If I were gonna steal a car, it would totally be the one with the awesome, free snakes. They'd likely be pretty docile left in a hot car anyway. :-) - Slippy Lane
actaully Ruth has a point.. its food on the table.. shoot the thing, take the car home and begin preping supper . snake fillet for supper - Peter Dawson
Srsly, after seeing her on the news today I think the lady looks like a weird Fey-Lowenski cross. But yeah, I'm guessing Tina Fey will have some SNL special appearance gigs over the next couple of months. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
@Jason Carreira...I see his plan now...always "working" late at the White House with the VP? It's like a late night Cinemax movie plot....not that I'd know... - Live4Soccer
I can't type in Twitter for some reason. That should read, "Lost followers on Twitter/FF, probably over my shift to political stuff for the morning." I'm not really down about it, but I figured it would happen. The social contract is a reference to one of my first interactions with Cyndy, where she wrote this piece: http://profy.com/2008/05/22/th... - Mark Trapp
One argument that I've seen is the "purity in the channel" argument. "He used to talk about Linux, and now he talks about Obama! I'm unsubscribing!" I solve this by talking about everything, all the time; that way, people hopefully know what they're getting into when they follow me. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Ontario, right: that was my argument for the existence of a social contract. People subscribe to people for specific reasons, and will unsubscribe if those reasons no longer exist. So, to preserve relationships with people in social media, you have to consider the reasons for why people follow you and at least consider those reasons in your content creation or accept the consequences for not doing so. - Mark Trapp
If you unsub or block someone simply because they don't agree with you, a) you arent part of society and b) you still have no contract. :D - Cyndy
In theory, I should lose a lot of followers on Twitter/FF then. I think both candidates are basically full of shit - jerry
I read this and first thought "What does this have to do with the show LOST"? - James Ferguson
Yeah, I subscribe to people of differing viewpoints all the time. One cuz I'm apparently a wacko, two because I can learn more from the different viewpoints than from my own and three because those are the people that I have some of the most interesting discussions with. - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
James, just wait: I'm getting to the argument where I tie the mysterious polar bear to Palin's nomination. Just give me 5 seasons to do it. - Mark Trapp
+1 Jason. And stop yelling at me for trashing laptops, etc. when you make me spit all over them like that. - Cyndy
Their loss, I may not agree with you but weren't out there engaged in Political Trolling or treating people with complete disrespect. That's about the only way I'll drop/block someone. - David Knight
I'll just put this in perspective - this election is a choice between two starkly different views of the future of this nation. Surely that's more important than our number of followers on some social sites - that may or may not even exist by the time the next election rolls around... - Jason Kaneshiro
mark, i liked you more when you were posting about extreme ironing - Cee Bee
"As in late adolescence, argues Ms Scarf, people once again have to forge an individual identity. Without a growing family or a career to provide self-definition, older people must answer anew the teenage question, “Who am I?”
This time around, however, the answers are more manageable. The popular image of these late years may be of crusty and decrepit ancients. The reality is that, as people age, their conflicts grow less acute and their ability to draw pleasure from the more agreeable aspects of life increases. In the words of one group of researchers whose work Ms Scarf examined: “Older couples, compared to middle-aged couples, expressed lower levels of anger, disgust, belligerence and whining and higher levels of one important emotion, namely affection.” The parts of the brain associated with anger and aggression gradually shrink as people cross the threshold to old age. Emotional stability steadily improves.
