1. Add Mentos to a two-liter of Diet Coke manually.
2. Add Mentos to a two-liter of Diet Coke automatically.
3. Repeat step 2.
Result: The Domino Effect
All posts by Phil
What Is the Map For?
Seriously, why do fantasy novels have maps in the front? Johan Jönsson writes about it.
The very idea that maps and fantasy belong together is of course a cliché in itself. Maps of St. Petersburg and Russia would not make much of a difference to a reader of Crime and Punishment even if the person in question had never even heard of Eastern Europe before, and the idea of a map of Britain in a novel by Jane Austen is laughable. A bleak way to look on the phenomenon is that the map is there as a crutch to help our understanding of our beloved heroes’ travels on their world-saving quest, or so that we can understand the strategic movements of armies of good or of evil. This would support the idea of the conservative fantasy reader who wants what he or she knows and who is only comfortable with innovation of the genre as long as it is kept within well-defined boundaries.
Addendum: Strange Maps. (I may have seen this before. In fact, Lars may have blogged on it, but I forget now.)
Rich Language
By way of Frank Wilson, here are a couple posts from Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence. First, he reads mostly poetry and non-fiction lately, in part because he can’t hack bad modern fiction. Second, he describes a “theology of language.”
We Believe It, Don’t We?
Jared lists reasons why we don’t read the Bible.
John S. Zinsser Jr., Populist
“He believed ardently in [Reader’s] Digest’s populist mission of making well-written books with strong stories and interesting characters available to people who might not otherwise be readers,” Stephen Zinsser said of his father, John S. Zinsser Jr., who was editor of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Zinsser died on May 27.
Smuckers Slurps Folgers and Other Stories
Smuckers buys Folgers from Proctor & Gamble and apparently pays no taxes on it. That’s probably a symptom of our wonderfully simple tax code which does it’s best to exact a reasonable fee from every citizen for the services enjoyed by every citizen.
In other news, Chris Ver Wiel’s novel, Starbucks Nation is too weird for James Endrst of for USA TODAY. “A slightly bitter and generally uninteresting brew,” he says.
Last Friday was National Doughnut Day. I missed it, and Krispy Kreme is a walk away from my office. Aww, and I could have gotten a free one too. What’s wrong with me?
Some folks in San Francisco enthuse over their favorite coffee roasters, while people in Bean Town are roasting their own.
The Elephant in the Garden
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a circus elephant quietly wandering through the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. “There’s an elephant in the garden,” he said. She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.
“Elephants don’t live in Kansas,” she said. Then, eyeing the clock, “But thank you for waking me up in time to watch The View.”
Resist 2
Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable will be blocking access to child pornography through their Internet services. Verizon and Time-Warner are in the top five of worldwide Internet access providers. Sprint is one of the big three U.S. wireless providers. I’d like to see AT&T step up to the plate here. Comcast too.
Resist: Resistez
Here’s a bit of awe given to thirty-one Huguenot women who would not reject their faith for 38 years. Karl Olsson writes:
To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh: the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses—to feel all this and still to persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.
Singing Dicey Hymns
Andree Seu talks about singing, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” and other dicey hymns.