Saturday, December 31, 2011

saturday matinee: new year's eve edition

Skinemax from Smash TV on Vimeo.


WoodenSnail sez: Skinemax is Koyaanisqatsi for a generation raised on late night television and B-movie VHS tapes. It’s long form entertainment for short attention spans. An hour long VJ odyssey, it will move your body and warp your mind.

It's really long, but if you're the right age it'll suck you right in. And what else have you got to do this afternoon?

Sunday, December 25, 2011

christmas morning merryment


Wait, there's more. Click on the image, and have a Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

pic of the day


creepy

University students with their necks painted protest at Bolivar square in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday Nov. 3, 2011. Their signs read in Spanish “We have the right to be outraged,” left, and “Excellent education and for all!!” Students are protesting education reforms planned by the government that propose private funding for public institutions. (Fernando Vergara)

via

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

chart for the day


I dropped out of grad school in 1993, figuring I'd go back eventually. At these prices, I'm afraid I never will be able to. Here's an article to go with it.

via

Monday, December 19, 2011

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

date a girl who reads books

DATE A GIRL WHO READS
by Rosemarie Urquico
(In response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date an Illiterate Girl)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.


This is making the rounds on Tumbler right now, and I wanted to save it for later.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

sunday funny


click on the cartoon for the original page.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

saturday matinee



I dont get to have a moustache, so I cannot truly relate. Consider this a public service.

disappointment reigns

So, you can see yesterday's post a couple of entries down the page, yes? So, if you read this blog you know that I was anticipating this event. If you know me you know I was excited by it. So what did I get? First of all, I got clouds. Not at 4:30 am, apparently (judging by a quick look out the window, admittedly, before going back to bed), but plenty at 5:30, when the eclipse was supposed to start. So I checked the weather sites, determining that there were clear skies to the north and to the east. So I headed north. More clouds, but, occasionally, the moon would peek through. Uneclipsed. In any way whatsoever.

Turns out, that the site that gave me my information neglected to say that the eclipse wouldnt actually be visible here, even though it said it would. I could have watched in Hawaii. But not here.

Lesson: dont trust the internet, kids!

Friday, December 09, 2011

quote for the day

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

(via)

Lunar eclipse in Dallas tonight

Total Eclipse of the Moon tonight, be ready! Okay, technically it's early tomorrow morning, but whatever.

DALLAS, TEXAS
o ' o '
W096 47, N32 47

Central Standard Time

Moon's
Azimuth Altitude
h m o o
Moonrise 2011 Dec 09 16:47 63.2 ----
Moon enters penumbra 2011 Dec 10 05:31.8 284.3 19.6
Moon enters umbra 2011 Dec 10 06:45.4 292.9 5.5
Moonset 2011 Dec 10 07:19 297.1 ----


Addendum: Hoo-boy, did that turn out to be wrong! Oh, there was a lunar eclipse, just not in Dallas.

Monday, December 05, 2011

quote for the day

"It's okay to blog about your fascination with knitting or to support official positions. If you happen to be Iranian or Chinese or Syrian, and not terribly fond of your government, and express yourself on the subject, the US government will support your right to do it 110 per cent of the way. However, as a federal employee, blog about your negative opinions on US policies and you've got a problem. In fact, we have a problem as a country if freedom of speech only holds as long as it does not offend the US government."

"Thought crime in Washington" by Peter Van Buren

America needs whistle-blowers just as much as it needs soldiers. The rate of attrition for whistle-blowers is much higher, sadly.

Saturday, December 03, 2011

Friday, December 02, 2011

hmmm

I seem to be all quotes these days.

quote for the day

"Today, Erick "Erick" Erickson writes, in the blog RedState (motto: "The reason why that blobby fuck appears on your CNN") that the inevitable nomination of serial flip-flopper Mitt Romney will destroy everything sacred about conservatism. Two things: Romney actually represents the craven, amoral, opportunistic GOP better than just about anyone else, so, of course, he should be the nominee. And there is nothing left to destroy in conservatism. It's been hollowed out from the inside by parasites like Romney and Erickson."

The Rude Pundit.

Thursday, December 01, 2011

quote for the day

"The crime, the betrayal of hope, is identical at both extremes. It lies in their cultish mystifying and worshipping - without a scintilla's evidence or proof - a golden past that irrefutably wasn't, and a cruel darkness that only now is parting from before our eyes."

David Brin, discussing the yearning for feudalism in some fantasy novels, etc.