luxopolis

"Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself." - G.K. Chesterton (again)

I'm off to the city of the windy shoulders. Mrs. Luxopolis and myself'll be dining on deep dish pizza, Frango mints, and maybe some seafood from the Shedd Aquarium (when no one's looking). Back on Monday with tales of adventure. Meanwhile, here's a paper folding site to pass the time.

at despair.com.

Unwise microwave experiments. Do. Not. Try. This. At. Home. (at least not at MY home)

"It has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

(attributed to Dr. Johnson by James Boswell in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides) via Andrew Stuttaford at the corner

Pirate keyboard. (I don't make em, I just link em) via IMAO.

"Aarrrrrrr! Prepare ta be boarded!" Pat the pirate

Was it really only 364 days ago that we were celebrating talk like a pirate day? Avast, it seems a whale's age, me mateys. Anyway, have yourselves a very merry talk like a pirate day or I'll slice ya from breadbasket ta piehole.

...of this guy. (via Don)

...of this experiment is to try consolidating all of the links that I send to youse guys so as to avoid annoying anyone. I'm sending out stuff every day now and I don't want to wear out my welcome and have people rolling their eyes and saying "Oh no! Not more useless carp from that annoying yet ruggedly handsome Bill!" With that in mind I'll be posting more generic comments and links of interest here, where you can check them out if you're so inclined. I'll still send stuff like Battlestar Galactica updates straight to Tom. And Don, don't worry, I certainly wouldn't post any of those "Phillipino houseboy" links here, where everyone can see them.

So anyway, here's a great 70's resource with loads of cool pics and sounds that will bring the horror rushing back like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist. (a free luxopolis pen to the first person who can identify that reference)

...to my disscussion with Don this morning:
The Hill is asking which political figure looks most like skeletor. Via the corner

"None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them." G.K.Chesterton

StrongBad answers your e-mail questions. Watch 'em all. Thanks to: Mark Shea

I'm 41 years old. I'm middle aged, I know. But somehow I don't feel old enough to be worrying about whether or not I'll be able to open a package.

It started with shredded cheese but now everything (everything) from salad to cookie dough (mmm...cookie dough) to soda (okay, maybe not soda, but just about every other food product) is packaged in "convenient" "resealable" "ziploc" "pouches" which "cannot" be opened by "humans".

Here's how it works: I take a new pouch of shredded cheese (or whatever) from the fridge. Above the zippery-thing the plastic is hermetically sealed. It has a small nick in the plastic with directions to tear the pouch open at the nick. So I tear the pouch open at the nick which never ever ever opens the pouch. The nick, it turns out, will have been placed just enough off-target so that I rip through the hermetically sealed part to reveal: more hermetically sealedness. Unless it's off-target the other way which rips off all the plastic above the zippery-thing. This is a problem because I'm supposed to grasp the edges of the plastic above the zippery-thing so I can pull the bag open but now there's nothing to grab. So now I grab the plastic below the zippery-thing and try to open it that way. The next step is to clean up the shredded cheese off the floor (make sure no one is looking) and place it back in the pouch. Then the real fun starts: closing the zippery-thing. As near as I can figure, the two interconnecting sections must have bits of magnets in them that apparently repel each other making it impossible to "achieve closure". This is great entertainment if you're watching someone else try it. But when I do it it's not funny.

The makers of these Geneva-convention-violating devices are not content with their market share as it stands. Now they've got ones with colored strips that change from bluish-green to greenish-blue when you successfully close them (those of us who can't tell the difference can fall back on the more primitive method of turning the bag over). In the works for Spring 2004 is a bag with a sound chip built right in! "Nope. Try again."

My wife is always handing me jars to open which is fine, as it's part of the natural order of things. What is unnatural is me constantly handing her the simplest of packages and saying "Why? I've done what they asked. I've purchased their product. Why won't they let me access the contents?"

Us old folks are a powerful and influential demographic. We have long memories (except for when we don't). And boy can we hold a grudge. Package designers beware.

After only eight hours, zero dollars, twelve aspirin, five Diet Cokes©, two reboots, four kids, one new pair of glasses, and two more Diet Cokes©, I have successfully created a weblog that, while it will only be read by seven or eight people who will feel obligated to read it so that if they run into me at the store they can say they saw it, could conceivably be read by millions. Millions. With an M.

Here's a hyperlink test

...your name in print, that MAKES people.