AIRWOLF!!!

I'm not generally a big fan of spoken word poetry, unless it's a poem about Airwolf.

My New Favorite Photographer Who Photographed People Mowing Underwater

I really, really, really love these underwater photographs featured in the new issue of Smithsonian.

The One About Checkers is My Favorite

Funny imaginary Atari games.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

meat-fit: a full meal

DID U C CHARLIE ROSE LAST NITE?

Old-timey Slang of the Day

chickie: basically, the same as "cheese it!" as in, "Chickie, it's the cops!"

Good Eats

The farmer's market started up here today. Honestly, I've never gone all that often, but I feel like I should. They have a lot of good stuff.

Some of the more interesting items purchased today, all of which got worked into my lunch: goat milk cheddar cheese (very strong), ostrich burgers (delicious), hazelnut honey (light and pleasant), spicy venison jerky (awesome), sunchokes (interesting . . . they told me these tasted like a cross between a potato and watercress, and they do! I'd never even heard of these little root veggies before.).

Old-timey Slang of the Day

rind: audacity, nerve


The rind of hope?

"The coach . . . threw in the towel to spare his pitcher’s arm with his team losing 66-0"

Um, wow. That's a pretty tough kid, though, just to be able to stay in there through all of that. Also, this kind of reminds me of some of the worst of our little league games when I was a kid, which probably would have gotten this bad if we didn't have the ten-run rule.

Old-timey Photograph of the Day

Will the person who invented photography take one step forward, please? Not so fast, Henry Fox Talbot. Cool story about an early photograph, from yesterday's NYT.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

rest powder: snuff

Screaming for Excedrin

Old-timey Slang of the Day

In light of the recent change in the weather around these parts . . .

June around: to have spring fever

Old-timey Slang of the Day

pink chord: "An irritating mistake in reading or improvising music."

Kooky Kults

Cracked has an amusing list of fun cults.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

wreath: cabbage

The more I look into these old slang words, the more I notice how much fun people used to have with their food.

Really, really, really, really, really, really old trees

Scientists have found 8,000-year-old trees in Sweden.

Comb-Jellies: We're Number One, We're Number One!

Looks like scientists found a new candidate for the first animal on earth. Neat!

Old-timey Slang of the Day

spinach: a beard!

Old-timey Slang of the Day

may: again, from Wentworth & Flexner: "Mayonnaise. Some c1930 lunch-counter use. Obs. Replaced by 'mayo.'"

Hmm...

"A Blog Post"

Misplaced quotation marks got you down? Then check out this blog. It's great!

Again, I'm looking at you, CNN "news" crawl.

I'm Counting on It!

I'd forgotten about this, but going through some old email today reminded me that I "discovered" this a few years ago. Here's something weird you can do with numbers:





1 2 3 4

6 8 10 12

15 18 21 24

28 32 36 40

45 50 55 60

66 72 78 84

91 98 105 112

and so on, apparently forever (although I only went up to multiples of 11 before I quit, figuring that way I wouldn't go crazy). Each set of 4 numbers starts where the other one left off, going up from multiples of 1 to multiples of 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. It's weird.

What is this called? Is there a term for this sort of progression? Man, numbers are bizarre.

Sid Laverents: Super Cool 100-year-old Dude

Sid Laverents is a former vaudevillian who started making movies in the late 1950s. I saw a series of his experimental shorts at the Wisconsin Film Festival last weekend, and boy oh boy were they fun! A real hoot. You can actually order 'em right from the man himself. I think I'm gonna do just that fairly soon.

Go Steve!

Stephen King points out that attempts to ban violent video games are asinine. He is correct.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

grunt-and-groaner: a wrestler

Old-timey Slang of the Day

violets: cabbage

Whuh? It's cause they kinda smell when you cook 'em. It's ironic.

THE INTERNETS ARE GONNA ASPLODE!!!

Oh no!

