Yeah, as I always say — never writing something electronically that you aren’t willing to defend to the entire world.
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Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner
The Vowels: A Ken Burns Film
The Vowels: A Film by Ken Burns from Sam Cherington on Vimeo.
Genius parody, via Brain Picker.
Alltop makes love to Ashokan Farewell.
Monday scotch blogging: a proposal
This series of short videos (and extremely annoying ads) at the Esquire website feature the actor Brian Cox demonstrating how to pronounce a large variety of scotch names.
My modest proposal is that we should recreate this useful series and actually consume a dram for each scotch in the list. Perhaps when a scotch’s name is mis-pronounced another dram must be consumed of it until it is pronounced properly.
Ambulances will have to be hired, of course, and we should probably have a doctor and still-master on hand in case of emergencies.
Alltop likes to put ice in its scotch, the heathen. Via the Presurfer
Mobile Internet: we know everything, but we’re not any smarter
Love this Pete Homes bit about having Google on your phone. More after the clip. (Spoilers.)
I only disagree with one part of this — usually the drunk know-it-all is wrong, and trying to get them to agree that they’re wrong is impossible . . . unless you have Google on your phone.
When Alltop doesn’t know something, it just asks other aggregators what the answer is.
By all means, here is my cell phone number
This made me laugh, because I just put my cell number on my FB account. (Mostly so my friends could actually talk to me if they wanted. Not to be “safer”.)
Alltop only asked for my blood-type.
The Curious Case of Toulouse Le Grandfig, Graphic Designer (Part Two)
Entry 2: Dictated: April 26, 1951 (continued from Part One)
For our first session, I thought I would try to understand Grandfig’s psychosis through the medium of his art. I brought in the artwork he had been working on for a hat-maker, and had him role-play what the characters were saying to one another. [Figure 8]
From recording of patient interview, April 26, 1951:
Dr. Cornelius: So what are the men in this first panel saying to one another Mr. Grandfig?
Gradfig’s voice: Hey Bob, how are things going with the new job?
Great Jim, I’ve just been assigned to CEO cleanup in sector 6.
Really, how’s that going?
Not well. They keep eating everyone. But at least I have this hat. Of course, it would be nice if it had a laser defense net too!
Dr. Cornelius: What is a laser defense net?
Grandfig: Something to keep the CEOs at bay. Long enough to find a baby or something to throw at them anyway.
Dr. Cornelius: What?
Grandfig: Should I do the next one?
Dr. Cornelius: Uh, I haven’t fully absorbed the first, but yes, let’s.
Grandfig: “Hey Steve how’s that hat feeling. Is the laser defense net uncomfortable?”
“Mrfpp, mdhgtr, pank mawlk … mipe.”
“Yeah, I had a cerebral embolism once too.”
Dr. Cornelius: So you think the man with the pipe had a cerebral embolism?
Grandfig: Of course not. Jones is an idiot.
[sound of heavy sigh]
Dr. Cornelius: How about this last one?
Grandfig: Oh, they’re in love.
[recording stops]
Apparently, Mr. Scott’s amateur diagnosis is correct. Clearly, there are repressed issues afoot, so for our next session, I asked Grandfig to create a painting of his family, and he produced Figure 9:
I administered 150 mg of thorazine immediately.
When Grandfig had calmed, I asked him why he was so obsessed with anthropophagy. Had he eaten people?
He was groggy, but he answered. “Not in this timeline Doctor. And in the Land of the Future, all I ever ate was one foot. One foot! You can’t be a cannibal if you eat one foot. Especially if you didn’t know it was a foot. You know I don’t mind telling you, I wish I’d never had my tail removed, then none of this would ever have happened.”
Entry 3: Dictated: April 27, 1951
When I dropped by Grandfig’s secured room to see how his night went, I was surprised to see that he was gone. All that was left was a postcard and a small can of food. I ripped off the label, for the record.
The content of the postcard is clearly indicative of some kind of deep paranoia, probably brought about by eating a foot and/or being abused by homosexual Nazis. I must say, I was worried about the veiled threat that I would see Grandfig “in the future.”. The food was clearly mislabeled, as it turned out to be some kind of canned meat.
It was, however, delicious.