Texting while driving

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 3 of every 4 states that have enacted a ban on texting while driving have seen crashes actually go up rather than down. 

It’s hard to pin down exactly why this is the case, but experts believe it is a result of people trying to avoid getting caught in states with stiff penalties. Folks trying to keep their phones out of view will often hold the phone much lower, below the wheel perhaps, in order to keep it out of view. That means the driver’s eyes are looking down and away from the road.

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution. 

Rich kids of instagram

Caption: Ugh, decisions! Wearing #balenciaga + #givenchy and maybe some #louboutins?

And: I love you daddy. You make all my biggest wishes into reality. #Pink #Bentle


More here http://richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com/.

No, YOU are sexier

Minka Kelly. Remember her?

She is a prolific Twitter user, with 200k followers and over 1300 tweets, mostly pictures of her looking gorgeous while participating in mundane (hanging out with her dog) and exciting ("The Great Wall of China Y'all!") activities. Good for her, I would do the same thing.

She recently posted a photo from her friend's wedding

The most stunning bride @emilyandmeritt celebrating the big day @alifroley @minkakelly and @minkakelly #bestweddingever twitter.com/TheMandyMoore/…

Her friend is beautiful but do you know who is the most stunning person there? You, Minka.

How do I know that? BECAUSE YOU WERE CHOSEN AS ESQUIRE MAGAZINE'S SEXIEST WOMAN! LAST YEAR!

I am sure your big boned friend enjoys subtle backhand compliments to remind her who she is standing next to.

And yes, Mandy Moore tweeted it first and Minka re-tweeted it. 

Beefsteak

Courtesy of ProudAssholeBiker:

A rite of gluttony that waged war on the livers of politicians and gangsters alike, the Beefsteak thrived in the saloons and political halls of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The menu was always the same — sliced steak served on toast, au jus or gravy, and all the beer you could drink. Knives, forks, plates and napkins were forbidden. The life of the party was the guest who let out the most appreciative grunts, drank the most beer, and consumed the most steak.

http://beefsteak2012.com/

Favorite Steve Jobs story

So I have to stop here – it’s a Kodak moment – something you want to remember. It’s a beautiful Fall evening in Palo Alto. Your car’s broken. A formally dressed close friend of Steve Jobs is under the hood working on your engine. You are talking with Steve’s absolutely lovely and down to earth wife. Steve is in the car, with his kid, trying to crank it.

Read more here.

WTF did I just watch?

Everyone is familiar with The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's classic with Jack Nicholson playing a man descending into violence and insanity. Great movie.

It turns out there is a greater-than-you'd-think number of people who believe The Shining is really about something completely* unrelated to the plot: the moon landing hoax or about the Holocaust or about the Native American genocide or something very different from the story. This way of looking at art is sometimes called "Immersion Criticism" and represents a philosophy that small, ancillary details "are infinitely more important than the surface dialogue or the superficial narrative. And it's not just a matter of noticing things other people miss, because that can be done by anyone who's perceptive; it's a matter of noticing things that the director included to indicate his true, undisclosed intention."

Here's one short example:



The following video is longer but much better as it has clips and not just still. I recommend watching a few minutes of this one.



You can read more about Immersion Criticism here.

*Apologies for using so many emphases.

Dating for Randians

You are probably familiar with Ayn Rand. She created Objectivism, a philosophy that the individual matters above all else and that concepts such as sacrifice and public interest are not only wrong but evil.

Objectivism has been part of the recent discussions due to Paul Ryan's stated devotion to Rand's ideas. Alan Greenspan has been a proponent of her ideas for decades. At least he was until the financial crises when he said that recent developments show the flaws of self-regulating markets of laissez-faire capitalism.

Objectivists are proudly individualistic: "[They] love themselves. And that's not a masturbation joke — they quite literally love the idea of themselves as heroically conquering individuals who owe the world nothing but their own glorious presence."

So what happens when you create a dating site for Objectivists? You get profiles such as:

- "I am rational, integrated, and effacious. So far, I've never met a person who lives up to the standard I hold for myself."

- "Hanging out east of Seattle and enjoying the cold weather and constant rain. Not really enjoying the hipsters and socialists, but if you avoid the coffee shops you won't have to talk to them much."

