(A copy of) The Magna Carta is for sale - estimated auction price of $20-30 million.
Take note, recently married - paper is the traditional gift for a first wedding anniversary.
Take note, political strategists - I’m sure there’s an easy segue from this event to a criticism of activist judges [...]
M.I.A.’s Kala is the best new album I’ve heard this year. I didn’t include a link just then because I wanted to pass along a seizure warning first.
[...]It’s all gone.
Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know - neither does my host.
I have a really old backup, but I saw little point in having a half-assed archive.
Take 2 in progress.
[...]The outside construction is done. The walls are painted. The bedrooms are carpeted.
This weekend the rest of the house gets laminate flooring. And as long as house gets approved for occupancy, the moving begins again.
Hopefully in no more than two weeks, I have my own home again. And hopefully then [...]
I know it’s not uncommon for anyone to forget how old they are.
I’m wondering however how common it is for someone to be certain of their age, only to eventually realize they’re wrong, and wrong on the side of being older to boot.
On two occasions before my birthday two weeks [...]
David Beckham has played his last game for Real Madrid. That means he’s headed to the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer to see what he can do for US professional soccer.
At best: There will be some buzz - ESPN may even air and advertise his first game. [...]
The Volkswagen Eos seems to be a reborn Cabriolet, a classic example of what some refer to as a chick car. VW apparently has no problem with that gender specificity - they’ve created an Eos Boutique featuring mostly women’s fashion by several designers.
There’s a slip-on sandal (don’t quote me [...]
Say what you will about the selective moralizing of the Motion Picture Association of America and their ratings system; but sometimes their density is every bit as entertaining as the films.
The Simpsons Movie has a rating:
Rated PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout
That’s going to help out the parents. I [...]
Forbes suggests 11 ways to fix air travel. I’m not sure why the deviated from the standard 10-part list, particularly since one idea isn’t all that sound:
Ban carry-on luggage except for laptops, coats and purses, speeding aircraft boarding.
That just means longer delays as irate passengers argue with gate staff [...]
Education roundup:
A boy in Riverview gets a perfect score on standardized FCAT.
A 73-year old Indian man fails high school exams for 38th time.
Clearly the Riverview boy has a tutoring opportunity. Or he could do some proofreading for this school.
I’m not sure I would have fit in all that well during the Renaissance, but I do take a certain amount of pride in keeping a variety of hobbies and interests. Ask any number of friends of acquaintances what my Thing is, and you’ll get several different responses: the Music [...]
It’s a black mark on the community. It’s a stigma. DeKalb is a lovely community. It’s horrible they’ve been stigmatized by this nasty industry.
That’s one Gail Vacca (cow?), referring to DeKalb, Illinois’ cigarette factory nuclear plant numerous meth labs friggin’ horse slaughterhouse.
Julie Kiefer-Bell says she loves horses after growing [...]
Remember former Devil Rays owner Vince Naimoli? Remember how, on the rare occasion that he opened up the checkbook at all for roster moves, he’d spend on players considered washed-up by most everyone else in the Majors?
Sure you do.
According to the fun, interactive FEC website (I found it at [...]
I mean, it’s not just the Ducks; it’s the Lightning and the Hurricanes, too.
They better hope hockey doesn’t catch on in Puerto Rico after that exhibition game. Otherwise, I’m calling the San Juan Jibaros over the Canucks in six. Scott Niedermayer wins the Conn Smythe again.
[...]I didn’t drive on the Miramar Parkway at any point during my Miami vacation, and I’ve been back in Tampa since Tuesday night.
That means I missed out on a chance Wednesday to witness the work of certain Darwin Award nominees for 2007:
Wilkins Pujols couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
As [...]
After this trip to Miami, my third and longest since my family moved from there when I was 13, I am left with much the same opinion I’ve related to others who’ve never been to the city: terrific place to vacation, but I wouldn’t recommend living there.
I was forced [...]
