Jove's Own Hiccups

Thunderbolt
Originally uploaded by mandolux

Don't you hate a story that starts out "Don't worry, I'm fine now"?

My defibrillator fired off late Tuesday morning, nine times within five minutes or so. Anyone who wishes to know what this feels like can easily simulate it at home by licking a 9-volt battery and, at the same moment, having your mortal enemy smite you with a sledge hammer.

Nine times.

Failing that, remember the little bird in Shrek that tried to hit that high note?

Spare a few thoughts for roommate John, who wasn't sure anything was going on until he heard me break the toilet seat.

I had just experienced one jolt and was sitting on the closed lid. I had mostly reassembled my wits when I felt another one, and the next thing I remember I was sitting *in* the toilet on pieces of shattered plastic.

He: "Do I need to call 9-1-1?"
I: "I'm not sure..."
ICD: *ZAP*
I: "Yes!"

Sorry, no pictures.

I will say that lying naked on the bathroom floor having Jove's Own Hiccups every fifteen to thirty seconds made me feel as helpless as little else has or can.

I know now that the first few were 5 joule charges, and the last one was 35 joules. I sorta thought it might have been a bigger wham than the ones before, but it also could have just been the emotional reaction of "Oh, God, another one". (The nurse confirmed this: People generally can't tell the difference. A shock is a shock.)

The manufacturer says that someone who's touching me when it goes off might feel a charge of about 2 joules. (This is conveyed in answer to the questions everyone asks, "Can I still have sex?") But what I hadn't been able to learn is "What does 2 joules feel like?"

I thought about that when John was looking for my pulse. I was half afraid it would fire off while he was trying, and, I admit, half hoping it would. It didn't.

Well, now I know what 5 joules feels like, and can extrapolate. It ain't like touching a metal doorknob. It's ultimately harmless, but you'd know you'd been slapped pretty good.

By the time that 35 joule kick happened, the novelty had completely worn off.

I had finally had the sense to lie down on the floor, modesty be damned. I was in the middle of the hall, having made barely a token attempt to get my pants on, when John returned from the 911 call and found me. I'm afraid he thought the worst before I had a chance to speak and tell him that I was still awake and (relatively) lucid.

That 35 joule kick was, it developed, the last. Laying on the floor had helped calm my heart. It never did happen that John was actually watching when I received a jolt. It's a shame. I wanted to know what it looked and sounded like. It sounded like thunder to me, but I suspect it was silent. Except, of course, for me yelling.

Something In The Blood

I'll have to skip over the blur of the arrival of the ambulance and the trip to Emory Crawford Long (where my doctors are). I traveled alone in the ambulance, but I hadn't been there long before my wife (with my daughter) and John (with my son) caught up with us. By then, with the liberal application of modern pharmaceuticals (let's hear it for modern pharmaceuticals!), I was feeling well enough to be snarky about my own condition (it's a coping mechanism), something the nurses and doctor picked up on and responded to. If it's possible to have fun in an ER, I think we did.

One of the really unexpected things discovered in the ER was that my system was all but depleted of potassium. The nurse there had mixed a "cocktail" with the potassium supplement in its liquid form, ice and orange juice -- at least she said it was orange juice, but the potassium liquid must have a really powerful taste. It tasted like-- well, like nothing I'd ever had before. The medicinal equivalent of a Lovecraftian creature that the human tongue cannot describe because it exists in dimentions we cannot perceive. The Pharmaceutical Horror, the Drugg From Out Of Space.

I Have Been Assimilated

Now I have a fourth doctor writing prescriptions for me, another cardiologist, Dr Whelan. He was present when the nurse with the australian accent downloaded my ICD data. That's the only reason I know it fired nine times: I had lost count.

The doctor's official description of the incident was that the ICD had fired "inappropriately". (Not quite the word I might have chosen.) By this he meant that the situation to which it was intended to respond, ventricular fibrillations, had not occurred. It was confused by my rapid heart rate at the time, although there is no particular explanation for the rapid rate in the first place. (Probably the combination of low potassium and a missed dose of toprol.)

After it had fired once, the anxiety it created kept my heart rate elevated, which served to convince the ICD that its job was not yet done. It's programming giving it no alternate course of action, it kept firing.

That won't happen again. While she was reading the ICD's records, the doctor and nurse-tech tweaked the unit's programming to allow it to more easily tell the difference between atrial fibrillations, ventricular fibrillations, and "mere" high heart rate, and react accordingly. The unit's logs stored detailed information about my heart's day-to-day activity not available any other way: They used that information to recalibrate some of the defaults the ICD uses to decide what an extraordinary event is.

That is, the ICD is pretty capable straight out of the box, but the better configured it is to its particular circumstances and environment, the more effective it will be. As a computer geek myself, I find this fascinating, and not just because the gadget is in my chest. I'm awestruck that not only is this degree of care possible, but it's available to pretty much anybody who needs it.

No sense of rhythm

My heart rate was not just elevated, but irregular. As the machines reported a "rolling average", the numbers jumped all over the chart, from 90 to 160 beats per minute. Which is not to say that a minute ever went by in which my heart beat 160 times. My heart sounded pathetic when I was hooked up to a monitor that actually sounded each beat.

And all of this we learned before we ever left the ER. By the time I had a room, it was pretty much all over but the shouting. They kept me topped off with medicines, to keep my heart rate controlled until my system recovered from the trauma and my heart calmed to a regular, normal at-rest rate (60-70 bpm). There was talk of a "plan B" if it didn't do so, but the doctor was confident that it would do so after a night's rest.

And it did.

That's about all there is to tell.

Oh, and there's a new champion. The potassium supplement I now have to take is, without question, the biggest pill I've ever had to swallow. It's about an inch long, the circumference of a piece of chalk, and not half as yummy.

Some of my pills I can just pop 'em down without water. This one, I'll need a *lot* of water and a bit of mental preparation too. I almost didn't manage it in the hospital, and the nurse had broken those in half.

But it is over and I am here to tell the tale, and even laugh at parts of it.

