“Your Protector” by Fleet Foxes
Month: May 2011
Thursday various
- Is a jail in South Carolina denying prisoners any books except the Bible? [via]
- New York under siege by Will Smith’s ridiculously huge trailer. More, with video of the trailer in (in)action here. It’s not in my neck of the Manhattan woods, fortunately or unfortunately.
- I’ve mentioned before that WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show has recently started posting short exit questionnaires with guests. This week, there’s one with actor Tom Wopat, who says the “one thing [he’s] a fan of that people might not expect” is bluegrass. Tom Wopat, star of The Dukes of Hazzard, is a fan of bluegrass. Yeah, color me shocked.
- Forget what I said here, though. UK book sales have sprung back from an eight-year (Royal Wedding-caused?) low.
- And finally, Ken Jennings makes the bold claim that the criminal activities depicted in Scooby-Doo don’t make real-world sense.
A weighty Wednesday
This afternoon at work, we had one of our semi-regular “brown bag lunches,” where they invite a speaker in to talk about any number of topics, and give us a free lunch for attending. Today’s talk was on “An Expert’s Perspective on What Does and Does Not Work in Weight Loss,” given by Dr. Sasha Stiles of NYU’s Langone Medical Center. It was reasonably interesting and informative; if nothing new, her advice and perspective were at least sound. Usually the company gives us lunch before the talk, but today it was reversed. I don’t know if that was to fit with the speaker’s schedule, to discourage people who RSVP for the lunch but don’t stay, or just to ensure we were all in the mood to eat less after hearing about weight loss for an hour.
Meanwhile, taking a page from Neil Gaiman, I’m trying for a little weight loss of my own, working out a little in the evenings to an audio book. In my case, I went with Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I’ve been meaning for ages to re-read. (I’ve seen the movies, and the endless parodies and tributes, but I haven’t read the book since high school.) It’s much too soon to say if the workouts are having the desired effect, but I’m really enjoying the book. I’d almost forgotten how good it is.
Of course, I can’t mention Dune without also mentioning this caption I made last Saturday night. I am inordinately proud of the silliness of the pun.
Song of the day
“Levi Stubbs’ Tears” by Billy Bragg
Wednesday various
- A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on. Mark Twain probably didn’t say that. Anatomy of a Fake Quotation [via]
- World’s Biggest Pac-Man [via]
- The sad final end of former Attack of the 50 Foot Woman star Yvonne Vickers [via]
- A Rare Look at Antarctica, 1911-1914 [via]
- And finally, No Country for Old Men cartoon trailer [via]: