Those Not Complicated Need Not Apply

TV Stuff

2012-03-11T04:00:00.000-04:00

Via Cracked

Via: Direct TV

VOICEOVER ARTIST INFOGRAPHIC

Via: My Confined Space

...As If It Were Your Last

2012-03-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

Via Luke Surl

Via Bound and Gagged

Via Chalkboard Manifesto

Via Cat and Girl

Bossy Worries Some More

2012-03-09T04:00:00.000-05:00

Nuclear

Fractal Behaviour

2012-03-08T04:00:00.000-05:00

The exquisite pieces of origami that unfold in this video were created by artist Etienne Cliquet for a piece entitled Flotilla. He used a computer-controlled machine to precisely cut the tiny designs, which are just a few centimeters wide, then folded them by hand. "I wanted to express the paradox between the fragility of things and the disturbing potential of micro and nanotechnology," he says.

You are an ever-morphing 4-dimensional fractal.

Food Anatomy

2012-03-07T04:00:00.000-05:00

Via: Healthy Times Blog

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Via: Infographipedia

Via: Infographics Archive

Destiny

2012-03-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

Graphic created with the assistance of Image Graphics

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

Here

2012-03-05T04:00:00.000-05:00

The above Video is based on a 6 page comic strip done by Richard McGuire in 1989. The strip jumps around in time but not in space, showing us various events occurring on a little patch of land over the course of billions of years. It drops us into random moments in the lives of the people who have called “here” their home.

Below are links to copies of the original comic:

Here 6

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Natalie Dee

Via: Marc Roberts Cartoons

Via: Surviving the World

Via: Cat and Girl

Via: Mini and Eunice

Do You Buy It?

2012-03-04T04:00:00.001-05:00

Via: Infographipedia

Do You Buy It?

Seeking a Cure for the Human Condition

2012-03-03T04:00:00.000-05:00

Via: Sangrea

Via: Calamities of Nature

Via: xkcd

Via: Exploding Dog

Via: Gaping Void

Via: Surviving the World

Selfish Manages to Respond Respectfully

2012-03-02T04:00:00.000-05:00

Crash

When Did the Future Switch?

2012-03-01T05:30:00.002-05:00

Limit to courage? There is no limit to courage. ~ Gabriele D'Anunzio #quote

A person doesn't die when he should but when he can. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez #quote

When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat? ~ Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters) #quote

Well, my deliberate opinion is - it's a jolly strange world. ~ Arnold Bennett #quote

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties. ~ Gail Sheehy #quote

The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity. ~ Carl Van Doren #quote

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. ~ Ansel Adams #quote

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart! ~ Carlos Castaneda #quote

Respect... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique. ~ Annie Gottlieb #quote

God will not damn a lunatic's soul. He knows that the powers of evil are too great for those of us with weak minds. ~ Garrett Fort #quote

As always, victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan. ~ Galeazzo Ciano #quote

I want to resume the life of a shy person. ~ Garrison Keillor #quote

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you. ~ Annie Dillard #quote

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. ~ Carl Sandburg #quote

Always behave as if nothing had happened, no matter what has happened. ~ Arnold Bennett #quote

Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny. ~ Carl Sandburg #quote

Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make. ~ Gaston Bachelard #quote

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. ~ Carl Sandburg #quote

If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song. ~ Carl Perkins #quote

See you in the darkness. ~ Gary Gilmore #quote

Softly the loud peal dies / In passing winds it drowns / But breathes, like perfect joys / Tender tones. ~ Frederick Tennyson #quote

Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process. ~ Anne Wilson Schaef #quote

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. ~ Carl Jung #quote

Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act. ~ Annie Besant #quote

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry. ~ Anne Stevenson #quote

Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to. ~ Carl Clinton Van Doren #quote

For me, writing something down was the only road out. ~ Anne Tyler #quote

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind. ~ Carl Hiaasen #quote

Architecture in general is frozen music. ~ Friedrich von Schelling #quote

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche #quote

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity. ~ Adam Smith #quote

Industry entirely left to itself, would soon fall to ruin, and a nation letting everything alone would commit suicide. ~ Friedrich List #quote

Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it. ~ Alan Valentine #quote

Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still. ~ Calvin Coolidge #quote

The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away. ~ Fulton J. Sheen #quote

Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing. ~ Arnold H. Glasgow #quote

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright #quote

To understand is to forgive. ~ Alexander Chase #quote

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. ~ Frank Borman #quote

Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it. ~ C.S. Lewis #quote

Global Warming & (As An Extra Added Bonus) Leap Year

2012-02-29T04:00:00.001-05:00

Via: Information is Beautiful

Via: Infographipedia

The End is Not Near

2012-02-28T05:30:00.000-05:00

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Carter Toons

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Luke Surl

Via: Strange Brew

You Can Get Help From Teachers But...

