Neil Young and the First-Time Busker
We found this story on FaceBook today. It describes one of those moments in life that seem to come straight out of a dream – and, indeed, many a singer and songwriter has probably had this exact dream.
Blog Posts
Dutch Architects From American Hell [updated]
This is almost impossible to take as real. But it apparently is.
No long story here, just this: A Dutch architect firm designed a tower complex to be built in Seoul, South Korea. It has two towers. What else had two towers? The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, as in the ones that were intentionally hit by airliners and brought to the ground on the horrible day we know as 9/11.
And these new two towers? Words fail, so here you go:
Norway is Out of Butter
No, that is not super-secret spy code language – Norway is really out of butter:
The soaring popularity of a fat-rich fad diet has depleted stocks of butter in Norway creating a looming Christmas culinary crisis.
Norwegians have eaten up the country’s entire stockpile of butter, partly as the result of a “low-carb” diet sweeping the Nordic nation which emphasizes a higher intake of fats.
Our guess is Norwegian farmers will milk this story for all it’s worth. They’ll spread it far and wide. Keep churning it out…
This story is made all the more ironic by the fact that Norway actually looks like a lump of butter that was dropped on the top of Finland and dripped down the back of Sweden:
Kirk and Spock Read Mad Magazine
If you think this behind-the-scenes photo is cool:
…then you’re going to love the rest of the photos at BuzzFeed.
.XXX Web Addresses Now On Sale!
Get ready for UncleJohn’sBathroomReader.xxx – coming to your internet any day!
Oh, no, wait, really. That sounded funny in our heads – for about 1.23 seconds – but now that we think about it a bit more…no. Really. Uh uh. No with a capital N.O.
Back to the story:
Web addresses ending in .xxx have gone on general sale, as legal efforts continue to scupper the domain name.
Some 100,000 addresses have already been purchased in a restricted sale. The first pages went live in September.
Much more on the whole “.xxx” story here. (They’ve apparently become available to the general public only yesterday.)
“Japan scientists study oyster ‘language’”
First thing they found out: That oysters spend a lot of time talking about “Oyster Hell,” a place they describe as “where bad oysters are thrown into cauldrons of boiling water, squirted with acid, and eaten by hideous monsters.” Ha! Such imaginations!
Now back to the story:
The December 5 Birthday/Phobia News Report
As we do every year on this day, we now present you with the December 5 Birthday/Phobia News Report:
Birthday: Today is the birthday of one of the most famous names in the history of – well, just about anything, really – but mostly in the history of film, and especially animated film, Mr. Walt Disney. He is known for his role in the creation of some of the most memorable characters in the history of animation, including the world-wide animated mega-superstar, Mickey Mouse.
Here Be Dragons! (In Your Brain…)
Here’s some interesting Sunday reading for you, on why we humans invented monsters, by Paul A. Trout, professor emeritus at Montana State University:
Tallest Pine Tree In the World Found
Hey, some cool news from our own neck of the woods:
Oregon: Where we shout “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!” because of a tree. Oh yeah.
The Tupperware Story
THE TUPPERWARE STORY
Today the word Tupperware is a generic term for any plastic food container
with a sealable lid. That’s thanks to two people: Earl Tupper, inventor
of the product that bears his name, and Brownie Wise, who has
been all but erased from the company’s history.BLACK GOLD
In the fall of 1945, a plastics manufacturer named Earl Tupper tried to place an order for plastic resin, one of the key ingredients in plastic, with the Bakelite Corporation. But the material was in short supply, and Bakelite couldn’t fill his order. When Tupper asked if they had anything else for him to work with, the company gave him a black, oily lump of polyethylene slag, a rubbery by-product of the petroleum refining process that collected at the bottom of oil barrels. Bakelite, makers of an early plastic by the same name, couldn’t find a use for the waste product, and neither could the chemical giant DuPont. Both companies had plenty of the stuff lying around. They told Tupper he could have as much as he wanted.Tupper spent months experimenting with different blends of polyethylene—“Poly-T,” as he called it—and molding them at different pressures and temperatures. He eventually came up with a process for forming it into brightly colored cups, bowls, and other household items. A year later he patented the idea that he’s most famous for: the “Tupperware seal,” which provided a spill-proof, airtight seal between Tupperware containers and their lids. (He borrowed the idea from paint-can lids.) Tupper called his first sealable container the “Wonderbowl.”
