discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
search all posts on this site
recent quotes i like
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||
Chest of Drawers
-
This chest of drawers is to replace the cheap stand (with no storage) that
was previously holding up our parrot's travel cage. She only lives with us
a few...
An important message from Consumer Reports
-
This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the
work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by
secretive ...
My Milk Toof Travel Update
-
*Dear International readers from Southeast France!*
ickle, Lardee & myself will be traveling around the southeast of France
area from 06/02-06/20. If anyo...
The Years Of Writing Dangerously
-
Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
Saint Francis of Assisi
-
… everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ
alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they
think ...
X-Factor Auditions, Part Two: The registration...
-
Kind of creepy to be walking around White Plains at 4:30 in the morning. No
lights on, no cars, no people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. And,
really...
Zsolt and Geza Peladi, two penniless brothers who had been living in a cave outside Budapest, are to inherit a $7 billion fortune from their long-lost grandmother, United Press International reports.
UPI quotes Geza as saying, "We knew our mother came from a wealthy family, but she was a difficult person and severed ties with them, and then later abandoned us."
According to the Telegraph, the brothers were contacted by charity workers. Since their German grandmother had left no next-of-kin for her fortune, the vast amount of money was passed down to her next surviving relatives - the Peladi brothers and another sister who lives in America.
The brothers are hoping that the money will improve their life - and their love life. The Telegraph reports:
"If this all works out it will certainly make up for the life we have had until now -- all we really had was each other -- no women would look at us living in a cave," said Geza. "But with money, maybe we can find a partner and finally have a normal life. "
the “Redneck Mansion” is actually a set for the outdoor Theater het Amsterdam Bos. It seems so obvious in retrospect. It was designed by Catherina Scholten for the 2005 production of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov, his early play about a disillusioned young intellectual... it strikes us as an imaginative, witty and good fun bit of adaptive reuse, not at all vulgar - and probably fairly expensive to build. http://adaptivereuse.net/2008/03/03/well-ill-be-a-seagull/
Leslie Lemke didn't have a great start in life. He was born with severe birth defects that required doctors to remove his eyes. His own mother gave him up for adoption, and a nurse named May Lemke (who at the time was 52 and was raising 5 children of her own) adopted him when he was six months old.
As a young child, Leslie had to be force-fed to teach him how to swallow. He could not stand until he was 12. At 15, Leslie finally learned how to walk (May had to strap his fragile body to hers to teach him, step by step, how to walk).
At 16 years of age, Leslie Lemke bloomed. In the middle of one night, May woke up to find Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leslie, who has no classical music training, was playing the piece flawlessly after hearing it just once earlier on the television.
Orlando Serrell wasn't born autistic - indeed, his savant skills only came about after a brain injury. In 1979, then ten-year-old Orlando was playing baseball when the ball struck him hard on the left side of his head. He fell to the ground but eventually got up to continue playing.
For a while, Orlando had headaches. When they went away, he realized he had new abilities: he could perform complex calendar calculations and remember the weather every day from the day of the accident.
anyone who knew me before the age of 12 or so would know that i find this one very interesting due to my obsessive drawing of imaginary cities on the giant rolls of paper my dad would bring home from his office mailroom job:
Urville isn't just an idle idea - Gilles has 250 detailed drawings, complete "history" of the founding the the city, and has even published a book detailing it (Sneak peak at Google Books)
Visit Urville at Gilles' official website here: Link
and then a bit from her bio on Wikipedia that pretty much sums it up:
Leslie first began displaying herself in "strangely glamorous and unflattering ways" while attending Ames High School in Iowa. During her senior year, she entered the homecoming parade, as part of a prom queen campaign, donning a sparkling pink Goodwill gown, a neck brace, and a tiara (won by her mother who was crowned Miss Auburn, Nebraska in 1970). Her publicity stunt made the front page of the local newspaper the following day. Her campaign was a success, and when springtime came, she was crowned queen. After graduating from high school, Hall moved to Boston, Massachusetts and completed her education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in May 2006. Currently she resides in Ames and lives with her parents.
first is l-tran's awesome video she took from her car in philly just after the results were announced:
At 52nd and Pine Sts. in West Philly (about 8 blocks from my house) there has been an Obama field office busy with volunteers for nearly two years. At roughly 11:02 p.m. - following the official announcement that Barack Obama had won the presidential race - the place erupted into the streets. For a clear mile you could see/hear/feel relief, celebration, thank you Jesuses, YES WE CAN's, O-Bam-A's!, pots and pans, honking cars, fireworks and noisemakers of all kinds.