2012-02-27T05:30:00.003-05:00

What does a music teacher do when he ends up teaching science? He teaches about evolution and the geologic timeline with music of course, and that’s what Canadian elementary school teacher John Palmer did. He originally played “Cambrian Explosion” as a rock/hip hop creation in class but has since recorded an acoustic version. (The trio is called Brighter Lights, Thicker Glasses and consists of Palmer on the guitar/vocals, Michael Dunn on the dobro and Brian Samuels on the cello.)

University of Victoria student Alex Parker and University of California postdoctoral researcher Melissa Graham made the above video using telescope observations of nearly 250 type Ia supernovae. Parker and Graham assigned each supernova a piano or upright bass note, depending on the kind of galaxy where the supernova went off—massive host galaxies get bass notes, whereas less massive galaxies get piano notes. Relatively nearby supernovae are louder; more distant supernovae are quieter. The way the supernova brightens and fades over time determines its pitch. The video shows a time-lapse animation, based on real telescope data, during which two weeks of actual time pass by each second.

Graphic created with the assistance of Images/Graphics/Pics

Big Bang Big Boom

2012-02-26T06:00:00.024-05:00

Banksy is an anonymous England based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls and bridges of cities throughout the world.

Watch the full episode. See more Off Book.

The street is a space where art thrives, and a place where artists can shape the public aesthetic. Olek, a sculpture who knits, and Swoon, a mixed media artist, disrupt daily life with work that creates wonder, emotion, and humor. With powerful layers of meaning, beautiful aesthetics, and using unique media, these two prolific creators are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art.

Street Art

Random Things & Life Quotes

2012-02-25T05:30:00.000-05:00

Stuffed horses at Parque Calderon in Cuenca Ecuador

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate. ~ Isaac Asimov #quote

Life can be magnificent & overwhelming - That is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live ~ A. Camus #quote

Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats. ~ Che Guevara #quote

The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don't count. ~ Robert Anthony #quote

When I hear somebody sigh, Life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, Compared to what? ~ Sydney J.Harris #quote

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin #quote

Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it. ~ Dave Barry #quote

The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps. ~ Bob Black #quote

Pile of scarves at Craft Fair

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life & I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do ~ G. O'Keefe #quote

Our own life has to be our message. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh #quote

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome ~ Isaac Asimov #quote

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living. ~ Oscar Wilde #quote

Det. Frank Pembleton: Life would be perfect, if it was just kids and dogs. ~ Homicide: Life on the Street #linesfromTV

Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe #quote

Not only is life a bitch, it has puppies. ~ Adrienne Gusoff #quote

Now isn't that a Great Shoe!

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. ~ Danny Kaye #quote

Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner. ~ James Wolcott #quote

The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality. ~ James Michener #quote

Life itself is the proper binge. ~ Julia Child #quote

Life is hard. After all, it kills you. ~ Katharine Hepburn #quote

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent. ~ Ronnie D. Laing #quote

You’ll regret the things you don’t do in life more than the things you’ve done wrong. ~ Anonymous #quote

Seagull fountain on the way to Yunguilla Ecuador

Just Hanging Around

Life, is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. ~ Myrna Loy #quote

Hope for the Best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We're unrehearsed. ~ Mel Brooks #quote

There are three periods in life: youth, middle age and "how well you look". ~ Nelson Rockefeller #quote

It's good to stay as close to real life as you can, and then kind of dress it up. ~ Nelson DeMille #quote

The way to screw up somebody's life is to give them what they want. ~ Patrick Swayze #quote

Without forgiveness life is governed by... an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation. ~ Roberto Assagioli #quote

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find? ~ Ridley Scott #quote

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. ~ Richard Dawkins #quote

The only disability in life is a bad attitude. ~ Scott Hamilton #quote

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. ~ Socrates #quote

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. ~ Norman Cousins #quote

Ages passed I knew at last / my life had never been. ~ Jethro Tull #lyrics

We forge the chains we wear in life. ~ Charles Dickens #quote

Life's a whip-round / And I've got the whip / It's a sinking ship / Drip, drip, drip ~ Chumbawamba #lyrics

On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail / Reason the card, but passion is the gale. ~ Alexander Pope #quote

There are two primary choices in life / to accept conditions as they exist / or accept the responsibility for changing them. ~ Denis Waitley #quote

Corn grown in the City (Cuenca Ecuador)

Foot on a Bus

It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be... ~ Bob Dylan #lyrics

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. ~ William Goldman (The Princess Bride) #linesfrommovies