SEE ALSO: LiveJournal.

Triple Threat Traffic

Stempunk Atlanta
Originally uploaded by mjn9

It normally only takes one road disruption to completely immobilize Atlanta traffic. Today we had two and a half, I guess.

The half is pictured, although the photographer made it look much worse than it was by adding sepiatone. Looking at that you'd think Sherman was back.

But it's a beautiful picture, ain't it?

It's a fire in an abandoned carpet warehouse in outer Fulton county, just a hop and a skip from Six Flags Over Georgia. The smoke plume wasn't quite that dark, but certainly was that big, and enveloped most of intown Atlanta because, well, that's just the way the wind blows, which sounds like some kind of homily but is literally true in this case.

Today was also the day that work officially begins on the 14th Street bridge project. Here, we see the view looking south towards downtown Atlanta from the bridge... What? Wait a minute. What the hell is that?

I'm only joshing. I thought it looked wrong. That's not rush hour.

No, seriously, that is the view from the 14th Street bridge -- in 1953. If I recall correctly (which is a pretty good trick, considering I wasn't born yet), that highway isn't I-75 yet: It's still just US 19. The link will take you to a slightly more current image.

The third incident in today's traffic trifecta was a collision on I-20 Eastbound between Boulevard and Moreland Avenue, involving two dump trucks and a MARTA bus. This accident blocked all eastbound lanes, and traffic poured -- well, oozed -- off every available exit ramp onto my front porch.

Well, okay, not literally.

Monday Media: Hydro Train

Just a little something to spice up that morning commute. I don't know if it makes you wish you rode the train, or makes you glad you don't.

What is a hero?

The gentleman pictured right is Thomas J. Tauke, executive vice president for public affairs at Verizon. He may look like the love child of Don Rickles and Voyager's "Doctor", but just at this moment he looks like a hero to me.

"Hollywood" (by which the New York Times means "the entertainment industry") has been asking the big players in home internet service to "stand alongside them in their fight against online piracy" (by which they mean "monitor what your customers download and tattle on 'em if it's our music and movies").

The big players in home internet service, for their part, have seen where their civic duty lies (by which I mean "quake in fear of Congressional oversight bought and paid for by the entertainment industry"). Comcast is reportedly going so far as to actually alter the data the user thinks he's downloading with the intent of making torrented (by which they mean "illegal") material download so slowly that it won't be worth the time.

"AT&T ...is talking about developing a system that would identify and block illicitly copied material being sent over its broadband network," says the Times. By which AT&T means "We still remember what happened the last time somebody said 'boo' to us." Or, more succinctly, "You got it, boss."

But Verizon, through its spokesman Mr Tauke, says this: “We generally are reluctant to get into the business of examining content that flows across our networks and taking some action as a result of that content.” By which, surprisingly enough, he appears to mean "No."

Yes, there's a healthy percentage of self-interest in his reasons. But at least the customer's privacy is on the list. It may not be the reason, but it's a reason.

(See also the Consumerist.)

He must be running, all the papers say so

Former President Bill Clinton in LV
Originally uploaded by Domain Barnyard

Project for Excellence in Journalism | Clinton Finishes Third in Battle for Campaign Coverage (But it’s Bill!!!)
The man who would be First Spouse made more news last week than any Republican, or than the other Democratic contender, John Edwards.

Well, that sort of begs a question, to say that Bill Clinton "made news". What exactly did Mr Clinton do that was newsworthy? Stick his nose in the Presidential campaign? No, ex-Presidents have done that before. Say something unexpected? Not really.

Couldn't it be said that the mass media's news editors would rather cover Bill Clinton than any of the Republicans in the Presidential race? That they consider him more interesting than, say, Mitt Romney? Or than even the liberals' favorite Republican, John McCain?

Presenting: Our Nation's Future

WPBF-TV | Teens Unremorseful After Stealing From Girl Scout
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. -- The State Attorney's Office will decide whether to charge two teens who admit they robbed a 9-year-old Girl Scout selling cookies outside of a Boynton Beach supermarket.

"I thought that it was a really mean thing to do, and I was sad after," Girl Scout Gracie Smith told WPBF News 25.

Authorities said that a 17-year-old girl in a hot-pink sweatshirt approached Smith outside of a Winn-Dixie supermarket at Hypoluxo and Jog roads in Boynton Beach Wednesday evening and asked the girl what her favorite cookies were. Police told WPBF that, while Smith was telling the teen about her favorite Cinna-Spins, the teen snatched an envelope containing about $167 off of Smith's table, hopped into another teen's car and drove away.

...The girls, whose names are not being released because they are minors, told WPBF that they were not remorseful for the crime, and that they did it because they "needed money."

"We went through all that effort to get it, we got all these charges and we had to give the money back. I'm kind of pissed," one of the girls told WPBF.

The other girl told WPBF that she was upset because police found them.

"I'm not sorry, I'm just pissed that I got caught," the girl said.

Words to live by. Don't they belong by her senior picture in the H. S. yearbook? Sure they do.

But that wasn't the point...

You mean Mythbusters actually did the airplane-on-a-conveyor-belt thing?





Wait, the pilot didn't think it would fly? That's not very reassuring. Look, dude, the plane doesn't get its forward motion from the landing gear. The wheels don't drive the plane, OK? The propeller does. That's why they call it that. It propels the plane. The plane won't sit still just because it's sitting on a moving surface. I thought the Navy doped this out years ago before they spent so much money building aircraft carriers.

(While filming "Six Days, Seven Nights", Harrison Ford [who actually can fly a plane] had to explain this to the director, who wanted Ford to taxi around without starting the propeller. He's good but he's not that good. While you're at it, see about holding the tide back too. Let me know how that goes for you.)

The question I thought this was about, which I think probably still is a good question (and is probably what some people thought the stunt was actually about), is whether the propeller, all by itself, can move enough air over the wings to generate enough lift to fly the plane without actual forward motion. I'm reasonably sure the answer to that one is "heck, no", but wouldn't it be neat to be proven wrong?

It's a shame he won't live. But then again, who does?

