Saturday, July 31, 2010

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Opossum tips

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Be honest

Aren't you already a little excited for Bowl Pick Them 2010?

oh man I love this guy



Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

Futurama so far


So far, I think it's been good-to-excellent. Of the six episodes that have been broadcast so far, only one ("Attack of the Killer Apps," the eyePhone one) has fallen flat for me. They've collectively been better than any of the movies/season five except perhaps Into the Wild Green Yonder. None have been great, and it's sure not as good as it was in its last season, in which almost every episode was absolutely great. But it's been about as good as it was in its first run, which makes it better than almost every comedy on television right now.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

The Who Isolated



There's more in them there intertubes.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

this just in

Dear Friend,

With warm heart I offer my friendship, and my greetings, and I hope this letter meets you in good time. It will be surprising to you to receive this proposal from me since you do not know me personally.

I got your contact address through our mutual associate Signal NICK in my search for a reliable and trustworthy person who will assist me in a business investment venture in your country. I am Capt. WESTOPHER BROWNLY, the husband of Mrs. JUICY ROGER the former president of Tri Epsilon, fraternally located in the Central Alabama. My Wife is presently impeached from office on account of having left this country in May this year.

During my spousal regime as president of TRI EPISLON, I realized US$25.540 millions of dollars (Twenty-Five Million, Five Hundred and Forty Thousand US Dollars) from various blog projects I executed successfully via TRI EPSILON. I had planned to invest this money for heavy corn whiskey consumption.

Before my husband was accounted from office, I concretely and secretly deposited this money and declared it computer lremote cards with diplomatic security company that transports valuable goods/consignment through diplomatic . As a reward I have enormous offshore holdings of heavy corn whiskey.

I wish to discuss how much I will offer you if you will be willing to assist me claim the corn whiskey and invest it in your country. I want to assure you that all modalities are put in place and it is a risk free transaction. I'm trusting you as a God fearing person who will not sit on my lifesaving fund. This business demands absolute secrecy and confidentiality, thus all communications for now should be through e-mail because all my phone lines are connected to the TRI EPISLON telecommunication network services. I will furnish you with more details when I receive your positive response.

Execute your urgent reply, through the above email address:
wbrown@3e.org

Thanks.Best regards,
Dr (Capt.) Westopher Ingloria Brownly

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Whale Wednesday

1. The Sperm Whale - Multiple Record Holder: "Mind-boggling is the best word to describe how deep they dive. If no one had ever heard of Sperm Whales (or some of the other deep diving mammals) and you asked any sensible scientist or engineer to design an air breathing animal to dive several thousand feet into the ocean, they would tell you to forget it. Can't be done. "Impossible!" they'd shout."

2. The Killer in the Pool: "Eyewitness accounts and the sheriff's investigative report make it clear that Brancheau fought hard. She was a strong swimmer, a dedicated workout enthusiast who ran marathons. But she weighed just 123 pounds and was no match for a 12,000-pound killer whale. She managed to break free and swim toward the surface, but Tilikum slammed into her. She tried again. This time he grabbed her. Her water shoes came off and floated to the surface. "He started pushing her with his nose like she was a toy," said Paula Gillespie, one of the visitors at the underwater window. SeaWorld employees urgently ushered guests away. "Will she be OK?" one asked."

3. Giant whale-eating whale found:

I love that someone made this video

ZZ Top never covered War's "Lowrider."

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Justice


You want to feel in control, so you assume as long as you avoid bad behavior, you won’t be harmed. You feel safer when you believe those who engage in bad behavior end up on the street, or pregnant, or addicted, or raped.

It is infuriating when lazy cheats and con artists get ahead in the world while firemen and policemen put in long hours for little pay.

Deep down, you want to believe hard work and virtue will lead to success, and laziness, evil and manipulation will lead to ruin, so you go ahead and edit the world to match those expectations.

Yet, in reality, evil often prospers and never pays the price.

There are anecdotal accounts of people seeing the prisoners of concentration camps for the first time and assuming they must have been terrible criminals. The first place the mind goes is the place where the world is just.

Why do you do this?

