these facts are so interesting. out of the 30 i will probably only remember four, but for a few minutes after i read the list, the world was so damn interesting.

1. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

2. The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.

3. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

4. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

5. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2″ by 3-1/2″.

6. During the chariot scene in “Ben Hur,” a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston’s wearing a watch).

7. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. This explains my current situation.

8. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.

9. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.

10. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

read the rest here. impress your friends/colleagues/second dates immensely.

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ahh, the immortal words of a snot-nosed hipster on the wrong side of the law. there is very little funnier than watching vapid hipsters try to sound not-stupid in a courtroom. it’s like watching a walrus try to drive a car, only funnier. here, kate levitt of teeth mountain and jonathan coward of shams battle it out over three smashed broken tvs and a dead cat, a casualty supposedly quickly buried in a shoe box by a drunk levitt. witness the judicial system at work while shedding a tear for our future.

in all of this, i have to wonder, is this is a prank, some brilliant publicity stunt, a rip on the modern justice system, a rip on daytime television masquerading as the modern justice system?? because if it is i wholeheartedly love these people now. the world just got a lot brighter since entertaining the idea that maybe these dumb kids aren’t so dumb after all.

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Ten rules for writing

i LOVE this list of tips from accomplished writers. some of it’s bogus, but there are some really inspiring bits:

neil gaiman:

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

roddy doyle:

Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It’s research.

anne enright:

Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.

geoff dyer:

Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance. But writing is all about ­perseverance. You’ve got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of ­going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That’s what writing is to me: a way of ­postponing the day when I won’t do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

jonathan franzen:

It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

whitney alexander:

stop posting on your fucking blog. what is this, 2002?



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the invalid moped

the inVALID MOped

or

the INvalid MOPED

it’s impossible to tell what the phrase means without context, or more importantly, without cues for emphasis. are we talking about an italian moped with invalid registration or about an invalid who moped around? no, seriously, if anyone knows please email me because i can’t remember what this post was supposed to be about after i wrote the title.

thnks! (pronounced “thunks”)

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you’d think they were trying to drag him to an Insane Clown Posse concert! nonetheless, i’ll be the first to say it: there is nothing cuter than an invalid cat, AMIRITE??

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invisible rope prank

hilarious!


EMBED-Invisible Rope Prank Part II – Watch more free videos

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POOR ME! after i was just telling a friend the other day that i had cooked up a new style: when the recipe called for pants, i was going to substitute with leggings. no one will even taste the difference! or so i thought. you know the anti-legging movement has picked up speed when the manufacturer, i.e. american apparel: purveyor of scant, is telling you to put more clothes on.

for more cautionary examples, check out this doozy of a tmblr, dedicated to pantsing the pantsless of america. i gotta admit though—some people can pull it off, just keep in mind what decade you’re in, and most importantly, what you’re BMI is.

via theladylikes

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now if this isn’t a project of the unemployed, i don’t know what is:

from the codeorgan website:

“the codeorgan analyzes the ‘body’ content of any webpage and translates that content into music. the codeorgan uses a complex algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most appropriate to the page content.”

based on how many characters a website contains, how many of them can be found in the A-G musical scale, and the ratio of the two, Codeorgan will determine the scale (major or minor), the synthesizer (out of 10), and the drum loop (out of 16), and then play it all back to you in a 10-second clip. who knew your beanie baby website was so musical?!

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chatroulolz

this chatroulette tumbler site is absolutely mesmerizing.

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NOW HIRING NOW!!

if only this immediacy were more frequent. and are they hiring copywriters, because they could sure use some. HEY-OOOOOOOO! OH, BURN, prospective employers!

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Otherwise known as “Welcome back to My TV-Shaped Heart, David Cross and Will Arnett!”

After what seemed like months, and was in fact months, you can now stream the british pilot in three parts.

unfortunately the videos have been yanked. i guess this does mean that i’ll have to move to the UK to watch the show.

PART TWO

PART THREE

so does this mean i’m going to have to move to the UK to see this in real time? cuz i can totally start practicing knocking back pints and passing out in vestibules if so.

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Taliban Boob Meetup

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

RELAX! it’s just a shady URL. or is it???

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somebody pick me up and dust me off—i just fell in love with 18 ladies and their 18 banjos.

via boingboing

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NO means NO, google! sheesh!


via thedailywhat

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first person tetris

i love tetris. i don’t know if i love this version though. rotate a piece and it rotates the perspective, making the panic of ill-placed blocks even more upsetting.

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