Month: November 2008

Friday various

  • And I thought a beard of bees sounded like a lot… [via]
  • I think Saturday Night Live is going to have a tough time of it post-election cycle, but it is good to see them adding more female cast members.
  • So the McCain advisor who leaked the story that Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent…apparently doesn’t exist. Or, rather, he or she maybe does exist, but the person that MSNBC credited doesn’t. That person is a fictional character, whose creators, as a joke, took credit for the leak. But the leak itself might have been real. And what it said about Sarah Palin might have been true. Or maybe not. Confused yet? [via]
  • I’ve been thinking lately that Kaleidotrope needs some kind of contest. Any suggestions?
  • I keep trying to steel myself for disappointment, telling myself that this could still turn out to be really, really bad. But all I keep thinking is…wow.

Random 10 11/14

Once more from the top. Last week. This week:

  1. “Sinful Love” by Blue Oyster Cult
    You’re over my shoulder, I think I’m possessed
  2. “Sacrificial Lambs” by Warren Zevon, guessed by Betty
    Start writing this down when I give you the nod
  3. “Mama You Got a Daughter” by John Lee Hooker
    We were going to school together now, mama
  4. “Crosseyed and Painless” by Talking Heads, guessed by Eric B.
    Wasting away, and that was their policy
  5. “Frontier Psychiatrist” by the Avalanches, guessed by Eric B.
    Dexter’s truancy problem is way out of hand
  6. “Chemical Imbalance” by the Porkers
    She says she loves me but don’t know my name
  7. “The Weight” by the Band, guessed by Clayton
    “No,” was all he said
  8. “You Never Can Tell” by Chuck Berry, guessed by Clayton
    You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle
  9. “Love Sick” by Bob Dylan, guessed by Eric B.
    I’m walkin’ through streets that are dead
  10. “Cold Turkey” by John Lennon, guessed by Eric B.
    My body is aching, goose-pimple bone

Next week, there will be one of these as well, through the magic of post-dating. But given that I’ll be in England for almost all of next week, don’t expect answers to these ones until I return on Sunday afternoon. But let’s wait and see how tired and jet-lagged I am before I start making any promises about updates. Besides, maybe this will be one of those weeks when Eric B. guesses them all.

Anyway, as always, good luck!

Thursday various

  • This is nice, but I don’t think I’ve seen an overwhelming drop in spam this week, have you? Besides which, as the article says, it will only take spammers about a week to recover. [via]

  • So apparently there’s a town in Turkey called Batman. And apparently its mayor is suing Christopher Nolan and Warner Brothers because “There is only one Batman in the world….The American producers used the name of our city without informing us.” Which of course sounds ridiculous and ill-timed. They’ve had some sixty years and plenty of other Batman books and movies to raise an objection and haven’t. And even if theirs was the first Batman in the world — which some of the comments at Peter David’s blog suggest it’s not — that’s no reason there can’t be more than one. Especially since a) more people know the caped crusader than the town; and b) Bruce Wayne is Batman because he’s dressed like a bat, not because he’s Turkish. Unless of course he’s Turkish Batman…but maybe it’s better not to confuse the issue with that.

  • Hmm. I was planning on reading next year anyway… [via]
  • Pollutants cause birds to sing tainted love songs:

    Yet not all chemicals make for shoddy songs. Earlier this year, a team of UK researchers discovered that oestrogen-mimicking compounds, such as bisphenol A, endow starlings with more complex songs that females prefer over chemical-free songs.”It was kind of scary because their immune system was shot to hell,” DeLeon says of the starlings. “The females were preferring males that were singing better, but [the song] wasn’t an honest signal of quality.”

    Style over substance, even in the ornthological world. [via]

  • My mild obsession with Top Chef continues apace. They’re in New York this season, and it will be interesting to see what I recognize. (I’m guessing they filmed over the summer, but I never saw them, even near Grand Central, which is only a couple blocks from my office.) I was just thinking my love of the show is a little silly, since it’s essentially the same thing season to season, if not episode to episode. But they definitely seem to be shaking things up a little. A double elimination in the first week? Yikes. Immediate favorite to win? Stefan, maybe. Last year, I guessed Richard right off the bat, and he made it to the final three.And no, don’t worry. I won’t be live-blogging the entire season or anything.

No heroics, please

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” – Will Rogers

Tasha Robinson writes:

Maybe it’s fun to watch villains because we never have to worry for them. If they succeed in their evil… well, that’s just more they have to atone for or be punished for later, and it’s fine. If they fail and die horribly… well, isn’t that what’s supposed to happen to villains?With heroes, though, they might fail, and that would presumably be terrible. We’re supposed to want them to win, which puts more pressure on them to be admirable and interesting and cool, and which makes it harder to just sit back and enjoy whatever happens to them, good or bad.