Buh-Bye, NYC

A clip of a variety of demises of New York, as imagined in film over the years. Classy. Via Kottke. And now I finally know which piece "Rhapsody in Blue" is. I've always been a little ashamed I didn't associate the music with its name, though of course I find both familiar. I probably would have referred to the music as "you know, it was in that airline advertisement."

Clausflagration

Via BuzzFeed:Have yourself an incendiary Christmas!
I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is burning the town!
Up on the rooftop, tick, tick, tick, up like a bomb goes old Saint Nick!

The possibilities just seem endless. Click over to the link above for the series, or to Geekologie for the complete series.

50 Christmases

Owned: 61, 62?, 67, 69, 70, 72, 80 (71?, if it's silly putty. Or a Weebil. WTF?)
Played with: 62 for sure (even if it wasn't mine), 63, 64, 65, 68, 76, 87, 90 (or something like it)
(Picture from SkullSwap)

Stupid (But Funny and Harmless)

I saw this picture and story yesterday, and I think I starred and shared with the anticipation I might use it for next Sunday's funnies: it is pretty funny.
Turns out, the station doesn't find the incident funny. A pair of mangers have allegedly been suspended.

The advertisement, for WPMI-TV in Alabama, showed the station's anchors, Greg Peterson and Kym Thurman, with their top weatherman Derek Beasley, alongside the latest headline and the words “Right now on Twitter”.

Unfortunately for the station, at one stage the top headline on Twitter read “Three accused of gang rape in Monroeville”, and the misleading juxtaposition was caught on camera by a passing motorist as he drove through Mobile, Alabama.

Electronic networking has allowed communication to move at speeds and efficiency that are breathtaking and nearly unbelievable to me. The downside is that stupid mistakes can escape into the big, wide world before anyone realizes just how stupid the mistake is. The nature of the e-world is for these sorts of things to "go viral," and come to the attention of tens to hundreds of millions of people for the second or two they deserve.

Not sayin' that's good or bad, just sayin' that's what it is.

The thing that gets my attention here, though, and the reason I bring this up now rather than giving the above photo its passing second in the spotlight next Sunday, is the complete randomness of the situation. Suppose that a couple of motorists had been startled or offended by the unfortunate juxtaposition, and called into the station with a verbal report. Would managers have been suspended? But a passing motorist happened to have a camera, and being amused, captured a picture to pass along for the amusement of others.

And now two peoples' careers are presumably at risk for what was, yes, a stupid decision in the course of doing their jobs. But it was a decision that, in the end, harmed no one, and most likely benefited millions with a quick chuckle, as was the case with myself. If you want to argue that the anchors have had their honor and credibility impugned, I'll respond that if their egos are so fragile that they are threatened by something as trivial and downright silly as this, perhaps it is they who should be suspended. They clearly don't have the thickness of skin required to be journalists.

So I think this event (or non-event, really) should be taken as a word to the wise that your stupid can become very public, very quickly, if you don't pause for a moment and consider what you're about to irrevocably send out into the world, how it's going to look and what its context will be. Yes, it was stupid, but it was harmless.

And I, for one, appreciated the laugh.

Insurance is Gambling, Too

Sen. Maria Cantwell wants to use state gambling laws to regulate parts of Wall Street, saying someone needs to police financial markets where "casino capitalism" involving highly speculative trades she likens to sophisticated betting continue unabated and threaten to create yet another financial crisis.

(...)

Derivatives essentially began as a form of insurance, offering a hedge for such companies as airlines that wanted to lock in the cost of jet fuel to avoid sharp increases. Over the years, however, derivatives became more exotic, allowing investors to place what were essentially side bets on such things as whether people would default on their mortgages or whether the price of oil or natural gas would go up or down.

Industry groups said Cantwell's bill goes too far.

(McClatchy) Yeah, there's a surprise. The system we're in, "Heads we win, tails you lose," needs to be stomped down hard. I'm at a point where if the financial and insurance industries say something is a bad idea, that in itself is a demonstration that it's a very good idea indeed.

So I'll float an idea: I think we should consider dropping a tent over Wall Street in the middle of an active work day, and fumigate it. Wipe out every insect infesting our nation's financial center.

Anyone think that's a bad idea?

Today's Trivia

World of Warcraft celebrates its fifth birthday this month, and the population of Azeroth – the virtual world where this online game takes place – is around 11.5 million. More people now play World of Warcraft, or WoW, than live in Greece.

Source: The Guardian

Must See This Movie

It's been interesting to see the various responses to "2012." Some hate it, others enjoy it as it was intended to be: mindless entertainment. But so very few take it upon themselves to go the next step, and actually try to improve it. Fewer still succeed. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "2012: Benny Hill Strikes Back."

