In anticipation
of Cindy’s upcoming birthday, I present to you Cake Wrecks should you require examples of How Not.
“Happy” Birthday Cindy will not do.
An open letter to Cooper’s young relations
I reiterate your uncle’s threat and enjoin you: Don’t y’all be bothering that bunny. If you do, you will feel my wrath. And I may even call Cindy and put her onto y’all. Then you’ll be entering a world of pain. Because Cindy may hate begonias, but she’s Hell-and-Jesus on boys who bother bunnies.
spend or save
Tyler Cowen on saving for retirement:
Over confidence and in particular the idea that we are special and will live a long life suggests the error is saving too much. Note that we also tend to think that our partner will be alive as well. My wife once asked me whether we were saving enough for “our” retirement. “Sure,” I said, “don’t forget one of us will probably die before the other and I’m not saving for your future husband.” “Why,” she replied with a sigh, “can’t economists be more human?”
Also
A story is an accumulation.
How to Become a Writer
“First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age–say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She’ll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She’ll say: ‘How about emptying the dishwasher?’ Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Acccidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.”
(via GracefulFlavor)
probabilities
If no one agrees with you, you should be quite worried. If only a small number of people agree with you, you still should be quite worried. I don’t think it’s a numbers game, but I think whatever view you end up with, it doesn’t have to be a majority point of view, that reasons have weight, not just adding up whoever agrees with you. But you still ought to say at the end of the day, look all those other people are against me, maybe I think I’m right probability 57 to 43, but on any truly controversial question among intelligent people, you should never think it’s 95 to 5 in your favor.
What do you think?
Pinch Me
I just saw a television commercial for a prescription sleep-aid that included this phrase, spoken in that soothing voice they all use: “If you walk, eat, or drive while sleeping, contact your doctor.” Drive? Isn’t that a little like saying “If you happen to murder somebody while taking our product, contact your doctor”?
foxhunt - taking a bit of heat off the squirrels
Anger Release Revisited
Thomas Jefferson Destry (Jimmy Stewart) explains why he carves wooden napkin rings: “You’d be surprised at the genuine rage you can work off just by carvin’ a little piece of wood like that.” (Destry Rides Again, 1939)
fyi
Exploding bottles of olive oil aren’t good for anything.
Does anybody know how to get oil stains out of grout?
I Am Going to Buy This Book
This has potential to be amazing.
With that simple question and an enormous white suggestion box, the New York City based collaborative Illegal Art canvassed the five boroughs, collecting suggestions from passersby of every stripe the young, the old, the filthy rich, the homeless, the mouthy, and the shy. “Love each other or perish.” “Take breath mints when offered.” “Give me a break!” In true New York style, the suggestions are by turns hilarious, nonsensical, angering, and heartwarming. Some people held the suggestion box prisoner while they wrote suggestion after suggestion; others ignored the box, but then came scrambling back with a sudden idea. One woman scribbled as she walked down Wall Street: “More time in the day.” One man in Harlem, when asked if he would like to make a suggestion, said, “Isn’t it obvious? World peace.” Or at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, a woman sadly wrote her misspelled suggestion and then held it up for all to read: “Never brake up with someone on a bridge.” With over 350 entries and 50 photos of the suggestion box in action, Suggestion is authentic, honest, and totally appealing a testiment to the the public’s innermost desire, whether it’s free beer, free daycare, or free pumpkin pie every Thursday.
(thx Leo)
Universal Advice About Getting a Mortgage
A friend of mine is buying a house for the first time, and he’s going about the mortgage process. He asked my advice and this is pretty much what I told him.
Right now, the mortgage business is like like a giant glass box with a dozen hornets’ nests ripped asunder in it, and the hornets each think the others ruined their home. So they have lasers, which they kept in their bedside tables. And they’re shooting each other with them. And each time one gets hit by a laser, instead of dying and slowly diminishing the larger problem, it splits into three more angry hornets, sort of like the large asteroids in Asteroids did. So eventually the big glass box gets entirely filled with expanding, multiplying, irritable hornets and the box explodes, unable to contain the teeming, angry, burning mass. The the hornets take over the world and we all wind up working for them in cubicles, and the sun sets on humanity. THE END.
The mortgage business is a mess and you call the shots, so shop around. Your credit score dictates your interest rate eligibility. Everyting is normalized against FICO, and some lenders consider that more than others. Others look at payment history and debt payoffs more critically.
