November 2010
21 posts
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The 7 Most Useless Skymall Products (with... →
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“Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he...”
– This year’s Bad Sex in Fiction prize-winning quote.
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The Industrial History of Thanksgiving Gravy →
theatlantic:
Alexis Madrigal probes the weird history of industrial gravy:
LIFE magazine ads from the 1960s testify to the proliferation of dry mix gravies. Pillsbury offered a “Daring Offer,” a free sample of any of its gravy mixes to make good on its promise to beat the taste of all competitors. Meanwhile, Durkee’s proclaimed, “All sauce and gravy mixes are made for convenience,...
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Dozens of Thanksgiving facts to help you get... →
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What America loves to watch: Charlie Brown, sex
Hulu’s most popular movies, as of the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning:
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“I would say he was a down-to-earth, cool, hard-working person,” a neighbor...”
– Neighbors are always stunned when a fellow resident becomes a murderer. The latest? A maybe-actor who killed his mother with a sword.
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There is aerial video from World War I ... and... →
Just discovered, and the BBC has clips of it here and more links and story-telling here.
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But he couldn't outrun a speeding bullet...
James Garfield, 20th president of the United States, “could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand simultaneously.
Source: “Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents” and RandomHistory.com
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The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death →
The message: Don’t think you can out-think Nature, and there is much that we know in the general that we don’t know in the specific.
As a dinner-party bonus, maybe you can bluff your way into being the freezing survivor depicted.
via givemesomethingtoread:
But for all scientists and statisticians now know of freezing and its physiology, no one can yet predict exactly how quickly and...
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Vincent Kartheiser of "Mad Men" is as much an ass...
Share that anecdote, but hesitate before sharing why: He has time limits on rape and wears his character’s wedding ring not to ward off women, but to pick them up.
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WatchCats will nurse puppies under the right circumstances (and what better ice-breaker than pets?)
Video: The Weather Channel
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People are constantly crashing into Dunkin' Donuts...
My grandmother did it about eight years ago. And around New Year’s, a couple of weeks later, we saw on the news that someone in New Jersey had done the same thing.
A common cause as I hear about more of these appears to be accidental acceleration while trying to park. Perhaps Dunkin’ doesn’t put appropriate barriers in its parking spaces? Not trying to blame the victim, but...
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Fixing the U.S. budget deficit is really, really... →
Even when the New York Times gives you an interactive list of choices of items to cut or people/things to tax.
The dinner-party takeaway: Next time somebody, of any party affiliation, says fixing the deficit can be done quickly or simply, offer any one of the tough choices presented in the NYT link.
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Things VP Joe Biden has NOT done →
He “has never smashed a Whac-A-Mole game in a drunken fit. He has never invoked Freedom of Information laws to find out a female federal employee’s work schedule. And to the best of anyone’s knowledge, he has never washed his car in the White House driveway.”
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Daylight Savings Time doesn't reduce car accidents →
But the hour we lose in the spring when clocks shift forward causes 17 percent more accidents the following Monday.
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Taylor Swift defies logic
Her new album debuted last week and accounted for 18 percent of all U.S. albums sold. The 61(!?!?) next-most-popular albums failed to outsell her.
1,047,000 copies. :shakes head:
“Here’s a provocative Election Day twist on the longstanding nature-nurture...”
– Your DNA may play a role in how you vote today (via minnpost)
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