Having watched a fair number of Premier League matches, I just want to say…
…boy, the presenters use the word “quality” a lot.
Word choice
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“It’s my manner, sir.”
Lexicon. Only mine. From the movie Lawrence of Arabia:
Lawrence: Good morning, sir.
General Murray: Salute! (Lawrence salutes, in an offhand gesture) If you’re insubordinate of me, Lawrence, I shall put you under arrest!
Lawrence: It’s my manner, sir.
General Murray: (flatly) Your what?
Lawrence: My manner, sir. It looks insubordinate, but it isn’t, really.
General Murray: You know, I can’t make out whether you’re bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted.
Lawrence: I have the same problem, sir.
The Man Who Planted Trees…
This video is 30 minutes long, but worth it. The text version is here. I first read it long ago, either in Co-Evolution Quarterly, or in one of the editions of the Whole Earth Catalog. I had an idea of establishing a fund at Midland to do something similar over all of campus, but like many of my ideas, nothing came of it.
One liner
All these applications, but I never get the job.
(Sure, it’s applications of an ointment upon me by nurses, but leave that aside.)
Rainbow Connection, a Benoit Blanc Joint
By way of the usually reliable Mr. Kottke comes this fun mash-up:
“Of all the gin joints in all the world…”
Lexicon. From the movie Casablanca. Once, I would have thought this was such a widely seen film I wouldn’t need to explain, but as the years go by, even societal memory fades.
Like many quotes from this movie, somewhat mangled. It should be, “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world… she walks into mine.” The towns, alas, get dumped.
Usage: Something incredibly rare and unexpected happens.
“My god!”
”What?”
”That car that just cut us off, like an asshole?”
”Yeah?”
”It’s a Bugatti Veyron.”
(respectful pause) “Of all the gin joints, in all the world…”
How not to do a re-brand
It’s been two years now since Angie’s List renamed itself Angi. This was done because, allegedly, “(W)e’re not just a list anymore. Customers were confined and constrained by the literal nature of the name.”
But both their TV ads and their website all but scream, “We used to be Angie’s List!” If you’re still encountering so much resistance from your customers after two years, perhaps it’s time to concede they’re comfortable with being confined and constrained.
What one fool can do…
Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks.
Some calculus-tricks are quite easy. Some are enormously difficult. The fools who write the textbooks of advanced mathematics—and they are mostly clever fools—seldom take the trouble to show you how easy the easy calculations are. On the contrary, they seem to desire to impress you with their tremendous cleverness by going about it in the most difficult way.
Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can.
— Calculus Made Easy, Silvanus Thompson, 1914 (yes, still in print)
Dramatic bust
Rummaging through my old photos is this, a bust in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. I have no other notes, other than I made the photo in October, 2015. I’d say it’s Roman, but what do I know?
Nicky K. and running shoes
Here’s a cute ad from Brooks shoes. Back in 1979, 1980 or so, they would take the back cover of Runner’s World.
Эти туфли убивают меня.
(Eti tufli ubivayut menya)
It’s Khrushchev (Хрущёв) banging his shoe on the podium at the UN. A fairly famous incident.
The slugline reads, “Sometimes a comfortable shoe can make all the difference in the world.”
Not being a Russian speaker, I took the magazine to my high school cross-country coach, Greg Baranoff, who is. And he started laughing at great length. When he finally caught his breath, he translated:
“These shoes are killing me!”