mental_floss Blog » Becky

Blog of Glory

Becky — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:11:44 +0000

Was it a sign that while flossing last night, my gums started bleeding? No but really: as of tomorrow I’ll be handing in my mental_floss jersey, perhaps to resurface at some point, in some avuncular (why not?!) capacity. So to celebrate the new era, here’s a pensive shot of my parents’ husky (who is looking for a home if you live in MI–and preferably on a lot of land) & here are some random “final blog entries” still glimmering somewhere out there:

Wednesday, May 9th

Final blog post…recap time.

Wow, this semester has flown by fast! I’ve had fun maintaining this blog and exploring different aspects of internet marketing… I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and following this blog (all 4ish readers of you…) over the course of the semester – hopefully you found something interesting along the way.

*****

9/27/07

Since I’m leaving, I would like to give out “awards” to those who actually have a place with this userpage:

Nicest Member: xdude81: He and I wouldn’t get in fights and he actually was a nice guy all the time.

Runner-Ups: -SpikyBlueHero-, SonicNinja (I forgot the numbers), sbfullmer, sho (man, what comes after that? 90?)

Favorite newbie: Okelion (is that how you spell it? Or is it Oeklion? Me forget): He isn’t exactly new anymore…but when he was new…I thought I did help him out a lot

Coolest member: DoctorEggman: He seemed cool. And he had a couple of funny youtube videos. Too bad he didn’t really care about my blogs…in fact, you get “Coolest member who didn’t care about me.”

*****

And then there’s Sarah Hepola’s explanation of why she shut down her blog…And the evidence that she’s back.

*****

There was also some concern back in ‘06 that Dave Winer of scriptingnews.com was going to quit blogging, but he’s still around; though, he does have what seems to me the best farewell speech:

“Blogging doesn’t need me anymore. It’ll go on just as well, maybe even better, with some new space opened up for some new things. But more important to me, there will be new space for me.”

Touché! Thanks everyone…I’m going to go join my foster cat (pictured) now–he’s throwing me a last hurrah, which will likely be intense. Feel free to post sweet nothings on my still-myspace-after-all-these-years profile.

Consequences of a less than punctual life

Becky — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:17:13 +0000

I’ve encountered my fair share of punctuality stories–tales of extreme punishments & horrid ultimatums. I’ve even lived through a few of my own–like the time I was ten minutes late to high school volleyball practice & the coach just smiled and told me to take a seat in the bleachers while the rest of the team ran “suicide sprints” as punishment. There was nothing quite like that; I could just feel all my meager social collateral evaporating.

But the most egregious story of all came from someone I recently met, who told me that a habitually tardy actor on the set of a film once begged him to break his fingers because he needed a good–and verifiable–excuse for being late, or else the director would fire him. My friend tried to talk him out of it, but the actor wouldn’t relent, and my friend found himself breaking this guy’s fingers: two, to be safe. The actor kept his job…But who knows to what lengths he’ll go next time! Elsewhere, Ray Emery, goalie for the Ottawa Senators, is being “fined substantially” after arriving four (4!) minutes late to practice: “Emery could be docked up to one-187th of his $2.75 million salary, roughly $14,700.” Have you ever been punished for tardiness in an extremely profound, draconian, or just plain avant-garde way?

Impromtu jury duty

Becky — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:03:55 +0000

Judging from Maggie’s How To Get Out of Jury Duty & David’s dispatches from jury duty (maybe: “How to Get Into Jury Duty”?), we at mental_floss definitely haven’t shied away from how to cope with the litigious life. I haven’t actually had to/had the pleasure to serve on a Los Angeles jury yet, but I did cast the syndicated “Jury Duty” television show last year…Maybe there’s some viable conflict of interest there that would get me off the hook.

But at least I haven’t yet encountered “emergency jury duty”–as the people of Greeley, CO have recently:

After 161 out of 200 people failed to show up for jury duty, the Greeley courts resorted to what they refer to as “emergency jury duty subpoenas” — picking 50 random people off the street and forcing them to participate in jury duty. Citizens were approached on the sidewalk, in the supermarket and even at the local gym.

