20080928

Intro Outro

Today's Intro compare and contrast:





Again, start both at the same time -- instant Mash-up like it's 2001!

20080926

If xkcd told you to jump off a cliff?

Geohashing often invites its players to jump in a lake, but tomorrow's new jersey location seems to be in the middle of a railway line

20080923

Easily Confused

Compare and contrast the first five seconds of these two youchoob embeds:





Now start them both at the same time.
Oh well.

20080912

Dem Bones

I make a point of seeking out any cheesy US effort to depict the UK, so it was high hopes that I checked out the Season 4 double episode of "Bones". The show started off promisingly with that other Deschanel girl and Angel in "Oxford University" where apparently it's traditional to give lectures while wearing gowns (actually, that may well be the case) in drafty dining rooms (again, just teetering on the brink of plausibility. In fact, the only palpably implausible thing about the whole episode (not counting the plot) was the fact that it gave the impression that Oxford was a suburb of London. And since they're both on the Thames, it's not impossible to see why you might get that impression. The plot was ridiculous. Rather than bother to do a feature length episode, it consisted of two normal episodes strung together which will presumably make for easier syndication. The first was some dubious parody of the British class system, featuring an oxford Don and his Scotland yard sidekick, presumably in some hilarious mirroring of the main characters. This could have been the start of some tedious spinoff Bones:London. This was promptly dashed in the second half when the don was offed. Yes, spoiler alert, but the show itself opened with a massive spoiler for the end of season three which I hadn't yet seen, so I don't care. This could have been slightly more interesting, but instead I spent the entire time wondering where I had seen the Scotland Yardie before, until the magic of IMDB came to the rescue and pointed out that it was that one off of Torchwood who was featured in all the initial promotional material, and then killed off in the first episode, and then brought back for "Why do they keep killing Suzie?". Anyway, those are all the interesting things about it.

Get Fry!

I was trying to watching the latest Stephen Fry documentary on living with the printed word, but found it incredibly distracting that the choice of backing music seemed to be the theme from Get Carter. Youchoob embeds FTW:



Product Placement

What links
Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend and


Katy Perry?

Answer:

Chapstick.

Fantastic.

20080905

Compare and Contrast...

Who said the following:

"For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback"

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's."

20080903

Free Will

A message plonks in from my bank, of all people offering a "Free Will Review". You what? Someone can verify whether or not I have free will? Exactly how am I supposed to trust what I hear from a third party on this subject? Oh, wait a moment, I've just got it.

Come again?

The spammers at WSEAS are stepping up their campaign to claim legitimacy (here's a tip: stop spamming people first). Skimming through the anonymous "WSEAS team" contains the rather surprising outpouring:

ARE YOU A WSEAS YOUNG STUDENT?
COME IN OUR FACEBOOK?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Wseas_Friends/1402856134


Say what? I believe that there are sites on the internet devoted to that sort of thing, but I'm not sure that it's really any way to gain academic standing.