Friday, May 21, 2010

http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/2008/up-neat-straight-up-or-on-the-rocks/

I always love those pool joints that post up a sign of “House Rules” that are really just the normal rules but it's there to point the dummy to it.

I think a big ol Ye-Ol’-Style brass placard of some kind behind the bar would be incredibly useful. “NEAT = x. UP = y. STRAIGHT UP = z. TWIST IS A PEEL NOT A WEDGE!”

This would aid patron and barkeep alike.

Yes, I carry with me at all dinnertimes a laminated placard showing a photo of a steak cooked to each of the 7 degree of order (including raw and burnt).

Thursday, May 20, 2010

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/01/5-stages-of-grieving-balloon.html

Guys, God's Jewish. Try bribe-bargaining with turkey sandwiches.

Seriously - try turkey. Don't go with corned beef on rye or hot pastrami or something - God'll give you the stinkeye for stereotyping.

Huh. I wonder if atheists have only four stages of grieving. Because who is there to bargain with?

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

http://austincarnivore.blogspot.com/2010/01/scab.html

Marketing scab snacks is a challenge - if you go for genuine (preferably organic) human scabs, you run afoul of opponents of borderline cannibalism and the CDC, with their claims that such human-derived products are too high-risk to contain human pathogens that animal products tend to lack. But if you go for an animal source, you find the flavor just isn't the same?

In terms of commonly-available animals, I've tested bovine-, porcine- and equine-source scabs (forget ovine - too much wool in the way) and I can tell you porcine is the best way to go. It's not the same, but it's got that great chewy crunch and a nice bacony flavor that some find even better, once you acquire the taste! Look for Uncle Pig's Pork Scab Snacks in the brown pouch, coming soon to a register-side impulse-buy display in a quality market near you.

Man. When I clicked to comment, I was going to tell you how gross you were. But I'm sure you'd've known: "kidding."

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

http://thetrialanddeath.blogspot.com/2009/05/yes-more-about-naked-men.html

Well, it's an interesting question. I've not seen the movie, but I did see Watchmen and couldn't help but notice the preponderance of male ass (and other bits) on display - and the trend is definitely on display in other films. Now as a man, I have no problem with that - and as a feminist, I say the ratio has been running the other way for ever, so, perhaps this can be viewed as all part of a simple course correction?

But even if so, something must be causing it. What's causing it?

A very intriguing question indeed, Alissa.

I'll say this: whatever the cause, bully to the directors and filmmakers who put it all right out there, busting taboos as if "no big deal." It wasn't too long ago that a woman could be as naked as "the film called for" for as long as it called for, but if the film called for an onscreen penis, get ready for NC-17! And that's kind of dumb and wrong.

I'll admit, I suffer from some of the same bias. If I go to a movie and it's rated R for (among other things), 'nudity' - if all the nudity in there is male, I feel kind of exploited. But like I said: women have been feeling that for years! Time to step up and take my share, and I don't mind.

Much.

Monday, May 17, 2010

http://domesticsensualists.blogspot.com/2010/01/red-velvet-goodness.html

These are clearly nutritious! These look as nutritious to me as the top of a cumulous cloud, as the hard diamond glints scattered across a blueblack sea seen from the top of a cliff on a brilliant day. As nutritious as winter's first snow, or its spring melt, and the new grass peeking up.

The soul's nutritional needs are different.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

http://microcows.blogspot.com/2010/02/spitwad-chronicles-im-not-as-well-read.html

Good point on Rushdie - not an American. But I think all great authors are American, in some sense - because they all aspire to our high ideals.

I think we have to give them at least some credit on that. We can afford to be at least a little magnanimous.

I've also been thinking of checking out Catcher In The Rye. I have never read it either.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

http://willowmanor.blogspot.com/2010/04/arrgghh.html

Thank God. Although whoever that dude is, he looks a bit smaller than "Big G." Still, you never want to take a giant monster lightly, and I'm glad to see the authorities dealt with this one. They sure do love those power lines! Can't resist the appeal.

Man, I don't think any of us here on this side of whatever pond have a real appreciation for how much we owe Japan. For the fact that for whatever reason, Godzilla is pretty much a homebody. If that walking disaster took it into its pea-brained radioactive head to leave behind Tokyo and its environs, to travel around a bit more, to see the world, maybe decimate it a bit - what could we do? What could any of us do? We'd be helpless.

The Japanese have been taking hit after hit for the rest of us from this beast, pretty much thanklessly, for more than 50 years now. 50 years.

At some point, that payment is going to come due. Every time I'm driving up the PCH, I fully expect to see - out of the corner of my eye - that shape. Looming up from the waves, sea-water streaming from teeth trailing green, glowing steam. I fully expect to hear...that roar.

What can any of us do in the face of that prospect? I guess, for me...I just pretend it can't happen.

Friday, May 14, 2010

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/someone-should-probably-kill-this-post.html

The Coca-Cola Corporation is a responsible partner in bringing you refreshment. The next time you feel a bit pequod, (peaked? peekud? peak ed?) PEKID! -

Cut!

The Coca-Cola Corporation is a responsible partner in bringing you refreshment. Sure, other companies bring you fine, fizzy beverage options, but only the Coca-Cola Corporation brings you Coca-Cola: the Finest Surgary Corporate Beverage In The World. Whether you're cracking the cap on that classic glass bottle, twisting off the breaky-thread screw-off lid of the plastic bottle option, or popping the pull-pin on the ol' red aluminum hand grenade of flavor that is the iconic and formidable Can Of Coke Classic, you're sure to enjoy the taste sensation that for years has had millions fleeing their homes to seek it out wherever it hides: in movie theaters. In supermarkets. At your local top-brand fast-food restaurant. Or sometimes, just sitting there in a machine on a street corner.

Chilling.

CUT: At any upscale dining establishment - Lord, if you ask, and they don't have it, if they try to sell you something else? LEAVE. That's a sure sign of a shithole, restaurant-wise.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

http://veronicamarcettidimick.blogspot.com/2010/04/dog-butt-fail.html

Disgusting.

I'm going to make up spoof versions of these with pictures of human buttholes on them.

Okay, wait - that's more disgusting. But it's the disgust of outrage!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

http://lisadaria.blogspot.com/2010/01/234.html

@Lisa Daria - Kind of! Although, even a pure abstract often does have a "this way up for best effect" I think.

I'll try to desribe it better: Let's say we show two paintings, one pure abstraction, one photorealism, to an alien art critic who has never seen and would never recognize any of the objects depicted. The alien wouldn't even know sky from sea, because its alien world is not set up like that. But this alien is a respected, professional art critic on its own world! It has a great eye (three, actually) for compositional elements, effective use of harmony and dissonance, color contrast, negative space and figure, everything that goes into making a picture look great just as an arrangement of form and color in a frame. Our alien would judge both of these paintings as abstract pieces, and they would fail or succeed not on depiction, but on composition and execution alone.

On some level, I think its important for every painting to succeed on those pure form terms. I like to step back from a picture sometimes, and try to look at it just like that. The way a 3-eyed alien art critic would!

Wow. I have doubts as to whether that was "describing it better."