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously. ~ Hunter S. Thompson #quote

In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. ~ Richard Brautigan #quote

Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life overcoming. ~ Hope Floats #linesfrommovies

The trouble with real life is that there is no danger music. ~ The Cable Guy #linesfrommovies

I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it. ~ Charles M. Schulz #quote

So when I cease to be / I want to go back...to the sea! / Oh for the life of a sardine! / That is the life for me! ~ Charlie Chaplin #lyrics

The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others. ~ Author Unknown #quote

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~ Voltaire #quote

The secret to living the life of your dreams is to START living the life of your dreams. ~ Mike Dooley #quote

Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. ~ Henry Van Dyke #quote

Don't go through life, GROW through life. ~ Eric Butterworth #quote

Exercising Demons

2012-02-24T05:30:00.016-05:00

Via: BifSniff

Via: Savage Chicken

Via: Abstruse Goose

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: A Slice of Life

Bossy's In Trouble Again

2012-02-23T06:00:00.008-05:00

Cubed

Ideas Are Like Rabbits

2012-02-22T05:30:00.000-05:00

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He was the author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories; Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Snake Oil?

2012-02-21T05:30:00.001-05:00

Click here to view an interactive chart

The infographic is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble. You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supplements. These are because some supplements affect a range of conditions, but the evidence varies from condition to condition. For example, there’s strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels, but evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, they give the supplement another bubble.

Via: Ethical Ocean

Via: Peta Prime

Via: Nuts on Line

Source: LiveScience

The Only Exercise Some People Get is Jumping to Conclusions

2012-02-20T05:30:00.000-05:00

Via: Natalie Dee

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Calamities of Nature

Via: Cat and Girl

Via: Sangrea

Music VII

2012-02-19T06:00:00.015-05:00

When this music series was first started, the idea was to put up one song by each artist we appreciated. At first the songs came fast and furious, then we slowed down and then for a while no songs came. After a while more, others gave suggestions and we thought of some more songs and eventually the whole thing took on a life of its own that (quite frankly) we just had not expect.

We've still got more songs to post, so there will be at least one more "Music" Blog.

Even after that though, we'll still have missed some greats.

