This isn’t a new XKCD, but I hadn’t seen it before.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
No More Pussycats
Wow, it looks like the Lions might actually be for real, this year.
Something You Don’t See Every Day
Happy Twentieth Birthday
Linux. It was actually earlier in the week.
Pompeii
A tour from Lileks:
We visited some houses, saw the CAVE CANEM mural, the word WELCOME embedded in the stones in front of a house. And above it all, Vesuvius . . . venting.
“Are those clouds?”
“It’s a cloudless day except for one cloud coming out of Vesuvius? I don’t think so.”
“Is it going to explode?”
“Some day. But not today.”
Some day it will, and there will probably a tour group in progress, and a few people will think “now that’s a good tour. They even give you the volcano” while others stare in horror: well, can’t say I wasn’t warned, but jeez, what are the odds.
It’s actually part of a series he’s been running all week, on his European vacation.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This is great, too:
On the ship it was Pirate Night. We got Pirates of the Caribbean bandanas in the restaurant. The menu was pirate themed. (It was also the best meal we’d had on the ship.) There was a pirate dance in the middle of dinner. There will be fireworks on board tonight; the Disney ships are the only ones entrusted with fireworks. Then a dessert buffet and general piratical merriment. I arrred well and hard at the maitre d’ when we entered: it’s table nine I’ll be wanting, me hearties – but once Bradford, our waiter, asked me if I would be dressing up, I explained that my sympathies were with the colonial administrators, just trying to get the money to the mother country without losing it to some thieves. Pirates are interesting, but not admirable, no matter how you gussy it up with yo-ho-hoing and avast-ye-matey exultations of a life unbound from convention and oppression. As all the waiters danced around the room, wearing pirate costumes, I had a vision of a ship 400 years hence, with all the waiters dressed up for Al-Qaeda night, wearing suicide vests and waving automatic weapons.
Sadly, he’s probably prophetic. Or maybe not so sadly. I’d feel a little more optimistic if we’d actually solved the pirate problem. We did for a while, but then decided to try a new, non-effective approach.
Batten Down The Hatches, East Coast
Irene could be worse than Katrina, in terms of total property damage, and even in terms of loss of life, if people don’t prepare and evacuate. I don’t live in hurricane country, any more, though we still have a house there, but as I always noted when I went through this, the most annoying thing about hurricanes is that you have warning of them, and have to prepare, even if in the end it turns out to be a false alarm. I sort of dread the day they start to think they can predict earthquakes, because unless it’s better than they do with hurricane location and intensity, it’s going to result in a lot of lost productivity in earthquake country. Nonetheless, be prepared, and be careful out there.
Just Like Delicate Snowflakes
No two fake barfs are alike. A fascinating history.
The Love Is Gone
This sort of encapsulates the sort of insanity that swept the nation three years ago:
This week, with the jobless rate stuck above 9 percent and the president’s nationwide approval rating at its lowest level, the Vineyard’s broad allegiance shows cracks, leaving some islanders with a more textured, even tormented feeling about the president.
“I just have to say I feel really uncomfortable, because I love loving him,’’ said Leslie Pearlson, a real estate broker on the island.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Generation Web
Beloit College looks at the class of 2015:
O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Jim Carrey has always been bigger than a pet detective.
They’ve always gone to school with Mohammed and Jesus.
John Wayne Bobbitt has always slept with one eye open.
There has never been an official Communist Party in Russia.
“Yadda, yadda, yadda” has always come in handy to make longFaux Christmas trees have always outsold real ones.
They’ve always been able to dismiss boring old ideas with “been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt.”
The bloody conflict between the government and a religious cult has always made Waco sound a little whacko. stories short..
Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.
Women have always been kissing women on television.
Their older siblings have told them about the days when Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers.
Unlike their older siblings, they spent bedtime on their backs until they learned to roll over.
Music has always been available via free downloads.
And to them, tales of men walking on the moon are like stories of the depths of the Depression to me. And many of them probably don’t believe them.
Pheremones
…are bunk.
With regard to stinkum in general, I don’t have a very good sense of smell, so if I can smell a woman’s perfume when I’m not in close proximity, she’s definitely wearing too much.