AAA has a handy fuel cost calculator for your next road trip - simply provide your to and from, plus the year, make and model of your car, and the calculator will approximate your gas costs for the trip based on current fuel costs.
Our road trip to Miami tomorrow [...]
Playing tour guide to a new visitor in your hometown is usually a disorienting experience; you suddenly discover that a familiar place is far bigger and more foreign than you thought. It’s sometimes a good disorientation, like finally eating at that restaurant you passed countless times but never visited; or [...]
A tourism-related poll released last year:
the United States was named the most unstylish…
Britain was second in the worst-dressed tourist table which was headed by the Americans
Is it the T-shirts? The Crocs?
Overall, European hoteliers found Americans to be the third-best tourists, behind only the Japanese and Swiss. [...]
John Prine and Iris Dement detail their globe-trotting love affair in Rome, Athens and Paris before proclaiming the title of the song, “(We’re Not) The Jet Set” (song originally written by Bobby Braddock, born about a half-hour from here in Lakeland, FL, and performed by George Jones and Tammy [...]
A cover album both you and the artist deserve
Duet and cover albums normally come during the twilight of an artist’s career; depending on your opinion, they’re either a way to pay tribute to important influences or to cash in without having to work very hard. I’m not [...]
Inspired by the always game dustbury.com, some more battle of the bands’ covers:
“(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” - Brinsley Schwarz v. Elvis Costello: Nick Lowe first recorded his song when he was a member of the pub-rock Brinsley Schwartz; the recording frankly sounds a bit phoned-in, [...]
Stylus picks the 50 best bass lines of all time. I’m not impressed (save maybe the Gang of Four mention).
I say just listen to the Beatles’ Revolver (plus “Paperback Writer”), Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, Rancid’s … And Out Come the Wolves, or if you’re feeling [...]
When is flying with a quiet passenger seated next to you not a good thing?
A BRITISH Airways passenger travelling first class has described how he woke up on a long-haul flight to find that cabin crew had placed a corpse in his row.
The body of a woman in her [...]
I.D. asked six designers specializing in erotically-charged work to design the ideal setting for losing one’s virginity.
James Victore chose a ‘55 Chevrolet Bel Air with “spacious bench seats and Marvin Gaye or Meatloaf on the radio,” he says. “Growing up in upstate New York, this [...]
You will not find Robert Gordon’s version of Marshall Crenshaw’s “Someday, Someway” in the Onion’s list of 14 cover songs that are better than the originals, and for good reason. And though Crenshaw’s version did outperform Gordon’s on the Billboard 100, Gordon did still score a hit with an [...]
With the passing of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson is arguably America’s leading separation smashing, mondo moralizing pulpit politician (Pat Robertson is too busy making shakes and taking names).
It didn’t take Dobson long to make news, stating that he’d sooner vote for an also-ran or not vote at all [...]
Though the sound on Marshall Crenshaw is decidedly 50s-60s, the album was a product of the 1980s.
For the sake of perspective: when Marshall Crenshaw was released on April 28, 1982, the #1 song in the US was Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll;” the following week its seven-week [...]
About 14 months ago the wife and I took our almost-annual vacation in Venice.
I just got back from what was likely to be our only vacation this year - in Northwest Tampa, house-sitting for friends (such is the skewed perspective of my post-near-fire, living-with-my-in-laws existence that the house-sitting was [...]
A user comment on Amazon.com regarding the Tactical SWAT Vest with pistol holder:
If your into paintball you most have the right gear to be with the Big Boys and the Tactical SWAT Vest you most have. I get everyones attention when I have the vest on and useful too. [...]
Freshly removed from bankruptcy, Delta Airlines is wasting no time in finding their niche.
And here it is:
The Gerber Group introduces a signature cocktail line available on board all domestic and international Delta mainline flights, select Delta Connection(r) carrier flights [...]