After two years, the Dickbot is still at large...

Sydney Morning Herald | Robot goes missing
Philip K Dick is missing.

Not the American science fiction writer whose novels spawned hit films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall -- he died more than 20 years ago -- but a state-of-the-art robot named after the author.

The quirky android, was lost in early January [2006] while en route to California by commercial airliner.

...The irony of the situation -- a missing replica of the very author who championed "replicant" freedom -- is not lost on Phil's creators.

...Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions.

Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.

Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.

That pretty much makes him indistinguishable from every author I've ever met.

Floss your head

Hamilton Spectator | Brain cleaner: New stroke treatment can vacuum away deadly blood clots
It's a tiny vacuum cleaner for the brain: A new treatment for stroke victims promises to suction out clogged arteries in hopes of stopping the brain attack before it does permanent harm.

Called Penumbra, the newly approved device is the latest in a series of inside-the-artery attempts to boost recovery from stroke.

...Specialists thread a tiny tube inside a blood vessel at the groin and push it up the body and into the brain until it reaches the clog. Just like a vacuum cleaner, it sucks up the clot bit by bit to restore blood flow.

Before you ask, no, this wouldn't have helped me. I often speak of what happened to me as a "stroke", but strictly speaking it wasn't. A stroke is an arterial block: What I had was a leak, a brain hemorrhage accompanied by swelling.

Still, I have experienced the up-from-the-groin thing, as it is also the route to the artery that was partly blocked when I had my heart attack. When they speak of cardio-catheterization, that's the procedure they mean.

If it sounds weird, well, it beats going straight in through the chest. It means a recovery period measured in days, not months.

Monday Media: The World's Foremost Authority

Furthermore...

For the second week in a row, I'm reposting something that Mark Evanier found. Well, what can I say, the man has good sources and good taste.

I could tell you where this video came from, but if you've ever heard Professor Irwin Corey speak, you know that it could not possibly matter less what his topic is. What delights me most about this clip is that (1) the Professor is still very much with us, and (3) at age 93 he still looks and sounds pretty much as he always has. Like Walter Brennan, Charles Lane and Irene Ryan before him, he seems to have discovered the secret of eternal decrepitude.

But enough about him. Watch the man himself.



Although:



It must be said: If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.

Come On, Everybody's Doing It

Come On, Everybody's Doing It
Originally uploaded by NontrivialMatt

South Bend Tribune | Boys left with bleeding tongues after sticking them to flagpole
Two fourth-grade boys mimicking a scene from the movie "A Christmas Story" wound up with their tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole in bitter cold weather on Friday morning.

Gavin Dempsey and James Alexander were serving on flag duty at Jackson Elementary School, with the job of raising and lowering the school's flags, when they decided to see if their tongues really would stick to the cold metal.

"I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies, but turns out I was wrong," said Gavin, who celebrated his 10th birthday Friday.

Actually, what young Gavin said was, "I bethibeb po pry ip becauthe I phoughp aww of phe PV thhowth were wieth, bup purnth oup I wath waag."

Other kids were apprehended sitting too close to the television and crossing their eyes to make their faces "freeze like that".

The boys say they'll try things they've seen on "Jackass" and "Survivor" when they get out of detention.

What's appropriate?

BestBuy Heath Ledger Memorial
Originally uploaded by DLJenningsII

The Consumerist | Best Takes In-Store Display Cashing In On Heath Ledger's Death Very Seriously
Hours after actor Heath Ledger's death, a Best Buy store already had a table set up with his DVDs on sale, urging customers to "remember a great actor through his great performances."

The user comments are the most entertaining part of this story. If you've never worked in retail (as it's obvious many of these people have not), this display raises an issue you should think about.

This particular tempest has two components:

Is it appropriate for the retailer to create a display collecting an actor's work when he dies?

Well, yes, of course. No one would have denied the suitability of such a display for, say, Michael Caine, or Sean Connery, or Clint Eastwood, on such faraway day as any of them meets his maker. Public figures die all the time. I would expect retailers to be ready for it.

Does this display in particular look cheap, tacky and thrown-together?

Boy, does it ever. I would hate to think that Best Buy's marketing layout is so rigidly planned that there's no flexibility in it to replace an end-cap (one of those displays at the end of the aisle) with something of indisputably timely interest should events dictate it. The store should have a stack of blank printer compatible signage, and a computer with the chain's chosen display fonts installed.

What am I saying? All that would require thought. I've shopped at Best Buy. I've talked to the people who work there. This fan-club bake-sale-esque table is probably the best they can do.

An icon is gone

Hydrox cookie Originally uploaded by milatchi

It may say something about the dedication inspired in generations of sweet-toothed Americans that, although Sunshine / Keebler / Kellogg stopped making Hydrox cookies in 2003, its loyal fans are only just now beginning to notice that they can't find one anywhere.

WSJ | The Hydrox Cookie Is Dead, and Fans Won't Get Over It
Robert Fliegel was craving a Hydrox. The 52-year-old computer consultant says he always liked the way the chocolate sandwich cookie, which he found crisper than Oreos, "stood up to the milk" when dunked.

But Mr. Fliegel, who used to be able to devour an entire package of the crème-filled biscuits in a sitting, couldn't find them in any stores near his East Stroudsburg, Pa., home.

Only when he went online a few months ago to try to order some did he learn the truth: Hydrox is dead.

In 2003, without warning or announcement, Kellogg Co. killed off the cookie -- by then rechristened Droxies -- after failing to gain ground against the dominant Oreo, one of the country's best-selling snack foods.

I'm thinking that if they really were as enormous as that photograph makes them look, they might still be around.

Old W. K. Kellogg must be spinning to know that "his" health-food company now owns Keebler.

Monday Matinee: The Water Horse

The Water Horse begins like a lyrical Scottish fairy tale, which I guess in a sense it is. And with a rating of PG, it's clear that it is intended for children.

So I suppose I must forgive it for its biggest flaw: It is relentlessly, numbingly predictable.

