The World Wide Weird
Betcha Can’t Bury Just One…
Monday, June 2nd, 2008This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it’s apparently true: the inventor of the Pringles potato chip can died last month, and his ashes were buried in a Pringles can.
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Bobble me…
Sunday, May 11th, 2008XMBaseball.com, some kind of weird joint venture between Major League Baseball and XM Satellite Radio is currently running two web promotions. The first is a robo-call where you can have Derek Jeter or David Ortiz call your house at a particular time and basically recite a MadLib with your chosen name(s), hobbies, favorite sports teams, etc.. My son Avery would probably get a kick out of it, but when I typed in all the info, I was told that Derek can’t say the word “Avery,” and asked if he could call without mentioning a name. No thanks, robo-Derek, the effect would most certainly be lost. And of course, if he can’t say Avery, he can’t very well say Brandon, lest he upset Avery. Catch-22…
Anyway, the other web promotion is a feature that let’s you Bobble head anyone you want. That one’s easier. Ladies & gentlemen, Bobble-Brian:
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Bush Conducts More than Just War…
Sunday, April 27th, 2008Hat tip to Kushol Gupta for this link: President Bush conducting the U.S. Marine Band as they play Stars and Stripes Forever. Apologies for the outside link – CNN doesn’t provide embedding technology (at least none that I could find).
Anyway, is it just me, or does Bush look more comfortable conducting (badly) than he ever has speaking?
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Random Acts of Blogging – 4/27/08
Sunday, April 27th, 2008OK, so I’ve been away a while, and the list of things I’ve wanted to blog about has grown steadily. So away we go:
1) If you don’t watch The Daily Show with John Stewart, you really should. It’s funny every single night. But this past week or two, Stewart has been on fire! Here he is after Barack Obama was called an elitist:
The whole thing is funny, but the best part is around 7:25 or so. Here’s the money quote:
Doesn’t elite mean good? Is that not something we’re looking for in a president anymore? You know what candidates, come with me (to a different camera:) I know elite is a bad word in politics; you want to go bowling and throw back a few beers, but the job you’re applying for, if you get it and it goes well, they might carve your head into a mountain! If you don’t actually think you’re better than us, then what the &%*#&@ are you doing?
2) If someone from 1984, having just read Orwell’s book, time travelled to 2008 and took a New York commuter train one morning, they’d see more than half of the people with their eyes closed, in various degrees of consciousness, wearing the same white ear phones in their ears, and probably assume we were all being fed the same government-issued doublespeak. What’s funny is how wrong they’d be. Sitting on a train with 100 iPods, I wonder what the odds are that any two of them are playing the same song? I’m guessing it’s close to zero.
3) A colleague of mine pointed out to me the other day that MIT disproved time travel in 2005 by holding a time traveller’s convention, to which no one from the future showed up. Pretty convincing evidence on the face of it. If time travel is to ever be invented, you’d think someone would pop in to say hello, no? Famed scientist Tina Fey, formerly of Saturday Night Live had the perfect rebuttal:
A student at MIT is hosting a Time Traveler Party this week with the hope that people from the future will show up…too bad people from the future already know the party sucked!”
The only thing I know for sure after reading about this is that if anyone does invent time travel in my lifetime, something will almost instantly occur that will give me a killer headache.
4) SamuriFrog, the excellent blogger over at Electronic Cerebrectomy (WARNING: Link is typically not safe for work), recently posted two pictures that sum up the sad state of intelligence in our country today:
Man…there oughta be a test you need to pass before you can write protest signs…
5) Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to New York City was capped off by a mass held at Yankee Stadium. First, a quick conversation between my wife and I:
My wife: Wow, the stadium looks beautiful. I bet the Pope is impressed. Me: Honey, he practically lives in St. Peter’s Basillica! My wife: Good point
Then, of course, there are the New York Post and the New York Daily News, who could not resist the ironic headline:
The Post: “Communion Vendors Bring the Host to the Most.” Daily News: “The Sermon on the Mound.”
Gotta love New York…
6) And finally, Britain’s Office of Government Commerce, or OGC, recently unveiled it’s new logo:
Seems harmless enough, right? But then they started putting it on mousepads, pens, and the like, and people got a chance to see it rotated 90 degrees:
Wow…that’s quite the, er…um…well…what’s the word I’m looking for? Well, I guess you’d have to say it’s quite a boner, now wouldn’t you???
