Weekender #4: May 31, 2009
A collection of links, news, and oddities that I’ve come across during the past week.
Categorized
When a man passed out at the wheel of his pickup truck, his six-year-old saved the day by jumping into his lap and taking the wheel. (For the record, this isn’t a Bad Parenting File; the man wasn’t drunk, but was suffering from low blood sugar.) The kid apparently did a damn good job of steering, even turning the truck around at one point when he entered an unfamiliar neighborhood.
I don’t get it: Californians voted down Prop 8, but a California high school elected a gay teen as their prom queen. That tells you something about the generation gap…
From the Bad Parenting Files: a five-year-old Siberian girl is neglected by her caretakers and left to be raised by dogs (but is doing okay now, apparently)
Sar’s (of Tomato Nation) essay on basic rules of conduct for 25-year-olds is a must-read anyway, but a surge of commenters sent over Kottke make it even more entertaining — half of the commenters get hung up on digressions and moot points, while the other half whine about “arbitrary social customs” and RSVP notes.
We can all stop cursing Louis XV for his failure to help Bonnie Prince Charlie during the Jacobite Rebellion — turns out the French king wasn’t kidding when he told BoPriCha that his ships were on the sail. They were. They sank. And now they may have been located. But I think it’s a bit too late for the Jacobites.
Oh, Latvia. You are the butt of so many jokes already; why do you want to expose yourself to blonde jokes by having a blonde parade?
YOU ARE COVERED IN BACTERIA AND BY GOD YOU WILL LIKE IT (because it is healthy).
An unmanned "thinking boat" is set for a solo crossing of the Atlantic from England to the Carribean, where it will be met by the waitress from Maximum Overdrive screaming “WE MADE YOU! WE MADE YOU!!!”
My new shampoo was nice, but I couldn’t just hang out with him; he always brought along his friend, Dan Druff. So now I’m trying the no-poo/Curly Girl Method out of sheer desperation. And believe me, the article does not kid when it says your hair will look like crap for a few weeks.
Leave it to those crazy Italians to come up with something like ass-stabbing and call it macho.
From the Polar Files: Antarctic poetry; Shackleton’s helmet (complete with bad pun); Frederick A. Cook: from Hero to Humbug.
America is a great country because it’s nearly impossible to get your leg stuck in one of our toilets. Germany, on the other hand foot…
If one more person dismisses animal suffering as being nothing but “reflex”, I am going to reflexively punch them in the throat. Of course, the argument only applies to fish; when was the last time you heard someone dismiss their pet dog’s whimpering as “just a reflex”?
Dear Australian girls’ school: telling girls not to “dress provocatively” is not an acceptible way to handle potential sexual assaults. That is, if you’ve never heard the phrase, called blaming the victim. Here’s a thought: why not teach the male students that a girl’s not up for grabs just because she’s showing some skin? Sincerely: The Rest of the Civilized World.
RIP Millvina Dean, last survivor of the Titanic. When I heard she had died, my first thought was “Aww — well, at least she had a good life.” It took me a few minutes to rethink that and add, “… except for that bit at the very beginning, of course.”
I am ridiculously late to this party, but I would be betraying everything I stand for if I passed up the opportunity to link to something this hilarious: “Stavros Flatley” from Britain’s Got Talent. Totally. Freaking. Classic.
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