![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
SMALL PEOPLE
Jul. 20th, 2009
06:45 pm - Ending the "Speculation"
OMB Director Peter Orszag knocks down a few budget stories floating around.06:30 pm - "Not This Time"
06:16 pm - The Vice President in Kyiv
ceremony in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 20, 2009. Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)
arrival in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 20, 2009. Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)
11:06 am - Radley Balko on NY Times photo: " I can’t really conceive of a scenario where it wasn’t staged."
Radley Balko wrote on his blog, The Agitator:
I’m trying to figure out how the photo for this NY Times scare story on distracted driving was taken. I can’t really conceive of a scenario where it wasn’t staged. Which means the caption is misleading. Also, who does this? I’ve never been in a car where the driver asked the passenger to hold the wheel so he could use both hands to send a text message. Does this actually happen?
It's a good question. What *did* the photographer talk about with the kids in the car?
07:16 pm - Get back in the water
Lisa Rinna hit up the beach in Malibu this weekend, and when she was in the water, she pretty much looked fantastic. Then she stepped out of the water and everything went to total hell. She’s like an old glove. They have to stay oiled up all the time or [...]
04:54 am
I saw a Post from a few weeks ago, where people took popular songs, and translated them into Lyrics a Vulcan might sing here's a few of the songs I knew Translated into Vulcan type Lyrics, here goes.
Damaged in the Bio-Pulmonary organ by a projectile weapon
your timing is inefficient
you give Emotional Attachment
an Undesirable Mode of Address.
More Under the cut
( Hello cut )
07:44 pm - Macros Needed
I'm making an ONTD video/slideshow, but I find myself needing several macros and things that I know I've seen on here but trying to find them by myself would take well into next week.
SO I was wondering if you guys could help out? It'll be like Mini ONTD_ST Scavenger Hunt! :D
Looking for:
- The Karl Urban motivational poster about his eyebrows
- Pictures from the meetups of Gangsta Vulcan SalutesTM
- Something meta. Anything.
- Some kind of article, preferably magazine scan.
- And then ANY of your favourite macros.
Finished project be revealed shortly. :) Ecstactically magical!Zach thanks you for your time! 
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/goth_girl/working.gif){kind=small}
busy
06:11 pm - Fuggie Price
Thank god Katie "Jordan" Price is handling her recent divorce with all the gentle sensitivity and low-key good taste we've all come to expect from her, much like Jon Gosselin:
Poor tortured soul. Clearly she can barely manage to pull herself out of bed to be wrestled into her feather-trimmed bustier and tutu, so heart-broken is she. Shall we see how these, her virtual widows weeds, look from the rear? [Only marginally safe for work, I hate to break it to you.]
What a (literally) cheeky cry for help, for compassion, for understanding as she carefully navigates the tragical uncharted waters of singledom. Does this not whisper gently, "I loved, I lost, I long desperately for healing hands to sooth my heartbroken soul"?
Oh, wait. No. What it's actually saying is, "Is there an opening for a new girl at the Crazy Horse?" God, I always get those two mixed up.
05:00 pm - The Power Of Cinema And Myth: Selected Quotations From George Lucas.
“With Star Wars I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs. I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that exist today.”1
“I see Star Wars as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct–that there is a greater mystery out there.”1
“I’ve discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don’t really know much about movies. They don’t know the history. They don’t know the technology. They don’t know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they’re lost.”2
“The area I’m interested in now is to go do some form-experimenting—to try and figure out different ways of telling movies. I grew up in the Godard, Fellini world and all that. To me that’s where my heart is.”3
1From a Time interview with Bill Moyers.
2From an interview with The Academy Of Achievement.
3From a Time interview with Richard Corliss.
06:00 pm - From the Design Desk: Book Covers, Uncovered
There’s never just one correct cover direction for any book. Blogs that focus on book-cover designs, like The Book Design Review, Fwis, and the Book Cover Archive, often compare different foreign editions for the same book, as well as cover redesigns over time and covers for different books that are surprisingly alike, despite having very different subject matters.
A while back, we pondered the merits of book covers in general and showed some different options we had considered for several books. This process of selecting the best cover option is an art that draws on understanding the voice of the book, its character, and its audience. We take into account color, image options (the photography or illustration sketches), typography, visual metaphors, and references from popular culture.
Here are several cover options we considered for a few books. We put the actual final product on the right.
For Guac Off!, we needed the cover to be fun, accessible, and of course, delicious—to reflect content that’s all that and funny, like an ode to the avocado.
