http://sodsbrood.com/junk The community blog portal for sodsbrood.com Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:06:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I love odd news stories.  Here's one from Salt Lake City: Fire Breaks Out at Salt Lake Crematorium A dead man had one final earthly act before moving on. Fire officials said the six-hundred pound man was in being cremated when his body fluids were too much for the oven. The body fluids seeped ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/10/25/crematorium-grease-fire/ The subject line of a spam email I received today: "Now I can penetrate hardly and give the pleasure to every woman." Obviously this was written by a non-native English-speaking spam bot.  Penetrating hardly is hardly a ringing endorsement for the product.  But at least he can give the pleasure to every ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/10/10/more-lint/ How to keep your office mates from pestering you: eat a bowl of spicy kung pao for lunch, chased down by diet Pepsi.  Have a snack bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos for dessert. I guarantee people will leave you alone. Because this blog is so dead, I had to write this. http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/10/10/advice/ I read at CNN today that at Steve Irwin's funeral, murners heard a song titled "True Blue" by "Australian Country singer John Williamson."  I didn't even know Australia had a Country and Western music industry, but I suppose it makes sense in some way.  Both Australia and America were once ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/09/20/true-blue/ This is an interesting news item I stumbled upon first via Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing: Karl Rove's step-father was gay. Author James Moore outs the elder Rove in his new book, The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power. Although the title sounds sort of ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/09/06/karl-roves-skeleton/ Read this fascinating NYT story. Here's a portion: Man Uses Chip to Control Robot With Thoughts Published: July 12, 2006 A paralyzed man with a small sensor implanted in his brain was able to control a computer, a television and a robot using only his thoughts, scientists reported today. The development offers hope that ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/07/12/sci-fi-becomes-reality/ I consider myself something of a connoisseur of euphemism and double talk. Politicians and military folk in particular provide plenty of examples of imprecise or euphemistic or jargon-laden speech ultimately signifying nothing. They just have so much truth to obscure, they quickly become adept at the ponderous turn ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/06/21/our-second-level-of-service/ The Librarian of Congress has appointed a new poet laureate, Donald Hall.  I was hoping there would be some sort of official appointment ceremony today, which I could attend, but I can't find any information about it. Here is the Washington Post story on the poet, Set to Verse: Donald Hall ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/06/14/our-new-poet-laureate/ I post a lot of photos on Flickr. A lot. Some I edit down later. And I'm often surprised by the things people mark as favorites; the same Yosemite shot that is easily shot by every tourist, for example. Nothing special, unless you've never been there, and haven't seen these ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/06/11/interesting-use/ Assuming you are logged in to the NYT, this article on religion in recent film might be of interest to you, even if its ultimate conclusions are somewhat obvious. Here are the first few paragraphs: "You don't believe in God?" Tom Hanks's character asks Audrey Tautou, who plays his partner-in-ciphers in ... http://sodsbrood.com/junk/2006/05/27/god-and-man-on-screen-big-questions-as-entertainment/