I’ve said for years I should have invested my retirement savings in tattoo removal businesses . . .
H/T to William Penman for the link.
December 3, 2010
Happy holiday travels!
H/T to Economicrot. Many many more at the link.
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December 2, 2010
The Two Scotts in a split decision
Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid like different results in this week’s matchup between Minnesota and Buffalo:
Buffalo (plus 6.5) at Minnesota
Feschuk: So Buffalo’s Steve Johnson butterfingered a game-winning pass against the Steelers and, naturally, rushed to Twitter to blame it all on God.
Good for Johnson. It’s about time someone had the courage to call out God for the terrible season He’s having. Dude is the Randy Moss of deities — totally going through the motions. Come on, God: we’ve seen you torment the Bills and Lions for the last eon. TRY SOMETHING NEW. And what were you thinking when you let Satan get away with working his evil magic so that both Matt Millen and Joe Theismann are calling the Thursday night games? Not cool, God. Not cool at all. Pick: Buffalo.
Reid: You mean God isn’t a Buffalo fan? This IS news!
Pick: Minnesota.
Feschuk also has an excellent question that the league hasn’t yet answered:
The league’s ruling on Andre Johnson warrants a revisiting of what occurred on the field. Responding to the trash talk and rough play of Cortland Finnegan — the only NFL player whose name sounds like an Irish hotel chain — the Texans’ receiver ripped off Finnegan’s helmet and punched him repeatedly in the head and face.
Johnson’s punishment? The exact same fine that Chad Ochocinco had to pay for tweeting too close to game time. It raises the question: what do you have to do to get suspended by the NFL? Do you have to actually murder a linebacker? Defile the corpse of a Hall of Famer? Fail to gently lower Tom Brady to the ground and tenderly kiss him on the forehead while sacking him?
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November 30, 2010
Ireland’s debt problem
James Howard Kunstler looks at Ireland’s plight:
When you’re out of the country, as I was last week, it’s good to know that the home folks are keeping up with the Kardashians and bravely venturing into the blood-splattered chambers of cable TV’s latest hit, Bridal Plasty — where candidates for marriage are transformed from Holstein cows into inflatable sex toys by magic surgical technology — not to mention all those humble guardians of freedom who kept the parking lots of WalMart safe for consumerism in the wee small hours of Black Friday. These are, after all, perilous times.
Elsewhere, Ireland and the rest of Europe wore themselves out with soul-searching all week over how to handle national bankruptcy within a currency system that bears only a schematic relation to reality. Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon’s wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season? As of Monday morning, Ireland has been commanded to, er, bend over and pick up the soap, shall we say, for about a hundred billion euros in loans that will not be paid back until a mile-high ice-sheet covers Dublin (something that might happen sooner rather than later if the climate mavens are right).
We’ll see how this bail-out goes down with the French and German voters, too, who have to pay for it, after all, especially as Portugal, Spain, and Italy line up at the cash cage for their cheques (and bars of soap). Of course, a few more basis points in the interest rate spreads could prang the whole Euro soap opera — does anybody really believe this game of kick-the-can will go on after New Years? I’m not even sure it goes on past this Friday, but I am a notoriously nervous fellow.
This is almost as good as the (temporarily discontinued) daily Financial Briefings from Monty.
H/T to Terry Kinder for the link.
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November 28, 2010
Spendy speaker wires
If you’re a true audiophile, this kind of price may not make you blink, but the rest of us are led to wonder about you:
Cory Doctorow would like you to read one of the reviews for this amazing product — a brilliantly crafted science fiction short story:
We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives.
PLEASE! You must listen! We cannot maintain the link for long… I will type as fast as I can.
DO NOT USE THE CABLES!
We were fools, fools to develop such a thing! Sound was never meant to be this clear, this pure, this… accurate. For a few short days, we marveled. Then the… whispers… began.
November 27, 2010
November 23, 2010
Succinct summary of Irish situation
From Andrew Bloch’s Twitpic page and brought to my attention by Damian Penny.
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Don’t print these off and attach them to your luggage
A few bumper stickers/luggage tags from Hit and Run:
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November 22, 2010
The Register reports on Erotica 2010
If there was one trade show in Britain you’d be certain that The Register would cover, it would have to be Erotica 2010:
Whether it was the cold or the recession, Erotica 2010 – the 15th year of the international sex exposition – appears to have ever so slightly wilted.
It is not exactly shrivelled, but is a little smaller; not the proud, thrusting standard-bearer of the UK’s adult erotic industry it once was.
A quick totting up through the programme suggests around 20 fewer exhibitors than two years ago.
[. . .]
Yet again, a glittering procession of acts — from pole dancers to zentai dolls — took to the stage at the heart of the show, with pride of place for the inimitable Dita von Teese. Sadly, we are unable to bring you any pictures of her act, under pain of a penalty fee of $1m, which all journalists were required to agree to before entering the hall!
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Tintin adventures I’d like to read
Murray Groat illustrated some covers to Tintin adventures that don’t, but should, exist:
H/T to BoingBoing.
November 21, 2010
November 20, 2010
JourneyQuest, Episode 1
H/T to Ghost of a Flea for the link. There are several episodes available, so do follow along. The first episode is a bit slow, but it picks up nicely in later episodes.
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November 19, 2010
November 18, 2010
Put pressure on the airlines to rein in TSA
Megan McArdle writes a Dear John letter to her long-time airline:
Dear Airline, I’m Leaving You
But don’t feel too bad. It’s not you, it’s me. Or rather, it’s the TSA.
I’m not going to lie. It’s come between us. If I have to let someone else see me naked in order to be with you — well, I’m just not that kinky. And deep down, I don’t think you are either. I think it’s the TSA making you act like this. Frankly, you haven’t been the same since you started running around together.
But I can’t put all the blame on them. I think you went along because you thought I had to have you — that I couldn’t live without you. That no matter what you did, I’d stay. And it’s true, you had a pretty strong hold on me. Took away the food, and I still loved you — who wanted to eat a terrible, fattening meal anyway? Narrowed the distance between the seats, and still I stayed, using my airline miles to upgrade to first class. Charge me for baggage? I’m an economics writer — I love unbundled products. So I can see where you got the idea that I’d stick by you no matter what.
But the kinky stuff is just a bridge too far. I’m not saying I’ll never see you again: we can still meet up for a drink, or even a quick weekend trip to California. But our days are a regular item are through. I’m writing this letter because one of my commenters pointed out that it was only fair to let you know what was going on [. . .]
QotD: On the quality of writing, mediated through technology
I own a computer. I don’t use the Internet very much. I’m not a technophobe. It just doesn’t help me very much. Writing is a slow and a difficult process mentally. How you physically render the words onto a screen or a page doesn’t help you. I’ll give you this example. When words had to be carved into stone, with a chisel, you got the Ten Commandments. When the quill pen had been invented and you had to chase a goose around the yard and sharpen the pen and boil some ink and so on, you got Shakespeare. When the fountain pen came along, you got Henry James. When the typewriter came along, you got Jack Kerouac. And now that we have the computer, we have Facebook. Are you seeing a trend here?
P.J. O’Rourke, “Very Little That Gets Blogged Is Of Very Much Worth”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2010-11-18
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