Silver Jacket

Bloggy Blog

  • Cyborgs “R” Us

    LensIn the early hours of April 14, 1978, a 9-pound baby popped out of a 5’2” woman, 20 minutes after she arrived at a hospital in Bloomington, Indiana. Today I turn 27. Happy Labor Day, Mom!

    Hard to believe I have lived exactly one third of my life (9 years) with my tongue pierced. I have also taken antidepressants for 11 years, and used Macs for exactly 16 years (2^4/3^3 of my life). They have each become a part of me.

    Three (well, two, ignoring the jewelry) giant leaps for a human, one small step toward our posthuman future.

  • “This shit hilarious[sic]!!!”

    FreakWacky Weblink Wednesday… Apskati uzmaniigi!

    Check out the parent webpage too. It’s an entire museum of random crap. Gangsta rap? Latvian news broadcasts? Retarded cub scouts? Don’t miss the first episode of "linux virgin!" Seriously, if you can find a pattern in any of this, let me know. I’ve left Pi for the amateurs to figure out and taken this as my life’s challenge.

    Also note: apparently Latvian and leetspeek are really hard to tell apart, especially when mixed ("Kad h4h0ru uzpleesh h4h0rs!!!") Pwned!

  • When Bored in Idaho…

    NapoleondynamiteApparently The Man does have a sense of humor. Or the midwest is as boring as I recall from my youth. Last week Idaho Legislature adopted a bill whose only goal was "commending Jared and Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for the production of the movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’"

    I kid you not. I would list some funny excerpts from the bill here but there are just too flippin’ many. It starts out pretty dry, but WHOO BOY it gets rolling. As I read it, I became more and more suspicious of a joke, especially when I got to:

    WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!" and run the risk of having the "Worst Day of Their Lives!" [ed: like anyone can even know that…]

    But the URL is hard to fake, and the Idaho Statesman made brief mention of it on April 6, so it’s the real deal. Read it for yourself.

    Yes! I love technology!

  • The “Experts” Agree…

    RomSomeone sent me to this website recently. It’s a marketing site for a $14,615 exercise machine called "ROM The Time Machine," with the tag line: "Exercise in exactly 4 minutes per day!" They begin their pitch with: "OUR EXCELLENT ROM MACHINE HAS THREE BIG MARKETING PROBLEMS". They are:

    1.)"4 minutes sounds too good to be true." They label this "just one of the annoying arguments we have had to listen to".

    2.)"The very high selling price." Remarkably, this machine remains "the absolute least expensive method of exercise available for all income groups above the poverty line."

    3.)Ridicule by "’experts’."

    If they think there are only three big marketing problems, they are sadly mistaken. Let’s catalogue a few more.

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  • Worst. Jenga move. Ever.

    CbgLast night during a heated game of Jenga, my friend became frustrated with her prospects for success on her turn.  So she copped out and removed a piece from the top row, only to place it back on top. If you’ve ever played Jenga, you know how lame this is, not to mention illegal. Here’s the kicker: while cheating she also managed to knock over the entire stack.

    This moment was perhaps topped by her move in the subsequent game. Again frustrated and pessimistic, she took a swipe at the stack to bring the game to an abrupt close. Apparently a flash of extreme regression. But this time, only the upper third of the stack fell. A failure relative to her previous debacle. Ouch.

    In Drinking Jenga fashion, the party of 10 or so had written tasks on the blocks with pens. There were the usual drinking moves (chicks/dicks take a drink, "waterfall") and naughty moves (kissing, spanking, "eye for an eye," and the occasional lap dance) but my favorites were "solve a Rubik’s Cube," "demonstrate bowhunting skills," and "chug a pitcher of sangria." (Fortunately for Abby, we had a pitcher of sangria handy, and even more fortunately, it was nearly empty.)

    Quote of the night: Fed up with our trash talking, Abby–a compact but tough-as-nails rugby player–threatened us with, "I’ll kick your all ass!" Instant classic.

  • Gettin Loopy Wit It

    MoebiusWacky Weblink Wednesday… If I had just seen the Matrix, and if I had some kind of Neo/God complex, and maybe if I were also sleep deprived or on shrooms or something, and I witnessed this, I would FLIP THE FUCK OUT.

