Ella Eve & Friends

A short montage of Ella and friends from Birthday to Easter.



- Scout

A penny for your thoughts

Is a phrase that probably dates from a time when a penny was worth a lot more than it is now. Nowadays, the metal used to make a penny is actually worth more than one cent (this known as negative seigniorage) and the actual value of one cent is so low that,

"[b]reaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage."

These are just a few of many factlets to be found in this essay by David Owen (the David Owen? No, a David Owen), which makes a compelling case for the end of small change.

- Mr. Ed

Our Back Pages

I was getting all nostalgic the other day and I ventured in to the archives of the P club. It turns out March 2006 was - if I do say so myself - pretty damned amusing (See Exhibit A). You can re-experience march 2006, as it was lived by the P Club, by clicking here.

Exhibit A: Some of the funny to be found in the March 2006 Archives.


- Mr. Ed

Signs of the apocalypse?

That's it, it's all over, the end just has to be nigh, I mean doesn't it? The economy is in meltdown, men are having babies, and Chris Wallace stood up for Barack Obama. Yes that's right, - Rupert Murdoch's lap dog, the scourge of Bill Clinton - repeatedly defended Obama ON. FOX. NEWS. See for yourself:



Night is day, up is down and... the slow one now... will later be fast? Or, maybe Obama really has opened up a national dialogue on race. Renowned conservative author Charles Murray seems to want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

- Mr. Ed

Spring is here!

Spring is here...


I'm pretty sure I posted a very similar video last year (or the year before?), so apologies to the misguided fools people who don't love Tom Lehrer.

- Mr. Ed

Sweater Day

Well, it's already been a busy day on the Pony Club (it's great to see Bluecupboard once again grazing in our green pastures) but I couldn't let today go by without mention of Sweater Day, part of Won't You Be My Neighbour Days, March 15th-20th, honouring Fred Rogers, who would have been 80 years old today:

"We’re asking everyone everywhere — from Pittsburgh to Paris — to wear their favorite sweater on that day... [i]t doesn’t have to have a zipper down the front like the one Mister Rogers wore on the program, it just has to be special to you."

Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood was one of my favourite programs when I was a foal. I used to sit in front of the TV and talk to Mr. Rogers, quite convinced that since he was talking to me, he must be able to hear me too. Here's a clip from the show:



I like you just the way you are,

- Mr. Ed

(image from Tv-jab.com)

Five years and counting...

Yep, that's it, today marks the five year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war...
So it was kind of Pres. Bush to provide this Iraq War Word Puzzle to help pass the rest of the Long War...

"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary and it is just" he said yesterday, but he left out the following prefixes and words: ig-, un-, ridiculously, un-. See if you can guess where they go. (Hint- some may be used more than once...)

-Bluecupboard

Dave?... Dave?...

I think the moment is undeniably right for a little more indugence in the Kubrick/Clarke piece of marvelousness that is 2001:A Space Oddessy. Surely one of the most effective confrontations between good guy and sociopath in cinematic history, and one of them doesn't even have much of a face...



Okay, enough already with the dubious film crit...

- Bluecupboard

The end of the an era

The Sci-Fi legend Arthur C. Clarke died today, he was 90 years old.

The film director Stanley Kubrick held the view that Clarke's ability was unique. "He has the kind of mind of which the world can never have enough, a composite of imagination, intelligence and knowledge that is driven by great energy and a quirkish and unceasing curiosity."

Here is a video he recorded on his 90th birthday (this past December):



And here are obits from the WaPo, NYT and the Guardian. He was one of the greats, and will be sorely missed.

- Mr. Ed

Jesus is gone!

But there are wiener-dog poopies everywhere...


- Mr. Ed

Ken Lee...

tulibu dibu douchoo.



- Mr. Ed

Hairball anyone?

- Mr. Ed

The Scream

Have you ever felt like you've heard that scream before? I mean when you're watching an action flick and you hear this scream, a prolonged and rather anguished Aaaaaah that trails off a the end, and you think to yourself, "I've heard that before somewhere." Well, it turns out you're right, in fact, you've probably heard it many, many times before. Read more (and watch a video) about the "Wilhelm Scream" here.

- Mr. Ed

Imagining the 10th Dimension

or, why string theory is mind-bendingly awesome.


- Mr. Ed

(Via Pickle)

The Falipornia Speak Therapy Institute

A promotional video from the Ministry of Unknown Science.