From the moment each cardboard character hits the screen, you know where they're going to end up. Oh, look, a couple of young tourists meet an old man in a pub who's going to tell them a story. I wonder who he's going to turn out to be? Oh, look, the boy lives on the shore of a loch, I wonder which loch it could possibly be? Oh, look, he's deathly afraid of the water, whatever could cure him of that, do you think? A pet, perhaps? He's obsessively counting the days until his father's tour of duty ends, do you think maybe Mom already knows that Dad isn't coming home? Mom meets a mysterious handyman, I wonder if they'll fall in love?

The only real surprise is that, in a World War II era story in which Nazis are spoken of almost incessantly, we never actually see one. I half hoped the handyman would turn out to be that cinematic rarity, a good German...but...

You have to really enjoy watching the playful CGI title character (you know who he is, right?), because he may be the best actor in the movie. Okay, that's not really fair. The acting is overall quite good, and everyone seems well cast.

But by the fourth or fifth time someone backs off, sputtering and screaming, from their first sight of Crusoe the sea-sick sea serpent, I would think even the kids would be tired of it.

Oh noes, I has not ideea agin.

moar funny pictures

Blizzard of '08

Blizzard of '08
Originally uploaded by bonnieanderik.

I was caught out with only my cell phone camera. I tried to take pictures of the flurry, but the shutter stays open too long: The snow has time to fall, and in so doing blurs to invisibility.

But I knew if I checked Flickr, someone else would have captured a moment, and sure enough they did.

If it moves and it shouldn't...

If it doesn't move, and it should, use WD40.
If it moves and it shouldn't,
use duct (duck) tape.
Originally uploaded by jimfrazier.

When Forbes magazine conducted their "20 Most Important Tools" survey, there was a 21st tool that just wouldn't be left out.

Forbes | The Other Greatest Tool Ever
Models use it to create cleavage. Sled-dog drivers use it to prevent frostbite. Athletes use it to support weak joints. Veterinarians use it to repair horses' hooves.

What's this wonder tool? Duct tape.

There's no denying that Duck Tape Saves the Day.

Monday Media: Don't Buy the Liverwurst

If you're having trouble thinking of anything else that "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" guy did, here's a classic video in which Dean Martin and Vic Damone present a medley of lyrics made famous...well, let's be honest, made only slightly less obscure...by the inimitable Allan Sherman.

"Dad, what's a 'single'?"

Early Single
Originally uploaded by Tavallai.

Wired | Jan. 10, 1949: A Brand-New Format for the Shirelles, Drifters
1949: The 45-rpm record is introduced by RCA. Can rock 'n' roll be far behind?

Flat disc records began replacing the cylinder for reproducing recorded sound as early as 1887. The original standard, what we know as the 78, had a 10-inch diameter disc with a rotational speed of between 75 and 80 rpm.

The 78 remained the standard for portable recorded sound until the mid-20th century, despite some severe limitations. For one thing, the disc didn't hold much, meaning that longer works, typically classical music, had to be broken in mid-composition (which makes the 78 seem a little like the vinyl forerunner of the four-track tape).

Columbia introduced the 33-rpm disc in 1948, which mostly solved that problem, and its rival, RCA, was right behind with the 45. Despite a diameter of only 7 inches, the 45 could hold as much sound as the 78, and was far more portable and cheaper to produce.

The beauty of this technology is this: You could watch it play and see how it worked. Every bit of the science that made sound happen was visible.

With an iPod, on the other hand, there are no moving parts larger than electrons. The basic parts are still there (data storage, scanning, conversion from physical to electronic form, transportation to vibrating surface, conversion from electronic form to vibrating air) but there's nothing you can see going on. And a common phenomenon of everyday life gets a little more obscure.

It might as well be magic.

Save the African Blackwood

Bagpipes
Originally uploaded by MNicoleM.

Scotsman.com | Bagpipes a threat to the environment (and we're not talking noise pollution)
THEY were once outlawed for being used as seditious weapons of war. Now, bagpipes have been blasted as an environmental menace.

Over-intensive logging means that the African wood used to make Scotland's national instrument faces being wiped out.

Conservation groups are letting out skirls of protest, urging musicians and instrument manufacturers to make sure their pipes come from eco-friendly sources.

As part of the campaign, Scots are being asked to fund the planting of "bagpipe trees" in a bid to atone for the environmental damage.

Anything that reduces the numbers of bagpipes in the wild has to be good.

I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made object never equalled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.

-Alfred Hitchcock

How can you tell a bagpiper with perfect pitch?

He can throw a set into the middle of a pond and not hit any of the ducks.

When I get older, losing my rights, not-so-many years from now

Originally uploaded by bgimbel.

I know, it's only a week since Public Domain Day 2008, so you may still be recovering from the parties. This reminder shows, though, that all of our public domain problems are not yet solved.

You know how hard Disney has been fighting to keep Mickey Mouse protected under their corporate copyright? You ain't seen nothin'.

Reuters | UK rejects music copyright extension
The British government rejected a plea to extend copyright laws for sound recordings to beyond 50 years on Tuesday, prompting the music industry to accuse it of not supporting musicians and artists.

The music industry had won support from opposition politicians and a parliamentary committee in its bid for a copyright extension that would allow veterans such as Cliff Richard and Paul McCartney to carry on receiving royalties in later life.

Ars Technica | Beatles music to start entering UK public domain in 2012?
The Gowers Review has been a big deal in Britain, where former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers is chairing a commission that will suggest ways to reform the UK's intellectual property laws. One key piece of the Review will focus on the copyright term for sound recordings. Artists and publishers want the term extended from its current 50 years to 95 years, but an inside source has now confirmed that the Review will not recommend the 45-year extension, according to the BBC.

Given the high-profile names that argued for the extension—musicians like Sir Cliff Richard and Bono—the news is a surprising victory for those in favor of more limited copyright terms. The official report from the Gowers Review is expected in the first week of December, and if the government acts on its conclusions [see above: they did], then songs from hit acts like The Beatles will come out of copyright in the next few years.

