Archive for July 2010
AMC, Don’t Break My Heart
io9 has the first cast photos from The Walking Dead. I have to confess: I’m pretty excited for this.
Behold the Man
Scientists have shown I’ve read a lot of science fiction novels: nearly all of this list. (And this one.)
Rocking Thursday Night
* For anyone who still has a heart, Don Pease’s Dr. Seuss biography could be a necessary read.
* Sharon Astyk has your definitive powerdown blog rant.
* BP says the oil leak has been capped.
* The financial reform bill has passed; this means capitalism is finally perfected.
* Is nothing sacred? New episodes of Beavis and Butthead.
* Is nothing sacred? Douglas Coupland is designing clothes now.
* Is time disappearing from the universe? J.G. Ballard was right!
* Paging J.J. Abrams: Workers have unexpectedly excavated an 18th-century ship at the ruins of the World Trade Center.
* The Darjeeling Limited is finally getting its Criterion Collection release.
* And Argentina now has marriage equality. ¡Hurra!
They Were *All* the Devil!
Next from M. Night Shyamalan: A group of people trapped in a elevator realize that the devil is among them. (via)
Carry On My Legacy and Put an End to B.S.
Duke University will be studying adult picky eaters. At last my neuroses get the attention they deserve!
Picky eaters tend to gravitate to certain foods, including blander products that are often white or pale colored, like plain pasta or cheese pizza. For reasons that aren’t clear, almost all adult picky eaters like French fries and often chicken fingers, health experts say.
(Really, I’ve gotten better.) What this proves, of course, is that all non-normative eaters are literally insane.
Someday
I have a new life’s ambition: to be named Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska.
The Cream Has Sat Out Too Long
* Circumstances when whipping it should be considered.
* I can’t believe there are actually people who think drilling for oil in Lake Michigan would be a good idea.
* Lloyd’s of London says get ready for Peak Oil.
* What caffeine actually does to your brain. One of my bigger regrets about the tail end of my miserable spring semester is letting caffeine back into my life after a two-year banishment. I’m still drinking it here in Ireland because it’s plentiful and delicious with cane-sugary goodness, but once I get back I may have to return to full-on prohibition.
* And I was excited by reports that the Higgs boson had been found, but now apparently it hasn’t.
Fantasy Sports Don’t Ever Need to End
The World Cup may be over, but fantasy sports don’t ever need to end. Duke Lit is doing its usual Fantasy Premier League this fall and you should too. As I’ve mentioned, any sports-related competition in which I regularly place in the top three is one anyone can easily win. Even you. Join us… join us…
Email me or leave a comment to get our league codes.
Why You’ll Cheat
The Daily Beast has the facts on why you’ll cheat. It seems to me these studies are pretty hopelessly compromised by the fact that they necessarily rely on self-reported and court-disclosed infidelity; maybe people with advanced degrees and those (who admit to) using online porn are just much more likely to admit they’ve cheated.
A Few Links
* Nobody knows how much milk you should drink a day, but it’s pretty likely I drink too much.
On the other side, groups promoting animal rights and veganism — including PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine — say that cow’s milk is a nutritional nightmare that doesn’t belong in the human diet. “It’s gross,” says Dr. Neil Barnard, author and founder of the PCRM. “Milk is nutritionally perfect for one purpose: feeding a calf,” he says. “The idea that we should be drinking milk from a cow is just bizarre.”
Okay, that’s fair.
* Democracy Now reports on Haiti six months after the earthquake.
* Duke University in the news, shamelessly promoting belly-buttonism.
* A Texas company S2C Global Systems has announced that it is moving forward with a plan to ship 2.9 billion to 9 billion gallons of water a year from the small Alaskan town of Sitka to the west coast of India (near Mumbai). If the company succeeds in carrying out the shipments, the deal would represent the world’s first regular, bulk exports of water via tanker.
* And Talking Points Memo and The Big Picture (1, 2) have your World Cup 2010 methadone.
Gerry Canavan 