On Mashup Monday: Classic spy thriller edition

Okay, so if I have two weaknesses, they're cellos and Matt Damon. (This is, of course, a ridiculous statement; I've openly declared numerous weaknesses, among them shoes, Reese's peanut butter eggs, and Adele's "Someone Like You." But cellos and Matt Damon are definitely in there.) And movie music, too -- I live for a good movie score, and John Powell's dense, driving main theme to The Bourne Identity adds a whole new level of understated tension to the action scenes. (Am I geeking out too much? Just enough? Just enough too much? Call me, John Powell).

Anyway. My point is that if you mash up the main theme to The Bourne Identity and Vivaldi's concerto for two cellos in G minor, I'm likely to... well, geek out much like I just did. Not so much that I actually bought the mp3, I'm afraid, but there's no reason you shouldn't.

The Piano Guys - Code Name Vivaldi

On my dad

Okay, so sometimes, I've found myself inspired to sit down and write an actual letter or card to one of my parents and put it in the actual mail, because it can be nice to have something tangible and handwritten that outlines in great detail exactly how much you're loved. Inevitably, I'll get a call a few days later: "What a sweet card! It made me want to cry. You're such a good daughter. … I'm not dying, am I? Dying and no one's told me?"

So: No, dad, you're not dying. Happy Father's Day.

1. When I was little--sevenish? Eightish?--my mom went back to work as a nurse part-time. Frequently, her wonky hours would leave my dad responsible for getting my brother and me off to school in the morning. This meant that my dad had to learn to curl my hair. There were a few mornings when I'd head off to school with little pink lines across my forehead and the tops of my ears, but it didn't take him long to get the hang of it and curl my hair like a pro.

2. At one point, our family had a weekly night when we'd all sit down in the family room and Dad would read aloud to us. No, I'm quite serious. We did that. We had these big, thick paperback books--Mark Twain and Sherlock Holmes are two that jump out at me--and we'd sit and listen. I spent my entire childhood surrounded by books, and I blame my current reading addiction entirely on my parents.

3. In an an older post about my mom, I mentioned a road trip we all took to northern Virginia in which Dad, Doug, and I drove home together. While we were passing around DJ-ing duties, Doug put in the soundtrack to Avenue Q. It was somewhere around "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" that Doug and I started wondering if it was a good idea to do this with Dad in the car, and by the middle of "My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada," we were holding our breath. I think it was the line "And I can't wait to eat her pussy again!" that set Dad off--laughing so hard he nearly drove off the road.

4. My dad is brilliant at math. I don't just mean that he has a trick for calculating the tip at a restaurant--he remembers every equation and rule and formula he's ever known, he can do mental calculations like a boss, and he almost majored in math in college until he realized that Calculus IV is a horrible, horrible thing to engage in voluntarily. But that's not the kind of thing you leave behind. He and I were in the car, heading home from somewhere I don't recall, and a lottery billboard had recently been updated with the newest bajillion-dollar jackpot. He and I started figuring out odds of winning for various games, estimated payouts, annuities, and bizarre Rain Man-type math, and when we got home we kept coming up with new puzzles for ourselves and solving them. By the time we'd abandoned statistics and started pulling out Mensa puzzle books, we'd been at it for probably two hours. I spent two hours doing math with my Dad. On purpose. And I still catch myself doing math for fun sometimes. It's a sickness.

5. My parents had very different styles of teaching my brother and me to drive a stick shift. Mom explained the process, gave cues as best she could, and jumped and winced a lot whenever we'd grind a gear. Dad would explain the mechanics of the manual transmission and relate it to the act of using the clutch, the gas, and the shifter--which is great, except he'd do it at the same time, while we were driving. So I'd be driving along, approaching a right turn, listening to his calmly delivered instructions whilst piling through brake-clutch-turn-shift-turn-brake-clutch-gas-shit-clutch-gas-clutch-sputter-sputter-sputter… And then Dad would say, "Above all, just fly the plane." And now, 15 years later, I remember 1) how a manual transmission works, 2) what it looks like, 3) how to drive a car that has one, and 4) to just fly the plane.