" - RAPatton via Bookmarklet
"Should unhappily married people split up? Ms Scarf addresses this question in a chapter called “Does Divorce Make People Happy?” The short answer seems to be, rarely." - RAPatton
In one of the other British papers they had an article today about divorce sky rocketing for pensioners - RAPatton
unfortunately i'll be willing to report back in a few months. - Morgan
I'm super excited that I get to take my 7 year old son Jackson to an A's baseball game tonight just him and I. He won two club level tickets at the golf driving range by hitting a 175 yard drive into a bucket a few weeks back. He kept trying for the bucket over and over again so that he and his dad could go to a baseball game together. He's such an awesome kid. I'm so lucky to have him (as well as the rest of them and mrsth) in my life. - Thomas Hawk via Bookmarklet
good looking kid. gonna be a hit with the ladies when he grows up - Cee Bee
@chris & @jerry, you know that Thomas Hawk is not his real name. It is just his pen/stage/photog name. Which in a way makes him even cooler than he already is :-) - Mark Anderson
"With the end of the Olympics in Beijing, all eyes turned for a moment to London, site of the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics. While looking for good photographs of London, I was contacted by London photographer Jason Hawkes, who had some wonderful images of London, seen from above at night (from a helicopter, to be exact) - some of which which he's agreed to let me share here. From Jason: "Shooting aerial photography during the daytime had its own difficulties, you are strapped tightly into a harness leaning out of the helicopter, shouting directions through the headsets to the pilot. If shooting in the day can be difficult, night and the lack of light causes its own set of problems, but overcoming them is half the fun and the results can be stunning. I shoot at night using the very latest digital cameras, mounted on either one or two gyro stablazied mounts, depending on the format of the camera and length of lens I'm having to use."" - Jason Chen
"Around the time of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, a small crowd of foreign sympathisers came to help build the Maoist dream. Sixty years later, one of them is still there." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet
"Kids and parents often resort to playing the Alphabet Game to avoid complete boredom during long automobile trips. Photographer Eric Tabuchi has taken the idea a couple steps further in his cool, limited edition artist's book, Alphabet Truck. -- http://www.erictabuchi.fr/inde...
Tabuchi has photographed trailer trucks on empty highways, each bearing one letter of the alphabet. His set of 26 trucks is perfectly uniform in scale and composition and lighting. Uncanny. The project also serves as a sort of visual typology of truck typography." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet
Only kids do that? Akiva Moskovitz and I play our own alphabet game with license plates while driving. - Rochelle
Indiana plates just got much better for that now that they end with 3 letters. mine ends DDK, so I think "Diddy Kong" to remember it. I've seen ANT, EEK, BMX, 1NDY. kind of fun. funniest was 490BEY. made me think of OBEY GIANT. couldn't get my camera phone out fast enough to get it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... - Kamilah Gill
The 15th Noorderlicht Photofestival is presenting two major new exhibits, Behind Walls and Beyond Walls, which offer a sweeping overview of Eastern European photography before and after the fall of Communism in 1989. Photography from all the former East Block lands is brought together in one large-scale presentation. Much of the work is being shown for the first time outside its country of origin. - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet
"But at this time of year, if you're like most gardeners, you'd be standing there all day before you even made a dent in the abundant crop. And if you've been tempted at the farmers market, you're facing the annual dilemma: What to do with too many tomatoes? The answer's obvious: Make something that's all about tomatoes, something that you can cook on a weekend and serve later in the week, say spaghetti sauce, tomato soup or Bloody Mary mix. But don't go rooting around for old farmhouse recipes -- these classics are ripe for updating.
First, mix it up with the tomatoes. Use several different kinds together in each recipe, and in the sauce, roast the plum tomatoes before incorporating.
The most flavorful tomato dishes hit a perfect note of acid balanced with sweet, and a good way to achieve this balance is to use more than one variety. Brandywine, Early Girl or Stupice are good for rich, tangy flavor. Many yellow or Japanese pink or even cherry tomato varieties add a hit of sweetness." - RAPatton via Bookmarklet
"In Bishnupure, India, every year in December a festival is being held, where people charm and play with their poisonous snakes.
Read full entry
The charmers start playing an instrument and the serpents simply get hypnotised and start swaying out of their baskets. They never strike and the tamers often go as far as kissing the creatures on their heads. They start handling the snakes, playing with them and dare the audience to touch them. Of course nobody ever does. Would you?
The King Cobra, found in India is the largest venomous snake in the world. In a single bite it can inject enough venom to kill an elephant..." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet
i love that green-ish cobra. the photo is great - Cee Bee
"A McCain ad aired on Fox News channel with the words "HANG" in the background along with a photograph of Barack Obama has sparked outrage after being noticed by a reporter at a local Fox television affiliate.
