02.15.08

Recombinant Etymythologisms

Posted in Whatever, Funny Shit at 10:25 pm by Spencer

My mom (or “Your Dear, Sainted Mother,” as she likes to periodically remind me) recently sent me a fairly hilarious list of neologisms (aka “sniglets” for us ’70s kids who remember the Not Necessarily The News cable show). They allegedly originated from something called “the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational,” which “asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.”

This purported “invitational” got my net-hoax nose all a-tingly (which I didn’t notice at first since I was lubricating my sinuses with a little milk while reading). I didn’t find the “Mensa Invitational” specifically, but there is indeed something pretty much the same recently offered on the Washington Post’s blog, The Style Invitational, run by a mysterious “Empress.”

(And speaking of homeopathic lacto-nasal treatments, anyone else remember the all-time classic 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference?)

Whatever. Here’s the stuff my ma sent, along with some other choice picks from the Post’s site.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

FAQu: The response to frequently asked stupid questions.

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting lucky.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes, and it’s a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

Elbrow: Extremely long underarm hair.

Eruditz: A philosophy professor who can’t figure out how to work the copying machine.

Entrophy: The consequence of resting on one’s laurels.

Enguish: What elocution teachers feel when they hear the president on the radio.

Unergy: A condition that strikes people on the way to work, mostly on Mondays.

Zencompass: Wherever you go, there you are.

Demoticon: A little symbol signifying bad news on an e-mail from the boss.

Nestrogen: A hormone produced during pregnancy that produces cravings for wallpaper with matching borders and dust ruffles.

Estrogent: Someone who asks if the fabulous pumps are available in a 13 1/2 E.

Farternity: An old boys’ club.

Fistipuffs: Very minor squabbling.

Fatulence: That squishing noise of thighs rubbing together.

01.01.08

The Sun Sets on 2007

Posted in Whatever, Natural Wonders, Artniss at 6:49 pm by Spencer

Bay Area sunset, Dec. 31, 2007

Genuine, un-Photoshop-ed photograph of the Dec. 31, 2007 sunset as taken somewhere in the Bay Area by my olde friende, Jen.  May 2008 prove the old adage true:  “Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight.”  Blessings, peace, and smoothest sailings to all.

12.24.07

British Filmmakers Who Met on the Square

Posted in Whatever, Cinema, Silent Films, Cinema History, Reality is Weird at 4:00 am by Spencer

The always worthwhile blog The Bioscope recently posted about The Amina Lodge, “a British freemasonry lodge for those in the film business” which was established in 1912 and lasted, it seems, until at least 1962. Needless to say, this is unexplored history.

The post sports an extensive list of members (founding and subscribing), a number of whom were some of the biggest names in early British cinema, including no less than American transplant Charles Urban (whose unfinished memoirs, A Yank in Britain, are available from bookseller The Projection Box in the UK — said bookseller’s catalog you are commended to explore at length forthwith, crappy exchange rate notwithstanding.)

Those with any additional information — or interested access to the Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London — are encouraged to communicate.

12.21.07

Hoopy Hollandaise

Posted in Whatever at 12:09 am by Spencer

“Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.”

– George Bernard Shaw

12.04.07

I never understood a single word he said…

Posted in Whatever at 8:08 pm by Spencer

Frog hoggin' the wine

10.22.07

Tastes Like What??

Posted in Whatever, Funny Shit at 7:47 pm by Spencer

Chicken Box - Taste Like Ya Mama's

(Photo courtesy of Steve M.)

10.07.07

Keith Rowe Performs in Seattle, Monday Oct. 15

Posted in Whatever at 3:59 pm by Spencer

Poster for Keith Rowe performance - incl. the score for 'Treatise'

Avant music fans take note! Legendary improviser Keith Rowe will perform live on Monday, October 15 at Seattle’s Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. Show time is 8:00 PM, and admission is $5 -$15 sliding scale.

Rowe will perform the score Treatise, composed by his friend Cornelius Cardew between 1963 and 1967. Rowe will be playing solo, as well as with an ensemble of Seattle avant music all-stars including Mike Shannon, Stuart Dempster, Esther Sugai, Dean Moore, Rob Millis, Carl Lierman, Dave Knott, Robert Kirkpatrick, David Stanford and Eric Lanzillotta. Coincidentally, Stuart Dempster was one of the performers in the US premiere of Treatise in 1967.

To learn more about Keith Rowe, read this 2001 interview in Paris Transatlantic Magazine by Dan Warburton.

