VC Adventure, via Infectious Greed

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via Finkbuilt

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The always fascinating annual BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST

CLASS OF 2009 (Most students entering college this fall were born in 1987).

1.     Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2.     They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
3.     Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4.     Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5.      Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.
6.     With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a tie.
7.     Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8.     They never had the fun of being thrown into the back of a station wagon with six others.
9.     Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.
10.     They are more familiar with Greg Gumbel than with Bryant Gumbel.
11.     Philip Morris has always owned Kraft Foods.
12.     Al-Qaida has always existed with Osama bin Laden at its head.
13.     They learned to count with Lotus 1-2-3.
14.     Car stereos have always rivaled home component systems.
15.     Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker have never preached on television.
16.     Voice mail has always been available.
17.     "Whatever" is not part of a question but an expression of sullen rebuke.
18.     The federal budget has always been more than a trillion dollars.
19.     Condoms have always been advertised on television.
20.    They may have fallen asleep playing with their Gameboys in the crib.
21.      They have always had the right to burn the flag.
22.     For daily caffeine emergencies, Starbucks has always been around the corner.
23.     Ferdinand Marcos has never been in charge of the Philippines.
24.     Money put in their savings account the year they were born earned almost 7% interest.
25.     Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
26.     Dirty dancing has always been acceptable.
27.     Southern fried chicken, prepared with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, has always been available in China.
28.     Michael Jackson has always been bad, and greed has always been good.
29.     The Starship Enterprise has always looked dated.
30.     Pixar has always existed.
31.    There has never been a "fairness doctrine" at the FCC.
32.     Judicial appointments routinely have been "Borked."
33.     Aretha Franklin has always been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
34.     There have always been zebra mussels in the Great Lakes.
35.     Police have always been able to search garbage without a search warrant.
36.     It has always been possible to walk from England to mainland Europe on dry land.
37.     They have grown up in a single superpower world.
38.     They missed the oat bran diet craze.
39.     American Motors has never existed.
40.     Scientists have always been able to see supernovas.
41.     Les Miserables has always been on stage.
42.     Halogen lights have always been available at home, with a warning.
43.     "Baby M" may be a classmate, and contracts with surrogate mothers have always been legal.
44.     RU486 has always been on the market.
45.     There has always been a pyramid in front of the Louvre in Paris.
46.     British Airways has always been privately owned.
47.     Irradiated food has always been available but controversial.
48.     Snowboarding has always been a popular winter pastime.
49.     Libraries have always been the best centers for computer technology and access to good software.
50.     Biosphere 2 has always been trying to create a revolution in the life sciences.
51.     The Hubble Telescope has always been focused on new frontiers.
52.     Researchers have always been looking for stem cells.
53.     They do not remember "a kinder and gentler nation."
54.     They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.
55.     The TV networks have always had cable partners.
56.     Airports have always had upscale shops and restaurants.
57.     Black Americans have always been known as African-Americans.
58.     They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.
59.     Matt Groening has always had a Life in Hell.
60.     Salman Rushdie has always been watching over his shoulder.
61.     Digital cameras have always existed.
62.     Tom Landry never coached the Cowboys.
63.     Time Life and Warner Communications have always been joined.
64.     CNBC has always been on the air.
65.     The Field of Dreams has always been drawing people to Iowa.
66.     They never saw a Howard Johnson's with 28 ice cream flavors.
67.     Reindeer at Christmas have always distinguished between secular and religious decorations.
68.     Entertainment Weekly has always been on the newsstand.
69.     Lyme Disease has always been a ticking concern in the woods.
70.     Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
71.     Miss Piggy and Kermit have always dwelt in Disneyland.
72.     America's Funniest Home Videos has always been on television.
73.     Their nervous new parents heard C. Everett Koop proclaim nicotine as addictive as heroin.
74.     Lever has always been looking for 2000 parts to clean.
75.     They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.

Fascinating . . .

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The Art of Science via boingboing

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Pretty cool piece in the NYT about these:

click for larger graphic

Here's the ubiq-cerpt™:

"You have to remember woodies were just the original station wagon," said Bob Solheim, a National Woodie Club director. "They were the original S.U.V., used at dude ranches, train stations, estates and so on, to haul people and luggage. In the 50's and 60's, they were just cheap used cars."

The wood bodies creaked, flexed and leaked, even when new. Held together by dowels, bolts and glue, an old woodie groaned so loudly going down the road it was difficult to hear the Beach Boys crooning surf tunes on the radio, Mr. Trulson said.

Wood has been an essential ingredient in cars, either as a structural material or for decorative purposes, since the early days of the industry. Indeed, the first cars were little more than wood carriages or coaches with engines attached. Wood was supplanted only as auto manufacturers learned how to better shape steel sheets into the complex contours of fenders, hoods and doors. Many vehicles were built entirely of steel by the 1930's but wagons retained their wood framing until 1948.

The next year, automakers started to simply bolt wood pieces onto steel bodies, a practice that lasted just a few years before man-made materials took over entirely.

The 1953 Buick Roadmaster and Super Estate wagons, with trim of white ash and insets of mahogany, were among the last vehicles to use real wood body panels. Other popular types were birch and maple.

"Hardwoods were necessary to give it structural integrity," Mr. Solheim said.

