Category Archives: Shameless Filler

Lemonade

Not much time for writing this evening, so it’s time for some Shameless Filler. In tonight’s edition: The 50 Worst Cars Of All Time.

Trouble In Paradise?

Software engineers often imagine that Google must be just the best place to work. A couple of years ago I visited a friend who works in their New York office (which then was in Times Square), and I have to say it looked pretty good: a beautiful, modern office with all sorts of worker-friendly touches: […]

Some Holiday Cheer

Having trouble getting in the Christmas spirit? With yet another hat tip to our reader ‘JK’, here’s a story that has it all: solid religious content, a prophet in the wilderness, and, if the story’s true, an impressive display of lights.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

I have several email accounts, and I get plenty of spam, just everybody else. Every now and then, though, something comes in that I simply cannot, for the life of me, imagine why anyone would bother to send. Here’s the latest example: Hello , Am David i want to know if u carry (Aluminum Planks) […]

Six Feet Under

Well, seven, now; I should have penned this post back in August, when the title was most apt. But there are definitely strange things afoot in British Columbia: story here.

Crunch Time

This from today’s Borowitz Report: November 13, 2008 Bush in Race against Time to Wreck Country Legacy of Destruction at Stake Confounding the conventional wisdom that he is a lame duck president with no agenda as his days in office dwindle, President George W. Bush is redoubling his efforts to mutilate the country before his […]

It Goeth Before A Fall

We’re traveling this evening, and there won’t be much time for writing. But as you know, I hate to send you along empty-handed — so here is a particularly gratifying video clip, courtesy of Alex Bragg, one of my younger (and more formidable) training brothers down at the kwoon.

Fortunately, They Also Have A Calculator

Google has, for ten years now, been an amazing engine of creativity. Not content with their brand literally becoming a synonym for Internet search, they have kept up a steady output of innovative technology: GMail, GTalk, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sky, Google Moon, Google Mars, Google Groups, Google Book Search, and on and on. […]

Science!

It’s been a busy couple of days, and having had scant time for reading, quiet reflection, or writing, I have nothing original to offer this evening. But I hate to send you off empty-handed, so I invite you all to have a look at this year’s winners of the prestigious Ig Nobel Prize, which included […]

Bleh

I do wish I weren’t so susceptible to the enervating effect of warm, damp weather. Today was exactly that: overcast and misty, without the slightest stirring of a breeze, too warm for comfort (mine, at least), with the humidity pegged at 100%. In me these conditions induce a feeble-minded torpor, a morose lassitude, an otiose […]

Joy In Mudville

Today was the first day of autumn, which means it will be Christmas before you know it, and once again we’ll be racking our brains to find just the right gift for those hard-to-shop-for people on our list. My mother-in-law is a good example; she is is a woman of refined and particular tastes, and […]

You’re In Luck!

It is difficult sometimes, I will confess, to maintain a steady stream of penetrating insight and infectious wit. Although I know the pen is mightier than the sword, sometimes the flow of ideas is restricted, and occasionally, even despite all the momentous events transpiring in continents far away — like the approaching activation of the […]

Hard Pressed

We are on holiday at our little seaside retreat, and the schedule is simply so demanding — sleeping, loafing on the beach, swimming in Wellfleet’s cool and limpid kettle ponds and the backshore’s bracing surf, sampling the area’s toothsome viands, strolling through town, visiting with friends, brushing up my Iron Wire out on the deck, […]

Face Value

The subset of our behavior, dispositions, reactions, and so forth that happens with our conscious awareness and endorsement is trivially small, and one of the areas where we respond most automatically and unconsciously is our interaction with others. We react subliminally to an enormous variety of cues: posture, gesture, tone of voice, choice of words, […]

Never Enough Time

After a splendid repast with my lovely wife Nina at an outstanding local eatery, I sat down at the computer late this evening resolved finally to get a meaty post written on at least one of the topics I’ve had in my sights this weekend. At the front of the queue are responses to provocative […]

Dear Diary

A couple of weeks ago my old friend Carl Sturken, with whom I’ve been knocking about since fifth grade, called me up to ask if I felt like joining in a pickup band to play at a 35th reunion for the Princeton Day School class of 1973. (I’m not an official member of the class, […]

Granfalloon

It’s my birthday this weekend, on Sunday, April 13th. (I’m 52.) I’ve been taking a little break: just reading and puttering around up here in Wellfleet, and scrupulously avoiding any serious brainwork or controversial posts (I love the rough-and-tumble of a good debate, but the little grey cells needed a rest). So here’s another undemanding […]

Comic Relief

I’ll be traveling later today, and off the air until tomorrow at the earliest. So for now, here is an enormous, time-wasting distraction to keep you occupied.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

I got home quite late tonight, and serious scribbling is not in the cards. So go to this website, install Silverlight if you haven’t already, and have a look at where we’ve got to in the presentation of visual data.

