Screengrab-o-rama

Here are some interesting/funny/weird screengrabs I've taken recently.

Adding "http://bacolicio.us/" onto the beginning of a URL will add a thick slice of bacon to the page. Try it for yourself!



I came across this online hangman game today while doing research at work. I consider myself pretty good at geography, but this one stumped me completely.



One day last week on YouTube 17 out of the top 20 most-viewed videos were of the Bush shoe attack.



A few days ago I tried to access FinalCrit.com, a site where I have my advertising portfolio posted, but the site seemed to be dead. This is what showed up in Google when you searched for it.

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If Beyonce's Stylist Died in the Forest and No One Heard...

This past week, two relatives of celebrities met their demise: Mark Ruffalo’s brother in an apparent Russian roulette accident in an apparent homicide and Macaulay Culkin’s sister in a car accident. Both of these events appeared in the breaking news headlines on websites and news channels, and will soon be buried by newer occasions of sensational celebrity news.

I would understand if Ruffalo or Culkin themselves died, but their siblings were hardly public figures. Is being related to a famous person really enough to qualify for headline-news status? And if so, where does it end? First cousin? Second cousin? Second cousin thrice removed? The line is blurry, and, more to the point, silly to try to determine. People like Scott Ruffalo and Dakota Culkin deserve an obituary like anyone else, but not 20% of the headline space on the Yahoo home page. Their passings are private matters, and should not be covered this intensely unless they actually affect the public in some way.

Interestingly, the online Times of London article about Culkin’s sister devoted the majority its words to a brief history of Culkin’s career and life. Clearly the paparazzi hardly even care about her sister; her death is only an excuse for a filler item about her brother, the troubled child star.

I’m not the first person to criticize the 24-hour news machine, and I won’t be the last. But I feel strongly that our journalists should do a better job of censoring the information they feel is newsworthy, and concentrate more on topics of actual importance to the society they serve.
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Censoring One's Life Based on Fun

Generally speaking, there are two types of things we do our leisure time. Things we do because we want to, and things we do because we feel we should. There is a psychological tendency to view activities that are unpleasant as beneficial to one’s mastery of self, building character and self-discipline. When we ache after a workout we feel as if it was a “good” workout. When we leave an art film confused and perhaps disturbed, we feel as though we have just witnessed “real” cinema.

For me, two examples of this are swimming and reading classic works of fiction. I see my continued partaking of these activities as positive in several respects. Swimming is a pretty useful skill, as far as sporting abilities go. It’s certainly better to know how to swim than to serve a tennis ball. So although one lap leaves me huffing and puffing, and despite the fact that my goggles never stay on right and I have to constantly adjust them to keep water from getting in, I keep on swimming. I don’t enjoy it. I may even hate it. But I do it anyway, hoping to get better (which I never do).

Same with reading classic fiction. Do I like reading dense paragraphs of Victorian English whose plots leave me utterly bored and sleepy? Not at all. I’d much rather read some stimulating modern fiction (although I still read exclusively “literature,” rather than popular fiction, which I avoid due to its lack of perceived edifying content). Yet I continue to plod through Faulkner, Dreiser, and others, believing I am bettering myself by perfunctorily running my blurry eyes over the words on the pages.

I’d love to be able to say, “Clearly no one should do something they don’t enjoy. We have very limited free time, and you should spend it doing something that is fun for you.” But despite this logic, a large part of me still strongly insists that life is made richer by forcing yourself to swim, to eat new foods, to listen to music that you don’t usually like, etc. Life is about more than pleasure; it is about learning. If we cherry-pick the things we do and never challenge ourselves to push through unpleasant times, we are guaranteed to lead sterile and static, albeit fun, lives. The choice is ours.
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Post #100! Interesting Pictures

Yes, the nation of Turkey does indeed have a city called "Batman." It's located in the Kurdish Southeast, and over a quarter-million people live there.




Thanks to Wikipedia for this picture and caption, found in the "Sock" article. Keep reading...

Cool Sites of The Day

This site shows how with expert make-up and photography, a model can look 10 years old or 60. Amazing.



Crispin's new work for Burger King is obvious, but genius. They took a film crew to Thailand, Romania, and Greenland, and gave Whoppers to people who were totally unfamiliar with the product. Enter: Whopper Virgins. Videos will be posted later this week on the site. Keep reading...