For Position of the Day: Sex Fortunes, we needed to consider the entire Position of the Day line, and to reflect the astrological nature of this book, mixing sex and star signs. This is a hard-cover, thick little book that feels good in your hands, and makes a great gift.
We wrote about The Doorbells of Florence awhile ago, and we interviewed the designer. Basically this is a beautiful, small book with photographs and short stories inspired by Florence, Italy. The book has hand-lettering by Joel Holland, so the cover features silk-screened photography with his hand-lettered title.
For the Golf Scorecard Keeper, we wanted a simple, classic design, something that could appeal to the modern golfer as well as the traditionalist.
For the Fantasy Sex Deck (50 erotic role-plays), we wanted to spark the imagination and a feeling of mutual enjoyment. The cover needed to convey a sense of fun and sex, and inspire couples to try it.
The challenge for the cover of Jack Kennedy, The Illustrated Life of a President, was largely how to keep it distinctive from all the JFK publishing already in existence. As the name “Jack” Kennedy suggests, this is not an official, formal publication. Instead, it’s a visual account of the president and the man who continues to inspire so many. The book features letters, photos, and ephemera from Kennedy’s life. The cover needed to be relaxed and dignified, straying neither too far toward private or office life. We chose this photo because it seemed unique, and the name “Jack” seemed engaging, comfortable, and happy.
When I asked a class of design students to guess the cover chosen from the selections above, the students seldom unanimously agreed. The design process (and thinking) is rarely plainly evident in the final product. But overall and over time, if a book cover is true to the content, to the voice of its pages, and it inspires and speaks to its audience, then I believe it succeeds.
Suzanne LaGasa
Designer
P.S. For a more-detailed look at a cover design process, check out our post on the Art of the Modern Movie Poster. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the “best” cover option…
10:58 am - Vladimir Nabokov discusses “Lolita"
Thanks to Cynical-C blog for finding this video of Vladimir Nabokov answering questions about his novel Lolita on NBC's Close Up in the mid-1950s.
10:52 am - "Jesus H. Christ, Houston, we're on the &*!!@# moon"
Evolution Control Committee's awesome soundtrack is NSFW.
10:09 am - How the Moon Landings Were Faked on the Surface of the Moon
Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture, that he hopes you'll want to buy. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist, started a webcasting company, and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.A few years back I did some intense research into this. Lay down a dropcloth, because your mind is about to be blown.
05:56 pm - I have no idea
I’ve gotten well over 200 emails asking about the tape some are optimistically claiming shows ESPN fox Erin Andrews naked in her hotel room. I can’t even begin to imagine how this was made (telepathy?), and I’m flattered people would think I know what Erin Andrews looks like naked, but the truth is [...]
05:09 pm - “I won’t go back to Jessica.”
It seems unlikely that anyone asked without stifling a smile, but according to today’s Sun, Nick Lachey has thought about the offer that doesn’t exist and ruled out a reunion with Jessica Simpson. He confronted the rumor no one is spreading and spoke into his hair brush in front of the mirror: “I think it’s [...]
09:58 am - little bundles
I like to bring scraps of nature home. I think many of us do. I like bundling what I can of it together, and picking up dried herbs or flowers and smelling them to conjure a memory.
When they get old and dusty, you can just crumple it up and throw it outside when you're exploring to find your newest bundle. This week I'm on the hunt for rosemary and thyme. Rosemary grows like crazy here I'm guessing the thyme will be more difficult to find...
Do you ever make little bundles?
Also, I've noticed what I think is chamomile growing in an abandoned lot. Anyone know if I can dry that and use it? Thanks!
01:29 pm - Castration Candidate Of The Day (NSFW)
Damn. Fix that fucker, already.05:14 pm - Fug Or Fab, Kate Walsh/Prifug Practice
Kate Walsh has been all about the shorts lately -- which, if I had her legs, I probably would be too. I just read something about how her divorce is about to get really ugly because her ex's lawyer is allowed to depose ABC about her earnings potential at the network, and if that's true, then I guess divorce suits her because she's clearly working out all that aggression on her quads. Thanks in large part to them, I'm actually thinking mostly favorable thoughts about her formal-shorts ensemble here.
[All photos: WENN.com]
Don't misunderstand: It's still formal shorts, and I still find that concept a bit silly. But as far as seasonal whimsy goes, Kate looks kind of fabulous here -- the suit theme is playful, and the clutch and phenomenal gold wedges accessorize it really well without taking it over the top. It all makes me want to go sit outside somewhere fabulous and have a mojito, which is quite an achievement, considering it was 103 degrees in my back yard today and merely walking to the car felt like going into menopause.
