I can do science me!

The Science Channel is looking for people to be on TV. They want "regular people" who know science and can explain it and make it fun. Reality TV strikes again!

Better living through chemistry

I just saw this ad for Requip, which is supposed to relieve restless leg syndrome. I've experienced RLS, but not a severe case - a bit of walking keeps it under control. I'd hate to be one of the poor bastards who has to resort to this crap, after hearing that list of side effects.

Here's a hilarious spoof (adult language).

The law of averages

I just got back from the grocery store & noticed this on the bottom of the paper bag:


So if I put 34 items in one bag, and 2 in another, and then give the customer one empty bag, that still counts, right?

Books I've read

Latest poll results:

Q: Hey, I read that book!
A: True: 6/7 (85%)
...False: 1/7 (15%)
Total: 7/7 (100%)

Don't fail to miss the new poll!

Date night = marketer's dream

I mentioned that we saw Stardust over the weekend (by the way - if you are thinking about seeing it, do!). I forgot to say that we arrived about one minute after showtime, during an ad for Dell computers. Then we sat through three more ads, including one for Verizon and a REALLY annoying one for gum. Why are ticket prices still so high (6$ for a matinee) if I'm having to watch all these ads too? It makes me think of this scene from Futurama. Fry doesn't mention "menus" though. "Dinner and a movie" is apparently the perfect time to try selling people stuff.

Operation Impending Doom III

I have about a week before classes start. I'm not looking forward to it. Don't have much else to say about it.... just not excited about going back.

Stardust

This weekend, Ben & I went to see Stardust, the movie based on a Neil Gaiman novel. As Ben said, it was the best film we've seen in quite a while. Good story, well-acted, no dull patches. Robert De Niro & Michelle Pfeiffer played great supporting roles.

Today I was looking at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and came across a really bizarre comment by Jules Brenner at Cinema Signals. He said, "They might have saved something for a sequel but the sorcery of the enterprise is the three-ring fun of the showy inventions and Pfeiffer's merry milking of the villainy cow." WTF!? A sequel? Why are people so obsessed with sequels? Why can't the movie stand on its own?

Girl fashion

One of the writers over at Slate took her 11-year-old daughter shopping for clothes for the new school year. Read the hilarity! It reminds me of this scene from Family Guy (a bit risqué - turn speakers down if you're at work).

Choice quotes:
It's a comfort to know that if your child can't come up with her own insolent remarks, clothing manufacturers are there to help.

Down the corridor was Abercrombie itself, whose guiding fashion principle seemed to be to print or appliqué the word Abercrombie in the largest letters possible on as much of the clothing as possible.

On our way to our next destination, I tried to avert her eyes from the Victoria's Secret window, where their clothing was emblazoned with the words "University of Pink." (I don't want to know that school's most popular major.)

If I have to choose between Baby Phat and Juicy Couture, I choose mandatory school uniforms.

But when I tried to push some [Old Navy t-shirts] on my daughter, she shook her head. "How can they make a plain T-shirt look bad?"

(At Talbot's (WASP couture), looking for pants): My daughter shook her head. "They're like nautical pants. They're so ugly." Then I held up a pair of beige polyester pants that looked reasonable to me. "Mom, I'm 11!" she said. "I'm not Harriet Miers!"

Time, apparently, is relative

In today's mail we received this item from a local furniture store. It's a standard flyer of the sort businesses mail out to solicit business. But this one has a curious instruction printed at along the top of the envelope.



It's a good thing it got here today! But if it hadn't, no biggie. Y'know - within a day or so is fine.

Well I didn't know that

According to Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr., "If you know a bit about language, you know it's the consonants that matter, not the vowels."

Really? I had no idea. Tell me more! Let me guess: It's the nouns that matter, not the verbs. Et cetera. What about math? "If you know a bit about arithmetic, you know it's the numbers that matter, not the operations you perform on them." Or geography: "If you know a bit about geography, you know it's the states that matter, not the lakes." Ooh, or politics: "If you know a bit about politics, you know it's the executive branch that matters, not the legislative or judicial branches."

Mr. Johnson is a creationist who insists that Greek art proves the veracity of Biblical stories. He also rails against "name-calling" by those who accept the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. He dubs them "Slime-Snake-Monkey-People" and "mutant randomites."