August 2005

“Herrion was 6-foot-3, 310 pounds — fairly average for an NFL lineman, but considered obese within standards routinely accepted by the medical community.”

Fish Oil Supplements: Is The Brand You’re Taking Safe?
(from Oceans Alive)

I don’t know. It just sounded like a funny title for an internet article to me — like the pathetic teasers for the 11 o’clock local news or ’50s horror movies about coffee and / or pre-marital sex. Interesting to see that K-Mart was a “worst pick” for fish oil supplements. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Silly K-Mart.

from extendedabstract.com’s rejected letter to the editor of the UMass Daily Collegian

We can immediately think of some great chants for athletic events like “Go Hogs, Go Hogs, Go Hogs.” We could even use our arms while we chant to simulate the closing of the clam shell - much like the Florida Gators do. And finally you could do great graphics with an animated clam with big googly eyes and a mean face. Everyone would proudly wear sweatshirts with a simple “Q” on the front with the attitude that if you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.

The Fighting Quahogs would be the talk of the sports world.

But regardless of all this, if you are honest, you just know that the arrival of the Gray Wolves on campus would be greeted with a resounding yawn. It might as well be a husky. You wouldn’t tell your friends, you wouldn’t buy the shirt or hat or banner. You wouldn’t go and howl at the basketball game. Jim Rome wouldn’t even talk about it on the radio. But the Quahogs, or Fighting Quahogs, or Killer Quahogs you know would be the talk of the sports world, random people would want our merchandise, and you would enthusiastically cheer on our teams with “CO-HOGS, CO-HOGS.” You would even go to the concession and buy a clam roll. It’s the total package.

If you have feet … you really should treat yourself to a pair of Doc Martens. They are the best shoes made anywhere. I got my first pair in Covent Garden in London over a decade ago and wore them almost every day for six years. The shoes are just incredibly comfortable and durable.

I got an email this morning announcing that they’re currently having a 40% off sale (use coupon code DMFF4005 at checkout) to promote the redesign of their site, so I figured I’d share.

This weekend I finally finished Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. It was a terrific read, truly wonderful. Bryson managed to make even the most esoteric, incredibly — for lack of a better word — boring details about life on this planet inconceivably fascinating. I mean really, it takes a brilliant author to get you completely engrossed in plate tectonics, genome theories, and the Brownian motion of subatomic particles. I’m not a very good test subject, actually, because I tend to find these types of things amazing and fun even when presented in incredibly bland tomes on them, but I have to tell you that even if you aren’t even barely interested in glaciers or the lipids that comprise your cell walls, this book will enthrall you.

I also just recently finished “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach. This book, too, was just so damn fun to read. A bit morbid, to be sure, but Roach approaches everything with a bent towards comedy and I enjoyed it.

And lastly I should mention that my girlfriend and I managed to catch March of the Penguins on Friday night. If it doesn’t win an Academy Award — or two or three or four — I will be astonished.