Where Balloons Come From

Where Balloons Come From
Originally uploaded by Green Destiny.

ruh roh, where's SpongeBob at?!

A Last Look at 'The Gates' Before They All Come Down

The New York Times > New York Region > A Last Look at 'The Gates' Before They All Come Down: "Out of a side-door compartment, she fished a saffron-colored Band-Aid tin, and from the tin snatched a cigarette. An assistant came to the window with a report: Someone had cut hearts out of the fabric in four gates. It's always something; a few minutes earlier she pointed out a brand new gate, a replacement for the one that was hit by a taxicab. Was there much vandalism?

'Vandalism?' she repeated. 'Cutting out hearts? It annoys us, but I can't call that vandalism.'"

Has Pope John Paul II jumped the shark?

Over on PolySciFi Blog, Jody has a post about how John Paul II has jumped the shark. Well, I looked him up on Jump the Shark and this is how the voting is going so far:

First Show	1978
Last Show
Genre	Drama
Network	CTV
Slot Day	Sunday
Slot Time	10 am
Jumped The Shark when...	Votes
Never Jumped	31
Starts hanging out with Bono	24
Day One	19
Ted McGinley	14
Same Character, Different Actor	10
Too many jokes about Carlton's height	9
Mehmet Agca tries to cancel the show	7
A Very Special Episode... (Finds out he's not Italian)	6
Says "Evolution, more than just a hypothesis"	3
Tracheotomy	2
Election of Antipope Pius XIII	2
Insists on being referred to as "Jp 2 Electric Boogaloo"	2

And before anybody flips out on me, I wish him the best and hope he makes a full recovery.

Crop circle love.

It's too bad aliens don't think this way.

Maybe we'll have a Keroppi and Badz Maru next.

When the ball is out, it is really out.

Wow, this is amazing. I hope neither of them falls off the side. I could never play up that high without a huge safety net.

World's Top Tennis Stars Practice at Burj Al Arab, Dubai

Found via boing boing.

Bloggers of the world unite

BBC NEWS | Technology | Global blogger action day called: "The global web log community is being called into action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers.

The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers' is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on Tuesday to the 'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day'.

Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran.

Blogs are free sites through which people publish thoughts and opinions. Iranian authorities have been clamping down on prominent sites for some time.

'I hope this day will focus people,' Curt Hopkins, director of the Committee, told the BBC News website."

There, I spent my 10 seconds to help change the worl. heh.

Amazon.com and A9.com's Yellow Pages

Matt posted over on PolySciFi Blog about Amazon.com Yellow Pages

This is an awesome service. It still has bugs, but a lot of potential. Case in point. I went to this club the other night in NYC: Amazon.com: Yellow Pages: Flow It has no signage whatsover. But this site shows you that it's on the corner next to the starbucks. We had a fun time finding that at night, let me tell you. Of course, ideally the car would've turned the corner, but like I said it's a little buggy. For those keeping score at home, this is where I had brunch on Sunday: Amazon.com: Yellow Pages: Life Cafe

I also noticed that "Some data provided by Acxiom, © 2005". Acxiom is the largest datamining company in the world.
You can find out more here: frontline: the persuaders: introduction | PBS

I can't wait til they digitally photograph Outer Mongolian Starbucks...

Flickr

I read this the other day: O'Reilly Network: Stewart Butterfield on Flickr and I just had to join. If you're into digital photography at all, I highly recommend it. One of the really sweet things are the Folksonomic tags. You can browse the 150 most popular tags here or my tags here. e.g. Flickr: Photos tagged with boccioni (You're the only person who has used "boccioni" as a tag.)

Also, check out the groups where users pools their photos. A thematic one called squared circle is pretty neat and makes for a great slideshow.