A popular misconception was that the wood was steamed to make it conform to the curves of car bodies. In fact, the curved swaths of wood over a wheel opening would usually be made of three or more separate boards stitched together with glued joints. This permitted a gentle arc in the finished piece while keeping the grain as parallel as possible to the body line.

Most wood car bodies were done by specialists who received bare chassis from carmakers. Manufacturers offering woodies with bodies by independent builders included all divisions of General Motors and Chrysler, Packard, Willys, Hupmobile, Graham, Hudson and Studebaker. A notable exception was Ford; in 1929, it started producing Model A woodie wagons manufactured entirely within its own factories - Ford even owned the forest. The 1953 Country Squire still featured birch exterior framing from Ford's own Iron Mountain, Mich., timber stands, but its fake woodgrain insets leave some collectors sneering that it is not a true woodie."

Coolio

Source:
From Surfer S.U.V. to Classic Treasure
By JERRY GARRETT
NYT, September 12, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/automobiles/12CARS.html

Posted at 09:48 AM in Automobiles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults.
- - - Louis Nizer

A steaming pile of clichés and screaming unlikelihoods.
- - - Jessica Winters (about the movie Hostage)

As entertaining as watching a potato bake.
- - - Marc Savlov (about the movie, Taxi)

Don't look now, but there's one too many in this room and I think it's you.
- - - Groucho Marx

Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
- - - Oscar Levant

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
- - - Winston Churchill

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
- - - Jonathan Swift

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
- - - Groucho Marx

Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other.
- - - Neil Simon

He hasn't an enemy in the world - but all his friends hate him.
- - - Eddie Cantor

He looked as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
- - - Raymond Chandler

He's completely unspoiled by failure.
- - - Noel Coward

He's liked, but he's not well liked.
- - - Arthur Miller

Here's where we we get out the thesaurus and look up synonyms for "garbage."
- - - Mike LaSalle (about the movie, Shanghai Knights)

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.
- - - Mae West

I can't believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest.
- - - Steven Pearl

I could dance with you until the cows come home. On second thought I'd rather dance with the cows until you come home.
- - - Groucho Marx

I could never learn to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.
- - - Mark Twain

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
- - - Mark Twain

I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here.
- - - Stephen Bishop

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
- - - Clarence Darrow

I never liked him and I always will.
- - - Dave Clark

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
- - - Fred Allen

I regard you with an indifference bordering on aversion.
- - - Robert Louis Stevenson

I thought men like that shot themselves.
- - - King George V

I'll bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing rocks at the stork.
- - - Irving Brecher (Marx Bros. "At the Circus")

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
- - - Groucho Marx

I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.
- - - Irvin S. Cobb

If you ever become a mother, can I have one of the puppies?
- - - Charles Pierce

In her single person she managed to produce the effect of a majority.
- - - Ellen Glascow

I've had them both, and I don't think much of either.
- - - Beatrix Lehmann (watching a Hollywood wedding.)

Lacks thrills, narrative, emotion, believability, character development, and, frankly, watchability.
- - - Aaron Hillis (about the movie, Elektra)

Also ...
Devotees of awful filmmaking can't go wrong with this one.
- - - Michael Wilmington (about the movie, Elektra)

Pushing forty? She's hanging on for dear life.
- - - Ivy Compton-Burnett

She's good, being gone.
- - - William Shakespeare

Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
- - - William Dean Howells

Sometimes I need what only you can provide: your absence.
- - - Ashleigh Brilliant

The best part of you ran down your mother's legs.
- - - Jackie Gleason

The characters are so flat and the dialogue so dull you expect it to be one of those movies whose existence is justified by a big final twist. But it's three days after the screening, and still no twist. Maybe it's coming in the mail?
- - - Kyle Smith (about the movie, The Jacket)

The gods too are fond of a joke.
- - - Aristotle

The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind.
- - - Joseph Stilwell

There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.
- - - Jack E. Leonard

They don't hardly make 'em like him any more - but just to be on the safe side, he should be castrated anyway.
- - - Hunter S. Thompson

We've been through so much together, and most of it was your fault.
- - - Ashleigh Brilliant

Well, I think we ought to let him hang there. Let him twist slowly, slowly in the wind.
- - - John Ehrlichman

What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.
- - - Liberace

Why are we honoring this man? Have we run out of human beings?
- - - Milton Berle

Why don't you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out?
- - - Groucho Marx

You have delighted us long enough.
- - - Jane Austen

You're a good example of why some animals eat their young.
- - - Jim Samuels

You're a parasite for sore eyes.
- - - Gregory Ratoff

Posted at 08:41 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Astonishing footage -- not what you might expect . . .

click for movie

via collision detection

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FEMA Budget was reduced; so was the Army Corps of Engineers budget for Levee maintenance. Meanwhile, Pork projects -- multi-million dollar bridges to near empty islands  -- continue unabated.

Nice speech last nite . . .

Posted at 06:51 AM in Current Affairs, Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger toon

via Yahoo!

Posted at 10:53 AM in Finance, Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the
government and inform the people.  Only a free and unrestrained
press can effectively expose deception in government.  And
paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty
to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people."

- Hugo L. Black (1886-1971), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, from
   his opinion in New York Times v. United States (Pentagon
   Papers) 1971.

Posted at 08:28 PM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack