Barzelay.net: Random Archives

October 11, 2007

Those Sexy Hedge Fund Traders

This story may actually be the strangest story I've ever read about the world of business and finance.

It was alleged that one of Cohen's top bosses at SAC [a huge Wall Street hedge fund] chided traders for being too aggressive - and that they must use a soft feminine touch to score in their trading pitches.
One junior trader claimed that the boss, Ping Jiang, a key producer at the big hedge fund, demanded that the young trader take female hormone pills to help erase his aggressive male ways so he could be more effeminate in his trading style.

Eventually, the hormones caused the junior trader to start wearing dresses, avoid his wife's touches altogether and allegedly begin a sexual relationship with his boss, the trader claims.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2007

The more life experience I acquire, the more I learn to distrust my own instincts about when I should be embarrassed, when I should be pissed off, when I should feel like my time has been wasted, etc. Increasingly, I'm learning to see the hidden costs and the hidden benefits of the things that happen to me. Many of these costs and benefits are social, some are psychological.

For instance, whenever something really shitty happens to us, it's almost always good for a story. And if it's something truly shitty, and if we're decent storytellers, we might end up telling that story tons of times, and getting a bunch of laughs each time. In that way, the cost of some tragedy is never really as great as it seems initially, because we get all sorts of benefits out of telling the story of the tragedy. It's why self-deprecation usually works so well. What one loses in tearing down some aspect of one's public image, one gains in the perception that one is comfortable with oneself and one's faults.

The recent example that brought this to mind was my friend Eric's story of losing his cell phone. He recounted it to me with some flourish:

Eric: yeah im a dope
Eric: i was sitting on a bench out on the pier
Eric: and the phone rang
Eric: I reached into my pocket
Eric: it slipped out
Eric: bounced once
Eric: and then SPLOOSH

For all the times he'll tell that story in his life, each time relishing the laughs, perfecting the timing, by the end, it might just be worth having to get a new cell phone! Maybe not, but those benefits certainly diminish the overall negative effects that would otherwise arise from the occurrence.

Similarly, for all my three years as an upperclassman in college at Vandy, I never locked my dorm room door. There were occasional thefts that happened, non-students walking the halls of our dorm, and the shady friends of Gretchen always around, but still, I left my door unlocked. Why? Because I guessed that if I left my door unlocked all through college, I was likely to get robbed approximately once. The only things I had of value were my wallet and my camera. In analyzing the risks, of course I realized that losing my wallet and my camera would be pretty crappy. On the other hand, not having to lock and unlock my door would save me, in the aggregate, lots of hassle. So much so that I determined the benefits of leaving my door unlocked for three years outweighed the costs of having my shit stolen once. It turned out that I never had anything stolen, but even if I had, it would have been worth it.

And there are all sorts of things like that; hidden costs and benefits that we don't take into account. So next time something pisses you off, realize that there are probably some pretty good things about it. You may just not recognize them at first.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:11 PM | Comments (1)

July 19, 2007

Kwik-E-Mart

Of all the places they could've put the Kwik-E-Marts for The Simpsons movie promotion, they put one in Mountain View, CA. It's an hour South of San Francisco, and happens to be where one of my law firm's offices is located (the headquarters, in fact). The only reason this makes sense is that they put it in basically right next to Google's campus.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun. We ate disgusting-looking pink-frosted doughnuts, and slurped up electric blue squishees. The signs are all pretty funny. Definitely one of the coolest promotions any of us has ever seen.

Posted by Barzelay at 6:14 AM | Comments (7)

May 11, 2007

ASL For "Mint?"

You know how whenever you wake up in the morning you have bad breath? I do, and I'm pretty sure you do, too, since someone invented a term for it.

But morning breath isn't limited to mornings. Same thing happens after you take a nap. Even a brief nap. And the phenomenon isn't necessarily sleep-related, either. The same thing usually happens when you go to a movie theater, and sit there for a couple hours staring at the screen, breathing through your nose. In fact, it appears to me, based on extensive reflection, that so-called "morning breath" is common to all situations wherein one keeps one's mouth shut for extended periods of time.

But that observation makes me curious: do mutes have terrible breath?

Does anyone know any speech-impaired individuals, and if so, can you confirm or deny this hypothesis? Or better yet, why don't we just ask them and let them speak for themsel—uh, nevermind.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:10 AM | Comments (4)

April 11, 2007

Another Heaping Helping Of Your Mother In Law's Links

This is the ultimate resistance to eminent domain. A Chinese couple is holding out in their home despite it now being an island in the middle of a giant foundation pit for an upcoming building. They have no way to access their home. The picture is awesome.

Apparently, in Thailand, being a skillful boxer can get you early release from prison. Thanks, Jason.

Disney will now be allowing fairy-tale weddings for gays. I think Disney was paid off by late show monologue writers. Insert Jay Leno fairy/princess joke here.

Each year on Good Friday, a bunch of Filipinos crucify themselves as a form of worship. They get nailed to crosses and everything, other than the staying up there until they die part. One guy has done it twenty-one times! Silly Christians!

Cara posted about a Beijing restaurant whose primary products are the penises of various animals. They insist that literally eating cock has all sorts of medicinal properties (some of which are most effective if the penises are eaten raw). Maybe Disney's fairy-tale weddings are a health-based decision?

A court ruled for Pull My Finger Fred, against Fartman.

When their teacher left the room, four fifth-graders--two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year old boy--had sex in their classroom. A fifth boy kept watch outside the door, while another 10 students just sat at their seats watching. The five students are now facing charges of obscenity. This is absolutely crazy. In fifth-grade I barely knew a vagina was. Props to all those kids for doing their part to debunk the idea that consent can only happen after age seventeen (depending on your state).

For the nerds, an Israeli comedy group envisioned a common supermarket outfitted with all the typical Web 2.0 features (user-generated content, RSS feeds, AJAX, tags, recommendations, etc.). The video is hilarious.

Bruce Schneier, cryptography and security guru (check out the Bruce Schneier Facts, a geeky, funny takeoff of the Chuck Norris facts), has posted a contest on his blog to write a terrorist movie-plot involving some everyday item.

We all know that a good plot to blow up an airplane will cause the banning, or at least screening, of something innocuous. If you stop and think about it, it's a stupid response... Your goal: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA will have no choice but to ban the item once the plot is uncovered. I want to see a plot horrific and ridiculous, but just plausible enough to take seriously... Make the TSA ban wristwatches. Or laptop computers. Or polyester. Or zippers over three inches long. You get the idea.

Posted by Barzelay at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2007

Links As An Artistic Medium

In a bit of D.C. trivia, I bet none of you knew that the National Cathedral has a Darth Vader gargoyle. It was added in the 80's when a young student won a contest to design a new grotesque for the cathedral. This is pretty awesome but it appears to be too high up in the cathedral to be able to get a good view without binoculars.

Joshua Bell, a virtuoso violinist, played for 45 minutes in the L'Enfant Plaza metro station, as an experiment to see whether anyone would even notice. He usually makes $1000 per minute playing to sold out concert halls, and here he played for free, in a metro station, on a $3.5 million Stradivarius violin. It was a stunt designed to highlight the importance of context to art. The end result? No crowd gathered, barely anyone even slowed their gait. He did, however, make $32 that people threw into his case.

Check out this art installation that consists of two ferrofluid towers in which liquid metal is controlled by electromagnets moving along with music. It's wild.

Some people do some pretty amazing artistic work on official state Easter Eggs. But in a big political gaffe, Wyoming's state egg was painted by some Illinois student, and looks about ten times crappier than any of the other states' eggs. Check it out. Thanks, Chad.