The words "HIGHER TAXES" are transposed on an image of Obama standing in front of a crowd. The background is blurred at the edges so that the words from Obama's signature theme -- change -- has been cut down to the word "HANG." The shot appears for about a second." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet
Unfortunately, there is no way this is a coincidence. Even if it wasn't initially intentional, someone had to say "F*ck it, let's run with it" - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
"Asked about the image, the McCain camp said, "We're not even validating such an outrageous and preposterous claim with a comment."" ... refusing to acknowledge reality again, are they? disgusting - Michael W. May (Joffi)
How dare they not even make a statement about it. That's even more messed up. - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
This is just plain scary. There is no way they didn't know about this and not acknowledging it now makes it that much worse. - Tsega Dinka
Are you kidding me? It's the middle of the word "change." - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
"I heard screamin' an' bullwhips crackin'..." - David Young
It's a poorly executed ad that does the McCain camp no credit at all. - Sally Church
Mark, if the ad looks like the picture above, the "C" in CHANGE was deliberately obscured. There's plenty of room for that letter in the picture - steplow is Steve
I'm an obama fan but, at first, I thought this seemed a little overhyped... but after viewing it I can't help but wonder why there is "over-vignetting" on the upper-left hand corner of all the crowd shots - Shawn Duffy via twhirl
I see that the Repugnicans/ Karl Rove/ Neocons are now getting into their dirty trick campaign mode. I wonder how many of the Diebold voting machines have been "fixed" nationwide? I was in the USA during the great Stolen Election of 2000 that took the Presidency away from the man who got 600,000 more votes nationwide. Dirty, dirty, dirty! - Siddharth Deb
Wow, the ad isn't that big of a problem, though I do believe they were working on a subliminal element. But the McCain campaign missed a great opportunity here. The reaction should be. This was in no way intentional but we'll remove the ad to ensure there's no misunderstanding on such an important issue. (BTW - think a McCain smear ad with the fragment 'old' in it would go unnoticed?) - AJ Kohn
i agree with sally church. why isn't this causing more waves though? that's real weird to me - Cee Bee
it was in no way shape or form intentional - i don't expect anyone to blindly accept my word on it but one of my closest friends signed off on the ad and I will stake my life on the fact that she would never, ever even think of something like this - when i mentioned it on gchat she had no idea what i was talking about until i sent her the link to the story - Marco
You have got to be kidding me. It is Obama supporters holding up the word Change. This is ridiculous. - tsudohnimh
+1 tsudohnimh and Mark - and it isn't causing more waves because there's nothing to it! In fact, it's so ridiculous I have to laugh! Thank you Marco for setting the record straight and injecting some reason into this thread. - Jasmin Smith
From CNN: "Palin's term has not been without controversy. A legislative investigation is looking into allegations that Palin fired Alaska's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire the governor's former brother-in-law, a state trooper. Palin acknowledged that a call was made by a member of her staff to a trooper in which the staffer suggested he was speaking for the governor.
