Category Archives: random

by | May 29, 2009 · 10:48 am

kavya spells laodicean, wins spelling bee.

47187176Are you smarter than an 8th grade spelling whiz?  Could you spell the winning word?

Kavya Shivashankar, of Kansas, correctly spelled the world “laodicean” for the win last night in the Scripps Naitonal Spelling Bee.  You want to know something funny?  The top Google search right now is “definition laodicean”.  Well, here is what Dictionary.com has to say:

La⋅od⋅i⋅ce⋅an

–adjective

1. lukewarm or indifferent, esp. in religion, as were the early Christians of Laodicea.
–noun

2. a person who is lukewarm or indifferent, esp. in religion.
Origin:
1605–15; Laodice(a) + -an
Well DUH.

Here are some of the other final round words:  antonomasia, bouquiniste, oriflamme, guayabera, isagoge and sophrosyne, phoresy, menhir, maecenas, ophelimity, diacoele and reredos.

Never heard of those.

So Kavya gets $40,000 for being so awesome, and we all get to feel a little inept for the day.  Congratulations, Kavya Shivashankar!  The challenge now for everyone is spelling your last name!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 29, 2009 · 10:24 am

youtube clip of today: wearable towel.

The informercial madness continues.

WHAT IS SO DIFFICULT ABOUT USING A REGULAR TOWEL?!

Honestly, people.  How come everything needs to have arm holes now?  Our blankets, our towels.  What’s next?  Are we honestly that lazy?

And what would you say to someone if you saw them wearing a towel as a dress/toga in public?

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 28, 2009 · 11:49 pm

some quick thoughts on sonia sotomayor…

sotomayorAlright, I know.  It’s “old news” (old being about two days), but I still wanted to weigh in.

In case you haven’t heard, my boy Barack named Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court.  First things first, how do you say her name?  Mallory tackled that one!  Click here.  And now, my thoughts.

I’ve had a few days to digest this now, and I must admit, I’m a little let down.  I see the pragmatism, but I don’t see the promise of change.  I was really hoping for a strong logical and liberal voice on the court, and it seems that we are getting a left-leaner.  So the court remains 5-4, but barely leaning left.

Her record on choice is thin, and while I’m sure she will uphold Roe v. Wade, I’d like to see someone on the court who has demonstrated more conviction in her career.  Sure, she saved baseball, but what about our reproductive rights?  Hopefully she bats lefty. (GET IT?! HA!)

GOP hip hop gangsta Michael Steele had this to say about her (from CNN’s Political Ticker):

Indeed, Steele was mild in his initial jabs, calling Sotomayor an “interesting pick” with “overwhelming political overtones to it.”

Funny, Michael Steele.  That’s what most people would say about you!  SNAP!  But quite bluntly, B played it safe with this one.  The GOP is searching for something to hold on to that justifies them not voting for confirmation, and the fact that nobody really knows anything about her is making their task more difficult.

From what I’ve read, Sonia Sotomayor is one heck of smart lady.  She has an inspirational story of success (the projects in the Bronx to a SCOTUS nomination) and has an excellent reputation as a judge.  She was first appointed to Federal District Court in New York by George H.W. Bush and the Court of Appeals by Bill Clinton, so she’s had bipartisan support in the past.  Not too shabby.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention she’d be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice!  And just the third woman to ever sit on the bench.

I have no doubt in my mind that she will be a great judge, I was just hoping for a little more, I suppose.  I wanted him to make a statement.  Perhaps that’s for next time.  I trust you, B!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 28, 2009 · 10:43 pm

auditions are over. next week, vegas!

so_you_think_you_can_dance

Hello, SWTCTW readers!  Here is Chris’ weekly SYTYCD update!

Mallory brought up an interesting point – which is that some people may not be familiar with the summertime awesomeness that is SYTYCD. I’m not really sure how this could be the case and I’m too frightened to explore the deep dark world in which this scenario could be possible. So, taking her hypothetical point to heart, I’ve prepared a quick tutorial based on the dancing kid video she posted last week.

During the first weeks of the show, we are entertained with audition footage from various locations around the country. (Please resist any obvious comparisons here to American Idol.) If they were to audition for the show, Mallory’s dancing kids – we will call them Suzy and Steve because Mallory once told me how much she likes those names – would have stood in line at one of the audition spots, awaiting their big break.  I think it is clear to all of us that Steve is really the shining star of the pair. Suzy is cut, her SYTYCD career is over. Now for Steve. He has got good musicality, but does he have what it takes to compete? Steve gets put in the choreography group to see if he can learn and perfect a routine with other dancers. He’s good, but I doubt we will be seeing him in Vegas. There’s not much for a 5-year old to do there anyway. That’s basically how the selection process works.

The four hours of SYTYCD we got this week marked the end of this audition process. Tyce Diorio is one of the judges for one of these auditions. Tyce is normally a choreographer for the show, and we saw this week that he is apparently a bitchy queen. You may think this is harsh, so to back myself up, cue bitchy queen montage (at exactly 30 seconds):

But enough about Tyce. One kid in the Los Angeles auditions named Nathan was probably one of the most impressive male auditions of the season. The problem: he is 17 and you have to be 18 to participate. The judges were so taken by his performance they gave him a ticket to Vegas for next season when he is eligible. Nathan was followed by a Stacy who literally danced like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket. No ticket for Stacy. She should call Suzy to commiserate.

I will leave you all for this week with Sex. No, this isn’t a joke. And he was back this season as well… in a dance-off.

I realize there are no clips of good dancing in tonight’s post. Fret not, readers. We have an entire summer of SYTYCD watching together.

[Posted by Chris, via Kathleen]

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by | May 22, 2009 · 9:43 am

i can dance, so i think.

so_you_think_you_can_dance

If everything goes according to plan, we’re going to have a weekly guest blogger give us a delightfully snarky recap of the night’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance.  Meet Chris.  He’s alright, I guess.  Chris’ interests include interpretive dance, paleontology, a nice boxed wine (red, of course), lounging by his soon-to-be-open pool in his surfer dude shorts and Six Words to Change the World.  What an introduction.  Anyway, Chris we’ll be keeping us posted on So You Think You Can Dance season 5.  And now, his inaugural post:

We’ve all been waiting for summer. Not for the warm weather. Not for the scantily-clad folks we see around town. Not because our apartment complex pool has opened. But because it marks the return of So You Think You Can Dance.

Hello SWTCTW! It’s Chris, your SYTYCD GB (guest blogger). That’s right. For the next however many weeks, I will be joining you on Thursday nights as your SYTYCD watch-party-guest-blogger-buddy, or SYTYCD WPBGB, as we say in the blogging biz.

I’m here for one reason – SYTYCD brings people together. Young and old, and even old and young. Minus Mary’s crazy screaming (there’s really no excuse for that nonsense), SYTYCD puts on TV the talent that we all think we possess at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday nights at the clubs (and P.S. I’ve seen the facebook pictures; we don’t really possess the talent).

I personally can’t wait for the episodes with the real dancing to start. Though I was a little offended by last night’s episode. Some of the moves they made fun of last night, I have spent weeks perfecting at the local bar…

And now, some clips from last season:

[Posted by Chris, via Kathleen]

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by | May 22, 2009 · 9:30 am

youtube clip of today: cat yodeling.

Cat people are SO WEIRD.  But let’s face it, sometimes really weird can be funny.  Happy Friday/start of a three day weekend, y’all!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 21, 2009 · 4:21 pm

youtube clip of today: julia dales.

OH. MY. GOD.

Whatever competition this girl is trying to win, I hope she wins it.

Question:  How on earth do you realize you have that talent?!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 21, 2009 · 4:08 pm

meaty business cards for carnivorous people.

Let me preface this by saying this was passed on to me by one of the manliest men I know.  RAWR!  Okay, now we can begin.

Meat lovers, rejoice!  Now you can integrate your carnivorous ways into the business world.  How, you ask?  BUSINESS CARDS MADE OUT OF BEEF JERKY.

I’m not making that up.

Here is a picture from their Web site, www.meatcards.com:

meatcardsHilarious and brilliant!  Here’s more from the Web site:

Screw die-cutting. Forget about foil, popups, or UV spot lamination. THESE business cards have two ingredients:
MEAT AND LASERS.

Unlike other business cards, MEAT CARDS will retain value after the econopocalypse. Hoard and barter your calorie-rich, life-sustaining cards.

MEAT CARDS do not fit in a Rolodex, because their deliciousness CANNOT BE CONTAINED in a Rolodex.

Now if only they could make business cards out of bacon…

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | May 19, 2009 · 10:42 pm

here, read this quote i liked.

Just stumbled across this quote on the blog of a pretty freaking hilarious and wacky 13-year-old (no, really, check her out), and I liked it, so now you get to read it:

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.” [Neil Gaiman]

Apparently it’s in a comic book series called The Sandman, and though it seems like a pretty unusual quote to come from a comic book, and though the cover of said comic book is a leetle terrifying, I’m intrigued. 

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | May 18, 2009 · 2:16 pm

go inside the fridges of strangers.

Just stumbled upon this delightfully voyueristic peek  into the fridges and freezers of strangers. The photos are part of a series by photographer Mark Menjivar called You Are What You Eat. When you read his goals for the collection, you can see that it’s about a little bit more than voyeurism; Menjivar wanted to make a statement about consumerism and hunger in this country:

You Are What You Eat is a series of portraits made by examining the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the United States.

For three years I traveled around the country exploring the issue of hunger. The more time I spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more I began to think about the foods we consume and the effects they have on us as individuals and communities. An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led me to begin to make these unconventional portraits.

A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, “May I photograph the interior of your fridge?” to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed “as is.” Nothing added, nothing taken away.

These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one’s life.

My hope is that we will think deeply about how we care. How we care for our bodies. How we care for others. And how we care for the land.

 Here are a few photos from the collection:

fridge one

 

fridge two

 

fridge three

I’m a little embarrassed to say that my roommate’s and my fridge looks most like the third photo, which (tellingly?) was taken of the fridge of a couple of college students. The only items consistently in our fridge are condiments, booze and assorted cocktail fixings, and eggs. The grocery store is just so far away when you don’t have a car! City living is hard! (Sorry, Mom.)

You can see the rest of the photos at the blog link above, but definitely check out Menjivar’s website to see more of his impressive work.

[Posted by Mallory]

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