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May 16, 2008
It’s drinkin’ time. First, it’s Michigan Week. All three of my long-time fans know that I have a hard time finding beer at Michigan Week. But I’ve got it licked now. The festival is held on U.S. 12, right in front of my law office. My firm owns the small park/yard on the corner of U.S. 12 and Clay Street. State law doesn’t prohibit a person from drinking beer in his own yard (give MADD a little time to work on this one). It’s my yard, my beer, my buzz. I’ll be there tomorrow with friends, enjoying some first-rate people watching, music from my CD player, and Oberon.
Second, it looks like my children’s school problems are resolved: They will attend St. Mary’s Catholic School in the neighboring village, about twelve miles down the road. My family attended the school’s open house last night, and they came out happy and excited. It’s the first time since the Black News was announced that I’ve seen them smile and say “school next year” at the same time. It’s a tremendous relief. Moreover, it appears all of them will have old friends at the school, thanks to a client of mine who has promised to procure a bus for the school and another anonymous donor that has donated $1,000 to get a transportation fund started (maintenance, gas, etc.). We have also identified some recently-retired bus drivers (all good people and die-hard Catholics) to drive it (please pray that they’ll accept the call). Things are looking up. I’m sufficiently cynical not to get too excited; something always seems to go wrong. But I’m sufficiently hopeful to hoist some extra ones this weekend.
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Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage
The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers.
Fortunately, I’m not a serious imbiber. I like to think I’m a fun imbiber, but definitely not serious.
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It’s a close call:
Australian police who pulled over a driver were shocked to find he had secured a load of beer with a seat belt - but not a five-year-old boy.
Officers were appalled to find the man was more concerned about his 30 “tinnies” than the child travelling with him.
While the consignment of alcohol was safely buckled in, the boy was sitting on the floor in the back, unrestrained.
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A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of a group calling itself the Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday. Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones - aka Master Jonba Hehol - with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates’ Court. Why is this Brews You Can Use? “Hughes claimed he couldn’t remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon box of wine beforehand. ‘He knows his behavior was wrong and didn’t want it to happen but he has no recollection of it,’ said Hughes’ lawyer, Frances Jones.”
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Devil is in the brewery! The Danish Herslev Bryghus has brewed a carrot beer, containing carrot juice, malted oat and heather honey. This is a part of the drive for a spectre of Nordic beers as an answer to German or Belgian beers. They are also experimenting with asparagus.
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May 14, 2008
TV, reality show, and a new form of slumming. It’s a lot of fun, until the hooded gang members want to know whatcha doin’ on their turf: Fox network is set to announce “Secret Millionaire,” a new series from RDF USA in which wealthy benefactors go undercover in impoverished neighborhoods. For about 10 days, a multimillionaire meets financially destitute locals and experiences what it’s like to live on a meager budget for the first time in their lives. At the show’s conclusion, the millionaire reveals his true identity to the community and gives a minimum of $100,000 of his own money to at least one deserving person.
How do these things work? I catch glimpses of these “reality shows,” like TV Land’s High School Reunion and those MTV shows where kids are living together (and apparently always yelling at each other), and I’m always confused: How can these people be acting natural with camera crews inches from their faces? Am I really supposed to think that this is remotely real? And if no sane person would think they’re real, why are people tuning in as if they are real?
In the Fox millionaire show, I’d watch every show if I thought the millionaire might get violently syringed by a crack addict, shot in a drive-by, or even harassed by some gang members. I might even watch if I thought he would genuinely interact with the folks in the ghetto, but are these people going to feel comfortable acting like themselves with the cameras rolling? I just don’t get it. Moreover, my observation/objection is so simple (I’ll eat every word in TDE’s archive if the vast majority of TDE readers haven’t thought the same thing), why aren’t more people raising this point? If they are, I haven’t seen the discussions.
BTW: If anyone understands reality show productions and can offer input (e.g., “The cameras are hidden”), I’d like to hear it.
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What’s the problem? It’s how we keep lawyers from leaving our firm: A gun-toting mariachi who held a gun on a musician who wanted to quit his band was sentenced to probation today in Denver District Court.
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May 12, 2008
Mother’s Day went well. I started it by breaking my boycott of McDonald’s and bringing my wife a breakfast burrito early in the morning. We then went to church, after which I bought her seven roses (a right-to-life fundraiser). After church, we gave Marie her presents, exercised, then went to see Speed Racer. That was a road bump. Horrible movie, the worst movie I can remember. Characters came out of nowhere and weren’t developed, the movie chronology jumped mercilessly, the animation was neat but so wild that you couldn’t figure out what was going on, there were more cliches than pixels. I think Roger Ebert’s review did the best job of capturing my opinion:
As an elementary schooler, Speed is afflicted with foot-tapping hyperactivity and ADD, and so is the movie. A lot of fluorescent, 7-Eleven-tinted images flash by, any of which could easily be removed or re-arranged without significantly disrupting the film’s continuity, because it has none. If you can determine the spatial relationship between Speed’s Mach 5 (or Mach 6) and any other race car for more than a few consecutive seconds, then good for you. As on the TV series, the pictures don’t seem to move so much as repeat — movement with no momentum.
I’d give it a “3,” and the only reason I’m going that high is because the ending wasn’t bad and my five youngest children really enjoyed it. Then again, my younger children like any movie. At what age does the chair of film discretion go into a child’s mental furniture? I’m guessing 14. My oldest son (15) realized that the film was clearly garbage, but my oldest daughter (13) didn’t quite see it that way (she liked it, but she also discerned an element of lameness in it).
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I’m assuming my Ave Maria mutual fund shares won’t feel the impact: Adult entertainment publisher Playboy Enterprises Inc posted a quarterly loss on Tuesday because of weaker publishing and domestic television revenue and forecast more trouble during the year, pushing its shares down 8 percent.
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For American Idol fans: TMZ has learned David Archuleta’s dad, Jeff, has been officially banned from “American Idol.” Here’s how it went down. “Idol” sources tell TMZ Jeff has been a complete pain in the ass, interfering with the entire production. He has badgered producers, the band, vocal coaches and even other contestants. . . . BTW, he was banned on the set when David did “Star Search” a few years back. Why do I care? Because (i) I said during week one of the finalist competition that Archuleta’s “Gee, I’m shocked I’m doing this well” was a phony act, but my family thought he was a sincere kid, and (ii) I have David Cook in the family American Idol pool. I stand to win $5, if the rest of the America understands that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
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Sweet: Marvel has announced a slew of new productions, including Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and one featuring all three characters, The Avengers. I’ve liked all the superhero movies except Iron Man, and I’m willing to give him another shot.
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May 10, 2008
I only remembered 10. My brother who is three-and-a-half years older is “Older than Dirt.”
Older Than Dirt Quiz
Count all the ones that you remember, NOT the ones you were told about! Your ratings at the bottom.
1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6 Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards (Hudson, Willys, Kaiser, Nash)
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You’re older than dirt!
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May 9, 2008
I took off most of Wednesday to attend the Chamber of Commerce golf outing. Whatta mistake. I thought I had an easy day of work ahead of me on Thursday (a mop up day to get some old projects done), so I thoroughly enjoyed myself, still made it to my son’s little league game, then stayed up later than usual with the older kids. When I got to the office Thursday morning, I discovered that a new (longish) meeting had been put on my calendar, a new client was clamoring to get in to see me before he closed on a deal this coming Monday, and the phone rang off the hook. I ran for nine hours straight, putting out client fires, and I didn’t touch one of those old projects that have been hanging over my head. Finally, at 4:00, I told the staff, “If anyone calls, I died.” I zombied out of the office shortly before 5:00, four calls unreturned, vowing never to take a day off work again.
But I ain’t going in today. And my wife bought me three cases of good beer on a shopping trip yesterday. And my son doesn’t have a little league game. And I have nothing else on my calendar, except to return those calls from yesterday. I might just have to drink a few to help drown yesterday’s memory.
And in preparation, some beer news.
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I like a cold PBR as much as the next guy, but this is a bit much: Illinois man designs coffin to look like can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
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What, no Olde Frothingslosh? A critic lists his ten worst beers of all time:
Milwaukee’s Best I understand this is a sentimental favorite of many, as it takes them back to the old days. Well, human sacrifice harkens to a simpler time, too. If you want to kill your taste buds, try battery acid — it probably tastes better.
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Fairy tale beer: The Baron Brewing Company in Seattle is introducing a line of six very rare big beers which will be available in limited edition 22oz bottles. Every special beer will represent a folk tale from the Grimm Brothers collection.
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May 8, 2008
You can’t hide your lying eyes: Uncontrollable Muscles in the Face Reveal Lying, New Research Shows. Via. Excerpts:
Those instances, less than a second long, are called micro-expressions, long believed to be incredibly brief expressions formed by muscles in the human face that are beyond control.
Porter, who has been studying deceptive behavior for 15 years, has a new study in the current issue of Psychological Science that indicates it is possible for persons involved in law enforcement and airport security, and the rest of us as well, presumably, to learn how to recognize those tell-tale expressions of deceit in someone else, even if we can’t control it in ourselves.
His research shows earlier studies that indicated those expressions lasted less than a fifth of a second were incorrect, because in many cases they last nearly a full second long. That should allow a trained eye enough time to detect them, he added.
I was hoping the article would discuss something I heard a few years ago: Our subconscious picks up on those imperceptible facial ticks and sets off alarms in us, even if we don’t know why the alarms are going off. You ever know any people who just don’t quite “click” when you talk with them, the type of person that makes you uncomfortable to be around but you can’t figure out why? A friend told me that the unease might result from facial ticks the person is throwing off: giving an indication that he’s lying or somehow being deceitful (like presenting a pleasant facade that is terribly inconsistent with his real personality). I found the concept fascinating, but I’ve never read anything about it.
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Alright, this is just gross. “Woman Aims For Breast Implant Record . . . with size 34 triple f.” And ignorant: “‘My doctor he says he don’t want to operate on me no more. Because in 5 years I’ve changed 8 times.’” And funny: “Sheyla feels better than ever about herself but others don’t see it her way. ‘I just don’t like people to look at me and laugh at me.’”
Pass the Doans.
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Public Service: How far can you go after your low-fuel light comes on? This site, using anecdotal evidence, tells you. My mini-van can apparently go about 32.5 miles.
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Kind of interesting, if you’ve ever been to Niagara Falls: The Decline and Fall of Niagara Falls. The book apparently addresses the ghetto-like New York side of the Falls. The Canadian side is still nice (often tacky, but nice).
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May 7, 2008
I predicted that blogging would be light, and so it is. I took the older kids to Iron Man last night, and it was pretty long.
I didn’t care for it, incidentally. It moved too slow. I’d give it a 5 out of 10. While watching it, I was really surprised that I didn’t like it more. Yahoo users give it an A- and the critics a B+. Those are normally good indicators (especially the Yahoo users average) that I’ll like a movie, especially a superhero one (I’ve liked ‘em all: Batman, Superman, The Incredible Hulk, even the Fantastic Four . . . I’m sitting tight for Aquaman, Green Lantern, and The Flash). For some reason, this one didn’t entertain me much.
It’s the third straight time that an acclaimed movie has fallen short for me: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and now Iron Man. Maybe I’m losing my pop culture tastes.
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Russell Shaw takes on the problem of clericalism. I’ve been a victim of it. I also strongly suspect the secrecy that clericalism instills contributed to the administrative incompetence that accelerated the demise of our parochial school. Very timely for my fresh wounds. Excerpts:
A pastor lords it over his people, consulting no one and habitually making unilateral decisions. His people are a passive, dispirited lot, quick to complain and slow to cooperate. . . .
Clericalism, however, is not an affirmation of these sacred realities but a caricature. It fosters an ecclesiastical caste system in which clerics comprise the dominant elite, with lay people serving as a passive, inert mass of spear-carriers tasked with receiving clerical tutelage and doing what they’re told. This upstairs-downstairs way of understanding relationships and roles in the Church extends even to the spiritual life: priests are called to be saints, lay people are called to satisfy the legalistic minimum of Christian life and scrape by into purgatory. . .
