Realm of the Wombat

Reminder that my birthday is less than three weeks away.

In their new radio advertising campaign, the Giants offer to pay a guy on the street $100 to paint his face black and orange. The guy is about to accept, when he realizes that the painters are going to put the interlocking SF logo on his face. He then changes his mind, declares his allegeance to the Cubs, and leaves. The Giants people then make some derogatory comment about the Cubs fan.

I’m not sure who’s in charge of advertising over there in ‘Frisco, but a career change might be in order. First, no real fan of any team other than the Giants would allow an orange SF on his/her face, $100 or not. Secondly, is this really how the Giants want to build a fan base? By paying people?

Why don’t they just cut to the chase: Come see Barry,* eat garlic fries, and surf the net between Barry’s at-bats!

*Not applicable on Sundays or during steroid investigations.

Right now, this sounds delicious; after lunch, I probably won’t think so: In-N-Out 100×100

The Canadian Broken Social Scene has been around for a while, but I only stumbled upon them playing with the machine at Rasputin. Apparently they earned a reputation as a pop act after 2001’s Feel Good Lost, but You Forgot It In People is more indie/experimental. I’m not sure you can be considered anything but experimental when you have eleven different musicians contributing. 2005’s self-titled album (packaged with the bonus EP To Be You and Me) is quite an adventure as well.

Favorite tracks: Cause = Time (YFIIP), Handjobs for the Holidays (BSS)

ElevatorRules.com: Required reading for anyone who works or visits Latimer Hall.

Indiana welcomes daylight savings time back. Healing America.

New Distraction: The weirdest eBay auctions (e.g. Star Wars airsickness bags or expensive toast) via Bayraider.

A prankster in DC turned parking meters into lollipops. I have a sudden urge to play Candyland.

Danny Wallace is the same guy that decided to say yes to almost all questions, which almost got him killed, but worked out in the end. But before his affirmative action campaign, he managed to start a cult, although he’d call it a collective. It wasn’t on purpose mind you, and didn’t really even have a purpose for the first few months. They’ve since been dedicated to performing random acts of kindness on Fridays. I’m not sure how many “joinees” are involved now (definitely more than 4000), but it has spread outside of Europe, the forum is active, and there’s even a podcast site. Join Me is the tale of the cult’s humble beginnings, first priestly member, and struggle to hide it from its leader’s girlfriend. I’d probably recommend Yes Man first, but Join Me is an excellent follow up for those of you who enjoy mad cap fun.

Add this to the list of books you can finish on a coast-to-coast flight.

This guy might be more of a real life Kramer than Kenny Kramer. He doesn’t seem to work, but starts these elaborate (and somewhat ridiculous) projects that seem quite expensive. Yet, Danny lands on his feet. Crazy.

See the official site for more info and how to join. I probably will.

Another reason to love America: Outfitting your van with 72 subwoofers and pouring concrete into the doors to compete in dB Drag Racing. [story on NPR]

This is a humorous little tale Dice picked up for me for Christmas. While I would have been happy with a compendium of Pres centered jokes (and there are many), the book’s main feature is useful information. One of the highlights are biographies of younger Democrats that represend reasons to be optimistic for a post-W world. Or if you can’t possibly deal with our current leadership, there are seven suggestions for countries to move to. There is an accompanying web site at thebushsurvivalbible.com which solicits and posts additional ways to deal with the second term. Hang in there America!

Most people think ‘trebuchet’ is only a font, and I was operating under the assumption that it was a word made up by Microsoft to describe something classic/old-worldy. However, it is a real word, as I discovered in Collapse.

noun
A medieval catapult for hurling heavy stones.

For more info on these catapults, including plans for building your own, see trebuchet.com.