Putting "go green go" on a plastic bag that holds two subway tokens is marbles

I was going to write this one myself, but it got preempted. Just as well because I may never have gotten around to it.

via septafail

Microsoft thinking my class notes are music is marbles

I realize that I bitch about computer quirks here quite a bit, but some of these things are just so stupid. How on Earth does Windows decide what columns to use in its file window things? It certainly isn't based on the file types contained therein. Below is one of my law school class folders containing Word docs and pdfs, which in Windows World are music files:

I wonder if clicked the "Play All" button it would read them to me? If I had a Mac it would. If I had a Mac I wouldn't even have to take notes. They've got apps for that now.

Not having a spare couch to burn is marbles

Because if I did, this satellite image from Thursday night would have shown a blip somewhere near Philadelphia.

Hiding headlines in slideshows and mouseovers is marbles

This is slowly taking over the internet, and I don't like it. That is, the stupid slide show type things on web pages that make you move your mouse over various pictures in order to read the headlines and/or insist on playing a little slideshow of the headlines on a few second delay. Why can't I just see everything at once?

Slate and emusic switched to it not long ago, as did a few others. Emusic's might be the worst of all, though we've already been over that. MSN's (that's the Mountaineer Sports Network, not that other weirdo site) is pretty terrible too, as the slideshow moves faster than human reaction time. Now Pitchfork is the latest to go this route, and they've managed to do both the stupid mouseover thing and the stupid slideshow thing. Great work guys.

This video is marbulous

Gonna have to break kayfabe on this one. Possibly the greatest video ever.

Trying to get me to complete an online survey by pitching it as a professional development opportunity is marbles

Some people lose their jobs and don't deserve to, while others keep their jobs and don't deserve to.

Today I get this email from the law school asking me to complete an online survey to give feedback on various things about the school. This is fine, and I might have considered doing it had this paragraph not been included:

In addition, participating in the survey provides you with an opportunity to responsibly and professionally compliment and critique the services provided by others. The ability to provide substantive feedback is a skill that will serve you well throughout your career in your relationships with clients, superiors, colleagues and subordinates. Responding to this survey allows you to develop this skill while providing us your valued input.

I don't even know where to begin. This is easily the stupidest thing I've come across all day, and I make it my business to find (and do) stupid things.

Calling "Race & ethnicity" a news category is marbles

Or maybe it's just sad that as a practical matter we need such a category . . .

The ALR's index is marbles

It doesn't matter what the ALR itself is, other than that it's a legal publication on the case law governing all sorts of stuff. Thus, as one would expect, its index is extensive. But it is also downright silly:

Saying "the book was better than the movie" is marbles

I can't stand it when people say that. Books and movies are two entirely different things. To paraphrase, it's like comparing Johnny Mathis with Diet Pepsi.

I can say without much hesitation that I've only genuinely disliked 5 to 10 movies in my entire life. But the number of books I've genuinely disliked is at least 10 times that number. Most books are terrible. Many movies are terrible, but they're still movies, which can be entertaining even when (or because) they're bad, and at worst only take up a few hours of your time. But to waste days on a book that ultimately sucks is just devastating. Maybe this is why I stopped reading books.

That largely irrelevant discussion aside, please lay off the movie adaptations, Slate, et al. Just tell me whether the damn movie was any good on its own merits and holster your comparative literature degree for another day.

Ticketmaster's idea of "buy one get one free" is marbles

I realize I'm taking aim at some easy targets here, but I had to share. I was tempted to go see School of Seven Bells with Fujiya & Miyagi next week until I saw that Ticketmaster surcharges turned a $15 ticket into a $26.75 ticket. Just don't like them enough for that. But then I saw today that they were running a two-for-one special on that show, so I checked it out thinking I might con somebody else into going and save a couple bucks. Turns out, it cost $29.60. Essentially the same as buying two full priced tickets (sans surcharge rape). What a deal.

Using the New York City skyline on a Philadelphia transit pass is marbles

Oh, SEPTA, I could dedicate a whole blog to ridiculing you.


via philebrity, of course

The Philosophy of Furniture is unintentionally hilarious, marbles

Today I discovered that Edgar Allen Poe had some strong opinions on interior design. Indeed he published an essay in 1840 boldly titled "The Philosophy of Furniture." A few choice quotes:

A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet must be a genius.

Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "d'un mouton qui reve," fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own moustaches.

The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage.

Weird dude.

Reason #643 why the Philadelphia Parking Authority is marbles

via philebrity

Nobody ever liking my favorite song is marbles

I did a little experiment tonight and was proven correct. While I usually agree with friends and critics on what albums are good, I almost never agree on which songs on those albums are the best, and I don't know why.

Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion was the subject. Everyone pretty much agrees it's brilliant, and so do I. And after having sat with it for a few weeks now I feel like I have a handle on what my favorite song is ("Taste"). So I went on metacritic and checked five or six of the higher-rated reviews to see what they thought of my song. The majority didn't even mention it, even the ones that made a point of going through a track-by-track description. What gives?

I'd like to blame it on the short period of time that reviewers have with an album before their deadlines come (so they might overlook a grower), but I don't think that's really the case anymore, since everything leaks months in advance. The only thing I can really come up with to explain it is that everyone is wrong except me.

Whining that your pirating software is being pirated is marbles

Crackulous, the new iPhone software that cracks the DRM on App Store apps so they can be shared freely on jailbroken iPhones, has apparently been wrested from the control of its developers and sold, SOLD, for $10 a pop by a different group of software pirates. One developer describes this as "absolutely disgusting and downright insulting."

The absurdity of this needs no elaboration. There seems to be a whole big world of insanity out there, the extent of which I'm only slowly becoming aware. Just makes you want to smack someone.

That polydactyly is the least marbles thing about this video is marbles

Wait for the doctor. Flamenco guitar and typing skills?

Tennis instant replay is marbles

Does anyone seriously believe that that silly computer replay thing they have in tennis bears any meaningful relation to reality? I know the players don't (particularly Federer). Though it is probably better than the human eye, on average, I just have to laugh on close calls when they zoom in on the little image to show the sub-millimeter gap between the computerized ball mark and the computerized line. Infinitely precise this thing is, apparently.

It's like at work when you make the mistake of throwing a number out to roughly estimate something and your boss latches onto it and treats it like gospel. As soon as something gets quantified, any hope of qualifying it is lost.

This picture is simply marbles

via digg

Fouling to stop the clock is marbles

By last year's NCAA final, I'd had enough. Memphis couldn't make free throws, so they lost. Not that I really cared about Memphis, per se (hated Kansas is more accurate), but it was the perfect example of how any reasonably close basketball game will inevitably degenerate from a back-and-forth, entertaining affair into a silly free throw shooting contest. Suddenly the team that couldn't defend all game doesn't have to and can rely, as Kansas did, on one particular weakness in one particular area of the other's game, one that up to that point obviously didn't matter.

I guess this doesn't really happen in the NBA because those guys just make their free throws (save for the few instances where they don't; see Hack-A-Shaq, Hack-A-Ben-Wallace). And of course the college guys should just make them too. But it's unsatisfying to see a game decided in the last 2 minutes based on a skill largely irrelevant to the way it was played for the preceding 38 minutes - a bit like when soccer games go to penalty kicks.

So here's my solution: call the fouls for what they are, intentional fouls, and give the other team two shots and the ball.

Vice making a new Jesco movie is marbles

Maybe in some alternate universe, the magic of the Dancing Outlaw could be recreated in dramatic form. But there's just no way that this has any chance of being any good. I like Vice okay and all, and I liked their little interview with him a while back (thanks J), but this is just a terrible idea. Carrie Fisher as Norma Jean/Priscilla? Some British dude as our hero? Come on.

If somehow this looks appealing to anyone, it's at Sundance, and thus is probably coming to a film festival near you. I guess I'd go see it if Jesco would see any royalties, but I can't imagine that to be the case.

Patenting a method for patenting is marbles

Ah, the administrative state, ever in service of the public good. Take U.S. Patent No. 6049811, "Machine for Drafting a Patent Application and Process for Doing Same." Or, a patent on how to get a patent. There are plenty of other silly patents out there, but this one strikes me as especially obnoxious, probably due to the circularity of the whole thing. The next logical step would be to patent the process of granting a patent, thereby causing the Patent Office to collapse in on itself and form some sort of regulatory black hole.

Everyone getting ready to claim that Obama isn't President because he said the wrong oath is marbles

I'm looking at you, Fox News.