Small World

Here’s a nice shot: the Earth and Moon as seen from Mars.

Upscale Dining

From my lovely wife Nina comes a link to a restaurant that gives new meaning to the phrase “haute cuisine”. I don’t know how the food is, but you certainly get the atmosphere. Have a look here.

Sweetly Singing O’er The Plain

This is a busy time, and although there are some weighty topics to return to, I think they may have to wait until things quiet down a bit. But there’s a bottomless well of entertaining material to pass along, and tonight I offer a tasty morsel. From my old friend, the great recording engineer Larry […]

Just Plane Fun

Here’s an entertaining article on pentagonal tilings. (I worked rather late tonight…)

Historical Site

Have you ever heard of symbolics.com? I hadn’t either. But this humble domain has an important distinction: it was the first .com name ever registered. If you’re curious, you can find a list of the first 100 here.

Warts and All

I don’t usually go in for sensational, gruesome stories in these pages, but having spent so much time today wrangling with commenters on the previous post, well, what the heck. Have a look here.

Better Than Nothing

Some pressing personal matters having laid claim to my attention these past two days, I have had no time for writing. So for tonight, it’s “America’s Finest News Source” to the rescue, with two important stories. The first describes a startling discovery that might be just what our flagging economy needs, and the second follows […]

Short Shrift

There are several things in the news that are worth mentioning tonight; in particular I’d like to ruminate a bit on the James Watson imbroglio. But I’ve just got back from teaching class down at the kwoon, and it’s too late to begin a long post (especially as my forearms are a bit banged up, […]

No Big Thing

Here’s a pretty picture:

Low Life

I do apologize for the paucity of content around here this week. But don’t go away mad: here, with a hat tip to my friend Greg Estren, is some fabulous video footage of the exotic fauna of the ocean’s abyssal depths. Do have a look.

Out Of The Pool

I’ve been swamped, and have had no time for the sort of brooding and omphaloskepsis required for gestating these posts. But today my friend Louis Franzetti sent along a copy of some recent Darwin Awards, and to keep you occupied this evening I offer a link that pops up a randomly chosen example every time […]

Weather’s Fine, Wish You Were Here

We are still more occupied with sun and surf than the glowing screen, but will be back in town, with nose reapplied to grindstone, this week. Meanwhile, a rather odd item from the frontiers of astrophysical research: it appears that there is an enormous hole in the visible universe, a billion light-years across. Lately it […]

Service Notice

The publication schedule here at waka waka waka may be a little gappy for the next few days: we are off on a family vacation (a rarity these days, with both kids entering early adulthood), and squinting at the computer for hours on end fits poorly into our activities schedule. We will, however, post up […]

Walking On Sunshine

From my former PubSub colleague Mike Zaharee comes a delightful link: history’s greatest spacewalks.

Closed For Repairs

I’m not quite myself tonight. Not only has the ghastly heat and fetor here in Gotham reduced me to a gibbering wretch, but at the end of the day I visited my periodontist, Dr. Louis Franzetti, who implanted two small screws in my upper jaw as part of an ongoing cakehole-reconstruction project roughly on the […]

Land of Enchantment

Here’s an odd little item that popped up in the news yesterday: a strange ball of light (which, curiously, seems to cast a sort of shadow) moseying around the parking lot of the First Judicial Courthouse in Santa Fe, NM. It was picked up by a surveillance camera, and the video has been making the […]

Time is Going Real, Real Slow

Making good once again on my offer of weightless froth, here, with a hat tip to Jon Mandell, is a preposterous little item, involving a police officer who confiscated some marijuana, baked it into brownies, and shared them with his wife. Hilarity ensues.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

We’re traveling again tonight, so for now I’ll just offer readers an uplifting news item, in which we are told that South American doctors can immediately spot male patients who have been bitten by the Brazilian wandering spider. Apparently, their symptom precedes them. Learn more here. P.S. We wish to reassure you that this post’s […]

Is That A Corskscrew In Your Pocket,
Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?

