If, by some odd twist of fate I were in the market for a mobile home, I’d buy it from this guy: Errol Morris calls it “The best commercial ever made” and Jason Kottke says, “It’s certainly the most honest advertising I’ve ever seen.” Key selling point: A bouncer in Birmingham hit me in the [...]

Many of us are old enough to remember the days when home-brewing coffee consisted of selecting between pre-ground Folgers and Maxwell House and then running them through an electric percolator.  More recently, most of us migrated to purchasing roasted whole beans and using an automatic drip machine — or even a French press. Now, that, [...]

Someone with a lot of time on his hands has compiled a 10 minute video purporting to be “A selection of the top 100 quotes from The Wire, the greatest TV show ever made.” Not surprisingly, virtually all of them contain NSFW language, with the F- and N-words being especially well represented. via Jason Kottke

I’m getting the distinct sense that Slate’s Double X spin-off is some sort of elaborate spoof rather than a smart, female-centric magazine.  Yesterday, via Julian Sanchez, I came across their insipid advice column saying it pushed the “limits of friendship” to expect one’s friends to not leave you for dead after you’d been administered a [...]

Senator Al Franken draws a map of all 50 states from memory during an appearance on Minnesota Public Radio’s Midday at the Minnesota State Fair. I’m not sure what prompted this but it’s pretty impressive: Via Jason Kottke, who dubs it “one of the best hand-drawn maps I’ve seen.”

With rare exception, I find business meetings that involve more than five people, especially those not devoted to a specific task, an infuriating waste of time.  Paul Graham nails down why in a way that had previously never occurred to me: One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they’re on a different type [...]

Jason Kottke passes along word that Cheap Trick is making its most recent release, “The Latest,” available on 8-track.   That’s pretty amusing.  Less so:  The $30 price tag. I honestly had no idea that Cheap Trick, which was already past its heyday and was playing small venues like Jacksonville State University twenty years ago (indeed, [...]

Apropos my weekend discussion of breaking news in the age of Twitter, Jason Kottke points to a set of “WWIII Propaganda Posters” by Brian Lane Winfield Moore spoofing their WWII predecessors.

Batteries Feel Included offers a 17-step “Easy Solutions #1″ to the problem, “So, you’re in love with one of your friends, but she has a boyfriend and probably wouldn’t have sex with you anyway.” Step Ten: If your friend is a curious person she will probably ask ‘What worked?’, even if she doesn’t ask this [...]

Via Jason Kottke, I see the first plausible explanation for the otherwise odd fact that seniors, who are typically among the most susceptible to death from flu, are strangely immune to the “swine flu” epidemic. Confirming the first impressions of many American and Mexican doctors, federal health officials said on Wednesday that people born before [...]

The new “Star Trek” prequel is out.   The reviews are mixed but Jar-Jar Binks is not featured, guaranteeing that it’ll be better than the first “Star Wars” prequel. What’s interesting is how well the franchise has endured and how wide-ranging its appeal remains.  The show (since dubbed “The Original Series” or “TOS” by the fanbase) [...]