Saturday, August 30, 2003

Night Dawn Day Mid-to-late Afternoon Of The Living Dead


It's good to know that not all of this country's top scientific minds are locked up in the Pentagon, working on bigger and better ways to blow ourselves up. Not with our rampant zombie problem staring us in the face! I mean, how many family vacations need be ruined by zombie infection before someone sits up and takes notice?! Finally, someone has come up with a simulated model of zombie infection for our busy cities. (Java required, but come on! Everybody has Java... only zombies don't have Java! You're not one of them there zombies are ya?!?!)

(via Memepool)

Friday, August 29, 2003

Now you just need to buy a little James Dean...


When ordinary bonsai loses its thrill, there's always Crash Bonsai.


(via Incoming Signals)

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

"Pop quiz, hotshot..."


Seems that six Brazilians were refused entry into Britain last Friday because they didn't know enough about the Beatles. No, really.



Arriving with a large group from Rio de Janero to visit Liverpool's Mathew Street Festival, which celebrates the lives of The Fab Four, these six were turned away because they couldn't provide correct answers to the immigration officials' Beatles quiz questions. From the article:

A spokesman for the Cavern Club Brazil, which organized the trip, said the group’s treatment had been “ridiculous and very upsetting.”

“They played songs and asked us to name them. They actually made people sing Beatles songs,” Fabiana Carvalho said. “Some of the young people don’t know that much about The Beatles — they are here to see the Brazilian bands, and to travel.”



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm flying to Topeka tomorrow and I really need to study the lyrics to "Dust In The Wind".


(submitted by Lou "She's Got a Tick In Her Eye" Campbell and Dave "The girl with colitis goes by" Postma)

"No wire hangers cocoa in summer, EVER!"


The Bacon Bowl, Dessert Corn, The Cardinal Beverage Rule and other weird food rules, as remembered by The Hungover Gourmet.

PS. If the title of this post makes no sense, then you obviously haven't been watching the right movies.

(via Coudal Partners)

Saturday, August 23, 2003

"Mom, when you're being mugged, do you ever feel... you know...not fresh?"


An amusing story of a fellow blogger's unusual defense tactics.

(via Iron Monkey)

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Yarr!


Citrus! Lots and lots of citrus. That's the key to running any successful pirate store. Gotta keep that scurvy at bay, ya know.

An actual store selling actual pirate supplies like eyepatches, hooks, treasure chests, lard (LARD?! Yes, lard... read the FAQ) and planks by the foot. Check out the fascinating world of Karl! Attend some of the events!

WARNING! Don't waste your time visiting their competitor, Captain Rick's Booty Cove, or you will be in for a world of heartache. And yes, probably even scurvy.

Saturday, August 16, 2003

One K


I just noticed that as of right now the site meter hit 1,000. Now for most blogs, this is small potatoes, but I think it's pretty cool.

Thanks everyone for visiting from time to time. Hope to see you again!

Narrowcasting


Everybody's heard of broadcasting. In a nutshell, it means to transmit a TV/radio program for mass consumption. You hope to capture as wide of an audience as you possibly can. Then there's narrowcasting. As defined by dictionary.com:
To transmit, as by cable, programs confined to the interests of a specific group of viewers, subscribers, or listeners, such as physicians, businesspeople, or teenagers.

With that in mind, I'm going to do a little narrowcasting. The only person who may enjoy this would be my good friend (Mary)Lou, who might actually remember a few of these. Here ya go, babe.

Friday, August 15, 2003

Pores? We don't need no steenkeen' pores!


A really incredible website about photo retouching. Pick one of the images and roll your mouse over it to see the original image before the airbrush went to work.


Pseudo-spoiler warning!
If you are someone who believes that those women in Maxim look like that in real life, you may not want to see the unvarnished version of the truth.

(via Information Junk)

Gimme a D! Gimme an E! Uh... Gimme a dictionary!



A recent study by ePodunk lists the 15 most misspelled cities in America. I can see most of these, but how in the heck are people misspelling Detroit?! Deetroyt? D-troit? Day-twah? Someone help me out here.

PS. Numbers 3 and 4 on the list still almost always trip me up. How 'bout you?

(via Information Junk)

Come on baby...Just a little kiss


Mini-KISS rocks the house in Atlanta.


(via Boing Boing)

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Who Let The Worms In?


