Damn, this is so cool. I would have loved to have seen this happening. The second picture is the better one I think.
Ten thousand superballs rolling down a San Francisco hill-street
Cory Doctorow:
These photos document the release of 10,000 small superballs at the San Francisco hilltop corner of Filbert and Leavenworth. Wow.[via Boing Boing Blog]
Mark Twain
"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." [Quotes of the Day]
The Billings Gazette has an article up about how Evel Knievel has Ideopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).
TWIN FALLS, Idaho - Evel Knievel may have finally met his match. And he's not going to clear this hurdle.
Renowned for his death-defying stunts, Knievel has now landed in major medical trouble. He says his doctors give him three to five years to live.
Knievel suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that scars the lungs, replacing the air sacs with scar tissue. As the scars form, the tissue becomes thicker, reducing the lung's ability to absorb oxygen. There is no cure. [BillingsGazette.com]
Here's sending my best, it's a horrible disease.
Though I'm sick of all the news surrounding the hidden sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas I enjoyed this column over on sfgate.com:
There's Sex In My Violence!
What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"? I am outraged!...
Suddenly that downloadable patch you installed last night kicks in and there's, like, a lame and badly animated sex scene, right there, right between the graphic bloody part where you bazooka'd the police helicopter and the part where the gang-banger gets his lame ass beaten with a large handgun, and suddenly you're like, what the hell? Who stuck this lame badly animated sex in here? Where'd my soul-numbing ultraviolent racism go? I am outraged. [sfgate.com]
After reading about the pilot for a TV show called Global Frequency over on Heath Row's Media Diet my curiosity went into overdrive. I read up about it some on the net and then hunted down a copy of it. One of the best pilot episodes I've seen ever I think.
But what is just as interesting is how this leaked pilot has really generated interest in the show. People are asking "how can we help get this show to TV". The site FrequencySite has coverage of what's going on with it (though they don't suggest you go out and download the show, that would be bad :)). But imagine if a network were smart enough to use this as a way to promote a new show. Especially one that might be a bit of a risk (as this one may be). Then see how strong the feedback is, and they might get an idea of how successful it could be.
Anyways, if you get a chance to see this, definitely check it out. I now kind of hope that it does actually get picked up after all.
Now Playing: Love at First Sight from the album "Black Sea" by XTC
Originally seen over on LJ:
Call to turn exam failure into a qualified success
By Alexandra Blair, Education CorrespondentA RETIRED primary school teacher has called for the word "failure" to be banned from the classroom and replaced with "deferred success".
Liz Beattie, who taught for 37 years, said that children's aspirations to learn are crushed as soon as they are deemed failures and that they should be praised instead.
The motion to remove the word "fail" from the educational vocabulary will be put formally to members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) at the union’s annual conference in Buxton, Derbyshire, at the end of the month. [The Times]
Bah. I think this school teacher is an idiot. While I don't think you should necessarily yell "MY GOD YOU SUCK" to a student in the middle of class, getting rid of the concept of failure is a horrible idea. And just how are you supposed to praise the kid who got a zero on a test? Good job Billy! You got the lowest grade in the class, a new record! Keep up the good work!
Now Playing: D-tecnolife from the album "D-tecnolife Single" by UVERworld
LJ user terrajen points to today's New York City edition of the Metro describing how to recognize terrorists.
So if you see someone sweating a lot during the summer and avoiding eye contact in Manhattan call the cops!
Adrants has links to two videos from AOL promoting their new service AIM mail.
To promote its new AIM Mail, AOL has a couple of strange online videos, created by ATTIK. One has a receptionist drifting into a daydream which consists of superhero midgets...oops...dwarfs...oops...little people giving her a tickle attack. The other has a pair of sushi falling in love only to have one killed by getting eaten. Both end with @aim addresses and no other form of linkage.
Once at the AIM Mail site, there are blogs that promote the videos. The videos can be viewed HERE and HERE. [Adrants]
No real point here, just some links I found interesting today.
Daily Star: "Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange!"
Actual line: "This glum, violent drama about a Scottish thug ruined by drink is written and pretentiously directed by Richard Jobson whose approach — Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange — is bad enough to drive you to drink in no time."
Now I'm off to try updating this blog to MT 3.2.
Gertrude Stein
"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." [Quotes of the Day]
I'm back in CT after two days of doctor appointments in Boston. They wanted to check out my heart, since my heart rate had been a bit irregular right after my surgery. The good news is that my heart is doing just fine.
