The Friendly Skies

My trip home is off to an auspicious start with Delta canceling our flight and running us up to Japan on a United flight an hour later.

Unfortunately this guy won't be one of our flight attendants at any point in tomorrow's journey...



(via DB)

Time Traveling

I'll be headed back home after about a month in Singapore tomorrow.  Things should spring back into action around a bit once the looooong flight is over.

My favorite part of making this journey is that the flight from Japan to the US will technically land before it took off, don't think too hard about that one though.

A Sojourn In Singapore

Is the whimsically titled class that will round out my grad school experience and take me to Singapore for the next several weeks.

While I'll have internet access I expect posting to be light at best here, instead a few of my classmates and I are giving tumblr a spin so check us out at Nic Schoolin Singapore.

Not Just A Good Idea, It's The Law

At least the GOP hasn't escalated its attack on science to repealing the law of gravity yet...



Seriously though, we're lucky that most of these anti-environmental bills are just coming out of the House and then trailing off and not going anywhere.  If you care about the environment and the future well being of mankind though, make sure you keep paying attention and that you let your representatives in Washington know how you feel from time to time.

(via DB on fb, who is on fire these days)

Tastes Like Winning

Alright, I officially think that Charlie Sheen is in on the joke, at least to some extent.

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen

Regardless of what you think is going on here the man seems to be enjoying himself; if he is having a melt down it's about the most productive one in history.  He's also keeping millions of people entertained, is working, and may well be laughing all the way to the bank.  At the very least he does appear to be, as he put it, winning the internet.

Then again he could just be nuts.

(via Speakeasy)

The Offseason

It's always a long cold winter for baseball fans, some of whom watch way too many shows on the sport with quite a cast of characters doing the commentating.  If that's not how you spent your winter Batting Stance Guy has the cliffs notes version for you...




I'm glad the season starts soon.

(via Keith Law)

Illustrated Headlines

Take this one straight to your reader or at the very least bookmark it right now.  Eric Wedum Illustrates a headline from the major papers every weekday without any context from the article...

(via TMN which really ought to be in your reader as well)

Hang Ten

Reuben Margolin makes some incredible art...



The way that guy's brain works is scary impressive.  I know he has lots of practice but I was blown away when he freehanded the combined waves so perfectly.

(via TMN)

...and no I don't get the last minute at all either, yes wave energy is a cool thought but it so doesn't really fit with the rest of the video.

Joke Of The Times

This is my favorite new joke, and/or the best thing I've seen all week...

A Wall Street billionaire, a unionized public employee, and a Tea Party member are sitting around a table with a plate of a dozen delicious cookies.  The financier reaches across the table and takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier and says, 'Watch out for that union guy. He wants your cookie.'

(via RG on fb who says it came via MB)

Read This Now - We Need Good Teachers

It isn't a news flash or revelation that the US education system is lagging behind much of the rest of the developed world.  Or that we really need to do something about it if we want to remain one of the world's leading economies.

Matt Miller has a brief piece in the WaPo today on the need for recruiting and supporting better teachers and the need to work with teachers unions to make this happen...

We're the only leading nation that thinks it can stay a leading nation with a "strategy" of recruiting mediocre students and praying they'll prove excellent teachers. 

It's a quick read and some of the points are old ones but they're all good ones nonetheless and worth remembering.

(via EK)

Sending Off The Duke

Edwin Donald Snider, the Duke of Flatbush, passed away at 80 something earlier this week and there have already been a number of little tributes and remembrances and looks back at his career and his numbers (in this stat driven age that's how it works).  I've been waiting to mention the Duke's passing until Joe P. had a chance to write something about it because Joe P. is a phenomenal writer on all subjects, and probably the greatest writer of remembrances and farewells in the business today, if not ever (particularly when he remembers someone he knew personally, it always gets a little dusty when you read those pieces even if you've never heard of the subject before).  Well Joe P. didn't know the Duke personally, but he still does a nice job and you should take a couple of moments to read his send off...

Nobody in the papers I saw stood up for Duke Snider. Nothing was ever easy with Duke Snider, except for the easy swing and the easy grace and the easy name. Few baseball player have ever been called Duke. Only one was The Duke.

For my part, I'm way too young to know anything firsthand about there being three teams in NYC, let alone three of the greatest center fielders of all time playing for those teams at the same time. But my dad and my grandpa know a little bit about that, and when I was little we read a lot of books about baseball in the 40's and 50's in NYC.  These things tend to go generationally so while my dad had been a Yankees fan and sided with Mantle I of course wanted to pull for the Dodgers, partly because they were my grandpa's team and partly because of the stories of Duke Snider, who always seemed like an underdog to me but who always came through when it mattered as well.

Anyway, so long Duke.  If you haven't read The Boys of Summer, make sure you do.