Hard not to have a crush on him... he was so sexy!

I enjoyed this little slice of brilliance from Maira Kalman.

Today is link day

Yay for links in abundance.

And photos of mustachioed sex machines with non gender-specific names that rhyme with 'hair'.

3... 2... 1... cue the time wasters!

http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com/

They disappear after you click them, so they're GONE FOREVER. (Unless you delete your history.)

Also this:
http://fuckyeahsharks.tumblr.com/

Personal favorite: http://fuckyeahsharks.tumblr.com/post/78291440

FYS borrows it's style heavily from realultimatepower.net, but that's okay because RUP remains one of the funniest things I've seen anywhere, ever. So it's a good starting point for pretty much anything, like the space program.

And finally, all your favorite animal videos in one place:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/feb/27/1

Enjoy.

The first time I've seen it

Sony Bravia | Play-Doh
by YforYerom

This advertisement has been kicking around for a couple years but it's the first I've seen it.
Excellent use of a Rolling Stones song, btw.

I'm giving up booze for lent, and by "lent" I mean "until St. Patrick's Day"

I'm not very religious but I think it's a good exercise in discipline to give up a vice every year. Booze is an obvious choice in that it's good for me to take a break but it's not tooooooo challenging (unlike giving up swearing and buying shit, which both sucked). What's the point of giving something up if it's too much work? F that noise. Could do sweets, but that would be brutally hard. The fat kid loooooves him some dessert. Loves. A lot.

So, for this year, it's booze. At least until St. Patricks Day. After that we'll see how it goes. I don't want to overcommit.

Image courtesy someecards, the best ecard website ever in the history of free shit you can send your friends. Ever.

Clearing up the backlog, part V

I've got a couple lovebirds (pun intended) getting their house in order a bit early for springtime. They like to look at themselves in the reflective glass window in my office. If I had to guess I'd say they must be married given the way that they carry on (if you know what I mean, and I think you do).

It's nice to have some company at the office. As I type this they're back in their usual spot, just keeping an eye on things.

Car Worship

Love the Beast - trailer to Eric Bana's new film - as seen on Sunrise @ Yahoo!7 Video

This could be an unbearably cheesy and bad movie about a car, or it could be an interesting meditation on cars, friendship, and constants in our lives that give us a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Either way, really.

Clearing up the backlog, part IV / "Ballroom Dance" spelled backwards is "aslaS dna abmuR"

I've got a stack of good images on my desktop but no good jokes in my brain. Oh well. Today you're going to have to imagine yourself some funny. Or mean. Knowing me it's probably mean/funny. (mean-funny?) In any case, here's a neat photo of the pavement artist Edgar Muller at work, along with some of his work all bundled together in a short album. I really liked the one he did with the cars and lava; click through for that.

Photo courtesy Edgar Müller/Rex Features / via the guardian.co.uk
------------------

In Ballroom Dance news: the lessons continue. I can now officially dance Salsa, Rumba, and Meringue as long as you don't expect much. In a pinch I can lead a girl around the floor in a waltz, but I wouldn't do it unless I had to. And it would look like hell unless she was really good.

My salsa dancing was recently upgraded from "what are you doing?" to "I've seen worse", so I'm feeling pretty good about that (seriously). The blue haired ladies at my dance studio fairly swoon when I glide across the floor.* Coming up in future lessons: Swing (which I was not an early fan of) and maybe some Tango, just for kicks. [see what I did there?]

Actual conversation w/ a (married) instructor during a class:

Her: Why did you decide to take dance lessons?
me: Learn something new, maybe meet some new people.
her: Girls love a guy that can dance.
me: Really? Hmm... Do you know any?
her: [laughs]
me: [tries to laugh, didn't realize I had made a joke.]

I'll keep you posted. Also, I'll do some more work on clearing the backlog. Get excited.

* Kidding. Kind of.

You get what you pay for

Lots of hot air being blown around about the outsourcing of graphic design. As someone who knows the difference between computer skills and graphic design skills (I've got plenty of the former, very little of the latter) I can see why graphic designers would be upset about the general degradation of their profession. Any jackass with a bittorrent version of CS4 thinks they can be a graphic designer.

