Fill in the blanks

While I wasn't working this afternoon, I saw an interesting use of ellipses in a USA Today article about Michael Jordan praising LeBron James:

James was thrilled to learn of Jordan's approval. "It's great any time you get praise from the guy who basically laid down all the stones for you to get here," James said. "I grew up idolizing his game and how he played . . . basketball."

Huh? What got cut out in those ellipses at the end?

I have some theories:

". . . how he played and by the way, I think I'm much better than him at basketball."

". . . how he played. If you were wondering about how I'm celebrating, well, I've been vegging out at Starbucks and using the Poincaré Conjecture to evaluate the Ricci folds and three-dimensional manifolds of a basketball."

". . . how he played. If you're from Cleveland, I'm the feel-good story of the year. I'm just like Omar Epps' NBA superstar character in that movie Love & Basketball."

". . . how he played. And on a personal note, after game 5 against Detroit I'd like to see more in the news about how the combined weight of my balls is roughly that of a basketball."

". . . how he played with unsuspecting little boys. Oh, wait. I wasn't talking about the MJ that played basketball."

All of those seem pretty reasonable to me.

The Link Roundup

Since I've been doing anything but work this past week, I thought I might share the love and give you all some reading material this weekend.


First, it's not a blog post around here unless someone is mocking Star Wars. This link also mocks stamp collectors at the same time. Double bonus!

If you're think websites could look more interesting, well, you're right. Here are sixty website designs that really show the kind of visual pizazz and refinement that a graphic designer can bring to even the plainest or most poorly designed websites. (Those last two were courtesy the gang at The Big Noob.)

Speaking of design, did you know the Helvetica typeface is 50 years old this year? Let us celebrate in a clean, efficient manner.

Google continues their campaign to spy on your every moment. Or at least take pictures of your cat. Or leaving a strip club. Eeep. Since the big story involves a cat, you could expect the LOLCatters to jump in.

Speaking of cats, I found another LOLCat that's worth a chuckle if quantum theory is your thing.

In NY Times Most Emailed Town, the Gray Lady is kind enough to justify slacking off at work (thank God!), loves the crap out of Knocked Up, takes a moment to describe me, and provides a stunning example of how a picture can make a story. You can also have some fun calculating your economic class and prestige; the relative prestige levels are the most fun. Apparently writers are prestigious. Could have fooled me.

Speaking of the New York Times, The Onion really nailed it with this summary of the 'Most E-Mailed' list. They've also been ruthless in their mockery -- both indirect and slightly more blatant -- of Barry Bonds.

Speaking of sports, if you're not reading Deadspin, you're missing out on some of the most fun on the interbang. Just today they were kind enough to point out that LeBron James is not of this world, that there's a good reason to get interested in pole vaulting (who knew?? Here's some more on Miss Stokke. I know, and you're welcome.) And, self-aware to the bloody end, they even tear themselves and all other sports blogs a new one. AJ Daulerio truly is the balls. And I haven't even touched on the fun you can have if you follow the comments. Deadspin is the only one of two (the other is a FARK Photoshop contest) places on the interweb that I encourage people to follow the comments. As their editor says, the commenters provide about 76% of the entertainment on any given day.

Let me just get this out there: if Rupert Murdoch buys my precious Wall Street Journal, there's a good chance I'll never read it again. Like hell is he going to get my 9.95 a month.

While I'm on Slate, they continue being the masters of miscellany with wonderful slide show of church signs. The also explain the high suicide rate in Japan. Expect a follow up about the high suicide rate in Cleveland if the Cavs can't bring in one more win this weekend.

Did you see that you can buy tracks without copy protection on iTunes as of this week? Well, you might want to hold off on that. Also, if you've wanted an excuse to brush your teeth with milkshakes, you can thank China for the excuse.

Dan Carlson cracked me up quite a bit with his strategy to take down Ken Jennings (who also has a blog, if you were curious), recounts his first trip to a gay nightclub, thanks me for humoring him, and receives a harsh but deserved letter from HR.

If you use Gmail and Firefox, do yourself a favor and pick up the Greasemonkey extension and Lifehacker's Better Gmail tool to really take advantage of it. Lots of nifty little options and hacks, including new Gmail skins (I'm partial to Airstream), extra keyboard shortcuts, built-in TinyURL support, attachment icons, and a handy tool that reminds you to actually attach files if you typed "See attached" in your email. Priceless!

Finally, my favorite new blog catches some workplace smartasses in action. As a frequent author of passive aggressive notes in the workplace, I approve this message.

I'd like to think this will bring the lolcats phenomenon to its logical conclusion

The LOLCats must be stopped.

Have no idea what I'm talking about? Slate has an informative slide-show about the phenomenon.

