The Seventh Sense

Sarcasm Alive And Well At Amazon

A few days ago, I wrote about a product being offered on Amazon...

I checked back to the Amazon listing, and I must say, some of the "customer reviews" of this product are fantastic.  Here's a small sample:

150 of 158 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing! Holds my sheet music perfectly while driving., May 7, 2009 By  Brent A. Nelson (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    This has been a total lifesaver. It allows me to prop my sheet music against the wheel, allowing me to play the guitar with both hands while driving. **********

92 of 96 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest thing ever invented!, October 26, 2009 By  T. Meadows "TM" (WV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Wow is this thing great! I use it as a "mini-bar" when the friends and I go out to the bars. I can quickly fix multiple shots of tequila for myself and the friends as we drive from one bar to the next. We also discovered that if you place a pillow on top of it and turn on the cruise control you can catch quick naps on the interstate. If you swerve to the left or right the rumble strips on the road wake you up in plenty of time before you get into trouble. I can now take longer trips without being tired! Also, i am now dating a midget and she fits nicely on the steering wheel desk which allows us to experiment sexually while driving. This thing is like WD-40 or duct tape, it is a million and one uses! **********

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful: Great For Young Drivers!, November 4, 2009 By  K. Ernst (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews    My 16 year old daughter just got her license a few weeks ago. Since then, she's been going out for drives a lot after school. Unfortunately, all the time spent in the car for her has meant less time for homework. Her grades have noticeably slipped, but instead of taking away her car privileges, I bought this steering wheel desk. It's perfect for young drivers with heavy academic loads! Now she can work on her homework and still be out driving, improving her road skills and staying on top of her grades. I couldn't be prouder and would encourage all parents with new drivers to set their kids up with this super-portable work station!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful: What a Timesaver!!, November 4, 2009 By  Ehren Pierle - See all my reviews    Finally!! I don't know if anyone else has small children that they drive with, but this has been a lifesaver for me. I get so tired of pulling over whenever my infant son soils his diaper. Now, whenever I smell that familiar stench, I just turn around, unbuckle him from his car seat and change him right on this desk. It is the perfect size for a newborn! And believe me, this kid poops A LOT! I have saved so much time in my daily commute with this little treasure! Change the baby while changing lanes, then drop the soiled diapers out the window. It couldn't get any easier! Just don't forget to signal or you might get pulled over.

 

Fourth Grader's Halloween Surprise

She thinks she's going to give a report in school about her dad and where he is stationed in Iraq, but instead, her dad shows up.

Yeah... you'll tear up.

EMBED-Tricked On Halloween - Watch more free videos

 

Amazon Sells A Really Bad Product

By the way, if you really want a laugh, check out the "other images" of the product sent in by customers.

Fantaisie in Bubblewrap

This amuses me:

 

Hey Jude Flowchart

That's for you, Zack. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Gets A Little Cute

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) vetoed a bill last night, and sent a little seven-line note to the California legislature, blasting them for not advancing his administration's proposals.  The note is innocent at first glance:

But people today, started noticing something:

 

Oh, bad boy......

I'm Going To Propose To Any Woman I See Wearing This...

(Sadly, it's a one-of-a-kind....)
 

Facebook Can't Leave Well Enough Alone, Preserves The Deceased

(1)  This annoying live feed thing can be "fixed" with a little workaround.  Simply click and drag your "status updates" on that lefthand column, and place it above the "news feeds".  Facebook will now appear close to what it was before.

(2)  Facebook is now urging you to "reconnect" with your friends that you haven't interacted with in a while.  Why?  Why is it any of Facebook's business?  This isn't going over too well, by the way:

On Twitter, a storm of complaints and jokes popped up about the Reconnect feature, such as user jessefarmer, who wrote, “‘Facebook’s “reconnect with him’ feature just recommended I write on a dead friend’s wall.” User KenHuffman tweeted, “Facebook is suggesting that I reconnect with my wife by writing on her wall. I’m thinking coming home every night is a tad more effective,” while Jweiler wrote, “OH: The new “reconnect” feature on Facebook could be renamed “Unfriend Suggestion.”