Love you, Dad.

On the new cola wars

Okay, so in an effort to combat super-sized New Yorkers, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is combating super-sized sodas.

Gas guzzlers, McMansions, Walmart, Costco: If one thing is certain about American consumer culture is that bigger is better, especially if it is cheaper.

So more than a few New Yorkers took it especially hard Thursday when they learned that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wanted to take away their plus-size sodas in restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, arenas and mobile food carts, as a way, he said, of fighting obesity.

Under the new rule, grocery stores and convenience stores will still be able to carry large-quantity sodas, but places that serve food (rather than just selling it) are restricted to 16 ounces at a time. It doesn't restrict a person's ability to chug down those same 32 ounces in one sitting--it just makes costs the person more money and more hassle. And it also doesn't restrict the size of diet drinks (which can reduce satiation), fruit juices (which can have as much sugar as sodas), or alcohol (which can pickle your liver and make you kill someone with your car or call your ex at 3:00 a.m. and beg him to take you back), because apparently those aren't public health risks.

On the Good, the Bad, and the Friday Random Ten: Final frontier edition

Okay, so I was really sad to see the space shuttle program go. I know NASA has its reasons for backing off of manned space flight, but for me--a child of the 80s--that's just what the space program is about. Huge, powerful telescopes and rovers on Mars are super cool, and I get a thrill every time astronomers report the discovery of a new celestial structure, but space exploration has to involve people in jumpsuits doing slow backflips in outer space and eating pudding out of midair while talking to second-graders live via video feed. I wanted to be Sally Ride.

That's why the science-fiction-y concept of commercial space flight is such a thrill to me--even if the government doesn't feel compelled to put humans back into space, private companies (hopefully) will be able to pick up the slack in terms of discovery and general childlike wonder. And this morning, I got to watch via live feed as the SpaceX capsule Dragon docked with the International Space Station. The Boy and I both remember the thrill of watching rocket launches when we were little, and we were sitting rapt the entire time as the docking happened in real time, right in front of us. It made me hopeful for the the future, and not a lot of things really do that a lot.

What's good (for the week ending 5/25):

- The Replacements. I'd spent enough time quoting this movie that I finally managed to convince The Boy to sit down and watch it, even though he doesn't care about football or Keanu Reeves. But of course he loved it, and now when I say, "Get the ball! Get the ball! I'm comin' for ya, blue eyes!" he laughs because he knows what I'm talking about, not because I seem slightly unstable and it's best to humor me.

- Google Chrome

- Otis Redding

- Kayaking. I'd never done it before, but The Boy bought a kayak, because it was half-off, and who can resist a half-price kayak? and I thought it would be fun to try. Dude. That's the most intense upper-body workout known to man, and it's transportation, and it puts you right next to the water on a hot day.

- Nutrisse Nourishing Color Foam in Light Intense Auburn

On auspicious comings-out

Okay, so I've never had to come out of any kind of a closet, really, so I don't know if the preferred response from friends would be "yay!" or "okay" or "yeah, dude, we knew." But one guy's coming out post on Facebook lands pretty much where I'd want to be.

Read the entire thing at the link above (post title: Guy comes out of closet on Facebook to friends who are entirely too geeky to care), of course, but I shall provide a few highlights.

The gentleman posts:

I've been in the closet for far too long, so here goes: I'm gay. I've known, in retrospect, for about eight years. This is the easiest way for me to deal with it; I apologize if anyone feels affronted that I didn't tell them in person.

As proof that this is not an account hack, I have posted a somewhat longer post on my blog, at http://[REDACTED].

His friends respond encouragingly.

Good on you man :)

...

takes guts to broadcast this

Congrats

I like the proof of no hack. Well anticipated. I didn't expect it but well done for getting it out. Must be a relief. It must have sucked to hold it in all this time. Could you possibly link a style sheet to that html? I hate bland markup.

