Bullitt List: This week in links

Today's category: This week in links

It's the end of another dumb week, and I have another dumb head cold with dumb snot the consistency of dumb tapioca pudding coming out of my dumb nose.

So here's a list of dumb links from our dumb world for you guys to click through without any dumb editorializing from me:

• Dear University of Kansas, please stop raping women…
  
• Lawsuit reveals Obama's DOJ sabotaged Freedom of Information Act transparency
• Batman V Superman is V Bad
• Going Solo: The 20 Best Private Jets
• Ship carrying 50 atomic bombs worth of weapons-grade plutonium leaves Japan for U.S.
• Tick… Tick… Tick… The Augustus Countdown Continues
• Why human brains are prone to the black and white fallacy
• The enduring mystery of 'Jawn', Philadelphia's all-purpose noun
• Chicago area sees greatest population loss of any major US city, region in 2015

A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It?

Updating the classics...

This is going to be meaningless to the massive set of the population who don't know what Kodachrome is, or even what "film" photography is, or who Paul Simon is. But, hey...

When I look back on all the crap I've watched on YouTube
It's a wonder I can blink at all
And though my lack of punctuation hasn't hurt me none
I still read updates on your Facebook wall

Instagram
It give us those weirdo filters
like the world is out of kilter
make you thing something's wrong with your camera's lens, oh yeah!

I got an iPhone camera
I love to take a selfie shot
So mama don't take my Instagram away.

If you took all the girls I met while browsing Snapchat
(I mean before I met my lovely wife)
I know they'd never match their sexy selfie profiles
Everyone look worse in real life.

Sportsball

In this season of March Mental Mania, I just wanted to say a quick good luck to all you fans of men who play with balls.

YouTube Tuesday: Yo

I kind of consider it a failing of the previous generation that I wasn't encouraged more in my early aspirations to become a professional yo-yoer.

I mean, I was pretty good there for a while. Nobody yo'd better than me. They should've looked out for me a little bit. I could've had class. I could have been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum (which is what I am, let's face it).

How d'Ya Like Them Apples: Empire

I think by now it's pretty well accepted by society at large that the only variety of apple worth eating is the Honeycrisp. So tasty, so crispy... I could (and have) live off of these sinfully delicious fruits for extended periods.

But since Honeycrisps aren't always in season (if you can find them around town this time of year, they tend to be smallish and blemished), and since I'm always keeping any eye open for the next big apple trends, I went out of my comfort zone the other day and picked up a couple of Apple varieties I haven't tried yet.

Today's taste test: The Empire.

The Empire looked good in the produce section: Deep red, shiny and smooth (much like my Russian friend). It was about the size of a baseball with no blemishes. A promising start!

From my extensive, Google-based research which I conducted over the past six minutes, the biggest benefit of the Empire is that it doesn't bruise easily. You can see why this would be good, since bruising is the path to the dark side. Bruising leads to rotting, rotting leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

But I suspect that the resistance to bruising also leads to the apples being harvested too soon, shipped too far and kept on shelves too long.

The sample I had tasted kind of like an apple, but it was a weak, faded apple taste. Like, if it were a coloring book, you kid (or office mate who is really into those "grown up" coloring books) only colored part of the picture and they used the very palest colors. It was like an old-timey, staticy recording of an apple taste.

So, the taste was just kind of meh. Not bad necessarily, but not the explosion of flavor you get from the Honeycrisp, the gold standard of apples.

What was bad was the consistency. When I bit into the Empire, the consistency of the fruit was kind of a cross between dry and chalky, and dry and mushy. Try to imagine dry oatmeal shaped into apple from and slightly moistened with apple-flavored water. Then you take a bite and it just has no resistance to your teeth at all.

 So, bottom line here is that the Honeycrisp is still the reigning champion of apples. It wasn't even close.

The Empire strikes out.

Take off, eh

Around about this time in every election cycle you start to hear people threaten to "move to Canada if [insert name of other side's candidate] wins this election." Indeed, reports following the Super Tuesday elections were that "How to move to Canada" was the leading Google search by far.

Well search no more. Here's a little (not so) helpful advice:

How to Move to Canada If Trump Wins, By a Person Who Moved to Canada When Bush Won

Getting a student visa is not the same as becoming a Canadian permanent resident. You can extend the visa upon graduation, but you’ll need to find a job in order to keep it. I, personally, did not find a job in Canada after graduating with a degree in English Literature, and so I was kindly asked to leave.

Uh… your welcome…?

YouTube Tuesday: Got you under my Synn

What a fascinating, entertaining and slightly disturbing take on an old classic. Well done, Anastasia Synn.

Bullitt list -- 02.26.16

Today's category: What I learned this week

Hey, look, I think that by now we all realize that life is tough and full of disappointment and the best that you can hope for is to enjoy any rare, brief moment of happiness and maybe learn a few things along the way.

So, here are a few things I've learned this week…

• That movie Thor: The Dark World is even more unwatchable than most comic book movies.
  
  I get that part of enjoying most movies, but especially comic book movies, is suspension of disbelief and "buy-in" to the internal logic of the film's story line. But even by its own logic, a race of hyperintelligent, god-like aliens should know better than to bring a sword to a laser blaster battle.
  
  I mean, why not give all of the regular foot soldiers in the Asgardian army an Odin Plasma Spear, or at least an assault rifle. I mean if you've got superior technology and science, use it! I'm guessing there's no Second Amendment on Asgard.
  
  
   
• But it's good to know that science has your back when your up against the wall, when you desperately
  
  need to cross the bridge but some weirdo trollish wizardy guy is blocking your path, making you answer he these silly questions three. In those situations, it's nice to have this little factoid in your mental pocket:
   The air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow (European) is...


• Speaking of science, no less of a luminary than Albert Einstein himself made an appearance this week with the news that he had verified that there was a force in the universe even more powerful that the splitting of an atom: The Power of Love.
  
  In a letter to his daughter, Einstein wrote,

  …what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

  But there was one late 20th Century philosopher who did understand. I refer of course to Hugh Anthony Cregg II, who once wrote…

  

  The power of love
  is a curious thing
  Make a one man weep,
  make another man sing
  Change a hawk
  to a little white dove
  More than a feeling
  that's the power of love

  
  
• And speaking of philosophy, the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō once said

  A flute with no holes is not a flute. And a donut without a hole, is not a donut.

  … or something like that. It loses a little in the translation. The important point is that I learned this week that regardless of flutes and donuts, a croissant is still a croissant even if it's not crescent shaped, at least if your in the UK.
  
  This is terrific news… for some reason… probably…


• Finally, since we're getting into the realm of poetry, I just wanted to mention that I learned this week that one of my favorite new bands is getting ready to release a new album.
  
  I first heard of Frightened Rabbit on an NPR music segment and almost immediately went online to buy their album Pedestrian Verse. In my opinion there's not a weak track on it. Here's the video for the excellent Woodpile…
  
  

The new album, Painting Of A Panic Attack, is on pre-sale now on all of the major online record stores (Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify… is that all of them?), and I expect a review very soon on Dan's new blog. In fact, I'm specifically DEMANDING a listen from Dan ASAP.

That's enough knowledge from me for now, I don't want to blow your mind too much. Hey, here's an idea: Let me know in the comments what YOU learned this week (if anything)…

3AM Episode VII: The Blog Awakens

You might have noticed that I'm trying to shake the dust off this digital fish wrap after a bit of a hiatus. I don't like to dwell on wherefores and whatnots, since I think blogs about blogging are the bloggiest thing you can blog.

Instead, here's some Bill Shakespeare to class up the joint a bit.

SONNET 97
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.