Somebody decided to try out one of the logo factories (50dollarlogo.com - no link b/c the website crashes Firefox) and see what kind of results he could get. Hmmm... not so much.

"Race Car" spelled backwards is "raC ecaR"

Finally back to 100% after a quiet, introspective evening of birthday celebration with my peeps. (If you were there and remember what happened please call me.)

A good friend of mine took me to the NASCAR auto race on Sunday. That's a photo from my seat above pit road. The grandstands off in the distance? That's where most of the crowds are; I avoided them.

In unrelated news, there's moar good stuff to read in cyberspace. This from the Warming Glow manifesto:

Notice I put industry news last. I’m going to try to focus on subjects that are remotely interesting, which is also why I won’t be writing up “Gossip Girl” recaps. Oh, I’m sorry — do you watch “Gossip Girl”? I didn’t mean to offend you, Single Woman in Her Late 20s. I’ll let you get back to your cats.

Yay for birthdays

It's great to hear from people on your birthday, but it's a bummer turning 35. Whatever to that, though. It's a good thing I charged my phone because it's been (almost) annoying how many times it rang today. Makes me feel special. I'm rich in friendship, and that's about as good as it gets until you have kids.*

In honor of my birthday, a coarse joke forwarded to me by a friend. I've tried to clean it up a little because my readership varies in taste, but it's my birthday. And I'm 35 going on 14, so dick jokes are still funny.

Love you.


* I'm actually not sold on the idea that kids are better, but people I trust tell me that they are the best thing ever. Your brain re-wires itself to make it FEEL like they're the best thing ever, but I'd suggest it's only your OWN kids that are the best thing ever, and that might be a necessary evolutionary event. Because if they weren't the best thing ever you would never put up with all their shit. And if other people's kids were the best thing ever then adoption rates would be a LOT higher. But that's me.

'A' for effort, 'D' for execution

Tomorrow is my birthday, and the New York Times must have heard about it, because today they gave me this. I love the idea that students think they should be graded based on their effort. That's like saying you should always be happy with your haircut because your stylist tried really hard. There are so many other good analogies for this I can't count them all: your mechanic worked hard but your car isn't fixed - pay him the full rate. Your electrician worked really hard but your lights don't work. Pay him the full rate. Your doctor gave maximum effort but you died. Tough luck for you, he gets an 'A'!

Mmm... Let's dive in...

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” [Professor Marshall Grossman] said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

Sounds good so far. If you meet the minimum requirements you get an average grade.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

What? Seriously? A "B" just for showing up?

Jason Greenwood, a senior dumbass / poor bastard whose remarks may have been taken out of context kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

Well, besides the "effort", there's a little something I like to call "quality of work". That's all you can put in that you can legitimately measure, because effort is intangible. Do the work, and your work is evaluated, and that's your grade. If you work really hard hopefully your work is good enough. Sometimes it isn't. That's life. Unless you're Jason Greenwood, or some other similarly misguided dipshit.

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

Yes, something is wrong. What's wrong is that YOUR WORK IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH YOU BRAINDEAD IMBECILE. Hard work does not deserve an A. Good work deserves an A. See my comment in the first paragraph re: what a moron you are haircuts.

Mmm... happy birthday to me. I mean it.

Image courtesy and copyright Monica Almeida / New York Times. Don't know if Monica meant for me to add the callouts. Might have taken some artistic license there. Just wanted to highlight UCI's ethnically diverse student body. God that place sucks. Not because of the student body, but because there's no bars you can walk to.

I love it when someone else does the heavy lifting

It's all rainbows and unicorns over here. Fortunately I have a crack team of contributors / readers on this space and sometimes they send me stuff that I can post instead of doing it for myself. It's a little late but still funny if you're into that sort of thing.

I already wrote a short essay on why USA Swimming is a joke. Let me summarize it here: blah blah eat shit blah blah blah. Got all that? Good.
Enjoy.

it's my birthday, what do you mean you can't make it?

