Things I tripped over on my way to the internet
I also contribute to: Family Blog | Christianity | Ffffood | What I ate
Tagged as “lileks”
“This is the greatest library in human history, run by volunteers, and its purpose and utility depends on the people who post old TV commercials to YouTube, not the people who comment on YouTube.”
James Lileks on the internet.
“Merry Official Holiday Month. It’s begun in earnest now, and the holly-tsunami will only build and build until it smashes us into cranberry-red emotional jam in three weeks.”
“Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I cannot possibly imagine reading a book that deals entirely with relationships. There has to be something else. Like ebola, or rockets.”
“I was in a Best Buy store this weekend, and noted as usual the extraordinary amount of room devoted to Cds. It seems a waste. It’s like going to the grocery store for milk and seeing cows and pails.”
“For one thing, the study did not include stay-at-home parents, who have the worst bosses of all: small children… . If your boss ever throws fistfuls of mac-and-cheese across the room, pitches an unholy fit because you chose the Tigger socks instead of the Buzz Lightyear socks, then demands that you empty his underpants, well, you have a bad boss.”
James Lileks on bad bosses and calling in sick. Read the whole thing.
“Authorities say the owner of the barn reported seeing a cow blown in the air by the high winds.”
“I am not a gun enthusiast, any more than I am a hammer enthusiast or a potato-peeler enthusiast; they’re tools, albeit tools you should use with the utmost of confidence in a narrowly prescribed set of events. I support the Second Amendment, it being part of the Constitution and all that, and I support concealed carry laws and stand-your-ground laws. I don’t like guns, but I don’t hate guns. Some people admire them for the craftsmanship and styling, but that leaves me cold. But I have no problem with those who do enjoy the aesthetics.”
Yup.
Lileks has a great new gallery of 18 old Daisy ads.
“This has been a long, long week. No idea why, but four-day weeks drag and grate.”
“As much as it’s a delight to get ginger-salmon kebabs instead of the usual rote meat, I’m not in the mood. I don’t want steaks. I don’t want a polish sausage, and I don’t even want a brat. Not a beer brat or a wild-rice-and-goat brat or even a plain Johnsonville spitting and hissing as it’s laid in the bun.
I want a hot dog.
If you can’t enjoy pig snouts and nitrates once a year, and enjoy them for what the are – delicious pig snouts and nitrates – then what’s the point?”
I want a hot dog.
If you can’t enjoy pig snouts and nitrates once a year, and enjoy them for what the are – delicious pig snouts and nitrates – then what’s the point?”
“I’d write something about Memorial Day, but that presumes you need to be reminded. I’ll raise a glass for yours. Raise a glass for mine. They’re all ours, in the end.”
“She did as well as expected – second place in the soccer-ball kick, a “participant” in the 500-yard-dash. Adults use that word to boost self-esteem, but the kids know what it means. “I got a loser ribbon,” she said.”
“Odd how expectations change – my mom never came to watch, even though she was the model of an Involved Parent. My dad? He was working. Dads didn’t leave work to watch their kids kick a soccer ball. For that matter, kids didn’t kick soccer balls. I don’t think they had soccer balls in North Dakota until 1981… . No, we had baseballs. Hard, unforgiving, painful, American baseballs. When it came at your head you got out of the way. Now in the space of a single generation we’ve trained the young to stick their heads into the path of an oncoming ball.”
James Lileks
This actually concerns me. What will the differences in America be in a generation or two that will be due to everyone growing up playing soccer instead of baseball? Somehow it doesn’t seem like it will be a positive effect.
I remember reading a article a few years ago—I think on Slate but I can’t find it in Google anywhere; I wish I could—it’s one of those that you don’t think is very important at the time but it sticks with you. It contrasted baseball and football in terms of America’s identity, arguing that baseball is the more “American” sport because it emphasizes individualism whereas football is more imperialistic and socialistic in nature emphasizing teamwork and conquering territory. I’d love to see that same analysis applied to soccer (or, as James Taranto calls it, metric football).
This actually concerns me. What will the differences in America be in a generation or two that will be due to everyone growing up playing soccer instead of baseball? Somehow it doesn’t seem like it will be a positive effect.
I remember reading a article a few years ago—I think on Slate but I can’t find it in Google anywhere; I wish I could—it’s one of those that you don’t think is very important at the time but it sticks with you. It contrasted baseball and football in terms of America’s identity, arguing that baseball is the more “American” sport because it emphasizes individualism whereas football is more imperialistic and socialistic in nature emphasizing teamwork and conquering territory. I’d love to see that same analysis applied to soccer (or, as James Taranto calls it, metric football).
“You know, it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t belong to a church whose leader delivers eyebrow-singing speeches on the evils of America and also built a house Jim Bakker would approve, and it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t move with ease in the same social circles as some people who bombed the Pentagon, but it can’t be that hard to find one who doesn’t do both.”
“So that’s my new standard: when I have to spend the night tucked in the abdominal cavity of a deceased ruminant, I will feel justified in complaining.”
“The good news? January has eleven hours to go. January is the worst of it; January seems eternal. February is a quick spring to the bipolar mess of March, which feeds our hopes and dashes them in the course of a few days; it thaws, blizzards, rains, freezes, the last convulsions of winter before it tears itself apart and trickles down the drain. Here comes the home stretch.”
James Lileks on winter in Minnesota.