Psychologists are unsure. Some say it is a need to be able to predict the outcome of your own behavior, or to feel secure in your past decisions. More research is needed.
-The Just-World Fallacy

Monday, July 19, 2010

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Garbage island

An idea for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I'd think bigger, really big. Even though the Pacific is something like 20,000 feet deep where the plastic is, I think the nations of the world should commit to creating an enormous artificial island there. This would take decades if not centuries, but let's think long-term. A properly-shaped course-sand island, more like a wide reef curving to catch the ocean current, would naturally filter the ocean water, catching the tiny plastic pieces.

Besides the big advantage of catching the plastic, this island could also serve a function like a reef does, providing a spawning ground etc and alleviating the "ocean desert" aspect of so much of the Pacific. And, it's always nice to have more tropical islands, especially long curvy ones that are almost entirely beachfront. I'm not sure how wide such an island would have to be to support a variety of plant and animal life, but it's probably narrower than you'd expect.

Of course it's also possible such a formation would alter the ocean's currents and, I don't know, kill all the whales or something. But I think we're gonna kill most of them off anyway. Let's take a risk.

This would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to build. There are a couple of options. Ships could pass by and dump dirt or rocks or sand for the foundation, just everyone dropping at the same GPS location until the water was shallow enough to start construction of the filtering island. Or, you could bring up sand from, say, a few miles away on the ocean floor, where it's already super deep and getting deeper wouldn't really change things.

A related idea: create a smaller (a few square miles? a scientist would know how big was necessary), round artificial island in the shape of a bowl. Pump water into the bowl, and let the sand filter it.

So, there you go, UN. Get started.

Of course, none of this matters when the earth stops spinning.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

reprinted without permish

An excerpt from Scott Varagona's The GTA Chronicles:

Friday, June 26, 2009 - Went with Sean to the “3E reunion” at Wes’s. It was beyond hilarious to hear him, Charles and John talking. I watched them play “Left for Dead.”

Saturday, June 27, 2009 - Today was the first day I ever cursed in front of my friends.
On this night, Sean somehow conned me into coming over to Wes’s “to see a movie,” without telling me the movie was actually the infamous Holy Mountain. Now, as fate would have it, a Charter cable guy had come to Wes’s apartment earlier to fix something, and he had pushed Wes’s TV table out of its proper place. That caused Kevin Tolliver’s viewing angle to be poor. So, Tolliver got up and started pulling the table back towards the wall. I decided to get up and help too, from the other side. But then, an object fell from the top of the TV. Instinctively, I reached out and caught it: turns out, it was an animal bone. Wes said: “I found that bone out in the woods... It’s never been washed.” I said: “It’s never been washed?... Son of a bitch!” and ran over to the sink to wash my hands like crazy. (And I mean, like CRAZY.) The others laughed and laughed. I’d never cursed like that around my friends before! There’s a first time for everything.

Other rivals include Arizona, BYU, and DeVry.

Phoenix Firebirds:
The University of Phoenix is the largest private university in America with over 200,000 students at branches nationwide. UP started in 1976, started athletics in 1980, and moved up to Division I in 1983.

In 1986, UP joined the WAC and won the conference championship in football its first four years, peaking as high as #8 in the poll in 1989. Phoenix, along with UNLV, dominated the NCAA Basketball scene in 1991 with amazing center Shaquille O'Neal. Phoenix peaked as high as #2 that year, but lost to UConn in a massive first round upset. With the amazing rise in Phoenix athletics and academics and with nearly one billion dollars in reserve, the Pac 10 extended an invitation in 1996, which it accepted.
From the fantastic Sports Argument Wiki

I wish more stuff like this happened

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

omg

Famously bad scene. Not new or noteworthy. But I did watch the entirety of Troll 2 today and the entire movie is approximately this poorly delivered. Recommended.

Just about the creepiest thing

Photographic tour of a Real Doll factory.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Threads from Teh F0rUm as performed on stage

Bowling Alley. CHARLES and WEST sit at one lane. TEDWBROWN sits behind at an adjacent lane, reading.

CHARLES: My idea for a tragicomedy: on the night of 9/10/01, guy has first sexual experience in Tower 2, up against the glass window, leaving his drippings and soiled condoms etc all over the place. Next day, hilarity ensues when people ask, "Did you hear what happened at the World Trade Center?"

WEST: You disgust me. 9/11 should never be used for comedy, only for heavy-handed political pandering.

CHARLES: I think Giuliani's recent flame out shows that boat has long since sailed out.

WEST: And I think his flame ups have shown the ineffectiveness of Preparation H.

