October 2009
69 posts
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“— By all that is hirsute and gashly!”
– Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
September 2009
74 posts
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“Nothing is more human and fallible than the dynastic or hereditary principle,...”
– Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (zing!)
Consumers value shininess in nearly everything →
A description of the ingredients in your shampoo. Unlike toothpaste, in which there are many active ingredients, in shampoo there are usually only a handful out of the 20 or 30 included. I thought my shampoo was relatively plain but it’s packed full of goodness like polyquaternium-7. That sounds like another goddamn planet.
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WatchThis one is great! I love the tessellating landers.
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“There are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also a pretty spry sort...”
– Sherlock Holmes
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“If - which I heartily trust does not happen - a new Dr. Moreau could corrupt...”
– Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (in a chapter on religious dislike of pigs)
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The Lovely Feathers - “Lowiza” Fantasy...
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Lily Allen owns self →
I don’t really know who Lily Allen is, but she makes records and was, until recently, very outspoken about copyright laws and piracy. Of course, not understanding even the rudiments of copyright herself, she compromised her position by hosting essentially pirated music on her own website (among other things). When people pointed this out, she ended the whole affair and reportedly said...
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Lovage - “To Catch A Thief” Music To...
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Power up!
I’ve gone back and tagged any posts that fall under art, music, quotes, or vocabulary and you can now browse those to the left there.
Also added some handy lines so you know when to stop reading. Up next, revamping the buttons. (Eh, those didn’t turn out as well as I’d like. I’ll redo ‘em later.)
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“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the...”
– Marx
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“Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little immortal spark...”
– Sherlock Holmes
Highest-paid, worst-performing CEOs →
God, this is depressing. Apparently it’s not enough that we pay successful CEOs too much by a couple orders of magnitude; the error has to extend to the failures as well. What a world.
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“Step in, sir. Keep clear of the badger, for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty;...”
– Old Sherman in The Sign of the Four (Arthur Conan Doyle)
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Johann Sebastian Bach, “Sonata in G,...
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“Yes, it was fun this week to watch the teabaggers complain how the media...”
– Bill Maher in the Huffington Post
Supermarket →
How come I’ve never heard of this unbelievably cool store? Too bad everything is so goddamn expensive. I’m buying some stuff anyway.
WatchThat effect is so creepy. Always makes me dizzy when they use it in movies.
Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences →
Of one: “It has the ring of utter ineptitude.”
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“The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage, having many of their...”
– ibid.
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“They were so well stored of biscuit, that for the space of halfe a yeere they...”
– ibid.
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The Fruit Bats - “Seaweed” Mouthfuls
...
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“Their pieces of brazen ordinance were 1600, and of yron a 1000. The bullets...”
– ibid.
Norman Borlaug, major defender against world... →
I remember seeing this guy on the “Genetic Modification” episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit. Penn cited him as perhaps the greatest person who ever lived, suggesting that his research had helped feed billions of people who would have otherwise starved (and continues to today). I would agree, though the critics have a point that a result of his techniques was an over-reliance...
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“The galliasses were of such bignesse, that they contained within them chambers,...”
– ibid.
Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" →
I understand that the popular conception of Sherlock Holmes is mistaken — he’s far from merely an observative gentleman detective. He’s addicted to drugs and can be both manipulative and ruthless. But he’s not a 19th-century Indiana Jones. This movie will be a lot of fun, I’m sure, but did they really have to call it Sherlock Holmes?
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“The galeons were 64 in number, being of an huge bignesse, and very flately...”
– Edwin Creasy, The 15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World
Charlie Brooker reviews "The X-Factor" →
“Animals, all of us: dying, desperate animals, alone in our skulls, in our souls, quietly tortured by our foreknowledge of death, wandering a mindless rock, baying with pain or killing each other. That’s the working week. Come Saturday we crave relief. Slumped defeated in the corner, our flagellated cadavers scarcely held together by the gentle cocooning pressure of our armchairs,...
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“Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable coachman talk...”
– Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy