February 2008
I went out and bought Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess today… and while working through it is awesome, I can’t get over how embarrassed I was to buy it. Not because it was about chess, but because of the whole “extreme anti-semite” thing.
January 2008
From Deadspin and Big Daddy Drew:
Note To Tom Petty:
Dear Tom,
Please play the following setlist at halftime: “You Got Lucky,” “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” (if you could dance on stage with the corpse of Kim Basinger for the last one, that would be awesome). I know this setlist is likely not what I will receive....
I don’t know why, but I’m getting flat out bored with my theme.
travors:
Holy shit, why didn’t anyone tell me Zen Habits has a tumblelog?! Cool!
[this is followed]
I came up with the best line today while grocery shopping… but I can’t remember it. It was some combination of a regular hip-hop term and a food. It was so gloriously whitebread.
When I tried relaying the story to B, I stumbled on an even better line in that same vein. “Soulja Boyardee”. I think I just found myself a new on-air name.
Dan Shanoff's State of the Sports Union →
I’ll spoil it for you, because it’s important: “2008 can’t possibly be worse than 2007. “
“Look, I normally don’t have time to read some junk by some punk blogger on...”
– A review by “M. Wilbon” on Will Leitch’s God Save the Fan. It’s like I’m reading PTI before my very eyes!
Okay, this was really cool, and I had to share it.
I was supposed to do a phone interview with the head basketball coach at Buffalo. I called them on Wednesday, but they didn’t get back to me until Friday. I still wanted to do the interview for the pregame show, so we set up a time today… which of course meant going into the office on a weekend, which kinda sucks. B asked me why I couldn’t do it...
SA Thread: Chess →
I am absolutely loving this thread, because I have always had a love-hate relationship with chess. I absolutely love the game, but I’ve never learned anything past basic tactics. Openings are a complete mystery to me, and so I usually get lit up. I either attack too soon and end up losing pieces, or I stall for too long and get overwhelmed. (By the way, my proudest moment in chess can be...
Another revolt at Digg →
Via aatw and marco, it’s the most self-important horsecrap I’ve ever read. Marco pointed out these excerpts….
if you’re plugged into the social news space or the blogosphere at all, you’ve probably already heard about the mini-revolt that took place at digg a few hours ago.
And…
frustrated by what we saw as a move to suppress the top contributors to the site and...
Gotta love the “reply all” to an email distributed to thousands that asks a question clearly answered in the original. Next up: 999 “don’t cc me”s — toldorknown
Oh, just wait for the dozens of people who complain that they have the same problems in their branch.
“Every little thing she does is tragic.”
– From here. I can’t say I’m too thrilled about the content of the site, seeing as it’s built solely to trash one person online… but damn that’s a funny line.
Wednesday Nights have kind of become dude night. B has class until 10pm, and my mom takes Ella, so I’m by my lonesome for a good chunk of hours. It works for catching up on schoolwork, housework, workwork, or just screwing around.
Tonight, it was Tony Packo’s Pizza from Vitos, a Labatt’s, and finally getting around to watching Superbad. Good times all around.
Of course, at 10pm, it’s Runway....
“Seriously, Page Six is a true testament to the democratic ideals of journalism. ...”
– The folks at With Leather, on the ridiculousness of gossip rags. This is what you get when TMZ and the like start reporting on sports.
I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to… Nationwide.
Weren’t expecting that, were you?
Bijan Sabet (via Marco):
[…] The sad reality is that I’m going to firmly support anyone that wins the nomination for the Democratic party. I’ve been hearing that same view from all of my democrat friends.
But the trouble is that it doesn’t feel like my party at times.
It feels like Republican-lite.
I hope I’m wrong.
It’s funny… working at a talk radio station, I’ve...
I’m not looking forward to the next two weeks. As much as I’m a fan of the Super Bowl, the press coverage leading up to it will be simply unbearable. Every player, every position will be examined, scanned, sliced, diced, and pureed. Every storyline will be told over and over and over. And 60 minutes of football will be built up to a battle between the gods.
It’s with that...
Yeah, I stole this joke.
B: Oh my god, Heath Ledger died?
Me: Oh yeah, I heard that at work, it hit about 5.
B: I didn't hear, I was still at the daycare.
Me: Yeah, it came down pretty late... late, as in the late Heath Ledger.
“This might be the fat guy in me speaking, but pudding is awesome.”
– Me, at the grocery store last night.
Where's the Arena? →
I don’t know how I stumbled on this, but it’s a fantastic writeup on the Toledo Sports Arena, which has been out of service for a little less than a year now.
I first entered the Toledo Sports Arena in 2003. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was no glass behind the Storm’s bench, so if you sat in the first row, you were no more than three feet from the players without separation. The...
Really truly sorry. →
This was Tumblr’s apology for the downtime. It technically wasn’t even their fault, but they’re truly sorry about it.
Compare it to Dreamhost’s “apology”.
Work Week
Today is my first attempt to stick to some sort of work schedule, ie, actually working for a block of several hours without web-goofing or napping or reading. — jakoblodwick
I feel kinda bad after reading this, because I’m totally phoning it in today. Boss had to fill in this morning, so he’s already gone home to sleep. And you know what they say about “When the cat’s...
The Doctor Will See Your Credit Now →
The folks who invented the credit score for lenders are hard at work developing a similar tool for hospitals and other health care providers.
The project, dubbed “MedFICO” in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system...
That’s weird… I posted the quote after the song, but the song seems to appear ahead.
WatchI’ve been listening to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and this song is the theme of the series. Such a fantastic song, you’ve never heard a banjo played with such emotion.
“Ricky has to hope that the next challenge is to make a dress out of tears and...”
– Copernic, on Project Runway. Jesus this season is hard to watch.
Wouldn’t it be awesome is Alonzo Mourning had a radio show?
He could be Mourning in the Morning.
SimCity Source Code GPL'ed →
Very cool, even if they had to rename it “Micropolis”. Although…
There’s been changes to the original system like a new splash screen, some UI feedback from QA, etc. The plane crash disaster has been removed as a result of 9/11.
I can’t roll my eyes far enough back.
You can say what you will about Chipotle Burritos. I think they’re delicious, but some may think they’re excessive. But try as you might, you can NOT deny their chips. Fucking awesome.
“What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s...”
– Mike Huckabee, via dalas and jakob. Be afraid.
Most Read (And Stolen!) Books in St. Louis →
Money Quote:
Subterranean no longer stocks Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman because people took the title literally. Now the most stolen is Bed, Bed, Bed by They Might Be Giants. “I have no idea why,” says owner Kelly von Plonski. “I wouldn’t think They Might Be Giants fans would normally be thieves.”