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realinterrobang's LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, May 19th, 2013 | | 3:29 pm |
Quotes, My Little Friend Likes the Windows Edition
When they write an epitaph for the American Empire it will read “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. -- bourbaki, Balloon Juice, comments Randomness cannot be controlled or held to account or even planned for. It's like the heavens above are filled with cold, uncaring stars--many of which died eons ago but continue to shine because light of their death hasn't reached us yet. -- Derelict, Alicublog, comments In the lobby, there were bleeding runners—not, it turned out, hurt by the explosions, but who had been in the medical tent next door, being treated for such comparatively mundane maladies as dehydration. They’d ripped out their IVs and made space on the cots for the injured. -- Charles P. Pierce, "Boston Bombing," Esquire [M]ethinks a live writing sample (with no dictionary, internet or sms available) would flush out many a headache producing employee before hire. -- Spectator, Respectful Insolence, comments [ Tech writers pretty much have to do this as a matter of course. -- ?!] You may never use a quadratic equation again for the rest of your days, but no matter where you're headed, your life will be forever richer if you know how to informally test an idea, play on a team, make a satisfying dinner, speak some basic Spanish, handle a wrench and a drill, and write an engaging narrative on a subject you care about. -- Sara Robinson, “How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future,” Alternet.org ( She's enjoying the bird sounds too.Collapse ) | | Sunday, May 12th, 2013 | | 11:18 pm |
| | Saturday, May 11th, 2013 | | 7:09 pm |
Prosaic Adventures in a Poetic Place, Part 1
So I went to Israel again, this time for a vacation. I had a really good time. Before I left, there was some speculation that the workers at Ben-Gurion International Airport were going to go on strike, and a Facebook friend said that if the airport closed while my plane was in the air, we'd probably be diverted to Cyprus. Since  dglenn happened to be on Cyprus at the time, I made a point of getting phone numbers so we could get together if I wound up there. I didn't -- the flight went smoothly, except I didn't get a chance to take an amytriptaline pill at the right time during the flight, so I essentially got no sleep on the flight, and so I felt like hell when I got there. Note to would-be travellers -- I know they tell you to stow heavier items under the seat in front of you, but if you have a fairly hefty backpack containing a laptop and a bunch of other stuff, take out a few things you're going to want, stuff them under the seat, and stick the thing in the overhead bin. Your legs and feet will thank you. I made it to Toronto on the airport shuttle just fine, and then through Pearson ok thanks to a helpful electric-cart driver. The flight was pretty uneventful, although I was sitting next to this cornfed-looking dude who was on some kind of Christian group tour, which offended me a little in some vague way. We got in to TLV a little early thanks to a substantial tailwind, and debarked. I was so excited and woozy, I don't think my feet touched the ground for the first little bit. I got my luggage and then went to sit down on a bank of chairs by the Customs exit in the arrivals hall, so I could put my pleather jacket in my backpack. Unfortunately, it was snowing when I left here, and 16C in Tel Aviv when I arrived. I made the dire mistake of setting my passport and travel documents (hotel booking reservations and stuff) down on the seat beside me... ...and then forgetting to pick them up again after I adjusted my stuff and continued on my way out through Customs! I found a helpful security guard to whom I was able to communicate my problem -- in English despite my actually being able to say such things in Hebrew these days. I discovered that when I'm really tired and flustered, I can barely speak coherent English, let alone Hebrew. He took me back through Customs (the wrong way), and I was able to retrieve my stuff at the information desk. Then I caught a cab to my hotel in Bat Yam (a seaside town just south of Tel Aviv -- when I booked the hotel, I didn't realise it wasn't part of TLV, owing to the fact that every neighbourhood in every town of any size in Israel seems to have its own name). The cab driver was really nice, and helpful. I tipped him large, as I am wont to do, and his reaction was absolutely endearing... To be continued! Current Mood:  blah | | Friday, May 10th, 2013 | | 11:07 pm |
Cats are amazing creatures
James Nicoll has a cat who won't steal food from his other cats, and apparently trained one of his other cats (Cleo) to balance a kibble on his head for hours, or until his other cat Eddie ate it off Cleo's head. I know I couldn't do that with these two. Gypsy, while tractable enough to be trained to do something like that, lacks the mental horsepower, and George, while smart enough to be trained to do something like that, would likely react like "Ain't nobody got time for that! GROMF!" I could have done it with Nero, probably, but I never tried. I did teach him to lie down on command, at least... Current Mood: blah | | Saturday, May 4th, 2013 | | 9:43 pm |
Quotes, Back From Communing with the Palm Trees Edition
Travel diary upcoming... [M]y point, as a guy with Cerebral Palsy, is that being disabled (or being the loved one of someone who is) gives a person a choice: 1)Support equality for all as a way of taking revenge on the thugs and bigots who see us as less than normal, or 2)Let your tormentors win by joining them. -- Jay, Balloon Juice, comments "Family" focus-groups a lot better than "patriarchal kleptocracy with theocratic overtones." … Also, and not incidentally, it's easier to spell. -- BigHank53, Alicublog, comments I hope that when Fred Phelps dies, drag queens picket his funeral. -- ConnieHinesDorothyProvine, Raw Story, comments I'm going to change my sex to AK-47, then the conservatives finally will protect my rights. -- delazan, Tom Smith and his Digital Acoustic LJ, comments [M]y parents lived in Georgia when my dad was stationed at Ft Gordon in the 60s (2 of my uncles went to Viet Nam, and my grandmother contacted her rep, invoking the Sullivan Act). My dad wasn’t sufficiently white for the rednecks, and he was as pale as the Ace of Teeth. -- Big Bad Bald Bastard, Sadly, No!, comments ( Boy, did *I* have *fun*...Collapse ) Current Mood: blah | | Friday, May 3rd, 2013 | | 1:15 pm |
QOTD
The Internet has robbed today’s generation of teenaged boys the character-building experience of trying to pass for 18 while purchasing a Playboy or Penthouse or other—ahem—"adult" magazine at the local 7/11 (or judge which cashiers just didn’t care and would sell to you anyway). Not that I’d know anything about that, of course. I heard it from my friends… -- David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine, comments I don't know, back in my misspent yout', we just used to shoplift porno magazines. Of course, being straight girls and all, we shoplifted Playgirl and whatever gay porn titles we could steal, but it saved having to try to convince the clerks we were of legal age... Current Mood:  amused | | Friday, April 12th, 2013 | | 10:56 pm |
Quotes, I Thought I Wasn't Going to Sit Down Edition
My recommendations for 20th century blockbusters include the battles over the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the Transportation Act of 1920 and the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. -- patroclus, Balloon Juice, comments When you have several hundred square miles of city, most of it in single family homes, and a declining population and tax base, it's nearly impossible to give everyone who lives/works in the city the services that they need. So you get crumbling infrastructure, lack of services, increased crime (to which cops can't respond to adequately). Which, of course, leads to more people leaving the city or being reluctant to move in or even visit, which just exacerbates the problems. -- Taylor16, The Atlantic, comments And why do these dweebs never say "Imma be all manly and build a barn for my neighbours " or "Imma help build a library, in a manly fashion" It's always destructive manliness. which is actually thuggishness, innit? -- Another Kiwi, Alicublog, comments The devil doesn’t show up with a tail and the smell of sulfur. He wears a suit and hands out contracts. -- RonZ, Whatever, comments I am not hung up on ‘listening to my body’ (on account of the bad advice it has given me in the past — never trust your body for investment decisions)... -- herr doktor bimler, Respectful Insolence, comments ( And now I'm doing THIS!Collapse ) | | Tuesday, April 9th, 2013 | | 9:00 pm |
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
I leave for Israel on the 20th! I'm doing a 9-day vacation, so this time I should (halevay!) have time to do some sightseeing and shopping. Transportation is giving me a headache (I don't drive), but I'll figure it out. Current Mood:  tired | | Friday, March 29th, 2013 | | 9:45 pm |
