Um...

Either people have too much time on their hands, or the good people at the gummi factory should have thought this through a little better.



(from Consumerist via Buzzfeed)

Tim Russert RIP

He was a hero of mine and will be greatly missed.

What just happened?

Don't follow politics but wanna sound smart? Slate gets you up to date in eight minutes:

Science explained! Think of it as a creepy Euro party...

This is brilliant:

(h/t: Matt Yglesias)

Got an extra $1.4 billion you need to spend?

You can always do this:



Thankfully, both pilots ejected and were uninjured, according to Wired's Danger Room. Still, yeesh.

They're piling us like cord wood on the Blue Line

Globe Photo by Bill Greene


OK, so which is most retarded part of the Globe's Blue Line seat story?

1. The basis of the story is that "many passengers have found themselves alternately fidgeting and slipping since the T began introducing the cars in February." The support for that statement? Four people complaining during the reporter's ride-along with the unwashed masses of the North Shore.

2. Breathlessly reporting that a driver "conceded that many passengers are, in fact, slipping" with this graf:

"Some people do have that problem," he said with a laugh before zipping to the turnaround at the Wonderland stop.

3. The driver had to be quoted anonymously because of T policies that bar employees from talking to the press. This is a story of such urgency that we had to resort to anonymous sources. I sympathize. This is clearly the most explosive revelation in a major newspaper since the Pentagon Papers. Or last year's high-end stroller expose.

4. The scientific survey of pole gripping:

A ride on the new Blue Line cars this week revealed what appeared to be a higher percentage of seated passengers clutching the metal poles than on other lines.

Really. That's in the story. A page one story.

5. Ignoring a more relevant and interesting story revealed by riders and the T's spokesman: People are complaining, and the T is admitting, that people are falling over from hard stops on new equipment. Has anyone been injured? What about the equipment is so different that it causes hard braking? Will operator familiarity ease the problem, or is it an equipment failure?

Ah, but that's for another day. A reporter has to follow his gut, and this reporter's gut told him to feature the middle-aged lady whining about the seats because they have a great photo for it.

6. After heading out into the trains searching for piles of riders on the floor, the reporter waits until the 22nd graf to get the T's official number of complaints about the seats. We read for a screen-and-a-half before we're told there have been seven complaints about the seats in the last four months. Seven complaints. That's a little less than one every two weeks. I can see why we had to rush a reporter out onto the train.


Personally, I like the new cars and the new seats. When you walk into one of the car, you look at all the surfaces and realize a T worker could walk in and wash the entire interior with a garden hose. That makes me happy.

Obama wins!

Andrew Sullivan has linked to this a couple of times, but he's right: It sums up how I feel perfectly:

Skit of the year

Jonah Hill has jokes:

Olbermann scorches Clinton

Keith Olbermann unloaded on Sen. Clinton over her incredibly stupid and insensitive assassination comment. It's 11 minutes of fire.

(h/t: Nicole!)

Truth

The Onion does it again:

Could Hillary Clinton Have What It Takes To Defeat The Democrats In 2008?

Green Will Make Your Head Hurt

Wired has a great package up online that challenges some of the most revered ideas of environmentalism. If our overarching goal is to reduce global warming, then we will have to accept some things we have resisted for a generation, like nuclear power, genetically modified crops, and actually buying a used Civic instead of my beloved Prius.

X > Y

Radar has a pitch-perfect whine and defense of Generation X posted online.

You've earned your retirement, boomers. So rest assured that your babies are in good hands as you go. As a member of the nowhere generation, now come of age, I'm proud to announce that our time has arrived. We may not be the next Greatest Generation, but we're pretty good at calling bullshit.

Definitely cranky, but that's sort of our mode, isn't it?

A Beat Down For Our Time

Love him or hate him, Chris Matthews can help put things in perspective. He spent five minutes putting a hurt on a third-rate radio host trying to compare Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain:



Every once and a while, it helps to ask people if they're full of shit. You'd be surprised how many ways they can say yes.

(h/t: TPM)

Wow.



(h/t: Andrew Sullivan)

Overheard at Fenway

From the asshole drunk college kids sitting behind me:

"So I went to take the train at 3 a.m. last night, and guess what? There was no train."

"I live near there! You could have stayed with me."

"I didn't know you then."

Facebook: For the ego that needs a beating

I signed up for Facebook. This is my second go-around with the site, to be honest. I tried it out for a week last year and didn't really like it. But a lot of people I know are using it, and I like to keep up with things.

Anyway, they have these targeted ads on the site. Facebook has decided that the targeted ads I want to see are from a "Thirty Plus" dating Web site.

Thanks, Facebook. As if I don't already feel like a weird old-man-stalker type using your site.

State of the Thunder Cats

Did you hear the governor last night? Massachusetts is on the move! So the governor's secret is out: He's actually Lion-O from the ThunderCats:



So if Massachusetts is the ThunderCats, who's Mumm-Ra, our sworn enemy? I say New Hampshire. I'm sure Dan Kennedy would say it casino gambling. The firefighters would say its Mayor Menino, although I think he's the perfect Snarf.

Memo to Tom Reilly: You suck

Lost in all the talk of the Big Dig settlement is this: Tom Reilly was ready to settle for less money than is needed just to repair the shoddy work left behind in the project. What in God's name was he thinking? And he wanted to be governor?

I am an iPod Jedi master

Guilty admission: I got a compliment on my iPod’s diverse music selection, and I have been gloating over it for two days.

(Yes, I am a dork)

Two friends of mine threw a fantastic New Year’s party in the Back Bay, and asked that people bring their iPods along to dock with their spiffy new stereo. That way, everyone could play DJ. That’s a fantastic idea and it’s something I’ll include in all future parties.

So I brought my iPod, and dropped it into the dock to play some Fratellis. After a while, I forgot about it, until someone got their hands on the thing and made a bitchin’ On-The-Go playlist that everyone loved. As I left the apartment, the music was still going, so I asked my friends to hang onto the iPod til the next day.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a text:

"BTW, I’m not giving your iPod back."

My heart went soaring.

I don’t know why, but it feels like a confirmation that years and years of collecting music has led to some sort of accomplishment. Stupid, I know, but hey, it feels good to think I’m some sort of Ahmet Ertegün in waiting.