J-Walk Blog: January 10, 2003 Archives

10 January, 2003

How to be a Good Wife

Here are some instructions, but they are 48 years old. A few of these may need to be updated.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

The Darker Side of Disney

Not everyone cares for the Mickey Mouse company. Here's a list of links to anti-Disney web sites

In related news, the admission price to Disneyland was increased on Monday. It will now set you back US $47 to visit the Southern California attraction.

Disney officials said they had to up the price because of increased operating and investment expenses. Disneyland admission prices have jumped 24 percent since 1998. At the same time, annual attendance has dipped by more than one million.

I guess it hasn't occurred to them that the outrageous admission fee might be responsible for the attendance decline.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Periodic Table of the Condiments

Find out when condiments go bad. Chemists might appreciate the humor here.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Good Eats

If you're into cooking shows on TV, you probably know that the best one is Good Eats, featuring Alton Brown.

In terms of creativity and offbeat humor, it can't be beat. He has a web site, and a fan page, which sums it up nicely:

...the show combines the likes of the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Bill Nye the Science Guy and a pinch of VH1 all rolled into one great half hour.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

The War Plane Graveyard

Ken Lepper sent me this link to an aerial photo of a warplane graveyard. More specifically, it's Davis Monthan AFB south of Tucson, Arizona. It shows thousands of planes in "storage." The B-52's are used as spares for the remaining fleet. I actually drove by this site last year, but I didn't know what it was.

Ken found this in a book title Earth From Above, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. He has photographed many interesting and beautiful places around the world from a helicopter. Examples here.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Congrats to Cory Doctorow

Cory's novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published yesterday. Cory, as you may know, is the guy behind Boing Boing. Cory writes:

24 hours after launching the site from which you can download my novel for free, the book has been downloaded over 20,000 times. It's been Slashdotted, blogged to hell and back, and I've done a number of press interviews about it. What's more, the title is currently sitting at #304 in the Amazon Sales Rank. Let's call this one a success. I could not be more stoked. Damn.

One of those 20,000 downloads was from me. I plan to read it as soon as I finish A Box of Matches.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Welcome, Strangers

On a typical day, the J-Walk Blog attracts about 300 visitors, each of whom views about three pages. But yesterday, that changed. We had 1,037 visitors and 3,045 page views.

Apparently, someone sent an email newsletter that had a link to my WiFi Speed Spray ad parody. That, combined with a higher-than-expected desire to view annoying web page backgrounds, set a single day access record.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

How to Assemble an IKEA Computer Desk

National Lampoon provides complete instructions, with lots of helpful diagrams and photos. For example, here's step 6.2:

With upended microwave holding immensely heavy slat part up, spend a full two hours trying to get one screw into the two interconnected pieces. Once the screw goes through the hole it must come out the other side and enter the slat. Since you cannot actually see the hole in the metal and wood part (it's being held against the frame, remember), you must repeat this process an estimated six hundred thousand times in a near-infinite number of combinations. Finally, all four of the stupid screws are through the stupid holes and the stupid goddamn IKEA computer desk is installed.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Touchtone Phone Music

Name this tune:

1 1 2 1 6 3- 1 1 2 1 9 6-

1 1 # 9 6 3 2- # # 9 6 9 6

Click here fore more telephone sheet music.

Posted on 10 January, 2003

Crazy Rabbit

Crazy Rabbit is a very clever bit of Flash.

Move your mouse around while an animated rabbit tries to catch the mouse cursor.

Posted on 10 January, 2003