Yep!

- Mr. Ed

via boingboing

Gosh

It's been a busy few days, what with the road trip, the birth of Ella, the late nights and the long flight delays. I'm tired, so here's some P Club goodness bullet point stylee.

~ More joy from Our Hearts are Electric What should we have for dinner:

- Another marvelous missive from BDS:
"Not only does the emperor not have any new clothes, he’s not even the emperor—he’s just some loser in a cable knit sweater who’s really into Norah Jones".

- "I've done a lot of bad things in my life..."

~ The New Yorker continues to outdo itself:

- Carbon Footprints, what's all that about then eh? Don't miss the mention of John Elkington right at the end.

- A rather nifty Salman Rushdie short story.

- The Phillipines, 1901 - the US Army learns to waterboard, and that's not an obtuse reference to Robert Duval.

~ This speaks for itself:


moar humorous pics

~ And finally, you've got to hand it to him, Bill's got a point...




- Mr. Ed

Ella est arrivée!

Ella Eve was born this morning at 10:55am. She weighs 7lbs 13oz, she has dark hair, blue eyes and a dimple in her chin.

Update:
Here is a photo that Scout took of our beautiful niece.


- Uncle Ed

A break from the Obamania

The teaser trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie is up on youtube:

Even if it ends up being crap, right now the prospect of more Indy adventures gets my hooves a thumpin'.


- Mr Ed

Super-duper Tuesday so far...

Well, so far it seems to be a dead heat. In the long run I'd say that favours the challenger, and despite pulling alomst level with the Hildog tonight, Obama remains the outsider and that's a powerful position. California is a big prize for Clinton to be sure, ditto Mass. and NJ. On the other hand, wins in Connecticut, Missouri, Colorado and the other western states should hearten Obamaniacs. One thing I hope we can put to rest tonight though is whether Obama can win white votes: YES HE CAN. After all - Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Idaho, Colorado, Utah and Alaska are not exactly "Jesse Jackson" territory. Enough of my attempts at punditry, I'll give over to a master, and steal a whole post, photo and all:


Image nabbed from here

Among Obama's states: Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Alabama. His geographic reach is remarkable. His speech - just so glaringly, embarrassingly, surpassingly superior to his opponent's - has a theme of national unity and an end to identity politics. He actually rebukes voting on the basis of race whereas Clinton championed her role as a woman in politics. That's the difference. A reference to Washington's "dramas and distractions." An invocation of the wave of mortgage foreclosures. He praises Clinton by name but then puts the boot in - on lobbyists, Iraq, Iran, torture. And he's actually making tax hikes for the rich a positive reason to vote for him. No, Senator Clinton, he is not Ronald Reagan. And he is not George W. Bush: "We will make mistakes."
Look: he's a liberal. I'm not. But I'm not immune to this moment in history and this candidate's broad appeal. He appeals to the liberal in all of us. And it may be time for such a swing of the pendulum. Frankly, if that's going to happen, I'd rather have Obama represent that shift than almost anyone else.
If he loses California, the race goes on and he may not ultimately win the nomination. But he will have won this campaign. And he will have won the argument.

Heading off to bed now,

- Mr. Ed

Shining

Here's a little break from the wall-to-wall poli-blogging. This is the winning entry in a competition to re-cut movie trailers. From the NYT:

Robert Ryang, 25, a film editor’s assistant in Manhattan, graduated from Columbia three years ago with a double major in film studies and psychology. This week, he got an eye-opening lesson in both.

Since 2002, Mr. Ryang has worked for one of the owners of P.S. 260, a commercial postproduction house, cutting commercials for the likes of Citizens Bank, Cingular and the TriBeCa Film Festival.

A few weeks back, he said, he entered a contest for editors’ assistants sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors. The challenge? Take any movie and cut a new trailer for it – but in an entirely different genre. Only the sound and dialogue could be modified, not the visuals, he said.

Mr. Ryang chose “The Shining,” Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. In his hands, it became a saccharine comedy — about a writer struggling to find his muse and a boy lonely for a father. Gilding the lily, he even set it against “Solsbury Hill,” the way-too-overused Peter Gabriel song heard in comedies billed as life-changing experiences, like last year’s “In Good Company.

In other news it's super-duper Tuesday, so I expect we'll be back to the political side of things later today...

- Mr. Ed