(3)  And speaking of the dead on Facebook, Facebook clarified its "dead person" policy yesterday -- they will leave their page and profile up, upon request:

Obviously, we wanted to be able to model people's relationships on Facebook, but how do you deal with an interaction with someone who is no longer able to log on? When someone leaves us, they don't leave our memories or our social network. To reflect that reality, we created the idea of "memorialized" profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who've passed.

***

When an account is memorialized, we also set privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. We try to protect the deceased's privacy by removing sensitive information such as contact information and status updates. Memorializing an account also prevents anyone from logging into it in the future, while still enabling friends and family to leave posts on the profile Wall in remembrance.

If you have a friend or a family member whose profile should be memorialized, please contact us, so their memory can properly live on among their friends on Facebook.

Nice touch, I guess.

The Only Flowchart You'll Ever Need

Am I The Man Of Your Dreams?

A colleague brought this story and website to my attention:

In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist's desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moskow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.

My colleague thinks I look like the drawing of THIS MAN.

Uh.... other than the hairline, I don't see it.  My eyebrows aren't that bushy, and my ears are a bit higher than my mouth.

Anyway, if I am invading your dreams, I assure you it is not intentional.

Tearjerker Monday

CNN:

On the morning of last year's annual Sunflower Fair in La Porte, Indiana, a family, appearing a little lost, walked up and down a crowded street, looking in vain for the table to sign up their entry. They carried a large sunflower with them.

If no one noticed the exhausted, grieving look in the family's eyes, that was understandable. The Sunflower Fair is a place of happy noise: rides and music and food booths. It is La Porte's fall festival, and people from across northwest Indiana come to spend a Saturday in the midst of the milling, chattering crowds.

The family silently bearing the large sunflower had never been to the fair before.

But this was important.

They finally located the entry table, and asked for a form. They carefully filled it out. Their flower was entered in the seed head category -- the one that judges the largest seed head, which is the circular area in the middle of a sunflower.

They wrote down the name of the person who had grown the sunflower:

Wyatt Wilke.

He was their 7-year-old son. He had died earlier that same day, at a few minutes after midnight.

Now, less than 10 hours later, here they were, with Wyatt's flower.

There's more.

The Japanese Mystery Cafe

In Kashiwa, Japan, the mysterious Ogori Cafe had a unique way of filling your order. According to Cabel Maxfield Sasser:

At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered. The next person gets what you ordered.

The point of the cafe seems to have been to introduce surprise into an ordinary day and to encourage strangers to interact with one another. And I love what Sasser's friend ordered for the customer after him:

Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer.

After making his order, Mike received single iced coffee.

Unfortunately, the Ogori Cafe seems to have been short-lived. Sasser reports that it's now gone.

Kanye West Won't Go Away

He's everywhere now.

Dr. Horrible (NPH) Mocks The Internet

For those who missed it (or want to re-live it) from last night:

More Reponses of Note

Dear Mary Claire of Walt Disney Productions:

Is that you in the upper-lefthand corner of your response letter, or the lower-righthand corner?

Because apparently, that's how your misogynistic employers see you -- as either a rosy-cheeked virgin, or a ugly hunchback witch.

Clearly, they would never acknowledge that a woman can be anything other than those things -- and especially not a creative artist.  Women drawing?  Puh-lease.  We all know that women can only trace and color between the lines.

Mary, it's time to wake up.  Your office is full of a bunch of randy dweebs -- seven of them I'll bet -- who leer at you while they get all red-faced with lust.  What must your day be like?  "Hike up your skirt a little, Mary" they plead, only to respond with hearty hi-ho when you do.   Pigs.

It's an old boys network, and you need to stand up for the sisterhood and say "enough".

And when they dictate a letter like this one, and ask you type it up, you need to throw your steno pad at them and say, "Type it yourself.... or is that too mundane for you 'creative' types who can't get laid?"