ROFL @[REDACTED], "could you please make your blog post that says you're gay look prettier".

Ha ha, I swear I wasn't mocking. I just work on asp.net stuff all day and I've grown sick of ugly sites.

...

Not that your site is ugly. Just could do with some text alignment and maybe a background pic.

Good advice, especially if [REDACTED] decides to come out of the closet again, he can do so in style and elegance. @[REDACTED], perhaps we pretend you didn't come out, and then you have a few days to do a site overall, and then come out again and we'll asses the creativeness ;)

Go read the entire thing--the entire thing! Promise me!--and wish you had friends as cool as Green and Red.

On homophonia

Okay, so I'm a word Nazi. (I know, I know--take a moment to clutch your pearls… Moment's over.) I work in writing. I come by it honestly. And there are a few mistakes I've seen from people who otherwise tend to have their stuff grammatically and semantically together. George Orwell called the phenomenon "dead metaphors": when a common phrase loses all context and becomes just words arranged in a pattern, so it's easy to sub in a wrong word for a right one and end up with a both virulent and self-sustaining case of incorrectness.

Read on to learn about a few common mistakes. (I'd say you should read on if you suspect you're making mistakes, but you probably don't even know you're making them, or else you'd stop doing it.)

You don't reign someone in. It doesn't have anything to do with royalty or reigning over anyone. (Besides, that would be "reigning over," not "reigning in.") it's reining someone in, like they're a horse and you're pulling back on the reins to restrain them.

The horse was getting kind of crazy, so I reined him in.
Congress needs to rein in its out-of-control spending habits.

Similarly, you don't give someone free reign. This one's a more understandable mistake--someone could, theoretically, be free to reign--but it's still wrong. It's about horses again.

I gave the horse free rein so he could jump the fence unhindered.
Atkins doesn't allow you to eat dessert, but you do get free rein to attack the carving station.

You don't tow the line. You aren't a ski boat. (Or maybe you are a ski boat. I don't know your life.) You toe the line: Someone has drawn a line that you're meant to line up on, as in the military, and by putting your toes on it, you're doing as directed or performing as is expected of you.

If you don't toe the line, I'm going to make you peel potatoes.
The boss has laid down her expectations for you--you'd better start toeing the line, or you're going to get fired.

On a squirrel trying to get a--wait, no, he seems to be okay

Okay, so there's nothing more shocking than public nudity, but some folks are just shameless. They just don't care. They don't care whose moments they're spoiling, or which impressionable eyes might be watching.

Shameful brazenness hidden behind the jump for the sake of the innocent.

On finding work

Okay, so this one is a short one, and it goes out to Big Bro, who is now blissfully employed after more than a year of being-laid-offness: Jobs listing say the unemployed need not apply.

Think it's just a misleading headline? Oh, if only.

Hundreds of job opening listings posted on Monster.com and other jobs sites explicitly state that people who are unemployed would be less attractive applicants, with some telling the long-term unemployed to not even bother with applying.

The New York Times' Catherine Rampell said she found preferences for the already employed or only recently laid off in listings for "hotel concierges, restaurant managers, teachers, I.T. specialists, business analysts, sales directors, account executives, orthopedics device salesmen, auditors and air-conditioning technicians." Even the massive University of Phoenix stated that preference, but removed the listings when the Times started asking questions.

So there it is. All of you unemployed folk who are still unemployed, know that your ongoing unemployment is just a result of you being... unemployed. If it makes you feel any better... Nah, I got nothin'.

On the Fourth Amendment (we hardly knew ye)

Okay, so the police get to come into your home whenever they want, for whatever reason. If you got up to go to the bathroom or make a sandwich and missed that, I'll repeat it: The police get to come into your home whenever they want, for whatever reason. This new and exciting twist to our Fourth Amendment comes as a gift from our very own U.S. Supreme Court, who decided in an 8-to-1 ruling that the suspicion that evidence is being destroyed inside is sufficient cause for the police to enter without a search warrant.

Before I continue: At no point during the discussion of this development will I accept or even debate the argument "If you're not doing anything illegal, you don't have to worry." I do have to worry, and I get to worry. My constitutional protection from unreasonable search and seizure doesn't come with the condition that I not be doing anything naughty inside--it's absolute, and the only acceptable exception involves the serious consideration of a judge followed by a search warrant. I may be doing something legal but private inside--crafting a politically controversial manifesto, writing deeply disturbing fiction with terrorist fantasies and deviant sexual themes, dressing up in a rubber suit and touching myself in front of Mythbusters. If cops knock on my door and yell "Police, police, police," hear scuffling inside, and charge in to find me sumo wrestling naked in my living room with a grown man dressed like a baby, that's not okay. Adult baby sumo isn't illegal, but it's a rather private activity and not something that anyone gets to see if I don't want them to.*

(NB: Top search terms for this blog are fixing to get bizarre.)

On the new, improved dogs of war

Okay, so cry “Havoc,” and what is let slip will fuck your shit directly up. Meet the Navy SEAL dogs, every bit as badass as their human counterparts and twice as anerable. These fuzzy sonsabitches can sniff out bombs and baddies, parachute from high altitudes, take out targets with their armor-piercing titanium teeth (a bit much, I admit), and warm the ever-living fuck out of your feet on a cold night.

Yes, part of me is of the opinion that a dog’s job should, if at all possible, involve no more stress or danger than rug burn from all the rolling around and tummy rubs—then again, I feel that way about people, too. But as highly trained military teammates go, you can’t do a lot better than an armored, night-vision German Shepherd. And the image of a SEAL pup strapped to a dude’s chest as he rappels into Osama bin Laden’s compound and sniffs the bastard out makes me both awed and tickled, particularly when it’s followed by the image of that same dog wallering around in the yard and then getting a cookie.

The United States War Dogs Association is working to get war medals for these cuddly commandos, which is cool since they take just as much risk as two-legged soldiers and the humans don’t have to attack bad guys using just their teeth. And you can even send the dogs care packages, since warrior dogs like Kongs, too. (No, really, apparently they do.) Now you’ll have to excuse me, because I feel it’s time to cuddle the hell out of Dave, who would make an excellent war dog except that he’s never shown any kind of aggression at all, he has a tendency to lick strangers, he’s solely food-motivated, he hates water, and his huge Tina Turner tail would immediately give away his location. Otherwise, though, he’s an animal.

On nonperishable food snobs

Okay, so if I know one thing about the hundreds upon hundreds of victims left without any form of shelter or source of food by the mile-wide tornado that scored a 200-mile path across the Southeast, it’s that they deserve the absolute shittiest shit you can give them in donated food. Three-year-old Chef Boyardee? Bam. Whatever’s in that can with the label off? Go for it. Beans? More beans? Who doesn’t love more beans?!

And how do I know it’s wrong to offer healthy food to people standing next to the rubble of their own lives? Because the awesome folks at Gawker let me know.

Sure, you’ve lost everything and your entire town has been obliterated by one of the most devastating series of tornadoes in history. Doesn’t mean you can’t still eat smart, local and organic!

Magic City Post, a lifestyles website from Birmingham, offers “25 ideas for non-perishable items that will provide high-quality proteins, good carbs and health fats.” It’s just something to consider when you’re loading up that box of canned food to bring to the shelter.