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Library Schedule Hu-Hu-Hu-Humor
Monday, April 14th, 2008Big ol’ tip of the hat to Mike Starr, who passed along today’s schedule for his local library, the Plainview – Old Bethpage Public Library. Here’s a quick summary (emphasis mine):
10:00 AM-SENIOROBICS
10:30 AM-SENIOR BOOK DISCUSSION
11:00 AM-SENIOROBICS
3:30 PM-Girl Scouts Troop 3051
3:30 PM-Hospice of New York
6:30 PM-NATIONAL OVARIAN CAN COALITION NY LI DIVISION
8:00 PM-National Stuttering Association
8:00 PM-National Stuttering Association
You can’t make up stuff like this…
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A-Rod Attacked in Fenway Park
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
Tip o’ the hat to Ilya Burlak for pointing out this unbelievable story. Seems a Bristol, CT middle school took their kids on a class trip to Fenway Park in Boston. A red-tailed hawk, who nests in an overhang near the stadium’s press booth, suddenly decided it didn’t like one of the students very much. It swooped down, talons extended, and scratched the scalp of this innocent, 13-year old girl, drawing blood but not seriously harming the girl (see picture).
Here’s the kicker. The girl’s name? Alexa Rodriguez!
As Ilya says, you just can’t make this stuff up…
Categories: Sports Talk, The World Wide Weird | 1 Comment »
The Eliot Spitzer School of Ethics?
Monday, March 31st, 2008Hat tip to Lisa Fiorenzo for this gem:
Students at the University of Texas at San Antonio were determined to uphold standards at their school. They wrote an honor code that discouraged both cheating and plagiarizing. But they weren’t going to waste a lot of time writing the darn thing themselves. The wording of a draft of the honor code appears to match the honor code at Brigham Young University. The student in charge of the project says the lack of a proper citation was just an oversight.
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Obama’s Favorite Ice Cream?
Friday, March 7th, 2008
From the Slate-hosted political blog, Trailhead, we have the winner of the “Name an Ice Cream Flavor after Barack Obama” contest: “Yes, Pecan!”
Top runners up include “Barackadamia Nut” and “Neopolitician,” which have been declared the front runners for those parts of the country where “Pecan” rhymes with “Oh, it’s on!” rather than “Yes, We Can!” Other suggestions include Peanut Butter Barackle and Obamana Split. Baracky Road and Obamaberry were disqualified because, “we’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”
So, anyone have any Clinton or McCain inspired Ice Cream flavors? I’ll start you off: For Hillary: Health Care Crunch. For McCain? How about McCaindy Coated Cookie Dough?
Go ahead, top that!
(and not with a cherry. BA DUM!)
Update #1: “Grand Ol’ Pistachio, made with real McCain sugar!” – Ted Aronson (from the Penn Band Listserv)
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Este Pizza is Back!
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Those with insanely good memories will remember back in July of 2007, when I learned of the fire at Este Pizza by analyzing my web server logs. Este Pizza, of course, is the Salt Lake City pizzeria that was the source of the not-yet-executed-but-still-hoping-it-happens-one-day Great Simple Tricks Pizza Challenge, in which Chenopup (and Este’s owner, Dave) attempt to defend their claim that Este Pizza makes a pizza that “rivals or excels over the best New York has to offer.”
At any rate, I received this e-mail from Chenopup this evening:
From: Chenopup
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:12 PM
To: <Various>
Subject: Este Pizza Back in Business!!!!
——————————————
I just got word today that Este Pizza has reopened and done a little stylin’ in the same location but interior has changed now. I’m going by tomorrow to take pics.Spread the word. The gates to Pizza Heaven have reopened :)
Cheno
I’m thrilled to hear it. Gentlemen, start your ovens…
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Paris Hilton Speaks at Harvard
Monday, February 11th, 2008Oh, wow – this story has so many ironic twists in it, I just had to post about it.
(Hat tip: Yvette Aikens)
First of all, Harvard’s Lampoon magazine declared Paris Hilton the “Woman of the Year.”.
Next, upon hearing about the award, Paris Hilton agrees to come to Harvard and accept the tropy in person. Apparently, she doesn’t know (and nobody told her) what the word Lampoon means.
Then, it’s raining on the day of the event, and about 200 Harvard students wait more than an hour in the rain to see her.
Next, Lampoon’s president, Chris Schleicher, is accused of pulling a prank. He has to stave off an increasing wet and impatient crowd by saying, “All of you can stab me if she doesn’t come. She’s really coming.”
But, of course, this is Harvard, so intelligent discourse eventually provides the proper perspective. First, we have Matthew Sussman, a 26-year old English major who says, “Someone just accosted me and said, ‘Why would you stand in the rain for Paris Hilton?’ But I think that she is an icon and we see her image multiplied numerous times and numerous ways.” Good point, Matthew. Good point. Matthew also added, “It’s also a dubious distinction. We don’t know if she is in on the joke or not,” proving that he’s not a total idiot.
Then Paris finally arrived and provided the student the kind of intellectual red meat you’d expect from such a weighty mind: “You guys are so hot. Harvard’s hot.”
I smell commencement speech…
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