Phu Phi Phum Pho Pharce

“I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.”

- Sean O’Casey

“A touch of vin triste today as we realize that the final mouse in the control group has passed on. Louis tore the little fellow’s head off in a paranoid rage. Thirty-five bottles of red followed by crystal meth seems to have diminishing returns. Or so says the rabbit.”

- Mouse au Vin by Noah Baumback (who directed The Squid and The Whale, in which, Miles of Lost plays a school counselor of some sort).

Taking Apart the $819 billion Stimulus Package - washingtonpost.com (via FlowingData)

“And who the fuck is Josh Groban, and, why am I such a dick? Hard questions.”

- Aaron Draplin.  Who else?

Website (blog?) with pictures of pretty living spaces.  Time sucker!

This is not a good video, but the only one I can find.

We rented Tropic Thunder off of iTunes last night, and it was vulgar, politically incorrect, and bleeping hilarious. It would’ve taken me awhile to realize it, had I not heard about it everywhere - Tom Cruise had a small, surprising role in TT and he played it up.  I didn’t know Mr. Cruise had it in him, and I couldn’t have imagined him dancing like that.

$3.99 to rent on iTunes, it was worth the money, and time.

“If you’re a battery you’re either working or you’re dead. That’s a shit life.”

- Dmitri Martin

abelson:

#287: elliott smith - waltz #2 (xo) (1998)

a comment on youtube says, “this man is the most incredibler acoustical musician i have ever seen or heard on the face of the entire polant,” which is more or less all there is to say after watching elliott smith sing a song, except to add that “still going strong/ xo, mom” is the saddest couplet ever written.

The Creepiest Throw-Pillow

The question is, what’s up the skirt?  Via Barry, on Co-op.

Sweet Jesus.  Ray f-ing Fenwick. (via Ray Fenwick)

tmblg:

markn:

shebs:

peterwknox:

muppetpants:

jaimeleighfairbrother:

betweennowandforever:

Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage, Alice Munro

On the Wealth of Nations by PJ O’Rourke, rereading End of Oil by Paul Roberts, and dabbling in Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. Because I have different reading for different times.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by JSF

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, y’all.

Infinite Jest by DFW, and I’m currently about knee deep.

“Stumbling Upon Happiness” by Dan Gilbert. Link

Anna Karenina.

I poured my heart out on Iridesco Watercooler.

iwc:

I woke up this morning, went to the living room and stretched.  And what did I see in the apartment across the street from us?  Three guys working without any pants on.  They were wearing just boxers, typing furiously away on their laptops. Maybe they have their heat on high.  Or maybe they’re making a statement to the neighborhood.  Or was it No Pants Day in Brooklyn?

My wife asks: “would you work with your co-workers, wearing only boxers?”  My answer: no.  I don’t think I can.  Even when I work alone I wouldn’t work without pants.  Maybe there was a time in my life when I prefer to bare my legs in work mode, but now that I’m old and wiser, I need my pants on while working.  Especially when other people are around.

I think there’s something about taking your work seriously and covering your balls. Then again, if wearing only boxers make you design like Aaron Draplin, who can argue?

The Photographic Dictionary: So good.

tmblg:

Seth MacFarlane’s Nightmare

Wow.  I wonder how the did the voice…

Consumed today, the first day of the new year: The Dark Knight.  It was much more entertaining than the dreadful Batman Begins, and even the heavy, clumsy bat-mobile is growing on me.  I would say, $4 well spent.

The Dark Knight is all about the Joker.  For people my age, the Joker is defined by Jack Nicholson’s performance in the original (and superior) Batman series by Tim Burton. This new Joker is nastier, scarier, darker, crazier, and dirtier.  Heath Ledger’s Joker probably doesn’t care much about personal hygiene, where as Jack’s Joker is always dressed impeccably.  Both characters terrorize, but one does it while sipping fine wine, while the other waves a razor in your face while quoting from philosophy books.  Today’s young kids are in love with the new Joker.  I don’t know what that says about our future.

Look, I don’t want to keep bringing up my age, but the Batman of my youth started off with Kim Basinger and Michele Pfeiffer.  And even when the series went bad, we had Nicole Kidman.  I like Maggie Gyllenhaal, and she’s good looking, and she’s a much better actress than Katie Holmes, but she is no Kim Basinger and she won’t be (nor does she care to be, I imagine).  I understand Nolan and co are trying to make a “serious” movie, but they’re still making a movie about a man in a bat costume.  I want to see a hot looking girl with Bruce Wayne, that’s all.

Did you notice this strange connection between the new Batman series and Tom Cruise? In Batman Begins, the first half of the movie was about Brunce Wayne learning kung-fu (or something) from this Japanese dude who was in Tom Cruise’s Last Sumurai (in which Tom Cruise played a white man who is the last Samurai).  Christian Bale even looked like Tom Cruise and I thought I was watching the wrong movie.  In the Dark Knight, for some reason, Batman had to go to Hong Kong, and he did this stunt off of a really tall building, and it was totally a rip off of the scene in MI3 where Tom Cruise jumped off a really tall building in Shanghai.  I’m onto something, I tell ya.

iwc:

Happy new year!

“That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don’t have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let’s make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Peace sign reversed. Mercedes Benz without the O.”

- “Y”, by Marjorie Celona

“My favorite “smart” conversations are ones where people paraphrase New Yorker articles as if the ideas were products of their own research.”

- Mr. John Roderick

“I have confidence that, in no short order, Prop 8 will be repealed, and the gay marriage debate will look as absurd at the miscegenation debates of the 20th century do now. I have confidence this will happen not because it is merely right, or because the electorate will suddenly love gayness, but because opposition to gay marriage has no logical foundation in a civil society that is premised on equality. (Churches can go ahead and ban it all they like. They have their own charters, and no obligation to logic.)”

-

Mr. John Hodgman

Miscegenation: noun.  Marriage, cohabitation, or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race.

A collection of 12 pictures: After four months of my morning trips to Columbus Park, I’ve picked out 12 pictures for a small portfolio.  Now I need to figure out how to talk to coffee shops, and how I can convince them to show my pictures.