In their song “Girls,” the Beastie Boys fill us in on precisely when all they really want is girls:
And in the morning it’s girls
Cause in the evening it’s girls
In his song “Girls…” Marshall Crenshaw helps fill in the gaps a bit:
Girls girls girls
When I’m walking downtown on a [...]
Summery
I’ve heard it said that chili is strictly a summer food, a sentiment I have no use for - there’s never a wrong time for chili. There’s also never a wrong time for Marshall Crenshaw’s self-titled 1982 album; nevertheless there is something about the [...]
The lyrics to “Underdogs of Nipomo” - particularly the one about the quarters at the arcade - lead me to believe that the song has very little to do with the Great Depression. Since Archers of Loaf were from Chapel Hill, NC, there’s a possibility that they weren’t meaning to [...]
Mitt Romney’s campaign blog is titled Five Brothers. No, Mitt isn’t (necessarily) a fan of Bertolli Italian food products; the blog is named for Romney’s five sons who (supposedly) write all the posts.
Immediately one question comes to mind: which of the five Junior Mitts is most likely destined [...]
Search term that brought one particular reader from Google to this site (this post, specifically):
percentage of gay driving pt cruisers
If they were referring to the drivers, I know two PT Cruiser owners including myself - both owners are straight. I’m pretty sure however that a two-person sampling would not [...]
Trying to decide which NFL draft expert to listen to next year? Here are results for some of the experts, plus In Theory’s own random efforts:
Video of “Underachievers March and Fight Song” by Archers of Loaf. They really blew the budget on that exploding people effect.
This one’s directed by Norwood Cheek, whose credits include guest voice in two episodes of King of the Hill.
There’s no way Hank Hill likes Archers of Loaf.
[...]How did John McCain celebrate the official announcement of his presidential candidacy?
John McCain spent most of the night in the back of the plane talking with all the “jerks” (as he jokingly calls both the press and staff). He said he enjoying hanging out with all the [...]
The names of the top 32 ranked players available in the NFL draft (according to Scouts, Inc.) are grouped into eight tiers of four. I throw the first four names into a hat, then select the first four picks. I throw the second tier of names into a hat, [...]
The names of the top 32 ranked players available in the NFL draft (according to Scouts, Inc.) are thrown into a hat. In order from picks 1-32, I pick a name out of a hat.
And thus my completely random mock draft (see original post for premise). We’ll see [...]
Mel Kiper Jr. is considered an NFL draft expert. There’s a good chance that, for reasons follicular, Kiper Jr. cannot wear a hat.
From these pointless facts, and my mock draft fatigue, springs my experiment: can a hat create a more accurate mock draft than Mel Kiper Jr. (and other “draft [...]
Does this mean the singing career is stalled?
Republican John McCain officially entered the 2008 presidential race Wednesday, stressing his experience honed in war and Washington as he sought to revive his struggling campaign.
Experience, I say:
I’m not the youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced.
I know how to fight and [...]
With some online-only Presidential debates coming in 2008, Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng’s question: will it matter?
My question: Is it too late for Ted Stevens to declare his candidacy?
Ted’s question: Which tube do I speak into?
Cheng does question whether this thing would miss the point:
What would make the presidential debates [...]
The Dewey Decimal Classification subcategory for criminology is 364.
My local library didn’t have any standard editions of the book I was hoping to check out. Rather than choose another book, my near-sighted self picked the large-print edition instead.
Now I feel guilty, like an able-bodied person parking in a handicapped [...]
Video of “Harnessed in Slums” by Archers of Loaf. You wish your local bingo hall was this much fun.
The video was directed by Grady Cooper, whose credits also include editing on “Survivor.” The connection from Archers to Rob Burnett took far less time than I thought.
[...]First it was the SRO idea; now airplane designers are kicking around the idea of backward seating to gain space.
I say you can solve both the issues of space as well as seats that never recline enough by looking to hotels.
Capsule hotels, anyway.
I’m actually [...]