"My Bonnie" may already be unprotected, but there'll be no question when "Love Me Do" falls in 2012. Boy, if all those "it was twenty years ago today" headlines in 1988 made you feel old, just wait until 2018, when "Sgt Pepper" goes public domain. Coincidentally enough, when I'm sixty-four.

Monday Media: I do not hate Celine Dion

I have tried, oh, how I have tried. I liked Titanic but I got so sick of that darned song. But still I couldn't shake the feeling that Dion herself was a talented musician with more range than she was typically called upon to show.

But I also enjoy Barry Manilow and Nine Inch Nails (two names that may never have been said in the same sentence before), so you can take that for what it's worth.

The thesis of the following video is: Celine Dion is Amazing. I'm not sure I'm convinced of that, but the video certainly is.

I'd rather be awake

World's Most Ironic Coffee Mug
Originally uploaded by bkmcae.

I suffer from occasional insomnia. My doctor, as so many doctors do, prescribed ambien.

Now, I have no real horror story to tell. I took it, and promptly fell asleep (as I'd been warned I would) and stayed asleep for eight-plus hours (as I'd also been warned I would). When I awoke, I awoke more rested and refreshed than I'd felt in weeks.

But my wife told me I'd awakened earlier than I remembered awakening -- sort-of. She gave me an early-morning list of things to do that day, as she often does. I responded appropriately, but she immediately recognized that I wasn't really awake.

All this she told me later. I don't remember a bit of it.

So she waited a few minutes and gave me the list again, and this time I remembered it later. No harm, no foul, all is OK, right?

Well, yeah, if you don't mind losing a half-hour in which only your wife can tell you're still asleep. (I've been subjected to hospital anesthesia three times in the past year, and the same thing happens when I awaken. It doesn't happen when I'm sleeping "naturally".)

I did a little research. I got off lucky.

Run a Google search for ambien sleepwalking. Read a few stories.

Rx List | Ambien and Sleepwalking
I have been taking Ambien for about 12-16 months now. Prior to taking this, I never experienced sleepwalking (I am 59 years old). I was really unnerved this morning upon awakening. On my kitchen counter were 4 apples, 1 egg, mixing bowl, cutting board, 1/4 cup orange juice, paring knife, steak knife--and in my den, on my sofa, my favorite cookbook. I HAVE NO MEMORY OF GATHERING THESE ITEMS.

Washington Post | To Sleep, Perchance to...Walk
There is no reliable estimate of how many Ambien users sleepwalk, and no one knows who might be at risk. The prescribing information for Ambien lists somnambulism as a "rare side" effect, meaning that it has been reported in fewer than one in 1,000 patients.

New York Times | Study Links Ambien Use to Unconscious Food Forays
The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug's users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands.

The next morning, the night eaters remember nothing about their foraging. But they wake up to find telltale clues: mouthfuls of peanut butter, Tostitos in their beds, kitchen counters overflowing with flour, missing food, and even lighted ovens and stoves.

New York Times | Sleeping Pill Users Range Far Beyond Bed
With a tendency to stare zombie-like and run into stationary objects, a new species of impaired motorist is hitting the roads: the Ambien driver.

Ambien, the nation's best-selling prescription sleeping pill, is showing up with regularity as a factor in traffic arrests, sometimes involving drivers who later say they were sleep-driving and have no memory of taking the wheel after taking the drug.

...A registered nurse who lives outside Denver took Ambien before going to sleep one night in January 2003. Sometime later — she says she remembers none of the episode — she got into her car wearing only a thin nightshirt in 20-degree weather, had a fender bender, urinated in the middle of an intersection, then became violent with police officers, according to her lawyer.

The New Yorker | The Ambien Cookbook
Sorpresa con Queso
Ingredients: 7 bags Cheetos, 17 to 19 glasses tap water, 5 mg. Ambien
Place Cheetos bags in cupboard. Take Ambien, fall asleep. Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen, tear cupboard doors off hinges in search of Cheetos…eat contents of all 7 bags…

Tell me: Am I over-reacting?

Happy Public Domain Day!

music piracy
Originally uploaded by Slider22.

Boing Boing and Copyright Watch are celebrating Public Domain Day, or January 1 as the rest of us call it. As of today in the United States, the unpublished works of authors who died 70 years ago will enter the public domain.

Just imagine what nuggets of literature must reside in that collection.

As for me, I'm thinking, as I so often do during the holidays, of that besieged agency that fights for the rights and money of musicians everywhere, the Recording Industry Association of America. Seeing that millions of American music consumers no longer know what they can legally do with the CDs they've bought or received for Christmas, the RIAA, with its lawsuit against Jammie Thomas, has clarified its position beyond any possibility of misunderstanding.

What can I legally do with this CD I just bought?

Why, you can listen to it on a CD player.

Can I copy it to...

Nope.

But wait. I didn't tell you how I was going to copy it, or where.

Doesn't matter. You can't copy it. At all. Period.

But I got this new iPod for Christmas...

My, yes, that is a handsome model. I'll bet it sounds terrific.

I wouldn't know, there's no music on it.

That's a shame.

I'd like to listen to these songs.

You can.

But you just said...

All you have to do is buy them from iTunes.

But I bought the CD!

*blank expression* Yeah?

So I thought I'd copy the songs to...

Ah ah ah. That would be stealing.

But I bought the CD!

But you didn't buy a license to make a digital copy of the music.

But I bought the CD!

You keep using that word, "bought".
I don't think it means what you think it means.

Welcome to music in the 21st century.

"God is in the details. But there are no details anymore."

waveforms, precious little waveforms
Originally uploaded by altemark.

Rolling Stone | The Death of High Fidelity
David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he's not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud.

Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. "They make it loud to get [listeners'] attention," Bendeth says. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song. Like many of his peers, Bendeth believes that relying too much on this effect can obscure sonic detail, rob music of its emotional power and leave listeners with what engineers call ear fatigue. "I think most everything is mastered a little too loud," Bendeth says. "The industry decided that it's a volume contest."

