I paid some guy on the internet $14 for, like, 97 percent of all the episodes of You Can't Do That On Television ever made, very low-fi, on 3 DVD-Rs. They came today. Initial reaction: Christine McGlade was *cute* as an actual teenager playing a teenager in 1981, a fact that was mostly lost on me at age 6 ( Read more... )

Dangit -- I've been grousing for years about people who say "a myriad of X," and only now I learn that the noun form is perfectly acceptable and etymologically sound, as "myriad" derives from the greek word for "10,000." I hate when I'm duped by the evil society of false grammarians!

Well shoot, guess I should just subscribe to WBEZ or something:

Listeners weigh in on a very special story on whale farming in Illinois

"Two of the whales are plainly singing the same note. That may be clever, but it is not barbershop."

Listen to this WBEZ story about what it takes to get a passing grade at Robeson High School in Chicago and tell me it doesn't make you feel physically ill, too. Of course, if you gave me all the money and total power over this place, how would I get these kids to come to class and magically jump 3 or 4 grade levels? No clue.

"If ever you do challenge me to a duel, your safest bet will be battle axes in a very dark cellar."

-Not Cary Elwes, not Kevin Kline, but Patrick McGoohan as Number 12, an agent of The Village who plays Number 6's doppelganger, from The Prisoner, ep. 4, Schizoid Man

"They say there are two things you don't ever want to do as a public official, and that's to own a hospital or a golf course."

-Jay Jaxon, mayor of Eufaula, Alabama, in Washington, D.C. for an annual mayor's conference, prefacing his remarks on NPR's "Morning Edition" about how it would be great if there were enough stimulus funding to rebuild ( Read more... )

I've been enjoying the new higher meter parking rates from the new overlord of parking in Chicago, Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, but I wondered: Do we now have private meter maids? Do they have books of parking tickets? Will they run a "Judge Judy"-type fake court where they get to decide if they screwed up writing you a ticket ( Read more... )

Another for the rail/transit hater crowd, from this Yahoo/AP piece on the federal budget ( Read more... )

Not that it should come as a huge shock, I guess, but Yelp is probably messing with reviews to reward (or punish) businesses that advertise, or which sponsor Yelp events.

I always imagined the appellation "Phillips-head," as in the screw and driver, was a corruption from Philips, the Dutch conglomerate. I was wrong. Henry F. Phillips, from right here (well, *there*
...) in Oregon, U.S.A., is largely responsible for your always having the wrong screwdriver at hand ( Read more... )