inkblurt

Why didn’t I major in Evangelical Physics??

August 17, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

The Onion nails Intelligent Design with this bit of satire. What I find disturbing is that the story sounds completely believable, which only illustrates how crazy the real situation is to begin with.

The Onion | Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory
“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

That’s Dedication

July 23, 2005 by Andrew | Permalink

That’s Dedication

Originally uploaded by inkblurt.

I posted a few more BlobFest pics to Flickr. Why? Because I know y’all can’t get enough, that’s why!
This whole thing was a blast to me. It had all the home-towniness of a real American town festival, but without being whitebread-bland. I may have to live here the rest of my life.
This guy’s costume won the contest, by the way. I couldn’t believe that the people in costumes managed not to pass out in the heat — it was about 94 with incredibly thick jungle-style humidity.

Verizon may be the devil.

July 21, 2005 by AndrewH | 1 comment

“You are being forwarded to an automatic voice mailbox system. ….. The mailbox for ‘Customer Inquiries’ is full….”

That’s what I got when I finally managed to find a phone number on Verizon’s website, and was transferred to a different number (because I found the wrong number after all).

I was calling because I wanted to try the new fiberoptic service. Supposedly my building is hooked up to it, according to my landlord. And Verizon is sending a big cardboard flyer to my mailbox weekly extolling its virtues.

Because it might actually be cheaper for me to use that rather than pay for both a phone line I don’t use and the DSL service, I was wanting to see if I could go that way.

I checked the website, but *it* tells me that, according to my address and phone number, it’s not available at my building. (So why are you sending me the &*$^@* FLYERS??!?)

So I go looking for a customer support number. There’s not one on the fiberoptic (FiOS) area of the site, that I can see (stupid, if they really want people to buy it). What I do manage to find, though, is Verizon – Contact Telephone Numbers – Pennsylvania, which gives me phone numbers based on which company *used to* run my phone utility in my area. Since I only moved to my area 6 months ago, I am not privy to this bit of neighborhood lore. I have NO IDEA if it used to be Bell Atlantic or GTE.

Anyway, I try both… the first option gets nothing. Not even a ring. Just silence.

The second option got me to the situation above… and then to a “full mailbox” ….. ARGH!!!

I will not even get started as to how horribly broken their website is.

Ouch

June 30, 2005 by Andrew | Permalink

OOPS

Originally uploaded by inkblurt.

BJ is fine, but The Bear is in critical condition. … Actually this is a wrecked semi I passed on my drive from PA to NC. I think it had happened just a little while before, because there weren’t any police or EMS people yet. From what the radio said later, it didn’t sound like anyone was actually hurt. Not even any chimps from 1979 tv shows.

Working around absurdity: the flag burning amendment

June 28, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

This site has some tongue-in-cheek and yet entirely workable instructions on how to burn a flag without running afoul of the law: Whatever: Cracking the Flag-Burning Amendment
For example, one “flag” is a US flag but with a dot for one of the stars (pictured).

This is fascinating to me because it gets to the heart of what symbols are, and how silly it is to legislate and censor speech in the first place.
Also, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last week pointed out how ironically the official “rules” for handling flags say that you should burn one when it’s worn out.
Anyway, this is a great object lesson in fundamentalism: namely that there are people who actually believe they can make a rule that says “you cannot burn or deface an American Flag” and have some sense of certainty that those things (“burn” “deface” ” American” “Flag”) are specific, hard-edged concepts without ambiguity or room for interpretation. Just like with scripture or the Constitution or anything else, there is always room for interpretation and context.

iamb not kidding.

June 22, 2005 by AndrewH | Permalink

This week in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane reviews the movie “Yes” in iambic pentameter, with rhymed couplets.

New Yorker Caption Contest — Weekly!!

April 18, 2005 by Andrew | Permalink

This is grand… a contest I can do weekly without having to be smart like those Sunday NYTimes Crossword junkies.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050425on_onlineonly02

The New Yorker is having a weekly cartoon caption contest now. Yip!!

Vice Mag

January 3, 2005 by Andrew | Permalink

Vice Magazine is snarky potty-mouthed fun. I wonder if their style guide is so detailed that it actually makes all their writers sound like the same exact disaffected Manhattan 20-something? Whatever the case, it’s a good time.

For all you designers, check out Viceland – The Vice A to Z of Design. They roast everything from Drop-Caps to Tradition (and some other stuff before and after in the alphabet).

Bloody comment spam

November 16, 2004 by Andrew | Permalink

I’ve been getting flooded by “spam comment” bots again, and even though my blog is now set up to allow me to screen all comments from unregistered visitors, I really can’t scan 200-300 comments a day. Plus it eats bandwidth on my site.

So, I had to go with exclusive TypeKey registration. Registration is very simple. It just makes sure you’re human by getting your email address and using a scrambly graphic that you have to type in, just once. Then you have a TypeKey login and can use other Movable-Type based sites!

This is just wrong.

July 23, 2004 by Andrew | Permalink

Krispy Kreme introduces glazed doughnut frozen beverage – Jul. 21, 2004

The chain introduced a new line of frozen drinks Wednesday, including frozen original kreme — a drinkable version of the company’s signature doughnut — raspberry, latte and double chocolate.

Try listening to the whole song next time

July 12, 2004 by Andrew | Permalink

Ok, so this would be stupid use of a song in a commercial number 2,358. Mitsubishi is using just the first line of a song, a Flaming Lips song.

Do you realize – that you have the most beautiful face

Problem is the rest of the verse goes like this:

Do you realize – we’re floating in space –
Do you realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do you realize – that everyone you know someday will die.

Granted most people haven’t heard the whole song, but from now on Mitsubishi automobiles will remind millions of Flaming Lips fans of the mortality of their loved ones.

Adtunes.com — Mitsubishi Galant, Times Two