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From a hilarious and amazingly well-written review on Amazon.com of “Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl. oz.” in the style of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”:

Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey,
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door.
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door – Only this, and nothing more.’

Not to sound like a complainer, but, in an inept half-gainer,
I provoked my bowl to tip and spill its contents on the floor.
Stupefied, I came to muddle over that increasing puddle,
Burgeoning deluge of that which I at present do adore – Snowy Tuscan wholesomeness exclusively produced offshore – Purg’ed here for evermore.

And the pool so white and silky, filled me with a sense of milky
Ardor of the type fantastic of a loss not known before,
So that now, to still the throbbing of my heart, while gently sobbing,
I retreated, heading straightway for the tempting icebox door – Heedless of that pitter-patter tapping at the icebox door – I resolved to have some more.

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
‘This,’ said I, ‘requires an extra dram of milk, my favorite pour.’
To the icebox I aspired, motivated to admire
How its avocado pigment complemented my decor.
Then I grasped its woodgrain handle – here I opened wide the door; – Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams of Tuscans I had known before
But the light inside was broken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken were my whispered words, ‘No more!’
Coke and beer, some ketchup I set eyes on, and an apple core – Merely this and nothing more.

Back toward the table turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
‘Surely,’ said I, ‘surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore – Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; – ‘Tis the wind and nothing more!’

From the window came a stirring, then, with an incessant purring,
Inside stepped a kitten; mannerlessly did she me ignore.
Not the least obeisance made she; not a minute stopped or stayed she;
But, with mien of lord or lady, withdrew to my dining floor – Pounced upon the pool of Tuscan spreading o’er my dining floor – Licked, and lapped, and supped some more.

Then this tiny cat beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grand enthusiasm of the countenance she wore,
Toward the mess she showed no pity, ‘til I said, ‘Well, hello, kitty!’
Sought she me with pretty eyes that seemed to open some rapport.
So I pleaded, ‘Tell me, tell me what it is that you implore!’
Quoth the kitten, ‘Get some more.’

Don’t click on this if you want to get anything productive done today.

But do click on it if you want to play with an ingenious tone matrix created in Flash. You can right click on the matrix itself and hit “copy” to copy the contents as a string of numbers. If you want to try someone else’s tune, copy their string of numbers, right click on the matrix, and click “paste.”

Here are some of mine.

86024,0,65538,0,65544,0,65538,0,87048,0,32,16,8,65540,2,65540

65538,0,66570,2052,66568,2048,66560,0,69698,8320,65664,1088,81952,1040,81952,32


This website of sandwiches shoved face-down onto a flatbed scanner (they are callead Scanwiches) is bizarre though at the same time appetizing in a somewhat uncomfortable way.

Edit: I spoke too soon!

I’m repeatedly refreshing Engadget’s live blog coverage of the iPhone 3.0 software preview. Okay, periodically refreshing.

It’s humorous that Apple is parading numerous big-wigs from huge companies such as Oracle, Johnson & Johnson, ESPN, and the like across the stage to demonstrate the ways in which they’re making use of the 1,000 new SDK APIs while the entire audience is thinking “All we wanted was copy and goddamned paste.”

I understand and appreciate that Apple can’t just give away tethering without having some buy-in from AT&T. Buy-in that they’ll probably never get. Nevertheless, when it comes to ludicrously simple things like copy-and-paste and MMS (multimedia messaging), you’d think after two years they could finally release us from the prison that is viewmymessage.com. Holy lord.

At least let Apple build and run the MMS website, then maybe it would work half the time.

I’m still excited about push, though.

From Chuck Norris for President… Of Texas

“Anyone who has been around Texas for any length of time knows exactly what we’d do if the going got rough in America,” Norris wrote.

Oh yeah? What would you do, Chuck Norris? Roundhouse kick it??

From New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman in his article “Health Care Now,” a treatise on why the Obama administration should move to enact a universal health care system immediately with unemployment figures rising:

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has declared that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Indeed. F.D.R. was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net. And the current crisis presents a real opportunity to fix the gaping holes that remain in that safety net, especially with regard to health care.

Ah yes, the ol’ F.D.R. argument. And we can see that Social Security has worked out so well, can’t we! Some 70 years after the Act was signed into law, the fund is barely solvent, current contributors are paying current collectors almost directly, and there is a storied history of government misuse of the fund. G. W. Bush attempted to replace Social Security with a privatized system, which would place more of the responsibility on the individual (an act I supported), but he failed. Once you create these social safety nets, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of or reform them.

So what about universal health care? Would having health care available to everyone be a good idea? Of course it would. Can we do it through the mechanism of government? I really question whether we can.

In a press release made today regarding the allegations that high-fructose corn syrup contains a measurable amount of mercury, Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association, first totally denied any possibility that there is mercury in HFCS, and then said, “It is important that Americans are provided accurate, science-based information.”

Meanwhile, 57% of Americans who gorge themselves on mercury-filled HFCS and don’t believe in science, completely ignored the entire drama, buried their faces in their bibles, and died of heavy metal poisoning.

As it should be.

Ever wanted to post a form on-the-fly from a regular link? Yeah, so have I.

In Ruby on Rails, there is a convenience function for generating a link that actually posts a form. The reason you may want to do this is if you have a link that triggers an action that makes a change to something (GET should only be used for read-only activities, remember?).

If you have Prototype included on your site, you can use this handy function that I just wrote:

Just call it like formPost(’/path/to/receiving/script’, { form_element_name: ‘value’ }).

It will create a form filled with hidden input elements and immediately submit it.

The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.

—From Alter.net

“I’m good with parents. The key is to simply think of them as aliens from a distant universe.” —Dexter Morgan