Disregard for the welfare of outsiders and excessive concern for insiders go far to explain the cover-up of clergy sex abuse by Church authorities.
Shaw’s article does a lot to confirm a suspicion. I don’t like the suspicion, but the evidence tells me it’s right: Priests tend to be duplicitous. I fear the duplicity is endemic to the profession. Clerics have one set of truths they provide to lay people, they have another set of truths that reflect reality. I’m sure there are many good and honest clerics out there who stay quiet when asked to divulge information that should not be provided to lay people. Too many clerics, though, simply spout off a different set of facts or otherwise mislead. It’s one reason I won’t volunteer for any “intellectual” roles in my church. I can’t provide effective advice if I’m not provided all information or if I’m given information that is inaccurate or misleading. I’ve lost all confidence that I’ll ever receive accurate and complete information when dealing with an important issue at church. Even if my priest is forthcoming, I’m not convinced the diocesan officials are.
My apologies to the good (and thoroughly honest) priests who read this blog. I don’t intend to paint with a broad brush. I know there are exceptions. Heck, the exceptions might be the majority. I do, however, think I’m caught in a bad regional situation, which I don’t fully understand (I’ve asked, but received inconsistent feedback), that sends waves of duplicity throughout the parishes.
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You’d think you’d be able to notice the difference before it got to your lips: A New Zealand café could be slapped with fines after two women were hospitalized when they were mistakenly served dish soap instead of mulled wine.
I thought maybe “mulled wine” was different than ordinary wine, but doesn’t seem much different: “Mulled wine, variations of which are popular around the world, is wine, usually red, combined with spices and typically served warm.”
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May 6, 2008
The good news: Son Jack (11) pitched three innings last night, striking out six and giving up only one run (thanks to some great fielding from his team). He also hit two doubles and a triple. The bad news: I stayed late to clean the field (had to stay a little late anyway because Michael’s (9) baseball practice hadn’t ended yet) and had household chores to finish when I got home, so there’s little time for blogging.
For these occasions, I keep a “bank” of material. The bank consists of humorous emails, witticisms, interesting passages from my reading. This morning, an interesting passage:
Historical marker on U.S. 11 in Mississippi:
John L. Sullivan defeated Jack Kilrain for heavyweight championship in a 75 round fight on July 8, 1889, at Richburg, 3 miles southwest of this spot. This was the last official bare-knuckle bout.
Jim Ruland in the March 2008 issue of The Oxford American writes: “Historical markers are notorious for being inaccurate, but this one is ridiculously vague. Three miles? . . . And since Sullivan mauled Kilrain with his bare hands, which made the fight illegal, how could the fight have also been ‘official.’”?
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May 5, 2008
The rise of the comic book, the Great Comic-Book Scare, comic-book censorship, and remembering a far more innocent age. Neat short piece. Excerpts:
[Following the censorship, b]etween 1954 and 1956, the number of comic-book titles plunged from about 650 to 250. One unemployed artist went looking for a job—any kind of job. “If you said you drew comic-books,” he recalled, “it was like saying you were a child molester.” . . .
Every honest consumer of 1940s and 1950s comic books can recall protagonists like Tarzan and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, who guided ignorant and obedient “natives.” Even Will Eisner’s brilliantly illustrated Spirit featured a dim-witted black henchman named Ebony White, who spoke like a walk-on in an Amos ’n’ Andy show. As for misogyny, helpless (and invariably large-busted) young women were the favorite target of innumerable criminals and extraterrestrials. Artists spared no pictorial detail in rendering their humiliation and terror. . . .
Yet in a coarsening culture, high values could not endure. Decades after the Code was imposed, underground films pushed vulgarity and celebrated violence. Standards gave way to the anything-goes atmosphere of the late sixties. All too soon, expensive underground comic books, with X-rated scenes undreamed of half a century ago, replaced the banished ten-cent periodicals.