And then storm out, tie one on, and sue their chauvanistic asses.

Just a suggestion.

Sincerely,

The Seventh Sense blog

Cute Of The Day

Dad catches foul ball at Phillies game, and gives it to his daughter. She throws it back.

Observations With Which I Concur

Culled from here:

1.   More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

2.  Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk?

3.  There is a great need for sarcasm font.

4.  How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

5.  I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

6.  Was learning cursive really necessary?

7.  Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

8.  I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

9.  Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

10.  How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

11.  What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

12.  MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

13.  Bad decisions make good stories.

14.  Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

15.  Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

17.  You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

18.  Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

19.  There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to fall after leaning your chair back a little too far.

20.  I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

21.  As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

22.  It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

23.  The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

Short Takes

(1)  I recommend Facebook Lite.  It's Facebook's clutterless version.

(2)  9/11 tribute?  None from me today.  I'm not sure what can be said this year that wasn't said in any prior year. Commemorate amongst yourselves.  I think kitchy 9/11 tributes get worse and worse every year (picture below is from 2002)

(3)  Rob Miller, the Democratic challenger to Joe Wilson (R-SC) in 2010, had only $48,000 in his campaign account at the end of June.  Since Wilson's "You lie" outburt, Miller's cofferes have rose to over $750,000.  Now Wilson is begging for money.

(4)  I'm not impressed with the hurricanes this year.

(5)  I think Ellen Degeneres as an American Idol judge is a nice idea, and might boost ratings for a while, and I like her, too.  But what qualifies her to be a judge in a singing competition?

(6)  Hahaha!  Speaking of Joe Wilson, remember a few years ago when the Dixie Chicks were unpatriotic because they criticized the president during a time of war at one of their own concerts?  Good times.

(7)  And relatedly, remember when wearing an anti-Iraq War T-shirt to a presidential State of the Union speech would not only get you thrown out, but arrested???  Sigh.  Those were the days.

(8)  The U.S. Census Bureau has just announced that the poverty rate for 2008 was 13.2%. This means the number of people in poverty has increased by about 2.5 million, to 39.8 million. To give you some perspective, 2.5 million is more than the number of people who live in Detroit and San Francisco combined.

(9)  Glenn Greenwald looks at incivility versus indecency, and how incivility (using swear words, calling the president a liar, etc.) gets treated with indignation, while indecency discussed in soft and civil tones (i.e., torture) gets a pass:

As long as one adheres to Beltway decorum, one can advocate the most amoral and even murderous policies without any repercussions whatsoever; it is only disruptive and impolite behavior that generates intense upset.  Beltway culture hates "incivility" (public use of bad words) but embraces full-scale substantive indecency (torture, lawbreaking, unjustified wars, ownership of government by corporations, etc.).

"How To Kiss A Woman" By Captain Kirk

He makes one tiny mistake at the end, but otherwise....

Grocery Shopping

The picture below represents two lanes at the grocery store checkout, and the number of items in each cart.

So you're shopping, and in a hurry.  You have ten items in your cart, so you can go into the 10-items-or-less express lane at the left.  But there is one more thing you need/want.  Do you put it in the cart, forcing you to the regular lane, or forget it and go into the left?

These are the questions we face when we go to the grocery store.  How to get out as fast as we can.  What matters more to you?  The number of people in the line, or the number of items in the line?

An intrepid blogger did some regression analysis, and came up with some guidelines based on his findings.  Here's one:

Check is slower than credit which is slower than cash. Students are sometimes surprised that cash is faster than credit. From my observations, the fastest cash transaction will outpace the fastest credit transaction by a wide margin but there is also huge variance in credit transactions. I mean, some people have absolutely no idea what they are doing with that thing. The same can't really be said of cash.

Not too surprising to me.  But this was.

