Just Another Random Monday

– The word of the day is velleity, which is “a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.”

– Conservative? If so, The Episcopal Church hates you. From a guest commentary on their official website:

In an all-wired, let’s-go-viral world of non-information posing as information, these outliers can gain traction. In a saner era, somebody would have told Trump to go back to building unprofitable casinos. No newspaper with sense would dignify today’s bigotry with 24/7 coverage. No network claiming authority would employ people whose wild-eyed extremism makes a mockery of the Fourth Estate.

But here they are, the nutcases, parading in prime time as if they were a legitimate alternative in a deeply divided nation that is struggling with huge and vexing issues.

Thanks to Rupert Murdoch, they even have their own television network to legitimize streams of vitriol, conspiracy theories, fears, rages, and suspicion. In the brave new world of leveling-by-Internet, anybody can say anything and claim to be an authority.

Nice. This wouldn’t faze (or surprise) me in the least if it were on some TEC-affiliated site. But to see it on their official site? Shocking! And they wonder why ASA continues to decline.

– Speaking of religion and politics, an English man is facing being fired for displaying a cross in his work van… but his boss has a poster of notorious racist, homophobe and anti-Semite Che Guevara on his office wall. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, eh?

– The Metro Design Language isn’t a computer language like Java or C++. It’s actually a set of design standards Microsoft started using in Zune and Windows Media Center and made front and center in Windows Phone. And, like it or not, it’s coming to Windows 8 and the next version of Office. Here’s a confirmed genuine screen cap of a beta version of the newest version of Outlook:

office 15

Man, that’s pretty sexay!

– Speaking of sexy, Chickipedia is the Wikipedia of hawt celebrity women. But while it’s nice to have a giant list of babes and their biographies, what truly makes the site is the “Assets” and “Vices” list at the top of each entry. They’re sometimes mundane, but often hilarious! Check out the list for Heidi Montag: “Assets: Great ass, huge set of tits, cup sized triple D’s maybe triple F’s and going for triple H’s as per her wishes when she’s ready for them. Vices: totally devoid of talent.” Or Jenny McCarthy: “Assets: funny, likes to get naked, tall. Vices: inability to use deductive reasoning, masculine face”. And Ashley Judd: “Assets: Southern sweetness, natural beauty. Vices: race car drivers, bad scripts”. It’s worth a visit.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-17

  • A glass of Scotch and The Masters. Yaaaa adulthood! #
  • Radioactive particles from Japan found in Glasgow. I feel sorry for the Scots: Giant rats. Epidemic of disease. Mutated kids. And now this! #
  • "You ain't a pimp and you ain't a hustler; A pimp's got a Caddy and a lady’s got a Chrysler" #
  • @wagnerofficial (re: http://twitgoo.com/238aas) GOOD LORD YES! Whoever said "boys don't make passes at girls in glasses" was crazy! #
  • "Years from now, some of these kids will still be talking about how I Sondheimized them." #
  • D'oh! Almost forgot to get my Jenna Lee fix today! #
  • OMG! Get well, Jay! #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Quote of the Day

I bought you mail order
My plain wrapper baby
Your skin is like vinyl
The perfect companion
You float in my new pool
Deluxe and delightful
Inflatable doll
My role is to serve you

Disposable darling
Can’t throw you away now
Immortal and life size
My breath is inside you
I’ll dress you up daily
And keep you till death sighs

– Roxy Music
“In Every Dream Home A Heartache”

The Chick List 2011

It’s hard to believe, but the last installment of The Chick List was all the way back in September 2008! Isn’t it about time for a sequel? Yes, it is. So here is The Chick List 2011: The Revenge of the Brunettes.

Note that I made an effort to vary it up a little. There’s no sense in doing a whole new list if 90% of the women are the same, no? Also, I neglected to add one of my all-time celebrity crushes (Scarlett Johansson) to the list because I didn’t think to add her until the last minute, and already had my top 15. A “Top 16” list just seemed odd, I just decided to leave her off this year’s list.

As always, click any thumbnail to enlarge.

Sarah Smart#15  Sarah Smart – OK, I know what you might be thinking… “what the hell, dude?” And I can get where you’re coming from. But British actress Sarah Smart has been in a million overseas TV shows, and it seems like in most of them (especially Jane Hall) she plays a kind of “sweet ditz”. She almost seems like a lost little puppy, with all the sweetness that entails, although it’s not nearly as condescending as it sounds.

 

 

 

Sara Rue#14  Sara Rue – One of my most guilty pleasures was the late 90s show Popular. Part of the reason for this is because everyone on the show was pretty: the mom, the dad, the school principal… everyone (except for one teacher who was supposed to be ugly and androgynous). I thought Sara Rue was pretty even then.. but even though I knew her weight had yo-yo’ed a bit over the years, I was gobsmacked when I walked in on Lisa watching Shedding for the Wedding, hosted by a svelte and sexy Sara. But you know what? I don’t want to be that entirely superficial with this list. I thought she was pretty back then and I think she’s pretty now. So you know what? You go girl!

 

Daisy Lowe#13  Daisy Lowe – Here’s the thing: Daisy Lowe is the daughter of singer\songwriter turned fashion designer Pearl Lowe and Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of the band Bush and Gwen Stafani’s current husband (Rossdale also had a homosexual relationship with Boy George’s friend Marilyn back in the 80s – that guy sure got around, huh?). Anyway, Lowe began modeling at the ago of 2, and modeled off and on for several years until 2006, when she took to it full-time. She’s become Britain’s premiere pin-up girl, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s hard to find “safe for work” images of her on Google!