Quotes, I Can Not Brane Today, I Haz Teh Dum Edition
In the Torah we are specifically enjoined not to throw a stumbling block in the way of a blind man. This is extended to mean, by analogy, that you are forbidden (it is immoral) to do something to someone even though they are ignorant of the danger. For instance if you are a financial planner and your client is too dumb, or too ill informed, to see the financial risk in something you are doing with their money you are obligated to take the precaution for them. -- aimai, Balloon Juice, comments To be educated and disabled can be a curse. I know this, because I have a disability that would make me unemployable if I had only a high school education. But I am a college graduate with lots of intellectual and other boring skills, so I am employable, although I work in pain most of the time, have to work from home at times just to be able to function, and so on. My brain is the only part of me that really works well. -- carolannie, Mother Jones, comments I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public. -- CPAC attendee Scott Terry, quoted at Think Progress I was at walmart the other day, and I was sitting on a bench waiting for my mom to pay, and I was braiding my hair because that's something I do when I'm bored, and this dude walks by and says "Hey, baby, what else can you do with your hands?" I gave him my most polite smile and said in the sweetest way possible, " strangle you." And I think I actually scared him because his eyes got kind of wide and he just walked away. -- tumblr user isurvivedthekobayashimaru, from imgur In Canada books are cheaper because they're in metric. I know this for a fact. -- BetweenTwoWorlds, The Atlantic, comments [ I wish… -- ?!] ( And I'm out of cat food.Collapse ) Current Mood: blah | | 6:20 pm |
Backsliding
Well, I failed a little bit in my experiment -- I was feeling like hell on Wednesday night, and stopped at the local Vietnamese joint, and got sa te soup with egg noodles, and I had rice last night. Oh well. No bread, cookies, or any of that stuff, though. Current Mood:  hungry | | Tuesday, March 26th, 2013 | | 8:42 pm |
Quotes, I Can't Believe It's Not Chametz, Special Balloon Juice Edition
When you’re a sociopath with a hammer, everything is a nail. -- Sayne, Balloon Juice, comments America is a place where the luxuries are cheap and the essentials are expensive. -- pseudonymous in nc, Balloon Juice, comments One of the saddest stories I ever heard on NPR was about a woman who had her toddler taken away for “failure to thrive” because it turned out she was withholding food from him whenever she felt he had misbehaved. When the social workers told her what was going to happen, she rolled up her sleeves to show the burn marks her own parents had put there when they punished her as a child and said, “Where the fuck were you guys when this was happening to me? At least I never hit my baby.” And the social workers didn’t really have a good answer. She was trying her best to do better than her parents had, but she was coming from such a huge deficit in understanding that her version of “doing better” was still abusive. -- Mnemosyne, Balloon Juice, comments Arriving at work one morning, I swiped a danish at the card reader instead of my security badge. Weeks later, I had a dream where I did the same thing … and it beeped and let me in. -- The Other Chuck, Balloon Juice, comments [I]t bears mentioning that in Greek the word “Euro” means “I piss.” -- Xenos, Balloon Juice, comments ( Solidarity forever...solidarity forever...Collapse ) Current Mood: blah | | Friday, March 22nd, 2013 | | 8:12 pm |
Pesach Challenge
Inspired by my legions and hordes of Israeli coworkers, who run the gamut from atheist to frum, I'm going to try to see if I can make it through Pesach myself without eating any leavened bread or grain products. I'm not cutting out pulses, though, because a) I'd starve, and b) I'm not that hardcore. Current Mood: amused | | Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 | | 8:47 pm |
Quotes, I Hate to Work at Nothing All Day Edition
The internet is the most wonderful Library in the World. But you have to filter and corroborate, which makes it almost as onerous as the Dewey Decimal System. -- Ben Franklin, Balloon Juice, comments When your growth, such as it is, is based on cheap-ass, middle-of-nowhere real-estate bought by people who can't afford New York or LA anymore, minimum-wage, right-to-get-fired jobs whose workers essentially feed their paychecks into their gas tanks (because trains and buses are communist, obviously), and state governments that in many cases actively pursue a policy of identifying an underclass and publicly shaming them as useless and unworthy, it's not a symbol of real wealth or real prosperity. It's an illusion. -- Spaghetti Lee, Alicublog, comments [4:29 pm]<tomble> he has to drink until he can no longer pronounce "conditional access module" [4:29 pm]<tomble> or "electronic programme guide"? -- eviltomble, in chat, on how my boss celebrates Purim There, now im just going to leave this little comment. Im just lightly tapping the keyboard there, there. You can see the midnight black text happily sitting here on the background of titanium white. Now, dont read this text too fast, take your time let your eyes make love to it. I'm going to do this one more long sentance, just to give the other four sentance's a little friend, sentances need friends too. Now i'll just sign it - Glasgow Celtic. God bless. -- YouTube user Glasgow Celtic, in comments for "Bob Ross The Joy Of Painting Se 1, Ep 1, A Walk in the Woods" I explained this dilemma to my wife in the car yesterday, and her response rapidly mutated from “that’s stupid, why would anyone ask that” to “huh, I never thought of it like that” to “well, now I’m confused, I could go either way,” and ultimately to “my entire Weltanschauung is built upon a foundation of half-truths, and now I hate you,” which is really where any conversation in the car ought to end up. -- chtp, Whatever, comments ( Takin' care of business...tomorrow.Collapse ) | | Friday, March 15th, 2013 | | 2:03 pm |
Hating on Adoptees, Part the Whateverth
Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts' family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option -- John Eastman, Chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, quoted in “Diverse High Court Families Mirror Country,” Associated Press, March 13, 2013 In a sense, I absolutely love it when these people come out and say what they really mean. Don't hold back, Johnny, tell us all again how we're just the factory seconds of families. Tell us aaaaall about it. Current Mood:  annoyed | | Sunday, March 10th, 2013 | | 9:07 pm |
Quotes, Happy Little Crocuses Edition
I’m convinced that in prehistoric times, there was a species of dinosaur that sounded like a vacuum cleaner. And it ate cats. -- Darkrose, Balloon Juice, comments Some years ago, a close friend got into a long discussion with his doctor at the end of an appointment; the discussion was on opera. After about ten minutes, the doc remembered that she was discussing this with a guy from a working-class background, in a skilled-labor job that left him with busted knuckles and oil under his fingernails, and asked “How do you know about this stuff?!” His quiet response was, “Libraries are free, and PBS went down poor people’s antennas too.” -- Don Hilliard, Whatever, comments When violence suddenly ruptures the course of our lives, we tend to tell ourselves stories in order to make it more explicable. -- Patrick Radden Keefe, “A Mass Shooter’s Tragic Past,” The New Yorker I just like the idea of random ancient political movements occupying key faculty positions at Ivy League institutions. Harvard Law is dominated by communists. Yale Business School's faculty harbors dozens of Hussites and Ultraquists. Princeton Biochem is a hotbed of White Lotus Society sympathizers. The Cornell Hotel School is full of Ikkō-ikki diehards. UPenn dental is rumored to be soft on the Gracchi. It's fantastic. (Both in the "fantasy" and "neat" senses.) -- Julian Elson, Raw Story, comments These trees are so much fun, I get started on them, and I have a hard time stopping. -- Bob Ross, "The Joy of Painting: Winter Moon" ( It seems like it might actually be spring out there. Who knew?Collapse ) Current Mood: tired | | Sunday, March 3rd, 2013 | | 3:23 pm |
Quotes, California Earthquake Edition
Aren’t they adorable? I just want to pat them on the head. Or kick them in the nuts, whichever. -- Alison, Balloon Juice, comments [P]eople probably need more money to buy food in bulk, and that's true, but to the system keeping people on a short leash is a feature, not a bug. God forbid that you should be able to use your food money to buy enough food at one time that you might be tempted to feed other people outside your household (thus entering into supportive long term relationships with kin) or stop needing the assistance mid-month and "get away" with an extra bag of potatoes. -- aimai, Alicublog, comments [ Who knew stone soup was that subversive? -- ?!] My partner loves telling people about how I broke our laptop. I threw it at a spider. In my defence it was huge, weird (not like normal British spiders), and coming right for me. I really hate spiders. -- elburto, Respectful Insolence, comments Your arguments need stilts to reach the bottom of specious. -- phhht, Panda’s Thumb, comments When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead. That is all. -- eataTREE, Sadly, No!, comments ( One of these days I'm going to put together a playlist of different songs with the same titles.Collapse ) Current Mood: restless | | Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 | | 5:09 pm |
Quotes, Ow My Ow Edition
In that argument about contraception as preventive care awhile back, people were arguing that pregnancy is not a disease. Yeah, well, disease or not, if left “untreated” it will kill a substantial percentage of women. -- liberal, Balloon Juice, comments I forgot Axiom 1: “It is always a liberal’s fault when conservative ideas fail”. -- Cerberus, “Upperclass Twit of the Year,” Sadly, No! There are only three problems with homeopathy. First, there is no reason to suppose it should work. Second, there is no way it can work. Third, there is no proof it does work. -- Guy Chapman, Science-Based Medicine, comments As a rule, few contributing editors contribute, and no contributing editors edit. -- Jonathan Chait, “Hitler Alive and Well, Owning Liberal Magazine,” Daily Intelligencer I had an English teacher who despaired of my science fiction short stories – she was one of those people who said that if it was science fiction, it wasn’t good, and if it was good, it wasn’t science fiction. I used to retaliate by telling her that Hemingway (her favourite) wrote books that were just well-written Commando comics. -- John K. Fulton, Whatever, comments ( I said, ow.Collapse ) | | Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 | | 9:58 pm |
The 60s B-Movie Generator
I've figured out that if you combine two adjectives -- one a descriptor and one a class -- with a noun, you can generate endless strings of 1960s B-movie titles. Cases in point:
| Topless | Nazi | Carhops |
| Filthy | Hell's Angel | Aliens |
| Sexy | Beach | Bikers |
| Horny | Go-Go | Teens |
| Black | Biker | Hookers |
| Bottomless | Rock and Roll | Surfers |
| Space | Racing | Hippies |
| Killer | Cowboy | Dragsters |
HTML Tables And so on and so forth. Note that you can pretty much switch up any of the rows, as long as you keep the adjectives and noun in the same order. Getting the authentic flavour does require picking the right words, however. Current Mood: amused | | Friday, February 8th, 2013 | | 12:58 pm |
| | Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 | | 8:07 pm |
Quotes, *sigh* Edition
Hi, everyone, I've been insanely busy with work, life, and everything. I only now feel like I've sort of gotten my groove back after having pneumonia a month ago. I am coming up with some original content marginally related to corporate culture, so stay tuned. In the meantime, have some quotes. -- ?! [W]hat did you live for? Was it love? Was it fear? Was it sincere? -- redshirt, Balloon Juice, comments To any anti-science lunatics who are planning on unleashing their “If [vaccine] is safe then whyyyy are so many people living with chronic conditions like asthma, allergies, and diabetes?” schtick, let me save you the effort. They’re living with chronic health problems because they’re living. That’s it, full stop. Without scientific advances such as bronchodilators and corticosteroids, emergency preparations like epi-pens used alongside simple antihistamines, and synthetic insulin. and testing devices, a good chunk of people would not make it to double digits. The same goes for vaccines – not dying from measles,related encephalitis means you get to live with whatever else you have. So please, don’t go there. -- elburto, Respectful Insolence, comments [ Every time I take antibiotics or something, I think about all the times where, without modern medicine, I wouldn’t be here. If I hadn’t died at birth, any number of things probably would have taken me out. -- ?!] I normally like Americans, but these NYC types seem a bit weird - I mean, fancy deciding that there's nothing like an orgasm for ruining a pleasant evening! -- Brownly, The Guardian, comments '[C]ute' is the ammo of evolution's secret weapon. -- tosser, imgur, comments A dog is a dog, a fish is a fish, a bird is a bird, and a cat is a person. -- Dorothy Parker, quoted by harvey_rrit, More Words, Deeper Hole, comments ( Am I blue? No, I'm fit to be tied!Collapse ) Current Mood: blah |
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