CHARLES sighs.

TEDWBROWN: (Without turning around) I agree with wes and the pandering.

WEST: On the other hand, pandering is such a human thing to do. It's what separates us from the animals. Except the panda.

CHARLES and WEST high five.

CHARLES: Nice. Because my politics fall fairly well into the "fringe" category, sometimes the websites I visit, even mainstream ones like Reason, have a lot of 9/11 truth movement types. It is a testament to the human spirit, and its ability to be foolish.

WEST: Because my sexual tastes fall fairly well into the "fringe" category, sometimes the websites I visit, even mainstream ones like freeones have a lot of blah blah blah. It's a testament to the human penis, and it's ability to be stuck into things.

CHARLES: I'm going to take that seriously and ask, what's fringe about your sexual tastes?

TEDWBROWN finally puts down his book and turns around, interested.

TEDWBROWN: I'm curious too.

WEST: Boobs, sticking dicks in pussies, stuff like that.

WEST makes vulgar hand gestures.

CHARLES: I was thinking scatalogical.

WEST: Gross.

TEDWBROWN: Way gross.

TEDWBROWN turns back around.

WEST: Gabe Gross.

ATTRACTIVE BLONDE walks by, wearing a t-shirt that says "I am at four lipsticks." CHARLES points.

CHARLES: I am at four lipsticks!

TEDWBROWN: Then you're not a pitbull.

WEST: You're a hockey mom.

CHARLES: How is a pitbull like a hockey mom? I've secretly filmed both of them urinating!

WEST: And Michael Vick has both of them buried in his back yard!

WEST and CHARLES high five. WEST exits, grabbing a bowling ball. TEDWBROWN continues to read.

CHARLES: Niiiiiiice. Speaking of black men, I'm still sticking with my original prediction of an Obama win, but not as large as I had expected.

TEDWBROWN: I agree with you. And I think it's ridiculous.

Reveal SCOTT who has been drunkenly sleeping out of sight next to TEDWBROWN.

SCOTT: OBAMA!!!

SCOTT groggily looks around. Hold for laughter/applause.

CHARLES: Scott, I have been trying to subtly disabuse ted of the notion that an Obama win will bring improvement or any meaningful change to America, and you aren't helping.

TEDWBROWN: Scott knows what's good for us.

TEDWBROWN pats SCOTT on the head. SCOTT smiles, eyes closed.

CHARLES: You might say he has the right prescription.

CHARLES winks in an exaggerated manner.

TEDWBROWN: The prescription is in my pants. BOOYAH!

TEDWBROWN points at his pants.


SCOTT: We learned in class today that voting for Obama will cure the common cold. Obama - he'll fix your shit.

SCOTT vomits and passes out.

TEDWBROWN: That's awesome.

TEDWBROWN shifts one seat away from SCOTT.

CHARLES: I don't know that I would trust a secret Muslim Kenyan to be my doctor. So, Scott, you're out.

TEDWBROWN: But you trust open Muslim Kenyans?

CHARLES: Well, if they're honest, yeah.

Scene.

Mario Monday



see also

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Threads from Teh F0rUm as performed on stage

3E common room. Mid afternoon. RAWJERS, TEDWBROWN, and WEST sit on couches, loveseat. RAWJERS is playing Halo and seems barely interested in his surroundings. Enter CHARLES.

CHARLES: Ricardo Montalban, dead! We are a poorer nation.

WEST: Oh my God. I'm glad we watched STII:TWOK while we had the chance.

TEDWBROWN:
And it's sad to think some people only know his name from a Burger King commercial.

CHARLES: I didn't even know he was in a BK commercial.

TEDWBROWN: Well I'd show you guys, but I can't find it. The one with two lions talking about rolling their r's.

CHARLES: That sounds silly. I'm glad you couldn't find it. Everyone should watch STII:TWOK. It is so awesome.

All nod in agreement.

WEST: Apparently, only 4 people in Jon Clark's two calculus II classes knew who he was.

TEDWBROWN'S phone rings. Exit TEDWBROWN.

CHARLES:
I imagine if you said Fantasy Island to most undergraduates today, they would assume it had something to do with sex/pornography.

WEST: They make the same assumption when I talk about Back Seat Bangers or Captain Stabbin'.

Scattered laughter.