A German family has made quite an interesting conversation piece. Not quite art, but it is the mother of all computer case mods. They've turned their dead, stuffed dog into a PC. "The Zimmermans also added that almost always the first question people ask is where is the USB Port."

An artist makes awesome sculptures out of construction paper.

A Russian gangster built a giant, ad-hoc, wooden house thirteen stories tall.

Apparently shoes are now coming out that have stingray leather as one of their materials. Oh, New Balance, you cads!

Nikon posted a really cool flash project called Universcale, putting the entire universe to scale. You can zoom to various incremental sizes to see what objects occupy that world.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:45 PM | Comments (7)

March 7, 2007

There Exists Only One Haircut, And It Isn't The One You Want

After many years of getting haircuts at barbers, I've finally come to a realization. When the barber asks you how you want it cut, whatever you say is all just for show. He's just gonna give you The Cut anyway. The Cut varies from person to person, but not from haircut to haircut. No matter what I say at that point, I come out with the exact same haircut.

Specifically, that haircut is far too short on the top, and a bit too faded on the sides and back. Which is exactly the cut I got yesterday.

The barber said, "How do you want it cut today?"

My hair was quite long (by my standards), but, not wanting to get The Cut yet again, I told him, "Trim the sides, and just a little bit of a trim on the top. No shorter than like a 4 on the sides."

So first he used a 4 on the sides. Then he faded it down to a 3, and even a 2 at the very bottom. Had I asked for that? No. He was giving me The Cut. Sure enough, he cut about an inch and a half off the top. That might not sound like much to you girls, but that's about 2/3 of the hair I had. Not exactly a slight trim.

And so, when he was done, it looked like this:

I'm convinced at this point, that whatever I had told him, it still would have looked like that. If I had said, "I'm trying to grow a ponytail. Don't touch anything, just trim it around the ears," it would have looked like this:

If I had told him, "Shave it all off," it would have looked like this:

If I had told him, "Business in the front, party in the back," it would have looked like this:

If I'd said, "Actually, I'm not here for a haircut. Can you just trim my beard for me, please" it would have looked like this:

Essentially, one has two options: 1) Do you desire the services of the barber? If yes, your entire haircut has already been decided for you. 2) Some barbers will also ask whether you want the back squared or tapered. The only reason you are given that choice is that they know you don't actually care.

"Do I want it squared or tapered? Well, Barber, the entire time people will spend looking at the back of my head throughout the length of this haircut is less than the time you're going to spend cutting it right now. Which means you're going to be looking at it more than anyone else. So I invite you to square or taper the back in whatever fashion is most pleasing to your Barberial aesthetics."

And then, to top it all off, the damn barber cut me with the straight razor! That's never happened before. He pulled the straight razor out of the Barbicide, this bright blue germ-killing liquid that looks like it was scooped out of the lagoon at the Putt-Putt course, and started going to town on my neck, and sure enough, at the end, cut me. To be fair, the nick he gave me was smaller than the average cut I give myself when I shave, but still, he's supposed to be a professional. My razor skills are spotty at best.

I've been doing this whole terrible-haircut ritual for years now, all to save some bucks. These days, the place I go costs $16 bucks. And well, I think I'm done with it. I think I'm done with that kind of barber entirely. I don't think I've gotten a decent haircut in years. I always just get The Cut. And I'm reaching a point in my financial life where I am willing to pay a haircuttery $10 not to give me The Cut.

Posted by Barzelay at 12:51 PM | Comments (18)

February 2, 2007

Be My Anti-Valentine

Check out these anti-Valentine's Day cards. I think that the one to the right is hilarious.

Anyway, I think of myself as fairly romantic and willing to put my heart out there, though I can imagine some people disagreeing. Nevertheless, Valentine's Day does not in any way stir me or make me feel extra specially in lurve. In other words, it's just as stupid a holiday as all the rest.

Except Martin Luther King Day, because only racists think that's a stupid holiday, and I'm not racist. I'm friends with a black person.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:57 AM | Comments (7)

January 19, 2007

The Hidden Chambers And Passageways Of My Real Estate Dreams

I've always dreamt of having secret chambers and passageways in my house. I always wanted to pull some candlestick, or select just the right book from the shelf in order for a doorway to appear in the wall, or the wall itself to rotate, or the back of the fireplace to open up and reveal a rough-hewn stone staircase leading down to some hidden room. A thousand times I've noticed some random appointment in a house and wondered what action I might perform on it in order to activate a secret mechanism. Rotate the bust on the mantle to just the right angle, flip down a picture frame, lift a certain bottle, a certain sequence of flips of a lamp's switch...

My friend Chris and I were discussing this yesterday. He eventually wants a recording studio in his house. That's cool, and I'd love to have one, too. But what I really want is for my house to have lore. I want there to be arcane knowledge associated with it; symbology and mysteries and clues to be deciphered. Secrets that I take to the grave. If I ever have the means--either financial or industrial--to make my castle of secrets a reality, I would consider my life to have been a success. I've always liked the idea of designing my own house. I've done it tons of times, planning out which rooms I'd have, and where. But I've never planned out an entire design with all the secret stuff.

I think I can trace my fascination with the idea of secret rooms and halls back to a few discrete sources:

Goblins In The Castle, a children's book by Bruce Coville, author of the also awesome Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, and the whole My Teacher Is An Alien series. In Goblins In The Castle, the titular castle is full of crazy secrets, and I really loved this book the first time I read it when I was quite young. I'm fairly certain that this was the beginning of my fascination.
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade: At some point, I think it's in Vienna (it's been years since I saw the movie), Indy ends up in some secret interrogation room tied to a chair along with his father, Sean Connery Jones. While struggling to get free from a fire I think they trip some mechanism and the wall rotates, exposing them to a whole room of Nazi soldiers. This was always one of my favorite movies, and was the first PG-13 movie I ever saw. I had seen a preview and told my parents that I really wanted to see it. I was maybe six. I still remember their conversation. Mom told my father that it was PG-13 and that I'm usually not allowed to see PG-13 movies. Dad said, "Aw, it's Indiana Jones. They're just fun. I'm sure he'd be fine seeing an Indiana Jones movie. The others weren't even that violent." Mom then said, "Not that violent? Ripping out people's hearts from their chests while they're still beating?" In any case, Dad won that one, probably because Mom also wanted to see it herself.
The Hobbit: This book seriously changed my life. Read it the first time in second grade. I was sick at school, so my Dad picked me up and brought me to his office. But I was bored, so we walked to the grocery store next door and he told me to select a book from their not-so-generous book section. In what was the single most lucky thing in my entire life, I selected The Hobbit, and devoured it voraciously at the quickest pace my seven year-old mind could muster (which ended up being about three weeks of near-constant reading). Anyway, the arcane stuff in The Hobbit really caught me. Like when they're up on the Lonely Mountain camped out, wondering how to get inside. "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's day will shine upon the keyhole." Or later when I read Lord Of The Rings, "Speak friend, and enter." How can you not love that stuff? It had quite an effect on little me.

The funny part about my desire to have all that hidden stuff in my house is that I have no interest in actually keeping anything about them secret. I know that I couldn't resist showing off my hidden mechanisms, and daring friends to guess which book reveals the door, or behind which picture frame is the key. In fact, I have no desire to keep any of it secret at all. I just think all those hidden rooms and corridors would be super cool to have. "Honey, I'm gonna be in my study. That's the Thoreau, if you need me."

Posted by Barzelay at 4:39 AM | Comments (2)

January 10, 2007

Waiting For Urgent Care

There is nothing more depressing than a walk-in clinic waiting room.

