I repeat, I think, that deputydog is a Wanker with a capital W on account of being a capitalletterphobiac. — here
So why am I commenting about this? Well, because I feel a little like Richard Dreyfuss in JAWS, during the scar scene: “I got that beat. I got that beat.” — there (via)
Some people sure have weird tastes in architectural thrills. Too bad so many of them are architects. — here
You can measure how free a society is by how the weirdos are treated. — there
Strange place for a playground
Neeka has been posting some great photos of Istanbul, starting April 28.
Beautiful Century - partly in Portuguese but it’s mostly images: art, old ads, photos, etc. I like this. (via
Black Sun - bizarre conspiracy theory site. Some moonbat politics, lots of WWII and UFO stuff among other things.
I haven’t seen one of these in years.
Sally and Sam - a very nice blog with lots of interesting photos
Amoosi - a UK company that makes new dresses from vintage and “reclaimed” fabric. (via Hippy Shopper)
Strange works of art by Thomas Doyle (via In4mador!)
Origins of common workplace words
Life on Mars - speculation from 1957
I had heard music played on the hurdy gurdy before but had never seen one until I found this video. Here’s a nice interview with a hurdy gurdy player.
MP3 of William Shatner messing with some director. Not really laugh out loud funny, in my opinion, but somewhat funny.
Here are some art (or craft) links found at Dark Roasted Blend:
Embroidered felt typewriter
Flower girls
A long, long natural history mural
I meant to put this one on the list I posted yesterday but missed it somehow: Western Swing on 78. And the secret? I think I sort of like western swing, just a little bit. Actually, by “like” I mean that once in a while when I’m watching the local PBS station (which rarely happens anymore since we got cable) I’ll hear a few seconds of what I assume is western swing when they’re advertising some show about Oklahoma music history and I think, “that’s not bad.”
Things Younger Than McCain - an entire blog devoted to things that are younger than John McCain. Actually more interesting than you’d expect if you don’t mind the political humor; sort of a history of the past 72 years. (via Dustbury)
JSBlog - same blogger as Apothecary’s Drawer but more book related stuff. Very interesting. (Victorian waterbeds!?)
Political Irony - pointing out irony in the news. Humorous.
Sayings and Quotes - just what the title says it is, a collection of quotes.
Heh. Cute photo.
A rather cool lamp
Lawyer jokes - I haven’t clicked on any of the liinks yet; I just wanted to point to the photo.
Beautiful! There are quite a few construction photos. Scroll down if you just want to see the finished product. Also, check out this stainless steel mouse. I’m not sure if I like that or not. It’s interesting.
Both of those via The Twisted Spinster
“Why does nutter=rotten web design?” Good question. I’ve noticed that too.
The glass harmonica - photos, video and a bit of history. (via Grow-a-brain)
Stylish recycling (via Neatorama)
This is right at the top of my long list of things I will never ever try!
My younger son’s birthday is exactly one week after mine. That’s today so I thought I’d take this opportunity to complain about the lack of generic birthday cards. Nearly all cards these days are for people of a specific age and for adults it’s only the “important” ages, 18, 21, 30, etc. or they’re for specific relations, son, husband, brother, friend, etc. That’s fine if you can find the right one but what usually happens is that you find a card that is perfect except that it’s for the wrong relation and all those that are for the right relation are not quite right.
I ended up getting a card that says “from all of us” even though it’s from only two of us because it was cute and otherwise appropriate. I saw one that played the Twilight Zone music and wanted to get that one but there were only two and one of them had been handled so much it was dirty and the corners were damaged and in the other one the little music player didn’t work.
Why don’t I follow through on my intentions? I can’t rule out laziness. Or to put it another way, Laziness Rules!! — here
But blogging is now a form of accepted media and what kind of media would I be if I did not latch on to a potentially scary subject, blow it out of proportion and use it for my own ratings? — there
I didn’t see much fire-and-brimstone in his collage structure, and he’s made a point (over and over and over again) of noting that all people are welcome to enter his church. So he’s a benign nut—I’d rather have that than the other kind. — here
While I was searching for info on Chief Tasunka Kokipapi (see below) I also searched for the artist D.C. Kessler. I struck out on that one. The closest was Daniel Kessler. I’m pretty sure he’s not the same artist but I do like his work and I’m glad I found his site.
Sometime in the early to mid-1980s, on one of our trips through Tennessee, we stopped for a while in Gatlinburg. In a little gift shop there I bought a print of a charcoal portrait of a Native American man. It is very much the quintessential “American Indian” portrait - a rugged face, expression solemn, proud, a bit sad, eyes seemingly fixed on something far away. Underneath, in the artist’s hand, is the name, Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. The artist is D.C. Kessler, copyright ‘82.
After more than 20 years the portrait is still one of my favorite things that I have on my walls. In spite of the “typical” expression it’s easy to see him as a real person, to imagine his personality. I’ve always been intrigued by that name - Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. What incident in his youth could have earned him such a name? As always, the Internet is here to provide answers.
“Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses” is a mis-interpretation of his real name, Tasunka Kokipapi, sometimes written as one word, Tasunkakokipapi. A better translation would be “young man of whose horse they are afraid”, meaning that he was such a fierce warrior that even the sight of his horses caused fear. That’s going to take some getting used to but I’m glad I know now.
There are several photographs online of Tasunka Kokipapi. None of them look much like the portrait I have. In this photo he is recognizable, just barely, as the same person but much older and more tired.
Weird Asian pizzas - #4 is not all that weird; it actually sounds pretty good. A couple of the others are… well, interesting and not horrible. (via AMCGLTD)
A post about aerodynamics with several photos of very cool-looking vintage cars.