However, I wish the hot California sun would've incinerated this little number:
This might be okay if you are weeding your garden, or tilling the soil in your vegetable patch -- basically, somewhere where you don't care if you look droopy, slouchy, and like you might be someone's dotty great aunt who's under the impression she's the hottest piece at the assisted-living facility. But when you're Kate Walsh and you're lunching in Los Angeles, it's downright weird to stroll around in a romper whose weird brand of staid straplessness evokes an Amish outfit that came alive and went on its very own rumspringa. You are not Rumer Willis, Kate. Rethink.
04:16 pm - Deidre Fugll
Remember when Marlena was possessed by the devil on Days of our Lives? Well, I think he's doing it to her again.
And this time, he's got her credit card.
12:57 pm - Go Order Now!
Click here to pre-order Star Trek (2009) on Blu-ray for $27.99 at Amazon.com. Click here to pre-order Star Trek (2009) on DVD for $27.99 at Amazon.com.
Amazon.com begun taking pre-orders for 2009 Star Trek on Blu-ray Disc and DVD over the weekend. Paramount announced the Star Trek Reboot / Star Trek XI for a home video debut on November 17 last Friday morning. Retailers were not prepared to put the title up for pre-sale timed with the announcement so they rushed to make pre-orders available as soon as possible. The three-disc Blu-ray edition comes with a special cover that allows you to access a holographic depiction of the Enterprise using a webcam, deleted scenes and more.
(They are the same price)
C-Fine Aproves Of this post
09:51 am - Lunar rocks are a controlled substance
US law forbids private citizens from possessing any of the 842 pounds of moon rocks collected by astronauts and brought back to Earth.
Nevertheless, the allure of moon rocks is strong enough to have created a black market where moon rock fragments and dust are sold for astronomical prices.
One way to obtain a moon rock is by purchasing a plaque that the US government sometimes gives to famous people and to politicians from other countries. They contain tiny slivers of moon rock. Some of these gifts have drifted into the collectors' market. A 1998 CNN article, "Customs agents seize 4-billion-year-old moon rock," reported that a Florida man was arrested for trying to sell a "fingernail-sized moon rock, weighing barely more than a gram" for $5 million. The rock was originally given to the Honduran government in 1973 by then-President Richard Nixon:
Customs agents, postal inspectors and NASA launched "Operation Lunar Eclipse" in September with an advertisement in USA Today seeking moon rocks, officials said.Walter Cronkite got one of these plaques in 2004. Now that he is dead, I wonder where it will end up?A Florida man identified as Alan Rosen called to offer a moon rock for sale. He told undercover agents he had bought the rock from the retired Honduran military officer, officials said. Agents viewed the rock at a suburban Miami bank and seized it on November 18, officials said.
There's also an underground market in moon dust taken from dirty spacesuits. From a 1993 Omni article:
Upon the Apollo astronauts' return from each mission, NASA shipped the spacesuits to their manufacturer for inspection. According to unpublished accounts, workers sometimes ran loops of scotch tape across them, picking up small amounts of moon dust.According to Antiques Roadshow, Christie's sold a moondust-on-tape sample for $300,000.
One of those moon-dust tapes, purportedly made off of an Apollo 14 lunar spacesuit, showed up in a for-sale newspaper ad early in 1992. A man named Steve Goodman had found the tape among the papers of his late father, whose company manufactured spacesuits. After consultation with Goodman and his lawyer, NASA decided it wasn't worth the effort--or the bad publicity--to confiscate the contraband moon-dust sample.
Also from Antiques Roadshow:
At a Superior Galleries sale in Beverly Hills in October 2000, one lucky collector named Florian Noller spotted a bag used to store artifacts collected on the moon that was taken from the Apollo 15 command module Endeavor. He bought the bag for $2,300. When Noller looked inside the bag, he found a previously unnoticed sprinkling of moon dust along its seams. He put scatterings of dust on little thumb-sized white cards and placed them on photos of astronaut James Irwin saluting the American flag, and then sold them in 2001 through Spaceflori, the German space memorabilia dealer he formed. Compared to the Irwin patch, this serendipitous moon dust was a bargain: the 12 larger cards sold for $2,495, the 50 smaller ones for $995.One perfectly legal way to own a moon rock is by finding or buying a lunar meteorite. Here's a New Scientist video (and article) on how to tell if a rock is from the moon:
eBay currently has five auctions offering moon rock meteoritese. The one shown here has a Buy It Now price of $34.90 and is guaranteed by the International Meteorite Collectors Association to be authentic.
My favorite is this "Rare Moon Rock 'Metal' Piece" selling for $2000:
MOON ROCK "METAL"
I'M NOT SURE HOW TO EVEN DESCRIBE THE ITEM.
A GENTLEMAN OWNED A METAL BUSINESS IN THE MIDWEST BACK IN THE 70's & 80'S, ONE OF HIS CUSTOMERS SENT HIM THESE PIECE WITH AN UNUSUAL REQUEST.
HE WANTED THIS PIECE OF MOON ROCK "METAL" MELTED DOWN & PUT INTO ONE OF HIS BATCH OF STEEL.
I'M NOT SURE OF THE REASON IT NEVER GOT DONE BUT HERE IT IS ON EBAY.
COMES WITH CERTIFIED LETTER WITH THE DATES OF THE REQUESTED WORK TO BE DONE. THE NAMES HAVE BEEN "DIGITALLY "WHITED OUT TO PROTECT THE NAMES..
09:43 am - Couple from iconic Woodstock photo still a couple
On Saturday, I posted about a new gallery show of Burk Uzzle's Woodstock photos, including the iconic shot seen above left. Turns out, the couple in the photo who had only met a few months before the concert are still together 40 years later. From the New York Daily News (photo Harbus for News):
(Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, now 60,) say they remember nothing of the original shot, taken by Burk Uzzle. "We weren't striking a pose," Nick says. "We were as surprised as everybody to see that photo on the album cover.""Woodstock concert's undercover lovers, Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, 40 years after summer of love" (Thanks, Richard Metzger!)
They discovered it while at a friend's house listening to the album and passing around the gatefold jacket. First, Nick recognized the famous yellow butterfly staff in the left corner. "It belonged to this guy Herbie," Nick says. "We latched on to him that day because he was having a very bad experience. He was tripping pretty heavily and he had lost his friends. After I saw that staff I said, 'Hey that's our blanket.' Then I said, 'Hey, that's us.'"
Bobbi, then 20, wasn't overly impressed. "Woodstock was over and done with at that time," she says. "It didn't seem like a big deal. The only thing was that then I had to tell my mother I had gone. She didn't know. But by then, she didn't mind."
08:52 am - MY GUEST POST FOR MUSICA DEL ALMA
Musica del Alma � Blog Archive � Guest Post: O-Dub (Soul-Sides.com)
Pachanga, pachanga, pachanga!
12:01 pm - "Yo Mamma" Jokes Of The Day
A great idea from Amy H.Yo momma so hairy, Bigfoot took a picture of herYo momma so fat she wakes up in sectionsYo momma got a glass eye with a fish in itYo momma so old she owes Jesus three bucksYo momma so fat, when she went out side in a red dress everyone yelled, "HEY, KOOL-AID!"Yo momma's glasses are so thick, when she looks on a map she can see people waving.Yo momma so poor, when she goes09:00 am - FUTILITY
FUTILITY When the stupid just doesn’t go away
Picture by: dunno source. Caption by: Judy-M via Our LOL Builder
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/goth_girl/happy.gif){kind=small}
cheerful09:02 am - Bye-bye, Boing Boing!
Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
And so ends my guestblogging stint here on Boing Boing. Thank you so much to Xeni, David, Cory, and Mark for having me! It was a delight, an honor, and a thrill.
I leave you with this awesome video created by Lieutenant Commander Spencer Abbot, who shot this footage from the cockpit of an F/A-18 Hornet with a fiber optic camera stuck to his helmet.
This is a video of a Navy F/A-18 Hornet tanking from Air Force KC-10's and KC-135's (the KC-135 is particularly challenging-- pilots call it the "Iron Maiden"). In turbulent weather, especially at night, tanking can be even tougher than landing on the ship. The basket is heavy, and it can damage the plane if it strikes it, to include shattering the canopy. One can only imagine the amusement of the tanker crews (to whom we're very grateful) as they watch us flail around on a bumpy day.
More videos here, including "an amazing low-level through the Cascades that pilots call 'The Million-Dollar Ride.'"
As for me, you can find me here. Thanks, Boingers!
08:56 am - Video: from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens in 5 minutes
I agree with Derren Brown's comments about this video:
PLEASE – do yourself a favour and turn the sound OFF – NOW. I’m almost willing to throw the towel in admit that creationists are right when I hear it. However the video is just brilliant (if you ignore the silly text as well)... Here’s 500 generations every SECOND backed up by actual fossil evidence – shoved in to a computer and animated together. It’s fantastic to watch.Video: from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens in 5 minutes (Via Daily Grail)
Navigate: (Previous 30 Friends)