The express lane isn't faster. The manager backed me up on this one. You attract more people holding fewer total items, but... when you add one person to the line, you're adding 48 extra seconds to the line length (that's "tender time" added to "other time") without even considering the items in her cart. Meanwhile, an extra item only costs you an extra 2.8 seconds. Therefore, you'd rather add 17 more items to the line than one extra person!

Me?

I do profiling.

I look for the line with the fewest elderly.  It's been my experience that either pay by check (takes forever) or, even worse, get out their mini-purses and pay by exact change down to the penny.

I also admit: I tend to avoid lines with dishevelled people (although, typically, I am often one).  Food stamps and all that.

What about you?

Real Like Composition

Jarbas Agnelli saw a photo in the newspaper of birds sitting on electric wires and decided to set it to music. Twist: The score was built around a musical theme using the birds as notes.

2001: A Space Odyssey With Titles Played By A High School Band

I don't know why this cracks me up, but it does:

"Duh" Research Of The Day: Men become Tongue-Tied Goofs In the Presence of Attractive Women

Yes, it's true.  When around attractive women, we men "temporarily absorb most of our cognitive resources", which is a polite way of saying we become stammering idiots.

Now there's research to back it up.

Cute Maltese Puppies

I'm told my blog has been making people cry, what with references to dead babies and all.

So I'm bringing in some puppies to cheer things up...

What Are These People Doing?

Answer below the fold...

Creepy Post Mortem Photos From The Victorian Age

The people in the Victorian age seemed to like post-mortem photos.  I'm not quite sure what the appeal was.  Take this, for example:

Someone actually thought it would be fitting to have this girl pose with her dead brother.  I don't know -- seems rather traumatizing to me.

Typically, a post-mortem photograph depicted the dead person in a peaceful state of repose, as in a blissful deep sleep.

But some of these post-mortem photos went further.  Sometimes they liked to pose the deceased as if he/she was living:

"Ah yes.  Little Jimmy.  I remember him looking outside the window..."

*Shiver*

The creepiness gets creepier.  Sometimes they posed the dead in a living tableau.  Take this post mortem photo of a fireman:

Yeah, he's dead.  Check out the eyes:

By the way, if you like the fireman pic, it's for sale on eBay.

Here's a particularly disturbing one:

Yeah, not disturbing, until you read about it:

This is a Petrolia post mortem photo by Robson . It was extremely expensive to have a photo taken during Victorian times. Only the wealthy could afford such a luxury. If a child or other loved one died it was a common practice to have a photo taken either alone or as in this case with the family especially if there was not yet a living likeness.If you look closely you can see a base behind the girls feet and a post would go up from that with clamps at the waist and neck and the clothing would be open at the back. The arms would have stiff wires running at the back to hold them in place. Also notice the strange placement of the hands. The pupils are painted on the closed eyelids.

Pupils painted on closed eyelids?  Let's take a closer look (click to enlarge):

Eww....

I guess it makes sense.  After all, back in that era, most people were photographed only once (if at all) in their lives.  If the person dies before getting around to having their picture taken, the family might want to remember that person as they were.  Hence, the post-mortem living tableau.

Post mortem photography still exists.

Nation Panicked By Ominous Music

Ominous Music Heard Throughout U.S. Sends Nation Into Panic

The chyrons are the best....

Listen Folks, If You Are Going To Use Facebook, Learn The Difference Between Wall Posts And Email

Learn from Tracy:

BTW, Tracy... aren't you engaged?

How The Internet Sees You

I don't quite understand this:

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

 

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person - to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

Ummmmm... rrrrright.

So I tried it, entering my name.

The problem is that when the Internet "sees" Ken Ashford, it sees me and two other dudes with the same name.  So my "profile" (shown below) is really a congomeration of the Internet identity of three different people named Ken Ashford.

 

Anyway, try it out yourself.

"Total Eclipse Of The Heart" Flow Chart

In case you get confused...

Click on it to embiggen.

And don't forget the literal video version....

Today Is National Creamsicle Day

It really is, and I have to work!

Anyway, you know what to do....