A few situations come close. Emergency room waiting rooms are pretty bad, but everyone is so preoccupied with either their real problems, or else preoccupied with the overt problems of the other people there waiting, that they manage to remain engaged, inwardly or outwardly.

But at walk-in clinics, the injuries are not so obvious as to command attention. Peoples' stomachs hurt, or they have to wait for a sports physical, or they are constipated, or they have diarrhea, or--at worst--they got a mild laceration and need a few stitches. So everyone is left with nothing to do for a couple hours except to stare at each and guess each others' problems, while steadfastly avoiding the topic of the maladies in the rare small-talk-blatherings they occasionally make in order to pass the time. The guys will every now and then talk about whatever football game was recent enough and popular enough that the other guys would have watched or heard about it. They each act like they cared. "The Gators just kept getting such good field position." Whatever crap they caught on Sportscenter that morning.

No one notices the fact that the woman in the corner has gone to the bathroom at least nine times in the last hour, or that the little girl who is waiting there with her father keeps exposing her underwear, or that the old man in the red hat is only wearing a sock on one of his feet, or that, whatever is wrong with that kindergarten kid with the twenty-year old mother, he never seems bothered by it until his mother comes over and asks him how he feels.

Those aren't vivid like the gushing, gurgling blood from some crazy hole in some man's neck at the emergency room. Or the gruesome angle at which that freckly kid's elbow is bent in the E.R., his Mr. Potato Head arm still sticking out of his Jefferson High Wrestling singlet with his hand facing the wrong direction, and it's all he can do not to bump it on the patterned E.R. furniture while he tries to read A Separate Peace for Sophomore English. Or the five, ten, twenty, thirty Ethiopians that keep arriving to the emergency room in tears, wailing, embracing, mourning the final passing of a beloved matriarch.

No, the walk-in clinic waiting room is just humanity in a holding pattern. The clock ticks as it becomes more and more obvious how vast a difference there is between "urgent care" and "emergency." People divert their glassy eyes whenever they accidentally make eye contact. No one will look you in the eye. A woman waddles up to the reception desk and demands to know why the man that was sitting over there was called before she was called, when she was here first? After the manicured receptionist gives the same response that she gives to ten other people every day, the disgruntled patient waddles back to her seat, wishing she could just take her business elsewhere.

Suddenly, the water fountain cooling motor turns on audibly. It's the loudest sound that's come from the waiting room in minutes. Couples, normally chatty, say nothing, communicating only with the occasional sigh. The man with the moustache and the Atlanta Falcons puffy jacket shifts his weight to his right, trying not to touch the hair of the tiny elderly woman who is sitting absolutely straight up in her chair, chin up, eyes wide open and straight ahead, but focused off into the distance. In the silent, motionless environment, the polyester friction from the puffy jacket makes a sound so extreme that it causes at least two heads to turn. Minutes pass. A woman sneezes, and another woman says, "bless you." The woman sneezes a second and third time, but no one says anything.

Eventually, your friend or family member's name gets called. They hop up immediately to meet the nurse at the door. You notice that they don't look back before going inside. Pay close attention to that. No matter who they are leaving behind in that little cell of a reception area, no one ever looks back when they're leaving the walk-in clinic waiting room. Thirty minutes later, they come back out, prescription in hand, but no smile. They make eye contact with you and you get up and follow them out the door. Neither of you say anything until you're outside. Neither of you look back.

There is nothing more depressing than a walk-in clinic waiting room.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:48 AM | Comments (4)

December 3, 2006

November 20, 2006

I Can Link You Under The Table

A couple is suing Starbucks, claiming that their child was severely burned when she spilled a hot chocolate on herself. Apparently, the parents gave this scalding hot drink to their child, while she was strapped into a car seat, in a moving car, and they did so without first testing the drink to see how hot it was. If you give a kid (age unknown, but young enough to be strapped into a car seat) a drink in anything but a sippy cup and put her in a moving car, the chances of that drink spilling all over her are on the latter side of a scale from 1 to idiot. The fact that you do so with a beverage whose name includes the word "hot" means that your child's genetics are so unfortunate that she is probably better off dying by being boiled alive in her beverage than growing up and finding out that she's doomed to be as dumb as her parents.

Someone's Wiimote has already snapped off of its strap and gone flying, apparently smashing into and cracking a 60-inch television. The most innovative aspect of the Wii engineering was how its tech team convinced its legal department to greenlight the thing. Why not let the advertising department in on the secret, so that they can include a free lollipop-shaped cigar in every Wii box, and run commercials featuring busty sixteen year-olds using the Wiimote to pleasure themselves? I hereby predict a class-action lawsuit seeking damages for an entire generation having arthritic rotator cuffs.

Several European cities have done away with traffic signs, signals, painted lines, and sidewalks. Entirely. The idea is that the unregulated, uncertain situation will cause drivers naturally to be wary and therefore cautious and safe. Right. Because it works so well in India, Mexico, and China. Actually, I think this really could work, but only in low-traffic situations. The road on which I live has no traffic signs or lines, and things work out fine. But can you imagine K Street on a weekday morning without "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" signs? Oh wait, someone already has.

I don't even like Dilbert, but here I am linking to its creator's blog for the second time in as many weeks. Scott Adams post, "Atheists: The New Gays," points out (favorably) that public atheism seems to be on the rise, and ties it into what small-minded Christians see as the rise of Islamic extremism.

I think the hidden benefit of Islamic extremism is that it freed the atheists from their closets. The old mindset in the United States was that almost any religion was good, and atheism was bad. But since 9/11, atheism has moved above Islam in the rankings, at least in the minds of Christians and Jews in the United States... Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately.

I outed myself years ago. I am flamboyantly, fabulously atheistic. I'm the atheistic equivalent of assless leather pants-wearing, rainbow flag-waving, PRIDE parade float-riding homosexual. I am promiscuous, seeking to share my freedom from religion with as many others as possible. I don't understand why everyone isn't.

A district court dismissed a Fair Housing Act suit against Craigslist, brought by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They claimed Craigslist was in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 because they didn't actively filter out discriminatory housing ads. Craigslist claimed protection under the Communications Decency Act, which shields web forums from liability for postings by their users. Personally, as one who has found housing on Craigslist multiple times, I can confirm that discriminatory ads (as defined in the act) are rampant on there. I've often wondered whether anyone had ever tried to sue them for it. And even though Craigslist has (rightfully) escaped liability, the individuals who post those ads are still liable. I wonder what Craigslist's data retention policies are. Anyway, the sort of discrimination on Craigslist ads are usually not the sort that I find particularly reprehensible. I've never seen any ads that overtly racially discriminate. Thankfully, people are smart enough to save that for when things aren't in writing.

A couple of old nudists apparently think that the key to ending war is orgasms. From the activists who brought you Baring Witness. "The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," said Reffell, 55. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change." Yeaaaaahhhh... I'm all for it, but I don't think it's gonna do anything about the war. Oh, wait. They have a helpful Flash demo of how the whole thing will work. Now I understand.

Is a counterclaim for attorneys' fees in a copyright case a valid cause of action, independent from any other counterclaims? The RIAA doesn't think so. Perhaps we need an expansion of Copyright Misuse doctrine to cover these situations. I'm sure Congress will get to that right after Howard Berman gets done repealing the DMCA. I'll hold my breath.

