Beer On Demand. US 281, Alice, TX 78332
So, I was in Alice, TX. I stayed at a Best Western and ate at a rather nice Mexican restaurtant with a Mexican waitress who would melt your heart. I feel odd saying she was Mexican, but, she was. She asked where I was from and told me she wanted to travel and would love to nurse. I told her that we were screaming out for nurses in England and that if she did some basic training she would get a job real easy in the UK. She was just delightful and so when she was next at the table I asked her if she might like my email address and then if she wanted any information or help she could email me and I’d try and help. She said to me – “I’m not sure how I would do that.” I could have wept. I gave her my email anyway and she said she’d find out how to email.
I fear I may never hear from her, but, she sure made my day.
I just said
The song they’re singing next door sounds like Jimmy Buffett singing ‘The Best Part of Waking Up Is Folgers in Your Cup’.
Chuck Norris
Angels in America
Thirty one Antony Gormley sculptures have come to New York. Go check them out.
bottled ghosts
Two glass phials said to contain the ghosts of an old man and a young girl have sold for NZ$2,000 ($1,395:£935) in an online auction in New Zealand.
The top bidder, an electronic cigarette company, said it was looking for ideas on what to do with the ghosts.
The ghost of the old man and the girl had been safely contained in holy water, she said, which “sort of puts them to sleep.”
The lot was viewed nearly 220,000 times in a week and received scores of comments, ranging from practical issues about how to ensure the ghosts remained in the bottles to concerns over the morality of selling another person’s spirit.
“I think they are called Jim Beam and the other is Johnnie Walker,” he said.
ready-to-hand
“The person and the various parts of their brain and the mouse and the monitor are so tightly intertwined that they’re just one thing,” said Anthony Chemero, a cognitive scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “The tool isn’t separate from you. It’s part of you.”
oldest known flying car up for auction
Natural Harvest
The seventh taste?
Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.
in its so-called anchor corridor
An underwater survey in preparation for a gas pipeline has revealed dozens of shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea, some of them a thousand years old.
Due to its low temperatures and oxygen levels, the Baltic Sea is known as an ideal environment for conserving shipwrecks, which can remain virtually unblemished for hundreds and even thousands of year.
Weaponizing Mozart
The headmaster of the school where children are forced to listen to classical music as a punishment for bad behaviour said infractions of school rules have dropped by about 60 per cent since he began the special detentions.
(via marginal revolution)
the sixth taste
“We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes — sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock),” Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.
“Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste — fat.”
(via kottke)
Armed with a deep sense of victimhood, outrage at the powers that be, and remarkable personal candor
I’m going to show you a lot more than tickle fights.
I have come to a place where I believe at some point the system will destroy me.
I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time.
We are made of star stuff
NOON
dear clusterflock
Is it only the internal compass that points true north?
King Crimson – Lark’s Tongue and Aspic Part I
I like my metal either over the top or just plain weird.
The Middle East — Blood
A friend just introduced me to The Middle East. This track is mesmerizing.
from the comments
I once saw a Japanese archer shoot three arrows at a target that was about 70 yards away. All three arrows were in the air before the first one hit.
Alexander McQueen’s final collection revealed, in Paris
Full set of photos here.
Buoys and markers
Down-size Detroit
Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.
photo out of context
dear clusterflock
Seeing Mike Tyson take a punch to the face — my grandfather was visiting and we were watching the bout together — pause, stand (gloves down), look the guy in the face, bring his glove to his own, tell the guy to do it again, let the guy do it again, go through the pantomime one more time, then knock the guy out with a single punch.
The game Michael Jordan scored what — 42 points? — sick with something that made it almost impossible to stand, draining shot after shot, buoyed by Scottie Pippen to keep him from collapsing at the end of the game.
Emmitt Smith running for 175 yards against the Giants after dislocating his shoulder in the first half.
The 1980 Lake Placid hockey match.
Dear Clusterflock:
Which sporting events had the greatest impact on you?
a different kind of crash blossom
“If it fails, either way, doing nothing, I’m going to get the same amount of hurt. So I picked it up and threw it off the roof.”
The Martin Jetpack
The jetpack is made from carbon fiber, with a touch of kevlar in the rotors, and generates 600lbs of thrust. Because the center of gravity is below the “center of thrust” (a notional point between the engines), it is self-righting: if the pilot lets go of the controls, he hovers steadily in one spot. Unlike other sci-fi vehicles, the jetpack doesn’t require plutonium or even garbage for power. Instead, it runs on ordinary gasoline, chugging down around 10 gallons per hour (a full tank of five gallons will give you half an hour of flight time, enough to get you to the office).
It’s safe, “affordable”, and best of all is classified as an ultralight so it requires no pilot license. The future is almost here, I suppose.