Then last night we went to Evoo, one of my favorite restaurants. I'd wanted my mom to go for a while, as I thought she'd really like it. And she did. I had the Chinese Box, my favorite thing on the menu, and as always it was quite yummy.
Then today was my regular appointment at the transplant clinic. Everything looks to be doing okay. And the best news is they gave me the okay to drive. So I believe I'll be taking a short drive tomorrow :). So happy!
Once again, something from Boing Boing leaves me a bit speachless:
Lapjuicer designed for lapdancers to make juice
This chair is designed to hold a piece of fruit so a lapdancer can grind the juice out of it. Semi-NSFW photos of the chair in action can be seen at the link.
Today I did some music shopping while my sister met a friend at the mall for coffee and discovered they'd re-released the original Sasha & John Digweed Renaissance mixes. A friend of mine had the original release and I'd had burned copies, but I definitely wanted to get my own copies eventually (even if the packaging isn't quite as slick as they were).
And it looks like there are more mix CDs coming out again. It seems like there'd been a bit of a lull for a while there. I noticed a new Digweed CD and two new Sasha ones. I'm not sure how new they actually are, but I hadn't seen them before.
Now playing: Song For Life (Steppin Razor Mix) from the album "Renaissance The Mix Collection (Disc 1) Re-mastered 10th Anniversary Edition" by Leftfield
SFGate.com has an interesting article about Anime Expo and anime/manga fandom in general:
While the rest of the nation prepared to mark the Fourth of July by consuming charred lumps of meat and blowing stuff up, a gleeful mob was descending on unsuspecting Anaheim, Calif., for a very different kind of celebration. Called AX, or simply "the Expo" by its organizers and its legion of eager attendees, it too commemorated a declaration of independence . . . in this case, from the dull shackles of reality.
Breach the glass-and-concrete bunker of the Anaheim Convention Center on Expo weekend, and you pass into a parallel dimension populated by pink-haired schoolgirls and DIY 'droids, portly alien invaders and bespectacled ninja assassins. It's a place where little things like race and gender and nationality take a backseat to more important distinctions, like whether you prefer dubs or subtitles. A world where an ordinary guy can be a hero, a king -- or hell, a magical fairy princess. [SFGate.com]
While the rest of the family was out at the movies today I finished reading the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon. It was a fascinating book. Christopher Boone, a 15-year old autistic boy, discovers his neighbor's dog dead and decides to find out who did it. It was a look into the mind of someone with Autism, showing someone who was very intelligent, but who just didn't interact with the world as we do. It's quirky, funny, deep, and just made me feel good when I finished it. And yes, the mystery is solved, though that's just half the story.
Joystiq reports an ad by Blizzard and Coke for World of Warcraft and Coke. It's pretty nifty. It would be cool if we got some ads like that.
Those damn people at NASA! How dare they? :)
Russian astrologer sues NASA over comet experiment
MOSCOW (AFP) - A Russian astrologer has taken legal action against NASA for compensation, claiming that the US space agency's bombardment of the Tempel 1 comet will upset her horoscope and violates her spiritual rights.
The experiment, in which NASA fired a projectile the size of a fridge at the comet Monday, was an attack on "the holy of holies," Marina Bai's law suit claims, according to Russian press reports. Her suit, filed at a Moscow court, claims violation of her "life and spiritual values." [Yahoo! News]
Today I made ribs using my friend Ellen's favorite recipe. Overall I'd say they came out quite good. I think I have some experimenting to do with the spice rub, but the ribs themselves came out nice and tender.
It felt nice to be cooking. I also did corn on the cob on the grill, which I think is one of my favorite ways to have it. Just soak it in water for a while in water and put it right on the grill. Don't bother shucking it until you are ready to eat it.
Happy 4th of July everyone. I haven't been posting much because I just haven't felt like I've had much to say. But the last day or two I've been feeling a little bit more talkative and it finally reached critical mass.
My sister and nephew are here visiting for the week, which is nice. My nephew is all about playing Pokemon on his GBA. He keeps wanting to trade with me (Yes, I have it too.) The problem is I haven't played in months and have no idea how I got different Pokemon. Though he's since educated me on how to evolve all kinds of various ones (whether I wanted to know or not). He's a good kid, needs to listen to his mom more, but a good kid.
I also missed my goal of walking around the block. Mostly because the weather was pretty oppressive last week, not the best conditions for pushing myself some. Instead I walked all the way down to the CVS on Friday, which is considerably longer than going around the block.
I've also been poking around at dating sites online. I'm kind of curious to hear what sites people like. I think I had a profile on match.com years and years ago, but it's probably long gone. Anyone have any favorites?
