Strasburg’s major league debut last evening and talking about the kid exceeding the hype.
Idle thought
Adding up all the numbers, about 75 billion human beings have lived and died by now.
How many do you suppose are in heaven?
What do they do there?
This s*** just isn’t right
I wanted to buy a six-pack of beer in cans yesterday, to drink and throw the empties at the TV if UCLA beat Arizona in softball (as they did).
I find it is increasingly difficult to buy a six-pack; 12-packs are all the rage. And bottles outnumber cans by a large margin. I just wanted a six-pack of cans, but I ended up thinking the best deal was 12 Stella Artois in bottles.
I bring it home, put the case in the refrigerator with a couple in the freezer to speed up the chill. I’m an American; I like my beer cold (even if I bought a Belgian beer).
But I decide to have a Margarita instead.
Later I remember to get the two bottles out of the freezer. That’s when I notice they are not 12 ounces, which is the amount Moses brought down from Mount Sinai as the proper portable package for beer.
No, they are 11.2 ounces.
Eleven. Point. Two.
WTF is this? You can make the OJ containers smaller. You can make the jam jars smaller. You can mess with almost anything.
But you don’t mess with beer.
The Band’s Visit
I watched an amusing little film this evening, The Band’s Visit, a 2007 Israeli movie on DVD from Netflix.
Eight members of the Alexandria [Egypt] Ceremonial Police Orchestra are stranded in a small Israeli town, misdirected from their scheduled appearance at an Arab cultural center. Mostly in English, with some subtitles for the Arabic and Hebrew, an exchange takes place among some members of the band, especially its leader, and a few of the isolated, bored and lonely people of the community. It’s amusing and touching and a study in human nature without being predictable.
The Band’s Visit is slow paced, more short story than major motion picture. Nothing really happens.
But it’s altogether delightful.
Sad and most aggravating line of the day
“Video from the sea floor has once again exposed as ludicrous the federal estimates of how much oil is poisoning the Gulf of Mexico. That video shows that the billowing cloud of filth from BP’s broken pipe appears undiminished even as about 15,000 barrels of oil a day are being captured by a new cap, clearly indicating that the flow is several multiples of that amount.”
I’m sorry, I’m just an
… old soft-hearted liberal, and susceptible to having my emotions manipulated, but how many iPhones do you think this ad will sell?
Today’s Photo
This photo of Crater Lake was taken June 5, 2003. The road had just opened and snow was 10 feet high in places, including the visitor center. Taken with an Olympus C700UZ.
Best line of the day about doughnuts
RENTON, Wash. — Seahawks rookie wide receiver Golden Tate apologized Tuesday and said he was “very embarrassed” after police in suburban Seattle gave him a warning for trespassing into a gourmet doughnut shop at 3 a.m. last weekend.
The former Notre Dame star says it was a foolish mistake but that he is glad to have learned a valuable lesson without getting arrested.
Tate says a friend took a couple of maple bars from the shop, which is at the bottom of the building in which Tate lives.
He says “they are irresistible.”
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll says he has talked to Tate, and agrees that maple bars can be irresistible.
Idle thought
So who you going to root for in the World Cup?
I mean, we’ll all root for the U.S.A. of course, but anybody else?
Charles Pierce says he’s going to root for Ivory Coast.
UPDATE: According to European oddsmakers, the 14 favorites (of 32 contenders) are, in order, Spain 5:1, Brazil 5.5:1, Argentina 8:1, England 9:1, Holland 11:1, Germany 15:1, Italy 17:1, France 21:1, Portugal 29:1, Ivory Coast 51:1, Serbia 67:1, Chile 81:1, Mexico 81:1 and U.S.A. 81:1.
Everybody else is 100:1 or worse.
Idle thought
BP will be sued and the possible damages from the Deep Horizon disaster could amount to $100 billion or more.
But the Supreme Court will throw the penalties out, as they did with the Exxon Valdez mess.
After the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon fought a $5 billion fine for punitive damages for two decades. It won. The fine was cut down to $4 billion, then to $2.5 billion. The case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, which found that Exxon’s actions were “worse than negligent but less than malicious,” and vacated the fine. The judgment limited punitive damages to the compensatory damages, which were calculated as $507.5 million.
Best how good will Strasburg be line of the day
“When you have a 98-mph sinker and it’s your third-best pitch, but your strongest suit is your control, then the broad outlines of the debate are settled.”
Stephen Strasburg’s Major League debut is tonight. It’s a sellout, but on ESPN at 7 ET.
Factoid of the day
Gasoline first averaged $4 a gallon nationwide for regular two years ago today.
Today it’s $2.72.
Safari 5
Apple’s browser has been updated with several new features and a speed boost.
Best line to put a little balance into it of the day
“Look, I hate to be the skunk at the garden party here. And, by all accounts, [John Wooden] was a wonderful man. But it should be noted before we’re all swept away in a tsunami of Hoosier piety that anyone arguing for John Wooden’s integrity based on the UCLA basketball program that he ran is simply arguing against the historical record …”.
UCLA basketball during its dynasty was about as bad as programs this side of John Calipari can get. Cars, cash, clothes, stereos, airline tickets, abortions — for 15 years. If Wooden didn’t know, it’s because he didn’t want to know.
Best line of the day
“Well, everyone’s entitled to go to hell in their own way, as my late grandmother said. So if Bob Kraft wants to go down and enjoy the semi-annual Limbaugh nuptials, who are we to say otherwise?”
Apple day
Netflix on the iPhone this summer — free app. (Netflix membership, of course, needed.)
Farmville on iPhone by end of June. And Guitar Hero, available in the app store today.
iPhone 4. Glass front and back, steel sides. Mighty pretty. One-quarter thinner. Two cameras (one for photos with flash, one for video conferencing).
New iPhone display 4X the pixels; 326 per inch. Apparently 300 is as good as our retina; so the display is better than we can see. The images are amazingly sharp. 960X640 resolution.
They added a gyroscope. I’m not sure I know what that does, but I guess it makes the iPhone into a Wii-like device.
5 megapixels, 5X zoom, tap focus and LED flash. And HD video. 720p at 30 frames per second. Omigoodness. And with editing software (for $4.99).
This is a pocket device we’re talking about.
iPads are so April.
The new operating system will permit more than one application to run at a time. Yay! And folders for apps. Out June 21st.
iBooks coming to iPhone 4. Great, I like reading on my iPhone and like having choices where to get the books.
One downside, look for more ads in apps.
Video calls, iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over wireless only for now. It’s called Face Time. The demo (an ad we’ll be seeing soon I imagine) shows two people communicating via sign language on the phone.
16GB or 32GB; white or black. June 24th. $199 or $299 with AT&T upgrade offer.
iOS (new software) free for iPhone and iPod touch (except won’t work on first generation touch like mine) June 21st. Not all features will work on older models.
Idle thought
AT&T is going to let everyone upgrade to the new iPhone at the subsidized price, no matter how much time remains on their existing agreement. Just sign a new two-year agreement.
That tells me AT&T is about to lose exclusivity.