- "I stand proud, erect, fearless. My vision is power, and a challenge to the rest of the world, my mind is its source."

- "People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don't know very many)."

Sex symbol

Tom Jones has long been known as a sex symbol, a man who has caused women to throw panties on stage over many decades. 

Wikipedia says that "at the height of his fame, Jones has admitted to sleeping with up to 250 groupies a year."
If you don't understand why, here you go:



Speaking of panties, most recently "Tom Jones has appealed to his female fans to stop throwing their underwear at him on stage."

Hat tip to reddit.com

New song from The Rolling Stones

Actually not that bad.

Hollywood Bowl?

Is Hollywood Bowl the perfect concert location?

Probably. Tucked away in Santa Monica Mountains, it's a beautiful venue where bringing your own booze is actually encouraged.

For its first two decades the Bowl was the home exclusively to symphonies and sopranos, but that all changed when Frank Sinatra performed with the L.A. Philharmonic on August 14, 1943, marking its first performance of a pop musician. The ensuing decades saw musicians of all genres, from Brahms and Bernstein, to the Jackson Five and Juanes. The Beatles played on August 23, 1964, before a hysterical sold out crowd who screamed so loud that no one could hear the music (including the performers themselves).

Read more about it. 

How to eat a cupcake like a gentleman

Courtesy of LilAvocadoLover

Collapsible Cupcake & Cake Carrier (Google Affiliate Ad)

Commonalities

David Foster Wallace had a well known love for words. He kept a vocabulary list of words he found interesting and worth remembering. Murenger - wall maker; minim - tiny or insignificant portion; and so on. More here.

In another article about DFW, I ran across a quiz he gave his undergrad students.  

WIN A LUNCH WITH DAVE, SPARKLING CONVERSATIONALIST, WELL-MANNERED EATER, BY SIMPLY IDENTIFYING WHAT ALL THE FOLLOWING WORDS HAVE IN COMMON:

Foreign
Big
Diminutive
Incomprehensible
Untyped
Pulchritude
S-less
Unwritten
Indefinable
Misspelled
Vulgar
High-class
Invisible
Unvowelled
Obscene 

I love this assignment and I love the (most likely) answer.

Why Snoop Dogg is not voting for Romney

Because "bitch got a dancing horse"

He is voting for Obama because "Michelle got a fat ass."

More below.

Portland experience

My friend, HeReallyIsThatNice, moved to Portland and sent me an email about his initial impressions of the city. I am sharing an excerpt as it is one of the more compelling emails that has recently hit my inbox.

Portland itself is…well, simply weird. Portlandia is more caricature than mockery - there is deep truth in all the show's strangeness. It's hipster-style fashion with midwest friendliness. Even with those in outrageous outfits, you get the sense that they aren't normal folks wearing meticulously crafted crazy but cool shit - instead, they're just weird people wearing weird stuff. And if you dress like a square, then whatever. 

The other evening, we were returning a couple power tools to a tool-lending library. Awesome already. Sadly, we were too late, but we came across two people hanging out in the same building - one dude knitting and a tall quiet tattooed girl. Unbelievably nice, and turns out they were running a kitchen tool lending library, so borrowed a dehydrator - 5 minutes before another woman came rushing in looking for a dehydrator for her on-the-vine grapes. Just crazy!
So, I am starting to understand why people love Portland. A big metro area, with midwestern manners, suffused with a delightful quirkiness. People stop for pedestrians, slow down and accommodate bicycles, and seem afraid of using the horn.

In the past couple weeks, we have also 1. toured the Full Sail brewery 2. picked peaches in a major orchards barely an hour out of town 3. had a happy hour cocktail in a 32oz jar 4. bought salmon that was probably just 10 hours out of the river 5. enjoyed artisanal coffee at Stumptown Roasters 6. hiked waterfalls just 30 minutes from our house.

Caffeine

Pro tip: caffeine is more fat soluble than it is water soluble which means that adding fat (cream) to your coffee allows your body to absorb the caffeine more quickly and potently.

Hottest profession in Germany is...

... being a male child care provider. 

Men are in particularly high demand because many parents don't want their children looked after exclusively by women. According to a study carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Family Affairs, more than a third of mothers and fathers prefer day care facilities that have male staff. The higher the parents' educational and income levels, the more important they consider having male child care workers.

Great article.