Producers and engineers call this "the loudness war," and it has changed the way almost every new pop and rock album sounds. But volume isn't the only issue. Computer programs like Pro Tools, which let audio engineers manipulate sound the way a word processor edits text, make musicians sound unnaturally perfect. And today's listeners consume an increasing amount of music on MP3, which eliminates much of the data from the original CD file and can leave music sounding tinny or hollow. "With all the technical innovation, music sounds worse," says Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, who has made what are considered some of the best-sounding records of all time. "God is in the details. But there are no details anymore."

Ah, you young people. You don't remember.

Way back when FM radio first began to crawl out of its niche and into the mainstream, it sounded beautiful. Compared to the tinny crackle of AM, FM was clean, pure sound, with clear, dynamic highs and quiet lows -- and, almost unheard-of (so to speak) today, the occasional moment of true silence.

Today, I can't hear the difference between AM and FM. The sound I used to associate with FM one must now buy satellite radio to get. The conspicuous exception is public radio. I can't tell for sure if they are actually maintaining the same standards they always have, or have simply not drifted as far downwards, but compared to it, listening to other music stations is like being beaten with a blunt instrument.

The computer's down, so...

Whole Foods Market
Originally uploaded by JustJon.

Hartford Courant | Whole Foods Shows You Can Get Something For Nothing
It could not have happened at a worse time. A major snowstorm was howling outside. Whole Foods supermarket at Bishops Corner in West Hartford was jammed with shoppers anxious to get home for dinner.

Suddenly, the computer crashed. None of the cash registers could function. Ted Donoghue, the assistant manager running the store on the afternoon of Dec. 13, consulted associates and made a snap decision:

All customers passing through the registers would get their food for free until the computers were working again.

"It was clearly a snafu on our end, and it didn't seem right" to punish the customers by making them wait, Manager Kimberly Hall said.

(Heard it from The Consumerist.)

What is Santa's favourite pizza?

Cracker
Originally uploaded by BarryGardner.

Telegraph | Top ten worst Christmas cracker jokes ever
Hold onto your party crown and steady your port glass as we reveal the worst Christmas cracker jokes of all time.

What is Santa's favourite pizza?
One that's deep pan, crisp and even.

(Start singing "Good King Wenceslaus", you'll get it.)

How long before they blame this on Bush?

IMG_4686
Originally uploaded by womenvote2020.

Reuters | Clinton urges Iowa voters to caucus on wrong day
DES MOINES (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton may have shot herself in the foot trying to get Iowa voters to pledge support to her -- she is encouraging them to go caucus on January 14, 11 days too late.

At a rally featuring her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday, campaign workers asked supporters to sign and mail cards that said "Yes! I'm an Iowan for Hillary" with their contact information as well as other supportive friends.

One small problem. In the upper right-hand corner of the card, it says "I, _____, pledge to support Hillary Clinton at my precinct caucus on January 14, 2008."

Unfortunately, that's 11 days too late. The Iowa caucuses are January 3 and organization is key to getting voters to go to the events and support their preferred candidate.

With this year's bouncing primaries and caucuses, can you really blame the poor schmo who got it wrong?

So when CAN I name him?

Abbott & Costello Meet The Keystone Kops (1955)
Originally uploaded by filmwolf.

USA Today | Child cannot be named Friday
Italian judges forbade a couple from naming their son Friday, saying it would bring the child shame and ridicule to be named after the character in Robinson Crusoe.

"They thought that it recalled the figure of a savage, thus creating a sense of inferiority and failing to guarantee the boy the necessary decorum," the couple's lawyer, Paola Rossi, said Wednesday.

Mara and Roberto Germano, whose son was born on Sept. 3, 2006, had the boy named and baptized Venerdi, Italian for Friday.

Even though the boy was not born on a Friday — it was Sunday — his parents liked the name, said Rossi.

So what's his name?
Friday.
What's his name?
Friday.
Do you know the kid's name?
I should say I do.
Then what is it?
Friday.
Today.
Friday.
Can't you tell me today?
Of course I can.
Well, tell me the kid's name.
Friday.
This IS Friday.
Right.
So tell me the kid's name.
Friday.

"Hark The Herald Angels Sing ...About Me"

Woman's Day Cover - Dec. 1946
Originally uploaded by diann0605.

Daily Mail | Mental health charity sparks outrage with spoof Christmas carols
A bad taste top ten of Christmas carols poking fun at mental illness has been slammed as "degrading" and "insensitive" after it was published with the backing of a social services department.

The booklet contains a list titled "Christmas Carols for the Mentally Disturbed".

1. Schizophrenia - Do You Hear What I Hear?
2. Multiple Personality Disorder - We Three Kings Disorientated Are
3. Dementia - I Think I'll Be Home For Christmas
4. Narcissistic - Hark The Herald Angels Sing About Me
5. Manic - Deck the Halls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and...
6. Paranoid - Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me
7. Borderline Personality Disorder - Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
8. Personality Disorder - You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why
9. Attention Deficit Disorder - Silent Night, Holy, ooh look at the froggy - Can I have a chocolate? Why is France so far away?
10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells.

I'm trying to think of a good #11... Aha.

• Alcoholism - Here We Come A-Wassailing
  

It's... THEM!

Mon souper de Fête...
Originally uploaded by viiny.

Spiegel | Seafood Escapes from German Supermarket
Lobsters in Germany took fate into their own claws and broke out of an Asian supermarket. They now face a brighter future in an animal home.

Dozens of lobsters destined to be boiled alive made a successful getaway from an Asian supermarket in the German city of Stuttgart in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said.

The clawed crustaceans, some of them up to 15 centimeters long, managed to crawl out of their crates, which had been poorly secured with wire mesh, then scurried across the floor of the supermarket and squeezed through the metal shutters covering the front of the store. The front door had been left open by mistake.

"The breakout was successful," Katrin Brandeis, spokeswoman for the Stuttgart police, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Passers by alerted the police at 1:45 a.m. reporting a large number of the animals heading down the street."

