Coworker: How’s Baltimore’s second-favorite son?
Me: Do you mean me, or Phelps?
Archive for the ‘Stray data’ Category
How much do you tip a barber? I guess every time, based on what the guy ahead of me does. What’s the rule here?
Today there are several excellent-sounding things I want to investigate further, but I have no time. None. So I’m posting these links somewhat blindly, on the hunch that they’ll be good.
- Japhy links to the a video about a proposal to build a bullet train in California. Yes! Build it! After watching this 10-minute YouTube video, which I haven’t seen, I’m relatively sure you’ll be convinced too!
- You Suck at Photoshop has returned with new episodes, according to Wired. I’ve never watched a single episode of this online tutorial/comedy sensation, but I imagine it’s a mildly hilarious diversion.
- Writing in New York, Rex Sorgatz devotes a few thousand words to studying the idea of Microfame. Even thought I haven’t read it, I expect this is a reasonably well-done story that will remind you of many other pretty interesting New York magazine stories.
- June 14th, 1901 the ferryboat Northfield was leaving Whitehall when it was struck by a Jersey Central Ferry and sank immediately.
- In 1960, a bomb was set off on the Knickerbocker. There were no injuries.
- On May 16, 1981, the American Legion was rammed in the fog by a Norwegian freighter.
- July 7th, 1986 a mentally disturbed person with a machete attacked passengers on a ferry. Two people were killed and nine others were wounded
- On April 12th, 1995 the ferry boat Barberi plowed into a slip in St. George, injuring a handful of passengers.
- October 15, 2003 the ferry boat Andrew J. Barberi slammed into a maintenance pier at the Staten Island Maintenance Facility on Staten Island. Ten people died and an 11th person died two months later from injuries from the accident.
All of these fun facts are courtesy of the official Staten Island Ferry web site!
A geography expert studied the 2001 song “Area Codes” and concluded: “Ludacris has hoes in the entire state of Maryland.”
Behold Ludacris’ Rap Map of US Area Codes (via the Strange Maps blog).
“Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.”
On the subject of presidents, I direct you to the latest link roundup on my friend Jess’s blog “History is Funny.“
I got a e-mail recently advertising an acrobat conference. Wow, how did I end up on a mailing list for acrobats? Cool! Then I read a little more…
” The Adobe Acrobat & PDF conference is the largest gathering of PDF professionals anywhere and boasts 80 sessions with eight separate tracks that address a range of PDF solutions for creating, securing, distributing and managing PDF documents.”
Okay, that doesn’t sound like any fun. Though if there’s a Microsoft PowerPoint & PPT conference, that would probably be worse.
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