ahem

Folks, this blog has permanently moved. Go to http://www.mcdowellcrook.com/blog/

Thanks!

[this is storm]

via.

wow

Something tells me the Bierstick is going to bring little but pain and misery into the world.

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood cover Portishead's "The Rip"

Tranquil and serene until he runs out of supplies

"The Mango Song" from Phish's A Picture of Nectar.

Interestingly enough, there was a time this song meant a great deal to me. I still find it joyous.

ouch

According to the New York Times, people in Wilcox County, Alabama spend the highest percentage of their income on gasoline in the country.

All hail the Disco Handbook

The Disco Handbook - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: The Disco Handbook

moment

"Snorkel" from Leo Kottke's One Guitar, No Vocals.

quote of the day

"Right now there are more McCainocrats than there are Obamapublicans."

-- NPR news analayst

amazing

symbolic

You too can crack the Mayan hieroglyph code.

a bad case of the Mondays

Be glad you don't work in an office with this guy.

UPDATE: now we know why he got so angry.

not super at all

Now that this is all over, I have one small message to the superdelegates who held out until days before the primary season ended.

YOU SUCK

This could have been over MONTHS ago but for your spinelessness, your egotastic mediamongering desire for attention. You weren't sure where the candidates stood on important issues, you say? Try listening to one of the twenty-plus debates that can readily be found on YouTube--try reading cnn or msnbc for countless exhaustive reports of their consistent stands made on various topics. Try TALKING to them--you're freaking superdelegates! How on earth, at this late hour, could you have anything left to decide?

The truth is, you didn't. Either you were too afraid to piss off one candidate by voting on another, or too politically emasculated to vote on your principles. And thanks to you, the Democrats have been rent asunder and are weaker now than they were before. Yes yes the whole system of superdelegates needs to be throw out of the window like sushi gone bad, but who knew that you could have created a situation like this? Who knew the individual delegates might refrain from making a decision, thereby fouling up the whole process? Who, with that amount of political power, doesn't use their position and intelligence to find out who to vote for as soon as possible? Is it that hard?

great map of the post WWII world

Lots of interesting designations. Hebrewland? United States of Europe?

bad

Drunk Driver Crashes Into Bike Race in Mexico

hahahah

beyond maps

Looking for a new home? Try this slick website.

finally

The Onion movie is coming out

this guy is good

interesting historical tidbit of the day

Schräge Musik

for English majors

Try this if your degree just isn't working out for you.

sly lit

If you'd rather be reading at work than working, try this site.

sneezing trees

I can't wait for my son to start asking me "why" questions. I'm probably going to give him a few answers like Calvin's dad did.

Burn After Reading

The new Cohen brothers film looks fun.

old school

Another impossibly large photo to keep your hard drive healthy. This one's of Montgomery, date unknown taken in 1916. (Thanks guys)

UPDATE: I got the photos here. Just do a 'Montgomery' search.

shatterer of worlds

A picture from Opération Canopus, France’s first two-stage thermonuclear test conducted on August 24, 1968 at Fangataufa atoll. I've seen this a hundred times but these high resolution shots are fascinating.

insert bad dog pun here

Apparently Ohio Northern University, where I attended law school, has recently awarded a dog a bachelor's of science degree in canine companionship.

Mary Pat's reaction: "They're gonna disbar us."

opulence

One wine connoisseur wondered just what makes the '47 Cheval Blanc one of the finest wines in the world. He found out:

The impeccable storage undoubtedly explains why the '47 Cheval I drank that night now ranks as the greatest wine of my life, a title I doubt it will relinquish. The moment I lifted the glass to my nose and took in that sweet, spicy, arresting perfume, my notion of excellence in wine, and my understanding of what wine was capable of, was instantly transformed—I could almost hear the scales recalibrating in my head. The '47 was the warmest, richest, most decadent wine I'd ever encountered. Even more striking than its opulence was its freshness. The flavors were redolent of stewed fruits and dead flowers, yet the wine tasted alive; it bristled with energy and purpose. The '47s signature flaws—the residual sugar and volatile acidity—were readily apparent, but it was just as Lurton had said: In this wine, the flaws inexplicably became virtues. The analogy that sprang to mind wasn't port; it was Forrest Gump. This was the Forrest Gump of wines—clearly defective, completely charmed. I realized that it was silly even to try to place the '47 in the context of other wines; it defied comparison, a point underscored when I tasted another legend, the 1945 Château Latour, later that night (yeah, it was a nice evening). The Latour was stunning—probably the second-best wine I've ever had—but it at least fell within my frame of reference: It was a classically proportioned Bordeaux that just happened to be achingly good. The '47 Cheval, by contrast, was an otherworldly wine—a claret from another planet. And it was amazing.

those pesky women

The Vatican once again proves its inability to cope with the modern world.

chair of the day

from here.