yes

Folks, I'm proud to announce that Mary Pat and I are engaged! We took a dinner cruise along the Chicago shore last night and when I popped the question she said yes, thankfully. We'll be in the city until Saturday hanging out with MP's cousins and seeing the town, so I'll write more when we get home.

I am a happy man.

Scizzle

DSC02228
Originally uploaded by mcdowell.

Interesting term

Herostratic fame

judging a record by its grooves

Interesting story about vinyl vision, the ability to see groove patterns in vinyl recordings and correctly identify musical recordings without the benefit of identifying labels.

get your fix

If you're trying to quit smoking, and you really like lotion, you may want to try some Nicogel. Just give it a couple of pumps, rub the Nicogel into your skin and you'll soon get a cigarette-sized dose of nicotine.

from McSweeney's

Doctor Doom for Homecoming King.

oh dear

You may be inadvertently infringing on someone's music rights every time you dial a telephone number. You should complete a license agreement as soon as possible.

welcome to the future

Apparently the beginning of Christ's millenium is supposed to happen on Tuesday. According to Tom Stewart in his book 1998: Year of the Apocalypse, the Rapture was to take place on May 31, 1998, and the Parousia on October 13 or 18, 2005. Look busy, folks.

um

 

wireless electricity?

Splashpower Ltd. has developed a wireless charging system that uses electromagnetic induction to accomplish wireless charging of devices.

Tragedy during the French civil war

cameratoss

Set your camera on long exposure, and throw it in the air. See more pictures here.

quotes of the day

"Whatever’s clever is totally whatever."

--Upright Citizens Brigade, episode 109

"I have tried to be good. Judge me as you will."

--Jedediah Purdy, at the age of 8, in a letter to Santa Claus

"Everything is both."

--Someone's 5 year old nephew

nice

This image was taken on October 11, 2005 and received on Earth October 12, 2005. The camera was pointing toward Dione at approximately 38,352 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and IR1 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated. A validated/calibrated image will be archived with the NASA Planetary Data System in 2006.

(link)

Finally, a mine-proof truck for our soldiers

The Wired story.

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

by Kenneth Koch

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on
for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!


(this is a great parody of this.)

fyi

this guy is good

the story.

How I felt the other day as I drove home

Laughing Corn

There was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.

The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.

The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.

Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always--I never knew it any other way--
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
And the rain and the corn and the sun and the corn
Talk things over together.

Over the road is the farmhouse.
The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose.
It will not be fixed till the corn is husked.
The farmer and his wife talk things over together.

-Carl Sandburg, 1918

alas

Well, it was bound to happen. The Birmingham Post-Herald has printed its last edition. Those of you not from Alabama may not know what this is. I spent almost two years in that office downtown, first as a copy editor, than as a page designer, and finally as a reporter. Although I was usually underpaid and my night-time schedule was a major hassle (especially for dating), it was a pretty cool place to work. It was satisfying nailing a solid front page layout on deadline. It was a gas seeing my name in print. I loved walking up to people and introducing myself as a reporter and hearing their stories. I was on friendly terms with the mayor and, for at least one interview, with then-Alabama governor Don Siegelman. But the whole time I was working at the Post-Herald we knew that our competing newspaper, the Birmingham News, was taking all of our readers. We were the afternoon paper, and our news was old hat by the time we hit the racks.

I was also there on September 11. Adam Wilson and I were watching the debacle at his house on tv, and shortly after the second tower fell we got a call from the editor saying we needed to come in to work. The next 24 hours were crazy. I still have the edition that we printed that morning. In fact, I thought our coverage of the event was just as good as any other newspaper in the country, and certainly better than that of our competitor across the hall, the News. And that’s what makes the whole thing sad—we were frequently the better newspaper. But few read us, for a host of reasons. Namely, we were the afternoon rag, the red-headed stepchild with yesterday’s news. But that’s exactly why we were good—because we gave the whole story behind the headlines, because we took the time to talk to people and report what effect the headlines were having on the people in our community.

And so a good thing comes to an end. I’m glad I left the paper when I did, but I’m also glad I was there and learned all I did. I also hope Adam, who was still working at the Post-Herald when it closed its doors (he’s the one in the center of the picture with the grey shirt), finds a new job soon. Doesn’t the Appalachian Trail Conference have a newsletter?

good grief

Richard Simmons' cameo appearance on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

whoa

flashback headache anyone?

ah

I really would rather be doing this.

Bizarre products, chapter xxvii

This is chocolate toothpaste.

I want these

greatest. image. ever.

anywhere but here indeed

This is the most awkward birth announcement, ever.

it's happening

There is something very, very odd about these plants.

ground truth

Amazing panoramic photos of Katrina's destruction. Scroll around in each photo itself.

just what Halloween needed

my new favorite phrase

Joy-to-stuff ratio: (joy-too-STUF ray.shee.oh) n. The time a person has to enjoy life versus the time a person spends accumulating material goods.

new words

I recently finished Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel No Country For Old Men and once again I am, well, blown away. The book is rich, beautifully written, yet haunting and very violent. But Cormac’s violence is more instructive than sensational, and the events that unfold in this south Texas tragedy could have easily taken place in Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia backwaters or along Faulkner’s dusty Mississippi roads. Epic violence set against the backdrop of a primal human conflict that has occupied the pages of many, many writers. I found the following review accurate.

Set along a bloody frontier in our own time, this is Cormac McCarthy’s first novel since Cities of the Plain completed his acclaimed, bestselling Border Trilogy.

Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and over two million in cash. Packing the money out, he knows, will change everything. But only after two more men are murdered does a victim’s burning car lead Sheriff Bell to the carnage out in the desert, and he soon realizes that Moss and his young wife are in desperate need of protection. One party in the failed transaction hires an ex-Special Forces officer to defend his interests against a mesmerizing freelancer, while on either side are men accustomed to spectacular violence and mayhem. The pursuit stretches along and across the border, each participant seemingly determined to answer what one asks another: How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

A harrowing story of a war society wages on itself, an enduring meditation on the ties of love and blood and duty that inform lives and shape destinies, and a novel of extraordinary resonance and power.

While I was delighted to find Cormac back in action, I was even more delighted when I read the news that the ever-poignant Coen brothers (O Brother, Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, The Man Who Wasn’t There, etc.) have decided to film this book. I was disappointed when Cormac’s All the Pretty Horses got the Hollywood shakedown a few years ago with such poor results, so hopefully this time we have directors more fitted to the task. Read it before the movie comes out, folks.

no no no no no no no no no no no

Ten Commandments judge to run for Alabama governor.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, said on Monday he would be a candidate for governor of Alabama in 2006.

Moore, a fundamentalist Christian from northern Alabama who supports school prayer and opposes gay marriage, pledged to fight against higher taxes, tighten restrictions on illegal immigrants and improve education if elected.

are you talkin' to me?

Ontological argument for the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster

P1. I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived.
P2. If a being than which no greater can be conceived does not exist, then I can conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived, namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived *that exists*.
P3. I cannot conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived.
C1. Thus, a being than which no greater can be conceived exists.
P4. If that being does not have a Noodly Appendage, then I can conceive of a being greater that being, i.e. a being *that has a Noodly Appendeage*.
C2. Thus, a being than which no greater can be conceived has a Noodly Appendage.
C3. Therefore, a being than which no greater can be conceived has a Noodly Appendage and exists, that is, the Flying Spaghetti Monster exsits.

via.

exactly