Brooklyn, NY
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
- President Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, 1961
This might be the best way ever to eat M&Ms.
Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.
I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.
One of the perks of my office is that we have an assortment of snacks, including M&Ms. I cannot wait to try this and declare to the last surviving M&M, "Today I saw a M&M become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome."
My headline is no hyperbole. This airstrip in Lesotho is pretty amazing. Amazingly scary.
Depending on the wind in the mountains during take off, it is entirely possible for the aircraft not to be in the air by the end of the airstrip. Instead, you shoot off the end of the airstrip out over the Ohohbeng river, then drop down the two thousand foot cliff face until you start flying.
Here's some more unnerving airstrips. That would be a pretty great around the world adventure, which would be to travel to each of these destinations and experience them. Although, after further thought, nothing is more hellish than sitting on the runway tarmac in Chicago for 4 hours.
Hey fellow Brunonians: Did you hear about how a couple pies were lobbed at Thomas Friedman who was visiting our alma mater to give a talk? I was pretty embarrassed for our school when I heard this. What irks me about this, other than the actual pie throwing, is that they did it before he even had an opportunity to speak. I and many others find him an interesting person at the least. Let the man speak! Also, the whole pie tossing is protesting thing just really annoys me in general. It seems so sophomoric...and ultimately wasteful. I love pie. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VbzyWWSRoo]
In tenuously related news, the urban dictionary definition of "Brunonian" cracks me up.
One who attends Brown University, named after their mascot "Bruno" the bear. Brown is arguably the best ivy out there, and so are brunonians.
Yo, did you check out that brunonian while visiting Providence the other day? Yeah - she was mad hot, especially at the SexPowerGod party completely naked.
Ah, SexPowerGod. So good, so right.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Doug Black's "Letter by Letter" sounds like a really great read.
I like what some photographers are doing with documenting our mass usage of resources and the sheer volume of stuff, such as this arial photograph of a lumberyard.
Talk about schadenfreude in the digital age. Google Map's street view is created with the assistance of a car that is outfitted with cameras, and these neutral eyes captures street incidents that are later immortalized on Google Map. Incidents such as this one of a kid falling off his bicycle. Haha.
And here's my FAIL contribution:
I was walking through Soho last summer and walked in front of one of those camera outfitted cars.
So as you can infer from this entry I had a rough night yesterday from drinking too much. After arriving home, I immediately proceeded to throw up outside by the curb. This morning after grabbing some brunch, my friend Tony and I were walking past my apartment to the subway when he pointed at something on the ground and asked me if it was mine. I looked over and there on the curb was evidence of my shameful act. Very gross:
My most sincere apologies for the owner of that vehicle. I also thank the owner of the vehicle for providing something against which I could brace myself last night.
Remember Mavis Beacon? It was a program way back when that taught people how to type. It showed me the ways of QWERTY typing. One of the best parts about the program was this "racing" game where the faster you entered the sentences on the screen the faster your "car" would go. Anyway, here's a similar online multiplayer version called Type Racer.
The New York Times argues that based on their respective websites, Obama is a Mac. And Clinton a PC.
On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.
I think you could replace "Mac" with "Gmail" and "PC" with "Hotmail" in this article.
I'm a big fan of Twitter. I've mentioned it before. Admittedly it took me a long time to get onboard with Twitter and to see its purpose. I originally joined and began using it just to end Kaizar's constant hounding and proselytizing about the greatness of Twitter and twittering and things twits. It took a while, but I've now become a huge fan of this service especially as a few more of my friends have joined and started using it. You ask, "What is Twitter exactly?" And why should you Twitter? This short video below does an EXCELLENT job of explaining it and I hope it convinces you to join and start twittering! On a side note, I also love the video's creativity. Fantastic stuff. It really makes me want to learn video editing.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o]
What makes Twitter so appealing to me is that it does a great job of incorporating mobile phones. I primarily use Twitter with my cell phone, which has a qwerty keypad making it easy to write. And it's great to receive my friends' Twitter updates as a text message essentially on my mobile.
On a related note, I think the time is ripe for someone to re-examine Robert Putnam's seminal study Bowling Alone.
Dear My Favorite Paul Smith White Sneakers, I deeply apologize for what I did to you last night. Or rather what I did on to you last night. I blame the combination of drinking on an empty stomach and then over compensating later at Famous Ben's pizzeria.
Humbly yours,
MRod.
Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
- Malcolm Muggeridge
Me: So you going out this weekend? MC: Yeah, going out
MC: Heading to a party with some coworkers tonight
MC: I asked if i could bring the girl i'm dating
MC: They said "Yes, but there will be lots of hot girls there, are you sure you want to bring sand to the beach?"
Me: I met the most random person yesterday. R: Who?
Me: Paul Simon's bodyguard.
R: Al?
Me: Hahahaha.
Me: I was just surprised Paul Simon...needed a bodyguard.