Even though your credit is likely good, there is an overcorrection afoot: because the major banks shat the bad so badly by giving ARM loans to high-risk buyers who did nothing but drink cheap wine and play online poker, they’re unnaturally tentative when it comes to new loans, especially if the applicant has no prior mortgage history. Still, if your credit is good (which is all about FICO), then you should get a competitive rate. I wouldn’t touch an ARM, though. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Also: nobody in mortgage banking knows “the market has bottomed.” If you hear this from someone, walk away immediately.
Safety tips
Ellen DeGeneres and Gladys Hardy of Austin, Texas
Am I the last person in the world to see this?
Dear Clusterflock,
In defiance of the shocking exchange rate and all common sense, I am going to visit friends in London and Paris later this month. Both my hostesses have day jobs, so I’ll be at my own disposal much of the time. What should I do, see, or eat while I’m there?
Bonus points for activities that are free, cheap, or involve cake.
Incidents of Travel, 4
- May 10, 3:10 p.m., Denver, CO, stiff north wind, 45 DEGREES
- Kindergarten Soccer
- AKA, “Sandpipers on the Beach, Galveston, Texas, July 1967″
- Note to self: Avoid Colorado in May.
I’ve Been Meaning to Ask
Is it third time’s a charm, or three strikes and you’re out?
Y’all
What should I wear to Jenna’s wedding?
dear clusterflock
A list of things that have not made me, Christopher Walken, sleepy as of 12:23am MST.
- Warm milk
- Terry Gross
- MSNBC After Hours
- Parsing out meaningful anagrams of my name: HARK, CROW — SLEEP HINT?
What do you do to fall asleep?
dear clusterflock
I drive a Dodge Charger R/T, which I’m convinced is made of human feces and some wires. I hate the car across every dimension: the quality sucks, it’s a boat, the mileage is horrible (around 17-18 in summer; 15-16 in winter), the brakes warped at 23K miles, the horn honked randomly until the 3rd trip to the shop, and when I try to start it in the morning it cranks and wheezes and turns like an air-cooled VW that has been mortared and set aflame. I often want to punch the car but don’t for fear of something important falling off/out, like the transmission or an axle.
Why did I buy it? Good question. I think it’s because I was stupid on that particular day.
Regardless, I am coming up on my lease mileage limit and I have 8 months left on this screaming piece of shit, and with my monthly gas expense hovering nicely in the $450 or so range, I’m thinking about just buying this thing out and getting a 2008 Prius. I’m fairly sure the math works. (Math is numbers and language is letters, right?)
It’s to that end I am seeking your opinions, anecdotes and experience with a late-model Prius. I know it’s not some supercar in terms of performance, but that’s not what I want in my daily driver. (That’s what I will buy a GT-R for.) I want a car that will get me to and fro with a minimum of this thing we call money leaving my pocket.
For reference, my Charger costs me about $1100-$1250 per month to operate. The Prius will cost me around $740. I think I know which way the alligator mouth is pointing on this one.
Discuss. First one to call me a brainwashed hippy wins.
Dear clusterflock
I come seeking advice and counsel . . .
I’m in the market for an in-town bicycle. Because I’ll be on sabbatical this coming fall, I’ll be giving it a try as my fair-weather transportation till winter sets in for real in November; if it goes well, I’ll be using it as commuter transport in the spring. Home to work is 11 miles one way. The streets on my route aren’t in the best of shape.
$200 is my upper limit. Sturdiness is paramount. What bikes should I look at/stay away from?
DP Q & A
No, no, no. Dr Pepper.
Q: I have 2 commemorative cans of Dr. Pepper. One is full of soda and one is empty. The archives of Abilene Christian University would like to keep both cans. Can anyone offer advice regarding safe housing and storage of the Dr. Pepper cans?
A: Try the Dr. Pepper Museum people.
(From the Archives & Archivists List)
Dear Serial Killer
A man writes letters to serial killers, posing as a ten year old, asking for advice on whether he should drop out of school. The serial killers respond.
(via kottke, boing boing)
Acting…
You know … acting is not very difficult, once you know how to do it…. And that’s … so beautiful, because you can say that about anything: It’s not difficult, once you know how.
The Road Not Taken
What with India’s announcement that she’s enrolling in graduate school and Deron’s telling me tonight about his eighth-grade teacher’s prediction that with a secretary’s help, he could make a million dollars, I’ve been ruminating on alternate career paths.
A Kleagle of the Dallas-area Ku Klux Klan once told me that I’d “make a good secretary if I’s to want to”.