Aliens leave new message in Netherlands

...or not: "A driver who was high on cocaine destroyed an entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police. Four police cars were destroyed before the 35-year-old crashed into a ditch and was arrested."

New Beastie Boys and Pearl Jam available for listening

It's the 90s all over again. Instrumental Beastie Boys and live Pearl Jam can be heard here.

Yeshiva Boys Choir -- Kol Hamispalel

Via And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Our Vinyl.

Minisodes

Miss T.J. Hooker, Fantasy Island or What's Happening!!, but don't have the time to watch full episodes? Now you can catch the highlights in under 5 minutes thanks to The Minisode Network.

Crazy.

Berkshares

The hippies have beat us at our own game.

Sad doppelgänger

While living in rural Arkansas, my wife and I occasionally attended a nearby Episcopal church. The interim rector was a seemingly happy middle-aged woman who valued personal appearance enough to spend a bit of time primping and came across as very well put together, especially in formal Sunday worship robes.

Every so often we would run across a woman in the grocery store who we thought must be her - but in civilian clothes. Faded jeans and a sweatshirt, hunched over her shopping cart, hair frazzled and with a look of grim resignation on her face. We would dart about, not wanting to disturb the sullen woman in her off-duty activities.

Only later did we realize this was an entirely different person - the local dry cleaner. So, here they were, two completely unrelated individuals that could be twins. One confident and assured, the other dejected and world-weary.

Are there others out there? If so, which of the two does that make you? Could these false twins be creatures of chaos?

New toilet ad campaign concept

I recently had to sit through both The Guess Who's and Lenny Kravitz's versions of "American Woman" in less than 24 hours. In addition, I also installed a new toilet seat. See the connection? It should be obvious. American Standard toilets are, well, standard in many American homes. The opportunity to combine the two is there for the taking. I've put together some sample lyrics to give some forward-thinking ad agency a head start:

American Standard,
Sit your a$% on me!

Thanks, FTC

The Federal Trade Commission is thankfully stepping up to protect affluent suburbanites from the impending threat of "shopping 'experience'" monopoly:

"The Federal Trade Commission recently announced it will sue to block Whole Foods from buying Wild Oats, a competitor in the high-end, organic supermarket space.

"The FTC's argument is that 'premium' organic-food peddlers don't compete against regular supermarkets, and its justification reads like promotional materials from Whole Foods. The FTC waxes lyrically about 'the breadth and quality of their perishables -- produce, meats, fish, bakery items, and prepared foods -- and the wide array of natural and organic products and services and amenities they offer,' adding that Whole Foods is not so much a supermarket as a 'shopping 'experience.'' Mr. Mackey, the Whole Foods CEO, would have to be tickled if the FTC weren't deploying this talk to kill the merger."

Get ready for the big night out

Via Tokyo Times: "[F]or the man not exactly blessed with bristles, help is at hand, as wig manufacturer Propia is selling synthetic substitutes."

Bad Spock Drawings

Via Drawn!: "Bad Spock Drawings invites artists to do their worst to everyone’s favourite Vulcan Starfleet officer."

R.I.P. Richard Rorty

I'm a little late, but at least this article from yesterday's Slate is timely.

From Richard Posner's entry:
Dick Rorty's most striking personal characteristic was a deep and genuine modesty, as an anecdote will illustrate. He had once written that if there was any hope for the world, it lay in the Third World. In an e-mail he told me that this was "the dumbest thing he had ever written." Sometime later I had occasion to quote in a book I was writing his statement that if there was any hope it lay in the Third World, and I wanted to add that he had retracted the statement in correspondence. I e-mailed him to ask whether I could do so. He e-mailed back that he would prefer me to state in my book that he considered the statement "the dumbest thing he had ever written." I did not.

Home renovation update

Everything's going swell!

Marie Antoinette Action Figure

Who doesn't find a guillotine victim fun?

Glowfur

GlowFur..."Feel The love"

Hunting for Darwin

Found on Modern Mechanix, via BoingBoing

Happy Belated 4-Year Blogiversary!

It was yesterday - I really am slacking.

Begging for spray paint

Turner Insurance is building its reputation around owner Kyle Turner's expertise in the insurance field. A series of billboards using images such as the one above bring the point home to drivers passing by. The latest incarnation has Kyle holding up both fists next to one another so that the word "EXPERT" fits neatly across six of his fingers. Why it has taken so long for someone to add an "S" to his first finger is beyond me.

Dear Blog,

I know I haven't written lately, but that doesn't mean I don't love you. Please accept that my day job interferes with my commitment to you and that one day I'll make up for it, even if I have to do it one poo-hat at a time.

Your author,
Meredith