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Big selection of bizarre “facts.” The citations give them an air of credibility, but heck if I know whether they’re accurate. Sample:
Zach Dunlap, a 21 year old Oklahoma City man, was declared brain dead. Doctors were preparing to remove his organs for transplant when he began to move his foot and hand. He slowly regained consciousness and was sent home to continue his recovery. - CNN.com, 3/24/08
A Sicilian court has ruled that an accused Mafioso can go home because he was too big (462 lbs.) to fit through prison doors and in an prison bed. - MSNBC, 3/12/08
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Put Barbie in a house that your kids should be playing with: Transforming that ugly plastic pink thing into a faerie tale house.
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That’s it for today. Blogging might be light for awhile. Lots of stuff going on.
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May 3, 2008
Not much today. The office calls, then Meg’s soccer game, then baseball field clean-up, then a First Communion party, then two more First Communion parties. Interspersed in there: ordinary large-family stuff and carting children to other events.
One quick thing, though:
A Romanian man has lodged an official complaint with the local trading standards agency after he got drunk on a single can of beer.
Iancu Boroi, 35, said he had bought the beer at a local supermarket in Arges in southern Romania but was so drunk after drinking just one can that he nearly passed out.
Sounds like liquid gold. Half a can is all it takes. Something tells me this brewery is about to hit the jackpot. Its beer could become a fad with the youth, who’ll mix it with Red Bull or some such confounded thing. And/or it could become big with the winos: a bottle of ripple in one hand, a can of this stuff in the other.
Enjoy your weekend.
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May 2, 2008
Sign me up: Beer baths. Of course, you have to go the Czech Republic. “[W]hile a regular tap pipes in locally sourced Il-Sano mineral water, our tubs will also contain 8-10 litres of unpasteurised Chodovar 10, a dark brew that is pouring rapidly from a brass beer font fixed to the foot of each bath. Add some crushed herbs and dried yeast, mix it all together and you have a beer bath, excellent for “soothing muscles, warming joints and healing the complexion”, according to the brewery. . . . “It increases circulation, decreases blood pressure and purifies the skin because of the proteins, the high vitamin B content and also because of the minerals in the water.” Soaking in beer, he adds, is also very relaxing for the mind and good for wellbeing.”
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Kentucky prepared to declare war: Japanese whisky voted the best.
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The ambiguity of being vodka: “Given that it can be produced from anything containing starch or sugar, its very definition is subject to a range of legal challenges around the world.”
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Maybe there’s a beer god after all: Starbucks Sees Profits Drop 28% in Second Quarter.
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The Miller blogger seems mildly surprised to see smaller imports gaining significant market shares. He then lists the three that are doing well:
1. Modelo Especial
2. Tecate
3. Stella Artois
Let me provide the key to solving this puzzle: The first two are Mexican beers. If you’re still not sure what’s driving the increased sales, come to my small town for a tour. I’ll take you to eight Mexican stores and restaurants, seven of which didn’t exist 15 years ago.
(Aside: The link immediately above contains an email link where you can get a (free, I think) subscription to Brew Magazine.)
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Crap, it would appear the (fiscal) year is almost over. I should’ve stopped by months ago: Year of Beer: “I plan to drink a different beer every day for a year, it can be a homebrew, a craft brew, or a large commercially globally distributed beer.” I kinda did something like that once, except it was more like a twelve-pack a day for a year, I was in college, and I switched brands depending on what was cheapest.
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May 1, 2008
The Solemnity of the Ascension. The hardest mystery to understand. None of them can really be understood, of course, but this one is the hardest. I accept the immortality of the soul. It squares with the ontological facts we can discern. But the assumption of the body into heaven, with the concomitant idea that there is a geographical location for it, which telescopes haven’t discovered yet? That one is tough. We can pray, we can accept. But we’ll never–this side of existence–understand.
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Helping make lacrosse players synonymous with perverts: Thirteen members of a high school lacrosse team have been disciplined for baring their bottoms on which was written a prom invitation from one player to a girl.
If you weren’t aware, it has become cool to go through extensive (and stupid) gymnastics when asking a girl to prom. Here are my thoughts on it. Excerpt:
In our culture, we’ve largely lost the proper sense of the sacramental, and the loss is regurgitating back to the surface, in pseudo-rituals.