Posted by Barzelay at 10:55 PM | Comments (7)

October 23, 2006

Links Like White Elephants

Grammar instruction is back in schools! Praise Allah! I can't distinguish an infinitive from an appositive, at least not in formal terms. Nevertheless, I do care very much about writing and speaking grammatically, and I think I am usually successful, or at least significantly more so than most of the population. Despite that, I lament my woeful lack of formal grammar instruction. Every year, from 1st grade until my Bachelor's degree (and one of my majors was English), every English teacher would say something like, "Every other teacher drills you on grammar, so I'm not going to." And so I never learned formal grammar. But that doesn't mean I can't be an idiosyncratic snob about it.
I constantly read writing that is otherwise reasonable but the prose of which is horribly grating on me, to the point that it makes me stop reading, affects my choices as a consumer, and causes me subconsciously to cut off communication with friends. There is at least one popular blog whose content I like, but whose prose is so poorly written that I can't take anything in it seriously--and its author is an aspiring writer, an enduring irony that makes me shake my head with incredulity on a semi-weekly basis. But at the same time, I recognize that many people seem to have no trouble reading all of those misspellings, split infinitives, sentence-ending prepositions, subject-verb disagreement, purple prose, histrionic diction, internal inconsistency, random capitalization, missing and superfluous commas, improper use of ellipses, em dashes, en dashes, and apostrophes, inability to distinguish between the plural and the possessive, and general lack of logic, flow, and taste--as I said, it's just an idiosyncrasy of mine.

An Oklahoma political candidate has graciously given us one of the most applicable metaphors for America that I've ever seen: a bunch of rednecks in the backyard firing guns at textbooks. Hilarious.

In one of the most fucked up stories I have ever read, the NYPost scoops allegations that Warner Brothers promised prosthetic limbs to a bunch of African amputee children in exchange for filming them for their upcoming movie Blood Diamond, and then never got them their limbs. When the children contacted Warner Brothers to inquire about their promised prostheses, they were told, "You will have to wait for December, when the movie comes out, so we can get some publicity out of it."

China is moving to a system where registering a blog requires giving one's real name. One can still blog under a pseudonym, but the registration is non-anonymous. Presumably the goal is that subversives can be disappeared without all that tedious investigation. So all you supposedly anonymous bloggers out there, beware, lest this happen here, too. Good thing America isn't anything like China. Oh, wait.

Bush says he uses "the Google." He also misuses the word "remind," when he means to say "reminds." Perhaps he would benefit from the aforementioned grammar instruction.

Researchers have finally discovered what causes the trains of tiny bubbles that form in champagne flutes. They have long known why bubbles formed, but until now, it's been puzzling why they continually rise in a line from a particular spot. It turns out that the bubble trains are caused by "tiny gas pockets and fibers stuck on the inside of a glass." My roommates will be sure to examine the phenomenon at our Halloween Party on Saturday night.

Posted by Barzelay at 7:28 PM | Comments (9)

October 9, 2006

24 Seven?

There is a place on U Street called "24 Seven."

Every time I pass by it, it is closed before midnight.

The district is terrible for late night eats. On the other hand, Ben's Chili Bowl is a block away.

UPDATE (20061010): It was closed tonight before 9:00pm.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:06 PM | Comments (1)

October 4, 2006

September 22, 2006

The Man With The Gluey Hands

I've been to Home Depot three times in the last two weeks. I've bought a good many things: a sweet cordless Black & Decker drill, a random orbital sander, wood filler (in a tub, and in a tube), door hardware, and a million other things. Including super glue. But one thing I did not buy was nail polish remover.

Sure, that doesn't sound so odd. After all, I don't wear nail polish (unless it's a really special occasion). But it turns out that nail polish remover is the one thing that can get superglue off of skin. And for that reason, I really should've had some on hand (pun intended).

Today, while attempting to pierce the foil seal on the top of a tube of superglue, I somehow glued two of my fingers together, along with a safety pin. The safety pin really was just icing on the cake. And of course, I had no nail polish remover. Nor did my roommates (despite some of them being quite girly). So then I spent about an hour trying to pick it off. That sucked. Finally I basically just ripped the two fingers apart, and then pried the safety pin off.

That, of course, left a bunch of hardened superglue in a strange pattern on each finger. So then I had to take sandpaper and sand down my fingers. SANDPAPER! ON MY FINGERS! I considered for a moment using the random orbital sander, thinking, "Hey, maybe I did buy something helpful!" But no, that might have been disastrous. Luckily, the sander turns out not to have enough torque to have any ill effects on my fingers anyway. Ugh.

P.S. - Can anyone identify the reference in the title of this post?

Posted by Barzelay at 5:50 PM | Comments (4)

July 4, 2006

Conscious Thoughts Persisting Through Dreams

Last night I went to bed with an Oingo Boingo song called "Capitalism" stuck in my head. I'd been listening to Oingo Boingo (composer Danny Elfman's funk/punk/new wave band from the 80's and early 90's) earlier in the night, and loving it. They are so damn infectious and fun. So I got that song stuck in my head, and went to bed with it running through my brain after having consciously been singing it for a while.

While asleep, I remember having dreamt at least two different dreams. When I awoke, the song was still in my head. It just continued along as if I'd never even gone to sleep.

It's unusual that my conscious thoughts survive the context shift from wakefulness to sleep and then back, continuing unimpeded on the other side. Sure, if Im thinking about something before I go to bed, I can generally recall it in the morning with little effort. But in this case, it never stopped. I can't really know whether or not the song was also playing in my head all night, through my dreams, making the characters therein groove to the funky beats. I can't really know if my conscious thoughts persisted through the night or were put on pause. But it sure makes me curious.

When we go to sleep, do we suspend our consciousness, invoke subconsciousness, then suspend subconsciousness again in order to wake up? Or do the two co-exist persistently, and we merely shift from perceiving the conscious to perceiving the subconscious? It seems apparent to me that our subconscious is also lurking, alive but suppressed somewhere, while we are awake. But it is much less apparent to me that our conscious mind does the same while asleep. But if it does, think of the possibilities! If only we could access our conscious mind during sleep, we could achieve such amazing peace by living out all of our fantasies and fears, and practicing for our waking state. I suppose that's the pinnacle of lucid dreaming: permitting one's conscious mind full access to one's subconscious mind. Or is the other way around, our subconscious occasionally gaining access to the dormant conscious?

I don't know. It's something to ponder tonight while sleeping. Perhaps when I wake up, I'll have the answer (as has been shown to occur quite often, supporting the persistent conscious mind theory). When you dream, dear reader, do you ever dream lucidly? Can you ever consciously control your dreams? How much of your conscious mind do your dreams have access to? Do you ever wake up thinking the same thoughts with which you went to sleep? Do you think you think those thoughts all night, or merely invoke them again upon waking? So many questions...

Incidentally, my libertarian and conservative friends would love that song. Wait, do I have conservative friends? Shout-out in the comments if you're a conservative who actually reads my blog. Excerpted lyrics and a link to download "Capitalism" are below, as well as another conservative Oingo Boingo song that seems to advocate the death penalty ("Only A Lad"), and for a minor! But before you go gushing to Michelle Malkin, you should know that the first track on the album is called "(I Like) Little Girls," and seems unapologetically to praise pedophilia, and "Nasty Habits" praises private deviant sexual proclivities. You win some, you lost some.

"There's nothing wrong with capitalism There's nothing wrong with free enterprise Don't try to make me feel guilty I'm so tired of hearing you cry There's nothing wrong with making some profit If you ask me I'll say it's just fine There's nothing wrong with wanting to live nice I'm so tired of hearing you whine"
"You're just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And you tell me that we've got to give back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain..."

