Entry: Georgia Guidestones

This article was sent to me by friend of the blog SeeASea.

If you ever find yourself in Georgia and feel like taking a road trip, how about checking out the Georgia Guidestones? Some guy had them erected (hee!) in 1980; sometimes referred to as the American Stonehenge, the guidestones consist of six granite slabs with ten guidelines for a better world, written in eight different languages.

Humanity does a pretty good job of following rules written on stone slabs, right? Let's see how we've been doing with this bunch:

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

Well... there's the United Nations... and Esperanto... so... we're screwed. Although if we kill off 11 out of 12 people, we might be okay. (Consider my finger on my nose for this one.)

Not to mention that some people are apparently really super grumpy that there's a fancy new set of ten rules chiseled into stone strutting around, competing with the older set of ten rules. Seems like the same people who always get their panties in a twist regarding environmental messages, too. Did their moms not yell at them to keep their rooms clean or something?

Entry: List of Music Genome Project attributes

Prepared to lose an entire afternoon to this one, space cadets.

Like all cool kids, I utilize Pandora now and then to expand my musical horizons. Oftentimes, however, I go to look up the attributes of my stations and have no idea what the hell any of them mean. For instance, I'm apparently really super into "extensive vamping." And, until I turned to the Wik', I had no idea what that was. Basically, it means I'm a simpleminded twit who likes to hear the same thing repeated many, many times in the span of four minutes or so. Also recurring: "major key tonality" AND "minor key tonality." I'm such a fencesitter.

But perhaps your taste in music is overly specific, and you've wondered to yourself: what other musical attributes that I don't care for are floating around in the aether? Thanks Wiki. You've really outdone yourself this time.

Here are some highlights:

"Backbeat Hand Claps." Specifically hand claps. No drums, no footstomping.
"Blazin' Rappin'"/"Tight Lyrics". Perhaps my dorkiness is preventing me from understanding exactly what this term means, but doesn't that seem a little subjective for something calling itself a "Genome Project"?
"Lyrics with Heavy Erotic Content". Is there a subgenre of this that I don't know about? Don't get me wrong, I'm hip, I listen to Serge Gainsbourg... but I can't imagine not wanting to laugh my ass off at lyrics with heavy erotic content.
"Mystical Qualities". One of the backup singers is a unicorn, say.
"Sexist Lyrics". Okay, as a member of the group that usually gets the short end of the stick when it comes to sexism, I'm biased. But why the hell would someone actively seek this out as a quality of music?
"Use of Dirty-Sounding Organs". What, like a rectum?
"Vinyl Ambience". Just throwing it out there as a name for a drag queen act. Think about it, girls.


If anyone has any information as to which bands or songs embody the aforementioned, please let us know.

Entry: Palm Dog Award

This is adorable.

Since 2001, the critics at the Cannes Film Festival have awarded the Palm Dog to outstanding performances by a canine or group of canines, real or animated, in one of the films shown at the festival.

Of course, out of the winners and nominees listed, I've only seen two of the films: Dogville and Triplets of Belleville. And let me say, I am pissed that the dog in the former won over the dog in the latter. Bruno is a charming, funny dog, who is pretty realistic for an animation. Moses is, for 99.99% of the role, a sound effect. Lame.

Commons: Picture of the Year/2008

Okay, so this entry is technically cheating, since it's from Wikimedia Commons-- doesn't that sound like a delightful spot to go a-picknicking? "Oh do come down to Wikimedia Commons with us, Millicent! Grace has assembled a delightful basket for our dinner, and the Kensington boys shall play bowls and fence for our amusement!"-- ahem, as I was saying: Wikimedia Commons.

The article I was looking at was the results of Picture of the Year 2008. The entries were the year's featured pictures, and the voting body were users from the various Wikimedia projects, including my reason for existing on this planet, Wikipedia.


One would expect that the top ten photos would be images from great scientific and historic occurrences and far-flung locales frozen in time and put on the Internet for the benefit of those of us who, for whatever reason, are probably never going to be privy to such sights in reality. Most of the entries are really beautiful and intriguing photos. (First place: HORSIES! Second place: GUY BREATHING FIRE!)

But there was one picture on the top ten that really caught my attention. Cooler than a fountain of pahoehoe lava spurting from a Hawaiian volcano. More dramatic than a burning building in Quebec. More iconic than Dorothea Lange's photos of migrant workers during the Great Depression.

What was this amazing picture that captured the hearts and minds of Wikimedia users the world over, gaining the #7 slot?

A scantily-clad anime girl. Comma, you hopeless pack of nerds. Wikimedia users: turn the computer off, sit in the corner, and think about what you've done.

Entry: British Film Institute list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14

...made me feel like an uncultured hayseed.

The BFI composed this list in an attempt to convince parents and educators that film can be a legitimate art form, and that children should be exposed to great films the same way they are to visual art and literature; I can only assume that means "until the school has budgeting issues or one parent thinks their child might be exposed to something potentially offensive."

I like to think that I have good taste in movies, and I have seen a whole bunch in my day, but according to the BFI, I have been woefully underexposed. Here are their top ten films that kids should see by age 14, in order:

1. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
3. Kes (1969)
4. Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959)
5. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
6. Show Me Love (1998)
7. Spirited Away (2001)
8. Toy Story (1995)
9. Where is My Friend's House? (1987)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Out of these films, I have seen E.T. (although I was so young when I saw it, I don't remember it-- is there a part where E.T. gets rabies? Because I've been laboring under that impression), Spirited Away (which came out after I turned 14, but is one of my favorites), Toy Story, and The Wizard of Oz. The Night of the Hunter and Show Me Love are on my Netflix queue. I had never before heard of Kes or Where Is my Friend's House?, and now I'm convinced that there are British tweens out there mocking me for it.

Now, I agree that exposing children to classic movies and teaching them to view them as art is a good idea, but I'm not sure I'd want my kids to see some of these films if they were under 14. I haven't seen Les Quatre Cens Coups, but maybe you should let your kids hit puberty before exposing them to French New Wave. And to be honest, I'm a little surprised that Show Me Love is listed, considering it's about two teenage girls that fall in love; I guess Brits are a lot more queer-friendly than Americans.

The rest of the list is also in the article, and there's a lot of fantastic movies listed... but I can't speak for the whole thing, because as it turns out, I've seen less than half of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some very important reality shows to watch.

Entry: Proust Questionnaire

If you're a highbrow snobby type like me (or if you've ever been bored and channel surfing on a weekend afternoon), you've probably seen Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton on Bravo. Or maybe you've seen Will Ferrell parodying Lipton on SNL. If you haven't done any of the above, perhaps you have the vivacity of imagination required to summon up an admittedly pretentious show where a middle-aged man with a goatee and glassy stare interviews various actors about their craft.

Are we all on the same page? Good.

One of the best-known aspects of this show is the ten short questions that Lipton asks his guests. This is commonly known as the Proust Questionnaire, named for the author Marcel Proust (aka the Guy that Steve Carrel's character was talking about in Little Miss Sunshine). The questionnaire is often misattributed to Proust; the truth is that they were a turn of the century fad, published as diary-like books known as confession albums. Proust was simply a fan of them; two manuscripts of these lists filled out by him have been found (and one was sold at auction for over 100,000 euros). The list of questions and his answers can be found in the article.

It's nice to see a writer of such great renown humanized (his favorite fictional hero is Hamlet); he liked to do little egocentric memes from time to time, just like the rest of us. On the other hand, how far would he have gone if allowed to indulge? Just imagine what his Livejournal might have looked like.

Entry: Fruit Preserves

So last week my boyfriend called me from the supermarket and was wondering about the difference between jelly and jam. We ultimately decided that it didn't matter; honestly, I don't know which he got, because I don't eat jelly/jam/whatever as much as he does. Shucks, for you guys, I'll go check.

Well I'll be damned; he got preserves. But the conversation stands. I didn't know, so naturally I looked it up on the Wik'. I'm going to gloss over the regional differences (I don't know, British people... I just don't know), and go directly to the culinary definitions.

