“I have not seen it, but by all accounts, it is dreadful. I have, however, seen the house it built, and by all accounts, it is magnificent.”
– Michael Caine, on
Jaws the Revenge
Quote of the Day
“We will not go gently. We will unleash hell in December because we have to. We won’t go in a shell. We’ll go into attack mode, because that’s what’s required.”
– Mike Tomlin
Pittsburgh Steelers coach
I wish I could believe him, but I don’t think this is Pittsburgh’s year.
Quote of the Day
“Technology is a glittering lure, but there’s the rare occasion where the public can be engaged in a level beyond flash… if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in-house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new’. It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. He also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound’. It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘The Wheel’, it’s called ‘The Carousel’. It lets us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”
– Jon Hamm as Don Draper
Mad Men, “The Wheel”
Quote of the Day
“I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it (smiles). When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.”
– Kurt Cobain, about how he wrote
“Smells Like Teen Spirit”, from a Rolling Stone
interview by David Fricke, 01-27-94
Quote of the Day
“It seems like most self-proclaimed atheists don’t understand the difference between an atheist and an antitheist. An atheist lives his life without religion. An antitheist lives his life against religion. One is simply a lack of choice. The other is usually accompanied by the same ignorant zealotry found in fundamentalist denominations.”
– Random Internet post
Quote of the Day
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience”.
– C.S. Lewis
Quote of the Day
“When we get good at doing it, it’s like death… It’s not like, ‘I can take a wrong step and recover because they’re coming off slow’. It’s like, ‘I thought he had the ball and is 15 yards downfield’.”
– Georgia Tech football coach
Paul Johnson, on his offense
Quote of the Day
“I know plenty of people who had poisoned bottles of rum in the trunks of their cars.”
OK, this one requires some explanation. A user on the Straight Dope Message Board created this post, which asks whether leaving out a “poisoned donut” (in hopes that a burglar would eat it and die) is a crime or not. In his opening post, the questioner asked the question, then wrote the quote above.
Several people replied to the original poster, discussing the legality of such booby traps. Eventually, however, curiosity got the better of one of the posters, and about 10 posts in, someone asked the OP to explain the above quote. Here’s his response:
The poisoned bottle in the trunk was a common “anti-theft device” on my youth years (80’s) in Venezuela. The rationale ranging from simple revenge to the hope of the guy dying and the car being abandoned to be found out.
The way it was normally done was to leave half a bottle of rum (rum being the cheap booze in Venezuela) with some poison which ranged from rat poison to medications to only-god-knows. Having half bottles of non-poisoned rum was very common as there were no open container laws. I normally had 5-6 bottles in my trunk at all times (along with a white shirt, a tie and a swimsuit).
The point of the bottle being only half full (or half empty) was first to avoid wastage, but also to give the impression of an already drunk bottle which made it look safer.
This was common enough that I have a whole series of first hand stories (not FOAF) of everything from actual “success” stories, to friendly fire casualties, to fights among friends trying to stop each other from drinking both safe and poisoned bottles.
Eventually this became so common that it stopped being effective as thieves just assumed all bottles to be poisoned and would then break them inside your car if they abandoned it (stolen for a robbery or the such).
Crazy times.
Crazy times indeed!
Quote of the Day
From some random guy on the Internet:
Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. But the best thing about being British is an abiding suspicion of all things foreign!
Quote of the Day
Queen Elizabeth’s speech to her troops at Tilbury, on the eve of the Spanish Armada (and their intended invasion of England):
My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.