Gawker’s Seth Abramovitch, who I’m sure came all the way down to ‘Bama to take those disaster pictures himself, because he’s obviously just busting out with concern, offers a mockable short list of items in his post. A few others that he seemed to miss:

1. Canned or pouched tuna
2. Canned salmon
3. Canned chicken
4. Canned black beans
5. Canned chickpeas or lentils
...
8. Smart Balance or natural peanut butter
...
13. Shelf-stable milk
14. Oatmeal and grits
...
17. Herbs, spices and spice blends
18. Canola, olive, flax seed (linseed) or peanut oil
19. Lundberg’s Rice Chips and Chip’ins Popcorn Chips
20. Minute white rice
21. Raisins and other dried fruit
22. Olive oil, mayonnaise and other condiments
23. Wheat crackers

Look at those stupid, pretentious foodies, trying to give people... healthy proteins. And milk. And dried fruit. And rice. And oil and seasonings and condiments to make their nourishment a little less bland. Those... bastards?

On Mashup Monday: Hope edition

Okay, so news gets worse, not better. There's a point where miraculous discoveries are made and every crumbled house is a potential gift. Then there's a point where that's not realistic and every house contains either nothing or worse. It sounds fatalistic and depressing, I know, particularly coming from someone who didn't have as much as a broken window from the weather, but the death toll topped 300 today and it's just a lot.

K'naan/Matisyahu/Akon/Michael Jackson/The Fugees - Songs of Hope


God bless the families and friends who've lost loved ones, the ones still working for loved ones, and the volunteers trying to help make it better.

On the tragedy next door

Okay, so while I was writing that last, lighthearted post, north Alabama was being demolished by more than 100 tornadoes. I literally had no idea it was going on--our home is completely untouched, and all evening we barely felt a stiff wind, while video shows a tornado tearing through town just north of us. Debris from Tuscaloosa has been found in Birmingham. Fifty-three people--at current count--have died. Entire towns--Hackleburg, Point Pleasant--no longer exist.

I have absolutely no idea what to do. (I'm kind of worthless in the face of natural disaster, it would seem.) But the Magic City post does, thank God, and I encourage you all to follow Wade's suggestions for donating money and, if you're local, time and in-kind items. Those of us lucky--and let's stay with "lucky" and not "blessed"--to avoid that kind of injury need to step up and do whatever we can to ease the way of those who weren't so lucky.

On elaborate millinery and gin o'clock

Okay, so monarchy doesn't do much for me. Weddings I can take or leave. And I haven't really paid that much attention to the British royal family since Prince Harry took over as The Hot One. But what do I love? Pageantry. And hats. And this Friday is going to be the unofficial inaugural International Pageantry and Hats Day as the once-hot Prince William marries the patient and enviably lanky Kate Middleton.

Now, I'm not going to actually be watching the proceedings--ain't no way I'm getting up at 3:00 a.m. to watch news coverage of the not-wedding part of a wedding, and I won't be able to watch the blessed event itself from my desk at work. But I will be enjoying a scone and a cup of tea in the couple's honor, and I will be assembling every available household item into a fascinator that can be seen from space and wearing it to all of my Friday meetings.

In the meantime, here's what will entertain one:

- News coverage of the wedding day by the BBC

- Kate Middleton for the Win. (Why is my champagne hand empty?)

- The honest-to-God, absolutely for-real Queen of England's Twitter feed.

- The Go Fug Yourself recap of Lifetime's original romance, Mother, May I Sleep With Royalty: William & Kate: The William & Kate Story: Inspired by True Events.

- My plans for my own eventual wedding, including a dancing archbishop, a leapfrogging groom, and the now-hot Prince Harry.


And now one must retire to pour oneself a drink and find curling ribbon and feathery cat toys to adorn one's hatband.

On Friday on Fallon on Friday (on Sunday)

Okay, so here's the backstory: Rebecca Black is a 14-year-old girl in California who's into music. A friend of hers told her about this vanity record label in LA, Rebecca thought it sounded cool, and her mom coughed up $4,000 to produce a music video. The song, "Friday," has since gotten millions of views on YouTube, and charming critiques have gotten thrown around using words like "the worst song ever."

First of all: Not the worst song ever. Hardly. Not in a world where "Yummy Yummy Yummy" went gold.

Second: It really is bad.



