widdershins

Hey, Mythbuster!

Thanks to Eric's recommendation I've been watching Mythbusters. It's of local interest to me; M5 Industries is on the lower slope of Potrero Hill, where I live, and there are occasional neighborhood sites or businesses in the show. The show is also of interest to nerdy/geeky types thanks to the inquisitive subject matter. Unfortunately, like all shows on Discovery, the show is produced with an annoying lowbrow style. In this case, the show has a moronic voiceover for small children and idiots who can't follow it otherwise, and there is a recap of what just transpired every 5 minutes or so for people with the really, really short attention spans.

The show has really caught on to something in the culture. The word "mythbuster" now denotes the archetypal nerdy engineer and is recognizably associated with the core visual images of the show's hosts, Jamie and Adam: one a beret-wearer with walrus mustache, and the other with thick black glasses and a t-shirt. I wish I could remember which recent movie I saw where someone fitting the latter description was referred to as "mythbuster" off-handedly.

San Francisco Municipal Parking Assistance Corps

Of the many types of San Francisco street crazies, one of the most rapidly growing segments is the volunteer parking helper. He's standing in the street in front of oncoming traffic, directing cars into empty parking spaces, in hopes of earning a handout. Some of these are more crazy than others, imagining that they are some sort of air traffic control for street parking, jabbering and gesticulating wildly. Others are seemingly sober and pleasant, with a smile and a 'god bless'.

Telling the crazies from the rest of us on the streets is getting harder and harder thanks to bluetooth headsets and people who are obsessed with talking on the phone. No longer is a lone someone talking out loud a certifiable loon....

Uphill Both Ways

Remember way back when you'd watch Saturday Night Live with your friends (I mean way back, like in the 70s and early 80s) and laugh and laugh at the skits?  Sketch comedy lives on in San Francisco with Uphill Both Ways, a comedy troupe (mostly a duo) that fills its small theatre for hour-long bouts of non-stop laugh-inducing skits.  These guys are good.  They write and perform their own material (it's not improv, at least not intentionally), including amusing videos, some of which you can also see on their site.  This Friday night (at their regular haunt, the Dark Room in the Mission) they are performing a rare encore of their most-recent show, Stuff and Things.  If you're in San Francisco, highly recommended. A few weeks later, and I'm still laughing about "Brain Freeze", their unexpectedly memorable skit about what happens when you eat ice cream too fast.  Check it out.

 

Holiday food danger

Video: How not to deep-fry a turkey.

I'm a Japanese bride

Apparently, new brides in Japan are very prone to start farting in front of their husbands. I distinctly remember on our honeymoon in Asheville, NC, out of the blue, for the first time ever after knowing each other for 11 years, I farted in front of my new wife, just a few days after our wedding. (Sorry, honey!)

Now I wonder what else I have in common with Japanese brides. It's probably not my petite figure.

My top 15 Furled items

After using Furl.net for more than a year and a half, I've saved 2,280 items.  It's always surprising to notice when large numbers of other people find one of the items useful.  All of the various forms of recommendations, search results, etc. on Furl are sometimes a great way to find those things you didn't even know you were looking for.  [Disclosure: the development team working on Furl works for me.]

Below are the top 15 most viewed items I've furled:

1. Libby Hoeller: The Complete Story (538)
It's official: the Web is a collaborative fiction created by sex-starved pinheads with too much time on their hands.

2. Donnie Darko explained (516)
Salon supplies extensive annotation on the film Donnie Darko

3. Planes, Trains and Plantains (249)
The Greatest Essay Ever Written

4. The Stripper-FAQ, How to become an Exotic Dancer (232)

5. Print Screen on Mac (220)
Nice tips for print screen, print portion, print window on Mac OS X. I can never remember these.

6. How to unlock a Cingular Treo 650 (213)
calling 866-287-6131, telling them wanted to use prepay SIMs abroad and telling them the IMEI (under the battery) of the phone

7. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (149)
Ursula K. LeGuin's classic short story

8. Collyer brothers (122)

9. Zenra Ballet 2 (118)
Something Awful review of Japanese sex ballet DVD

10. A Rwandan Hero: Paul Rusesabagina (114)
The exceptional case of the Hotel Mille Collines and the 1,000 people saved from violence in Kigali, Rwanda in 1994

11. 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid (111)
Review at TheAutoChannel.com

12. My Thong is Showing... (NSFW) (106)
When cameraphones meet thongs, two unexpected cultural forces give birth to a web site....

13. ourTunes (104)
iTunes file sharing

14. Salwar kameez (97)
How to buy custom tailored traditional garments from India/Pakistan via eBay (Theresa Nielsen Hayden)

15. Brannock Device (95)
The Brannock Device is the standard foot measuring tool for the world's footwear industry.

Shining

Genius: contemporary-style trailer for The Shining. [Quicktime]

Weird San Francisco Facts, #13 -- Flies

A weird thing about living in San Francisco that no one's ever warned me about are the flies. Specifically, in doorways it is common to encounter a small cloud of the little varmints buzzing about in circles. No matter how clean the doorway is. This seems to happen everywhere. I figure a doorway is the only place they can hang out where they don't get blown away by the constant wind. But it's darn creepy, if not icky.

(OK, no 'fruit flies like a banana' jokes, please.)

Something about me (and you)

Peter Adams has passed me the musical baton.


* Total volume of music files on my computer: 1,254 songs, 6.34 GB


* Last CD I bought: Don't Get Killed, Andy Breckman


* Song playing right now: Since You've Been Gone (Nevins Mix), Kelly Clarkson


* Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

1. This Time of Night, New Order
   
2. I See Right Through to You, DJ Encore
   
3. Battle Without Honor or Humanity, Tomoyasu Hotei
   
4. Trip Like I Do, The Crystal Method
   
5. Wiggly World, DEVO
   

* Three people to whom I'm passing the baton: Joe, Eric, Tvindy

The Real ID Act: shame, horror, stupidity

So you probably heard that the Real ID Act was slipped into an Iraq war appropriations bill and passed the Senate 100-0. This act mandates a national ID, gives unprecedented powers to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and further egregiously erodes our civil liberties in a blatantly unconstitutional way. This is a new low point for modern America, my friends. Every single one of those people who voted for it, no matter what their lame excuse, should be voted out of office.