Swooping Crane

...and a Hero in a Harness.

orig link: Des Moines Register

''... the construction company rigged up Jason Oglesbee to the crane with a harness and he was able to grab the woman from the water.''

Swirly Girly is a lucky ducky.

Everyone Needs An Outlet

*click* pic to see the -entire- wall of outlets.

quote: ''...artfully plug in your appliances wherever the cords look pleasing to you. Imagine no more crowded outlets or multi-plug adapters.

... you don’t have to actually wire all the outlets on the whole wall for electricity, but you’d better come up with a good way to remember which ones are live.''

(No $h!+)... but loved some of the comments:

'know how they say you shouldn’t plug too many cords into the same outlet? This is the exact OPPOSITE of that'

'eliminates need to choose between wallpaper patterns'

'Baby proofing this would be a bitch'

'arrange the other side of the wall to have a mini windmill for every socket...'

'one spilt drink away from an electrical fire'

'illuminating the room by nightlights into those!'

LOL...
link to orig article at: Ironic Sans

A Truly Hot Pad

...but nothing to do with cooking.

(*click* for their site)

I love wireless recharging - no plugs.


You get a matching 'skin' (from Wildcharge) and set your phones/pdas down when they need more juice. That's it, no need to find a cord for any of them because it holds multiple pdas at once. And now 'ta-da' they released a powerup skin for the newest iPhone...

Cool.

Now I can justify getting a new phone, right?

Lets Make A Splash

I know its an obnoxious prank...

...but it always makes me LOL.


*Definitely worth a minute & 1/2 of your time...

Sticky Situation

Rem that guy and his 1,000,000 toothpicks?...

Now see what to do with a million Post-Its:



I just love the 'Slinky' ones... ;-)

Easy Bake Off

...not your mother's bake off.

A girl won "EASY-BAKE 2009 Baker of the Year"
What was Catherine's winning recipe you ask?

RECIPE:

one EASY-BAKE sugar cookie mix
add a few strawberries
and a bit of lemon curd
now its time to Easy-Bake.

Impressed? You should be.

That recipe won her a trip to Disneyworld,
... plus another trip for four to San Francisco.

I know. There is no justice.




To ease your pain a bit, Easy-Bake for grown-ups,
*including a recipe for Wild Mushroom Flan
recipes in links at NPR and at Kiddio .org

Going Down The Tube

Starting today, London subway drivers will read quotes:

{press release} The words of Gandhi, Einstein, Jean Paul Sartre and other great thinkers are to be quoted in service announcements on London's Underground...

...What?

Transport for London has commissioned Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller to compile a list of bon mots to be used by Tube drivers...

FYI, a sampling:

Gandhi's "there is more to life than increasing (its) speed"
Cezanne's "we live in a rainbow of chaos"
Fuller's "a stumble may prevent a fall"
"the afternoon knows what morning never suspected"
"an ounce of action is worth a ton of theory"
"one who n'er made a mistake n'er tried anything new"
not to menion... Sartre's "hell is other people"

{re video} The riders don't mind it for the nonce. But hopefully somewhere along the line (pun intended) the riders will get a chance to at least vote (or veto) the ones to be used.

Or perhaps send in some of their own... ==:-O


- orig. article: via BBC News

Brevity Is The...

... Soul Of Wit .* _{*I hope. Shakespeare's claim, yes?}
At any rate, the/an explanation is below.
so, without further ado, here's my tacky tale:

---

‘Astronomy’

Had to tell someone, so I went to my best pal. He runs a micro-lending bank in a vacant lot, under the shade of a toothpick tree. His business was slow that day, so I talked while we drank. We got through a fifth of Jack Daniels before he spoke.

‘You’ll get your revenge; we’re going to Torquemada!’

‘We’re going to see the leader of The Tube Police!?’

‘No, no, ‘Torquemada’, the pepper capital of Spain.’

‘Huh? – I don’t get it – I’m as lost as a bear in a 12-step program.’

Ignoring my confusion he continued: ”Those college ’sports’ from the astrolab that glued Uranus open while they poured in Ugandan coffee? We’ll return the favor...

We’re getting the hottest peppers T-town sells, and stuffing them into their wormholes so far that they’ll glow like radioactive isotopes. They’ll be singing a ‘Neptune’ when we get done. Heck, they’ll be blowing bubbles out their kazoos that’ll kill a tarantula at five paces. Lets go.”

Two days later, a new Big Bang took place. Success.

(the end, as it were)

---

Yesterday 'The Daily Wit' posted my story.(link)

Its the first one I've entered as part of their series of random topics. And (I know you guessed) the italicised words were the 15 required items.

I took some care trying to make it as readable, yet as compact as possible, so I was quite pleased when the webmaster there used a quote from Mark Twain to praise my effort... Woo! (insert smiley face here) Hope you enjoyed it.

A Little Bit Fishy

Will the real 'Ponyo' please stand swim up?

Upcoming 'Ponyo' is about a baby goldfish who wants to be human, and gets her wish. But if you have 3 minutes, compare the two promos.

Disney's version for the U.S. release:



vs. The original Japanese one:



And Disney shortened the movie name, too

I lol'd when the happy music played during the big drama moment in #2. 'The world is ending, but hey, please enjoy a boppy lil tune...'

Think Disney wants more adults in the seats?

eta:

click for review: Roger Ebert likes it.

Primate Goes Postal

Small silver-suited SpaceApe, speedily sent!

This little guy has traveled so far, to space and back (plus 400 miles on a mail truck), that I figured it was time he got a break. So I let him relax on the coast of Maine. But he still looks stiff! Must be E's fault; she put that too-tight shiny suit on him before she stuffed'm in that envelope for the trip to my place.*

*So tell the ASPCA&PP(& plastic pets) that the guilty party can be found here: Erin's earnestly evocative exchange empire
j/k Thanks to Erin for the jolly junk mailout. ;-)

- *The film that killed my space monkey's oscar chances...{30 sec}

---

---

July update:

Rubber Rooms, Rubber Heads

(warning, rant ahead)

NYC's Dept of Education gets an 'F'.

AP: '700 hundred NYC public school teachers, accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct, are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.'

And thats just the beginning...

...salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

City officials said that they make teachers report to a 'rubber room' instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work...

Sheesh, if I lived in NYC I'd be livid... just last week NY mag had an article about how parts of the city are desperate for more teachers.

But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.

NY needs to fire their heads of the NYC Ed. Dept.

Who couldn't see that hiring arbitrators for more days per month will be a heck of a lot less than $65 mil/year?
(sorry, rant over)

link: AP news article, via Yahoo

Mad Hat Johnny

Director Tim Burton does love make-up, doesn't he?

its a great link, if you don't mind spoilers for the upcoming 'Alice' movie, check out the pictures of Helena and Anne too: Daily Mail