Oscar Night Ass-bows

My favorite Oscar moment:

Instead of having the original artists nominated for best song sing their songs (with the exception of the Counting Crows), three of the songs were sung by Beyonce (one in duet with Josh Groban and one with a group of little choir boys), and one was sung by Antonio Bandaras accompanied by Carlos Santana. Now, I have nothing but good feelings for these dudes, but Antonio was really over the top in his performance of this song from The Motorcycle Diaries and Santana was, well, he was just Santana. Can't get mad at that guy, he doesn't even know where he is. He probably thought Antonio was an angel or a butterfly or something.

So, while Antonio is hacking this song apart, they keep going to close ups on the guy who actually wrote and sang the song, and he looks like he is going to throw up. He is obviously pissed that Antonio is singing this song and not him. So, for his acceptance speech he just gets up there, sings a couple verses of his song accapella, and says thank you.

Awesome.

[I also really liked Chris Rock -- I say more Rock and less Crystal.]

Why I love my job

Can you believe this was in the trash can? 

Simtastic

Have you ever played the Sims? I love them. This is one of my Sims families -- they used to be young, but they have gotten old and now like to paint pictures of each other which they sell instead of working into their retirement. They had one daughter taken away by a social worker, and another daughter who is a teenager now at the private school. I have another family of three brothers, two of whom have been abducted by aliens and had half-alien/half-human babies. In fact, what am I doing posting here. I'm going to go play with my Sims. They understand me. Not like you jerks. 

The dangers of library work

This would make an awesome movie. I love the part about the frozen dinner. Why take it out of its package? I also love the yellow suit jacket. Classic. And not memorable at all.

parts is parts

There is something you might not know about me -- I love love love anatomical illustrations. I love them. In fact, right now, over half of the pictures on my little slide-show screen saver at work come from this site. Go check it out, you will love it too.

If you check out nothing else, click on the Anatomia Highlights link at the top -- scroll down a bit and look at the Skeleton Still Life, helpfully described as: "Arrangement of fetal skeletons with bladder calculi, blood vessels and songbird." Awesome.

I like to browse by subject -- there are so many to choose from that you will get bored by this before you run out of awesome things to look out. Make sure you look at Abnormalities, although I'm sure you would have picked that out right away.

Seriously, go make this sandwich

I am not kidding. This was the best sandwich I have ever had in my life.

Part of the trick is that you cover the skillet while you are grilling it. I don't know why this made a difference, but it just got all nice and grilled, but not too crispy. It was amazing.

I pity these cosmonauts...

This will not cheer up the cosmonauts.

Speaking of Beer...

I know that every one of us really wants to be an astronaut. I, in fact, was just inches from knocking on NASA's door when it struck me (not the door, this idea) -- would I still be able to drink my precious beer while performing my astronaut duties in space?

Apparently this is a two-part problem -- brewing, and serving. How does fermentation work in space? And, how do you keep the bubbles in beer without gravity? Well, these and other hurdles have been crossed, if we are to believe this article.

But what is so great about beer brewed in space? The squares that wrote this article hide it all the way at the bottom:

"For beer, of course, increased fermentation efficiency means a more alcoholic brew - not necessarily good news for crew members who need to remain sober in the dangerous environment of space. The alcohol content of space-brews would need to be adjusted accordingly and, of course, consumed in moderation."

This is a lame solution. What they should be doing is brewing a ton of beer up in space, and then selling it to us down here on earth! We could have entire satellite breweries that are harvested by special beer delivery rockets! Remember the glory days of "space food" -- that dehydrated ice cream and tang that the astronauts ate? This would be soooo much better than that.

Adorable Beers

Did you know that if you order a $8.00 beer from room service at the Marriot Marquis in Atlanta, after flying with such a bad cold that you have gone almost completely deaf from the pressure inside your ears, and you can't even hear well enough to go down to the bar and pay a more reasonable $5.00 for the stupid beer, but you really need a beer because you had a shitty day and you are stuck in rainy Atlanta for a math conference, they will bring you one of these:



And it will make everything better.

[Note: In case its hard to tell from the photo, the single beer is nestled in bath of ice in a silver ice bucket with a fancy glass for drinking. In addition, a cute little bottle opener is attached to the handle of the bucket. This one beer is fancier than a whole case of the regular stuff.]

The Gatz

Last night I finished reading The Great Gatsby -- its the second Fitzgerald book I've read, the first being Tender is the Night. For some reason, even though I was an English major as an undergrad, I hadn't read any Fitzgerald until about a year ago. I really enjoyed reading both of these novels, although sometimes the characters would leave me a little cold. His descriptions, though, are wonderful. I'll find myself thinking of the way he described some rich, 1920s socialite at a party in the middle of my non-rich, non-1920s, non-party day. So, bring on the Fitzgerald, I'm totally up for more.

Hilarious names in the archives, Part II

William W. Williams

Of course, this is only really hilarious if his middle name is William as well. Lets all suspend our disbelief and pretend that it is.

Hilarious!

The Journal Journey

I have a problem. I love to buy journals and notebooks, and yet every time I try to write in them in an organized fashion, I completely fail. I have a journal my grandmother gave me when I was 16 that is about halfway full. I have written in it a few times a year for the past 12 years, mostly just when something horrible or momentous has happened.

I think that would all change if I had one of these. Honest. I would turn over a whole new journal-writing leaf.

Another option would be one of these. Then I could be one of those people who always has a little notebook and when you tell her a book or movie or something that you really like, she just writes it down in her cute notebook instead of completely forgetting it five minutes later.

[look under the process tab to read about why these journals are so cool]

Penis food

From now on, this is all I will be eating. Other food items that can be arranged to look like genitals will also be okay. Its nothing sexual, its just, if you are going to eat food anyway, shouldn't it be as entertaining as possible? If my food items can't be arranged this way, I'll still call them penis food, just to be consistant.

Thank you.

It is all about presentation

Josh's mom got us an awesome salsa platter for Christmas this year:



You could basically fill the little chile pepper dish with anything and it would look awesome. I recommend salsa, though, for best results.

Life was an orgy for these passion bums!

Not only would I want to have every one of these books for their wonderous covers, I would actually like to read them. My favorite categories are "Hillbilly Covers" and "Science Fiction Covers," but don't make me choose.

Bonus points if anyone can name the book with this post title as its tag line. I promise you will not be dissapointed.

I know funny

This is the funniest thing in the universe. I've hand-selected it from a universe full of funny things.

Reading List

Last night I finished A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was his first book, written in 1912, before he wrote all those awesome Tarzan books. This was the first of his mars books that I read and I totally loved it. I forsee more Burroughs in my future.

Also, the cover for this book is awesome.

Hilarious names in the archives, Part One

Henry H. Crapo