[Yes, the subject's another quote from a They Might Be Giants songI forgot to mention one of the perks of my new job: I get to see a lot of confidential information, mostly names, addresses, and so forth. To be clear, I have no intention of doing anything illicit with these data, but I find it interesting to look at. One good way to pass the ( Read more... )

About twice a year, the New York Times runs "Op-ed Puzzles", which are several short word puzzles (nothing nearly as complex as their daily crossword) that produce one or two words as answers, followed by a final puzzle that incorporates all of the previous answer words. Solve the final puzzle and your reward is some sort of simple message, ( Read more... )

Remember how every time Dracula came up during the villain tournament, my friend Anthony would post some bizarre, rhyming sentence or two? As I mentioned at the time, he was quoting a song his band performed called "Tru Vampyrez [Remix]". In the interest of sharing it with all of you, here's a primitive video I made with Windows Movie Maker:

Click to view

( Read more... )

There's a bizarre quote from Stanley Kauffman's recent review of Amazing Grace in The New Republic:

Even better, [director Michael] Apted--best-known here for the series of documentaries that began with Seven Up!, but who has also ranged through, among others, a James Bond film, Coal Miner's Daughter (about Loretta Lynn), and Gorillas in the Mist- ( Read more... )

So reports The New York Times, anyway. Apparently, there's a very real chance that they'll have to start killing the excess animals to prevent future destruction caused by large herds.

Around the ol' Reserve Room (my current place of employment, for those not up on their Jack-ellanea), the article raised a number of questions:

• Is it right to ( Read more... )

So how'd I do? I ended up tied for second, one point behind first. Given that I'd become increasingly unhappy with my pick of Little Miss Sunshine for Best Picture (and that that category was worth two point), one can imagine I feel a little sour. I'll never trust the Producers Guild and Screen Actors Guild again ( Read more... )

As I mentioned about a month ago, every year I run a casual Oscar pool. Players make picks in each of 14 categories; each of the "big six" (Picture, Director, and the four Acting categories) that one picks correctly is worth two points, and the other eight are each worth one, for a total of 20. For no real reason, here were my picks this year, ( Read more... )

You know that DirecTV ad with Christopher Lloyd based on Back to the Future? This one:

Well, it doesn't make sense. At all. Three points:

1. The commercial's set in 1955, nearly 40 years before the launch of DirecTV.
   
2. Doc just returned Marty to 1985, when DirecTV was still almost a decade away (and twenty years before they'll have three times ( Read more... )

I don't usually do much Oscar bashing, in part because it's such well-worn territory and in part because I've never seen enough of the contenders to make an informed judgment, but I have to point out that the failure to even nominate Children of Men was the biggest oversight of the year. Contrarian twist: I'm not talking about Best Picture (though ( Read more... )

Because hey, why not? I'll know in eleven hours or so if I was right:

Best Picture: Babel, The Departed, Dreamgirls, The Queen, Little Miss Sunshine (the weak link, I'd say, Producers Guild be damned ( Read more... )