Here’s a great picture of one of my all-time favorite TV hotties – former Wipeout and Teen Wolf star Jill Wagner – in high school:
Talk about “late bloomer”! And what about those clothes? hehehehe!
Guess Who?
Quote of the Day
“It was easy for all of us to disappear. My house was in my mother-in-law’s name. My cars were registered to my wife. My Social Security cards and driver’s licenses were phonies. I never voted. I never paid taxes. My birth certificate and my arrest sheet, that’s all you’d ever have to know I was alive. See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl full of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hide out flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke I would go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over. That’s the hardest part. Today everything is different. There’s no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”
– Ray Liotta as
Henry Hill in
Goodfellas
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-23
- @LarryJMiller Happy belated birthday, Larry! #
- A web developer walked into a bar… but quickly left when he saw the table layout. #
- I have just created a new list titled 'Sports' using TweetDeck, follow it here: @jimcofer/sports #
- Saw a pic of Kelly Clarkson; thought it was Elton John. Ooops! #
- Anyone else just want to punch @piersmorgan in his smug, condescending face? #
- @1outside Well, Weaving played a misunderstood cannibal in #Rake #
- Wow… Wells Fargo's new signs look like Win 3.1's "Hot Dog Stand" theme: http://t.co/WIViKFTN #
- Lisa won porn bingo! I'm so proud! #
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The Three Governors
Back when I was a political science major in college, I fell in love with a quote attributed to Aristotle that went something like “politics is the most important of all the sciences, since it’s through politics that we define ourselves”. I haven’t been able to find a source for the quote, and am pretty sure that Aristotle never said any such thing. But the quote has always stuck with me, because it’s totally right, yet totally wrong, too.
It’s right because we put our values into our laws, laws that prevent children from being sent to sweatshops, or debtors from being sent to prison, or the elderly from being swindled, or pets from being beaten and abandoned. Laws that say that those who have more income should pay a higher share of their income in taxes. Laws that say that discriminating against someone for their race or religion are wrong. In fact, our entire legal system is built on the notion of right and wrong.
But it’s wrong because, well… our laws can sometimes go horribly wrong. Slavery, Jim Crow, anti-immigration or anti-Catholic laws are just a few examples of that.
And it’s not just the laws that can go wrong. The political process itself can sometimes go off the rails. Sure, it sometimes shows human behavior at its best (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”) and at its worst (the recent budget impasse). But fewer incidents show human political behavior at its silliest than the time that Georgia had not one, not two, but three governors.
* * *
Eugene Talmadge was the perfect old-school Southern politician. Born in the small town of Forsyth, Georgia on September 23, 1884, Talmadge attended, and received a law degree from, the University [sic] of Georgia in 1907. After graduating, Talmadge moved to Atlanta, where he practiced law with little success. He then moved to the small town of Aisley, in Montgomery County in southeast Georgia. His law practice did a little better there, but Talmadge had to become a part-time livestock trader to make ends meet.
In Aisley, Talmadge lived in a boarding house owned by a widow named Matilda Peterson. Peterson was fairly well off, as she also owned a large farm, and was the town’s railroad agent and telegraph operator. She also sold livestock, which gave the two something in common. Talmadge began courting her, and the couple soon married. They then moved to Telfair County, where they bought a large farm on Sugar Creek. Matilda then purchased another large farm, leaving Eugene in charge of the first one.
A Worthy Upgrade
“Hi, my name’s Jim, and I have a flashlight fetish.”
It sounds strange, but it’s true. Every time the missus and I go to Lowe’s or Home Depot, I have to check out two things – the spray paint aisle, and the flashlight aisle. I’m fascinated by all the different types of spray paint they have these days (I’m sooo tempted to paint my desk with the chalkboard spray paint!). I’m also fascinated by all the different types of flashlights.
It might seem odd, then, that I currently only own two flashlights.
The first is an Inova X5 LED flashlight I got for Christmas a few years back. It’s pretty boss. It’s made out of “aircraft aluminum” and is almost indestructible. And its multiple LEDs are bright as hell. The downside is that it uses odd size batteries (123, if you’re curious). These are relatively expensive at the few places that carry them (Energizer brand 123s are around $10/pair at Walmart and Lowe’s, although Lowe’s also carries the Sure Fire brand that are only around $4.75/pair). So I’m somewhat loathe to use the flashlight for an extended period of time, given that I’d have to find a store that carries a range of camera batteries to get replacements.
