Saturday, February 28, 2004

Know It All
How is it that a pizza can get to your house faster than an ambulance? Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight? Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dish washing liquid made with real lemons? Why do you have to click the start key to shut down Windows? I don't know! I don't know! Click more.. below.
posted by @ 09:14 PM CST [more..]

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Temperance
"I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice."

From a speech made by Abraham Lincoln to the Washingtonian Temperance Society, Springfield, Illinois, on February 22, 1842.
posted @ 07:30 PM CST [link]

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Ringo
Remember the guy in the song who used to go "Up on the Roof" whenever things got a little too tough to handle? Well, it's still winter in Chicago, so when the going gets tough, at least for now, I prefer the kind of escape that's only available from remembering movie tough guys kicking butt, by and large, without consequences. "This week's Fantasy" will remind you of one of the best; Jules does a number on Ringo. Link opens in a new window.
posted @ 10:31 PM CST [link]

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Spammed Out?
I don't know about you, but my delete key is wearing out. If you have your email address displayed on a web page, then here is some javascript that will help you slow the spammers down a little. What it does is create your email link when your page loads, providing no email address for spam crawlers to harvest. I don't know how smart these crawlers have become, so I have used silly variable names, an "%40" instead of the typical "@" sign, and spread the relevant components around a little. This may be a little paranoid, but as I said, my delete key... Click more... below to see the code.
posted by @ 09:22 PM CST [more..]

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Please, Stop!
If you liked "Bubble Wrap," the Flash movie from the previous entry, "Gotta Dance," you'll love this: "Dub Dub," it makes a lot of noise. Link opens in a new window. More mellow but also very cool: "Drum Machine," by Drew Cope. Link opens in a new window. Best at full screen. I found these links at squizzle.com, "...because we have nothing better to do." Link opens in a new window.

Now, chill out with a couple of stills from "Fun.from.Hell," the source of "Bubble Wrap." Link opens in a new window. First, Iraq Mc Donalds and last, but not least, Fun in the Beginning. Hey, it's Saturday! Don't miss the new "This Week's Skin."
posted @ 11:36 PM CST [link]

Friday, February 20, 2004

Gotta Dance
Too much coffee? No, it's what I do when I get hold of a large enough sheet of bubble wrap. I dance on it. Small sheets of bubble wrap are fun too. Turn up your speakers, and try this one. Link opens in a new window.
posted @ 06:41 PM CST [link]

Thursday, February 19, 2004

A Good Stogie
California's hostile and aggressive (new window) anti-smoking activists are protesting Governor Schwarzenegger's cigar smoking. In order to comply with the state's strict smoking laws, the cigar-loving Schwarzenegger, a zillionaire who needs this shit like he needs an extra hole in his head, is forced to convert the Capitol's interior courtyard into an all-weather "smoking plaza" where so he can entertain visitors while chomping a stogie. Click more.. below.
posted by @ 10:02 PM CST [more..]

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Born to Smoke
New Study: Hostile people may be "born to smoke," Reuters reports. "People with hostile or aggressive personality traits may have genetic tendencies that make them 'born to smoke,' the study suggests."

Brain imaging "suggests" that the same genetic variations that give people hostile personality traits may also make them more likely to become addicted to nicotine, the team at the University of California Irvine reported. "We call this brain response a 'born to smoke' pattern," Dr. Steven Potkin, a professor of psychiatry and a brain imaging specialist who led the study, said in a statement.

"This Week's Fantasy" provides photographic evidence to the contrary, Doctor Potkin. Note how mellow I am as I puff away, while the girls, nonsmokers, and in an open boat mind you, seem hostile and aggressive. Link opens in a new window.
posted @ 07:23 PM CST [link]

Monday, February 16, 2004

U. S. Grant
On this day in 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant won the first major Union victory of the Civil War, when Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, surrendered with some 15,000 troops. When the garrison's commander, General Simon B. Buckner, requested his Union counterpart's terms for surrender, Grant replied, "No terms except unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." For many, from that point on Grant's initials would stand for "unconditional surrender."
posted @ 07:44 PM CST [link]

Saturday, February 14, 2004

Oh Girls...
I come home in the morning light
My mother says when you gonna live your life right
Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones
And girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun

The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells what you gonna do with your life
Oh daddy dear you know you're still number one
But girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have--

From Cyndi Lauper's, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Check out Cyndi's new CD, At Last. Yes, Saturday is skin rotation day. Happy Valentine's Day.
posted @ 06:52 PM CST [link]

Friday, February 13, 2004

50 First Dates
Adam Sandler is growing up. No! Yeah, read this review from today's New York Times, by A. O. Scott.

"The new Adam Sandler movie "50 First Dates," a philosophical brain-damage romantic comedy that also stars Drew Barrymore - but wait. Don't turn the page. This review is not going where you think it's going, because neither, thank goodness, is the movie." Click more.. below.
posted by @ 07:19 PM CST [more..]