Consider other areas where elaborate rituals have taken over special events, like the wedding proposal. A man arranges for a plane to fly by with the proposition in the tail; a man sings the proposition in front of a hundred fellow restaurant diners; a man fakes his death and rises from casket at the funeral and pops the question (okay, I made up that last one, but it could happen).
The birth of a baby has likewise grown beyond all proportion. It’s talked about incessantly, plaster casts are made of the huge stomach, the birth is videotaped, family and friends are invited to the birthing.
Wedding proposals and the births are good things — neat things, wonderful things, stupendous things. The wedding proposal leads to a sacrament, and the babies are a normal result of that sacrament.
But they’re blown out of all proportion with all sense of their normal fitness replaced by an “event” mentality.
The Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper referred to modern culture’s “desacralization.” He said the desacralization leads to all sorts of heresies, and not just theological, but also “anthropological heresies.” He wrote of this:
[A]nyone who fails to realize that there is nothing in man’s nature which is “purely spiritual,” but that there is nothing that is “purely physical” either, will in all likelihood be incapable of appreciating or meaningfully enacting that “structure of forms visible and perceptible to the senses” which we call sacred action.
That’s a fairly difficult passage, but he’s basically saying that people who have lost the sacramental (a proper sense of the intertwined nature of matter and spirit) don’t appreciate and can’t properly enact the sacred.
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Logical, if nothing else: Sweden is about to introduce a new “Walk” icon at street lights, one in a feminine vein. And of course Chesterton famously observed that the madman is always logical. The madman has a botched set of premises, but his logical conclusions from the premises are normally good.
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New Jersey lawmakers consider sin tax on fast food. For a second, I thought maybe it was an attempt to punish McDonald’s for embracing the sin of homosexual activity. Delusional me.
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A story about prison rodeo. It’s not what I feared. It’s actually a pretty neat story: “Through rodeos and rehabilitation, Burl Cain has transformed America’s most violent maximum security prison into its safest.”
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April 30, 2008
“Sandwich days.” That’s what I call this time of year because my day is “sandwiched” by obligations. I have to get the kids to school at 7:30 a.m. then be some place in the late afternoon, leaving no time for anything except running. This week is an amazing whirl: Meg (7) soccer game at 5:30 last night; Jack (11) baseball at 5:30 tonight (I have the practice gear; gotta get there early); serving the Thursday 8:30 Communion service at church, Abbie (13) Exchange Club citizenship award at noon and soccer practice in evening, all children to church May Crowning ceremony; Jack baseball practice Friday. Relax on the weekend? Almost: Meg soccer game Saturday morning, Abbie away soccer game Saturday afternoon, two First Communion parties to attend, two kids have mandatory physicals. Sunday? Jack serves at 8:30 Mass, Godson getting confirmed at 10:30 Lutheran service, Godson confirmation party at 12:30.
Michael’s (9) baseball season starts next week.
Put a fork in me.
If I ever start to complain, my wife always (oh so gently) tells me to be grateful my kids are healthy and happy. If that doesn’t do it, she increases the rhetoric: You could be without work or one of our parents could die! If that doesn’t work, she plays hard ball: You could have testicular cancer and have three months to live! That one usually brings me around a bit.
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Hippies, like, moan the world over, dude: Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD has died. He was 102. Hoffman first tripped at age 37 and defended the drug the rest of his life. “He himself took the drug — purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest — for several decades.” That slays me: “out of scientific interest.” Strictly scientific research, like the way people experiment with alcohol on the weekends.
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Neat word I discovered yesterday: Gimcrack: A showy but useless or worthless object.
Maybe I should call this blog The Daily Gimcrack. Of course, some will think it callipygian. (Aside: That’s the second time this year I’ve used that word. In a culture fascinated with body parts, it’s nice to have relatively-urbane references for them. It allows one to relate without stooping tooooo far.)
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Hey, beats tatoos: Some students at Centennial High School have shaved vertical lines into their eyebrows in a trend recently made popular by hip-hop star Soulja Boy. School officials say the mark looks like a gang symbol.
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Crud, I don’t have time to read this one right now, but I’ve bookmarked it for later: But What About the Children? Lew Rockwell on a perenn |
