Snappy Patter

Set Blog To Maximum Rationalization!

2008-07-01T21:41:00.001-07:00

It's a well known fact amongst people with brain-stems that in every consumer transaction there is a winner and a loser. If you are NOT a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation, well the odds are pretty good that you're not the winner, either. But, even among the broad spectrum of bad deals, the initial offering of the iPhone had to be the worst.

Which is why it's a little strange that a site that so often publishes useful, level-headed advice, has just posted a huge piece of rationalization from one of their writers. Not that we've got anything else to say about the iPhone. We've been there already.

Zines + Time + Internet = Blogs

2008-06-27T16:28:00.001-07:00

As someone who was very interested in zines back in the day, I thought this Essay by Tim W. Brown was pretty interesting:

"Originally static web pages, e-zines swiftly got more sophisticated until the arrival of the Web 2.0 paradigm, which has now made publishing a two-way street. The blog scene was born, and bloggers largely carry the flag of self-expression despite the continued presence of e-zines."

Justify My OS

2008-06-26T16:53:00.001-07:00

Gizmodo writer doesn't still uses Windows because he's uses Windows. There, I just saved you some time.

Link via Chaos Theory

The Irony Expo

2008-06-25T12:54:00.001-07:00

So, today we were given a free, plastic lunch-pail by a health insurance company rep. And it smells like a new shower curtain. Thanks, health insurance company!

Book-throwers' Anonymous

2008-06-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

From the Times Online, several admission of book-tossing -- of which, this is but one:

Daisy Goodwin: "Patricia Cornwell [...] I threw her last book off a boat."

Good grief, people. I've run into books I didn't like, too, but none that have ever inspired me to waste the effort required to throw them. I close them gently, put them down, and abandon them on a bus, like unwanted children.

Review Proof

2008-06-23T09:45:00.001-07:00

Mark Lawson:

"[...] [D]istributors and publicists are now increasingly trying to stop newspaper reviewers from seeing certain movies before the public does. These embargoes prevent daily critics (whose pieces traditionally appear on Thursday or Friday mornings) from noticing the films at all and force weekend writers to rush to multiplexes at lunchtime before their usual Friday night deadlines."

It's funny that movie studios spend almost a year lobbing unimpeded, high-intensity marketing at consumers, all of which could (apparently) be undone by a negative, Thursday-morning review. Maybe critics are super-powerful beings.

New Word Watch

2008-06-13T11:20:00.001-07:00

From the comic "Able and Baker," an new word: Disasterisk.

"The Road" can teach you to be frugal

2008-06-11T14:21:00.001-07:00

Ben Popkin from the Consumerist has five lessons in frugality, gleaned from (ugh) Cormac McCarthy's The Road:

"1. Use what you do have creatively
You have no shoes. Yet, you have a suit jacket, a box cutter, and the lining in the suit jacket. Combine them and you have serviceable foot coverings. Similarly, a metal pipe fitted with a length of chain makes an excellent truncheon."

I think the "It's not science fiction!" clamor has calmed down, at last. Now, thanks to this, we may have to endure a whole new round of, "It's not a financial advice book!" bellyaching.

Anything Goes

2008-06-09T13:27:00.001-07:00

April Winchell finds salmon hentai:

"This is the kind of thing that makes me want to put my head down on my desk and take a long nap. Who the fuck would jerk off to fish porn? Seriously? Who the hell closes their eyes and sees this? Bears?"

As Detective Wojciehowicz once said, you can point to any item in the Sears catalog, and there's someone, somewhere out there who wants to sleep with it. This probably has something to do with all the funny wiring we all have in our heads, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say. It's still weird, though.

The P-Files

2008-06-09T12:49:00.001-07:00

From Swivet:

"I bought a single cheeseburger and consumed it (so as to be an actual 'customer' - New York restaurants really don't like letting people use their potties) and then made my way to the bathroom where I was confronted by a skinny little manager type who informed me that I wasn't allowed to use the bathroom. When I asked why, he said 'Cos I closed this side of the restaurant.'"

Back when I used to work in San Francisco, one of the first things I did was to make note of all of the places with public bathrooms between the BART station and the companies at which I was temping.

Gym rats: Annoying?

2008-06-09T11:34:00.001-07:00

Newsweek has a list of the 9 most obnoxious habits of gym rats. You know, aside from their overall fitness and good looks:

"A manager at a New York Sports Club was walking through the women's locker room a few years ago when she smelled cheese. Puzzled, she opened the door to the sauna, where a woman had placed bread and cheese on the hot rocks to make a postworkout grilled cheese sandwich."

I look forward to humanity's future.

Every kind of beard

2008-05-30T22:34:00.001-07:00

This guy's ability to grow facial hair is stunning. And he's almost achieved every kind of beard there is. As a former beardy myself, all I can say is well done, sir.

Video games won't make you a killer -- maybe

2008-05-30T10:31:00.001-07:00

From Prospect magazine:

"Modern video games mean big business, and big controversy. Yet most of the charges levelled against games—that they stunt minds and spark addiction—are based on an outdated understanding of what gamers do when they sit down to play."

We played tons of video games when we were kids, and we turned out okay. (We may be lonely misanthropes, but that was a pre-existing condition, we swear!)

Bob Under Estimates Poetry

2008-05-28T12:01:00.001-07:00

Is poetry easy? Perhaps not...

Gluteus Maximus Overdrive

2008-05-26T19:19:00.001-07:00

We don't often judge a book by its title. but, c'mon. The Day My Butt Went Psycho? That's... impressive.

Braaaaaaaains! (Of Russian Genius)

2008-05-23T11:14:00.001-07:00

From the Mind Hacks blog:

"What makes a man a genius? Russian neuroscientists were pondering this exactly this question in the early 1900s and did exactly what seemed sensible at the time - they collected and dissected the brains of some of the greatest cultural figures in a huge collection called 'The Pantheon of Brains'."

So, if a zombie were to go to town on this veritable buffet of neurological goodness, would that zombie become super-smart?

KFC's New "Money-wich Stacker!"

2008-05-23T09:09:00.001-07:00

From the Consumerist:

"Reader 'umlaut75' sent us a video of a KFC Snacker television commercial that shows a mysterious tiny picture of a dollar bill mixed in with the lettuce. As far as intrigue is concerned, it's not exactly the Zapruder film but it does make us wonder."

This doesn't surprise us at all. How could it, when the entire advertising industry is built on the assumption that we are very, very stupid.

Ben Affleck, in: The Easy Target

2008-05-22T18:52:00.001-07:00

From the Independent:

"At passport control at the Eurostar terminal, I'm asked why I'm going to Paris. I tell the controller that I'm on my way to interview Ben Affleck, and his response is one that many people have when the Boston-born actor crops up in conversation: 'Can you please tell him that he's a terrible actor!'"

So, I've decided that whenever anybody asks me where I'm going, I'm going to say, "I'm going to interview Ben Affleck," just to see if I get the same response.

Guest Starring Malcolm Gladwell

2008-05-21T09:31:00.001-07:00

If you want a Gladwell baby in your womb, Malcolm might just help you out, there.

Nanotech's Unintended Consequences

2008-05-20T14:22:00.001-07:00

If you've been following nanotechnology over the years, you've probably heard about Carbon Nanotubes, which are often the building blocks of some pretty great, prospective technology. Turns out that there might be some reasons for concern:

"A major study published today in Nature Nanotechnology suggests some forms of carbon nanotubes – a poster child for the "nanotechnology revolution" – could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in sufficient quantities."

Be careful, you scientists.

The Answer is to Throw Away Food

2008-05-20T14:06:00.001-07:00

From Rebecca's Pocket: Food portion sizes, then and now:

"Over the past few decades, portion sizes of everything from muffins to sandwiches have grown considerably. Unfortunately, America's waistbands have reacted accordingly. In the 1970s, around 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; now 66 percent of us are. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our population to 30 percent."

I know my weight is my own fault, but it's easy to see how things can get out of hand when you've been conditioned to clean your plate, and all the while, the plates just keep getting larger.

Nerdiness as Disease

2008-05-20T12:18:00.001-07:00

From a post on Chaos Theory:

"One of the slightly frightening things about the explosion of Asperger's diagnoses is that because Asperger's syndrome refers to a hard-wired neurological state, kids are essentially being told that they are hard-wired to be nerds. It's a really fraught diagnosis. I wonder if there are kids who would've benefited from just being able to think of themselves as nerdy, and then gone on to become something else, instead of being told when they're young, 'You have Asperger's syndrome, you're always going to be a socially awkward systemic thinker.'"

I'm so glad that I was never diagnosed as autistic, when I was a kid (or, possibly, hyperlexic). Somehow, I think it would have just made things more difficult for me.

We Sympathize

2008-05-20T09:33:00.001-07:00

Cat and Girl once again makes a poignant comment on the state of the world today.

Larry's Looks

2008-05-19T09:28:00.001-07:00

Yet another jab at Larry King -- but we'll let it slide for two reasons: First, it's really more of a joke based on the old "be careful what you wish for" premise; Second, syndicated cartoonists are required by union regulations to mention Larry King, cellphones, and the burden that children represent, a specific number of times a year.

Other interesting magazines...

2008-05-16T12:47:00.001-07:00

... found on the New York Review of Magazine's website.

Mortuary Management: "Apparently, necrophilia is legal in Wisconsin."

Meatpaper: "The magazine is an examination of the "fleischgeist."

Highlights for Children: "I liked how they found the secret using math."

It's such a shame that our local bookstore's magazine section is so pathetic as to not carry these great magazines for us to stumble upon.