Old-timey Slang of the Day

Speaking of . . .
make like an alligator: to be sad or melancholy; to leave in a hurry (from my Dictionary of American Slang: "= drag ass. Because an alligator's tail drags on the ground. Some teenage use since c1955."

Planet of the Gators

So, if we aren't overrun by genius fish, I'm guessing the WALKING ALLIGATORS will be the end of human civilization.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

some pumpkins: "1. An important person or thing; an admirable person or thing. 1913: 'He is some pumpkins.' F.K. Sochrist. Used only as a pred. nominative. Since c1850, has been extremely pop. Though still in use by older people, young adults prefer stronger terms. 2. Audacious; mischievous; clever. Often used with affectionate connotation, esp. by older people when talking of children. Archaic and dial."

— Wentworth and Flexner, eds. Dictionary of American Slang. Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1960.

That's a Wrap

I saw a couple more movies at the Wisconsin Film Festival today. Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness is a new movie by Melody Gilbert, who directed Whole, which was one of my favorite movies at the festival a couple years ago. This one's also about strange and interesting people. Here, she focuses on people who explore abandoned buildings and subway tunnels and sewers and the like; I really liked everybody featured in the movie. You can find out more about the fascinating hobby/lifestyle of urban exploration here or here or here. The movie was good, by the way.

Flight of the Red Balloon was as lovely as I expected it would be. A lot of it was shot in reflections on store windows and reminded me vaguely of certain photorealist paintings I've seen, and there was a lot of playful fun going on in the backgrounds (a lamp that looks like a red balloon, shapes and patterns created by streetlights and signs, etc.).

I was supposed to see The Singing Revolution, too, but I screwed up and walked all the way to the wrong end of campus thinking it was at the Union Theater when it was actually at the Orpheum, so I ended up skipping it.

The End.

This Guy Loses Race

A sad day in Wisconsin politics:

Papa Smurf goes down to defeat. I'm sure Gargamel was behind the negative 527 attack ads that brought him down.

Scots Nats!

A vote from James Bond for Scottish independence.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

Ooh, ooh, here's a really good one. Dictionary definition required.

groan box: "An accordion. Though this term may have had some use among musicians c1930, it is considered very synthetic among present-day musicians. Mainly used by gossip columnists and teen-agers, who mistakenly consider it to be a hip expression."


I love the idea of a world where any discussion of accordions could be performed by "hip" people.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I love accordions.

Ouisconsin Festival du film

More film festival movies on Saturday:

Unfortunately, the Union Theater at the Wisconsin Union isn't the best venue for film screenings. Sound problems hampered my enjoyment of The Pixar Story and You, the Living (a shame since both were decent movies) and one of the projectors broke during Planet of the Apes, which was a real tragedy cause the print looked nice.

(Speaking of which, right after I got home I learned some unfortunate news.)

The program of Sid Laverents shorts was fantastic, and I also enjoyed the epic Mongol quite a bit.

"Lets Play Two"

I'm a baseball fan and a Cubs fan, and I knew about the statue going up at Wrigley, but I hadn't heard about this wacky controversy until today. I'm glad they fixed it, though. Misplaced apostrophes drive me nuts! I'm looking at you, CNN news crawl.

Language Log gets into it.

Deadspin makes light of it.

Chicago Sun Times explains how long it took to chisel in the apostrophe.

Steal This Building

Well, this is ironic, dontcha think?

Movie Movie

I saw two movies at the Wisconsin Film Festival yesterday. Both were very good, but not quite as much fun as the movies I saw on Thursday.

First up was Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a Canadian buddy cop movie about a Mel Gibsonish loose cannon from Quebec and an uptight Ontarian who get partnered up after some very funny hijinks at a really messy crime scene. I liked it. I was expecting something a bit more parodic, more in the vein of Hot Fuzz, and this did have moments like that (and the villain's motivations and actions are similar in a weird way), but a lot of it played like a real buddy cop movie a la Beverly Hills Cop or Bad Boys II. The violent sight gags are worth it, though, cause they're really funny.