RAWJERS: I mostly know him as the dead guy from the title of this discussion.

Others look confused at RAWJERS'S awkward word choices.

CHARLES: John! I hope you are back for good.

Others look confused at CHARLES'S awkward word choices.

WEST: I just hope he lets us know when he gets the rest of that handjob.

RAWJERS: Unfortunately, the other half just involves me.

CHARLES: Either way, that's a video I want to watch.

WEST and CHARLES high five. RAWJERS farts.

Scene.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

From Tha Captainz Exploration Journal

Anyone can see a tree fall. The hearing is nothing special either. To experience it in a meaningful way, one must smell it. The other senses demand satisfaction, so their subjugation is a must.

1. Always moonless night.
2. Wet moss in ears.

Flecks of bark against my face, eyes. In my mouth. This has to be the last one, I've been out here for hours. No real concept of time, of course. I repress the urge to scream, to take my hand off the trunk. We're one now, mighty oak. Our bloods entwine, warming my hand, my arm all the way up to the shoulder. Flecks of bone against my face, eyes. In my mouth. The chainsaw finds release and the oak creaks and shudders as it begins its short trek inexorably towards the earth. The last one. Has to be. I don't have much arm left. I make camp and prepare for sleep.

1. Hot engine seals arm no more blood.
2. Lay down.

The morning will reveal the new forest. A humble forest no longer so vain as to reach toward the sky and away from the earth that nurtures it. A forest with a slope of zero rather than one undefined. The earth prefers her children not to divide by zero.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Monday, July 05, 2010

Saturday, July 03, 2010

Eating

The specialization of production induces specialization of consumption. Patrons of the entertainment industry, for example, entertain themselves less and less and have become more and more passively dependent on commercial suppliers. This is certainly true also of patrons of the food industry, who have tended more and more to be mere consumers — passive, uncritical, and dependent. Indeed, this sort of consumption may be said to be one of the chief goals of industrial production. The food industrialists have by now persuaded millions of consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. They will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so. We may rest assured that they would be glad to find such a way. The ideal industrial food consumer would be strapped to a table with a tube running from the food factory directly into his or her stomach.

Perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much. The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical — in short, a victim. When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. The current version of the "dream home" of the future involves "effortless" shopping from a list of available goods on a television monitor and heating precooked food by remote control. Of course, this implies and depends on, a perfect ignorance of the history of the food that is consumed. It requires that the citizenry should give up their hereditary and sensible aversion to buying a pig in a poke. It wishes to make the selling of pigs in pokes an honorable and glamorous activity. The dreams in this dream home will perforce know nothing about the kind or quality of this food, or where it came from, or how it was produced and prepared, or what ingredients, additives, and residues it contains — unless, that is, the dreamer undertakes a close and constant study of the food industry, in which case he or she might as well wake up and play an active an responsible part in the economy of food.
Wendell Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating"

Friday, July 02, 2010

this just in

changes found on Uruguay's Wikipedia page:

HANDBALL CHEATERS (pronounced /CHEEEEEEEE-TERS/ ( listen), Spanish pronunciation: [uɾuˈɣwai]), officially the Oriental Republic of Soccer Cheating Uruguay[1][4]



teehee.


3E fan nonfiction

SCENE IV. The court.

Enter JUICEBOT, with BAGOT and GREEN at one door; and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another

JUICEBOT

We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way?

DUKE OF AUMERLE

I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.

JUICEBOT

And say, what store of parting tears were shed?

DUKE OF AUMERLE

Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

JUICEBOT

What said our cousin when you parted with him?

DUKE OF AUMERLE

'Farewell:'
And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppression of such grief
That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
Marry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But since it would not, he had none of me.

JUICEBOT

He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green
Observed his courtship to the common people;
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'
As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

GREEN

Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage and your highness' loss.

JUICEBOT

We will ourself in person to this war:
And, for our coffers, with too great a court
And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
We are inforced to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand: if that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.

Enter BUSHY

Bushy, what news?

BUSHY

Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken; and hath sent post haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.

JUICEBOT

Where lies he?

BUSHY

At Ely House.

JUICEBOT

Now put it, God, in the physician's mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:
Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!

All

Amen.

Exeunt

Friday links

Think you're fit? What about ZombieFit?

Unrelated: several 3E birthdays are coming up. Don't know what to get?

It would take 117 days to crack my password system.