Sample: Oingo Boingo - Capitalism.mp3
Sample: Oingo Boingo - Only A Lad.mp3

Posted by Barzelay at 5:37 AM | Comments (2)

June 14, 2006

Real Superheroes and their Mission

Here in San Francisco, I live in the Mission District, a part of town that was historically a center of San Francisco Mexican life. Despite the babysteps of gentrification that the Mission is now taking, with the influx of hipsters and now even some yuppies, it has retained much of its Hispanic life. There are tons of markets here with fresh produce, scores of taquerias, and energetic, smiling Latino children running all around the streets. It's always a pleasant sensory experience to walk or ride down 24th Street, from Valencia to Bryant, smelling the food wafting from the roadside taco stands, hearing people shouting to each other in Spanish, a radio tuned to norteño or banda in every open-front shop. Many of the stores speak only Spanish, and almost all of them only accept cash.

Right now the Mission is abuzz with World Cup fever. All the pubs are open every day at 6:00am, and Mexican flags are draped everywhere. In the past few days, I've seen several people wearing the flag of Mexico as a cape. One can hardly walk a couple blocks right now in the Mission without seing kids running by, kicking a soccer ball back and forth, playing keep away from the anonymous pedestrian obstacles who serve as a makeshift opposing team. And the Mission walls are acting as perfect goalies while kids practice their penalty kicks against garages and stucco.

In the morning, I occasionally have to move my car in order to avoid street cleanings, lest I be ticketed (so far, three in two and a half weeks). Whenever I pull up to a street corner in the lower Mission, hispanic men approach my car asking if I need work. They wait there, morning after morning, for the white men in SUVs who drive up and pick a few of them to labor for the day for a few dollars. They're so eager to stand out and be chosen. They approach my window before I even come to a stop. Standing prostrate by my car door, their pleading faces look at me hopefully, as they ask me, "¿Trabajo?" And I shake my head helplessly, telling them no.

Every day I pass this billboard on my bike ride to and from work. It's on the West side of Bryant Street, just South of 24th. It tells the story of "The Real ~~Superheroes~~" (make that "The Real Underwear Perverts"). The ad depicts two Mexicans dressed in colorful superhero outfits, including spandex tights and capes. They are doing everyday jobs. One is cooking. The other is working in a laundromat. And the text reads:

The Real Story Of The Superheroes
Oscar Gonzales
from Oaxaca, Mexico. Works as a cook in New York for 5 years. He sends $1500/month home to Mexico.

Maria Luisa Romero
from Pueblo, Mexico. Works in a laundromat in NYC for 4 years. She sends $600/month to her family in Mexico.

Quite touching. And though it was easier to see before some urban artist decided to create a derivative work with a spray can, the ad is still vivid and poignant. Maybe even more so now that its neighborhood has left an indelible mark. The graffiti serves as a sort of sad denouement tacked to the story's end.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:36 AM | Comments (3)

April 12, 2006

I dug all this way, and no Chinamen in sight?

According to this site, if I were to begin digging on the lawn of GULC, and dug and dug and dug for a very long time, and eventually popped up on the other side of Earth, I would find myself a bit West of Australia, in the Southernmost part of the Indian Ocean. The hole would fill up with water, destroying infinite years of work, and probably pissing me off quite a bit. The site has therefore proved invaluable, as I now know that I should start my digging somewhere far off the Northeast coast of Florida if I eventually want to pop up in a women's locker room somewhere in Australia. And I do.

Once I'm there, I'll give you directions using Wayfaring.com, an amazingly useful Google Maps hack that Google will probably buy because it's so cool. Thanks to Amanda for the links.

Posted by Barzelay at 1:00 AM | Comments (4)

April 3, 2006

Daylight Savings Time, and day itself, is stupid

Partially because of our recent spring forward, it feels like it's about five hours earlier than it is. Aren't I supposed to be tired right now? Anyway, daylight savings time has pros and cons.

On the good side, I love eating dinner while it's still light out. It reminds me of childhood summers when we'd eat dinner on the porch and then go for a walk around the pond, or a bike round to Hickory Hills. Winter affords me no parallel advantage, because I'm never up early enough to enjoy the sun rising, with or without the fall back. And yes, I'm glad daylight can blanket young childrens' commute to school in an illusion of safety. But there are obvious detriments as well. For starters, it's a big hassle for everyone to change their clocks. Inevitably, some people will forget to do so, and as a result, will be late to work and school, thereby creating a significant drop in the day's productivity.

But there is another unfortunate consequence of daylight savings time. It perpetuates the fiction of day and night.

Yep, the fiction of day and night. No, I don't believe light and dark are illusions, or that they are part of some elaborate conspiracy. I fully acknowledge the cycles of rotation and revolution that create alternating periods of relative brightness and darkness. But I think our adherence to those cycles to guide our life's routine is arbitrary at best. In fact, I think night and day are obsolete.

For thousands of years, we've possessed the technology to function at night. Our physiology dictates that we have an easier time of it during the light period, but ever since Bob the Caveman discovered that fire gave off light, we've been able to make due at night. Then around one hundred years ago, we came up with a much more efficient way of lighting the dark period. Electric lighting paved the way for what is now a much more lively night time than it used to be. Chemical, nuclear, and other forms of lighting may be employed in the future. Either way, we will get increasingly efficient at lighting the night.

Hence, there is no remaining reason why we should allow the cycle of light and dark to control the structure of our lives. Nearly everything traditionally reserved for the daytime can now be done at night, and vice versa. In fact, I can only think of two reasons (both valid) to adhere to our current system:

We would all look terrible if we never got outside. And it isn't just looks. Our bodies supposedly get certain nutrients from the sun somehow. Don't ask me how, but it apparently happens.
Lighting the night takes energy. This is a valid concern. But with more efficient lighting, as well as solar energy collection and such, this will hopefully cease to be as big a deal.

In any case, I'm not suggesting we reverse the cycles. The opposite cycle would be just as arbitrary. On the contrary, I think we need to recognize the full twenty-four hours of each day as possessing nearly equal potential for enjoyment and productivity. Why not schedule a business meeting at 3:00am? A softball game at midnight? Sex in the afternoon? Sleep in the morning? We already do some of those things, at least when we can.

In addition, not everyone's body seems naturally inclined toward a twenty-four hour schedule. Personally, if left without responsibilities for a couple weeks, I default to a cycle of around twenty-eight hours, staying up for around eighteen hours at a time, and then sleeping for around ten. That's just what feels best to me. Why should I be constrained by nature's haphazard occurrence that Earth rotates for twenty-four hours instead of twenty-eight? Well, one answer is that over millions of years, we have adapted to a twenty-four cycle, and are therefore evolutionarily suited for such a cycle. But I, and many others with different sleeping rhythms provide what are at least anomalies if not strong evidence that such and adaptation is not very strong if it has indeed occurred.

So what do you think? Besides, "But I like the sunshine!! LOL!!!!" what do you think about humanity's ability to transcend the twenty-four hour cycle nature has imposed? Why not embrace our flexibility and make more complete use of our nights? Or at the very least, why not accomodate those of us who may still be up at 7:50am writing a blog post, even though daytime dictates that they have class in a little over three hours?

Posted by Barzelay at 7:54 AM | Comments (10)

February 21, 2006

How do you kiss your parents?

Informal poll: Do you kiss your parents on the mouth, or on the cheek?

Since I am a cheek-kisser, I find the idea of people willfully kissing their parents on the lips to be fairly strange. Today Jeanette informed me that she is a mouth-kisser (I knew she was a mouth-kisser of boyfriends, but no, she was referring to her mother and father). The idea is quite strange to me. And why?

