Category Archives: What?

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Left-handedness isn’t evil but some people are

My jaw dropped on reading this story today. The same thing happened to me in grade school, I think in 1st grade, but that was some decades ago. I figured perhaps we had advanced a bit. Silly me.

I was shocked enough by the teacher grabbing the pencil out of my left hand and forcing it angrily into my right hand that I told my mother about it that afternoon. The next day she was in school to have a little chat with the teacher, who never tried that again. I found Mrs. Douglas in the 2nd grade much pleasanter – and funnier, particularly when she would loudly sigh and lament, “Oh, what’s the point?“ at least once a day.

Had that left-is-wrong idiocy continued, would I have ever in my life attempted artwork like this – or any artwork at all, for that matter? Seems questionable.

Thanks, Mom.

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Click any of these images for a larger version

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Inspired by the 401st Bomb Group jacket below (click for a larger version). My research turned up the George Petty painting that jacket was based on, and I found an original Life magazine where it appeared in a full-page ad and used that as the basis for my version.

   

Rita Hayworth and the 452nd Bomb Group B-17G “Mon Tete Rouge”

Ginger Rogers and a 1942 model Daffy Duck

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Just stop it, already

This sort of inclusion in a news article is pointless and maddening:

This has created a storm of criticism against this TV pundit known for her strong and often extreme opinions, but more than 11,000 people have pressed the “Like” button for this blog article on [Dingleface].

Well, sure, but worldwide, I’m certain you could easily find 11,000 people who would “Like” the idea of smashing your own thumb with a hammer, or feeding ground glass to dinner guests, or dropping toddlers off in the centre of a highway at naptime. Why not instead tell the truth?

This has created a storm of criticism against this TV pundit known for her strong and often extreme opinions, but, unsurprisingly, more than 11,000 trolls and/or mentally ill people enthusiastically supported her as they sat in mostly dark, unkempt rooms, mostly in their pants, in another of their series of feeble attempts to be noticed by someone…anyone. Such is the world.

The great majority of media outlets seem to believe that antisocial media totals gathered at filing time make their stories more relevant, maybe more in tune with the younger demographic, but these might-as-well-be-random numbers only make the articles more superficial and trivial. They’re the news equivalent of packing peanuts, but a little less so: They’re light, fluffy, and perhaps useful as filler when one needs to reach that word count, but in the long run, they will not protect the media jobs within.

peanut

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Logic-free thinking

I just found out that there are a lot of people who believe sourdough is yeast-free, and plenty of organisations and companies that encourage that belief by people who for whatever reason want to follow a yeast-free diet.

True sourdough bread does not contain yeast and instead utilizes a lactobacilli based starter culture.[1]  True sourdough bread is also baked at a lower temperature[2] for a longer period of time which protects the integrity of the cereal grains[3] and preserves the nutritional value[4].

[1] No. It’s lactobacilli and a variety of yeasts living in symbiosis, where the bacteria consume sugars in the flour the yeast cannot and the yeast consumes the fermentation byproducts of the bacteria. Lactic acid produced by the bacteria lends the sour flavour; the yeast produces the carbon dioxide that leavens the bread.
[2] Generally speaking, it’s baked at the same or just slightly lower temperature than other breads but indeed for a longer time because the crust browns more slowly.
[3] Integrity of the grains? Come now, they’ve been powdered.
[4] For any reason other than it sounds appealing?

Yesterday, I found that a local bakery that produces a decent sourdough – I’m partial to their sourdough rye – also fails to understand some basics:

The natural yeast itself also has important health benefits for your digestive tract (the good bacteria[1] survive in the center of the loaves where the internal temperature does not get hot[2]).

[1] Yeast is good, but it’s not a bacteria; it’s a fungus.
[2] The good bacteria do not survive. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is killed after just a few minutes at 140°F/60°C, and the centre of a sourdough loaf – most breads, for that matter – should reach around 200°F/95°C for a few minutes before it’s taken out of the oven. Take it out before that and the middle of the loaf will remain unset and gummy. Their loaves are not unset and gummy in the middle.

lactobacillus

Current temperature 140.1F

Edited to correct first link.

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a) doesn’t know his idioms, or b) is an arse

On Wall Street, shares in Bank of America opened 1.5% higher following the settlement.

Joel Conn, president of investment firm Lakeshore Capital, said it was because a “major cloud [hanging over the bank] has been lifted”

“Regulators wanted a pound of flesh, and they got it,” he added.

That phrase comes from The Merchant of Venice, of course, and is generally accepted to mean a legal but exceedingly unreasonable monetary demand – for example, every demand ever made by any payday loan shark company. To me, the penalty of US$16.7bn that Bank of America is paying for their culpability in snipping the brake lines of the world economy and causing it to slam into a concrete wall at 150mph, demonstrably hurting hundreds of millions of people, seems pretty darned reasonable, maybe too reasonable.

I would have said ‘a wrecking ball swung repeatedly at every branch and every executive’s home’ had they asked me what the price ought to be, so I think the answer could be that apologist Conn b) is an arse.

“Mr. Conn, I may choose to invest with your firm, but first, there’s the small matter of your name…”

Now, how shall I tag this? Oh, I know.

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Some are already touched in the head

I am sure this paragraph has touched all the internet users, its really really nice post on building up new blog.

Comment spam, of which the above is the eighteenth example I’ve seen, seems to arrive chiefly in the middle of the night and has the strangest links. This one was in reply to the meatloaf post and the poster”s “name” was a link to a YouTube video on how to move to Hawaii, whose description there was written by a native English speaker and included a link to buy her ebook on the topic – the end goal of the spam, I’m sure. Actual Spam® has been quite popular in Hawaii since WWII, so perhaps she’s just doing her bit to transition it to new vistas.

Such garbled comment spam – there’s much worse, such as “No subject what design you would like louboutin men” – means they’re too lazy to compose it themselves and are using an automated service of some sort to insinuate their links into others’ blogs, said service provided by someone whose second or third language is English (ish). WordPress blog comments are moderated by default, with comments appearing immediately only if the person has been previously approved, and I imagine authors with any wits about them keep that setting, so I think there’s an awful lot of pennies-per-hundred-posts being spent foolishly to shift electrons back and forth without any particular aim – except perhaps to amuse me in a small way.

Now I sit and ponder which of the twenty-five or so grafs in my meatloaf post they were talking about. Was it the one about the ketchup? I’ll bet it was the ketchup.

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“Oh, wowie two-shoes, the new Yellow Pages are here!”

“Wait ’til I tell all the kids at school I’ve seen one of those!”

I would feel about the same had I received a wagon wheel on my doorstep, or perhaps a Model T crank, but at least I could use one of those as some sort of cheesy decoration. I think all you can do with this is mock it.

Verizon is the only business listed under Anachronism Dealers

There’s no compelling reason to mosaic FTD’s readily-available number; I did it just on general principles.