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Valentine's Day
At a loss? Pepe Le Pew has good advice in "This Week's Fantasy." Link opens in a new window.
posted @ 10:28 PM CST [link]

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Identity Crisis
Oh Dennis, forget what I said, and please, please take the stick out of your ass!

Dennis Miller's new CNBC talk show is in trouble. Opening to a huge-by-CNBC-standards initial audience of 746,000 viewers, the show averaged 540,000 viewers during week one, and week two is down to just 261,000. Gee, that bad? Yeah, Dennis seems to believe, somehow, that his time has come, and it has frightened him so badly that he has forgotten who he is. Click more.. below.
posted by @ 07:30 PM CST [more..]

Monday, February 9, 2004

Grammy Winners
46th Annual Grammy Awards Final Winners. Click more.. below for the complete list.
posted by @ 04:43 PM CST [more..]

Saturday, February 7, 2004

Snow Funk
Think you have it bad? It has snowed in Chicago on eleven out of the last fifteen days! You've gotta love February.

In case you're new here and can't bring yourself to get excited about the Grammy Awards, I'll try to cheer you up a little with these (Links open in a new window):
Fantasy inspired by the rerelease of Alien.
Fantasy inspired by Matrix overload.
Fantasy inspired by Arnold's political savvy.

Don't miss the "This Week's Fantasy" and "This Week's Skin" links on the upper right of the page. They're so new they squeak.
posted @ 05:12 PM CST [link]

Grammy Awards: The Big Night?
The 46th Grammy Awards, live from Los Angeles at 7 p.m. tomorrow. Well, not quite live; following Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "extra," CBS said yesterday it would institute a video delay system (longer than the normal bleep a dirty word delay) to avoid any similar ocurrence at Sunday's Grammy Awards. What, no chance to one up Janet with a pair? Click more.. below.
posted by @ 04:26 PM CST [more..]

Friday, February 6, 2004

Celibacy
Celibacy can be a choice in life, or a condition imposed by environmental factors. While attending a Marriage Encounter Weekend, Walter and his wife Ann listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to one another." Then, addressing the men, he said, "Can you name and describe your wife's favorite flower?" Walter leaned over, and touching Ann's arm gently, he whispered, "Pillsbury All-purpose, isn't it?" Thus began Walter's life of celibacy.
posted @ 06:12 PM CST [link]

Thursday, February 5, 2004

Mr. Peabody
Did you know Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman invented the Internet? "This Week's Fantasy" tells the tale. Link opens in a new window.
posted @ 09:37 PM CST [link]

Tuesday, February 3, 2004

All New Blogarama?
Blogarama is a weblog directory. In my opinion it is the best weblog directory. This weblog has been listed there since last September, along with some 6 or 7 thousand others, so that people interested in reading blogs can browse the lists and link to weblogs they wouldn't otherwise have known existed. Listing weblogs sounds simple enough, but it's not. After a month or so of registering Cliff's Notes in other directories and seeing the results, I came to appreciate Blogarama's functionality and straightforward approach. Last October I posted a review of Blogarama describing the ranking system that sets it apart from the pack. Blogarama has a new look as of last weekend, and my first thought was what's changed, I hope they didn't screw it up? Click more.. below.
posted by @ 06:20 PM CST [more..]

Sunday, February 1, 2004

January's Ten
The monthly, optimized, time management reading list entitled, "What Did Everyone Else Read?" in January.

With your time management problems in mind, I have listed January's ten most "viewed" entries, as reported by Cliff's Notes month-end logs, ranked by times viewed, and annotated with my comments on each entry. You're just too good to us! Yeah, maybe - but who loves ya? Click more.. below for all this and links too!
posted by @ 07:15 PM CST [more..]