Palin has acknowledged that the call could be interpreted as pressure to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was locked in a child-custody battle with Palin's sister." - Mark Trapp via Bookmarklet
Amazing. Not more than 10 minutes after the announcement it comes out she's involved in a major political scandal. Do they do *any* vetting in the Republican Party? - Mark Trapp
how about the fact that she's a first term governor and mccain already looks like he needs the oxygen tank. talk about inexperience at the helm... do not want. - Morgan
@Mark, you should read Wonkette... This has been known about for a while. She also just had a kid this Spring, her 5th... They've all got crazy names, too. - Jason Carreira
What about the fact that her state is mired in all sorts of corruption, though I bet most of it predates her. - kendra
Are the Republicans deliberately throwing the election? I mean, seriously? - Sean McBride
Best comment ever on Wonkette: "It’s not the first time McCain has chosen to go with a younger woman." - Jason Carreira
meanwhile Wonkette is falling over from the traffic... - Jason Carreira
+1 Wonkette commenter. Wonder if he'll have a favorite four-letter name for his Veep choice. :) - Cyndy
And as an aside, last night Jason was reading aloud some comment about that infamous name-calling and I SWORE he was calling ME that word. - Cyndy
Dear God, I love the Wonkette commenters. I like the woman who said Palin will "win the Mary Kay vote." - Carla Thompson
This is the person we want a heart beat from the Presidency? Even if I were a Republican I don't think I'd be pleased. I mean, young, no experience, big oil ties, abuse of power ... what is the McCain team thinking? Are they secretly pro-Obama? - AJ Kohn
AJ -- I think it's possible that the Republicans don't want to deal with the disastrous consequences of eight years of misrule under Bush 43 and the neoconservatives. They would prefer that Obama and the Democrats face the music and deal with the mess the Republicans have made. - Sean McBride
Sean: I've often wondered that too; whoever gets in has a horrendous mess to sort out and revive the economy. - Sally Church
is it just me or does she look crazier than HRC? - Morgan
@Sean: *chuckle* I don't think any of the deep pockets want to risk having Democrats in power. I'm not talking Republicans because the Bush Administration isn't Republican, they're carpetbaggers. And it's those folks who will fight tooth and nail to get someone in office so they can continue to clean up. - AJ Kohn
kick-butt speech.. she is no lightweight - gregory lent
We'll see when she's in the ring with Biden and foreign policy comes up. None of the big names in the GOP could stand up to Biden on foreign policy, what is she going to do? - Jason Carreira
Jason - Make up stuff as she goes along? - Russellreno
That only works if you're not going up against the wonkiest of foreign policy wonks who is also bitingly sarcastic. - Jason Carreira
Biden better get the gloves out and fight tough, but he is probably too gentlemanly for that. - Sally Church
Sally, you've heard Biden's comments before, right? His stuff about Giuliani was awesome: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11." I don't see gentlemanly in his future. - Cyndy
Have to agree with Cyndy. Biden is a bit of a pit bull - which often gets him into trouble. I don't see him letting up at all. - AJ Kohn
If biden comes across as condescending to palin, the Repubs can spin it as sexism. This is going to be a very interesting and close election. - Jason Kaneshiro
If this is even a close election we should probably leave @Cyndy... there's no reason for this to be within 20 points. - Jason Carreira
Uh-uh Jason K... if they play that she can't debate with the big boys without crying foul since she's a woman, that's a huge strike against her. LAST thing they want to do is play that card. Can't be a veep and be a candidate who needs protection because of her gender. (ETA which Jason I was replying to since Jason Car. popped in there) - Cyndy
she is a kick-butt speaker and thinker and will not be intimidated, will be prepared, and has the virtue of being able to express an un-brainwashed mind, in the washington dc version of brainwashing... watch out - gregory lent
@Cyndy - And you don't think the Dems will play the race card if the Republicans get nasty with Obama? The Republicans are going to try and drag Obama's character through the mud in a few weeks, and you'll see tons of Dems hollering racism. This election will be close AND ugly. - Jason Kaneshiro
Some people may play the race card, but the DNC and Obama's campaign won't because it makes you look weak. Obama is more than capable of defending himself. McCain and Palin, on the other hand, should be looking for bomb shelters, 'cause a hard rain is gonna fall in the debates. - Jason Carreira
Bottom line as far as I'm concerned - this election should NOT be this close. It's the Dem's to lose. - Jason Kaneshiro
I'm already storyboarding the ads linking Palin with "Tubes" Stevens - Andrew Feinberg
It is amazing to see how many auxiliary and rather useless and eye-pleasing and online-PR-promoting tools there are for things like Twitter and FriendFeed. This Grader is one of those. What does it change to have some number assigned to your name, not least because you have not the slightest idea how it is calculated? Why wasting time, energy, money and efforts? P.S. mine was 5 out of 100. - Hayk Hakobyan
Twitter Grade: 90 - Rank #584 out of 7063 - Morgan
Twitter Grade: 42 - Rank #3688 out of 7067. yes! - Cee Bee
44 which I can't argue with since I've only been Tweeting for a month. Grading methodology seems pretty simplistic. A FriendFeed grader would be a lot more interesting and useful. - Chris Selland
Twitter Grade: 69 - Rank #1995 out of 7101. Not bad considering that I haven't really used it for almost two months now. - Cyvros/fyc