But these people didn’t just happily volunteer their sweaty armpits and grocery bags full of spoiling milk to sit through a riveting trial. Instead, they were threatened with contempt of court citations if they refused to drop the day’s plans for a seat in the jury.

And that’s the third time in the last two months they’ve had to launch such surprise attacks! The best quote was from Karen McMillan:

By early Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 people had reported to emergency jury duty, many perturbed that they had to drop everything to possibly serve on a jury.

“I have like 5 tons of stuff to do at work,” McMillan said.

Elsewhere in ghost towns: Kolmanskop

Becky — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:30:45 +0000

Every time all my favorite people leave town, you’re liable to find me whining about how “this place is a ghost town,” etc. That feeling either fades or it doesn’t, but if ghosts were sandmen, they’d be all over this town:

Kolmanskop is a ghost town in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port of Lüderitz. In 1908, Luederitz was plunged into diamond fever and people rushed into the Namib desert hoping to make an easy fortune. Within two years, a town, complete with a casino, school, hospital and exclusive residential buildings, was established in the barren sandy desert.

But when diamond sales floundered post WWI, the exodus began, and by the fifties the dunes started repossessing what had been left behind. I wonder if there’s a way to get a modest dune installation in my bedroom. It’s dramatic, sure, but it also looks terribly comfortable, and isn’t the Tempur-Pedic craze just about passé now, anyway? Link via Fogonazos.

Ships, cats, et al. in bottles

Becky — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:09:32 +0000

So the only other thing I’d like to add to Miss Cellania’s Weird Week-in-Review is actually from a few weeks back, but still pertinent–the New Jersey kitten who was found with its head stuck inside a bottle. Which was, with the pragmatic assistance of Crisco, safely removed. But the idea of something–almost anything–inside a bottle is practically always riveting. SD Jones runs a great folk art site that boasts an impressive index of artwork in bottles, including miniature meat markets (pictured!), canons (pictured!) crucifixes, tools, and wishing wells. Ships may enjoy more popularity as objects inserted into bottles, but they were by no means the first. The SIB (Ships in Bottles) predecessor was the “patience bottle,” which usually depicted Christian tableaux, or mining and smelting scenes. Andreas Lier explains the advent of the first SIB, dated in the late 18th century:

Those ship models were mostly intended as presents for the sweetheart or the family. Sometimes they have also been used to settle debts. As many sailors had been Christians one or the other may have seen “patience bottles” before. One of the sailers had possibly then decided to give an especially valuable present to his sweetheart and built the first SIB.

Workplace bullies

Becky — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:07:04 +0000

Where was “Bully Police USA” when I needed them? My self-defense training growing up was limited to my father coaching me to “hit back” or crush hypothetical scenarios with some zinger (outside of the I=rubber; you=glue genus). Well, at the Bully Police USA headquarters, you can check if your state has anti-bullying laws (32 states do). Among those 32, the only state that received an “A++” was Delaware. If you were bullied in Delaware, you probably won’t be anymore…The site also claims that:

90% of students felt being bullied caused social, emotional, or academic problems. (Studies show, both bullies & victims have problems later in life because of bullying.
69% of students believe schools respond poorly to reports of bullying.
Three out of four students report that they have been bullied.
Each month over 250,000 students report being physically attacked.
The five worst states for bullying, according to surveys, are: (46) Connecticut, (47) Maine, (48) Washington, (49) Montana & (50) New Hampshire.

And then there’s the Workplace Bullying Institute, advocating ways to “help you get on track to end your misery.” The site includes a link to a “U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey,” whose results claim that “72% of bullies are bosses; 55% of those bullied are rank-and-file workers.” Well, since we’ve recently discussed tyrannical bosses, what do you think: are bosses more likely to be bullies? And if you’ve encountered workplace bullying, have you had underwhelming experiences seeking help from HR?

