Odd Lots
- Aero won his first “major” (a win against at least three other males of his breed) at the Colorado Springs Kennel Club dog show this past weekend. That gives him a total of five points toward the fifteen he needs (and the first of two majors) to win his championship.
- Shopping a little harder for gas these days? This site may help, keeping in mind that driving miles to save pennies isn't always a win—and the price could change before you get there. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the pointer.)
- Neal Rest sent me a pointer to “Ten Things I Hate About Commandments,” which is a parody trailer made as a remix of scenes from a very famous movie that you may recognize. It's less a parody of the film than of film trailers in general, and very funny.
- From Roy Harvey comes a link to a paper containing a great deal of data on historical climate change. I don't agree with all the points made by the author, but the paper is so thick with graphs that I'm not sure his conclusions are the real value-add here. Do take a look.
- One of the scariest videos I've seen in a while shows a good-sized house literally sliding into the rampaging Wisconsin River and floating away downstream. Lake Delton, near Wisconsin Dells and home of the (in)famous Tommy Bartlett Water Ski and Jumping Boat Thrill Show, basically created a new channel for itself and drained completely into the Wisconsin River, driven by massive rains. The Dells themselves weren't directly affected, but a great deal of aquatic activity on Lake Delton (duck boats, jet skis, and poor Tommy) are now gone for the rest of the 2008 season. (And we're going to the Dells this July!)
- Missed including this one a couple of months ago, but it's worth some consideration: Blogging has become the new work-at-home piecework, with “professional” (read here: sometimes paid) bloggers working themselves literally to death for as little as $10 per post. Damn, I wish my blog earned me that little! (Here's a counterpoint that misses the point a little, but worth reading for balance.)
- Finally, I stumbled on Curious Expeditions while trying to find aerial photos of the Roman Catholic church I grew up in on the Web. No dice on the church (it's so ugly the parish Web site contains no photos of it!) but if you want to see a picture of a petrified bat, Galileo's mummified middle finger (now, who did he give it to?) or hundreds of other peculiar things, this is the place. It's not all creepshow stuff, either: The entry on New York City's pneumatic message system (similar to the legendary pneu of France) is the best treatment I've seen on the American side of the subject.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
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