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It is pretty dang charming to happen across a blog that is devoted entirely to pencils.
The posts include pencil reviews, recent accomplishments by a pencil and pencil-of-the-month club.
We figure that being blogged about is probably the most high-tech thing that's happened to the humble pencil since the advent of fill-in-the-football questionnaires.
Sometime back, we noticed Four Things on Kottke, thought it was kinda cool and flagged it. While cleaning out our "Flagged" folder the other day, we rediscovered this meme game that's something like blog tag, and thought we'd revive it on a local scale.
We've tagged bloggers -- some we know, some we don't -- who regularly leave us comments. And, if you don't have a blog, but want to play, we invite you to cut, paste and respond in the comments section.
Four jobs I've had:
1. TA for a Hitchcock film class
2. Saleschick at The Limited
3. Staff writer at the New York Post
4. Girl Scout cookie seller
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Lost in Translation
2. Clueless
3. Garden State
4. Pretty much anything, being the movie slut that I am.
Four places I've lived:
1. Brooklyn
2. New Delhi [too young to remember much]
3. Claremont, CA [too stoned to remember much... jk]
4. Paris [too blissed out on cute boys, cheap red wine and Nutella sandwiches to remember much]
Four TV shows I love:
1. Twin Peaks
2. Dog Whisperer
3. Top Chef
4. It changes constantly
Four concerts I'm glad I went to: [I made this category up]
1. Neko Case/Calexico
2. Pretenders
3. Pete Yorn
4. A couple Dead shows with my buddy Steve
Four places I've vacationed:
1. Cabo San Lucas
2. Vernal, UT
3. Chincoteague Island, VA
4. Disneyworld
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Blue corn enchiladas at the Shed (put under the burner twice)
2. Pepperoni pizza
3. Spicy tuna roll
4. My mom's aloo parathas with chat masala
Four sites I visit daily:
1. google.com
2. nytimes.com
3. playbabble.com
4. pagesix.com
Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Central Park, Manhattan
2. On a bike somewhere in Maine
3. A market in Barcelona
4. Afterwords Cafe, DC
Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Scot from Burque Babbler
2. Met from Metrospective
3. Maggie from M-Pyre Girls
4. Greg from FiveZeroFive
We're afraid of corn.
We've said it for years, and blissfully ignorant souls who have failed to grasp the dangers of corn just laugh or give us a quizzical look or confess their own silly fears [heights, spiders, planes, etc.]
But every now and then, we run into a fellow cornophobe, who gets it. They know, for instance, that cornfields are a hazard, what with all the snakes, claustrobia-inducing stalks and crop dust residue. They're aware of the high probability that an axe-wielding psycho is laying in wait just around the next stalk, and, for those of us who grew up on the Little House on the Prarie series, of the perpetual and catastrophic threat of grasshoppers.
Recently, our fears have been validated. The New York Times has proclaimed that corn is "an agent of evil." [This is a direct, somewhat-in-context quote.] It's all part of the new wave of anti-corn hoo-hah now that the chattering classes have finally recognized the evil lurking in our heartland, thanks to a new buzzbook, The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Why the uproar? Among other things, corn is responsible for the existence of Chicken McNuggets and Twinkies. We'll try not to say we told you so.
We're not going to sugarcoat it: There some butt-ugly mutts out there.
Fortunately, these little guys know how to turn lemons into lemonade. Some have parlayed their, ahem, special qualities into at least 15 minutes of fame [modelling, tv appearances, beauty contests].
And now they are the finalists in the uber-competitive World's Ugliest Dog contest. Vote here for the doggie that you'd least want to cover you with big, wet, slobbery kisses.
From the "He's A Poet & Didn't Even Know It" dept:
One of our favorite readers sent us this poem comprised entirely of Bushims. It's been out there forever, but only made it to our inbox yesterday.
Anyway, each line has been diligently researched by the Googlers factcheckers at Urban Legends, who painstakingly nailed down the occasions when Dubya waxed eloquent.
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!
We caught the highly enjoyable Thank You For Smoking yesterday, which features a fantastic cast: Aaron Eckhart, William H. Macy, Robert Duvall, Maria Bello, Rob Lowe.
And then there's Katie Holmes.
It reminded us of the spate of bizarre photographs we'd recently seen of Tom Cruise's soon-to-be Stepford wife. If you click here, here and here, you'll learn that in the cynical world that is the blogosphere, some folks think that her belly looks a tad, well, fake.
And what do we think? Hmmm, what do you think we think...
Those who ignore all the scandals that are fit to print may not know that a reporter from Page Six -- the most feared, respected and widely-read gossip column in NYC -- has been accused of trying to shake down a Beverly Hills billionaire.
For some $220,000, freelancer Jared Paul Stern promised a supermarket mogul Ron Burkle that he'd offer his
"protection" -- or keep his name and false damaging items out of bold face
type.
Apparently, Burkle resented his mobster tactics. He called in the FBI, which promptly launched a sting operation. Stern is now under investigation. He's also [unofficially, still] toast at the Post.
Since we spent a couple years sitting about 18 inches away from the Page Six desk during our tenure as an entertainment writer at the Post, we know Jared Paul Stern [Yup, he is a putz.] We also know - and occassionally worked with -- Page Six editor Richard Johnson. [A powerbroker? Yes. A roving eye? Yup. Schwag? Oh puleez!! Extortion? He's got better things to do.] Working at the Post did feel like being part of a family. [But not this family.]
Anyhoo, the fallout has been delicious extensive. The Post insists that Stern is just a stringer [he was]. Arch-rival New York Daily News made hay with headlines like "Page Sick" and "Page Fix." Even the venerable New York Times
couldn't resist digging in with multiple stories and a highly enjoyable flow chart. [Click to enlarge]. And proof of just how major this story
is: Gawker created an entire category named Payola Six.
Stay tuned. The fun's just beginning.
Something wicked this way hops.
That ominous tagline for Wallace & Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit set the stage for our plasticine heroes to outsmart and capture a monster rabbit wrecking havoc on prize gardens throughout England and trampling the hopes of townsfolk who just want the world to admire their massive watermelons and shiny red tomatoes.
And now it seems that is an actual monster rabbit on the loose in an English village. The crafy beast - as "big as a dog" (and hopefully bigger than our four-pound pup) - is terrorizing their vegetable patches, devouring every leek, parsnip and cabbage in the county and pissing off the local gardners.
Town meetings have been called. Guards have been appointed. But without Wallace and Gromit rushing to their rescue, we suspect that those carefully-tended, prize-worthy veggies are now likely to about as glamourous as the leftover salad in our fridge.
It's not just that our thumb isn't green. It's that it lacks even the palest smidge of sage or citron or pine.
This is probably because we subscribe to the Benign Neglect school of plant care. In other words, any care and feeding tips that go beyond an occasional douse of water seem just plain fussy.
But this morning, we came across a truly helpful hint: Give flowering plants a shot of tequila. Or vodka or whiskey, but avoid beer and wine. This article promises that they'll thrive under the influence. And if not, at least they'll feel less pain.