Party in the fuselage! This one’s on the Contras…

Becky — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:16:44 +0000

A friend of mine just returned from Costa Rica, where stray dogs act as sherpas & if you want to get your drink on in a Fairchild C-123 cargo plane–a vestige from the Iran-Contra affair–you can do so at a place called El Avion. It’s a bar, it’s a coffee shop, it’s a store, and it is, my friend reports back, amazing! The Hotel Costa Verde acquired the plane for $3k in 2000, and details the journey here:

We then disassembled and shipped the pieces of the Iran-Contra relic to Quepos. From San Jose, the fuselage was shipped via ocean ferry (from Caldera to Quepos) because it was 10 inches too wide for the antiquated Chiquita Banana railroad bridges! After hauling all seven aircraft sections up the Manuel Antonio hill, the C-123 finally found its current cliff-side resting-place.

Bars in places that used to be totally-not-bars are always fun. Barmacy, the NYC staple of yesteryear’s bar culture, was named after the equally beloved 14th Street pharmacy that once occupied its space. LA’s Bordello used to be, yep, just that. Has anyone ever been to El Avion, or otherwise patronized a place that was formerly a very different kind of establishment?

The allure of cities with numbers in their names

Becky — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:13:19 +0000

Yes, there’s something transparently cool about Truth or Consequences, NM, or Hell, MI, but there’s coolness AND precision in cities bearing numbers in their names:

Twentynine Palms, CA
Three Notch, AL
Two Rivers, AK
Seven Trees, CA
Four Corners, MT
Five Points, NC
Seven Oaks, TX
Ninety Six, SC

Last month my boyfriend and I loitered in Twentynine Palms. We tried to count the palms, but they were, somehow, scarce. Still a jolly old freezing desert time and I fully plan on going back there for my 29th birthday. (I’m sure I could make a local bartender groan over the originality of that one.) Anyone able to report from any of the above cities? And if I’ve left some out (which I know I have–every state seems to have a “Two Rivers”), would love to hear…

What is a dandy?

Becky — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:49:34 +0000

So if you haven’t heard, it’s that time again: The New Yorker is holding their 2008 Eustace Tilley Contest. Tilley, drawn by Rea Irvin (also responsible for the headline type) in 1925, has been famously rendered by the likes of Chris Ware, Robert Crumb, William Wegman, and others. The deadline for submissions is January 24th, and you can check out the competition here. In 2005, Louis Menand wrote about Tilley’s evolution and eventual deconstruction.

New Yorker readers have become used to him, but it’s not much clearer eighty years later what he’s supposed to represent. Beginning in 1994, efforts were made to do something to his image, which seems, after all, to have little connection to New York City. (Irvin derived it from an 1834 drawing of a Count D’Orsay, “man of Fashion in Early Victorian Period,” that he found reproduced in the costume section of the Encyclopædia Britannica.)

Hmm…If mental_floss were to have a Eustace Tilley, I’m trying to imagine what he would look like. He’d certainly surpass the cloying smarm-and-brimstone of Pocket Change’s Richard Nouveau. But here’s my primary question: it’s great that The New Yorker at once solicits and sends up their target demo in Tilley, but all I want to know is (& since we’ve covered the vicissitudes of nerd-dom to death): what, really, is a dandy after all?

Hunting with Dad

Becky — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:42:45 +0000

Postal service in my neighborhood isn’t very consistent, so it can make for some interesting deliveries. The other day, a neighbor two blocks over walked to my door to personally re-direct a newsletter she also receives. It was touching, and perhaps something that would only happen in a small town or at least on the West Coast.

And just yesterday I arrived home to see the February issue of Field & Stream on the kitchen table, and was saddened a little to realize it was merely mis-delivered & if I were a good neighbor I’d head right back out the door and return. Which I did, but not before sitting down to read a cute FOB section in which readers submitted pictures of their sons tagging along for the hunt. Took me back to my rural roots, where a good third of school kids had November 15th off for the first day of deer season, and the best parties always seemed to happen at someone’s deer camp. But thankfully that whole experience has been streamlined into “Dear Camp: the Musical.” I’m told I went pheasant hunting when I was three, but ended up sabotaging everything when I insisted on charging the pheasants, shrieking to my dad & co. for back-up. Were any of you ever recruited for hunts w/your fathers or others?