Holy bouncing melonas! Such esoteric fruit-based symbolism makes it hard to grasp the artist's true intentions. Tell me, o mysterious multi-colored-lei-clad man, what is your story?
23 April 2008
19 April 2008
18 April 2008
17 April 2008
16 April 2008
Poor Oklahoma...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/16foster.html?ex=1366084800&en=ce93eb9a4af3418b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
It's not often your local district judge is quoted in the New York Times, but as usual, the news story isn't flattering. Apparently Oklahoma has the worst foster care system in the country. This just proves my theory that the state only makes the news for two things:
1. tragedies
2. football
Lately, the latter has been a subcategory of the former since the Sooners can't seem to win a BCS bowl game to save their lives (they've lost four in a row, not that anyone is counting). It's almost the 13th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The anniversary of when over 90 tornadoes touched down on the same day in 1999 is coming up too. (Did I mention a tornado ruined my high school prom? It was a very bloody night, but that's another post.) Then there were the wildfires that covered the state a few years ago.
Oh, Oklahoma. What are we gonna do. At least the BBQ is good. And the pickle bar at Goldie's is charming in a way. On the bright side the state did win two Supreme Court cases against Texas, and ranks pretty highly on the number of Miss America winners too. I guess there's that. Maybe there is more to offer than tragedy and free pickles after all.
It's not often your local district judge is quoted in the New York Times, but as usual, the news story isn't flattering. Apparently Oklahoma has the worst foster care system in the country. This just proves my theory that the state only makes the news for two things:
1. tragedies
2. football
Lately, the latter has been a subcategory of the former since the Sooners can't seem to win a BCS bowl game to save their lives (they've lost four in a row, not that anyone is counting). It's almost the 13th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The anniversary of when over 90 tornadoes touched down on the same day in 1999 is coming up too. (Did I mention a tornado ruined my high school prom? It was a very bloody night, but that's another post.) Then there were the wildfires that covered the state a few years ago.
Oh, Oklahoma. What are we gonna do. At least the BBQ is good. And the pickle bar at Goldie's is charming in a way. On the bright side the state did win two Supreme Court cases against Texas, and ranks pretty highly on the number of Miss America winners too. I guess there's that. Maybe there is more to offer than tragedy and free pickles after all.
14 April 2008
"Mr. Brasil" Pageant
http://www.missbrasilmundo.com.br/mister_candidatos.html
So I was trying to translate something last week into Portuguese and was using some online dictionary from Brazil, which was part of a general media portal website. One of the sidebar news stories was on the "Mr. Brazil" competition, which I dutifully checked to confirm included a swimsuit competition. The results surprised me.
Now, I have been to a few beaches in Brazil, and I know that if any one country can claim to have the most attractive swimsuits (and the people wearing them), it would have to be Brazil. So where in the hell did these guys come from?? Sure, there are a few hunks. But Piauí? I'm just scared of you.
While it's true the hottie quotient in Brazil is high, it's good to remind each other that average (ugly, even) people exist too. Duh. I get that, but wonder if the Brazilian pageant process places more emphasis on other aspects of the competition. If that's the case, Mr. Piauí must have proposed detailed, actionable steps to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. I'm just saying. I'll stop being so bitchy now. I'm sure he's a nice guy...
So I was trying to translate something last week into Portuguese and was using some online dictionary from Brazil, which was part of a general media portal website. One of the sidebar news stories was on the "Mr. Brazil" competition, which I dutifully checked to confirm included a swimsuit competition. The results surprised me.
Now, I have been to a few beaches in Brazil, and I know that if any one country can claim to have the most attractive swimsuits (and the people wearing them), it would have to be Brazil. So where in the hell did these guys come from?? Sure, there are a few hunks. But Piauí? I'm just scared of you.
While it's true the hottie quotient in Brazil is high, it's good to remind each other that average (ugly, even) people exist too. Duh. I get that, but wonder if the Brazilian pageant process places more emphasis on other aspects of the competition. If that's the case, Mr. Piauí must have proposed detailed, actionable steps to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. I'm just saying. I'll stop being so bitchy now. I'm sure he's a nice guy...
13 April 2008
Googlegängers
Get up. Make the coffee. Scan the NYT headlines. See if Gail Collins wrote anything today. That's my usual morning routine.
One day last week though I came across an article that referenced "googlegängers", which, as a word, apparently won the American Dialect Society's "most creative" new word in 2007. The existence of such an organization, and their evident authority to decide which new words are the coolest every year is fascinating in its own right, but I'll have to pick up that thought another time.
The definition for 2007's "most creative" word is pretty self-explanatory, but it refers to people that show up when you google yourself. It's a great word. I couldn't resist.
TOP RESULTS FOR "JEREMY HASTINGS"
1. The first result is for a googlegänger that leads birdwatching tours on the island of Islay, in Scotland's Inner Hebrides. Aside from a healthy interest in birds, this guy seems to have his act together. Nice work, JH. Keep it up. http://www.islaybirding.co.uk/
2. MBA 2008 at the Tepper School of Business (Carnegie Mellon). Apparently JH #2 got an internship at Bain & Co. This one is just eerily close to home. Get a life, JH, and stay out of my arena!! I sort of want to apply for a job there just to confuse people.
2.5: A fake news story from the "Onion." The article intro refers to "Jason Hastings" but the body of the article changes the name to "Jeremy Hastings." I'm an "Onion" fan, so this was sort of special. I already wrote about it...
3. A Level I rugby referee in Australia. I don't know much about rugby, aside from the fact that Thunderbird must spend a fortune keeping its rugby pitch impossibly green. I'm not sure JH #3 would care about that.
----------
There are others, including somebody's high school profile on "classmates.com" in Michigan, and somebody else with a court date in Ohio.
I finally show up on results page 2, with references to my LinkedIn and Friendster profiles. There's a Facebook link too, but it turns out it's for a Facebook googlegänger. Naturally this led to another search, which turned up 14 JH's on Facebook. The clones never end!
Results page two also features a JH that wrote some article in the "Journal of the Chemical Society" and a squash player. Moving through the pages there are references to a lot of people named Jeremy at Hastings High School in Nebraska, which marks the line where the gängers stop.
The takeaway here is that my life has not amounted to enough to bump me to page 1 result status, which gives me a new goal. Evidently my participation in the world's largest marshmallow fight in Skokie, IL wasn't enough. My entry in the 2006 World CowChip Throwing Championships didn't work either. I guess the google folks aren't interested in my attempts to toss bovine fecal matter (who could blame them, really).
TOP RESULTS FOR "JEREMY PAUL HASTINGS"
I felt a little un-special after that last search, so I added my middle name and tried again. This strategy worked - there are no Google results with all three names, only a bunch of references to "Paul Hastings." Apparently people with this name are drawn to the legal profession.
Link to word nominations for 2007: http://www.americandialect.org/2007.WOTY.nominations.pdf
One day last week though I came across an article that referenced "googlegängers", which, as a word, apparently won the American Dialect Society's "most creative" new word in 2007. The existence of such an organization, and their evident authority to decide which new words are the coolest every year is fascinating in its own right, but I'll have to pick up that thought another time.
The definition for 2007's "most creative" word is pretty self-explanatory, but it refers to people that show up when you google yourself. It's a great word. I couldn't resist.
TOP RESULTS FOR "JEREMY HASTINGS"
1. The first result is for a googlegänger that leads birdwatching tours on the island of Islay, in Scotland's Inner Hebrides. Aside from a healthy interest in birds, this guy seems to have his act together. Nice work, JH. Keep it up. http://www.islaybirding.co.uk/
2. MBA 2008 at the Tepper School of Business (Carnegie Mellon). Apparently JH #2 got an internship at Bain & Co. This one is just eerily close to home. Get a life, JH, and stay out of my arena!! I sort of want to apply for a job there just to confuse people.
2.5: A fake news story from the "Onion." The article intro refers to "Jason Hastings" but the body of the article changes the name to "Jeremy Hastings." I'm an "Onion" fan, so this was sort of special. I already wrote about it...
3. A Level I rugby referee in Australia. I don't know much about rugby, aside from the fact that Thunderbird must spend a fortune keeping its rugby pitch impossibly green. I'm not sure JH #3 would care about that.
----------
There are others, including somebody's high school profile on "classmates.com" in Michigan, and somebody else with a court date in Ohio.
I finally show up on results page 2, with references to my LinkedIn and Friendster profiles. There's a Facebook link too, but it turns out it's for a Facebook googlegänger. Naturally this led to another search, which turned up 14 JH's on Facebook. The clones never end!
Results page two also features a JH that wrote some article in the "Journal of the Chemical Society" and a squash player. Moving through the pages there are references to a lot of people named Jeremy at Hastings High School in Nebraska, which marks the line where the gängers stop.
The takeaway here is that my life has not amounted to enough to bump me to page 1 result status, which gives me a new goal. Evidently my participation in the world's largest marshmallow fight in Skokie, IL wasn't enough. My entry in the 2006 World CowChip Throwing Championships didn't work either. I guess the google folks aren't interested in my attempts to toss bovine fecal matter (who could blame them, really).
TOP RESULTS FOR "JEREMY PAUL HASTINGS"
I felt a little un-special after that last search, so I added my middle name and tried again. This strategy worked - there are no Google results with all three names, only a bunch of references to "Paul Hastings." Apparently people with this name are drawn to the legal profession.
Link to word nominations for 2007: http://www.americandialect.org/2007.WOTY.nominations.pdf
12 April 2008
Fortune Cookie Thoughts
I wonder what people think about fortune cookies. They're purely American (I didn't see a single one during a ten day trip to China earlier this year, and that included going to more than a few Chinese restaurants), and I think most people dismiss them as a marketing gimmick. I also think there's something lurking just beneath the surface that's worth a closer look, and I'm trying to figure it out.
There were two (!) Chinese restaurants in the town where I grew up (that's a lot for the speck-on-the-map I used to call home as a kid). One was on Route 66 and the other was by the Indian Hospital. We stopped going to the latter when a controversy erupted over a boil-order, which left the one on Route 66 for my family's dining pleasure. That one was located in a former used car dealership in the shape of a barn, but I'm getting off topic here...
One time my grandmother was visiting us and I distinctly remember her laughter when my dad opened his fortune cookie and said “You are like a catfish, all mouth and no brain.” Grammy (we called my mom’s mom grammy) thought for a minute, and then let out a roar of laughter. You would have thought she had just heard the funniest joke ever told. Of course, dad had played that line on my sister and me so many times by then that it had long since lost its lustre, but it was fun to watch someone else react for the first time. It’s a simple memory, but one I’ve cherished and may have something to do with developing my interest in the topic.
Personally, I like “Help! I’m trapped inside a fortune cookie factory” but I tend to save that for special times. Like when someone’s grandmother is at the table. Often there are general maxims that could safely apply to anyone’s life, but some of these fortune cookie writers are getting more sophisticated and I’m just here to say I appreciate their work. So I’m hoping to keep a list of the ones that somehow resonated with me…just for kicks, really. That's the point of the sidebar "Fortune Cookie Garden." I don’t do it because I believe in any kind of predictive power, but for their ability to encourage you to think about what’s going on in your life. We could all use little reminders to do that from time to time, couldn’t we? You go, Fortune Cookie.
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