The escape may have saved their lives. "These animals weren't ever going to be pets," Brandeis said. "Now they've been taken to an animal home. The supermarket hasn't got in touch with us."

"Taken to an animal home"? They're stolen property, not homeless.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I feel I must point out that Lincoln didn't free any lobsters.

Hell, next they'll be voting and getting drivers' licenses.

*Looks closer at the story"

Ah. Germany. Wait. Lobsters got rights in Germany?

But wait, there's more

What a deal!
Originally uploaded by peachtree5911.

I wonder how many green eggs they've sold since this promotion started.

my name is lisa

Watch with caution. This short film may make you cry.

As long as it's on sale

Great for Ramadan, too! (Photo from Seth's Blog.)

In fact, there's only one black family in America.

How do you outrage library patrons? Well, you let them find King & King on your shelves, in which a lonely Prince finds and, ultimately, marries his Prince Charming. Because, of course, parents will just scoop up any old thing and start reading to their kids (well, at least they're reading to their kids) without checking it themselves first.

Or Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides and Beach Music. Because high school students shouldn't be exposed to books that feature violence, suicide and sex. (Parents, do you never check the reading lists your kids bring home? It's a wonder the teen suicide rate isn't double what it is, after they've read On the Beach and 1984. It's a rare assigned book that the protagonist actually lives through.)

And if it's not the books causing trouble, it's the computers, those vile silicon temptresses.

As long as we're in the library, we could check @ the Library, Librarian.net, Librarian Avengers, and The Society for Librarians Who Say Mo--... well, if language is an issue for you, you might think twice about that one.

The Lack of Toilets on Star Trek

Oh noes I has not ideea fur blogin

moar funny pictures

Newton's Third Law

I'm detecting a pro-reproduction bias in the Daily Mail. See if you agree.

Daily Mail | Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni [Vermelli], 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

I'm all for it when people with little to no parental inclinations decide not to reproduce. The "reporters," though, make no attempt to hide their disgust and horror. They barely manage not to chortle when the woman admits that she and her husband "have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children," which they describe at some length.

Daily Mail | Woman told she'd had a miscarriage - then has triplets instead

When she was told she had suffered a miscarriage, Beverley Cunningham was devastated.

At the age of 40, she feared her last chance to have another baby had slipped away.

But only 24 hours later, after a scan to confirm the miscarriage, she and her husband Andrew were given the most incredible news.

Mrs Cunningham was still pregnant - with triplets.

At odds of nearly a million to one, she had conceived quads naturally, but had miscarried one of them at 12 weeks.

The story tries to present this as a feel-good story of a woman's triumph over a medical setback, having long-desired children despite the odds. The detail that these are children number five, six and seven glides by almost unnoticed.

But check the message board at Fark.com for conjecture that one of these children is...evil.

(Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.)

In the Eye of the Beholder

In the Eye of the Beholder
Originally uploaded by ixnay_.

Housecleaning...

Is there a proper way to load a dishwasher? Apparently.

Over time, this habit — establishing and maintaining eye contact — creates favorable situations and produces results. The eye-contact specialist gets talked to first, dealt with most promptly, and responded to most thoroughly. He's always first in line for a reason.

Most people (even many who work on the brain) assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually "made up" by the brain.

"Ha ha ha"?

Schöne Bescherung! Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!
Originally uploaded by Ma-Eh.

Yahoo News (AFP) | Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women
SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

...A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Why not try the Woody Woodpecker laugh? There's a Santa with style.

Did you change your clocks?

the homeless tourist
Originally uploaded by workingsux.

Well, it could be worse.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat | Study ties time shift, pedestrian deaths
Fischbeck and Gerard conducted a preliminary study of seven years of federal traffic fatalities and calculated risk per mile walked for pedestrians. They found that per-mile risk jumps 186 percent from October to November, but then drops 21 percent in December.

They said the drop-off by December indicates the risk is caused by the trouble both drivers and pedestrians have adjusting when darkness suddenly comes an hour earlier.

The reverse happens in the morning when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier. Pedestrian risk plummets, but there are fewer walkers then, too. The 13 lives saved at 6 a.m. don't offset the 37 lost at 6 p.m., the researchers found.

...The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, Va., in earlier studies found the switch from daylight saving time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths. Going to a year-round daylight saving time would save about 200 deaths a year, the institute calculated, said spokesman Russ Rader.

The answer to the number of lives, and the amount of money, that might be saved if we just leave the clocks the f**k alone awaits another study.

The Fightin' ...what?

Cracked magazine is gone, I think, but the website lives on. Today they have a list of the World's Most Ridiculous Sports Team Names, which is pretty fertile ground for ridicule if you take any of them seriously.

My all-time favorite, the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, is on their list -- although they considered it a runner-up in their "Non-Threatening Animals" category. Their winner: Japanese pro baseball's the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.

And you'd think "Non-Threatening Inanimate Objects", which includes the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes and the winning Teutopolis (H.S.) Wooden Shoes would have room for -- nay, be dominated by -- the Wichita State University Shockers and their mascot, Wushock (pictured). But, no, he's conspicuously absent.

I'm not a sports fan, and never have been, but I have a fondness for odd team mascots. Perhaps this is because at my high school, we were the Golden Tornadoes. And our colors were gold (duh) and maroon, which I always thought worked well together. That changed in my senior year, to Warhawks, but what high school senior is really interested in anything that happens at school any more?

I'm dreaming of a white Halloween

Tacky Christmas
Originally uploaded by ulla*.

You'll never guess what happened yesterday.

Well, that's a lie. You'll guess quite easily if you live in Kansas City. The lucky listeners of KCKC (Star 102.1) are now among the first in the nation to enjoy all-Christmas music, all the time.

Yes, on Halloween.

Crosstown rival Cuddle 98.1 wasted little time in doing the same, today, November 1.

Meanwhile, Walmart is making five of its "Black Friday" specials available tomorrow.

