I’m SURE I’ve eaten here.
You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Angry
Not too long ago, George Takei and his longtime partner had a great big wedding — and it was a good thing they didn’t wait any longer, since California stopped allowing same-sex weddings practically the instant the voting results were in on Prop 8 — but there was a bit of a dust-up between Takei and William Shatner because Takei invited all the other Star Trek cast-mates but not The Shat. So The Shat put up a video on YouTube that was actually kind of mean and nasty about the whole thing.
But that ain’t nuthin’. By now you’ve probably had a chance to see the latest trailer for the new “rebooted” Star Trek movie coming out next May that begins with a teenaged James Tiberius Kirk getting in trouble with some Trekkian version of RoboCop and ends with our favorite salsa-eating Vulcan making like a rabbi. It’s just more fodder for my increasing fear that this new movie is going to suck donkey dick, but somebody else looks VERY UNHAPPY:
Don’t worry, Bill. You’ll always be Denny Crane to a whole generation of people, not to mention T.J. Hooker to another generation.
Recreating Washington
The Imaging Research Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has been working on a project to create a digital reconstruction of the District of Columbia as it existed at the time of the construction of the U.S. Capitol in 1814. The video at that link explains a bit about the challenges of having to derive topographical data from inexact sources such as contemporary paintings and incomplete maps. Though Pierre L’Enfant’s master plan for the city of Washington was finalized in 1791, very little of the city as we now know it had been built more than 20 years later, and most of the city was still farms and open land. Complicating matters further, the British burned what buildings there were in place that same year, including the White House and the Capitol, setting construction back even further and causing the destruction of many official documents that would have been of invaulable use to the IRC’s project. The Capitol would require four additional years to be reconstructed after the fires, and was not completely finished until 1868.
Linkapalooza – Random Bits
- The Milwaukee Airport realizes what an annoying hassle it is to have to remove shoes and belts, empty pockets, submit to pat-downs, and whatever other useless security theater tactics the Gestapo feel like putting you through, and so they offer a “Recombobulation Area” where you can undo the various indignities and be on your way to far-flung destinations looking kempt and heveled once again.
- Speaking of which, this shoulder-holster rig for your electronic gadgets will undoubtedly make you feel fucking cool, but it will probably also keep you off of most major air carriers in the United States for the forseeable future. Plus it will immediately brand you as a total douchebag if you actually wear it. You can, however, pack hand grenades in your check-in bags without any trouble, or even any additional baggage handling fee.
- Mental Floss has a post today that tries to explain the origins of various nicknames people have for their localities. For example: “Nutmeggers” for people from Connecticut, the “Nutmeg State” or “Sooners” for people from Oklahoma because so many Oklahoma settlers jumped the gun on the state’s homesteading law. Conspicuously missing from the list: Massholes and Maine-iacs.
- Fans of Big Band Era music will know the Glenn Miller standard “PEnnsylvania 6-5000″. Futility Closet passes along the trivia factoid that the number was and still is the main telephone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. The hotel has been using that phone number since it first opened in 1919, and is the phone number in longest-continual service in New York, if not the world.
Eat One, Save One
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Most Thanksgiving dinners feature a roast turkey as the main course, and all told Americans will consume approximately 675 million pounds of turkey tomorrow. Resultingly, approximately 900 million hours of tryptophan-induced post-dinner naps will occur sometime in between the conclusion of the meal and halftime of the Dallas Cowboys v. Seattle Seahawks game, waking up just in time to indulge in 479 million hours of insulin-induced diabetic comas from eating 366 million pumpkin pies.
Earlier today, George W. Bush got in a little practice before letting himself and his band of war criminals off the hook by pardoning not one, but TWO turkeys. Luckily the turkeys were named “Pumpkin” and “Pecan”, not “Dubya” and “Dick”, but I suspect he’ll get around to freeing those turkeys before January 20, too.
Poultry processing is a filthy, dangerous, cruel, and relentless thing, just perfect for the backdrop for an interview with Sarah Palin, or an episode of “Dirty Jobs”. If people really knew much about how that mutant hyper-breasted fowl got from the farm to their plate, they would probably never eat a drumstick or slice of breast meat again.
The animal protection group Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY has been running a program called Adopt-A-Turkey since 1986 that lets you “sponsor” your very own rescued turkey living at the program’s farms in New York and California. The rescued turkeys live a life free from the harsh conditions of commercial poultry farming, and even get their own special vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner every year. You can even really “adopt” a turkey to take home and care for yourself…just don’t mention cranberry sauce around the bird when you get him home.
Spirited Cooking
The late, great Ernie Kovacs as “Chef Molnar”, preparing a traditional Hungarian dish, “Chicken Molnar”
(thanks for the link, Hanan)
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue…
…I’m Schizophrenic, and so am I!
Most people are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Personality Type matrix at this point, so I won’t take any time explaining that to you. My regular readers also probably know that I am a dyed-in-the-wool INTJ. INTJ stands for Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judgmental and is the least common of the 16 different personality types outlined by the MBTI. INTJs thrive on solitude, are rational and critical to a fault, project self-confidence but inwardly are deeply doubtful, and tend to by systematical and analytical. I knew I was an INTJ for sure the very first time I ever read about the MBTI when the example they gave of an INTJ was Captain Horatio Hornblower, my most favorite literary character.
So imagine my suprise when I plugged my blog URL into this writing analyzer and discovered that my blog is the polar opposite of my “real” personality. According to this site, my blog is an ESFP: Extroverted Sensing Feeling Perceptive. Each one of those traits is the exact flip side of the traits that have defined me as a person for my entire life. Extroverts derive their energy and enthusiasm from the company of others, Sensers are “gut instinct” people, Feelers are more concerned with how things impact others than what is “right”, and Perceivers “go with the flow”. That could be no more like me if it tried.
No wonder I’m so fucked up! I have a split personality! Maybe I’m like that supa-hot chick on “Heroes” who has an evil twin lurking inside her just waiting to pop out and haul out some serious whoop-ass!
Except, you know, the short, fat middle-aged guy version…or maybe my other personality IS a smoking hot blonde chick! That would be totally awesome!
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