If you can think of “One Hundred Things That Bug Me” does that mean you’re easily annoyed? Well, maybe not if it takes you a whole week to come up with that many.
Caption of the week. But come on! If you’ve never worn anything more ridiculous than that you’re doing pretty good.
Fireworks Museum - a UK site, (see… we Americans aren’t the only ones) lots of links. Some nice vintage ads at the top. (via Bifurcated Rivets
“One of the benefits (?) of being a biologist is receiving biotech spam in one’s inbox…” Heh.
Andy answers the question, “If you knew that in five years one million people would read what you have written, what would you do with that opportunity?” He has good answers, except that on the second one I would say, “Speak your mind,” or “Speak your opinion.” When people start talking about truth in that manner it makes me mentally itchy.
This is a great question though. I guess there are some bloggers who are really only trying to reach a small group of friends but most of us started because we had something we wanted to tell the world so, at least at the beginning, we are writing what we would write if we knew one million people would read it. Not all of us stick with our original plan but it might be useful to once in a while think about what we really want to say to the world and I did promise last week to give more unsolicited advice. (And, like Andy said, do as I say, not as I do.)
1. Learn your own language as well as you are able. Respect it and treat it like a great treasure. It is the tool you use to express yourself and the tool others can use to manipulate you without your knowledge. (And if you think you can’t be manipulated you probably already have been.)
2. Get to know history and “high culture”. This is closely related to #1. English is full of cultural references. If someone spoke to you of a Sisyphean task would you really understand what that means or would you just make an assumption about its meaning based on the context? A lot of things make so much more sense if you know where they came from.
3. Be an elitist. Elitism is only a bad thing if there are people to whom it is off limits. In America anyone can be as elite as they want to be. If you choose not to be elitist, at least recognize that it is a legitimate and honorable lifestyle choice.
4. Pay attention! Most stupid people are just average people who haven’t been paying attention. Most smart people are just average people who have been paying attention.
5. Don’t panic! Most things you’re afraid of will turn out to be not as bad as you expected. Trust me on this. And remember, I didn’t say “Don’t be afraid,” I said, “Don’t panic.”
6. Never listen to people who are quick to say, “I told you so”. They’ll never remind you of all the times they were wrong. Being right one percent of the time or even fifty percent of the time does not make one a prophet.
7. Find something beautiful and joyful to occupy your mind instead of wasting so much of your life thinking about bad news, scandal, gossip, ugliness and your own pet peeves.
8. Change the world quietly. Many people who set out to change the world merely try to change opinions. That will never work. The world is huge and it has its mind made up already. The only chance you have of changing it is to sneak up on it and change it while it’s not looking.
9. Spend some time alone.
10. Spend some time with other people.
11. At least once a day for a few minutes stop everything and really look at something you’ve seen many times before.
12. Read a difficult book just for the fun of it. (Yes, fun.)
13. Read a low-rated genre novel and make an honest effort to find serious merit in it.
14. Listen to music without words. Listen, really listen, until there’s nothing in your mind but the music.
15.If the shoe hurts don’t wear it. I mean that literally. It’s not easy to have a positive outlook on life if your feet hurt. I once read that more than 80 percent of women wear shoes that are too small. And there are those absolutely ridiculous fashion shoes that wouldn’t be comfortable in any size. Why do that to yourself?
Now everyone link to this and help me get those one million page views.
The Empire Strikes Barack. It appears to be a pro Obama video but I link to it because it amuses me. (And the title of this post is also just because it amuses me. I’m not stating any political position here.)
What the…? - nice photos, general life observations
The Art of the Title Sequence - movie title sequences, of course. One complaint: it’s one of those annoying aggressive websites that if you put it in the background and do something else while you’re waiting for it to load it automatically comes to the front when it’s done. I hate that. Otherwise, nice site.
Jed Report - election coverage. (Yeah, I know. I never link to political sites in these lists but I bookmarked this for some reason I can’t remember.)
Mind the Gap - one of the Arts Journal blogs; very nice and more genuinely bloggy than most.
William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog - education and engineering projects in Malawi. Hasn’t been updated in over a month but still interesting and worthwhile.
Free Mind World - a blog about China, in English and Chinese
Flibbertigibbet! - another Oklahoma blog.
Here’s another great collection of photos and links from Dark Roasted Blend. Skipping through and pointing out my favorites… I like the Czech factories. Sort of garish and tacky but considering how ugly typical factories are this is an improvement. Down a little farther, there’s a tree with an interesting “face”. Still farther down, nice photographs by Sergey Markin with a link to his Livejournal. It’s in Russian but there are a lot more great photos there. Keep going… I like the old ad for the Galaxy 4-speed multi-record changer. Finally, almost all the way to the bottom - Yikes! - would you smile or cringe if your dentist was wearing one of those?
Also, from another DRB post, proof (as if you needed any more) that governments above the city level have no sense of humor.
As expected my “Big 5-0″ turned out to be just another nice little birthday. A little nicer than some though because Saturday (the day after my actual birthday) we had a little family gathering. My husband’s two sisters came all the way from Arkansas to be here. I don’t have any sisters so it’s really wonderful to have such great sisters-in-law.
My biggest (i.e. most expensive) birthday present was a widescreen LCD monitor, from my husband. He uses the computer too but but that’s okay because I really did want a bigger monitor. It was one of the top things on my list in fact. The widescreen will take some getting used to, some websites don’t look right on it but, mostly I’m happy with it. Photos look great on it and it takes up less space so I have some more space to clutter up on top of the computer desk.
Thanks to everyone who left a comment on the other birthday post and to the bloggers who linked to it - 2 Blowhards, Incurable Insomniac and Bates Line. My apologies if I’ve missed anyone.