ADDED: the more I think about it, the more I think this actually was a lot like Hot Fuzz, just not quite as funny . . .

I also saw Timecrimes, which was a good head-scratcher. I'm still not sure if it solved all its paradoxes or not, but I suppose that's the way with time travel stories.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

pinchers: shoes

I AM IRON MAN!

Nifty article on the origins of the Black Sabbath song and its connection to the comics.

Good Movies Are Good For the Soul

I saw two films at the Wisconsin Film Festival last night. Both were excellent.

My Winnipeg, Guy Maddin's experimental documentary about his hometown, was utterly amazing. It was funny, weird, gorgeous, and very nearly perfect.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies was clever and a lot of fun. Like Down with Love or Far From Heaven, the cinematography, set design, and costumes were designed to give the feel of a time period through the movies of that time period, and they really captured the look of James Bond-ish thrillers. And Jean Dujardin was an eye-opener as the central spy, OSS 117 (sort of a cross between Austin Powers, James Bond, and Inspector Clouseau). He's an amazing comic actor.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

guess-stick: a slide rule

Wisconsin Film Festival

The Wisconsin Film Festival starts today. I'm going to a few movies. It's their 10th anniverary this year. To celebrate this momentous occasion, here are some of my favorites from years past.

Whole: an amazing documentary about people who want to have their limbs removed.

The Big Red One: the reconstruction of one of Sam Fuller's great movies and one of the best war movies ever made.

Young Frankenstein: the classic Mel Brooks comedy, shown at the beautiful Capitol Theatre last year. This was just a great movie-going experience. I wish they were using this theater as a venue again this year, but for some reason they're not.

Blackboards: a wonderful, sad film from Iran.

Slasher: John Landis's amusing documentary about used car salesmen.

Cure: a truly excellent Japanese horror film.

Wheel of Time: Werner Herzog's documentary about Tibetan Buddhists. Beautiful.

Story of the Weeping Camel: one of the sweetest, most poignant movies I've seen.

The Life of Reilly: a surprisingly (?) awesome movie about Charles Nelson Reilly.

The Milk Can: one of the funniest movies I've seen in recent years.

Martin & Orloff: a very funny comedy from the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Meet the Parents: the original that the Ben Stiller movie was based on. Much darker and weirder. With Emo Philips, who is weirder than this guy, but maybe not as good an actor.

Youtube Frenzy

Here are a bunch of mostly unconnected youtube videos I just like. They're good, in different ways.

Mike Gravel does "Helter Skelter." Cause that song isn't associated with crazy people at all.


This was his last little number. It's awesome.


Excellent April Fool's gag from Terry Jones and co.


The greatest ad ever made: Hungarian sausages!



And this is sublime and beautiful.

Hats Off to This Guy

Very believable April Fool's joke here. Bravo! I read this on a political site, went to the link, and didn't figure out it was a joke until I went to one of his links. The best part is the $10 fee for microwave use. It's that little hard-to-believe touch that paradoxically makes it that much more believable.

Old-timey Slang of the Day

This one's really good. Apparently it wasn't a commonly used word, but it's a lot better than some of the more popular slang terms for this particular job.

nutpick: a psychiatrist

Tiny Projector in My Ha-a-ands

This is kinda neat, or disturbing, depending on your point of view. They're developing itty bity projectors to project your itty bitty movies now.

(Sorry about the terrible Elton John joke in the title.)

April Fool's

Here's a fairly interesting article on the psychology of practical jokes from today's New York Times.

A Clown's Journey

Don't Steal Movies or I Will Turn You Into a Skull

This is old, but great, and I forgot about it until today, and it's never not a good day to show people the creepiest, weirdest anti-piracy ad you've ever seen.

Here's the youtube:

Old-timey Slang of the Day

honey barge: a garbage scow