You are feeling very relaxed. Your head feels heavy. All your cares wash away. You feel a very warm feeling toward the proprieters of FP. You would love to buy them many gifts. You feel youself reaching for your credit card.
A photo-essay on the history of Ikea shows some of the affordable modern design that has come through the store. They really should bring back some of that groovy furniture from their early days.
Punkasspunk.com is on blogdex today because of the Futurama Panoramas, but everything I checked out on the site was moderately entertaining. Snackin' Jesus especially caught my eye and my fancy (though my first thought was the monolith from 2001 rather than a vending machine).
I want to know how to make these. Zori is the generic term for sandals, while waraji is very specific (the ones with extra go-faster straps for samurai speed). There are workshops in Japan on how to make them from old cloth, eco-zori-- cool! But zori were always a re-use of industrial byproducts. Even some schoolkids make their own.
Good zori pix, and check out those boots!
From Scientific American, January 2nd, 1847
"Ingenious Mechanism
An Albany paper speaks of a squirrel cage, got up for a holiday present, and so constructed that when in operation, it puts in play a fountain, propels a train of railroad cars and other machinery. In connection with this subject it may be remarked that the squirrel -- especially the red kind, -- evinces a particular fondness for mechanical motion, and a capacity for timing with music. We once connected a revolving cage with a small hand organ, and were amused to observe that in less than three hours, the little operator kept time accurately with the music of the organ; and so pleased was he with his own performance, after finding the music so completely at his command, that he so wearied himself to exhaustion, that is was found requisite to disstract the machinery to give the squirrel a chance to rest."
When you apply mathematics to personal names through time, you get some interesting parallels to genetics, and maybe insight into memes. The full report is available here.
A candidate for FP's new slogan comes from the ebook Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State:
"Each for All and All for Each"
No chance of seeing When Harry Met Sally with Alyson Hannigan. And Molly Ringwald just doesn't have the same, well, anything.
There are a wide assortment of declassified documents from the Hanford project, including many photos, searchable by entering "N1D" in the simple search field. As it turns out, construction photos are timeless.
A Unitarian church in Texas denied tax-exempt status by the state comptroller is the latest in a string of fishy-looking denials: Ethical Culture groups, witches, agnostic groups and new agers are also apparently potential fraudsters. Or not Texan enough? The issue would make a good discussion group topic.
Since you can't get married at the Church of Elvis anymore (though you may be able to see your friend, Stephanie G. Pierce, at the Portland Saturday Market — which is also open Sundays), why not try Voodoo Doughnut (and wedding chapel)? Earlier, they were a 24-hour operation, but they seem to have cut back to evening-to-morning hours.
In one of the few nutty flash animation things I've run into whose quality compares to Joel Veitch's creations', Mr and Mrs Wheatly bring us Pretty Creatures. Sadly, this is really not work-safe.
Hey everybody, next Saturday is Mystical Chant Day! How will you celebrate? Perhaps you could chant along to the Kalevala. Though that might not be what they meant.
I really didn't want to post anything about Rumsfeld, because I feel that all the comments I would make would be too terribly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense. So I'll just let this statement stand on its own, apart from my eyes attempting to roll entirely out of my head.
"Mr Rumsfeld told reporters that, while he was willing for all such pictures to be released, lawyers were advising against it on the grounds that such images could be construed as degrading to the prisoners - and thus be in violation of the Geneva Conventions. "
If you are lucky enough to have access to the New York Times Historical Backfile database, you may notice some gaps in coverage. Rather than the usual culprits, the gaps are themselves historic:
Aug 10 - Nov 5 1978 (Pressman's Strike)
Sep 17 - Oct 10 1965 (Newspaper Guild strike
Dec 9 1962 - Mar 31 1963 (ITU strike)
Dec 12 - Dec 28 1958 (Delivers' strike)
Nov 30 - Dec 8 1953 (Photo-engravers' strike)
No Sunday issues until April 21, 1861.
An insane anti-pornography group (co-founded by Ed Meese, no less) claims it wants to use against pornography the same strategy that succeeded in extracting settlement money from the tobacco industry. Because all the best science is certain of its conclusions before it starts. And Big Tobacco sure isn't around anymore. Their chief scientist's Ph.D. is in communications, after all; not anything too troublesome, like, say, biochem.
A press release from CD Erotic announcing audio porn "in which women tell erotic stories." At least one of their readers has a distinctly Antipodean accent. The feature that pushed this press release into the (barely) post-worthy column: the name of CD Erotic's press contact.
I read Budget Living from time to time, and end up finding many items that have previously popped up in the blogosphere, and many interesting looking web links that I then have to laboriously type in. It makes one wish there was a good profit model for an online magazine.
That Forties Guy
Soda Pop Stop
Chico Hot Springs
Global Food Company
Maine Goodies
Hometown Favorites
MexGrocer
Scandinavian Spice
Daily Candy
Instant Living
A thin film to pixelize your tv, which is cool since the other pixelizers are big, bulky plastic items. I just need to figure out how to DIY such an item.
A short backgrounder on Lorem Ipsum, plus its sibling Etaoin Shrdlu.
I've had a fascination with the Mad Monk for many years now, probably entirely due to (the interestingly appropriately named for the current context) Boney M's hit song (minor hit most place; huge radio hit in Moscow, ID, where I lived at the time). Best when it's back-to-back with "Night Flight to Venus" (but I'm a big fan of the back-to-back song tradition).
The chief of the prostate research center of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences wants Russia to be a civilized country with a view on the future and with correct views on erotica.
Naturally, then, he opens a museum whose marquee exhibit is Rasputin's penis. "Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is now kept. ... it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimeters." Yes, that's right: the whole cold war was about penis envy.
Update: others have previously claimed to possess the organ in question (or at least bits thereof), so one might need substantial provenance before taking the exhibit at face value.
Nurses found guilty of infecting almost 400 children with HIV in buh-wacky court case that has movie of the week written all over it (Lifetime if it weren't in Libya).
Hollywood stuntman Dan Rudert has been hired to catch, mid-air, a sample container dropped from space. The article makes it sound as though we haven't been doing that sort of thing for around 50 years (though it is, apparently, the first time it's been done with a helicopter).
I love vending machines and wish there were more cool vending options in this country. If I were Lost in Translation, I would take a stroll with a pocketful of money and see what I could buy from machines and still have enough money to take a taxi back to the hotel.
T9 is interesting, but more so when you get a glimpse of its guts when it guesses something unexpected.
And on an oddly similar note, crappy scrabble draws.
The Treasures of Ancient Egypt, Eternal Egypt, and Eternal Egypt's only NW stop in Victoria.
The bird guides agree, that was a merganser.