  • Cursed

    TikiA friend of mine just returned from Costa Rica, smuggling a 2000-year-old jade god figurine back with her. She didn’t know it was illegal to remove the item from the country until after the purchase, when the the seller pointed out, "Oh, and if customs stops you, just tell them you brought it with you here." (Expect supernatural payback to ensue shortly.)

    Supposedly the item has special powers. If you wear it over your solar plexus, it calms your emotions and heals you when you are sick. And for the ladies: "He also explained to me in very funny English without saying any gross words that if women have cramps, you put it in a glass of water for a while and then take it out and drink the glass of water and you’ll feel better," she told me. Oh and mysteriously it "can’t touch metal." The cost: a chunk of change, plus a chunk of soul.

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  • A Portrait of Yo Mama

    PortraitTwo friends from college, Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts, wrote a book called A Portrait of Yo Mama As a Young Man that was just published last week. I haven't read it yet but check the except here for a sample. (Not Safe For People Drinking Milk.) E.g., "Yo mama’s CD rack is 90 percent those chocolate CDs her sister’s company makes."

    The book's web page is [no longer] here, and an interview with the authors is [no longer] here.

    Kent made his name on campus through such acts as his 24-hour one-man standup comedy event, his bid to become dean of the faculty while still a student, and of course his infamous invitation to the 2000.5 Commencement. Andrew has had three humor pieces published in The New Yorker, including one entitled "All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Having my Arms Ripped Off by a Polar Bear." I used to have functional links to them but the powers at The New Yorker have rendered them nonfunctional. [Update: One is functional again.]

    I also did a little work with them on Brown's humor rag, The Brown Jug. Check some of their archived material here. [Update: link broken. New issues here.]

    update:
    After checking my referrer log, I noticed that someone came across this blog post by Googling "andrew barlow really had his arms ripped off." I mentioned it to Andrew, and he suggest that the, well, misdirected web surfer may have been looking for this. 

    update 2:
    Kent submitted the book to be considered for a Pulitzer Prize. He sweetened the deal with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon delivered to the office of the committee chairman. You can read his application letter here. He ends on a high note: "You should know that I am not just good at putting words together. I am also good at the physical act of writing. Do you have a penmanship award? Is there a separate application for it? Do I need to send more beer, or can you and the board split yours with the penmanship people?"

  • Easter in Sin City

    Monte_carloWell I survived my first trip to Vegas (barely… I became sick upon return, delaying this post several days). What can I say about this town? It's a slice of American life. Mullets, sequined t-shirts, and denim shorts galore. Funny, I never thought of Sin City as a family destination, but there were thousands of kids tagging along with their wide-eyed and open-walleted parents. Some of the attractions ARE a little like a kids' theme park—except that when you walk outside, instead of Mickey and pals you have dozens of men in neon shirts labeled "Strippers Straight to Your Room" handing out fliers. (What's with the flicking?) I wondered whether they get up in the morning, open their closets to reveal 20 neon t-shirts on hangers, and ask themselves, "Pink or green today?"

    Vegas gambling refused to secure its appeal to me. Watch a dealer burn through your chips in mere seconds? No thanks. Spend all night playing poker with friends at nominal wages, with full-volume potty-mouthed trash-talking? Yes please. And they didn't have several of the games I looked for. Where was War;  Pick a Number; Rock, Paper, Scissors? What, no Monopoly tables? I kick ass at Monopoly.

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  • Trends in the Blogosphere

    Technorati, the Google of the blogosphere, has now tracked 1 billion blog links.

    Are you new to blogs? Well let me share a few of the current trends in the blogosphere, as I’m discovering them.

    David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, recently posted some statistics. It turns out that people create 40,000 new blogs a day, and each day there are half a million new blog posts. Also, 15 of the top 37 most-linked-to websites on the Internet are blogs. Here are parts 1, 2, and 3 of his State of the Blogosphere March 2005.

    On the other hand, a Gallup Poll in late February revealed another side of the story. The number of Americans very familiar, somewhat familiar, not too familiar, and not at all familiar with blogs was 7%, 19%, 18%, and 56%, respectively.

    And if you’re wondering what the best blogs are, look no further for an easy introduction than the 2005 Bloggies.