At 11:03, too excited to fall back to sleep, I left the house in my pajamas (Pajamas for Obama!) to experience it firsthand.
second, from another section of the US that probably fell into Palin's supposedly "anti-amercian parts of america", St. Marks & Ave. A, NYC: and then the east village:
There were people all over the streets of NYC, but Brooklyn was the place to be:
I went to vote this morning in Red Bank, NJ at the elementary school that is the polling station for my district. After voting I was sitting in the small park across the street having a scrapple egg and cheese sandwich and some coffee when I saw my first real live wild bald eagle! it might not be so exciting for folks in other locations but they are a real rarity here in NJ still, only 60 nests in the entire state.
It landed in a tree in the school's playground for a few moments. Me and another two guys saw it. I had my camera and one of the other two guys grabbed his out of his glove compartment of his truck. By the time we started to cross the street to get a close enough shot it started to fly away, I got a pic of it sitting in the tree and two of it in mid flight but all are from quite far away. (i used the "sharpen" feature in GIMP - if you doubt this story and require the originals I can send em to ya - just ask :)
Anyway, I had been sitting on the bench watching all the different kinds of folks go in and out of the polling station, old men, young hipsters, sweat suit moms and pantsuit businesswomen, guys in BMWs and guys in old beat up pickuptrucks, grandmothers and young brothers all getting along and being friendly and courteous, and I was thinking that America is pretty cool after all when... what else can I say, this sign from above came down. I don't know if he was trying to vote or send a message or just tired from flying around but he delivered a message to me, whether he intended to or not :)
taking flight
sitting in a branch upper left
Soaring away
my polling place, no lines
my flags
my sign (and some gourds I grew)
the preview of the electronic voting booth's setup. no paper trail here in Jersey yet (boooo). all the other parties presidential candidates trail off to the left, there were two different socialist parties, the green party, the constitutional party, a communist party and maybe 2 or 3 other choices besides Barack and John.
I came to Iraq about 4 months ago to work as an Environmental Technician. I really have enjoyed my work, even if it is dangerous. I have almost all the confronts of home here thanks to KBR, however I was missing one thing, GREEN. I came here from Pennsylvania (Just PA for you from there) and missed seeing all the green. In PA we have more trees, grass, and flowers then we know what to do with.
I began to miss the foliage so much that I decided to try and start a little flower garden. Unfortunately I came into more then a few problems being here in Iraq, on a military base...
...Since the Iraqi dirt is to dense when wet for growing efficiently I remeberd that one of the tools at my disposal to soaking up Hazmat spills on base is peat moss! Which made for an awesome growing material. I also did one better. I went down to the STP Plant (poopie plant) and got some of the "dried solids" (poopie) and mixed two parts of that to ten parts peat moss. It makes for excellent soil to grow things in!!!
"Andrew Lahde, the head of Santa Monica–based hedge fund Lahde Capital Management, who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, became something of a folk hero today after his awesome, Jerry Maguire–like farewell letter to clients made the rounds."
"I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."
Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say good- bye. Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.”
I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America. There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list those deserving thanks know who they are. I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck.
Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life. So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don’t worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer’s company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job. I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle.
I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life – where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management – with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established. On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions.
These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government. Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.
Trenton Police say a man who calls himself Emperor El Bey must get rid of the two horses he's keeping in his urban backyard. El Bey says his half of the duplex is an embassy for the sovereign Abannaki Aboriginal Nation and immune from Trenton ordinances. http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/2933151.php?
All Things Considered, September 27, 2008 - "As a member of the multiplatinum rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea wouldn't seem to need higher education to further his career. But the bassist has just enrolled as a freshman at the University of Southern California's music program." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95101406
"Jim, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle. It was primarily as a result of being stubborn and not following doctor's orders or maybe for just living life a little too hard for better than five decades...
...He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. True to his personal style, he spent his final hours joking with medical personnel, cussing and begging for narcotics and bargaining with God to look over his loving dog, Biscuit, and his family...
...In lieu of flowers, he asks that you make a sizeable purchase at your favorite watering hole, get rip roaring drunk and tell the stories he no longer can...
...Gorman Funeral Homes - Converse Chapel of Douglas is in charge of the arrangements. "
their German grandmother had left no next-of-kin for her fortune, the vast amount of money was passed down to her next surviving relatives - the Peladi brothers and another sister who lives in America.
