The Phantom City

Slowly, possibly through some sort of neural net:

“My name Shakira i girl ,im search friend, send me messages [email redacted] i send me foto:)”

I love the idea by Rudolf Martin in 1908 that Germany could successfully invade Britain by Zeppelin, carrying 350,000 troops in each wave, not the least because of the need to build ~7,000 of them.

I’m trying to imagine how you would hide that preparation. A million acres of camouflage netting? Paint them bright colors and put on a really long air show? Don’t bother to hide it, but try to convince the British you’re actually planning to land in Scotland?

Courtesy of Airminded, a fascinating blog about Airpower and British society, 1908-1941 (mostly).

I can’t remember where I ran across this the other day, but a blog post described the new version of some electronic product as “50% smaller and 100% lighter.”

50% smaller is good.

100% lighter is great!

Up until you accidentally throw it into space.

Damn it.

Ah, this subject line brings back memories:

Your most magnificent toy ever, unleashed amongst women with a vengeance.

Aside from my Commodore 64 — which was not a toy — the first thing that came to mind was ROM - Space Knight. That thing was so cool. I’m not sure why women would care about it, though. It did have blinking lights…

From today:

french was not her strong point by any means.
the word ‘limes’ was like fire to powder,seeing.
tired with her short journey, beth
any circ’mstances.” of life.
holding up an oddly shaped linen bag, with
to new york?

A spam message I received this afternoon, with responses:

You Do not like your machine size.

Well, you know us programmers, always looking for a bigger machine.

Women laugh at you.

Oh, great. I thought they were laughing with me.

You have unique chance to solve this problem.

Yay!

Try our male aggregate enla’rgement and Chicks will adore you surely enough.

Well, I am male, and I have been enlarging ever since college…good food, good times. But as far as adoration, well, I already thought that ladies love me, girls adore me, I mean even the ones who never saw me…. So I’m not sure how that would be better.

I used. My wife is really happy.

I’m glad for her and you, Mr…Oh, sorry…Dr. Cheryl Reaves. Cheryl? Wow, that stuff must really work.

moar funny pictures

What a huge surprise, given his extraordinary empathy and deep…oh, wait…he’s the one who wrote this article:
American Beauty? I get it now. I’m thinking insulting both British and American women when he lives in both countries probably won’t work for him. Unless he watched The Pick-up Artist and decided to be really ambitious.

I really hope this was supposed to be A Modest Proposal, particularly given the selection of pictures of Charlotte Church and Paris Hilton to illustrate.

Oh, and ladies…according to Tad’s informal poll, his friends spend $1700 a month just on makeup and keeping in shape. That might have something to do with him being a screenwriter and living in LA, but I’m thinking we need to go a bit further on closing the wage gap between men and women. Women definitely need much more money than men…although in Tad’s world there would be much less spent on food.

I went out to my car a bit ago and there was a squirrel sitting on one of the tires. It was eating a seed. I shooed it away before I thought to take a picture of it. I felt a connection with it. Squirrelly (by definition) and loves seeds. I can understand that.

I got a dollar bill in change this morning. On the back of the bill someone wrote the words “I LOVE YOU.” “How sweet,” I thought. Then I turned the dollar over. On the front was the word “ASSHOLE.” I don’t think I’m going to use that bill for legal commerce with another person. I shall probably use it in a machine and pass it on to someone else anonymously. If you run across this dollar, it’s probably best to read it front to back.

There are a group of guys who gather to smoke and talk outside my workplace. They can be found out there several times a day. While I don’t smoke, I understand people who do would want to engage in it fairly often. What I don’t understand is what is there to talk about every day? I like my coworkers, but I’d be willing to bet I could run through almost all interesting information within a day or two if I talked to them frequently.

I got a coupon for a dollar off McDonald’s McSkillet Burrito. I saw some commercials for it over the weekend. The tagline was something like “Everything you love about breakfast.” They then listed the ingredients. My thoughts after each one:

• Scrambled eggs (Yep.)
• Skillet potatoes (Yum.)
• Breakfast sausage (Okay, not a big fan of sausage, but I understand that.)
• Cheddar jack cheese (Mmm, cheese…)
• Peppers and onions (Hmm, maybe, but not usually a part of my morning repast.)
• Spicy salsa (Uh, no. Thanks for ruining the rest.)

Oh, by the way, the McSkillet Burrito? It had a blog. And a car.

Addendum: Oh, I almost forgot. This personal ad, inspired by the webcomic xkcd? He’s looking for a stick figure with squiggly hair. It’s that kind of unrealistic portrayal that can cause poor self-esteem in women whose heads aren’t wider than their bodies.