What I Learned Today
sarcophagus — limestone used for coffins, from Greek (lithos) sarkophagos, literally, flesh-eating stone.
Archive for February, 2004
Brilliant
I’ve been checking out a gay dating site, manline.com, recently. It has what has to be the gay dating site slogan ever: “Great men from top to bottom.”
Short poem I wrote years ago that I’m not sure is finished
Sometimes when squirrels sing, the acorns go nuts.
Sometimes when the brain rings, our soul asks what.
How can we value one stick over another?
Friend over friend, sister over brother?
Web Page Mock-Up
I’ve been working on a mock-up of a web page as part of an application for a job. If the layout is skewed or messed-up on your computer, now would be a great time to tell me. Thanks.
Wow
I Drew a Bottle of Whiskey
Draw Your Boss. The drawings on this site are uniformly excellent. Not necessarily in artistic quality or humor, but–well, you’ll see. Just a few of the great ones: #41, 61, 69. (link from LYD)
Where’s The ‘Nap Duty’ Box?
If anyone tells you that President Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam (See: today, RNC chairman Marc Racicot), just show him or her this.
It’s True Because It Rhymes
Keep kids more alive
Drive 5
Let boys become men
Drive 10
Watch out for that spleen
Drive 15
Cars make slow kids hurt-y
Drive 30
Too fast and they’re done
Drive 31
What if you’re late?
Drive 48
Hitting kids–nifty?
Drive 50
When drinking makes you tipsy
Drive 60
Save them from the spelling bee
Drive 70
Sail like a pirate, matey
Drive 80
A Joke About Death
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Death.”
“Death wh-AUUGKKK”
Like all my great jokes, that one was inspired by Utah. I’ll get to that in a minute.
I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. It reduces our ability to be compassionate, but maybe this is a worthy price for retribution. I’ve noticed though that the death penalty debate is no longer about morality vs. justice. The yardstick is which method would make the criminal suffer more. During the D.C. sniper trial, I read and heard comments like “They don’t deserve to live” v. “we should keep them alive so they suffer for their entire lives.”
This reflects a general philosophy about incarceration in America. The idea of rehabilitation rarely enters the debate anymore. The focus is on making criminals suffer. Utah is currently debating whether to do away with execution by firing squad. Because shooting someone is a cruel way to kill a person? Not exactly:
During the Senate debate on Thursday, Sen. Ron Allen, a Democrat, said allowing murderers to choose firing squads so they can “go out in a blaze of glory” makes heroes of criminals and causes victims’ families more pain.
But Sen. Dave Thomas, a Republican, argued that media circuses are “exactly what we want” in executions.
“We don’t want these sentences to be carried out in the dead of night so no one knows,” said Thomas, adding that lethal injection is painless and “the easy way out.”
It’s easier to hate someone than forgive him or her. It’s often easier to point out what’s wrong instead of what’s right. Maybe this is just me, but I find the good parts of humanity a little harder to reach than the bad parts. We can be tough on crime, but perhaps we should be tougher on ourselves.
Sorry for the trail-off in posting recently. I’m finally putting a decent amount of effort into the job hunt. I thought it would be painful but the process has been more enjoyable than how I used to spend my days: eat, nap, eat, nap, web browse, nap, shower?, nap…
Extended unemployment has turned me into a model of frugality, or as I say now, frug. After disdaining the excess of consumerism and commercialization in our society for years, I find myself having a powerful desire to take a shopping cart, a couple of beers, and a lasso and round up an electronics posse at Best Buy. “Yee-haw!” I’ll yell as I bring my cart on two wheels and lasso the last remaining IPod player from the hands of a sluggish teen, his senses dulled from years of rote learning, too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and daily visits from his friend Mary Juniper Jane.
By the time he turns his head, he will only see a shadow fading into a cloud of dust, and hear faint yells of “Haa-hee!” “Who was that?” he’ll ask. A Best Buy employee, sucking on a corn cob pipe while in a rocking chair, will tilt his head up just an inch. “There goes a man who hasn’t bought a new pair of pants in a year.”
What I Learned Today
You make a tint of a color by adding white to it.
You make a shade of a color by adding black.