Jelly refers to a fruit spread made out of fruit juice; jam includes the fruit's flesh. And, in case you're wondering, "the term Preserves is usually interchangeable with Jam, however some cookbooks define Preserves as cooked and gelled whole fruit (or vegetable), which includes a significant portion of the fruit." So preserves (screw you, arbitrary uppercase) is just extra-fleshy jam. Yum. There's also other fun spreadables listed in the article, like confit. Fancy-shmancy!

Entry: United States Order of Precedence

Thanks to Ziggy for alerting me to this article! Very appropriate, given the day's events.

The Wik' has a list of US government officials in order of symbolic precedence. (They also have similar lists for other countries, but keeping with the rich heritage of my motherland, I don't give a crap about them.) This isn't the list of who is next in line for the presidency, it's just who gets dibs on riding in the cherry red vintage convertible for the parade.

One thing that surprised me while perusing this illustrious rollcall was that president pro tempore of the Senate is so low on the list; he's 23rd in symbolic importance. Compare that to speaker of the House, who is fifth. Senator Byrd follows the Secretary of Agriculture. He follows the drug czar. He's fourth in line for the presidency, but he's less prominent than the guys in charge of emotionally overwrought television ads about teenagers smoking pot and making sure organic beansprouts are really organic. (Maybe he should have stuck with being Exalted Cyclops.)

Of course, all of the aforementioned are less important than the mayor of the city in which the parade/ceremony/spelling bee/whatever is taking place. Which is humbling if you're a federal official and you happen to be in a ceremony in Muskogee, OK.

Entry: Burma-Shave

I'd seen references to Burma-Shave in Kingdom of Loathing, American Gods and now yesterday's xkcd, so I had to know what was up.

Burma-Shave was, surprise surprise, a shaving cream. But, what it's most famous for is it's marketing campaign, which ran from 1925 to 1963. The campaign was comprised of cutesy rhymes that were posted line-by-line on consecutive billboards, so you'd read them as you drove down the road.

I think what really shocked me was the number of examples they had in the article. Like, really. I'm not surprised that there are detailed articles on The Simpsons, but a marketing campaign that ended almost 50 years ago? I don't know if I'm impressed or weirded out.

Anywho, here were some of my faves:

1931: No matter / How you slice it / It's still your face / Be humane / Use / Burma-Shave
1936: Riot at / Drug store / Calling all cars / 100 customers / 99 jars / Burma-Shave
1947: I use it too / The bald man said / It keeps my face / Just like / My head / Burma-Shave
1952: The wolf / Is shaved / So neat and trim / Red Riding Hood / Is chasing him / Burma-Shave

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Geico cavemen.

Entry: Kiva

Okay, so I already knew about Kiva, but I thought raising awareness about this organization would be fitting for Blog Action Day.

Kiva is a nonprofit organization, through which donors send money to microfinanciers around the world, who then lend that money to entrepreneurs in developing nations (and whose profiles are on the website). When the entrepreneur repays the loan (which, according to Kiva, happens successfully 99.7% of the time), you can withdraw your money from the program, or re-loan it to another entrepreneur.

Kiva has pioneered the peer-to-peer lending model, and other organizations have followed suit.

So, if I'm interpreting this correctly: your money is going directly to the person who needs it, you know exactly what the money is being used for, you can recycle your money through the program or just withdraw it and buy an iPod, and you're helping someone who's helping themselves. If you have some scratch lying around and are feeling altruistic, Kiva is a worthwhile investment.

Entry: Hypoallergenic Dog Breeds

There's a lot of them, apparently. And established, popular breeds (Yorkshire terriers, shih tzus, and poodles, to name a few). These dogs just happened to have been bred to have less dander than the average dog. So don't act like it's such a big deal, Hedwig! (Was that reference obscure enough? I do my best.)

Allergic cat lovers, on the other hand, aren't so lucky. While some breeds are touted to be allergy-friendly because they have less fur, the fact is that most people are allergic to an enzyme in cat spit, so the amount of fur doesn't really matter. If you feel like waiting a year and dropping at least 8 grand, you can buy a truly hypoallergenic kitten from Allerca, a biotechnology firm. I has a mutation!