TMBG Rocks.

Buy thier album.

I guess this could be interpreted as "fair and balanced..."

Amusing and reasonably well made amature anti-conservative video (window media format). I'm not quite sure if it would be safe for work...just turn your speakers down before you play it.

Hear (you need RealPlayer) Ray Bradbury talk about his opinion on the title of Micheal Moore's movie. He is a rather angry old man.

Found this thanks to Dave. I figured the MBTA would be really small compared to other city lines, but it didn't look that small. It only looked a bit more twisty.

Ooooh! The space elevator has returned to main stream media.

Bush was caught in his skivies. Here is the pic.

Ralph Nader is the scariest looking public figure currently alive. He just plain creeps me out.

Good article, thanks to Jason, on NPR. I am an avid listener (though not at the present moment due to a pledge drive--I already made a number of donnations this year, so don't get snippy with me) on the way to and from work each day. The author definately has a point--there is a voice that appeals to boomers that is rather too sedate for the rest of us:

The Voice is tough to describe, but you know it when you hear it: It's serious, carefully modulated, genially authoritative. It rings with unspoken knowledge of good wine and The New York Times Book Review.

I have, though, joined the ranks of those who enjoy it. I, truly, enjoy Wait, wait. I am also a big fan of Ira Glass (he is just too cool). I guess I am the target demographic for my Public Radio station. I like just about everything they air, and will live for quite some time yet.

I've been playing with this reverse lookup tool this morning. You can put in any phone number and it will give you the name associated with it. I was messing around and put in my birthdate (or used the numbers in it to create a phone number). I didn't find anything interesting...mostly a lot of unassigned (or unlisted?) numbers.

It always amazes me how much variety there is in the world. Evolution produces so many ways of existing.

Here is a fun time waster for those of you who like trivia. It gets harder as you go along. My top score today was 36.

I never played dodgeball in grade school. We had another game, suicide, that was played with a tennis ball. It was similar in some senses. If you were the loser, you got the tennis ball hurled at you. Guys cupped thier balls to avoid a painful hit. I think I would have enjoyed dodge ball more, as there seems that there was more of an involvement of all the players than there was in suicide. Suicide tended to be dominated by the best throwers (you had to throw the ball, with it hitting the wall before it bounced) and you had to make an effort to be involved. With dodge ball, it seems, from this description that everyone was on more equal terms.

This is a pretty amazing fish. The article states it can sense the presence of other animals by scanning the electromagnetic field around it. That is pretty cool. I wonder if that as a common way of detecting other life during the time the fish evolved.

OMG! I am soooo fuckin' excited about this. I loved Jello pudding pops. They were the best!

Remember A Christmas Story? Now you canbuy the lamp.

I've been listening to a best of Frank Sinatra album this morning. One of the songs on the album I really like is Let's Get Away From It All. The page I linked was the only one I could find that had all of the lyrics (it seems to be a German Sinatra fab site) that are on the version of the song I have.

One of my favorite lines is:

Let‘s take a powder
to Boston for chowder

As any New England native will tell you it is "chowda" or "chudda." But ol' blue eyes is a New Yorker (he prob. liked his chowder with tomato sauce in it--yuk!) and can be excused just this once for his poor pronoucation.

I heard these guys on NPR this weekend. Paul Simon said how he was in his 20s when he wrote Old Friends, and that he never expected to be singing it on stage in his 60s (the characters in the song are 70).

I love that song. It is a song of true friendship.

In looking for the lyrics for Old Friends I wasn't able to find the little bit they say at the end on any of the sites I ran across. Below I have recorded it for postarity (or whatever):

Time it was
and what a time it was
it was
a time of inocence
a time of confidences.

Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
preserve your memory
its all that's left you.

No, no it isn't.

Orkut rocks. Check out the error message:

Bad, bad server. No donut for you

Unfortunately, the orkut.com has acted out in an unexpected way. Hopefully, it will return to its helpful self if you try again in a few minutes. It's likely that the server will behave this way on occasion during the coming months. We apologize for the inconvenience and for our server's lack of consideration for others.

I am glad that Google's Gmail is already having an effect on portals like Yahoo! even though it is still in beta.

I am a big Gmail fan, even though I have been using it for only a couple weeks. I am impressed by its layout and message tracking system. I am also a fan of targeted ads and, of course, 1 gig of storage space. Yahoo! is going to have a hard time reaching Google's plateau.

Just what Micheal More loves: publicity.

A reason why you shouldn't put milk in your tea.

This sounds like a pretty cool day in Hawaii.

This is a neat simulation of an oil spill.

Man...I really hope this doesn't happen. The bills should be reserved for our founding fathers. I am definately more of a fan of Roosevelt than Reagan, but also, Roosevelt died in office, and led us through WWII and out of the Great Depression. Reagan just bumbled around. He may have been popular and a great speaker, but he is no Roosevelt.

This was written in 1946, just after WWII ended and shows a much more cynical view of the future than what we were led to believe the soldiers held in our history texts. The article is especially notable since today is the 50th aniversary of D-Day, which this Slate article notes seems to have been blown way out of proportion since Reagan was president.

I am not a big fan of WWII history from the American view as it was shoved down out gullets in high school. It drives me crazy that this war became the most important event in American history, when understanding WWI is far more instramental in understanding more modern history--including WWII.

Cool word jumbler that kepes the fsrit and last letetr of each word to craete a snigsplirruy raabedle text.

As one who occationally readas and writes poetry, this is an awesome idea, and a great way to waste time. I am curious how long the program has been running, as some of the "poems" make at least a bit of sense.

Wow. This is an amazing and horrible story about a boy who was forced to live the life of a girl due to a botched circumcision. Poor guy.

I read this article some time ago, but came upon it again today. This reminds me that that it isn't that bad being an introvert; being an extrovert sounds tiring, and involves being drunk way too often.

This is very cool. I can picture it now: teens flashing swares across the room. Sounds like a great idea!

Don't be an asshole.

Michael Moore currently has a website up for Fahrenheit 9/11. The damn trailers won't work though. I want to see who Moore is embaressing with the camera now.

This FAQ from the Tootsie Roll company is pretty interesting. Come to find out, if a child sends them a letter telling how many licks it took them to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the child gets a "Clean Stick Award." Not bad, huh?

Also, here is that classic Tootsie Roll commercial, and the classic Tootsie Pop commercial. "The world may never know."

Another fact: Since World War II, Tootsie Rolls have been included in military rations.

I love the internet.

I really think it is odd that this woman is considered a confederate widow, as she married the formed confederate soldier when he was 86 years old. She was 21 at the time.

The article claims that she is a "connection to the past." That is definately true, in the sense that she is 97 years old, but she didn't live through the Civil War, so she isn't a connection to that past.