It seems obvious that any associations some of us have between mouth-kissing and romance are purely socialized. There is nothing innately incestuous about the act of kissing one's parents on the mouth. The Freudian perspective, of course, would be that kissing anyone anywhere is linked inextricably to sex. And indeed, it seems implausible that if there were nothing inherently romantic about kissing on the mouth, the practice would nevertheless have appeared in so many cultures (an empirical fact about which I have done no research and am entirely uncertain).

Why, then, is the act of mouth-kissing within the family so offputting to us cheek-kissers? Just like when one goes to high-five a buddy and ends up connecting only tangentially, making a pathetic "fwup" sound, rather than a pleasing and robust "smack," cheek-kissers sometimes miscommunicate and accidentally touch lips for a tense and awkward instant. The discomfort of such a situation is hard to shake off, and is no more comfortable even after acknowledging that there is no reason to disdain mouth-kissing.

But it just seems so weird! It is likely that the two practices are differences of culture tied to ethnicity, geography, class, and other externalities, so I doubt we'll really unravel this, but what do you think? Until then, I say we just stick to licking each other (example above and to right).

Posted by Barzelay at 3:52 AM | Comments (4)

February 12, 2006

The World Today

Someone posted a myspace bulletin that included text from this story. The bulletin also said,

"Just wanted to share this story......Sometimes I cant fathom how anyone could hurt another person let alone a child, their own child. What kind of sick world do we live in now?"

While the story is certainly tragic, I'm often dumbfounded by people's urge to implicate Modern Times in what they see as the moral corruption of society. "What kind of a sick world do we live in now?" Well... the same kind of sick world we've always lived in. People see things that are reprehensible, and they apparently have an impulse to blame some gradual degradation of civilization, with the underlying claim that these things didn't used to happen. This is a very short-sighted viewpoint. It's a viewpoint that doesn't contemplate anything like real historical fact, and instead clings to some fairytale version of how things were forty years ago.

Adults are guilty of this particular brand of ignorance a lot more often than kids. And so it was with great anxiety that I read my friend's bulletin, and realized that, yes, I am now at an age where my peers may start talking about "kids today." Granted, the story my friend was citing had nothing to do with "kids today," but it's part of the same impulse. Every generation drinks, smokes, has sex, gets pregnant, has abortions, gets into fights, gets into serious fights, commits crimes, and lacks ambition. And then, eventually, they grow up, most of them. And then, once they're grown up, they look down and observe how bad the kids are, and forget that they were the same way.

People have been having abortions for thousands of years. People have been smoking for thousands of years. People have been drinking for thousands of years. People have been committing crimes for thousands of years. It's nothing new.

If there is one difference, it's that there is now much greater access to media. That fosters greater creative freedom, and greater honesty. And so now we actually see the underbelly of society, where as before it was always, well, hiding under our belly. One of the quotes in rotation for the right column is the following, which is quite apt:

"In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these." - Paul Harvey

Posted by Barzelay at 5:26 AM | Comments (2)

February 11, 2006

The back of your butt

Just a clarification: The back of one's butt... is in fact, one's front.

I just wanted to set the record straight on that one, because some people apparently think that the back of one's butt is the extreme rearward portion of one's body, where one's butt terminates in round parabolas of flesh. Those people are wrong. That is the front of one's butt. The back of the butt borders on the back of one's hips, which, for all practical purposes, is one's front. If you think otherwise, you're wrong.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:40 AM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2005

Happy Holidays to you and to Bill O'Reilly

Merry Christmas.

I do celebrate Christmas, but only as a consumerist holiday. I'm not necessarily anti-consumerism, and I'm definitely pro-gifts (both giving and receiving), and pro-vacation. So, rather than ignore the holiday for spiteful personal reasons (see last post), I prefer its current incarnation, reclaimed to reflect what's important to us. So, Merry Christmas.

Now that that's done with, read about how a man dated an internet girlfriend for six months, only to eventually find out that it's his mother.

Posted by Barzelay at 6:13 AM | Comments (1)

December 15, 2005

The Talented Mr. Barzelay

This is the most amazing talent show act I've ever seen, without a doubt.

GULC talent show thingy is in January, but alas, I've no drum set in DC. I could always recycle some McGill shit, like Futureman or something, but I'd rather not. Any ideas for what my open mic act can be?

Oh, and this link via Joel. When he gets a link from me, I get an "ass slap." He just gets a link.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:26 AM | Comments (1)

December 9, 2005

I Bet You Can't Eat This Many Links In A Minute

Pictures cropped to look like porn. The thumbnails are definitely pretty convincing. I was sorely disappointed once I started clicking the links.

The world is progressing ceaselessly into the future. Web journalism is now eligible for the Pulitzer. Soon there will be no paper at all and my plot will be complete. Remember: When paper is outlawed, only outlaws will have paper.

I'd just as soon never encounter one of these in the wild. The article doesn't say how the prevalence of giant jellyfish in Japanese coastal towns affects the sushi market of Washington, D.C., but it can't be good. Also, interesting factoid: A group of jellyfish is known as a "smack." When I think of something called smack that involves poison being injected into my body, it isn't about jellyfish.

This is a very strange site for a very strange person. He claims he is the firstborn son of Julie Andrews, and earns his living working as a stevedore. He has loads of pictures attempting to prove his claim to have been popped out by Mary Poppins, and he even looks really weird. It's not quite Timecube, but it's pretty hilarious.

Here are directions for making the ideal single-sheet paper airplane.

These new Fender Hello Kitty guitars are really awesome. It would be really badass for my brother or some other punk/rock musician to be playing one of these on stage. I definitely think it would be a cool style. Or we could have an entire band full of Olson-twin-esque pre-pubescent females scantily clad and gyrating on stage while repetitiously strumming rock hard, pink wood.

Everyone should enter this astounding contest to design a perfect cart for homeless people. I can't believe this really exists, but it does.

urban homeless use carts to carry their possessions and to collect goods (like bottles, cardboard, etc.) that they then return to various recyclers in exchange for cash. this provides a small and valuable income. it is essential that your cart design not only accommodates all these functions but that it is affordable (for production and for private parties or charity organisations who wish to donate them).

Oh, what a surprise. The founder of veganism died. That's what he gets for trying that weird die--wait, what? He lived to 95? Oh. Um, right... carry on with the tofu, then.

Someone made a videogame where users pet a bunny rhythmically to make it happy. It's supposed to train its user in how to physically pleasure a woman. The game prototype won some innovation in video games award. I, of course, need no training, but perhaps this link will be of some use to a few of my readers.

The more (players) stimulate the bunny, the happier he becomes until eventually he begins flying through the air. But Lapis is also an unpredictable creature who needs a variety of sensations. Sometimes, no amount of stimulation is going to work.

Insanely awesome Christmas light and music show. I can't verify that this isn't digitally created, but if it's real, it's really damn impressive. There was some hoax involving the internet and Christmas lights last year that turned out to be a hoax, so who knows?

I don't even know how to introduce this. It's just a really odd foreign man called Captain Jack.

Posted by Barzelay at 1:23 AM | Comments (5)

November 17, 2005

Links Numerous As The Stars In The Sky

If you can afford it, you can get all sorts of insane foods shipped to you. While drooling my way through Amazon Gourmet Foods, I also ran across these ostrich hot dogs. They're called Birdogs. And that is funny. To me.

This article is all about the Reverend Jesse Jackson's opinion about Terrell Owens' suspension. It also quotes Ralph Nader. Because they're both experts on NFL policy.

Here's a video of baby seals getting clubbed. That does it. I'm never eating seal again.

I want to get a very small, very thin digital camera for Christmas or my birthday (December 19). Any recommendations? My Canon Powershot A75 is fine and all, it's just too bulky to carry around. I want something that isn't annoying in a jeans pocket.

