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January 20, 2006
Randomly Random
A short collection of random thoughts for a Friday morning:
1. The Vatican newspaper condemns "intelligent design." There's an idiom that we used to use all the time as kids, whenever someone insulted you: "It takes one to know one." I kind of got that feeling when I read the Vaitcan's dismissal of so-called "intelligent design" -- that if anyone would recognize religious dogma, it'd be the folks running the religion I lapsed from. So I found this week's article in the Vatican paper to be noteworthy. "Intelligent design “doesn’t belong to science and the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside Darwin’s explanation is unjustified.” What he said, man. What he said.
2. Virtually visiting. For those who've always wanted to tour America's largest city but never had the time to get here, the Internet provides you The Virtual NYC Tour. It's not complete; there are no mentions or photos of The Mudge, The Beav, Jill, or Ethan for example (and I'm thinking that no tour of New York could possibly be complete without experiencing each of us in charming and witty person). Still, it gets you to lots of the other more well-known places in Manhattan. Kind of a cool site.
3. Music to your, uh, fingers. Looking for a semi-amusing time waster? CHeck out "Let Them Sing It For You." Type in any lyrics that spring to your mind (yes, even the dirty words), and the site will process them and "sing" them for you, in a weird, derivitive sort of way. Kind of cool that the technology can do something like that, dorky or not.
4. Sometimes, anonymity sucks. As I've said before, hiding behind the pseudo-anonymous "Mudge" persona allows me to keep writing this blog and writing what I want to write about, the way I want to write it. Given my increasingly public role in my career, that veneer of anonymity is becoming both more important and harder to maintain. And sometimes, it kind of sucks to have to do it. For example, I did a panel this week with one of the most well-known figures from the combined worlds of blogging and politics; he's a very insightful, very nice guy, and I would love to be able to share a little bit about our conversation and about the event itself. But - doing so would cross the streams, a la Ghostbusters, between the professional me and the Mudge me, and the result would be what Harold Ramis might call an ectoplasmic dimensional rift of catastrophic proportions. (Egon always did have a talent for deadpan melodrama.) So... no stories. Sigh.
5. Wham-O gets bought by China. Quick, think of some of the most Americana-evoking toys ever produced. The Frisbee? Check. Hula Hoop? Check. Silly String? Yep. And who among us didn't play on a Slip-N-Slide as a kid? Well... they're Americana no more. Wham-O, the company that makes all of these classic American toys, has been purchased by a Chinese company.
You know, the Chinese can buy all the computer and electronics companies they want, and it's cool with me; globalized economy/world is flat arguments are fine and dandy in those cases. But start selling off Great American Toys like the Frisbee and the Slip-N-Slide? That's an act of war, man. ;-)
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Comments
No kidding, gimme back my slip n slide!
Posted by: mileah at January 20, 2006 10:59 AM
Wait, you're not made of ectoplasm?
By the way, I'm heading over to "let them sing it for you" to see what "slap that azz like I turfed your lawn" sounds like.
Posted by: thebeav at January 20, 2006 04:31 PM
