Wow. I hope this is real.
(Thanks to Bessell for the tip!)
[Posted by Mallory]
Category Archives: random
drop mad lbs with this plan!
The guy next to me at the gym was eating a muffin while he rode the stationary bike. Can’t let those calories escape without a fight! And speaking of muffins, I once read on another blog that muffins are for people who don’t have the balls to eat cake for breakfast. I like that.
[Posted by Mallory]
do people still eat eggo waffles?
Now, here is a serious tragedy. Kellogg has reported that there will be a shortage of Eggo waffles until next summer. Two of the four plants that mass-produce the waffles are shut down for the time-being. The largest “bakery” in Rossville, Tennessee is closed indefinitely for repairs and the other in Atlanta was shut down because of an unprecedented amount of rain from a September storm.
If all else fails, we could all cut holes in cardboard and throw them in the toaster. I bet we couldn’t tell the difference.
[Posted by Shannon]
today is a google holiday, hooray!
Today’s Google Holiday: What would have been the 115th birthday of E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye. Anyone ever been to Chester, Illinois? That’s where E.C. — or lil Elzie, as I’d prefer to call him — was born and raised. Chester residents love them some Popeye, and to prove it, statues of various characters from the cartoon are taking over:
In 1977, Segar’s hometown of Chester, Illinois honored its native son with a park named in his honor. The park is home to a six-foot-tall bronze statue of Popeye, and since 1980 has been the site of the annual Popeye Picnic, a weekend-long event that celebrates the character with a parade, film festival and other activities. In 2006, Chester launched the ambitious “Popeye & Friends Character Trail,” which links a series of statues of Segar’s characters located throughout town. Each stands on a base inscribed with the names of donors who contributed to its cost, and is unveiled and dedicated during the Popeye Picnic. The 2006 debut sculpture of hamburger-loving Wimpy stands in Gazebo Park. A statue of Olive Oyl, Swee’Pea and the Jeep, located downtown near the Randolph County Courthouse, followed in 2007. In 2008, a Bluto statue was dedicated at the corner of Swanwick and W. Holmes Streets, in front of Buena Vista Bank. The 2009 statue of Castor Oyl and Bernice the Whiffle Hen stands in front of Chester Memorial Hospital. An additional 11 statues will be unveiled at the rate of one per year until 2019, when a bust of Segar at his birthplace will mark the cartoonist’s 125th birthday. To keep the slate on schedule, one year will feature two dedications, with the Sea Hag as the “wild card.”
What I was Googling: lucas welch liza chambers
Now go eat some spinach and raise a glass to lil Elzie.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under food, random, technology, TV
the best thing i’ve seen today.
Watch this (video is blurry for the first couple of seconds):
”He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,” Biada said. ”He just ate it right there.”
That’s the best line from the news story that goes with it.
This guy has seen a lot of spy movies.
There’s not much left to say after that. Haha.
[Posted by Kathleen]
today, a tale of two links.
Read this, and feel sad about the world.
And then read this, and feel happy again.
[Posted by Mallory]
the things i liked this week.
Happy Friday, readership!
Oh, hello. Me again. Since the real job is getting in the way of my bloggy job, I’ve condensed a week’s worth of what I liked into one fabulous Friday post. Does that work for you? I sure hope so!
You all know how much I love stories about sci-fi weirdos (apparently the cool way to spell it now is SyFy. Anybody else notice that the Sci-Fi Channel changed its spelling?). Well, here’s a good one! Computational linguistics expert d’Armond Speers spoke only Klingon to his son for the first three years of the boy’s life. Ummm, WHAT? He claims it was an experiment to see if his son would learn it like any normal human language in the early developmental stages.
He just confirmed what every child already knows– you are an experiment, and your parents are trying to corrupt you and make you as uncool as possible.
Here is the best quote from the article:
As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.
Stay strong, young Speers!
Like any good yuppie bleeding-heart liberal, I have an iPhone. We all know that there is an app for everything, but this new one is so hilarious and wonderful that I have to share it with you. It’s totally politically nerdy, but it’s a bobble head guide to every single member of Congress. Here is my favorite member of Congress:
Best 99 cents I’ve ever spent. Download Bobble Rep.
Speaking of politics, lots of good stuff going on, eh? Lieberman sucks more than ever and the women’s movement took two steps back no thanks to Rep. Stupak.
I also remain perplexed as to how people can manipulate the messages of Christianity in light of healthcare reform. To me, it seems that giving a little extra so our brothers and sisters will be able to be healthy and able to succeed in life is following that message. Yet even the Christian right wing (like my girrrrrrl, Michele Bachman) has condemned it as communism, fascism, Marxism and any other ism you can imagine that probably doesn’t make sense. Grrr.
Hey, speaking of Christianity– I know people are complaining about how early it’s coming, but sweet Jesus I love Christmastime. And I love the new Gap ads! Add being a Gap backup dancer to my bucketlist, right after being a Fanta Girl and a dancing iPod shadow.
Sigh.
In other news, Oprah is ending her show in 2011. I’m not too upset about this. She’s going to have her own TV station in 2011, and she’ll have 25 years of her show in syndication so I really don’t see the big deal. They’ll still be enough of O’s wisdom to go around.
Oh, and just in time for a junky fastfood lunch:
But you know where you should really go? Chipotle.
Okay, I think that’s it for now. Miss me, because I miss you.
[Posted by Kathleen]
the flyest kid on the block.
On my walk to the metro this morning, I spotted a tall, slighty scruffy-faced boy wearing low-top Chucks with nice work pants and pulling it off. I decided right then and there that I wanted to marry him, so I gave him a good stare, just so he knew. Then — in my head, obviously — I had a conversation with him about what music we were both listening to. Do you ever do that? Imagine someone striking up a conversation about what you’re listening to? I do it a lot, and my hypothetical level of coolness fluctuates wildly from day to day. Some days I’m all “Ooh, I HOPE someone asks me today so I can tell them I’m listening to Cloud Cult, which means I’m alternative and cool.” Other days, I think I should probably be ready to scroll back a few songs in case someone pops the question. “Taylor Swift, haha, silly iTunes Shuffle. What was before that? Oh, Coldplay, um, and before that? ‘Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)’? Where did that come from??*” And then I’d awkwardly laugh and walk away.
Not that anyone’s ever actually stopped and asked me what I’m listening to. Sigh.
In other news, on Monday I went out to happy hour and realized that I left my ID at work. The waiter was being strict but luckily, I only lived two blocks away and was able to run home (bitterly, of course) to get my passport. This morning I found my ID buried in the pocket in my wallet where it’s supposed to be, juuust deep enough that it looked like the pocket was empty. Son of a bitch.
Also. You know how when you were little, you were told that if you put the plastic rings that hold pop cans (or “soda” cans, as the kids say) together directly into the trash/recycle bin, the dolphins would strangle themselves in the holes and die? Is that true? Because I totally still cut every individual hole and think about all the dolphins I’m saving.
*I’m kidding here, of course. If I ever found a man who loved “Aaron’s Party” as much as I do, I’d propose on the spot.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, animals, celebrities, crushes, music, random, thoughts
youtube video of today: free hugs.
Because we watched this video in one of my classes and it was so happy/sad that I had to try really hard to not cry too noticeably:
One Christmas Eve, my mom was boarding an airplane, and the guy taking tickets hugged every single person as they got on the plane. Strangely, not a single person resisted or seemed to think it was weird, and everyone was a little happier after that. Sometimes, I just really love people, don’t you?
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, random, YouTube
poetry, lost umbrellas, and nice strangers.
Don't bother sending compliments. I already know I'm a phenomenal artist.
Wanna hear some random thoughts I have? Great!
- A good way to pace yourself when eating is to eat something that’s both absurdly spicy and absurdly (temperature) hot. It’s also a good way to make your mouth hurt like shit.
- So remember the overpriced umbrella I bought from Anthropologie because I didn’t have a functioning one and I was having a bad day and dammit I needed a cute umbrella? Well, yeah, I lost that one in a bar the day after I bought it. I bought ANOTHER cute, overpriced umbrella from The Gap the other day and after three days of use, I left it in a cab. And today I discovered that I lost my water bottle somewhere between all of the millions of places I went on Tuesday. Now, these are all small things in the grand scheme of things, but REALLY? Is it REALLY necessary for me to lose 140 things in a row? No one likes to lose things, but when I lose something it stresses me out to the point that I can’t think about anything else until 1) I cain’t think about it no mo’ or 2) I replace the thing I bought. But see, I can’t buy another umbrella, because then I will just lose it. (And no, the DC Cab Commission has not found my umbrella, nor has anyone on Craigslist. What are these services FOR, if not helping me find my umbrella?!!)
- Today as I was leaving swim practice and feeling all tired and parched because I didn’t have any water to drink because I lost my water bottle, I was talking on the phone with ex-roomie Miss Potter. Then a gust of wind blew by and flipped my umbrella (the cheap plain-colored one that I have to use in emergencies) inside out. I was carrying a large bag and attempting to hold my cell phone to my ear and the wind was still blowing, so flipping the umbrella back to its natural state was proving, er, difficult. And then — AND THEN — a kind stranger (probably a drunk college boy) flipped it back for me! How nice was that? I mean, okay, maybe he’s not Mother Teresa, but that made me rull happy. There are good people in the world. I just wish one of those good people would find my umbrella. And my water bottle. Sigh.
- Officemate E.Lee sent me this video this morning and (if you can believe it), it made me cry.
- Officemate E.Lee’s boyfriend is officiating his best friend’s wedding this weekend, and he is going to read his favorite poem at the wedding. This is the poem, and I lurve it:
Poem to Old Friends Who Have Never Met
When I’m not wishing I could find a unicorn
I wish all our old friends knew each other
The very least they deserve
is the pleasure of each other’s company
We’d go down by the river
and the rocks would hum
with this rich collection of men & women
They would look around and see themselves
no longer isolated
no longer points in the darkness pointing nowhere
but as links in a magnificent chain of
impossible flowers
girdling the world and their talk
(they are all talkers)
would burst like spray in the sunlight
and I would smile
saying nothing
with a bottle of beer in my hand
and a small white bird banging in my heart
By Peter Meinke
From The Contracted World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006)
That’s enough random thoughts for now. I know I missed the Veterans Day Google Holiday yesterday (and all of the Sesame Street ones after the Big Bird one), but yay for all of those!
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, music, random, thoughts
six words to change the world. 
