Archive for April 2006

Why are MySpace and YouTube drawing 34M and 18M visitors, respectively, per day?
The secret to success is to make everything one-button easy, then get out of the way. If you think collaborative architecture matters more, click the charts: The same Alexa plots that show MySpace and YouTube obliterating top sites reveal that Flickr, Digg and […]

I occasionally go on a simple meal kick: wine (David Hill 2001 Estate Pinot Noir, for example), cheese (Ossau-Iraty), and bread (New Seasons French). It’s a perfect meal for any time, whether it be cool spring evening when you’d rather shiver blue on the deck simply because it’s not raining and you can sit outside […]

A few months before his second birthday, my boy scaled the new fence in our front yard, perched himself upon the top rail and shouted “hey mom, hey mom, let’s play!” As I calmly walked over to pluck him from the fence, I thought to myself, “this boy and I are destined to spend many […]

No shame in it
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a county fair.
Having grown up in a New Jersey suburb that was built on what had been farmland for hundreds of years, each summer, when the fair was on, it was practically my only exposure to a rural, agricultural tradition. […]

does george bush love dubai? yes, he du.
in fact he loves the civil rights hell-hole so much, he’s ready to play naked spoons with it. again.
President Bush on Friday approved a deal for a Dubai-owned company to take control of some U.S. plants that manufacture parts for American military contractors. The proposed deal, Bush said […]

At least the French can pick a flattering angle.

Er, Freedom Tower. I use Walter Jones in jest to belittle the tower’s name because, architecturally, c’mon. Look at that! That is u-g-l-y you ain’t got no alibi, you’re just ugly ugly. I sorta liked the first version but it still wasn’t all that. But this version […]

Oh, yes, you should have, grrl4nd! I mean, you’re welcoming MTV (which is still on the air?!) and its audience to watch you throw a party and get gifts.
If you can afford to have a grand celebration, then why not,” said Dr. Kothapalli, who immigrated to the United States from India in the mid-1980’s. “It’s […]

…a barrel of unrefined petroleum in your pants.
today’s administration gyrations are brought to you by exxon mobil and standard and all the other oil companies that wrote this country’s “energy policy.”
as gas prices climb past $3 a gallon, onward toward $4, $5 and higher, suddenly george bush wants americans to think he gives a damn. […]

Researchers at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela, have identified two bacteria that can be added to beans to reduce their legendary impact on digestion.
Reading through the headlines listed in Google News on this story is hilarious, a study in euphemism, cliché, puns, and bathroom humor that should make anyone with half a sense of […]

meet the new white house press secretary.
if mcclellan was bad (and he was), tony snow promises to be worse. he’s apparently much more adept at spinning and lying.
The genial Snow, a native of Cincinnati, has served as a USA Today columnist, editorial page editor of the Washington Times, deputy editorial page editor of the Detroit […]

so, the leaker-in-chief can authorize the dissemination of discredited intelligence, but mary mccarthy gets fired for blowing the whistle on u.s.-sponsored torture prisons.
that’s what passes for “justice” in america these days.
predictably, “conservatives” are frothing at the mouth, demanding mccarthy be drawn and quartered. why are these “conservatives” so in love with secret prisons and torture […]

I’m probably the last person on earth to know about this, since I don’t use Explorer anymore. However, I read on a tech blog somewhere that Microsoft has released Explorer 7 in Beta. Now, ages back, I signed on to the Windows Live Messenger bandwagon, which we’ve since found crashes itself when you attempt to […]

I’ve written here, and here, about how much I dislike the media referring to Jack Abramoff as a “disgraced lobyist”. The phrase is still annoyingly ubiquitous and I continue to be confident in my prediction that this guy will get a soft sentence, a cushy placement in a minimum-security prison, book deals and a […]

hillary clinton is either a giggling idiot or a slutty little voter tramp.
either way, it substantiates the current conventional wisdom that she’ll be the democratic nominee for president in ‘08.
there’s no other explanation why a democrat, let alone a democrat as (allegedly) intelligent as hillary, would would still be waffling on the war in iraq. […]

Well, our crack team of Cerebral Hygienists has been hard at work in the Transcendental Floss labs, researching and developing their latest Floss Aid recommendations, appearing now in our right sidebar.

Your cerebral health is our top priority, so we’re confident that these CDs, DVDs, and books will get those synapses firing on all cylinders.

our neighbors have a ghost.
it’s the spirit of a previous owner of their house, an older gentleman who fell down his basement steps and did not get up.
that’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. and yes, they really believe it.
they believe it so much, in fact, that they won’t talk about it in front […]

Open discussion.
Ice Breaker
Pacific Northwest: Where are your favorite spots to visit in the region?

while we still can, let’s talk about freedom of speech.
and i’m not talking about yelling “theater!” in a crowded firehouse, either. i’m talking about the kind of free speech that makes people uncomfortable in their own skin, like a crocodile crammed into an alligator bag.
let’s talk, for example, about sex talk. it’s not the kind […]

Pollute more, it is your duty
Or what will the global awarmists have to say now?
Or why am I putting on and taking off clothes four times per day? (A. I live in Seattle.)
On Tuesday night Nova aired a program, Dimming the Sun, which I missed and mostly missed again last night. Since I am a […]