Wednesday’s Trivia Blast

– The San Diego Wild Animal Park (part of the world-famous San Diego Zoo) has a monorail line. Its name is WGASA, and that moniker was chosen by a park employee. Management loved the name, since they were seeking something with an “African feel”. What they didn’t know until later was that WGASA was a crude acronym for “Who gives a shit anyhow?”. Even after finding out the awful truth, management decided to keep the name. Read more here.

– The TV show Benson was the first television show to mention the Internet by name. In an episode called “Scenario”, which aired on February 22, 1985, the characters discussed ARPANET, the forerunner of the modern Internet.

– Phyllis Smith, who plays the character of the same first name on the US version of The Office, was once a cheerleader for the St. Louis Rams and a burlesque dancer. A knee injury in the 1980s forced her to stop dancing, so she moved to Hollywood and worked as an actress and in casting.

– Have you ever seen a picture which contains a picture of itself? This called a recursive picture, and the specific effect is called the Droste effect, after a brand of Dutch cocoa which features a picture of the box on the packaging:

Droste

Other famous images featuring the Droste effect include the cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma album, Land O’Lakes butter, The Laughing Cow cheese, and the movie poster for Memento. Read more about it here.

Anglican News

Two quick updates from the wacky world of Anglicanism:

– St Andrew’s Church, the largest church in the Diocese of South Carolina, voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Church in North America. And by “overwhelmingly” I mean that: 703 church members voted in favor of leaving, while only 19 voted to stay… a 97% landslide! Of course, with what’s going on in South Carolina these days, the entire diocese might be next! Read more here.

– One of the basic tenets of canon law is that a bishop cannot enter the diocese of another bishop and preach or administer the sacrament without that bishop’s express permission. Bishop Iker had to remind “that woman” of that very fact when she once attempted to preach in Ft. Worth without his permission, and “that woman” has since used that same law to prevent orthodox Anglican bishops from visiting like-minded parishes in liberal dioceses. But it seems that Gene Robinson can preach in Dallas without first obtaining the permission of Bishop Stanton. I can’t decide which line to end this paragraph with: “hypocrisy, thy name is The Episcopal Church” or “The Episcopal Church has always been at war with Eastasia”. You decide.

QuickJava Updated

From the “I shoulda posted this a month ago” department:

QuickJava, one of my favorite Firefox extensions, has recently been updated.

Quick Java

Aside from the snazzy new buttons, you can see that QuickJava has also added support for toggling images, Flash and Silverlight objects on and off, in addition to its namesake Java applets and JavaScript objects.

Download QuickJava here.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28

  • wonders when tennis shoes all became "gangsta moon boots"! #
  • Meck County: $30m for NASCAR HoF, but shutting down half the libraries? At least they have priorities! #
  • @AnglophileA What an embarassing thing to OD on! 😉 in reply to AnglophileA #
  • Obvious headline of the day: "UK Space Agency is unlikely to threaten NASA supremacy" #
  • I think I threw my arm out playing Wii Tennis. My shoulder is KILLING ME! #
  • Dear TomTom: the XL 330 is the most aggravating device I've ever dealt with. And I owned a Velo 1! #
  • HAHA – "24" is canceled! Jason Bourne's ass-kicking of Jack Bauer is complete! #
  • @terrinh73 Ewwwww! Thanks for shating yer toe, honey! in reply to terrinh73 #
  • So… you can't smoke in Golden Corral any more… but you can consume 12,000 calories at dinner? Makes sense to me! #

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All Saints wins!

The Episcopal Church has given up all claims to All Saints in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina… but not after taking some hush money:

After nearly a decade of legal and personal conflict, the issue of the All Saints Church property has been resolved, thanks be to God. Our Vestry and that of the Episcopal congregation have come to an understanding that ends the case forever and also provides a way for both churches to go forward into the future in faith and service to Christ.

As a result of our agreement, both sides recognize and accept the September 18, 2009, decision of the Supreme Court of South Carolina in which the Court determined that we are the rightful owners of the property and legitimate Vestry for All Saints Parish, Waccamaw. The Episcopal congregation has taken action to withdraw their Petition before the Supreme Court of the United States. As you may recall, the South Carolina decision was truly remarkable in that it clearly refuted any claim that the Episcopal Church might make on our property through the use of the so-called Dennis Canon.

In a desire to bless the work of God in the Episcopal congregation, our Vestry has made the offer of a financial gift of $375,000 to them to assist in their future ministry in our community. In addition, we have offered several items that represent their participation in the heritage of All Saints Church.

I guess TEC didn’t want to take on the Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Read more here.

More Pretty Women

Well, as you have probably figured out, I’ve been having a case of writer’s block lately. So here are a coupla pics of some pretty women to tide you over!

First, here’s English actress Emily Blunt, famous for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada and The Young Victoria, as well as being the fiancee of John Krasinski from The Office:

Emily Blunt
(click to embiggen)

Next we have Alison Brie from Mad Men and Community:

Alison Brie
(click to embiggen)

Continue reading “More Pretty Women”

I never thought I’d see the day…

A proposed initiative has passed validation and will be included on the ballot in California this November:

California voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults, after the secretary of state on Wednesday certified the initiative for the November ballot.

It would become the first state to legalize recreational marijuana use if the proposition is approved. Marijuana use is legal for medicinal purposes in California and 14 other states, but the drug is illegal under federal law.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified that the petitions seeking to place the question on the ballot had more than 433,971 valid voter signatures, the minimum number needed to qualify.

After all these years, could it really be happening?

Read more here.

Who IS that guy?

It seems that a lot of people want to know who this guy is:

Creepy Guy 01

He’s known as “Harold” and he’s popped up in thousands of Internet ads. But he doesn’t freak me out nearly as much as this guy:

Creepy Guy 02

Let’s face it… “Harold” is supposed to look creepy. He’s got the hair and the beard… it’s obvious to me that he wants to look like a wild mountain man. Which makes me think that some genius marketing guy found Harold’s mugshot somewhere and thought it would make for great viral advertising (and if so, a tip of the hat to you, sir!).

But just look at the second guy. At first glance, he looks pretty normal. Maybe he’s some guy from an IT services ad or something. But then you take another look and see his circa 1985 glasses, the weird, Cro-Magnon jaw and the photoshopped smile, and… well, it’s just creepy. Not as creepy as the clown doll in Poltergeist… but close. Very close.

Trivia Follow-Up

Here are a couple of items I meant to post on Monday, but forgot:

– Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 film Blackmail is generally considered the first British film with sound. However, Hitchcock had already started filming the movie when the decision was made to add sound to it. Hitchcock had chosen Polish\Czech actress Anny Ondra as the female lead because film was originally supposed to be silent. However, now that sound was added, Anny’s thick accent would make her unconvincing as an English woman. Since recasting the lead and starting over from scratch was too expensive, and since sound could not be edited later on at that time, Hitchcock had Ondra mouth the words while English actress Joan Berry spoke into a microphone off camera. Here’s a picture of the filming:

Hitchcock BlackmailHitchcock (with headphones on) listens to Berry read lines as Ondra mouths them and a cameraman records it.

– There’s an interesting story behind the creation of Curious George.

– Play-Doh was originally created as a wallpaper cleaner.