I saw a license plate today that said "Hot Boi" and would have taken a picture if I'd had a smaller camera. It made me think of Joel for some reason. So, Joel, is it hot that a boi would have that as his license plate?

Who says our nation isn't still leading the world in scientific breakthroughs? Did the goddamned Japanese come up with colored bubbles? What about anti-gravity spacecraft? And insanely amazing cornstarch experiments? Hell, no. The USA goddamned did!

Life imitates art. Real people dumb enough to be duped into thinking they're in space will be shown on a new TV program reminiscent of The Truman Show.

AOL has added a couple bots to my buddy list. We're now good friends.

David Barzelay: wow, im so drunk right now
MovieFone: Excellent.

Many parents are too lax in their discipline. Others humorously go too far.

There's an interesting story in Wired about D.I.Y. sex machine builders. Very interesting.

Ken Cruise: "Anyone you tell about this would think you are a perverted guy and the customers would be gross, perverted people, but it's really not like that. I talk to them on the phone. They're just normal, everyday people. I believe that the Hide-A-Cock is going to be in every home someday--like the television or the microwave oven. I want to make it so that everyone can afford one."

Posted by Barzelay at 6:03 PM | Comments (5)

November 3, 2005

A Tortiously Large Number Of Links

I've been saving some of these for a long time, letting them simmer, letting the juices soak in, till they're just the right combination of tender and flavorful.

In an IM conversation the other night, I used the word "blogstipated" to describe the condition of not being able to blog. I had other stuff to do and didn't have time, which is why this update is huge. Anyway, I like neologisms.

My love of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" is well-established at Georgetown Law, having sung it at cookout karaoke, played it in contracts class, and also sung it with the rest of the party in Vic's room. This Flash file is a wonderful pastiche combining "Bohemian Rhapsody" with the All Your Base Are Belong To Us craze. It's "T-Wing's Zero Wing Rhapsody," with the "All Your Base" script sung and animated to the tune of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

According to the internet, four popes have died during sex. Probably not JPII, even if he is making his O-Face in the picture at right.

You know your city is cool when even your graffiti is awesome liberal propaganda.

I haven't commented on this yet even though it's stale news, but anyway... A poll came out saying that only 15% of Americans believe in strict evolution. I am continually astounded at the ignorance in this country. This reminds me of a quote that is extremely poignant in our country right now:

"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." - George Bernard Shaw

I've been having an ongoing debate with my friend Dustin about the nature of art. The points we're debating include whether originality is necessary for art, and if necessary, is originality sufficient for art? Well, I found an artist named Justin Mullins whose art is to simply print elegant mathematical formulae and frame them. Aside from the points the artist is making by doing so, I argue that simple representations of math can fit into pure art, even though there's no amount of originality or visual beauty in them. Anyway, interesting art.

More art. Someone constructed a replica of San Francisco out of Jell-O. This thing is awesome.

We need mandatory driving tests every five years, and doctors should be able to refer patients for driving tests. My grandmother should definitely not be driving, but as with this guy who drove three miles without realizing there was a body through his windshield, disallowing my grandmother to drive would remove her last bits of freedom and independence. Nevertheless, how many people have to die or get injured before we fix this problem? The trouble, I suppose, is that only old people vote, so a politician seeking a law of this sort would probably be shooting himself in the foot.

Next time we play four-square, we can rely on this Racial Slur Database, to which my roommate linked me.

I want more transparency in government. This is just ridiculous. It's like something from Catch-22.
Here's more governmental absurdity. White House lawyers are demanding that The Onion cease using the Presidential seal. Because people could easily get confused and think The Onion's stuff about him was really true.

It just occurred to me that Google bombs such as "miserable failure" will still be present after we have a new President. Perhaps they'll change the structure of the White House website, but it is more likely that the new President will also have his bio at the same address. So if a Democrat is elected, the Google Bomb will still be in effect. It will be hilarious when the right-wing blogs and emails notice this and think they did it. "Ha! Go to Google and type 'miserable failure' and hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky!' It points to Feingold's bio!" I can't wait till we get to try to explain this to them.

It's so tough to find good hazing these days. Even reasonably innocent hazing results in deaths. I am not in favor of criminalizing or holding liable people who simply tell adults to do something that ends up hurting the adult. Especially when the harm isn't all that foreseeable. In general, we don't respect people's autonomy enough in this country, and this is part of that failure.

I just noted that for the titles of the last few posts, I put "Halloween 2005, Friday Night... Saturday Night... Monday." Why didn't I put "Monday Night?" We went out to Chipotle around 7:15pm. I think this proves that in my head, nighttime doesn't start until a lot later. 10:30pm, maybe? How interesting. This is probably why I don't get any sleep.

This is a hilarious Flash app that tells us liberals all about How To Become A Republican. Check it out.

Posted by Barzelay at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2005

Post Hack Linkfest

Some of these links are not so fresh. I hadn't blogged in a few days and then my webhost got totally h@x0r3d, so the site was down for a few days. It's amazing how much your blog becomes a regular part of your routine, and you don't realize it until it's gone. I missed the poor little guy. Adam will never let you get p0wned again.

For the first time in a very long time, wine has surpassed beer as America's casual drink of choice. I love them both, but I do think America could stand to be classier, so I'm happy with the bourgefying of the country. And I'm happy with making up words.

Speaking of making up words, Word Spy is a site whose business is lexpionage, "the sleuthing of new words and phrases" that have been used multiple times in legitimate sources. Basically it tracks the emergence of neologisms. Very cool to browse.

Speaking of naming new things, here is a stale article about the shortage of names for new things on Mars. The rovers are finding so many geological features that NASA is struggling to find names for them all. They are turning to pop culture references. Names of rock formations and features of land include Engelbert Humperdinck, ABBA, Spongebob, and a whole series of rocks after the twelve days of Christmas.

Speaking of science, read the winners of this year's Ig Nobel Awards, the competition for academic achievements of merit that also are, at least on their faces, humorous. This year's winners include:
- A study called "The Significance Of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers
- The inventor of Neuticles, artificial replacement testicles for dogs
- The inventors of an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people get out of bed
- A study called "Will Humans Swim Faster Or Slower In Syrup?"
- A study called "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation"
- And the best one, the Ig Nobel Prize for Literature: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.

Speaking of literature, Salon has a very interesting article that bemoans the sorry state of masculinity in America, and searches for its roots.
The men I meet are not the rakish, workaholic, cheating cads of yore. No, I'm bearing witness to a bonafide crisis in American masculinity, one that seems especially, but not exclusively, to afflict the young, urban and privileged. And with it, I have observed the birth of a new breed of man: a man of few interests and no passions; a man whose libido is reduced and whose sense of responsibility nonexistent. These men are commitment-phobic not just about love, but about life. They drink and take drugs, but even their hedonism lacks focus or joy. They exhibit no energy for anyone, any activity, profession or ideology.

Speaking of males and their passions, Red Sox fans have been belting out Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" for years and years. NPR's Susan Orlean investigates how this tradition arose.

Speaking of music, Tony-award winning composer Adam Guettel and screenwriter William Goldman are collaborating to create a musical based on The Princess Bride.

Speaking of previously inconceivable things, engineers have attached a seat to a giant robotic arm designed for mixing paint, modding it to create a new kind of thrill ride. Make sure you watch the videos. I'm telling you, the robots are going to take over. And if they don't, the dolphins will. We're all going to die.

Speaking of the apocalypse, Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno SJ has written a short book on Catholic attitudes toward extra terrestrials. Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic belief and the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life asks questions such as:
- Would humans recognise intelligent life if we saw it?
- Could we communicate with it? Should we even try?
- Is Original Sin something that affects all intelligent beings?
- Is Jesus Christ's redemption valid for intelligent beings throughout the universe or would other worlds have their own versions of Jesus?
- Would the Church send missionaries to ET planets?