I Want A Pony

But not just any pony.

I want one of those minature ponies.

But not just any minature pony, but a "special" minature pony that was born with a dwarfism birth defect.

Put bluntly, I want Koda.

If You're Going To "Friend" Your Boss On Facebook....

... then you probably better watch what you write:

[Source]

Tracking How We Spend Each Minute Of Our Day

This is an interesting interactive graph from the New York Times.

I have nothing profound to say about it -- it's just interesting (and kinda cool).

Twitter Was Down This Morning

For about two hours.

A Denial of Service attack.

It's up now.

But for two hours this morning, millions of Americans wanted to Twitter things like:

"I'm thinking about getting a burrito" or

"Paula Abdul is leaving Idol? WTF?" or

"OMG.  Twitter is down!"

and they couldn't.

Now they can.

And all is right with the world, I guess.

Status Updates Ever Since My Mom Became My Facebook Friend

Ken is making good, well informed decisions.

Ken is going to bed at a very reasonable hour.

Ken is drinking only on occasion, and even then it's just one or two.

Ken quit smoking several months ago without any apparent difficulty.

Ken is in no way involved, currently nor in the past, with a married woman, regardless of what anyone is saying.

Ken is making large, regular contributions to his savings account.

Ken is making yet another home cooked meal, avoiding fast food as usual.

Ken is no longer in debt like he used to be...boy that would be terrible.

Ken is in no way affected by the current economic downturn...everything is a-okay.

Ken is not gaining weight, and his clothes fit just fine.

[Stolen from McSweeney's List -- credit to Scott Harris]

Pepsi v. Coke Logo Evolution

Singing Roads

You know how there are some roads where they put in a series of grooved pavement sections to get you to wake up or slow down (because, say, there's a toll booth ahead) as you're driving?  When your car goes over them, it kind of makes a series of tones.

Someone got the bright idea to adjust the height and spacing of the paved grooves so that the road emits a song.

There are a few dozen "singing roads" in the world.  Here's one that purports to play the William Tell Overture:

Not very impressive, but still.... a good use for stimulus spending.

Smooth Talker: The Greatest Voicemail Ever

Making the web rounds is this series of voicemails to a woman from a really really really bad "smooth talker".  One of those things that can't be described -- you just have to listen for yourself.  Enjoy.

A YouTube spoof:

A YouTube re-enactment:

Part II of the same:

And a re-enactment of Olga:

Not Joke, Joke

This is a real bill:

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009.

“This legislation works to ensure that our society recognizes the dignity and sacredness of human life,” said Brownback. “Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice.”

The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act would ban the creation of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are defined as those part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species. The bill is modest in scope and only affects efforts to blur the genetic lines between animals and humans. It does not preclude the use of animals or humans in legitimate research or health care where genetic material is not passed on to future generations, such as the use of a porcine heart valve in a human patient or the use of a lab rat with human diseases to develop treatments.

Brownback continued, “This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human, and it draws a bright line with respect to how far we can go in attempting to create new creatures made with genes from both humans and animals.

“My background is in agriculture, and for a number of years we have been working with crops and animals to produce a superior soy bean, a superior cow, and so-on. We can genetically engineer safe products and herds that are disease resistant or that possess more desirable attributes. But doing this in plants and livestock is very different than doing this in humans."

I'm sorry.  Is this an issue?  Why not a bill to ban joyriding spaceships around the rings of Saturn?

 

This, however, is a hoax, but I pretty convincing one.

 

I'm talking about the planned Manhattan International Airport, planned for Central Park.

Not Fooling Anybody

I figured there must be a website for this (seeing as how there is a website for everything).

That's right -- Not Fooling Anybody is a website devoted to businesses which take over the premises of rather obvious businesses.

Example?

Monte Vista Liquors takes over a former KFC building (Phoenix, AZ) .... not fooling anybody.

And then there's...

Quest Autos in Tampa Florida taking over an IHOP.

Northeastern Loans in New Castle Delaware takes overs a Taco Bell.

