photo out of context
Duly Noted
On Saturday night, Jill, a blogger and founder of Feministe, flew from Newark airport to Dublin. After spending Sunday recovering from jetlag, she unpacked her bag on Monday morning and found a special message scrawled on the official form from the TSA. “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL,” it read.
“Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag,” she tweeted. “Wow.”
headline of the day, II
from my voicemail
Uh, yes, my name is ————. My telephone number is ————. The purpose of my call is I’m listening to public radio, and, uh, they’re talking about, uh, viral, uh, strains of, uh, birds. Uhhh, I was parked at Walmart, and a woman was feeding birds, and I said, “Ma’am, don’t do that,” I says, “Ya know, they they they know how to live on their own.” And, uh, the guy from Walmart came out, the manager of the store, and says, “Oh, you’re gonna have to leave here because, uh, the, uh, asphalt’s too weak for an RV.” And he was, it was pouring rain out; he was really acting like an idiot. I did call for the Centers for Disease Control, and they don’t seem to care what one way or another that people feed birds. And I just can’t imagine why, since birds spread diseases more than anything else, uh, why, uh, these people just aren’t taking it seriously. But. I’m sixty-six years old; I’ll be dead in a few years. So what difference does it make to me, ya know? It just it irritates me how ignorant we are, ya know? Umm, just don’t feed the birds, ya know? It’s crazy. They can fend, they know how to forage for themselves. And I love birds. I learned how to fly. I’ve been a pilot all my life. And, uh, airlines and corporate. And, uh, but, uh, you just don’t feed birds. That’s that’s craziness. Ya know, and I, but, uh, if more people, if they, uh, really know about it, then, uh, maybe they might do something about it. But, uh, there’s the other people that’s just gonna say, “Oh, hooey, I’ll feed birds whenever I feel like. It’s my right to do whatever I want to do, so.” Well. I guess that’s the case, ya know? Anyways. Take care. Bye.
Also: The related episode of WHYY’s Fresh Air.
quote out of context
Break into his house when he’s not home. Put truth serum in all of the liquids in his fridge. Make sure you’re around when he drinks something from his fridge. And, uh, don’t drink from there yourself, or you’ll end up telling him that he’s consumed truth serum and the gig’s up.
from the comments
I say if you start developing the male pattern baldness you should consider a change of careers.
Our bodies, our flock: Parthenogenesis.
I’m sorry to have neglected “Our Bodies, Our Flock” for so long (previously), but I’m lazy. Here’s a new one for you, on parthenogenesis!
Humans, like all mammals, are incapable of performing parthenogenesis.
from the spam
Even off your faux pas and pretend you are licking a palatable ice cream cone.
This cuts to the bone
John Doe and Cindy Wasserman performing Never Enough. Sound Fix. NYC. 09.07.11.
I think he nailed it
last night, tumbling sleepward
Let the little lost lamb lead the way.
Three “perfect” self-contained sentences a day…
Tussel bore left on the wye West–North, West-northish. Nosing his old de Ville into wind-chill rushing across glacial tundra and down, from a thousand miles ahead. Forty-five miles an hour, nine miles a gallon, Tussel gripped the wheel, leaned into the accelerator, pressing the head-wind.
I already screwed up. They’re not “self-contained.”
this post is about football statistics
The first thing Romer did was analyze every fourth down during the first quarter of every NFL game between 1998 and 2000. (He had help from a computer program.) Then, he figured out the fluctuating value of a first down at each point on the football field. After all, a first down was more valuable for a team if it occurred on an opponents two yard line than on their own twenty yard line. The next thing Romer calculated was the statistical likelihood of going for it on fourth down under various circumstances and actually getting a first down. He also calculated the probability of kicking a successful field goal from various spots on the field.
quote out of context
Have you been partying with John Waters? You may REALLY not like what you find out about last night. It may be best just to “let it go.”
John Jay on Creativity
via Wanken via Ollie Judge
quote out of context
But I have to imagine you’re not dead. Do you have something else in mind?
I was thinking of becoming an alcoholic. Because one of the things I’ve always prided myself in, in these first 59 years of my life, is being a controlled drinker. I think now is the time to throw off the training wheels, and see if maybe in the last decade and a half of my life, I can be an accomplished, functional alcoholic. And that’s starting tonight.What are you drinking?
I’m just drinking some cheap red. Some cheap, Argentinian Malbec. Because it’s one thing to be an alcoholic, it’s another thing to be a bankrupt alcoholic. So you have to drink the cheap stuff.
from the comments
It’s important to do good work. But also to be doing THE good work. And I don’t mean that in a religious sense (obviously, because when do I do that?) I mean that in the way that you choose your projects because you want the next door to be even more magnificent than the last. So, can you tell if one door might have a unicorn as opposed to a used car?
spam name
Antonetta Beulah.
”You got to have your very own broom!”
Betty Wright, just a few years back, performing her 1972 hit, The Clean-Up Woman.
quote out of context
Hi Ernest
I took a look at the ad you wrote: FOR SALE: BABY SHOES. NEVER WORN.
I have a few issues with it.
Milton Glaser on the fear of failure
(via Ali Douglass)
dear clusterflock
How do you deal with passive-aggressive behavior in others?
Product Review: Rite-Aid Brand Tweezers
Cost: $1.99
Weight: About 5 dimes, or two quarters perhaps.
Shape: Traditional metal, joined at one end, free-standing arms at the other, filed to a sharp slope to allow the grasping and pulling of hairs, splinters, etc.
The traditional slanted tip tweezer can be somewhat of a let-down if it isn’t perfectly filed, and these tweezers are pretty close to precision.
They feel good in the hand, a standardized item perhaps, nothing too fancy, but she didn’t want anything fancy. More or less she just wanted something that would work. Some of the things at the store were too expensive. She slid her card, hoping it would work. It did, someone at the bank must not have been paying attention. Pulling them from the packaging she wonders if she could have just stolen them, but that particular store had a lot of foot traffic and a lot of surveillance to go along with it. Given enough time she could have, it’s easy enough to slip items from their packages, but she didn’t feel like quibbling over a few bucks. Time enough for that later on. In the car she finally pulled that chin hair that’d bothered her for days. These were good tweezers. Felt good, in the hand.
Rite-Aid also seems to be running a special, buy one, get another half-off. Pick up some ice cream while you’re there. Prices are steep though, $2.49 for a double scoop. Plan accordingly.
I was not compensated or asked to promote this product.
A real person
Dear Clusterflock
How do we feel about people who order bacon on a veggie burger.
Related: Is turkey bacon bacon?
