REG-GIE! REG-GIE! REG-GIE! # RT @capricecrane: Remember: It's not over till the fat lady sings. Or until you tell her she's fat. Then it's over. Except for the running. # Read more →
January 2010
NARCh Winternationals – Day 1
Game 1 Everybody wants to score goals; nobody wants to play defense. Everybody wants to make a big play; nobody wants to make the little plays. The kids came out too revved up, made a lot of mistakes and were fortunate to win the game. Final Score: Devil Dogs 5, Silicon Valley Quakes 3 Game 2 The boys calmed down and played the best game I’ve ever seen them play — and I see every game. Final Score: Devil Dogs 4, NorCal Riot Red 0 Two round-robin games left, against what look like stronger teams. Read more →
Twitter: 2010-01-13
RT @ArashMarkazi: http://twitpic.com/xzktx – The Pete Carroll era is officially over. # Read more →
Miep Gies, 1909-2010
AMSTERDAM – Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager’s diary, has died, the Anne Frank Museum said Tuesday. She was 100. “I don’t want to be considered a hero,” she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren. “Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary.” — msnbc.com Read more →
Chungking Express
It really takes off about halfway through when Faye Wong shows up. She also sings a charming cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” (in Chinese) on the soundtrack. Delightful! Read more →
I Love This Joke
A guy is sitting on his sofa when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and THROWS it as far as he can. Three years later — the same guy hears a knock at the door. He opens it and the snail says, “What was that all about?” I love this joke because, if you’re like me, you identify with the snail’s perseverance in the face of inexplicable setbacks . . . Read more →
Do Not Disturb
Most of us at work have offices with doors. People close the door sometimes for privacy, but mostly when they just want to work uninterrupted for a while. So today I had a brainstorm of an idea: I could just close my door and go home! People would marvel at my new work ethic! “He’s in there working all day and night,” they’d say. “He doesn’t even come out to use the bathroom!” Read more →
Pug Photos on Flickr
Originally uploaded by Beastie182 Originally uploaded by h4ndz Originally uploaded by pugphotos Read more →
Out of the Turmoil
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, “To-morrow, success or failure won’t matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.” — William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair Read more →
The Consequences of Obama
Under Obama, the hunters have become the hunted as America inverted her priorities. Those who have been working to keep us safe have, themselves, come under scrutiny for profiling, harsh interrogation techniques, and a failure to give terrorists constitutional rights they don’t have. . . . Now Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutall sits, lawyered up, in a federal prison. His interrogation will proceed, if at all, under the watchful eye of his counsel. He will not finger other operatives nor warn us of other impending attacks. He will receive the full panoply of constitutional rights, none of which he is entitled to. . . . Abdulmutall should be interrogated by the military, without benefit of counsel. The evidence we obtain should not be admissible in a court of law nor used as the basis for his sentencing. But it must be used to ward off future threats and attacks. —… Read more →
Twitter: 2010-01-05
Why Bogus Therapies Seem to Work: http://bit.ly/7wtEVf # Read more →
Has Anyone Seen Harry’s Book?
Reporting from Searchlight, Nev. – A commotion unfolds in the tiny public library here as the staff searches for a copy of the memoir written by Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader and Searchlight native. “Has anyone seen Harry’s book?” a librarian calls out. A local patron grabs a trash can and peers inside: “It’s not where it’s supposed to be,” he says. In his hometown at least, there seems to be little affection for Reid, whom some residents describe as a distant figure out of touch with local concerns. — Swing states may be on the move – latimes.com Read more →
Nobody I Know
Enclosure
Another Difference Between Dogs and Cats
Hero dog saves boy, 11, from cougar attack — msnbc.com Dogs will save your life. Cats will try to kill your children. — Lightning Read more →
Rory Markas, 1955-2010
“Fly ball, center field! Erstad says he’s got it! Erstad makes the catch! The Anaheim Angels are the champions of baseball!” Read more →
Alumni News
NEW YORK (AP) — From the first practice in training camp until the last game, Brian Cushing was a tackling machine for the Houston Texans. That’s exactly what the team sought when it chose the linebacker from Southern Cal 15th overall in the draft last April. What the Texans also got is The Associated Press 2009 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Cushing was a runaway winner in balloting by a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the league. Cushing received 39 votes Tuesday, easily beating Buffalo safety Jairus Byrd, who had six, and became the second Texans linebacker in four seasons to win the award. DeMeco Ryans took it in 2006. — Texans LB Cushing named top rookie – NFL News – FOX Sports on MSN Read more →
People and Their Silly Principles
If every person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and cannot pay–if we are to be peering into everybody’s private life, speculating upon their income, and cutting them if we don’t approve of their expenditure–why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be! Every man’s hand would be against his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done away with. We should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another. Our houses would become caverns, and we should go in rags because we cared for nobody. Rents would go down. Parties wouldn’t be given any more. All the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax-lights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses–all the delights of life, I say,–would go to the deuce, if people did but… Read more →
Heiress Casey Johnson Dead at 30
Heiress Casey Johnson dead at 30 — Los Angeles Times I myself have an heir named Casey, the main differences being that he’s a boy and he’s still alive. This is definitely another blow to the idea that being fabulously well-to-do is a guarantee of any sort of happiness in life . . . Read more →
In Case of Emergency
Grab your coat. Get your hat. Leave your worries on the doorstep. Direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. Read more →