Having a big do for my birthday this weekend and my friend said she couldn't make it - she has to work. Weak, I said. What, you have to do 'styling' for the Oscars? For who, exactly? Oh. Right. I can see why you might be busy. Well, umm, you can make it up to me later. Or something. I've got some movie stills that maybe she could autograph? No? my bad. (it's my birthday?)

Today's images courtesy
http://wellmedicated.com/lists/40-gorgeous-vintage-tobacco-advertisements/

http://wellmedicated.com/lists/inspiration/50-inspiring-vintage-advertisements/

Did we have valentine's day? I can't remember.

I wish I had some good news

It's dumb and bummer over here so I haven't had a whole lot to share.
I remain an international financier (via Kiva) so here's a recent update from the person I loaned money to:

Liliane Sagbohan is not sure by how much her revenue has increased, but she is sure that it has improved over the past 3 years since she started receiving loans. Liliane sells many different products -- couscous, coffee, oil, and mayonnaise, just to mention a few. She has sold for over 11 years, and before that she was a hairstylist. She uses her revenues to care for her children and herself, and to continue to replenish her stocks. In the future, she would like to have a nicer shop.

I hate to complain about the quality of an update from a person I'll never meet in a country I've never heard of, but "before that she was hairstylist"? Come on people. At least they managed to let me know that she uses her revenues to care for her children. That's something. And the loan is improving her quality of life.

In unrelated news, the photo illustration comes from tebe_interesno. I have no idea what that means, but he's from Moscow, Russia and you might enjoy his portfolio, or a collection of his work on toxel.

I already ordered mine

Jabo0odyDubs (sp?) knows funny.
Audio NSFW, but essential.
I found it on filmdrunk.

Dear USA Swimming: Shut Up

The kerfluffle surrounding Michael "100% More Epic Bong Rips" Phelps continues, this time with the announcement that Kelloggs is letting him go and USA swimming is suspending him for 3 months. 3... 2... 1... Cue the bullshit:

"This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero," the Colorado Springs-based federation said in a statement.

Thanks, USA Swimming. Allow me to retort:

1. Three months is not a strong message. 3 months is a hiccup, a slap on the wrist, a gesture, and it's still too much. 2 years is a strong message. That's what you get when you actually break the rules in competitive swimming (which he did not - he allegedly smoked weed).

2. Please let's not bullshit around with this "we're doing it for the children" nonsense. Did you check with the "hundreds of thousands" of disappointed kids before you decided how to punish Phelps? Did they recommend grounding him, taking away his cellphone, or confiscating his xbox? You are doing this for the parents of those kids. Because you are pussies without the courage to shrug your shoulders and say, meh, he made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Let's move on.

3. Phelps is still a role model you idiotic shitbricks. If you can find someone else that can punish himself for years (literally: years) on end in a swimming pool and then respond to soul-crushingly miserable pressure and scrutiny by dominating the world to the point where he wins more gold medals than MOST COUNTRIES and then follows it up by doing some bong hits then please do so. We need more people like that in the world. What we don't need: sanctimonious, self-righteous twats that judge those people for how they spend their leisure time. You are assclowns. Get over yourselves.

PS. I'm boycotting Kelloggs until they sign Phelps again. You think weed-smoking college kids don't live on cereal? You're idiots.

Olympic-class bong rips

Lots of fuss in the news about the Photo of M. Phelps taking bong rips. I feel bad that someone took a picture of it and now he's getting so much attention. If a guy wins 8 gold medals and can't take a time out to relax a little then eventually he'll just have a meltdown. Imagine if you were a college age person and every time you took a bong hit there was a media firestorm. That would suck. I did appreciate the article on slate that explained how his epic bong rips are approximately 100% more epic than the average persons. Awwwwwwwwwwwsome, bro.

In unrelated news the 110 year old "lizard like creature" got his mojo back after they removed a cancerous tumor from his junk. That's him taking a cooling bath, presumably after he took care of business. Superb.