There's nothing more annoying that getting a song stuck in your head and not being able to get rid of it. I for one was recently infected with a case of the horrific Neil Diamond audio turd "America" (On the boats and on the planes/ They're coming to America/ Today!), which pretty much ruined my whole day. Damn you, The Jazz Singer!

Scientists have nicknamed them "earworms". The "ear" part is obvious, the "worm" part having to do with the parasitic way they take up residence in your brain, resisting even the best efforts to dislodge it. The researchers found that 98% of us at one time or another have gotten a tune stuck on the brain, some of the more common offenders being "Who Let The Dogs Out" by Baha Men, Queen's "We Will Rock You" and the jingle for Kit-Kat candy bars ("Gimme a break").

A slightly older, but more detailed article on the phenomenon can be found here.

By the way, I've found that infecting someone else with your musical pox will often clear it out of your own head. So what earworms have bugged you?(via Bifurcated Rivets)

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Shifty Music


Who knew that a key change would get somebody this worked up?

From The Truck Driver's Gear Change Hall of Shame FAQ:

Many writers and arrangers feel that when their song is in risk of getting a bit tired, it can be given a fresh lease of life by shifting the whole song up a key, usually in between choruses, towards the beginning of a "repeat-till-fade" section. You may have heard this technique informally referred to as "modulation", but the correct ethnomusicological term for the phenomenon is the truck driver's gear change. This reflects the utterly predictable and laboured nature of the transition, evoking a tired and over-worked trucker ramming the gearstick into the new position with his – or, to be fair, her – fist.



Contrary to what many people seem to think, the truck driver's gear change is in no way inventive, interesting or acceptable: it is in fact an utterly appalling and unimaginative admission that you've run out of inspiration and the song should have ended one minute ago; but you're under pressure to make something which can be stretched out to the length of a single. The concept of the truck driver's gear change seems to transcend all musical styles, from Perry Como to The Misfits, although my investigations reveal that it's most prevalent in mainstream pop, and, let's face it, it's unlikely to feature in hip-hop. But who's to say.


He goes on to provide numerous audio clip examples from Michael Jackson, The Who, John Lennon, Barry Manilow and others. I have to say that I'll never be able to listen to the radio again without listening for the dreaded "gear shift".

About the only good modulation I can vouch for is in the amusing boy-band power-ballad deconstruction "Title Of The Song" by a capella funnymen Da Vinci's Notebook.

(via Crooked Timber)

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

You've got a face for radio. Or prison.


Scariest mugshot. Ever.
And the runners-up. (Use links on bottom of page to navigate)

Monday, August 11, 2003

You've Got The Look


Eric Conveys An Emotion. He takes requests, too.

What about "The Red-Headed Stranger"?


www.mum.org
Hmm, what's this? Horticultural fan page for chrysanthemums? An ode to Mother? Think again.


Contribute to the ever-expanding list!


(via J-Walk)

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Livin' on Tulsa time


During this week, the Information Nation staff will be visiting the ancestral estates in temperate Tulsa, OK. Probably not much time for posting, what with all of these fun things to see 'n' do:



1. See all the locations in Tulsa where the "Weird Al" classic UHF was filmed

2. Locate and laugh at this bonehead

3. One word: Tulsarama!

4. Drive (cautiously, very cautiously) over to Dewey, OK to pay tribute to The Tom Mix Suitcase of Death

5. Throw in a request or two for some winning Lotto numbers at the Oral Roberts Prayer Tower (hey, it doesn't hurt to ask)

Friday, August 01, 2003

Yowch!!!


Personal hygeine vs. pain


(via Side Salad)

You're welcome...


Since I'm one of the 8% keeping the rest of you guys in the evolutionary game, I'll take my thank-yous in the form of Best Buy or Barnes & Nobles gift certificates, please.



I'll leave it a mystery as to which trait I have, though some might find that very sinister. From the article:



Humans have evolved incredibly since the dawn of time -- and we have color-blind, bald, left-handed and homosexual men to thank.

San Francisco surgeon Dr. Leonard Shlain figures that 8 percent of all men are either color blind, bald, left-handed or gay. Therefore, those traits must benefit the entire race -- or they would have died out by now.

For instance, color blind men have an advantage while hunting because they're less fooled by camouflage and left-handed male soldiers have an advantage over right-handers when fighting mano-a-mano.

Dr. Shlain thinks homosexuality probably evolved in hunting tribes to ensure that there would be more men to hunt for the food but wouldn't produce hungry offspring.

However, the doc admits he has yet to figure out the need for baldness since hair protects the brain against overheating.


(via Electric Venom)