Heaneyland!

I prefer to think of myself as more italic than bold

This morning, Lorinne pointed me to this NY Times article about how the latest trend in men's style is wearing bold patterns with other bold patterns. Of course, given guidelines in the article that "patterns should not be the same scale, or share too many colors (you’re not a bedding display), or have the same color value — i.e., be all dark or all light," it sounds like my contributions to the world of fashion would still be largely considered beyond the pale, but still -- more evidence that the day is edging ever closer when I'm accidentally going to be in style.

Links of entertainment

An insanely awesome clock. Don't miss the animation on page 3.

The Pulp Shakespeare wiki. Here's the Royale with Cheese exchange.

The Music Animation Machine. "Fugue for Friday" is fairly amusing; Lorinne recommends the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Everyone needs their boundaries respected. Even the IKEA bot.

(Via Boing Boing, Rose, Lorinne, and Arbitrary Marks, respectively.)

Are we clear?

Fellow subway riders will probably have seen the recent series of ads asking people if they think they have what it takes to work in child protection. It features the same phrase in multiple ads, with one word changed:

ARE YOU ___ ENOUGH TO BE A CHILD PROTECTIVE SPECIALIST?

And here is the list of words that fill that blank:

GOOD
CALM
WISE
BRAVE
COOL
REAL
BOLD
SMART
STRONG
and...
CLEAR

Clear? Clear? Maybe they mean "clear-headed", but the first thing I think of when I hear the word "clear" used to describe a person is Scientology.

Anyway, if you are a smart, calm, brave Scientologist, perhaps you too can someday take a child away from a polyamorous family because you disapprove of their lifestyle. Not a recent story, but still -- hello, the world's next big civil rights battle.

The Tie Project, days 217-221

What, another one already? It's true. Apologies to those of you who merely tolerate this obsession of mine and were secretly relieved when you thought I'd forgotten about it; the rest of you can thank Lorinne for successfully nudging me to at least post a few more photos so I didn't lose momentum completely. I still think it was good advice for me to tell you not to hold your breath until I posted another set of tie photos, because that was, like, 32 hours ago, and that is kind of too long to hold one's breath, really. Anyway:

Day 217. This is the other tie I sometimes wear with this shirt (formerly seen on day 86). I bought this tie at a vintage store in Soho, I think. It feels sort of Ukrainian to me, or whatever country King Ottokar's Sceptre is set in.

Day 218. The shirt is a little on the sedate side for me patternwise, but the fact that it's pretty much all one fairly bold color makes it feel louder than usual to me. This tie usually gets worn with the shirt from day 97, but I like it with this shirt too, since the blue breaks up the red, and the lower red motif on the tie echoes the pattern of the shirt.

Day 219. This combination isn't perfect, though it does look better in real life than it does in the photo, I swear. This is the tie I used to wear with this shirt until Cally bought me the tie from day 105.

Day 220. Now this is sedate. Where did this tie come from, anyway? I think maybe Rose bought it for me on a trip to visit her mom in Louisiana, on the basis that although it wasn't a crazy pattern, it was aesthetically pleasing and had a pretty cool weave. It feels very '50s hipster to me, which is an aesthetic I appreciate if not one I generally try to pull off. Anyway, a calm tie calls for a calm shirt (also worn on day 62), so here we are.

Day 221. A new tie for the Tobias Funke shirt! (And damn, but that photo is off center. I was pretty sloppy in the early days of this project, wasn't I. Or perhaps just not yet quite as OCD about it.)

I think that's enough for today. But here's one more picture, which from my perspective is from a few days ago, but from the perspective of the tie project is in the fuuuuuuuture! Those of who you find the tie project boring may wish to click through to the photo anyway, because there is a cute girl in it.

Next time: Maybe I'll do this some other time than when I should be getting ready for work.

The Tie Project, days 211-216

The further behind I get on posting the tie pictures, the more daunting it is to try to catch up. Mostly the slowdown is because so much of my blogging energy is going towards working on my fantasy-novel-still-in-progress, but this week I don't have that excuse because I've been slacking off on writing my novel while I read my friend Daniel Radosh's excellent Rapture Ready, so I might as well do a tie post while I'm being a shiftless layabout.

Day 211. Oh, it's been a while, let me think. Pretty sure this tie was a gift from Erin and I was looking for a shirt that it went with.

Day 212. Purple purple purple. I always enjoy the disconnect of a tie-dyed dress shirt.

Day 213. I like the way the lines in the shirt highlight the vertical texturing of the tie.

Day 214. This shirt is another one I got from my friend Charles after he decided it fit my idiom better than it did his.

Day 215. Another tie-dye, this one from Erin, last seen on day 48. I think it works better with this tie than the previous one.

Day 216. This shirt certainly does turn up a lot. First time worn with this tie; I like that both the shirt and tie have that pale khaki-ish color as highlights.

I think that's enough for now. Don't want to overdo it.

Next time: Don't hold your breath, if history is any guide.

Never gonna meep meep meep

Some people worried that my recent video post was going to be a Rickroll, since I posted it on April Fool's Day. Seriously, I would never do that to you, because -- well, because now it's getting kind of played, and I'm too hipper-than-thou for that, honestly. But if I were going to Rickroll you, this is the video I would do it with.

A very special Onion puzzle

Normally I only write one puzzle every eight weeks for the Onion, but this was a special commission. Give it a whirl and I'll tell you more about it in the comments.

(Download Across Lite, if you are the one person who reads this blog who hasn't downloaded it yet.)

All the inconvenience of videoblogging, with none of the timeliness

Last fall, I auditioned for a nascent Sci-Fi Network show called "Brain Trust," in which a hand-selected team of smart people would go around and solve people's problems. (I like to think of this concept as "Smart Eye for the Dumb Guy".) Apparently I made the first cut of the audition process, but then I never heard anything again, so either they went with someone else (the fools!), or the show just never got off the ground. Anyway, to audition, we were asked to make a five-minute video in which we answered one of three questions. Two of them I didn't care about -- how to bluff at poker without being caught, and how to tell when other people are bluffling (my answer: don't play poker); and how to spend less time in traffic (my answer: live in New York, take the subway) -- so I didn't think I could stretch either of those questions out to five minutes. Here, however, is the question I did answer. Hope you enjoy it.

(Video directed by Tom Bartos.)