Third: The Jimmy Fallon video above is really funny, mostly because they brought in Stephen Colbert, Taylor Hicks, the Roots, and the New York Knicks dancers for their own (let's admitted, pretty crappy) performance to... mock a 14-year-old girl.

On Japan

Okay, so part of me has been wanting to comment on the situation in Japan (and I use "situation" to represent my complete inability to process and/or summarize events since March 11). I feel it's worthy of note, not just because of the tragedy but also because of the reactions inside and outside of Japan. But at the same time, I don't know if I'm up to making that note, because I live in Alabama and drive a blog full of snark and the mere fact that I'm observing this right now seems kind of bigger than and beyond me.

I think I can handle good news, though, so I'll try to deal in some of that.

- As of one week ago, 91 countries and nine international organizations have offered support in the form of money, emergency materials, and hands-on assistance for rescue and relief.

- Two days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, a 60-year-old man was rescued from his rooftop 10 miles off the coastline. The next day, a four-month-old baby thought lost was found. The day after that, a 70-year-old woman was rescued from her home. Small miracles, yes, but they mean the world.

- In Arahama, a dog stayed by its injured companion until both were rescued. (And they were both rescued and treated, and now they are recovering and being cared for.)

- And if nothing else, we can take comfort in the fact that efforts are being made to keep the Fukishima reactor from pooping.



Donate, specifically to relief efforts in Japan or to general relief funds to be distributed as needed:

American Red Cross
Save the Children
Doctors Without Borders
Global Giving

(Screen any charity to which you're considering a donation with the Better Business Bureau.)

On dickitude

Okay, so currently, The Boy is celebrating the day with his fourth uninterrupted hour of WoW. My celebration was going to involve a considerable amount of fried chicken and not sharing, but some unexpected dental work this morning has left me unchewing; I might have to go the too-much-ice-cream-and-farting-under-the-covers-all-night route instead.

However you choose to observe it, Practically Harmless wishes you a very merry, very obnoxious Be a Dick Day.

On more cuteness--because there will always be more cuteness

Okay, so commenter B says: “But now you have used up all your saved cutesy links. What will you post tomorrow?”


Bazinga.

On a visit to the warehouse: Aww, Munchkin edition

Okay, so I want you to know that even during my unintentional and oh-so-brief blogging hiatus, I was still thinking of y'all every day. I have all these links that I've filed away as something that I need to blog about, and now I have… a whole bunch of outdated links. (Wah-waaah.)

But they're still awesome! So here's your first link dump, featuring every cute thing that's happened in forever.

Gawker: Black Bear Feasts Inside Home, Rescues Stuffed Bear On Way Out

A black bear on Tuesday walked into a New Hampshire home, ate two pears, some grapes, took a sip from a fishbowl and grabbed a stuffed bear on the way out of the house. The stuffed bear was later recovered.

"Don't fear, my glossy-eyed compatriot! We're making it out of here together!"


Jezebel: Adorable Marines Rescue Adorable Kittens In Afghanistan; Cuddling Ensues

Brian Chambers, Chris Berry and Aaron Shaw have adopted kittens they found while on duty - and sent them back to the States to wait for them with the marines' families (with the aid of these groups.) Says Chambers, "At only 3 weeks old, their mother had disappeared and they were left alone to live rough and fend for themselves like the other cats in this area. We looked after them both and they lived in a box in the office, after a week they were allowed to roam around during the day and sleep with us in the hooch at night."

PFC Fluffy McCuddlepants, reporting for duty! (Kitteny salute)

On the dawning of the Age of Capricorn

Okay, so what's funny about this? I'll give you a hint: It's not the fact that ostensibly reasonable people are freaking out at the mere mention of a change in Zodiac signs.

The popular astrologer Susan Miller called the news "ridiculous." In an interview with ABC News, she said, "We've known about this for ages. The constellations don't suggest what's coming up, it's the planets! The constellations are a measuring device."

Jesus Christ, people! They're a measuring device! God, why am I the only person in this whole damn article who understands the science of astrology?

I need my own show.