(Hat tip to Nologic)

Sunday Funnies

Rockin' on down with some funnies...Blackadder

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Blackadder
They're reloading! Blackadder
That's the point, isn't it? Criggo
The Daily What. I foresee a problem when an equine digestive system tries to deal with what a canine head eats.
Don't Judge My Hair
Criggo
Cyanide and Happiness
Some Guy With A Website
This might actually work. Night Deposits.
I would sooooo love to hear Spock deliver that line... Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
Guantanamo Bay is now open as a cruise destination. Oddly Specific
Criggo... That's not an important hatch, anyways.

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"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." Sir William Osler, British (Canadian-born) physician (1849 - 1919) The Quotations Page


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Funniest Family Circus panel in... ever. Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
TYWKIWDBI
TYWKIWDBI
The Daily What
The Saturday Bulletin

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Oddly Specific, and another from the same post, "Stickmen in Peril."Yeah, that'll help.

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Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

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Keith Knight, via Pharyngula
Fox rushes to the defense of churches again. I have no idea what the back-story is here, nor do I want to. Probably Bad News.
Click to enlargify. Matt901 at Emptees.
Indexed

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The electrocuted turkey cake. Jen at Cake Wrecks had a wonderfully, tearfully funny week of turkey cake fails. It's hard to choose just one. But in the interest of customer relations, here is the archive: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (slightly NSFW if your co-workers maintain puritanical standards) , and of course, today's Sunday Sweets, wherein she acknowledges that it's actually impossible to create a turkey cake that's not hilarious. (The above was from Wednesday's selections.)
Brown Sharpie... I'm ashamed to admit that many of these comics are so math-intense that I don't even get them.

OBJECTIVE: To be the best customer service type person you can ever find!

SCHOOL

EXPEERENCES: I graduated in 2005! I treid to get into a college, but I decided that I didn’t really wanna do that. College is for people that aren’t self starters. I am a self starter.

SKILLS: I can type really good, like wicked fast! I can also text really fast! I can cook lots of stuff. I can sort of make coffee… accept I don’t know how to make creamer. I am really good at talking on the phone also.

JOB

EXPEERENCE: I worked at a day care center, a coffee shop at the mall and I was a waitress at Applebee’s.

MONEY

HOPES: I would like to be making $40 an hour. I think that would be enough for dealing with customers. It would also help me pay my way through cosmetalogie school. I want to do hair one day. But before I get there, I would work for your company.

REFERENCES: you could call my dad or my mom. Also, my best friend Amy. She knows me really well. You could call my ex, but we ust broke up last weekend. He was cheating. Long story. Anywho, you could also call the people I babysat for last year… I don’t remember where they live or what they were called. There sons name is Aubi. That’s a wiered name, right? They were nice. They paid me 20 dallers, which wasn’t really enough, I don’t think. My science teacher last year was really nice. She would say some nice things, I’m sure. Everyone else, might say smoething bad. I would rather you nto talk to them.

HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME

Resume, Emails From Crazy People. Now runs a major financial company. And has no self-esteem problems whatsoever. Education WIN!
Engrish Funny
Cyanide and Happiness

"Keanu Reeves out-acted by Legos." Via BuzzFeed.

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see more Political Pictures. It's interesting to consider that with the exception of Dick Cheney, every VP I can recall from my life (Hubert Humphrey on) has been portrayed as something of a putz. Given the apparent alternative, I'll settle for putz.
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
I Hate My Parents

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I have officially stopped paying attention to any, any, I tell you, nutritional advice in the MSM. Criggo
Blackadder
Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr
Feline angst. Skull Swap.
This has been all over the place, but it's still pretty funny: "193% is the new 100%" Probably Bad News.

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Star Wars FaceBook Update (screen capture of one of five at CollegeHumor)
Via The Daily What.
Is this an endorsement or something? Sarah Palin autographed a portrait of Saddam Hussein. From BuzzFeed.
Two of her balls have ruptured, but it's okay: she still has three, and a fourth is pending. Don't Judge My Hair.
Fractions are hard. Probably Bad News.
Blackadder
In order to save space in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this was shortened to "Don't Panic." Blackadder.
We have many of these in Oregon, but I've never seen one labeled as such. Blackadder.
Blackadder
"Thin Ice", by Clay Bennett at The Chattanooga Times Free Press.
News for all those who failed 2nd grade... Criggo.
Skull Swap: "Jerry Seinfeld has been training to whip your ass..."

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Funny, but the philosophical problem with this is that it would be relatively easy to actually add a monkey dressed as Hitler to the imagined situation, and then it would no longer be fiction. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
What to do with those pesky Easter left-overs: Sweet Peep-tato Pie... Sweet potato pie topped with marshmallow Peeps. From This is Why You're Fat.

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Above and below, evidence that not only are Xrazy Xristians illiterate, they're inumerate as well. Both from Criggo.


From ReBecca Hunt-Foster's Shared Items