Check out these optical illusions having to do with color (or rather, colour). They're pretty crazy. (via geekpress)

If Bigfoot is blurry, do you think his hairs are extra fuzzy, too? (via geekpress)

"Scott McClellan said documents won't be released from Roberts's time as deputy solicitor general because ``you're talking about attorney-client privilege'' that shouldn't be violated. Making such papers available ``would really stifle'' candid talks between government lawyers as they plan arguments on behalf of the U.S. government, he said." (Bloomberg news service)

Here's a thought: the U.S. government shouldn't necessarily have the privelege of secrecy when it comes to arguing legal cases. It is, after all, us.

From the annals of poor acronyms: ARSAC. It stands for "Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion." They don't want LAX to expand. They way they pronounce it is really unfortunate.

Wow. Even NBC thinks that watching their bad tv this last year was like getting an enema.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 24 NBC's plunge last TV season -- from first to fourth place among the young viewers advertisers covet -- was "like a colonic" for the network, NBC's entertainment division chief, Kevin Reilly, said Sunday.

David Brooks, ordinary guy:

Anybody who thinks it takes a village to raise a child has never sat near a crying baby in first class. In these circumstances, if it were up to the village, somebody would be stapling the brat's mouth shut and somebody else would be locking mom in the overhead storage compartment.

(Italics mine)

speaking of ipods, i just got one for my birthday yesterday!!! i love it, but my only complaint is the earbuds are too big for my ears!

Wow: In Between Days, by The Cure, has come on the iPod three times already this morning.

O'Reilly is a punk! He should be fired!

Hehe. This bar code clock is cool. (Via Geekpress)

Bald eagle! Moon! Gah!

This is just lovely:

In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.

The Base Realignment and Closure Committee "has some reservations about parts of the Pentagon's proposal to restructure domestic military bases, including its plan to disband or move dozens of Air National Guard units."

But of course they do! How ever will the children of the patriarchy dodge any coming drafts, if they can't get strings pulled for them to join the (Texas?) Air National Guard.?

Sophocles never wrote about this. But he should have! (there's a video you should play there)

Colorado republican congressman says we might destroy Mecca if nuclear weapons are used on us.

I'd say that's fine: if Saudi Arabia attacks us. Otherwise, WTF?

Halloween in July?
This morning, Tom & I were clicking through the TV channels, and we came upon an episode of Monk in which Monk and a kid were out trick-or-treating. A few channels later, we landed on an episode of Spongebob Squarepants that featured Sponge Bob and his starfish buddy dressed up as steaks for some kind of Halloween-related prank. Then this evening, the rerun of The Simpsons was one of the (you guessed it) Halloween specials! What the devil is going on?

Not long ago Susan and I went to Target to buy ice cube trays. As our apartment came with a dilapidated old refrigerator sans ice cube trays, and the weather was getting a tid bit warmer, we had decided that our very sweaty limbs needed the cool-me-off...

So we went to the section of the store where we guessed these thingies would be- near the other kitchen implements. We searched high (me) and low (Susan) to no avail. Finally, while we were in the frozen food section, picking up some delicious, low-fat, Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches, we spotted an employee.

We asked the fellow where we might find these ice cube trays, and he was flummoxed. He thought they might be "right up this aisle" and pointed us onward to the glorious culmination of our quest- maybe.

His directions prov'd correct, though it was more than a little strange that the ice cube trays were located near the tupperware. I guess the organizational scheme made sense if you consider ice cube trays to be a form of storage for water. Like individually-partially-wrapped-bite-sized aliquots of water...

As we made our way to the registers (and the inevitable hassle of waiting behind people who've never used credit cards or ATM cards before- evidently they always previously payed with sheckels, or virgin daughters, or something) we decided we ought to thank the helpful employee...

We swung back through the section where we'd last seen him, looking pretty carefully for the fellow or any traces with which to track him. To no avail. The man had disappeared faster than the Roadrunner from Wile E. Coyote's traps.

I felt like the guy in that old campfire story. You know the one, about the dude who picked up a hitchhiking young lady, only to have her sweater left in his car? Then he tracks down her mother and finds that the sweater did belong to her daugher, but she'd been dead for years?

It was like that. With ice cubes. Without the sweater. Or hitchhikers.

I'd like to reiterate, people: there's a bald eagle landing on the moon. And all I get is guff from Susan and silence from the rest of you?! Intolerable, I say!

Okay... this is really weird. Eisenhower has (had) a dollar coin. On the obverse is, well, Ike. On the reverse? An eagle landing on the moon. An eagle landing. On the moon. The same design is on the reverse of the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which prompts us to ask: what the hell were they thinking?

Hey Megan- what're you listening to, these days?

Jumping cats!

Bathing Mt. Rushmore. (I wonder if they'll find a secret "Team America" base while they're up there...)

Interesting article about Southern American English. Y'all might could give it a look-see!

Three posts in a row began with the letter "O." So I guess this post is brought to you by the letter "T," appropriately enough.

They're fertilizing the campus grass, again. Yesterday, or perhaps the day before that, the grounds staff scattered dried manure everywhere, creating a lovely little brown smog of our own. It hung around for part of the day, and the smell reminded me of late summer at Upper River Road. My friends complained about the smell; I laughed and enjoyed the reminder.

This morning they watered the lawns, and the smell reminded me of mid-spring, maybe early summer in the same place. This time, however, the reminder was so strong it was like a body blow. Since I've been here in Southern California, each passing year has made the place more home-like, slowly erasing the sense of being in a land foreign to me. Though they do this fertilization every year, this is the first time that I've been so affected...

And I realized that after all this time, I'm still homesick.

Our "fearless leader" turns another year older today. Interestingly enough, so do:

The Dalai Lama
Sylvester Stallone (born the same year as Dubya)
rapper 50 Cent (fiddy cen')
Kenny G
and Nancy Reagan

Tsar Nicholas I would also have celebrated his birthday today if he weren't, you know, dead.

Once again, Fafblog summarizes the state of political discourse, as typified by the President's recent speech.