Month: December 2007

Sold! Magna Carta goes for well under my estimate

If you were here last week, you might have seen my mention of the impending auction of one of the 17 known copies of the Magna Carta.  Well, it looks like the auction is over, and my estimate was clearly far above the final bid.

A 710-year-old copy of the declaration of human rights known as the Magna Carta — the version that became part of English law — was auctioned Tuesday for $21.3 million, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman said.

Had I realized it would go for such a bargain-basement price, I probably would have flown to New York and put in a bid for it.  You might not be able to put a price on freedom, but you can certainly put a price on the documentation which helped set up the modern understanding of freedom.

Target practice

In my on-going, but rarely expressed any more “I heart Cory Doctorow” readings and postings, I found this awesome set of firing-range targets he had chance to use recently. His description of the experience (he’s Canadian, after all, with all the associated lack of a 2nd amendment) makes it all worth reading.

For an extra five bucks, you could opt to replace your standard black silhouette target with one of these. I called them “Ron Jeremy threatens McCauley Culkin” and “We told you to stop dating your junkie boyfriend, dear! Our sort doesn’t swap fluids with the laboring classes!” You could also opt for Saddam or Osama.

I, too, noticed the McCauley Culkin look-alike, but totally missed that Ron Jeremy was his associated perv. Would Michael Jackson be better in that role? Cory’s followup also makes mention of the missed licensing opportunities this images suggest. I think he’s on to something. Anyone know a firing range that offers something comparable, but perhaps more full of fun or win?

Happy belated birthday

I thought I had a post up for this yesterday, but apparently didn’t.  All my visitors are invited to drop in to the comments and wish a happy belated birthday to visitor and occasional poster TimG, who aged an integer yesterday.  Be sure to also head over to his humble AmpOffish abode to see what he’s up to (I hear fence-building sucks this time of year).

How It’s Made – Chicks

Just watched an episode of How It’s Made (truly one of the greatest television programs ever), and saw this amazingly cool segment on how chicken farming chicks are brought about.

Oddly, the version we watched had the exact same narration, only it was performed by a male announcer.  Anyway, this is interesting and funny at the same time.  The handling of the chicks is funny, and makes me think the little birds are wondering “Dude, what the fuck?” through much of the process.

Before he was House, he was a psychic

Who knew Hugh Laurie was so versatile?  While catching up on reading James Randi’s web site, I learned that Hugh Laurie used to perform psychic spoon bending way back in the day.

I believe that’s fairly conclusive proof that Hugh Laurie is not only one of the finest actors ever, but an amazingly skilled psychic.  🙂

Biggest tech disappointments of 2007

PC World has a fine write-up on the top 15 big tech disappointments of the year. Included are things like the Zune (which I recently criticized here, and didn’t even cover all the problems it has), Amazon’s unbox (for sucktastic video which you have very little convenience or access to), and the newer, more suckitude version of Microsoft’s Office suite (which I planned to gripe about, but lacked sufficient energy after fighting the interface for 30 minutes to do 5 minutes of work).

#5. The Great, The Bad, The Ugly: Apple iPhone
Yes, we know. Sliced bread only wishes it were as great as the iPhone. And aside from minor flaws like a tiny touch keyboard and lack of Flash support, the phone itself is pretty terrific. But AT&T’s broadband service? Definitely second-rate. And if you want to switch to a more reliable or faster carrier, you have to take your chances with the hackers.

The $600 price tag–which soon dropped by $200 and then was followed by a $100 quasi-rebate–didn’t help. “I think the biggest debacle of 2007 is the iPhone pricing bait and switch,” says Peggy Watt, a PC World contributing editor and professor of journalism at Western Washington University. “People do expect tech prices to drop, but not as quickly as the iPhone did. Apple’s response was pretty lame, too; a partial credit that couldn’t be used for a lot of popular items (such as iTunes).”

Yet still it sells like discount “Any-area-Annie” dolls at a fetishist convention.

Overall, the list is well-built, and I really can agree with most of the list.  There are 1 or 2 things I thought would make the list that didn’t, and 1 or 2 that I was surprised to see on the list because I wasn’t sure the really were that disappointing.  In the end, though, this is really a good guide to what should have been better this year for those following the tech world.

Hot wife makes lesbian pics for hubby’s birthday. He calls for divorce

You’re 50 years old. You’re married to a woman half your age who is a self-described bi-sexual. She looks like this:

For your birthday, she poses in some lesbian pictures which she gives you as a birthday gift. Is the appropriate response:

  1. fap repeatedly
  2. request another photo-shoot, with you in attendance this time
  3. both 1.) and 2.)
  4. whine and ask for a divorce

Pesonally, I’m going for option 1.) for sure, and 3.) if I can get the O.K. However, if instead you are a former Brady star, the real response is 4.) with the inclusion of complaints that the photos are a manifestation of your worst fears and that they creep you out. Since we are not, however, former (nor current nor future) Brady stars, we’ll celebrate this event with another picture of Ms. Curry along with mention that she has since repeated the momentous photo-shoot with another gal-pal for an upcoming issue of Playboy magazine. (via Fark)

[tags]Hot lesbian action, Adrianne Curry, Lesbian, Happy Birthday[/tags]

Blahg outage

An important tip that probably every website operator knows but which I forgot.  When you can’t figure out why your site isn’t working when you haven’t made any changes, check your error logs.  I have no idea why I’m having a problem, but apparently the Tiga theme I’ve been using for almost 2 years has suddenly started causing tons of errors on my site.  I am checking now on what changes my host has made that might have caused this, but I don’t yet know the problem.  Expect some changes in the appearance of the Blahg as I get a chance to try out new themes or figure why Tiga stopped working and get it going again.