eruthros

I often get distracted on wikipedia or any other wiki, and end up clicking through links for a while, eventually ended up somewhere far distant from my original question. I have thus learned the following:

1. Rutabagas are a weird kind of hybrid between cabbage and turnips.

2. I knew that Klingon is a real constructed language. I did not know that the DS9 and Voyager writers were overworked and/or lazy, and just used a dictionary to translate their Klingon sentences, and thus managed to get the same kind of hilarious mistranslations that are often features of Spanish and French and Russian and Quechua on other shows. Hee.

3. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a lot of intriguing official-state-things, like the state steam locomotive, and state electric locomotive, and state soil. BUT a bill was introduced about ten years ago to name the chocolate-chip cookie the state cookie, and then the state senate was like "but we have a strong history here in PA of the Nazareth Sugar Cookie!" AND, then some people were all "but I prefer an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie!" Sadly, all bills were tabled, and PA has no state cookie.

3a. As result of the above, I have now learned that: New York has a state muffin (apple), Louisiana has a state instrument (the diatonic accordion), Kansas has a state toy (the etch-a-sketch) and California has two state fish, a fresh water fish (the golden trout) and a salt water fish (the garibaldi). And? Alabama declared its state land mammal the HUMAN BEING. The List of U.S. State Insignia is a PILE of fun, guys. Or, if you're finding the states frustrating, there's always the list of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols, but there's not as much weird there.

4. The history of Chekov's Gun from the best TV Tropes page ever.

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In other news, I found the perfect yarn for a hooded sweater I want to knit! Peruvian undyed alpaca in a twist of tan and cream and cheap and so yummy-soft. Problem: the yarn store only had 500 g, and I need 750. Sadly, the main supply person wasn't there, so I couldn't find out if she could get that much of the same dye... um, wool lot?

In OTHER other news, you guys, if you didn't already love Leverage, this video of the writers brainstorming ideas for season two would solve that problem. But of course you already love it, right?

... I don't know this person at all, I just saw her on a friends' facebook friends page.

And I think this is the most hilarious status update I have ever seen in my life. Ready?

"Phoebe is breaking up with her life partner of three years, Jenny. Turns out we're both hetero. 3:59pm."

*boggles* OMG you guys. As a status update! On facebook! WHAT?

So I'm scrolling down my spam folder in gmail when I find two great spam subject lines that taste great together:

Subject line: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Subject line of next message: Become a Crime Scene Investigation!

I find this far funnier than it deserves. I feel I could write a CSI pre-credits tag around those two sentences, actually. It is the story of a business man, who goes to Vegas thinking he can get away with ... something ... and then the next thing we know, he's dead on the pavement. In fact, I think that pretty much covers half of CSI.

Almost as good is the pairing Take the Man Quiz! / Choose complementary tones. (Yes, complementary spelled like that.) The first, of course, is spam for viagra; the second is spam for downloaded ring tones. But in combination they mean something else entirely.

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Sometimes people rock: check out this product on amazon. Yes, y'all: someone is selling gallons of milk on amazon.com. Hilarious? Weird? Baffling? All of the above?

Well, apparently nine hundred people agree with you, because they're writing reviews like this:

"This stuff is amazing! I ordered some the other day and selected express shipping so the total was like $35.00 for a gallon of milk, but it has changed my life. My once bald head is now covered in thick, Fabio-like hair, my impotence is cured, I no longer have vertigo, dementia, incontinence, ringing ears, depression, psychosis, post-nasal drip, explosive diarrhea, herpes, or the plague. Thank you Tuscan Milk!! I am totally getting this for my wife for Christmas."

"Delivered by the bronzed descendants of Roman Gods (dressed as postal workers) my Tuscan Milk arrived! Upon opening the container, the heavens opened and the angles sang! It was really quite a nuisance. My house is now littered with unemployed Romans and angels that won't shut up. They drank all my Tuscan milk. "

Or my personal favorite, the one that reviews Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz, in the style of an iPhone review: The 1 Gallon Jug of Tuscan Whole Milk's beauty alone would be enough to prompt certain members of the milk-drinking cult to dig for their credit cards. But its Milk OS X-based software makes it not so much a smartmilk as something out of "Minority Report". ( ... the rest )

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Also: things I have to do by tomorrow morning at 8 am include:
1. Packing. Kind of important.
2. Dishes. Important, but not, you know, CRUCIAL. One sad little water glass still on the counter would be okay.
3. Laundry. Important, because I have to at least finish the stuff that's wet.
[redacted]
6. Shower, breakfast, clean out 'fridge, take out trash, etc.
7. Print out greyhound bus ticket.

In short: AHHHHH.

So, instead of dealing with that, I am ... reading the news on the internet. Whee! I have learned that the Golden State Warriors are up to ninth in the Western Conference -- because they defeated the number-one seeded Mavs, ending the Mav's seventeen-game winning streak. Awesome! There are many pictures of Nowitzki looking a little baffled. Nowitzki was all "we just were never ready to play" and "we didn't think they had it in them," which is bullshit, because the -- read it again -- ninth-ranked Warriors have whumped the Mavs in four straight match-ups now. And they kept Nowitzki to thirteen points. HA.

Best thing about Battlestar Galactica (1978) that I'd forgotten: dude, Patrick MacNee does the intro voiceover! I get little moments of cognitive "wait, umbrella sword?" dissonance. Apparently he also plays Count Iblis, the Satan-ish guy in "War of the Gods," which I look forward to tremendously. I recalled the ridiculous deus ex machina of that episode, and the bit with Apollo being resurrected, and all of that, which will be tremendously fun, but: I get Patrick MacNee, too?

Also, this show has the kitschiest dialogue EVER. It can't be transcribed accurately, because I would need several exclamation points per word, and a way to indicate "long pause intended to be dramatic that instead highlights the total ridiculosity of the dialogue."

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Horrible Fox News "Reporting," part forty-three: Fox says that Mark Foley, R-FL, is, in fact, a Democrat. Now, sure, this happened a while ago, but still. Fair and balanced my ass.

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Also, I share this link, instructions for finding mp3 indexes using google, with you. Not, of course, because I would ever condone downloading illegal mp3s, but because it's a totally neat search phrase. Right?

... did y'all know that google does rentals now? Search for "rentals" "cityname" and bing! up pops a search box for their rental aggregator. Sort of a function of google local, apparently. I was googling for a particular agency, and suddenly ... there it was. Little box of weirdness. Even though it's theoretically an aggregator, though, it's not as cool as craigslist.

Dear google: please leave some internet for everyone else.

*

In other news, I totally conned a prospective landlord into getting someone else to show me around tomorrow, by being polite but noncommittal about showings on other days -- "well, as I'm sure you're aware, when you're renting from a distance, you'd really rather find the perfect place immediately and not have to make as many trips." *boogies* This makes me really happy, because it was really the only place that said "no" that I was actually sad about not seeing. Most of the others made me say "eh." (There's another one that hasn't returned my call, which is also sad, but there's nothing I can do about it.)

ETA: The rentals thing worked for every city I popped in, but darthrami just said it didn't work for her. And she's right; it only pops up automatically for some cities. (Maybe the cities where google maps is integrated?) If it doesn't work for your city, try Philadelphia, and then you can mess with it after you see the rentals box.