My other flashlight is an old AA Maglite. Maglites need no introduction; I’m sure there are few Americans who haven’t at least seen one, if not own one. They’re built like tanks and are reliable as hell. I don’t even remember when I got my Maglite, but I know I’ve had it for at least 15 years. But while it’s cool that the Maglite takes common, easy to find AA batteries, the light it puts out seems kind of wimpy compared to today’s LED lights.
Quote of the Day
“They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”
– Oscar Gamble
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-16
- Wow! For the first time since December 6, 1982, no team from Florida is in the AP Top 25! GT is #12 Go Jackets! #
- Hate the #Pats but lovin' their throwbacks today! #
- @AnglophileA Have fun at the show! #
- @calman3000 Dude, that's AWESOME! Bet it smells great, too! 🙂 #
- So is Occupy Atlanta still going on? Have they started passing out grape Flavor Aid yet? #SeriouslyItsACult #
- If you REALLY want to evict the protesters from Zuccotti Park, give 'em trans fats and cigarettes. Bloomberg would have them out in minutes! #
- I am the 318th follower of the great @GaryCole_ Woo-Hoo! #
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Marilyn knows what’s up!
In September 1952, Marilyn Monroe visited the campus of Georgia Tech to do a photo shoot for Look magazine. As Tech were the national champions that year, the magazine did a four-page spread about the team and their legendary coach, Bobby Dodd. Here’s a copy of the original cover picture, sans the masthead and cover blurbs:
I’ve looked all over the Internet and haven’t been able to find a digital copy of the article, but you can buy a copy of the magazine here for the low, low price of $168! Marilyn was sooooo hot, and she looked especially good in the Tech sweater!
GO JACKETS! TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-09
- Dumb joke of the day – Q: What's brown and rhymes with snoop? A: Dr. Dre! #
- @informedblackmn TastyKakes are AWESOME! Especialy the butterscotch and peanut butter varieties! #
- Hooray! Amanda Knox is free! 🙂 #
- R.I.P. Steve Jobs #
- Fire up your web browsers! Philip Glenister's new series, #hidden stats in only a couple of hours! 🙂 #
- @jenny_wade Happy birthday, pretty lady! 🙂 #
- "Do you see yourself more like, as a rapist who does magic, or a magician who also likes to rape?" #TheLeague #
- Eating 5 year-old Bimini Bread I found in the freezer yesterday. Still good! #
- It's the MOST WONDERFUL day of the year: CHILI COOK-OFF DAY!!!! #
- Gameday!! #gojackets #stingem #stingtheturtle #gatech #
- There's an guy in a J. Geils Band shirt at the chili cook-off…. #
- The New York Times endorsing Occupy Wall Street is like King Louis XVI endorsing the guillotine. #
- This years #pmchantillychilicookoff rocked as always! Thanks to #Goose and the gang for another year of chili and fundraising for hospice! #
- Another delicious dinner @diamondclt! #
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R.I.P. Steve Jobs
From his famous commencement speech at Stamford in 2005:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
I own two iPods, but could otherwise not give a damn about Apple products. I find Apple’s products to be both hostile and clueless to enterprise. I find Apple’s computers to be pretty in design but mediocre in specs and execution and terribly overpriced. And there are few people in this world more annoying than Apple fanboys. In short, I’m not an “Apple guy”, nor will I ever be.
However, the very first computer I ever owned was an Apple II+. I spent hours upon hours upon hours using it. And it wasn’t just a simple machine. It was a veritable spaceship that could take me almost anywhere I wanted to go. I learned BASIC and a bit of Pascal on it, and learned to make all those transistors work for me. I eventually got a modem and discovered the world of BBSs and online information services. And my world was no longer limited to Snellville, Georgia. Using this magic box, I could communicate with people all over the globe… instantly.
Moreso than any other single device, the Apple II+ changed my life. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
Thanks, Steve.