Plastic Operator's "Folder" lyrics

"Folder" by Plastic Operator lyrics

That's why I copy and paste
Into your folder, folder
With your name
It'd be more than I could take
If I just told you, told you
What I feel

That's why I copy and paste
Into your folder, folder
With your name
It'd be more than I could take
If I just told you, told you
What I feel

That's why I copy and paste

You can drive me mad
If you tend to hide, but I admire
You can make me sad
And I want you to make it all worthwhile

Into your folder, folder
With your name
It'd be more than I could take
If I just told you, told you
What I feel
That's why I copy and paste

Into your folder, folder
With your name
It'd be more than I could take
If I just told you, told you
What I feel
That's why I copy and paste

You can lift me up,
A single smile can set my heart on fire
You don't have to stop,
A gentle touch can fill me with desire

If I just told you, told you

Oooh oooh ooooooh
Oooh oooh ooooooh
Oooh oooh ooooooh

You're intelligent, though ignorant
And I want you know
We can fake the start
And pretend that we have reached the end

If I just told you, told you, told you
If I just told you, told you, told you
If I just told you, told you, told you

Told you, told you, told you, told you

Oooh oooh Oooh Oooooooooh
Oooh oooh Oooh Oooooooooh
Oooh oooh Oooh Oooooooooh

That's why I copy and paste
That's why I copy and paste

Watch Nintendo Games get beaten at incredible speeds

NintendoRecords.com

My faves are: Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!
Can you drop Don Flamenco in less than 14.97 seconds? (that's the in game clock, btw)

or how about
Super Mario Bros. in under 5 minutes. And if you say the warp zones are cheating, try to beat every level in 18:58 or less.

Here's Super Mario Bros. 2 (J)

The Number One Songs In Heaven: Boogie Friday, Deodato's Also Sprach Zarathustra

This is really sweet. Kinda like a mix of 70's funk, that Manzarek organ on "Riders on the Storm" and Richard Strauss. The link may be down soon, so if you need a fair use snippet, let me know. The Number One Songs In Heaven: Boogie Friday

Here's Deodato's site: http://www.eumirdeodato.com/

Why Your Pointy Haired Boss Is A Mathematical Certainty :: MarkTAW.com

This is really awesome: Why Your Pointy Haired Boss Is A Mathematical Certainty :: MarkTAW.com (found it at metafilter.com)

Here's the source data: OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES, MAY 2003

There are 770 astronomers in the US, 700 geographers, half a million lawyers (making on average 107k$ a year), twelve thousand athletes (making on average $90k a year, man that profession is top heavy), and 15,000 slot key persons. (I think that last one is a casino position, but I'm not sure.)

What would be really cool would be if they had the standard deviation of each profession's yearly income.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002

I just noticed that The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy was on bartleby.com now. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002

Anybody have any new sideline pic suggestions? I'm thinking of changing them. Please leave links to suggested images in the comments. Thanks.

When is the planet going to run out of oil?

Ask Yahoo gets into the peak oil debate. Lots of nice links too: When is the planet going to run out of oil?

USATODAY.com - U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

USATODAY.com - U.S. students say press freedoms go too far: "The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get 'government approval' of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion."


In other news, 36% of those 112,003 students need to reread their Constitution. (Or they may have been not taking the survey seriously as high schoolers are wont to do.

*This blog post was not approved by the government.*

Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache by Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon lyrics

UPDATE: Updated lyrics can be found here.
Another public service, because these lyrics aren't on the net as far as I can tell. Please comment if you suggestions/corrections. I know I don't have them right in a couple places.

Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache
By Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon

Like a madman I'm up in the morning,
headin' for the walls of heartache.
Working everyday, bringing home a/the pail of heartbreak.

You look down and the walls are higher*
They are built from the tears you're cryin.
Oh, I got to bring it back,
I'm workin' til the day I'm dyin (oh, yeah!)


Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby
I'm a carpenter of love and affection!
Breaking down the walls of heartache, baby
Got to tear down all the loneliness and tears
and build you up a house of love.


Yeah!
Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby
Shakin' down the walls of heartache!
Shakin' down the walls of heartache!


Brick by brick, I'm tearin' them down!
Yeah, lonely night, my name is given(?)
Chip-chippin' at the walls of heartache.
Callin' out your name.
Go with a pail of heartbreak


And the faces there before me,
writing on and no tomorrow?
Your letter of goodbye,
is written on the walls of the heartache.
Oh yeah!


Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby
I'm a carpenter of love and affection
Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby
Got to tear down all the loneliness and tears
and build you up a house of love.
Yeah!

Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby. (Yeah yeah!)
Shakin' down the walls of heartache!
Shakin' down the walls of heartache!
Shakin' down the walls of heartache!

Tearin' them down,
Tearin' them down,
watch me baby!
I'm a carpenter!
A carpenter of love!
Love and affection!
Brick by brick, tearing them down!

*Update: "You look down and the walls are higher" suggested by Anonymous on 4/13/2005

Superbowl Prognostications

I started a thread on my friend's message board, Clever Nothing. If you post on this thread:
Clever Nothing :: View topic - Official Superbowl Prognostication Thread your prediction for the superbowl final score and winner you may win $(100-n) (Must have paypal). N is the number of unique posters after my post, so make a prediction already! (Of course, I'm betting on the fact that nobody will get this right.)

These are the predictions so far:
rajah- My prediction: 27-13, Patriots crush the Eagles.
Chook Cheek- I'll give it a shot. Patriots 27-23.
orthodox defenestrator= Patriots win 21-17
heatkernel-27-13, Eagles crush the Patriots, defying expectations.
rwellor-21 to 17... Iggles...
Graymouser-Eagles win 28-21, pretty-boy Tom Brady becomes a permanent part of the field...
mach5potato-27 to 17 Pats.
mopreme-i got to go with that pats 35-17
redbeard- 26 - 12 Patriots, whoever the hell they are. Being named after a missile, they have to be good. What game is this again?
etymxris-43 - 13. Not sure who's going to win, but I'm being pessimistic. It'll probably be over by halftime, just like the last two playoff games.
dogslaughter-The Eagles, 24 - 17.
webturbo-Patriots all the way.31 - 24
xthecritic-27-24 pats

KeyKatcher

Matt over at PolySciFi posted about keykatchers: keykatcher on PolySciFi Blog
Jp makes the good point that the software ones can also track mouse movements and clicks, but those require admin rights to install. This is way easier to just put on the keyboard cord. It's too bad these things will be tiny as shit in about 3 years. Please be aware people!

Tapes: Enron plotted to shut down power plant - Feb 3, 2005

Privatization is a beautiful thing. :P CNN.com - Tapes: Enron plotted to shut down power plant - Feb 3, 2005

Daunte Culpepper ungifts necklace from paralyzed teen

SI.com - NFL - Culpepper ungifts necklace from paralyzed teen - Wednesday February 2, 2005 8:24PM

First time I've seen "ungifts" used as a word. Man, I love the English language. This also reminds me of my haircut last week. I gave the woman a $13 tip when I meant to tip $4 (grabbed a $10 instead of a $1). Once I had realized what I'd done, I thought a few seconds about retrieving it, but she had already gone upstairs and I didn't care anymore. Plus, it would've been awkward getting it back. However, I did decide that if it had been a $20 instead of a $10, I definitely would've gotten it back and to relieve any latent cognitive dissonance I must say that it's a damn good haircut.

Yahoo! Search

Btw, as demonstrated in the last post, yahoo! search is outdoing Google in a lot of ways now. It doesn't have as much of the web indexed, but it does seem to update more frequently and especially updates blogs quickly. Check it out! Yahoo! Search

Search term analysis including Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon, Kath Bloom, and French Hubbert Peak opponents. Plus, Rosey Grier makes an appearance!

Some analysis of selected search terms from the recent past that lead to this blog.

Somebody interested in cocaine:
10/04/04 @ 02:31pm Yahoo: metabolite benzoyleconine

Lyrics to the kickass 2:36 song "Breakin' down the walls of heartache" by Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon as featured in this post on The Number One Songs in Heaven. His voice reminds me a lot of Jackie Wilson.
10/04/04 @ 05:09am Google: lyrics down the walls of heartache
I may get around to writing up those lyrics sometime, who knows.

