- Oh good. At least Sarah Palin understands where Russia is. I guess McCain is implying he could have picked a running mate who doesn’t. We really dodged a bullet there, huh? At this point, I think he’d have been better off with Michael Palin. Lord knows he’s traveled abroad a lot.
- Although I do sort of want “Alaska is right next to Russia.” on a t-shirt.
- The New York Times on the Coen Brothers formula:
Typically, a slightly down-on-his luck protagonist driven by a single motivating belief (“The Dude abides,” “I’m a writer”) gets involved in a low-level criminal plot involving kidnapping or extortion, setting off a chain reaction of complications and reversals. And more often than not, somebody gets shot in the face.
Seems pretty accurate to me.
- Wow. Sioux City must be otherwise really boring. In all fairness, I have never actually eaten at an Olive Garden myself, so maybe it’s worth all the hoopla. I hear they have good free bread and salad. [via]
- Got allergies? Maybe what you need is a hookworm infection! [via]
- Movie quiz: Can you recognize movie posters from a single letter? I’m reminded of an episode, I think of 20/20, years ago, in which they showed children an alphabet made up of letters from brand product logos. Most of those were frighteningly easy to recognize. None of the kids had any trouble, as I recall. Here, though, I only got 10 out of 46. So maybe there’s some small hope left for humanity. [via]
- Just how much of a bad man was J.M. Barrie? Possibly quite very. [via]
- I’m starting to think bad makeup and receding hair might be something like a motif in later Nicholas Cage movies…
- Weight Watchers as roleplaying game? Hmm. [via]
- Need to find a public restroom near you? Look no further. Well, unless it doesn’t work. I honestly haven’t tested the results near me. (And if I’m in Manhattan and really desperate, there’s always the Internets Celebrities to guide me.) [via]
Send “Alaska is right next to Russia!” to Snorg Tees. They don’t seem to usually get political, but I bet they’d use that.
Barring that, I bet my friend and I could whip up a pretty funny design out of that…
You know, maybe it’s because of my job and the fact that I deal with parasites and their side effects constantly, but they freak me right the hell out. That hookworm thing is disgusting. I think I’ll live with my Zyrtec and weekly allergy shots. Although growing some to sell wouldn’t be a bad idea, being that they’re going for over $3k a pop.
I don’t think you have to work in a zoo to be freaked out by parasites. I don’t think hookworm infection is the way to go, but it’s definitely worth investigating how they suppress the immune system and therefore (seemingly paradoxically) prevent some illness. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that many of our auto-immune diseases are actually a symptom of our being too clean. That’s not to say we should get more dirty, but we should take a look at how being dirty, being infected, affects us — in negative and positive ways.