In Minnesota, Your 15 Minutes Is Easier to Come By…
By Brian | August 27, 2007
Just got back from a wonderful four-day weekend visiting family in Maple Grove, Minnesota (just outside of Minneapolis). We did the standard things, I suppose – marvelled at the Mall of America (including the theme park formerly known as Camp Snoopy), sampled some local restaurants, and cooked S’mores in a bonfire on the driveway while neighborhood kids came by to play and dance to various Hannah Montana & High School Musical tunes.
As a daily Bleat reader, I made one additional suggestion. Isn’t the Minnesota State Fair going on? Wouldn’t the kids enjoy spending a day there? Also, I know someone who’s working there (well, “know” in the web-sense of the word – read what he writes every day & send him an occasional e-mail, which he reads and occasionally responds to as one of a sea of e-mails he receives from loyal readers).
Anyway, off to the fair we went:
A few rides, a TON of food (including several things “on a stick” that you wouldn’t expect to find on a stick – including a Snickers Bar), and then the long walk back to the car (we had a pretty good parking spot. I believe they call the lot “Wisconsin.”) Anyway, on the way back we passed the Star Tribune booth and I dragged the family off the beaten path for a second. “Excuse me, is James Lileks here?” “Why sure – he’s on the back porch.”
Perfect.
And so it was that I got to meet the man who writes the words I read every morning on my way to work. I told him so, and he said it made his day. Then he gave us some sage advice about holding our breath during the tour of the animal exhibits, and we were off – him to his Buzz.mn writing, us to our car. The next morning, this time at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport waiting for our flight, I pull up the today’s Daily Bleat. Lo & behold, look what I see:
It’s wonderfully gratifying to meet people at the Fair who read the stuff and enjoy it. (One fellow came up to the Official Buzz.mn Porch today, and told me he reads the Bleat on his Blackberry while taking the train into NYC. To Rockefeller Center! Made my day.)
Now how friggin’ cool is that? James, if you’re reading this (and there’s a chance you are, since I’m going to e-mail it to you as soon as I’m done posting it), please know that reading the reference to us the next morning made my day as well (and my wife’s day & my kids’ day…)
One more picture from the fair. It strikes me as something the Bleat-master himself might have posted if he had taken it (and, of course, he’s free to pilfer it as his discretion if he so chooses). Some contextual irony that can only be understood after passing the “Gator on a Stick” and “Teriyaki Ostrich on a Stick” booths:
Like I said – Perfect.
Categories: Blogging about Blogs, Family Matters, Travel Talk | 1 Comment »
Welcome, Class of 2011
By Brian | August 24, 2007
Beloit College has released it’s Class of 2011 Mindset list. This is a list of 70 things the incoming college freshmen have always believed to be true. The link has the whole list, of course, but here are my Top Ten:
4. They’ve never
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
For those keeping score at home…
By Brian | August 24, 2007
Paris Hilton: 3 weeks in jail for violating probation due to DUI.
Lindsay Lohan: 1 day in jail for cocaine posession and DUI.
Nicole Richie: 1 hour in jail for driving while on drugs.
Quite the impressive bunch, huh?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | Comments Off on For those keeping score at home…
I’m Sure Someone Else is Curing Cancer – Part Three
By Brian | August 24, 2007
Scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found a way to induce an out-of-body experience in people without using drugs.
Now, first of all, thank God they didn’t use drugs, because we all remember those scientist doping scandals in the 1990’s. Heck, there are still those out there who think the whole Viagra discovery should have an asterisk.
But beyond that, the two main questions here are 1) What exactly have they done here, and 2) For the love of everything holy, WHY?!?!?
Taking the first question first:
Using virtual reality goggles to mix up the sensory signals reaching the brain, they induced the volunteers into projecting their awareness into a virtual body. Participants confirmed they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it. The illusion was so strong that the volunteers reacted with a palpable sense of fear when their virtual selves were threatened with physical force.
So they’re temporarily re-wiring your brain in order to give you a hallucination that you’re outside of your body. OK, moving on to question #2:
Inducing people to have out-of-body experiences could have wide-ranging uses, [says Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist formerly of University College London, and now at the Karolinska Institute].
“This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation. If we can project people into a virtual character, so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.
The experience of video games could reach a whole new level, but it could go much beyond that. For example, a surgeon could perform remote surgery, by controlling their virtual self from a different location.”
Say what?!?
OK, granted, I should have seen the video game thing coming, but surgery? First of all, we understand that the surgeon would only think he were somewhere else, but not actually be somewhere else, right? Second, anyone want their surgeon operating on them while experiencing a scientifically induced delusion?
Categories: The Future is Now, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on I’m Sure Someone Else is Curing Cancer – Part Three
Rangers miss extra point, win by four touchdowns
By Brian | August 22, 2007
Now this, my friends, is a baseball game:
This game set so many records, it probably set a record for setting records. I’ll spare you the very long list and just throw out three fun facts:
1) The last time a team scored 30 or more runs in a game was 110 years ago (that’s 1897, for the math-impaired)
2) The Baltimore Ravens haven’t allowed 30 points in a game since Week 12 of 2005.
3) After three innings, Baltimore was leading this game 3-0.
Man, what a game…
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The I Should Be Sleeping Museum
By Brian | August 19, 2007
A little bit of tech-geek history, for those who like that sort of thing:
Ladies and gentelmen, my second modem. The first was a 1200 baud model that someone gave me when I was in high school. This one, though, is the first modem I purchased myself, and it’s the one that got me through college. It’s a Hayes Accura 288 V.34 + Fax, maximum speed – a scorching 28.8 kilobits per second. Or, to put it another way, about 100 times slower than my current internet connection.
My, how far we’ve come…
Categories: Tech Talk | Comments Off on The I Should Be Sleeping Museum
Yankee Stadium Blogging…
By Brian | August 19, 2007
Here’s something most people who go to Yankee Stadium don’t see:
That’s the construction site across the street from the stadium, which will become the new Yankee Stadium at the beginning of the 2009 season. When Phil Rizzuto died, the construction workers apparently spray-painted “Scooter Rizzuto, MVP” on some of their materials. From the picture, it looks like temporary wooden boards used during the building process, but I’d like to think that those boards will somehow become part of the completed stadium, and that Scooter’s name will be entombed in the new stadium for as long as it stands. Unless I find out differently, I think I’ll choose to believe that story from now on…
Oh, and as long as I have your attention, here’s something most people who go to Yankee Stadium do see:
Categories: Family Matters, Sports Talk | Comments Off on Yankee Stadium Blogging…
Al Qaeda and Iraq – Interesting Tidbits
By Brian | August 18, 2007
Just a couple of quick things I read on the train home today:
First, remember Jose Padilla? He’s the Brooklyn born man who was held without trial in a military court for three and a half years, until finally being transferred to a Miami civilian court, where he was convicted of all charges against him. Apparently, one of the pieces of evidence that convinced the jury was an application he filled out to attend an Al Qaeda training in Afghanistan in 2000. For those who don’t believe that Al Qaeda was a well-organized operation before we went after them, here’s a PDF of the application, along with an English translation.
Second, this from Captain’s Quarters about U.S. Representative Brian Baird, a five-term Democrat who voted against the war in 2002:
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.
“I believe that the decision to invade Iraq and the post-invasion management of that country were among the largest foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. I voted against them, and I still think they were the right votes,” Baird said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.
“But we’re on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work.”
Baird, a five-term Democrat, voted against President Bush ordering the Iraq invasion
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LinkedIn Gets Serious
By Brian | August 14, 2007
Quite a choice, huh?
(Hat tip: Steve Walsh)
Categories: The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on LinkedIn Gets Serious
A Truly Holy Cow…
By Brian | August 14, 2007
“I guess heaven must have needed a shortstop.” — George Steinbrenner
— August 14, 2007
“Fly ball to deep right field. Tony Armas going back, back, back, at the wall . . .
Holy Cow, did you see that?!?!?”— Phil Rizzuto
— Radio Broadcast
— Late 1970’s
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