Someone looking for a hubbert's peak opponent: (this hit was from France)
10/21/04 @ 07:57am Yahoo: peak hubbert opponent

Somebody looking for mp3s of the Pet Shop Boys soundtrack to Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin that they did in Trafalgar square a while back:
12/22/04 @ 05:00am Msn: pet shop boys battleship mp3

Ok, I get the most music related hits from people looking for this song:
12/22/04 @ 07:42pm Yahoo: kath bloom come here free download
If you've seen Before Sunrise, you know the song. It's the one they listen to in the record store. I guess with Before Sunset coming out and getting rave reviews everybody wants to hear Kath Bloom again. She does have a great voice after all. Sung slowly, which explains why most of the hits are from Taiwan and China, huh?
btw, I loved Before Sunrise, but I found Before Sunset way too preachy about current events (and I'm a preachy kind of guy). I'll have to rent it and finish it some other time.
(I just noticed while writing this that imdb.com has gotten rid of those random fingerprinting strings at the end of urls obtained by searching. Thank goodness. Using my firefox mouse gestures to get rid of them really annoyed me.

Here's somebody that doesn't know how to get their favorite tv show off of a p2p network:
12/23/04 @ 02:07am Yahoo: homicide life on the street p2p

I didn't know Snoop Dogg had a new game out. ALthough he did collaborate on a "Riders on the Storm" track with the remaining Doors for Need for Speed. Random related note: I saw Snoop on M2 a couple weeks ago sitting in a throne at the release party point up to the ceiling and say "Peace to Jim, wherever you are." or something like that. He did it in his snoopizzle lingo too to boot.
12/23/04 @ 05:42pm Yahoo: snoop dogg%27s new game

This search is funny:
12/26/04 @ 08:26pm Yahoo: imdb daunte culpepper
Uh, why not just go to imdb then, then search for Daunte? Because he's not in there you say. Yeah, I guess he really hasn't "acted" yet like Favre did in There's Something About Mary.

Holy crap! What is this?! Reggie's Prayer (1996) Pat Morita as the principal? Rosey Grier's in it too! "Search football needlepoint lineman!"

12/28/04 @ 06:55am Yahoo: boing new plains pictures
You searched for: boing new plains pictures
I think you meant: Boeing new planes pictures

12/29/04 @ 04:17pm Yahoo: snoop dog sayings
D to the O to the double G. C'mon people!

12/29/04 @ 07:36pm Yahoo: snoop dogg sayings
That's better!

First of the 200+ tsunami hits:
12/30/04 @ 01:41pm Yahoo: list of americans missing from tsunami

Searches continued:
12/30/04 @ 02:06am Yahoo: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 02:06am Yahoo: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 02:10pm Yahoo: list of americans missing in tsunami
12/30/04 @ 02:16am Yahoo: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 03:34pm Yahoo: list of americans missing in tsunami
12/30/04 @ 03:53pm Msn: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 03:59pm Yahoo: ny model survives tsunami
12/30/04 @ 04:10pm Yahoo: list of americans missing from tsunami
12/30/04 @ 04:14pm Yahoo: missing americans tsunami list
12/30/04 @ 04:48pm Websearch: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 04:48pm Yahoo: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 04:58pm Yahoo: model survives tsunami
12/30/04 @ 05:14pm Yahoo: list missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 05:57pm Yahoo: tsunami list of americans missing
12/30/04 @ 06:15pm Msn: list of missing americans - tsunami

12/30/04 @ 06:35pm Yahoo: lindsey lohan breasts
No comment.

12/30/04 @ 06:44pm Yahoo: tsunami missing americans list
12/30/04 @ 07:20am Search: missing americans tsunami list
12/30/04 @ 07:33pm Yahoo: list of missing americans tsunami
12/30/04 @ 08:18am Yahoo: model survives tsunamis
12/30/04 @ 08:18am Yahoo: model survives tsunamis"
12/30/04 @ 09:10pm Websearch: list of missing americans tsunami"

Polyscifi, represent!
01/01/05 @ 05:39pm Msn: thason

Whoa. Never would've dreamed this one:
01/09/05 @ 06:14pm Yahoo: guitar chords trogdor the burninator strongbad

Spelling issues once again:
01/23/05 @ 11:37am Yahoo: hominym

Mmmkay:
01/24/05 @ 10:33pm Yahoo: quirky sayings for answering machine

Very nice:
02/02/05 @ 07:50am Google: roy lichtenstein goldfish golfball

Nighttime Eiffel Tower image copyrighted

This isn't that insidious, but it's still another sign of intellectual property law gone haywire.
Eiffel Tower likeness deemed intellectual property