Invoking our dealings with the Native Americans in your "Seal of Confidence" is marbles

Winter is marbles

Every summer I wish for cold weather, having forgotten what winter is really like, and every winter I relearn the valuable lesson that winter is really really cold. It makes me want to fight winter, but my powers are defenseless against it. I want to punch winter in the face, but winter's evil is faceless. I want to take to the streets and protest winter, but it's just too damn cold out. Winter always wins.

Windows mysteriously freeing up 8 GB of hard drive space is marbles

Over the past few months, my free hard drive space had been steadily disappearing. It had gone from about 15 GB down to about 5.5 GB, as of yesterday. Of course, I download a few things here and there, but all the while I've suspected that that degree of leakage could only be attributed to one thing: the arbitrary whims of Windows Vista. Well, today it has appeared to heal itself.

Mysteriously I've regained 8 GB from God-knows-where. Now the task begins to look through my important files (tax records, treasure maps, etc) and see how many of them Windows decided to delete.

Tempting me to buy two outrageous suits at a savings of $1.76 is marbles

This might be as close I will ever come to finding the real life version of the "25, two for 50!" sale that I imagined Mr. Alan's to be running every week on big white T's and the like. (They really said "29, two for 50!" but it sounded like 25)

At first I thought it was the real deal: 49, two for 98! But then I saw the 88 cents. Nevertheless, that savings of $1.76 when you buy two neon orange suits is too good to pass up.

Emusic's recommendation engine is marbles

Come on, emusic. You can do better than this.

Over the past few months, emusic.com has made a series of disjointed changes to its interface, some good, some bad. But the recommendation service on the homepage has to be the worst. Not only do you have to hover over each album cover to see the titles of the albums they've recommended for you, but THEY RECOMMEND ALBUMS YOU'VE ALREADY DOWNLOADED FROM THEM.

Thanks for recommending that Cut Copy record. You're right, it is something I enjoy. I particularly enjoyed it after I downloaded it from your site three months ago.

I'm no programmer, but I have to think that a recommendation engine would entail a series inputs (things you already have) and a series of outputs (things you don't already have). You'd think these two sets would be mutually exclusive, but in emusic's world, you'd be wrong. In fact, not only can an input be an output, but it can be the HIGHEST RECOMMENDED output. Nice work, fellas.

Textbook prices are marbles

These are all books for one class, and they cost $275. The spiral one in the middle is a required "Study Guide" that was written by the professor. It cost $80 and appears to have been printed and bound by a grad student. What a racket.

Insufficient supplies of "meet" are marbles

This should look familiar to anyone who ever ate at the Taco Bell in East Cleveland (aka the Ghetto Bell)

via Philebrity

Using Facebook to hate on a president from the 1830's is marbles

Seriously? Maybe he just wanted to show everyone that he knew what American Lion was about. Hey King George, eat it!!

Cat dumping is marbles

Oh, Philadelphia, only you could have such a problem with people dumping their unwanted cats in local parks that you have to create (what must be) the first such sign of its kind in order to discourage it. Pretty stiff penalty though . . . you cat dumpers best recognize!

I tried to think of a good Lolcat caption for this, but I've decided it's already pretty Lol by itself.

Holy Shit, this is marbles.

This video is just straight up marbles:



I can't figure out how it makes me feel. First I was just really skeeved out by it, but slowly, over the course of the minute, it started to be cute. It isn't anything sexual, but the idea that this woman with fangs and tattoos everywhere has spent time in front of her mirror just figuring out neat little tricks to do with her tongue(s).

via Boingboing

My neighbor only smoking cigarettes on Sundays is marbles

Every Sunday night, without fail, I sit in my apartment and smell cigarette smoke. I know it's coming from my neighbor, but I can't figure out why he only smokes on Sundays. He's there all the damn time (I know because I can hear him), but apparently on Sunday nights he either decides to get in some work on his lung cancer, or he invites over his chain-smoking grandmother who is evidently too feeble to step outside to light up and too addicted to just hold out for a few hours. Because there's no way any sane person would allow anyone else to just sit in his apartment and smoke all night, or would do the same himself on only one day of the week.

Congratulating me for paying my electric bill is marbles

You graduate high school, you get a promotion, you get married, you have a baby, you get congratulations. I get congratulations for paying my electric bill.