Polyglots

One of the things that I've always wanted to do and I kick myself in the butt for not ever getting started on is learning another language. I feel like if I really just put some time into it, there are two or three languages that I could become proficient in, but unfortunately, I'm lazy. Then I heard about Sir John Bowring, a former British colonial governor of China who could reportedly speak 100 languages and had knowledge of 200+. I'm not sure whether that's true or not, but Wikipedia has a list of people who knew multiple languages. And I am impressed. Damn, I'm lazy!

Natural Processes

Natural Processes
Originally uploaded by The Passing Strange

1,325 Views. Interestingly enough, this photo has the most views on my flickr account. The second place photo only has 792 views. Why are people so enamored with my elimination processes?

And if you zoom in real good, you can see a little extra special something. Thanks Ed for capturing this special moment of New Orleans oh so long ago....

What's your #1 on Flickr?

Ken Jacobs (score by John Zorn & Ikue Mori)

The embedding not working, try this link :
http://www.ubu.com/film/jacobs_celestial.html

Ice Cream Truck

It's SO hot in Florida right now...



(made by The Glue Society, an Australian artist/prankster outfit)

Hanging Out

Nerd-In-Chief

John Hodgman roasts President Obama at the Radio and TV Correspondents' dinner. Watch out for the D&D reference, Keith...

Board Game Olympics!

Yesterday I attended the single best event I have been to since I have lived the past year of my life in NYC. the Board Game Olympics!! A group created by a few guys residing in Brooklyn, known as MetroMetro. They set up shop back in 2002 trying to establish more playing and less working in their lives. Their main gig is setting up all extensive city scavenger hunts, but have since expanded trying to incorpate new ideas ultimately expanding the vision and smaller locations of NYC.

Not only did I get to compete in Board Game mania, but I spent my first real night in Park Slope. Good people, good vibe, and best of all, no hipsters. It was perfect.

The teams were designed 4 to a team, with 12 teams competing. The games were as follows:

2 on 2 Jenga
Team Trivia Pursuit
Team Pictionary (it is amazing some of the things we had to draw, just for fun, try drawing Don King, or shallow) what a great game!!!!
1 on 1 Connect Four
1 on 1 Battle Ship
2 on 2 Memory
and for the final Team on Team Operation

My team, "In the Observatory with the Candlestick" tied for 4th, a place I am content with. We dominated pictionary, I single handedly destroyed a Kiwi in battleship, overall it was a beautiful thing.

I was recently mistaken about a week ago, stating to a friend that I needed to spend more time with children because I was craving some good old board gamage, when it was explained how wrong I was. That what I really needed was a dose of adulthood, that is where I would find my board gameing, nerd loving, feast...how true those words were.

Board Game Olympics was was like a dream in heaven!

Dental Tower

Word Detective

The Word Detective solves any mysteries concerning the origins of expressions and words.

http://www.word-detective.com/sitemap/

THe site contains alot of historical knowledge about some common and not-so-common words we use in the English language. I hope this solves some conundrums you might be having.

Mushfake

In my academic studies, I came across this word: mushfake. Its common usage is when one takes an item and uses it for a purpose it wasn't intended. Such as when Uncle Buck uses a snow shovel to make giant pancakes in the movie "Uncle Buck."

I came across this web site:

http://www.mushfaketoday.org/

It's a program promoting the arts for inmates in prison. I thought the concept of the word and the intention behind this program deserved some flippinkites attention.

Be creative - Mushfake today!

Furoshiki

Furoshiki is a technique of folding cloth in order to produce functional equipment. It is a Japanese invention, and strikes me as much like origami. I could see busting out some of these techniques with a towel in a MacGuyver-like situation, so I'm furiously taking notes...

Obama Scales Back His Plans

After visiting a Denny's, President Obama has decided to change many of the priorities of his administration.


Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Being Born Backwards by Woody Allen

He makes a strong case.....Click on the image to see it more clear.

Who Pooped?

The Minnesota Zoo has created this fun website that teaches kids about animal digestive habits. Fun and informative!

http://whopooped.org

Steve Martin's First Film: The Absent-Minded Waiter

He wrote it and starred in it. Buck Henry and Teri Garr also act in it. It was nominated by the Academy Awards as best short film in 1977.

Acoustical Liberation of Books in the Public Domain

LibriVox: free audiobooks

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Their goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.

http://librivox.org/

Many languages.
Not the most flexible search tool, but for free....

Volunteer to record if your language or preferred genre of literature is underrepresented.

All in the Family

Interesting tidbit I learned recently. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, and Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United Sates, are half cousins. Both of them are sixth cousins to Elvis Presley.

We are, truly, all interconnected...

Comparisons to 1930

This blogger is summarizing the Wall Street Journal each day for the corresponding day in 1930.
You may draw from it what you will, and learn some history in the process...

(this is a new blog so it is only one day so far)

http://newsfrom1930.com/