Google’s list of bad words
I had to look some of these up.
just do it (now)
Generally speaking, athletes start to see physical declines at age 26, give or take. (This would seem in line with the long-standing notion in baseball that players tend to hit their peak anywhere from ages 27 to 30.) For swimmers, the news is more sobering, as the mean peak age is 21. For chess grandmasters — participating in an activity that no doubt relies more than mental acuity and sharpness rather than brute, acquired physicality — the peak age is closer to 31.4.
Okay, young’uns, you’ve been tipped.
weehuggers
Alicia is researching cloth diapers for Levi and thought this video was something the flock might enjoy.
Las Reinas Chulas: “Que Suave Patria”
Please don’t turn aside take a look even if no hablas español (not even dumbass texan spanish).
¡Las Reinas Chulas reglan!
Dozens of plastic foam heads rain onto the stage. Four drug traffickers in fringed jackets and sparkly pink cowboy hats bat them into the audience with toy AK-47s. All the while, the cast croons, “Let them slit our throats, let them pack us up . . . let them not ask any questions, let them not investigate.”
This is cabaret, Mexico style. Las Reinas Chulas, or the Beautiful Queens, parody drug violence in a show the women first produced in 2005 and that still fills nightclubs around Mexico, including a performance in the tourist town of Taxco this weekend.
tweet of the day
finally a fix to the flight attendant button
The new interior design for Boeing’s 737 passenger jet, the best-selling plane in aviation history, includes an innovation that is as radical as it is obvious: a flight attendant button that is situated well away from the reading light button and actually looks different from it.
This reminds me of the 30 Rock episode with the ham button on Jack’s pocket microwave.
headline of the day, II
No bodies found in Texas home after psychic tip
Words I just said out loud
“In Hawaii, Hawaiian shirts are just called ‘shirts’.”
Zen and the Daily Commute
Law librarian out of context
From the law librarian’s life-life rather than her work life:
Daddy [pointing to the border collie which he has lost faith in]: “Tha’ dumbass ain’t got no more sense than a turnip. He ain’t no more a registered border collie than I am.”
Librarian: “Whad’ee do this time?”
Daddy: “Aaawww, ‘ee went down the road t’ Joyce’s house, where them new renters is livin and got t’fightin eez dog. An tha fool tried t’ pull em apart an got eez arm ripped up.” [look of contempt] “I mean, goddamn. Yer a grown ass man. An’ you doan know not to git between two dawgs? Shit.”
Librarian: “So then wha happened?”
Daddy: “Well, tha stupid sumbitch kep callin me an callin me can leavin messages on m’phone whinin bout rabies. So I got sicka tha shit an I drove over there.”
Librarian: “Yeah.”
Daddy: “An win I got over there ‘ee said ‘I’m sorry we have to be introduced in this situation.’ I said, ‘I ain’t got no situation. I tole ya over the phone tha eez gotta rabies shot. So I kin either leave ‘eem ‘ere fer you t’see if ‘ee develops rabies, er I kin put im in the truck an drive home.”
Librarian: “So thin what happened?”
Daddy: “I grabbed im an wint home.”
Librarian: “Did tha guy keep callin ya? What happened t’ him?”
Daddy: “I doan know. Eee coulda died a rabies fer all the fuck I know. I jus wanted to make sure tha he knew tha I was not concerned about it.”
Tweet of the Day
Photo Out of Context
All Rite Now
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” (Hunter S. Thompson)
dear clusterflock
When you get to a point at which you say, “Well, it can’t get any worse,” but then it does — and then it gets even worse, what do you do?
I know, I know. Go Dao. And I’m trying to get down with the Dao. I always do.
As my friend Steve used to say, “People won’t believe it.”
Think of me as Bruce Lee sitting in the pit in the scene beginning around 4:17 of this clip (from Enter the Dragon). It shows exactly how I feel tonight.
the political brain
1.
Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent with reports showing a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting information and a greater ability of conservatives to recognize a threat, the researchers say.
2.
In a new study, UNL researchers measured both liberals’ and conservatives’ reaction to “gaze cues” — a person’s tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person’s eye movements, even if it’s irrelevant to their current task — and found big differences between the two groups.
Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not.
all aboard
Martha Stewart released an app for dyeing Easter Eggs, tweeted about it, and some people didn’t piss themselves with gratitude.
Perspective
Posted on the Book of Faces by an American-born high-school friend of mine, returned only recently to the States from Japan:
By the way, to friends in Chiba, we have a well so if you need water, and can get to Tsuga, I am sure H_____ will be happy to share, as long as he has power to run the pump.
A previous post:
Everyone is fine. The kids told me H_____ walked home from work . . . 35 miles.
headline of the day, III
Dallas ranked No. 7 angriest place in America
headline of the day
Report says too many whites, men leading military
Quote out of Context
Polyurethane is also used to make some condoms, baby toys, carpet underlayment and mattress filling, facts which Jobs neglected to mention.
dear clusterflock
What if a treasured long-time friend, someone only fifteen years older than yourself, had (a year or more ago) begun to manifest signs of premature dementia, and it was finally apparent to you that she is only about sixty per cent there and never going to get any better?
Where’s Timmy?
Super Flush Toilet Can Swallow Golf Balls
During testing, the team flushes objects with a range of consistencies, including napkins, sponges, miso paste, polyballs, saw dust and corn.
And with competition from other companies, American Standard has no problem demonstrating the punch of its products, even on smart phones.
Fifty-six chicken nuggets? No problem for these crappers. Water wigglers? You bet.
The Sound of Awkward: Album Covers of Regret
For Cindy.
What do these people have in common?
(Aside from being mental as anything.)
I just learned via Roger Ebert that I share a birthday with David Foster Wallace.
I already knew about my natal link with Nina Simone, W. H. Auden, Sam Peckinpah, and Anaïs Nin.
One of the Benefits…
Of being unemployed (except when snow flies). Today, I hung new light fixtures in two closets, emptied my closet in preparation for its renovation, I did the dishes from a birthday dinner party last night, I folded some laundry and I watched this:
