It's time to bring an oldie, but a goody back. The last time we did one of these was back in June of 2009, so more than enough time has passed for you guys to brush up on your cartography. And for the uninitiated, here's how "From the Air" works: on the following page are ten photos taken from satellite photos and it's your job to figure out what and where each of these are in the comments section. To make it slightly easier, all of this edition's photos come from North America. Good luck!
My co-worker has a bad habit of using Craigslist to find his conquests for the weekend but this may be the last straw for him. He forwarded this email response to me after trying to get a threesome going with a couple through the listings. After reading this, it definetly makes me think twice about even using CL to try and find that someone special (unless you're looking for someone special ed). Pure comedy gold (or an editor's nightmare)....
Tea Partying Patriots Left a Little Light In the Wallet
"Only dead fish go with the flow ... and spend $549 to hear me ramble on like Robert Plant and shell out $65 bucks on a Tea Party hoody."*
Sarah Palin
* I may have embellished that quote a bit. It is off the top of my head, I remembered it the best I could.
For an old fashioned little girl tea parties, doting mums spent a few bucks on toy (fake) china tea set. And a couple dollars on tea, milk and sugar. Maybe $3 bucks for fancy white laced gloves. All in all, a bargain for a classy, good time.
The grown up right wing tea parties aren't adhering this bargain tradition. In fact, this past weekend, a major Tea Party event was an all-out capitalistic orgy of money over fist.
In Nashville, angry white folks paid for transportation and overpriced food, had to stay at the sprawling Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, negotiate all the definitely for-profit vendors hawking all manner of tacky kitsch. Unlimited numbers of bad taste T-shirts were available as well as tea-bag necklace for $89.99. It's like swap meet bargains.
You could get into the convention for $349. if you want to hear Sarah Palin attempt to speak in coherent sentences, that's a total of $549. Didn't this start as a grass roots, non-profit demonstration where one if the battle cries was "spending is out of control?" Originally, the only real cost was poster-board and giant ink markers to draw Hitler mustaches on the President. I think Kinkos made most of the money with the original protests. "How big can you make this concentration camp picture?"
As for Mrs. Palin, $549 dollars, really? I know the organizers had to jack up prices to cover you 100 large speaking fee, but come one. (It's what best for Alaska, apparently.) Neither Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney charge $549 for a concert, And Paul is going to sing "Yesterday."
The best movie I've seen this past year was not a movie at all, but a video game called Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I've been a fan of this series for a while, as witnessed by character Elena Fisher earning the top spot in my Top 10 Women in Video Games list a few years back. This game is not only action packed, but the story is deep, the characters are complex, the scenery is beautiful, there's humor, there are twists, and as soon as you finish the game you want to go back in and play again. How many movies can tackle all of that? Sure, Avatar was action packed with beautiful scenery, but would you say there was a tremendous amount of depth to the story? What about complex characters? Still not convinced?
The Phantom Camera is a digital high-speed camera that shoots up to 1.4 million frames-per-second.
At full resolution--1280x800-- The aspect ratio of the Phamtom v710 allows you to keep moving targets in-frame longer and see more of the event you are recording.
And what's the best way to show it off?
How about 2+ minutes of a mdoel in a G-string bikini getting splashed with water.
You may remember the Discovery Channel's very popular jingle I Love the World. Randall Munroe of xkcd was inspired and did his own version featuring memes from his webcomic. Then Elaine Doyle and Olga Nunes produced a video that recreates xkcd's comic using the original tune, featuring a cast of prominent and not-so-prominent bloggers.
Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Bruce Schneier, Jason Kottke, Google Zurich, Hank Green, MC Frontalot, Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Mr. Toast, Miss Cellania, Team Genius, Phil Plait, Allan Amato, Maddy Gaiman, Charissa Gilreath, Belinda Casas, Chuck Martinez, Jeremy James, Joanna Gaunder, Lee Israel & Octavio Coleman Esq. of The Jejune Institute
Yours Truly and my daughters sang the first Boomdeyada. And yes, since you asked, I'm only posting this video because I'm in it -you would expect nothing less from me. You'll find a complete listing of who's who line by line at Olga's site.
I was surprised (and a bit happy) that the Saints were the victors tonight. But I was amazed that Dave managed to be in the same room with Jay for the first time in almost 20 years. That's like Biggie Smalls and Tupac sharing a Slurpee at the local 7-Eleven.