Chapel Performance Space
Good Shepherd Center, 4th floor
4649 Sunnyside Ave. N, Seattle
(in Wallingford, west of I-5, just south of 50th St.)

2007 WebAward Winner

Posted in Whatever, Web Dev, Me at 12:52 pm by Spencer

One of the sites I helped build has won a 2007 WebAward from the Web Marketing Association.

The site for San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts won an Outstanding Website award, recognizing “work above and beyond the standard of excellence.”  WebAwards were also won by six other sites created by POP.
Screen capture of the YBCA.org home page

Here is the team from POP that worked on the site:

Account Director: Jennifer Showe
Designer: Brad Holst
Information Architect: Minoru Uchida
Flash Designer: Dave Curry
Flash Designer: Aaron Hedquist
Web Developer: Spencer Sundell
Software Developer: Keith Richardson

My own work included interface integration with the online ticketing application, creation of page templates (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, images) and related documentation used by YBCA’s internal web staff for migrating their content to the new site, a fair amount of content migration of our own, and related tasks. The site also uses a little sIFR dynamic font replacement.

It’s a beautiful design and I’m pretty proud to have worked on it, though I do wish I could have optimized a few things a little further (like the olde school legacy markup on the event calendar).

Congratulations to the team at POP, and to the folks at YBCA.

The other POP sites that won 2007 WebAwards are listed below — mad props to everyone who worked on those:

09.06.07

Visitation

Posted in Whatever, Seattle Stuff, Reality is Weird at 9:23 pm by Spencer

A friend of mine arrived at home tonight in the University District, when someone flew close over their head and landed on a nearby fence.

Owl, photographed Sept. 6, 2007 in the University District, Seattle, WA

08.20.07

Weekly World News Abducted By Alien Love Cult; Beloved Tabloid Blown to Electrons By Mysterious Ray

Posted in Whatever, News of the World, What I'm Reading at 10:53 pm by Spencer

Cover of the final news stand issue of the Weekly World NewsAmerican Media Inc. (AMI) quietly announced on July 23, 2007, that The Weekly World News will no longer be published. The final issue of “The World’s Only Reliable Newspaper” is hitting news stands and subscribers’ mailboxes this week. The tabloid was 28.

“Due to the challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace that have impacted the newsstand, American Media, Inc. today announced it will close the print version of the Weekly World News, effective with the August 27 issue. Weekly World News was AMI’s smallest weekly publication,” the company said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.

AMI, which also publishes The National Enquirer, has been struggling. According to Reuters, the company reported a $160 million net loss for 2006 and is struggling with $1 billion of debt and plummeting circulation. Sales of the Weekly World News dropped to 83,000 in 2006 from 153,000 in 2004.

Bob Greenberger, a writer for Weekly World News, wrote about the sudden closing on his blog.

Wednesday [July 18] we got word at work that management has some ideas for the paper and the next two weeks will be reprints as we begin to retool. For weeks now, we’ve been hearing some changes are in the wind that were likely to amend the game plan that went into action on April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year….

Friday morning, Jeff Rovin comes in for a meeting and then the staff was to be called in. He’s looking harried, not at all relaxed. At 11:30, we’re finally shown into an office where we are told the Board of Directors has chosen to close Weekly World News. The reasons given make no sense. We’re stunned and shell-shocked. We’re to stay on through August 3, finishing the reprint issues and then we’re done. A glorious, funny, odd publication, born in 1979, will go out with a whimper and all I can think is that something’s going on that they’re not telling us because it just doesn’t make sense.

Subscribers (one of which is Mugu Brainpan) received little more warning in the following days. The only advance notice they got was the cover of the Aug. 20, 2007 issue, which had a blurb on the cover that announced “Weekly World News to Close: Details Inside.” In a tiny box at the bottom of page 31 was the following:

A Notice From Weekly World News

While we had every intention of sending the winning ‘Alien Ambassador Essay’ contestant off to the stars, the aliens have insisted that the staff of Weekly World News spearhead this historic mission! As a result, until further notice, the print edition of the paper will be shutting down. Details next week.

The final issue — volume 28, number 51, Aug. 27, 2007 (which arrived at the Mugu Brainpan offices today) — announced on the cover that it was indeed the “Final Issue of Weekly World News!” However, no “details” about the closure were included.

Presidential candidate George W. Bush on May 3, 2000, holding up an issue of Weekly World News revealing that 'Space Alien Back Bush for President.'

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