Typhoon Longwang is about pound China

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidy

Words with no English equivalent

there’s die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen - to stick one’s lower lip out in a sulk (literally, to play the insulted liver sausage). Perhaps it’s a Backpfeifengesicht - a face that cries out for a fist in it.

Hat tip: GeekPress

… Trying to keep my head at work when I go on vacation two weeks from today. Buying tickets during the recent hurricane/gasoline craziness was certainly interesting and not nearly as affordable as hoped, but we got it done in the end. Glasgow-Edinburgh-London-Dublin, woohoo! Now I have two weeks to talk myself into a new camera for the trip.

Is anyone experiencing a rash of trackback spam? I’ve been started getting 5-10 a day, just out of the blue last week. It finally prodded me into upgrading the WordPress Spam Karma plugin to version 2.0. I’m also wondering if trackbacks are even worth it. So few people use them, so turning it off would solve a big spam problem without really doing too much harm.

This inflatable pub goes up in 10 minutes and has room for a bar and 30 customers.

Toastedcone has more Missouri town names, many that I didn’t have in my list. I also forgot to mention what is probably my favorite, three towns in northwestern Lafayette County that go by the names Wellington, Napolean, and Waterloo (although Waterloo doesn’t really exist anymore).

Mid-America Regional Council has a new bike ride to promote the nascent MetroGreen trail system. On October 1 the City-to-City Tour 2005 will go through lots of historic areas of both KCMO and KCK, including the River Market, Columbus Park, Cliff Drive and Gladstone Boulevard in the Old Northeast, and Westheight in KCK.

This site has some great shortcuts for cutting through those pesky phone menus and getting straight to a live human at most banks, cell phone carriers, and other companies.

My own advice, if you encounter one of the new voice recognition systems that makes you talk instead of push buttons, just start cussing at it. You’re likely to get connected to a human right away.

Reecie.com

DailyKos

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

New York Times editorial