Even less subtle is...

Oldtown Pancake House in Florissant, Missouri didn't even try....

Sometimes when a chain franchise goes out of business, an independent buyer swoops in and buys the place and tries to keep (as close as possible) the same name.  For example, a certain Baskin Robbins went under in Atlanta, and this is what appeared as its successor:

Not. Fooling. Anybody.

And then of course, you have people who are just plain lazy, like this chiropractor in Broken Arrow, OK, who moved his offices into a former Kentucky Fried Chicken:

The Blob That Ate Alaska

It's 12-15 miles long, and floating in the waters between Wainwright and Barrow, Alaska.  It's "gooey" and looks dark against the bright white ice of the waters.

I know what you're thinking.  But it's not an oil slick.  It's ALIVE!

Read more.

Basic Skills

The Best Article Every Day recently a list of the 14 Basic Skills All Men Should Possess.

How do you rank?

I've evaluated myself....

14 Basic Skills All Men Should Know:

1. Drive a stick-shift - It's been a while, but I think I can
2. Hook up an entertainment center - You bet 
3. Fix a toilet - Depends on what's wrong with it
4. Navigate a map and use GPS - Oh, yeah 
5. Change the oil - I can in a pinch.
6. Balance a checkbook - Yes
7. Cook the perfect steak - "Perfect"?  I don't know.  Maybe.
8. Swim the breaststroke - Very good breaststroker 
9. Write effectively - Effectively?  Yes.
10. Dress for the occasion - Oh, I possess this skill; Don't always choose to do it though.
11. Sew a button - Sure
12. Do laundry properly - Yes, I think so.
13. Handle roadside emergencies - Yup
14. Build a fire - Of course. 

J-Walk Blog decided to do a list of 14 Basic Skills All Women Should Know.  I micht as well evaluate myself on that, too.

1. Know which devices are controlled by each remote control - Yes
2. Start a gas-powered lawnmower - Yes
3. Crochet a hat - Not at all
4. Create a frequency distribution in Excel by using a pivot table - No, but I'm, sure I could figure it out quick
5. Prepare huevos rancheros - No
6. Speak a few sentences in French - Oui
7. Reinstall Windows without losing everything - No
8. Give a good backrub - Sure
9. Use all the features on their digital camera - Yes
10. Parallel park - Yes
11. Create a custom ringtone and upload it to your their phone - Yes
12. Hang pictures on the wall - Yes
13. Use Google efficiently - Yes
14. Cut hair - No

Christopher Walken Impersonations

I might make this a recurring feature.  I love a good CW impersonation.

Let's start off with Walken as a nursery school teacher:

Now a bunch of asians doing rather good Walkens:

Kevin Pollack does a good Walken:

And Kevin Spacey does Walken (among others):

Fun Fact Of The Day

Today (7/8/09) at 34 min and 56 sec past noon (12:34:56), the time and date together will be 123456789.

One Thing I've Learned

People just can't moonwalk....

Web Side Story

A musical spoof about the Interwebs that'll have Leonard Bernstein rise from his grave, and then die again.

I Don't Want To Tell People How To Do Their Jobs, But....

Police in Jacksonville pulled over a nude driver:

He was driving on Suwanee Chapel Road and was stopped because the car was weaving in and out of its lane. Detectives released him after ordering him to put his clothes on and advising him to keep them on. "He gave no explanation ... There is no law against driving naked so we had to let him go," Royal said.

Okay, but isn't there a law against weaving in and out of one's lane, regardless of how much (or little) the driver is wearing?

Forever Young

The one on the right is Karly, age 13, holding her sister.  Guess her sister's age:

 

Continue reading for the answer...

Fun Fact Of The Day

Ten minutes: The time it took Maryland Zoo's prarie dogs to escape from their new $500,000 habitat which was essentially 80 truckloads of sand and clay built over a large concrete bowl (to prevent burrowing), with waist-high glass walls (coated with material to make it slippery) and wire fencing.