Folsom at 17th
San Francisco showing its naval roots? I guess?
(So it turns out that this is an actual song. Cool.)
A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.
Tag Archives: wait what
Lose Weight, Tubby: The Video Game
Lose Weight, Tubby: The Video Game
Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!! is an otome game originally released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. The main character, Hitomi Sakuragawa (default, changeable in-game), was once a cute, beautiful girl, winning beauty contests in childhood. However, after losing to the temptation of junk food received from fans, she has steadily gained weight… until she reaches 100 kg in her second year of high school. At the beginning of the school year, the main character and her brother move into her father’s mansion-like dorm. Surprise awaits as she discovers that the school’s most popular guys are also moving in. Their impressions on her shock her into starting a diet.
Does this game have weight-loss-based gameplay? You bet it does.
Dieting
Dieting is a half-day option on normal days and accumulates the most stress. The player can lose weight through exercises, by using equipment, or consuming slimming products. Each activity is given a star value and the player can only use up to certain values on different days. Three stars can be used on normal days and the full five stars on Sundays or holidays. Dieting can also be done at the sports center where if you by a ticket for acrobatics or swimming you may go on holidays and Sundays; on regular days the sport center provides a treadmill rent for 700 yen.
Well I suppose it’s a relatively novel concept.
This is why the internet was invented. A hand-made, two and a half foot long octopus tentacle, complete with a porthole straight out of H.G. Wells, can protrude from the wall of your living room for the low, low price of of $1,100.
Seriously, click through and read the breakdown of his construction process — it’s intense.
(Via Daniel Bogan.)
The Other Verses of “Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone”
The nursery rhyme ”Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone” was originally written in 1864 by songwriter Septimus Winner. I’ve never heard of him before, but he was a pretty interesting guy. He wrote a lot of songs, including “Ten Little Injuns,” and arranged quite a bit more. He was also jailed during the Civil War for treason after he wrote a song requesting that General George B. McClellan be reinstated.
The song was published under the title “Der Deitcher’s Dog.” The melody Winner used was originally from the German folksong “Zu Lauterbach hab i’ mei Strumpf verlorn.” The lyrics, written in a mock-German accent, were original. The first verse of the song is the one sung as a nursery rhyme today:
Oh where, Oh where ish mine little dog gone;
Oh where can he be.
His ears cut short und his tail cut long:
Oh where, Oh where ish he.
But the next verse and the ones after it, well. Let’s just say that I think I know why only the first one caught on.
I loves mine lager’tish very good beer,
Oh where, Oh where can he be.
But mit no money I cannot drink here.
Oh where, oh where ish he.Across the ocean in Garmanie,
Oh where can he be.
Der deitchers dog ish der best compagnie.
Oh where, Oh where ish he.Un sasage ish goot, bolonie of course,
Oh where can he be.
Dey makes um mit dog und dey makes em mit horse,
I guess de makes em mit he.
(Lyrics taken from this collection of 1800s popular songs.)
On the Origin of Kimilsungia
As told by the current Supreme Leader of North Korea in 2005:
When we approached a display in a greenhouse of the botanical garden, Sukarno took a pot of flowers from the director of the botanical garden, and asked President Kim Il Sung how he liked the flowers. The director explained that it was a variety of the orchid family a famous florist of the garden had bred after long, painstaking research, and it was a peculiar flower in that it blossomed twice a year, being in bloom for two to three months. After looking at the flower for a while, President Kim Il Sung said that it was very beautiful and expressed thanks to his host for showing him such a fine flower. Then, Sukarno said sincerely that he wanted the flower to be named after President Kim Il Sung. The director of the botanical garden, too, expressed his wish to call it Kimilsungia. President Kim Il Sung gently declined their suggestion, saying that he had done nothing so special and that there was no need to name a flower after him. Sukarno replied, “No. You have rendered enormous services to mankind, so you deserve a high honour.” He refused to withdraw his request. Back in Jakarta, he repeatedly brought the matter to us. On receiving a report about it, President Kim Il Sung said that if President Sukarno and the Indonesian people wished it so sincerely, he would accept the suggestion as a token of their esteem for our people. This is how a flower named after a great man for the first time in the thousands of years of human history came into the world.
Via MSNBC’s PhotoBlog, which has a photo of a billboard of the flower and another quote that the flower is “blooming everywhere on the five continents.”
There’s also the Kimjongilia for you horticulturalists out there.
Bizarre Valentine’s Day editorial about semen leads to retraction, resignation
Bizarre Valentine’s Day editorial about semen leads to retraction, resignation
Seriously, in what universe is it a good idea to conclude an editorial in a trade publication with:
So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.
Dumb.
Cutting-edge frog physics from Crysis.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Hazen, farms left high and dry by canal closure
Hazen, farms left high and dry by canal closure
Hazen, NV is a very small town close to where I live. Tiny little place, nestled between two somewhat larger cities, Fernley and Fallon. It rests along Route 50 Alternate, which combined with I-80 is the shortest way to get from Reno to Fallon, so it gets a fair amount of drive-by traffic.
Did you know it’s possible to shut off water to an entire town? It happened to Hazen in November. Frank X. Mullen wrote a long piece in today’s Reno Gazette-Journal about it, and how they won’t have water again until June:
The Truckee Carson Irrigation District delivers Newlands Irrigation Project water that flows in the canal from the Derby Dam to Lahontan Reservoir. On Jan. 5, 2008, the canal breached in Fernley, affecting hundreds of homes and displacing more than 1,500 residents.
In 2008, the irrigation district shut down the canal but used tanker trucks to provide water to the pond that feeds Hazen’s domestic system. The water kept flowing through the pipes.
But the district shut down the canal in November, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation won’t allow water to flow again until repairs are made. Officials are awaiting federal approval of the repair plans and predict the canal could start flowing again sometime in June.
It was ruled in 1991 that the community has no water rights, so the official position from the manager of the irrigation district is “that’s your toughie.” Even for the farms and such that do have water rights.
“The residents are responsible for their own water,” [Kate Rutan, office manager for the Truckee-Tahoe irrigation district] said. “If I buy a house, it’s up to me to find out what (the water situation) is. I’d look at the deed. It has to be in there. It’s their responsibility to find out how water comes out of those taps.
“Just because you’ve been doing something for 100 years doesn’t create a right or give you an entitlement.”
She said the farms and ranches with water rights should be getting water, but because the canal can’t be reopened until it meets federal standards those fields remain dry.
Hard to believe stuff like this happens in this day and age.
New Book on Google Shows Gaffes in China
New Book on Google Shows Gaffes in China
Steven Levy’s written a new book on Google, In the Plex, set to come out on April 12. The New York Times received an advance copy and published a piece on it by Claire Cain Miller. The article focuses on gaffes revealed by the book that Google made while expanding into China, but there’s this tidbit snuck in near the end:
Mr. Schmidt asked that Google remove from the search engine information about a political donation he had made. Sheryl Sandberg, a Google executive who is now Facebook’s chief operating officer, told him that was unacceptable.
I… this is an April Fools’ joke, right?
This is some Super Mario Galaxy shit right here, son.
Click through for more stereographic projections by Alexandre Duret.