Day: October 2, 2009

Friday various

  • Mark Evanier on skepticism:

    I just like skepticism and wish we had more of it in the media. In fact, I wish we had more skepticism of the skeptics since despite what some skeptics seem to think, going against the Conventional Wisdom doesn’t automatically mean your wisdom is correct.

    I was very briefly a member of the (I think now defunct) Penn State Skeptics Society. I attended a meeting or two, and later went to hear James Randi speak when they brought him to campus. But the fervor with which some people embrace skepticism — or maybe more accurately angry cynicism — has never sat well with me. I think agnosticism and atheism are defensible positions, but some people approach them like True Believers and dismiss all other arguments out of hand. Which, it seems to me, is usually what they accuse the other side of doing.

  • Tomorrow morning, beginning at at 9 AM EST (and for the next 24 hours), Netflix will be streaming The Wizard of Oz for free to anyone (with or without a subscription), in honor of the film’s 70th anniversary. I’m not sure why 70 years is a particularly significant milestone, but the film holds up remarkably well, I think. [via]

  • Barack Obama has one amazingly consistent smile.

  • What do you buy for the Elder God who has everything? Why not Cthulhu Cologne, “Scents inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos”? [via]

  • A finally, thinking about printing the internet? Um, don’t. [via]

Random 10 10/2

Last week. This week:

  1. “Runaround Sue” by Dion, guessed by Clayton
    Here’s my story, it’s sad but true
  2. “Cubs in Five” by the Mountain Goats
    They’re gonna find intelligent life up there on the moon
  3. “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Bob Dylan
    The rats have got your flour
  4. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” by the Beatles, guessed by Clayton
    In case of accidents he always took his mom
  5. “Orange Sky” by Alexi Murdoch
    In your love, my salvation lies
  6. “Houston” by Mary Chapin Carpenter
    Mama’s got her babies sleeping in a grocery cart
  7. “Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison, guessed by Occupant
    It’s gonna take patience and time
  8. “Psychic City (Voodoo City)” by YACHT
    I never knew what would happen in a day
  9. “Him” by Lily Allen
    Do you reckon he’s ever been done for tax evasion?
  10. “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, guessed by Clayton
    Then he said, you better watch your step

I return to New York on Monday and will try to post answers then, if I can’t while I’m in Vegas. As always, good luck!