I didn't really laugh at them at all until one of my favorite Pajiba writers submitted a list of phrases that don't hold up to lolcat pidgin.

With that inspiration and the power of the creative commons license (Thank you, Flickr), I present to you my one and only entry into image macros, proof that not all things can be made cuter with poor grammar and kitties:



Phrase courtesy of Dan Carlson and original image courtesy of Homingpigen, via Creative Commons license, on Flickr.

o hai i iz photoshop mastah.

You finally made a monkey out of me

What a twist!



If you simultaneously need to a) spoil movies for people; and b) wear a shirt, then Threadless has just the shirt for you:



In case you're wondering, it spoils: Star Wars; Planet of the Apes; The Usual Suspects; The Wicker Man; The Crying Game; The Sixth Sense; Harry Potter 6; Dallas "Who Shot J.R.?"; The Matrix; Fight Club; 300; Citizen Kane; The Others; Psycho; Soylent Green; The Village; A Beautiful Mind; Donnie Darko.

So if you haven't seen/read any of those, you probably shouldn't have read any of this.

... crap.

Spoilt by Oliver Moss [Threadless]

Post Office, 1; Amateur personal financiers, 0

As I'm sure you've heard by now, the Post Office has come out with a non-value first class stamp called the "Forever" stamp. 41 cents per stamp now will send a first-class letter for life with that baby.

Better stock up, right?

Wrong. Read this tersely worded write-up from Slate:

Should we all be stocking up?

Absolutely not. Since 1971, postal rates have increased more slowly than the actual inflation rate, as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index. So, despite the numerous rate hikes over the last 36 years, stamps have actually been getting cheaper. ... Should this historical pattern hold, you'd be paying more for today's forever stamps than you would for any stamp in the future, no matter how high the rate goes.

In fact, this pattern must hold—as a matter of law. In December, President Bush signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which ensures that future price increases will be kept below an inflation-based ceiling. In other words, postage hikes will never surpass inflation—and the forever stamp will never become a good investment.

Cue the Debbie Downer waaah-waaaah sound effect.

Related: can we please call a moratorium on complaining about the cost of postage? Last time I checked, the ability to send a letter anywhere in the country and have it get there in a few days (even Saturday!) for only 41 cents is a miracle. You can't even get a soda for that price anymore.

Side note: anyone catch The Office finale? 1) I've never been happier with the writers' decision to make Ryan a douchebag. 2) Dear NBC: Give Creed a blog. For real. 3) I guess something big happened between Jim and Pam as well.

Look at my category! It's... big

So, I was scanning the article on Wikipedia about Alia Shawkat because, like George Michael, I have an inappropriate crush on Maeby Fünke, and I noticed this in the list of article categories at the bottom:



... ... really? Must be a big collection. Like, 6 billion articles. Well, according to the collection's front page, it's got 127,000. Sounds like a new way to waste time at work.

This could backfire

Newest online "security" feature that is bound to fail: those "Verify Your Age" forms that where you put in your birthday to A) verify that you're 18, or however old you have to be (some beer sites check if you're 21); B) test if you're capable of second-grade math.

I don't know if anyone else had this experience, but turning 18 merely meant that I didn't feel as guilty when I told the porn sites that, yes indeed, I was old enough to be looking. Just sayin'...

Dear internets: give people some credit. Especially now that these time-wasting surveys are slapped on everything from beer sites to YouTube videos with naughty language.

I also considered that these things could just be ploys to get demographic data for advertisers--have to get that 18–34 male demo! If that's the case, I just like to screw with them:



I figure if they use this to target advertisements, saying I'm 98 will merely increase the number of targeted ads I receive for Fiber One and pralines while keeping the amount of adds for penile enlargement creams roughly the same.

People have too much spare time

While I'm stuck in the lab, thank god for folks that have enough time to create movies about Mario getting strung out on mushrooms and stars and mistreating the princess. Must watch:



This is pretty much hilarious 90% of the time, which makes it 9 million percent better than the average video on YouTube.

[Mario: Game Over] courtesy of DeadSpin and Kotaku.

Conan is funny when he goes places

Were you aware? Whenever Conan O'Brien goes somewhere, funny stuff happens.

Like this recent trip to Industrial Light and Magic:



You'll note that Conan's 30 seconds as a CGI-rendered alien is more entertaining than 3 movies worth of Jar Jar Binks all 3 prequels.

If making fun of nerds isn't your thing, try this one, where he invades a group of 1864-rules baseball recreationists:



His interactions with the widow are priceless.

And, yes, I don't really know how the baseball one is that far removed from making fun of nerds.

The most important thing I have learned this semester

I knew it!!



This tidbit brought to you via The A.V. Club.