Where Did “DEFCON” Come From?
The Beer-Powered Hospital
Take it away, Homer: “Beer—is there anything it can’t do?”:
Beer and health care may sound like an odd mix. In one case however, the two have formed an unlikely partnership to get creative with renewable energy.
City Brewery in La Crosse, Wisconsin is using all of its biogas byproduct from the brewing process to create three million kilowatt hours per year of electricity by employing a capturing, cleaning and burning process through an engine called a jenbacher.
Down the road from the brewery is Gundersen Lutheran Health System which is credited for the electricity produced by City Brewery. And while this only accounts for 10-13 percent of their total needs, it means they are on their way to meeting complete energy independence by 2014.
So very good.
And there’s even a beer-powered hospital video:
Website Posts Anonymously Sent Nude Pics
Looks like someone’s gunning for the “Worst Jerk of the Century” award:
[It] is fairly simple in concept: someone anonymously submits nude photos to Moore through the site’s submission form. Perhaps it’s a jilted ex, or a recent hookup, or a vengeful friend. These days, the site receives many self-submissions as well. Provenance doesn’t matter. Moore uploads those photos and attaches identifying screen-grabs from the person’s Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter accounts—whatever’s available. He sometimes adds a pithy caption and a reaction gif at the end, usually from a television show or meme. And that’s pretty much it.
Good gads, what a monumental ass. It’s no surprise that this happened:
The Last Living Veteran of World War One
Please meet Mrs. Florence Green (this article is from February):
The revels were not quite as wild as on Armistice Day. Still, there was plenty to celebrate yesterday when the world’s last surviving female veteran of the First World War celebrated her 110th birthday.
Florence Green, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, was 17 years old when she joined the Women’s Royal Air Force, in the late summer of 1918.
She looks good! 110? Wow!
Imagine telling the good Florence when she was still a young woman in the 1920s, “Hey Flo, you’re going to have your own Wikipedia page some day!” She’d be like, “Umwut? LOL.”
The Hawaiian Island You Cannot Go To
FORBIDDEN ISLAND, USA
If you’ve ever visited the Hawaiian islands, you may already know that
one of them, Niihau, west of Kauai, is off-limits to outsiders. Here’s the
story of how that came to be, and what life on the island is like today.
RIP, Andy Rooney
‘Andy Rooney, the “60 Minutes” commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays – a unique genre he is credited with inventing – died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. and Rowayton, Conn.’
His last appearance on 60 Minutes was on October 2—just one month ago.
Here’s a nice writeup from his hometown of Albany, New York.
John Hodgman on Uncle John’s [updated]
Update: Mr. Sir Hodgman has responded. We are humbled.
John Hodgman of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show fame has a new book coming out: That is All, the third in his groin-pullingly funny The Areas of My Expertise series.
Hodgman talked to Publishers Weekly about it—and a fan sent us the link:
Hodgman shares the four books that inspired his oeuvre.
He saved the best for last. Ahem:
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader
There are many volumes now of this great work of disposable facts for disposable time, but I discovered the first edition lying around back when I was still an agent at Writers House in New York City. I was not a very good agent, but Writers House itself, a beautiful 18th-century townhouse once belonging to John Jacob Astor, was a lovely place to read and scheme up a new life. And thankfully, it also had a bathroom.
Thankfully indeed!
We can think of only one thing to say to this, Mr. Hodgman…sir…your highness:
RIP, Dan Wheldon
When you see or hear about a car racing crash like this, all you can do is hope everyone’s going to be okay. And usually they are. Very unfortunately, that was not the case yesterday for current Indianapolis 500 Champion Dan Wheldon:
The racing world was in mourning Monday after two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon, an Englishman with a ready smile and engaging manner, was killed Sunday in a multicar crash at the Las Vegas Indy 300.