We will return to weightier matters as soon as time permits, but meanwhile: You may think you know plenty about duck phalluses, but you have nothing on one Dr. Patricia Brennan, who has made the study of the anatine willy her life’s work. Most male birds, in fact, are entirely ajohnsonal, but ducks buck this […]

The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

Peas as Large as Beets! Hot and Cold Air from Spigots! …I haven’t the time this evening to disgorge any of the usual tendentious bloviation, so I thought I’d share with you a breezy little item I stumbled upon this morning, when I should have been working. Man Will See Around the World! No Foods […]

Nitworking

If you’ve ever set up a wireless home network using Windows machines, you know what a vexatious task it can be. David Pogue, tech reporter for the New York Times, shares his personal adventure here. It appears there is room for improvement.

Do Forgive Me

What was meant to be a relaxing, restorative weekend of healthful exercise, quiet contemplation, and the writing of some meaty posts about the freedom of the will, US politics, and a fascinating but largely unknown collector of unexplainable facts instead became a weekend of the severest toil, thanks to a crisis at my workplace and a last-minute mixing session. I therefore find myself without any substantial offering for this evening, and will leave you for the nonce with a weightless little meringue that I turned up in a brief scouring of the Web. In this case it a humorous little confection from the comedic oeuvre of the late-night entertainer Conan O’Brien, in which he meticulously insults almost every nation on Earth.

Yea or Nay?

While I’m trying to find the time to get back to more serious topics, here’s an amusing bit of froth, in which we find Robert deNiro doing what he does best.

Bang! Zoom!

I’m mixing all day today, so have no time for the usual logorrheic bombast. Here’s an interesting morsel, though:

If you’re planning a visit to the moon, but aren’t sure what to occupy yourself with once you get there, NASA has put together a handy 181-item to-do list. Read all about it here.

Nothing To See Here

Readers visiting waka waka waka this evening confident that yesterday’s service interruption must have been due to the gestation of a particularly expansive discursion upon some fascinating topic or other are, I’m sorry to report, mistaken. While there is, as always, no shortage of topics, events, and cultural foibles about which an essayist might comment, I am, tonight, unequal to the task, and must refrain.

Carry On Regardless

One does not usually think of two-wheeled vehicles as being particularly well-suited to transporting cargo, but where there’s a will there’s a way. From my co-worker Jay Chang comes an amusing collection of photographs from Vietnam, showing what can be done when need impels.

Tunnel of Love

Another long day today – work followed by a long evening of teaching and training down at the kwoon, and here it is pushing midnight and no post written yet. So rather than bloviate into the wee hours, I think I will offer you all, instead, a glimpse of New York City life, in the form of a conductor’s announcement that I heard on the F train as I was making my weary way home this past Saturday.

Play Dead!

I’m still adjusting to rejoining the labor force; I got home awfully late this evening, and will be up at cockcrow to do it all again. As a result, all I have to offer for tonight is what seems to be a truly creepy video clip, sent along by my friend Eugene Jen, who remains an inexhaustible source of Internet arcana. This macabre flick, a bit of postwar Soviet mad-scientist mayhem, is called “Experiments in the Revival of Organisms”, and is introduced, quite astonishingly, by the great biologist J.B.S. Haldane (who, if you will forgive me for being catty – it’s Fashion Week, after all – could have spent just a bit more time in wardrobe). The organism in question, it appears, is a dog.

I haven’t even got past the intro yet myself; let’s enjoy it together. I’ll make some popcorn.

Dry Spell

This working-for-a-living thing has me all worn out, so for tonight, rather than offer the eloquent and persuasive post I had planned, in which I shall reassure those readers whom I seem to have upset with recent political posts that I am not Bull Connor or Curtis LeMay, I offer an engaging, if somewhat macabre, link dedicated to the grotesquely fascinating world of mummies. Enjoy.

Postage Due

correspondent has been shuttling back and forth between Wellfleet and sweltering Gotham, getting in in the wee hours, sleeping little, coping with a variety of unrestful obligations, and generally ignoring his bloggardly duties. I apologize to all, and do hope that by Tuesday or so life will once more be unruffled and serene, as there are a number of meaty posts in the queue.

Meanwhile, do browse our extensive archives, and rest assured that we’ll be back in harness shortly.

Picking Up Girls

It’s summertime, and the weather here is not conducive to ponderous thoughts, so this evening we shall amuse ourselves with a look at how our doughty pals the Finns make merry while the sun glances briefly upon their Boreal realm. I’m talking, of course, about the World Championship of Wife-carrying.