Random Acts of Blogging
More Moon from Margaret!
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Anyone who has kids is surely familiar with Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon. Entertaining kids since 1947, and no one’s quite sure why…
If that includes you, then you’ll probably be interested to know that her sister recently found a “sheaf of yellow pages held together by paper clips” in Margaret’s attic, which turned out to be a sequel to the now-famous book.
The new book, entitled The Moon Shines Down will be available, including Clement Hurd-style illustrations by Linda Bleck, in November of 2008.
Goodnight, nobody. Goodnight, mush. And goodnight to the blogger whispering, “Hush.”
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What’s another meme between friends…
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Another request from Jason Bennion (I aim to please). This one’s called the 123 Meme.
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.
Well, the book currently in my laptop bag is James Patterson’s 7th Heaven. To page 123 we go (if this gives away the murderer, I’m going to blame it all on Jason…)
Reluctantly, Conklin said, “My notes would be more of a verbatim account, but —“
“But still, you felt it was appropriate to throw them out? Is there a shortage of storage space at the Hall of Justice?”
OK, Jason, you’re safe for now. And yes, in Patterson’s universe, the place where all the San Fransisco cops work is called The Hall of Justice. I keep reading them because I’m waiting for Wonder Woman to return on her invisible jet with Aquaman, Batman & Robin, and the Wonder Twins (Form of: something completely unuseful in this situation! Shape of: something random and completely incompatible with what you’re forming! Someone find that damn monkey – he’ll ironically save the day!)
OK, tagging five people. This is problematic. I only know a small number of people who both read my blog and have a blog of their own. So I’m going to have to be creative here:
1) Jeff Porten
2) Mike Chenoweth (Thank God Jason didn’t tag him – gives me another name…)
3) and 4) Someone of Jeff’s and Mike’s choosing (see how now they have to pick six people? Pretty devious, huh?)
5) You. Yeah, you – the guy/gal reading my blog because Google brought you here and you just can’t look away. Like staring at a car wreck. Well, now you’ve gone and done it. You don’t even know me, and I’ve tagged you with a blog meme. You’ll be thrown out of the blogosphere forever if you don’t respond when tagged with a blog meme. It’s true! I read about it on the InterTubes…
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Now that we’ve solved that problem, the Really Big Survey…
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Well now, how can I resist playing with my new toy? Here ya go, folks, 148 random facts about me that you didn’t know and never really cared to ask…
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Count von Count gets nasty…
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008This is probably as close to this blog comes to off-color humor, although there’s technically nothing dirty in here at all. That said, I laughed so hard I nearly choked:
Ladies and gentlemen, Sesame Street’s Count von Count discussing what he does when the kids aren’t watching:
(hat tip: Vicky Parysek)
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A New Take on Valentine’s Day
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Got Anger?
I thought this was a new way to express the male point of view about the Hallmarkiest Hallmark holiday of the year.
Click on the image for more Valentine’s Day gift ideas…
(hat tip: Chris Bellis)
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What a Super Few Days…
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008So just about everyone knows that today is Super Sunday. Something about a football game…
As they say in the infomercials, though: “But wait, there’s more!”
Tomorrow, my kids’ school is having “Super Monday,” where the kids are encouraged to wear clothing to signify their favorite sports teams.
The next day, the same school is hosting “Super Tuesday,” wherein they will discuss the election process, civic responsibility, and current events.
Man, Wednesday is going to be a real let down, huh?
UPDATE: I was informed last night that Wednesday is actually Ash Wednesday, so it won’t be ordinary for some. So some folks will make it all the way to Thursday before their next “normal” day. Glad we cleared that up, huh?
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What you want to see on your screen on Friday afternoon…
Friday, February 1st, 2008
Ahhh, that feels SOOOO good.
(Yes, still a geek. Fellow geeks understand completely – trust me…)
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A Weird Dream…
Monday, January 21st, 2008If you commute on New Jersey Transit as I do, it’s not unusual to find more than half the train sleeping on their way to work. Or so I’ve heard, anyway, because I’m typically part of that crowd.
Anyway, the other day I got on the train and fell asleep and had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was on the train and couldn’t fall asleep, despite being exhausted.
The strangest part of a dream like that is waking up when the train reaches the city, and sorting out in my foggy state of mind that my inability to sleep was just a dream, which meant I not only could fall asleep but had done so quite successfully.
You know, now that I think about it, I better go get some sleep right now as well. Unless, of course, this blog post is just a dream I’m having…
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Some Cool Optical Illusions
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008It’s been a long time since an “Internet joke” e-mail contained anything I wanted to see, but these came through my inbox yesterday and I was rather impressed:
| Good vs. Evil: |  |
| Me & You: |  |
| Optical Illusion: |  |
| Teach & Learn: |  |
And finally…how many F’s are in this sentence:
Wrong. There are six.
Yes, I’m serious. Try it again.
Still don’t believe me? How’s this: the second letter of the word “of” is an F. Now read it again.
Told ‘ya…
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African Poor Gets Hilton Billions, Paris Gets a Life Lesson
Thursday, December 27th, 2007Words cannot express how happy this story makes me. Let’s follow the bouncing ball, shall we?
1944: Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton hotel chain, establishes the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, dedicated to “relieve the suffering, the distressed and the destitute.”
1979: Conrad Hilton dies, and leaves virtually all of his fortune to the Foundation.
1988: His son, Barron Hilton, reaches an out of court settlement after a nearly ten year battle to challenge the will, and retains half of the ownership stake in Hilton Hotels for himself, rather than having it go to help the suffering, distressed and destitute. (Bad Barron…)
2003: Barron’s granddaughter, Paris, becomes one of the most famous people in America (the world?) when a video of her and her boyfriend having sex makes its way around the Internet.
2006: Jerry Oppenheimer, author of House of Hilton, reports that Barron Hilton is embarrassed by the behavior of his socialite granddaughter and believes it has sullied the family name. Barron does not comment on these remarks.
2007: Paris is convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, and sentenced to probation. She violates her probation and lands in jail for three dramatic, media-frenzied weeks, culminating in a “Get Out of Jail” party thrown for her by a large Las Vegas hotel and an exclusive television interview with Larry King that reportedly nets her millions of dollars.
Yesterday: Barron Hilton announces that he will leave 97% of his fortune (currently worth $2.3 billion) to the Conrad N. Hilton foundation, where it will be used to “provide clean water in Africa, education for blind children, and housing for the mentally ill.” (Good Barron…)
So, not only does Barron Hilton join the ranks of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and others, who have made giving away gazillions of dollars trendy, but the African kids who need the money most finally get it.
Also, Paris Hilton finally gets something she’s been lacking for years now – consequences. Up until now, the only thing she’s ever done in her life that has cost her anything that was important to her was getting caught driving drunk a second time, which cost her three weeks of freedom. Now, it turns out that her sex video and all the associated celebrity parties, reality show stupidity, and other not-a-role-model nonsense that she’s been filling her life with has cost her a significant share of $2.3 billion and (I suspect) a significant chunk of her grandfather’s respect.
Seriously – this totally makes my day.
(SIDE NOTE: Hat-tip to Scalzi for pointing this out first. He criticizes MSNBC for writing a story about a large charitable donation and leading with Paris Hilton. I couldn’t disagree more. I hope every teenage girl in the world who ever thought Paris was “cool” reads this article because her name is in the title and thinks, “Damn…she got screwed!“)
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