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.