Speaking of make-believe stuff, Joel linked to a very funny alternate account of the intelligent design of the universe. What would creation have been like if the gods were gay?

Speaking of things that supposedly happened a long time ago, an archeological team has found the oldest evidence of noodles ever disovered, thus offering very persuasive evidence in what has apparently been a big debate: Who invented the noodle, the Chinese, Italians, or Arabs? Answer: The Chinese. The noodles discovered were about 4000 years old, and the researchers said the Ramen flavor they most tasted like was Creamy Chicken Flavor.

Speaking of things people do in college (you know, eat Ramen...), an MIT group set out to determine the feasability of Archimedes' optical death ray, supposedly used to defend Syracuse during the siege of 212 BCE. Legend had it that if focused on a ship anchored in the port, the ship would combust. The MIT group attempted to duplicate the death ray. Very cool.

Speaking of who cares about these transitions, here's a pretty good method of overcoming procrastination.

Check out BeeDogs.com, a sit entirely devoted to pictures of dogs in bee costumes. Wow. Amazing.

What the fuck? Shaquille O'Neal is trying to become a Miami Beach police officer. So weird. And then this weekend (after already having been fitted for his police uniform), he witnessed a man yell defamatory slurs at a gay couple, and then followed the man and flagged down an officer, who made the arrest. Shaq is the gigantic savior of the gays!

And finally, here are several humorous blogs for you to check out:
- Harriet Miers' Blog
- Linked to by Harriet Miers, You Knit What?
- 5ives, a blog consisting entirely of lists of five things.
- And I've linked to this one previously, but check out The Dullest Blog In The World

Posted by Barzelay at 6:37 PM | Comments (1)

October 7, 2005

Face Transformer... hours of hilarity will ensue

Last night, my friend Dustin linked me to what may be the greatest idle time website I've ever stumbled across. The premise:

At the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer, you upload a picture of a face--yours, someone else's, your ex-girlfriend's, your brother's--and then tell it where the eyes and mouth are located. Then it lets you choose a type of transformation from a drop-down menu.

You can use the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer to change the age, race or sex of a facial image, to transform it to the style of a famous artist, to make an exagerated[sic] caricature or even make an ape of yourself!
For best results you should use a "passport-style" image of the subject facing the camera with the mouth closed and a neutral expression.

Some images work better than others, so try it with a few different pictures of yourself. And then a few pictures of friends. And then, if you're so inclined (as was I), try it with everyone you know.

Likewise, some of the transforms work better than others. East Asian is the only one that seems to be consistently hilarious, but every picture is different.

Before proceeding, I have one very important warning: Do not take a picture of your mother and see what she'd look like as a man. It will leave a deep scar in your psyche.

Original picture.
David as a child.
Baby David.
Old David.
Teenage David.
Black David (they call it Afro-Caribbean, but we know what they mean).
Their version of drunken David (in real life it looks more like ~~this~~).
East Asian David.
David after being "feminized" (their feminization filter makes all guys look like really dykey lesbians, and the masculinization transform makes all females look like drag queens).
David as a manga character.
Cornelius David.

Posted by Barzelay at 12:31 PM | Comments (6)

September 18, 2005

Hey Blinkin'...

I'm sure this has made the rounds on the internet bunches of times, but it was new to me when my friend Jared posted it on his Myspace account the other day. Be advised that I have not attempted to do any fact checking. I have pasted this as-is from his post, except for changing one word for the sake of parallelism.

So, without further ado, here's a bizarre comparison of Abe Lincoln and JFK:

»» Continue reading "Hey Blinkin'..."

Posted by Barzelay at 10:28 PM | Comments (3)

September 16, 2005

Let us link then, you and I...

Amazingly, this is an actual news story about Gillette coming out with a 5-blade razor to trump the Schick Quattro. And this is an Onion article from last year that made what seemed like an absurd suggestion at the time. "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades." Crazy coincidence, and not the first time The Slant or The Onion has predicted some actual event that seemed ridiculous. Incidentally, SNL predicted the three-blade razor in their very first episode. "Three blades. For people who will believe anything."

And that's a nice segue to Colin Dinsmore's ponderance of the question posed by Harry Caray on an episode of SNL: "If the moon were made of spare ribs, would ya eat it?" He has calculated how long the moon would feed the Earth, as well as speculating on what kind of spare-rib-transport system we'd have to build to facilitate that sort of thing.

Monday is Talk Like A Pirate Day! That is awesome. And of course we all know that all the problems in the world are caused by there no longer being enough pirates.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s.

Check out this gallery of pencil carvings. Some are amazingly intricate for being on a pencil. The various spirals and helices are interesting enough and very impressive, but my favorites are the ones that mangle the pencil a lot more. Imagine how long those would take. And if you fucked up, you'd have to start the whole pencil over again.

The New Harry Potter trailer is out on the web at Moviefone. Looks like it's going to be quite awesome. Someday I'll get to reading those things.

I saw Broken Flowers today. It's the new Jarmusch film with Bill Murray. It was very good and very funny, but ultimately lacked closure. The last scene in the movie should have been like the second scene in the movie. They gave no time for character development. Anyway, the really interesting thing about it was how much Bill Murray's character in the movie reminded me of my highschool TV teacher, Mr. Crowe. So, anyone who knows Crowe, watch it and think about that.

Posted by Barzelay at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2005

Links to make love to.

I love when celebrities make political statements. No sarcasm, I really do. Damon Wayans on the possible reinstatement of a military draft: "I'll send my sons [to Iraq] if [Bush] sends his daughters. Put those two drunk bitches on a plane and let them go fight. At least I know my sons would be getting some on the way."

Cardboard box art. Super cool.

Google will answer your text message queries. Driving directions, movie times, etc. Text "GOOGL" (46645) something like "120 F St NW, Washington, DC to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC" and they'll reply, giving you driving directions from Georgetown Law to the White House.

ArsTechnica and Wired are carrying two stories saying that all you suckers with iPods and personal music players are going deaf!

Yeah, let's all teach our children that eroding civil liberties and a gradual descent into an oppressive military state is fun! Who would buy this toy, and why? This is so disturbing. Next they'll be selling the Fisher Price Enemy Combatant Cell™, and the LEGO® Technic Warrantless Wiretap Kit!

Tivo has caved to content-industry pressure to add broadcast flag protection to their latest update. Yep, this new OS update adds a "feature" that makes it so that you can't save certain shows past a certain date if the networks don't want you to. How is it in Tivo's interest to add this? This basically makes their product useless. Here's a screenshot. The "Betamax" decision, affirmed many times since, settled that Americans have the right to record television shows even if the copyright holder doesn't want them to. Sony v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 104 S. Ct. 774, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574 (1984). There is no copyholder right to a limited shelf-life of those recordings. BoingBoing posts about alternatives to Tivo.

Google launched a Blog Search tool. At first glance, it doesn't seem all that useful, lacking the huge wealth of features at, for instance, Technorati (which is a very cool site, but I don't find use for anyway). Hopefully this just means Google will be indexing blogs more often. They've got my latest posts on there, one day after my posting them, so that's better than normal Google used to be.

Another instance of silly pet owners. You should get a pet dry room, which uses infrared radiation to dry your pet off and prevent pet skin rash. These "doggie microwaves," as I like to call them, are clearly super necessary. I am considering putting up a separate category of posts here on my blog stricly for silly pet owner links. Something like Joel Har