I smite thee! ...The Diary of Nod

It's the hat.

Labels: charlie chaplin, hat, hitler, mustache

posted by Lachlan @ 3:00 PM 0 comments

Gaming airlines into bumping you (and getting the booty)

Dhalia was recently bumped from her flight to Atlanta, arriving six and a half hours later than planned (including a detour to New York). That said, they paid her cash greater than her round-trip and she flew business class.

Seems someone has worked on how to game the airlines into bumping them and getting the goodies:

Mornings are better than evenings—airlines are more likely to overbook these early flights, knowing that they have a better chance of delaying passengers to a later flight. Holidays, Saturday mornings, and Sunday evenings are good bets, too. Similarly, popular destinations are goldmines for the flexible traveler. Las Vegas, Hawaii, and major business travel hubs like New York, Minneapolis, and Chicago are common sites of overbookings.
(via lifehacker)

I find my time to be more valuable than my cash so this doesn't really appeal to me...but business class is awesome and if I'm traveling by myself (rare), I might find ways to entertain myself until the next flight comes along.

Labels: airports, dhalia, lifehacker

posted by Lachlan @ 12:40 PM 0 comments

Damn Canadians taking our jobs!

A friend at work is a Canadian immigrant. This was a continuous joke with us and I had to continually come up with some new way of insulting Canada, Canadians or him because he was Canadian. One day he walks into my team's cube farm and a wonderful insult pops into my head but then I thought, "Maybe this is really common even though I think it's new and unique and I'll just come across as a poseur." So I asked him.

"Has anyone ever called you an 'Iceback'?"

He turned and paused, then said slowly, "No."

Everyone in the area was silent for a moment until the joke set in. Raucous laughter ensued.

Labels: canada, racism, work

posted by Lachlan @ 8:07 PM 0 comments

A sniper always gets his target.

A graduate of the Army's sniper school killed a nine year-old girl when he drove home from his graduation and she drove to her grandmother's funeral.

After the crash, he was treated and released from the hospital. Alcohol was not a factor, troopers said. Deming was charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle and driving left of center.

Only in the south is it a crime to be "left of center".

Labels: army, death, sniper

posted by Lachlan @ 6:48 PM 0 comments

Reporters take an oath to the dollar, not the truth

Watch exaggeration about a suspected DUI:

He is charged with his fifth drunken driving offense, a felony, and disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. If convicted, he faces a maximum six years in prison and a $10,000 fine, but those penalties double because he had two young children in the vehicle at the time.

He had kids in the car? That's fucked up. What's that? He had kids in the car but he wasn't driving? And he was on private property?

He placed the 6-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, both of whom were crying, into his Lincoln sport utility vehicle.
Witnesses heard the engine rev but said the SUV did not move.
At that point, a sheriff's deputy arrived and took Hansford into custody.

Yeah. Exceptional reporting. Ignoring misleading "facts", if this is true, the guy and his kids need help.

Labels: alcohol, dui, journalism, law, police

posted by Lachlan @ 2:10 AM 0 comments

Where'd you go?

When I've lived with someone or were out with someone, I often felt the need to inform them when I went somewhere. "Hey, I'm going to the store." "Hey, I'm stepping outside." "Hey, I'll be in the next room." My brother pissed me off because he was very dismissive, that he didn't care. A college roommate often acted the same way.

If I turn around and am looking for that person, because they were there before, I expect to find them. If someone gets up and leaves the room, I think it's polite to tell the people in the room something rather than wordlessly disappearing. I don't need (or want) to keep tabs on them like small children, but I think the relationship includes certain responsibilities to the other person.

That said, I enjoyed a relationship with a girl because she would (responsibly) go off on her own without telling me, yet she never disappeared such that I couldn't find her if I was looking for her. To reinforce my point, I can think of two girls who literally disappeared and couldn't be found for hours--one actually tried to blame her friends for being concerned when she wandered off with a guy she'd just met minutes before. I stopped talking to her after that. [0]

There's no hard and fast rule to it...but there is a balance between respecting privacy and responsibilities to friendship.

Labels: friendship, responsibility

posted by Lachlan @ 1:50 AM 1 comments

The absurdity of legal rights and responsibilities of minors.

I love the logic of cops:
A 14yo girl isn't old enough to drink--she's not responsible enough
A 14yo girl isn't old enough to drive--she's not responsible enough.
But she can get charged with a DUI if she does both because THAT she can be held responsible for?

Labels: alcohol, driving, minors, responsibility, rights

posted by Lachlan @ 1:45 AM 0 comments

Seventies Singer Songwriters on SNL

John Prine was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, 16 October, 1976. Just him, a guitar and his disheveled hair and clothes. He played Hello In There and it's pretty damn incredible.





A studio version with slideshow:


A live version from years later:


My sister gave me the second season of SNL for Christmas; it's something I never would have thought to get for myself but I've really been enjoying it. Not only are the artists more talented, they seem to be able to push the line farther than they do now. And of all things, I've been enjoying the music, something I've almost never been able to stomach on SNL since I started watching as a kid.

When Paul Simon was the musical guest, he and George Harrison performed guitar duets of Here Comes the Sun and Homeward Bound. There seems to be a rare bond between them.

Labels: george harrison, john prine, paul simon, saturday night live, singer, songwriter

posted by Lachlan @ 3:17 AM 0 comments