 

Continue reading “The Chick List 2011”

Quote of the Day

When the Vatican made Mary’s Assumption dogma,
the crowds at San Pietro screamed Papá.
The Holy Father dropped his shaving glass,
and listened. His electric razor purred,
his pet canary chirped on his left hand.
The lights of science couldn’t hold a candle
to Mary risen – at one miraculous stroke,
angel-wing’d, gorgeous as a jungle bird!
But who believed this? Who could understand?
Pilgrims still kissed Saint Peter’s brazen sandal.
The Duce’s lynched, bare, booted skull still spoke.
God herded his people to the coup de grâce
the costumed Switzers sloped their pikes to push,
O Pius, through the monstrous human crush…

– Robert Lowell
“Beyond the Alps”

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Here’s a picture of my secret girlfriend Jill Wagner… wearing glasses!

Jill Wagner in glasses!
(click to embiggen)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: whoever said “men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses” didn’t know what the hell they were talking about!

Thanks to Jill’s Twitter feed for the pic!

What the Navy gave English

The English language comes from England, an island nation off the coast of Europe. For almost 200 years, England was the world’s premiere maritime power. Consequently, hundreds of nautical phrases have made their way into the language.

Sometimes the nautical origin of such phrases is obvious. A “shot across the bow” originally meant a warning shot fired towards another ship. It lives on today in the media any time two Goliaths go at it, such as “Google fires shot across the bow at Microsoft in lawsuit” or “Celtics fire shot across the Heat’s bow in game 1 of playoffs”.

Sometimes, though, the naval origin of phrases is somewhat less obvious. At some point in your life, you’ve probably been told to “pipe down”. This comes from an order given by a captain to a boatswain (or bosun). The boatswain usually carried a whistle-like device called a pipe or call (picture here) that was used to convey orders throughout the ship. At the end of a typical day, the captain would call “pipe down”, which was a signal to dismiss everyone not on watch. It’s the naval equivalent of the army’s “lights out”, meaning “shut up and go to sleep”.

Here’s a partial list of some other nautical phrases you might use every day without even knowing it. But before we begin, allow me to say that I know that ropes are called “lines” on ships. I’ve called them “ropes” in this post because it might be confusing to non-nautical types. So don’t email me about it, OK? 🙂

“All hands on deck” – This was an order for everyone on the ship to assemble on deck, perhaps for a Sunday church service, or to convey news to the crew. Its nautical origin should seem obvious, except that in the past few years it’s been shortened to just “all hands” by jargon-loving businesspeople. A company might hold an “all hands” meeting, which requires all employees to attend, for example.

“Press into service” – This originally concerned impressement, the practice of drafting sailors into the Royal Navy against their will. In wartime, the navy would create “press gangs” that would go to ports and round up any spare merchant sailors and force them to serve on Royal Navy ships (with compensation, of course). Contrary to popular belief, press gangs didn’t go around impressing just anyone. An inexperienced person, like a farmer or clergyman, was useless on a ship, and was very rarely (if ever) pressed into service. The term is still used today for anyone who is coerced into taking a job they don’t really want to do, as in “with Edward’s abdication, George was pressed into service as King George VI”.

“First rate” – During the age of sail, Royal Navy ships were rated based on the number of cannon they carried. A small ship carrying 20 guns or fewer was “sixth rate”, 48 guns or fewer was “fifth rate”, 60 guns or fewer was “fourth rate”, 89 guns or fewer was “third rate”, 98 guns or fewer was “second rate”… and 100 guns or more was “first rate” Serving on a such a ship was prestigious and the ships themselves were the best in the navy, so in time “first rate” came to mean something top of the line.

“Knowing the ropes” – If you’ve ever seen an old-fashioned sailing ship, you know they have miles and miles of ropes on them. One of the first things a young sailor would have to learn is which rope did what. Thus, an experienced sailor would “know his ropes”, a term expanded today to anyone knowledgeable about a certain thing, even if ropes aren’t involved.

Continue reading “What the Navy gave English”

Best PHP Fail ever?

So a few nights ago I was surfing the ‘Net, looking at open-source help desk software. I was thinking that I might add a help desk app to my business website, so that my clients could simply log on and report their problems via a web interface.

One of the apps I was interested in is called “PHP Support Tickets”. But when I went to their website, I was greeted with this:

php_fail
(click to enlarge)

I guess I can scratch them off the list.

Quote of the Day

“I cooked hotdogs on freshly cut and sharpened sticks over the coals of a big wood fire, and heated a can of beans and a can of cheese macaroni in the redhot hollows, and drank my newly bought wine, and exulted in one of the most pleasant nights of my life. I waded in the water and dunked a little and stood looking at the splendorous night sky, Avalokiteshvara’s ten-wondered universe of dark and diamonds. “Well, Ray,” sez I, glad, “only a few miles to go. You’ve done it again.” Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running – that’s the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly waters.”

– Jack Kerouac
The Dharma Bums

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-10

  • On TV tonight: "Mildred Pierce", "The Borgias", "The Killing", "Camelot". On TV the rest of the week? Nothing. #
  • @1outside Awwww! I like your new hair cut! 🙂 #
  • This might be the only time I cheer for a team called the "Bulldogs"! #
  • God, I *HATE* Jim Nantz! Anyone else? #
  • Just watched a YouTube vid about the "Carousel of Progress" at WDW. Man, I'd forgotten how boring that thing is! #
  • Any ATL peeps wanna see Asobi Seksu and White Lies at Variety Playhouse on Sat. 05/21? The missus and I could use a place to crash! 🙂 #
  • R.I.P. Sidney Lumet #
  • Dammit… don't put black beans in chili! #
  • My host updated my site to MySQL 5.x. My carrier is updating my phone to Froyo on Monday. Technologically speaking, it's 2010 in my world! #

Powered by Twitter Tools