Black Market Kidneys » Personal Victories

In which I assert my math-geek prowess

David — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:39:43 +0000

Every day there are countless factual errors in your newspaper. I forgive most every one–it’s surely hard work to meet a deadline day in and day out. Every day there are also a handful of cringeworthy efforts at cleverness. These gratuitous wastes of ink are, with rare exception, less forgivable. And when these cloying turds are combined with errors, I feel it my duty to ask you to, please, knock it the fuck off.

You could have been cute by saying something something about “moving the decimal point a few notches to the left” but, no, you had to bring the square root into the equation. (See that, clever pun, eh?). But rest assured, the square root of 1% is 10%, so, good sir, you fail in this sentence: “But for decades he struggled to reach enough people, even though he lowered the necessary figure to the square root of 1 percent. ”

No transcendence for you.

PS: while we’re on the subject of square roots, I dust off my favorite math joke:

Q: What’s the square root of 69?

A: Ate something.

Fail

David — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:30:11 +0000

Nice and direct, well done.

UN Rock reprise

David — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:30:58 +0000

So speaking of David Kilgour, I’m Not There, and New Jersey, would you believe that Ira and James of Yo La Tengo were directly behind us in line at Union Hall, paid their 12 bucks with Ira following me to the bar? So I bought him a beer, told him that he looked fancy in the morning’s Times, and we both enjoyed the show, just as I encouraged him to do upon parting. Bring on the Black Hollies!

Look out world.

David — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:50:23 +0000

I’m easily one of flickr’s smaller users, refusing to pay for an upgrade, and vaguely ashamed of my dinosaur of a digital camera that was even down-market when I bought it. As such, it was with great surprise and glee to learn yesterday that the millions of strangers out there may, in fact, stumble upon my pictures from time-to-time, and even rank them as their “Favorite”. Here, to my knowledge, is my first effort to garner that designation, taken on a recent Safari through Texas Hill Country.

where was i again?

Tito — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 04:30:56 +0000

In the last couple of years, I’ve started a few books that I was thoroughly enjoying but for various reasons¹ I did not finish. Of these, there are 3 that I am going to try and finish. In sequence of the amount I was enjoying them when last put down:

The Recognitions

Underworld

Infinite Jest

I am pretty sure I’ll finish The Recognitions and Underworld. I’m still not sure about IJ. The next question for me to address is whether to start over or take off where I left off. After 5 seconds of thought, I’m going to go with take off where I left off.

What the heck: Mountain Goats – This Year [MP3]

¹Previously …. I took a sick pride in “finishing what I started”² Well that pendulum took the other extreme, and I was a habitual non-finisher. I’ll see if I can’t find a balance somewhere in the middle.

²Interesting to see that the word “perseverance” has roots in Calvinistic doctrine.

They must be smoking that pipe, right?

Tito — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 06:24:25 +0000

If I had to pick one sentence (excluding all bumper sticker “wisdom”) to pass along, I’d probably go with “Don’t believe the hype” as a credo¹. For practical advice, I’d say “wear comfortable shoes”. If I were to stick with physics/science, which is apparently the original intent of the ‘challenge’, I’ll go with “There are rings around uranus”.
{via CR}

¹ I don’t know what ‘credo’ means, or even how to spell ‘credo’, really.

On the heads on bowling pins

David — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:41 +0000

So last summer, Clap Your Hands opened for Scissor Sisters at the Mercury Lounge.Â Having bought tickets before Pitchfork went to town, I ultimately was able to sell the tickets for an obscene 600% profit when a boss offered free Yankee box seats instead.

So I’m hoping that next week Pitchfork gives me a little more insurance when it reviews the Black Angels’ forthcoming PassoverÂ (mp3s!!), having scored for their June tour.Â Sadly, they came off like douchebags in the Onion this week, but when has that ever stopped Pitchfork?Â So here’s to an 8.3 or better, and let the vegan take care of the rest.

101 Elephant jokes

David — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 22:05:23 +0000

Jokes here.

Segue: We choose the law because we were too scared to try it as novelists. For good reason one might suppose?

“To find this interpretation deference-worthy, we would have to conclude that Congress not only had hidden a rather large elephant in a rather obscure mousehole, but had buried the ambiguity in which the pachyderm lurks beneath an incredibly deep mound of specificity, none of which bears the footprints of the beast or any indication that Congress even suspected its presence,” the judge said.

This Is The First Day Of My Life

Tito — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 06:17:16 +0000

A bittersweet moment – joy that I’ve finally done it, but sad that it took so long. Ladies & Gentlemen of the internet, I present my first completed Sunday Crossword. At this moment, I don’t even care if some are wrong. To paraphrase Costanza – If I believe they are correct, they are correct.