CORRECTION: The first radio station to flip their format to all-Christmas in 2007 was WNOU Indianapolis, who did the deed on October 8 to begin their "93 Days of Christmas". Incidentally, they're also getting their "contemporary hit" audience out of the habit of listening to them, since they're changing their call letters to WEXM and their format to all-talk effective January 9. But there's still a WNOU, since WYJX has bought the station's call letters, format, intellectual property, and as many of the existing staff as are willing to make the move. I really don't understand the radio industry.

I hate halloween

Yodog
Originally uploaded by myhappylittleplace.

I always have.

"The real world is really tough"

This year's "whiny college graduate unprepared for the job market" letter to the editor is in the Buffalo News.

Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the “real world,” equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying — let alone paying — jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.

(That should be "there are no paying — let alone well-paying — jobs for history majors". That's how the "this, let alone that" structure is used: The first example is general, the second more specific. Otherwise it makes no sense. But then you're a history major, not a language major, aren't you?)

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I had no intention of living in a society that was as unfair as this one. To seek a haven devoid of the ruthless 9-to-5 ebb and flow of contemporary America, I moved to Alaska.

As a liberal arts major, I dreamed of making a profound difference in people’s lives.

Doing what, exactly? What kind of life would you judge your history degree has prepared you for? What did you have in mind?

Instead, for a year, I lived in Coldfoot, a town north of the Arctic Circle that resembles a Soviet Gulag camp. My job as a tour guide for visitors...

This "Soviet Gulag camp" of a town has a tourism industry? Why, yes it does. It isn't the bustling metropolis Cicely is, but it has its charms -- apparently lost on Ken, here.

I've read this letter five or six times now, and it keeps getting funnier every time I read it. I just wish the paper had done a sidebar interview with his parents.

---

See also:

• Life Lessons (Shawna Gale, the grad from Yale)
• Does this mean I come with course credit?

Not that there's anything wrong with that

AP | J.K. Rowling outs Hogwarts character
Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

Tristan and Isolde. Merlin and Nimue. Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

Doesn't quite have the same mythic je ne se quoi, does it?

C'mon. Despite its phenomenal popularity, the Potter series is a children's book. Authority figures in children's books are almost completely sexless. The tragedy of the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald works without introducing the "romance that was not meant to be" motif into it.

Argh. Every minute I spend thinking about this yields another wrongness.

"I'm Dumbledore's man."

"Is it love again?" said Voldemort, his snake's face jeering. "Dumbledore's favorite solution, love..."

"Severus Snape wasn't yours," said Harry. "Snape was Dumbledore's..."

Headmaster. AAARGGGHH!

Weekend Monitor

purple skies.
Originally uploaded by D.James.

Yike! My defibrillator is being recalled!

Don't jog during thunderstorms!

Hypothesis: The little picture of a gas pump next to your car's fuel indicator tells you which side of your car the gas tank is on. Can this possibly be true?

CNN Money: Over half of the $8 billion the IRS expected to pay out in phone tax refunds remains unclaimed.

Freakonomics: If the personal computer were being put on the market for the first time now, what would they call it?

Argh Ink: The secret to writing romance is understanding the Glittery HooHa.

CNN: Bonnie Raitt answers your questions about nuclear power.

Wise Bread: Cracking the infamous McDonald's Monopoly Game.

Baltimore Sun: Believe your noodly master, Hon.

---

Special section: Education

For class of S.F. high school juniors, WWII details are elusive

School District Halts Shakespeare Production: Official Cites 'Inappropriate' Content

A crossword puzzle assigned as a homework lesson for fifth-graders studying a book about the 19th-century South asked them to use a racial slur _ the N-word _ as an answer.

College students having sex -- well, a little

Orestad Gymnasium, Denmark

What would you do if you found your child's elementary school teacher topless on MySpace? Knoxville News Sentinel; WATE; TransWorldNews; Web Site Traffic Marketing (if you want to see the pictures in question; they're much more modest than you might imagine). As of Monday, she's been cleared to return to class, since an investigation has so far been unable to show she did anything wrong. (She may not have posted the photos herself.)

Happy Sputnik Day!

Sputnik cup holder
Originally uploaded by m5.

Thanks, Ron, for reminding me of this landmark.

New York Times: It's difficult to recapture the sense of paranoia and self-doubt that Sputnik created in the U.S., but the New York Times' coverage of that week helps a bit.

Ron adds:

The ‘New York Times’: Spreading paranoia and self-doubt for fifty years! :) (At least.)

And counting.

New York Times: After all, the first step into space was an achievement that transcended politics.

Bwah hah hah, I say, and furthermore, chortle. Ron observes:

Tell that ‘un to Wernher von Braun. He probably could have put ‘Explorer 1’ up a coupla months before ‘Sputnik,’ except that Dwight Eisenhower insisted America’s first satellite go up on a ‘civilian’ booster.

Here, there, and everywhere

pink AK-47
Originally uploaded by pinkrifledotcom.

Gun Marketers Sez: "Pink Is For Girls." (Original story at Ananova.)

Yahoo News: Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn't a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.

Reuters: Advertisers aiming to reach high-flyers with no alternative distraction will soon have a new method: adverts the size of three football pitches seen by plane passengers coming in to land.

...Paul Jenkins, managing director of Ad-Air, said the adverts would appear in "clutter-free environments and moments free of any other commercial messages."

He sounds like he thinks this is a good thing.

I wonder where they found otherwise-undeveloped five-acre plots close enough to major airports to bother. Specifically, I wonder where the proposed Atlanta ad is.

On the plus side, you can't see it while you're stranded on the tarmac.

Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined.

Consumerist: DirecTV is making automated calls to their Do Not Call List subscribers, offering them the option to reverse their decision.

We initiated this recent do-not-call update campaign in order to make sure that information about our customers' preferences is up to date and accurately reflects our customers' wishes. We have found that a customer who at one time requested to be put on our internal do-not-call list may later decide that he or she would like to receive information from us about a variety of things.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

What is the Monkeysphere?

Jim Nabors, perhaps best known as his loveable, often-bumbling character Gomer Pyle from the hit CBS television show “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.,” was promoted to Honorary Corporal in a sunset ceremony held at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki Sept. 25.