Show Me the Way ~ Peter Frampton

Push ~ Matchbox Twenty

10000 stones ~ Adrianne

I Am Missing You ~ Ravi Shankar

Show Me How You Burlesque ~ Christina Aguilera

Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 ~ Yundi Li

Another Lonely Day ~ Ben Harper

Boy With a Coin ~ Iron and Wine

I'm Singing in the Rain ~ Gene Kelly

The Devil In Me ~ Kate Voegele

Dust In The Wind ~ Kansas

Ave de Cristal ~ Kjarkas

All Sparks ~ Editors

Heaven Beside You ~ Alice In Chains

Summertime/Motherless Child ~ Mahalia Jackson

Spring ~ Vivaldi

Hiding My Heart ~ Brandi Carlile

Slide ~ Goo Goo Dolls

Cabaret ~ Liza Minnelli

A Weekend At The Greek ~ Sitting, Waiting, Wishin

The Way I Am ~ Ingrid Michaelson

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend ~ Marilyn Monroe

Vegetable Car ~ Joshua Radin

Wild Horses ~ Dave Matthews Band

Wonderwall ~ Oasis

You've Got A Friend ~ James Taylor

Happy Together ~ The Turtles

Songs My Mother Taught Me ~ Antonin Dvorak

The Times They Are A Changin' ~ The Byrds

Weird and Twisted Nights ~ Hunter S. Thompson & Ralph Steadman

O Sole Mio ~ Il Trio

Never Ending Song of Love ~ Delaney & Bonnie & Friends

Truly Madly Deeply ~ Savage Garden

Big Rock Candy Mountain ~ Harry 'Haywire' McClintock

Breaking Protocol ~ Amon Tobin

LightHouse ~ New Villager

On The Motorway ~ Metronomy

World Is Waiting For The Sunrise ~ Les Paul & Mary Ford Show

Toccata ~ Taimane

Time is of the Essence ~ Cold Mailman

Pride ~ Syntax

That'll Be the Day ~ Buddy Holly

Rollin' Stone ~ Muddy Waters

Welcome To The Jungle ~ Sulic & Hauser

Rock Me Amadeus ~ Falco

Airproofing ~ Leo Kottke

Tumbling Tumbleweeds - Bob Nolan

Feelin' Bad Blues ~ Ry Cooder

Just an Old Fashioned Love Song ~ Paul Williams

Heaven ~ Los Lonely Boys

Keep on Tryin' ~ Poco

Love Me Like a Man ~ Bonnie Raitt

Fly me to the Moon ~ Diana Krall

Rock Guitar Solo ~ John McLaughlin

Solo ~ Brian Blade

Just a Minute ~ Ben Sage feat Savvy

Little Drop Of Poison ~ Tom Waits

Sunny Days ~ Lighthouse

Double Violin Concerto in D Minor ~ Bach

Database ~ Alexander Perls

Take A Letter Maria ~ R.B. Greaves

To Sir With Love ~ Lulu

Calling All Angels ~ Train

Tin Foil Hat ~ Scott Dunbar

Basin Street Blues ~ Mills Brothers

Have You Ever Loved A Woman ~ Freddie King

Toxicity ~ System of a Down

Calypso Blues ~ Youn Sun Nah

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window - Patti Page

Brush with Wisdom

2012-02-18T06:00:00.014-05:00

This documentary shows how an Inuit artist's drawings are transferred to stone, printed and sold. Kenojuak Ashevak became the first woman involved with the printmaking co-operative in Cape Dorset. This film was nominated for the 1963 Documentary Short Subject Oscar.

Via: Survival International

Aboriginal/Indigenous Art

Architecture

2012-02-17T06:00:00.041-05:00

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

Architecture

Edible Architecture

Worth1000 touts themselves as the top creative contest site in the world. Every day they run creative competitions of all types, including Effects contests (otherwise known as photochop or photoshop contests), photography contests, illustration contests, writing contests and more forms of multimedia. They have run several Edible Architecture contests.

In the Eye of the Beholder

2012-02-16T06:00:00.013-05:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Via: Carter Toons

Via: Cat & Girl

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: Gaping Void

Bossy Worries Too Much

2012-02-15T06:00:00.019-05:00

Once Again ~

Thank you to Strip Generater for Assistance in Making the Cartoon Bossy & Selfish

Sunflowers

Happy Valentines!

2012-02-14T06:00:00.021-05:00

Via: Mordant Orange

Via: Brown Sharpie

[Infographic provided by Grammar.net]

Nothing Personal

2012-02-13T06:00:00.004-05:00

Via: Visual Loop

by Rasmussen_College.

The Write Way

2012-02-12T06:00:00.003-05:00

Via: Daily Infographic

Via: Grammar Net

Via: Six Revisions

Warning

2012-02-11T06:00:00.010-05:00

Graphic generated with the assistance of Label Generator

Oh No!

The Spiral of Silence

2012-02-10T06:00:00.032-05:00

Below are demonstrations of silencing, described in:

Suchow, J.W., & Alvarez, G.A. (2011). Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.12.019

Instructions: Keep your eyes fixed on the small white mark in the center. At first, the ring is stationary and it's easy to tell that the dots are changing. A few seconds later, the ring begins to rotate and the dots suddenly appear to stop changing.

But play the movie again, this time looking directly at one of the dots and following it as the ring rotates. You will see that, in fact, the dots had been changing the whole time, even during the rotation—you just didn't notice it. This failure to detect that moving objects are changing is silencing.

The full set of demos, and a reprint of the paper, is available at Vision Lab Harvard

The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.

Just 'Cause We Like Cats

2012-02-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

Via: Surviving the World

Via: Natalie Dee

Via: Amazing Super Powers

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: What Cats Can and Can't Do

Via: Abstruse Goose

Via: PopStrip

More Than Enough Quotes

2012-02-08T06:00:00.011-05:00

All pictures taken at the Sol y Agua Resort in Yunguilla Ecuador

If things seem really under control, you're not going fast enough. ~ Mario Andretti #quote

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. ~ P.J. Plauger #quote

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. ~ Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" by Robert Heinlein #quote

Are you reeling in the years
Stowing away the time?
Are you gathering up the tears
Have you had enough of mine?
~ Steely Dan #lyrics

I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. ~ Woody Allen #quote

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough ~ Mae West #quote

Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone. ~ John Dryden #quote

Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. ~ Sitting Bull #quote

I am not young enough to know everything. ~ Oscar Wilde #quote

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

It is better to wear out than rust out. There will be time enough for repose in the grave ~ Richard Cumberland #quote

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~ Bill Watterson #quote

It never got weird enough for me. ~ Hunter S. Thompson #quote

If you think anyone is sane you just don't know enough about them. ~ Christopher Moore #quote

You are never strong enough that you don't need help. ~ Cesar Chavez #quote

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower. ~ Hans Christian Andersen #quote

I’ve had enough of watching Scenes
Of schizophrenic-ego-centric
paranoic-prima-donnas
All I want is the truth
~ John Lennon #lyrics

C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me ~ Cookie Monster #lyrics

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
~ Jim Croce #lyrics

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had. ~ Margaret Mead #quote

I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense. ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 #quote

With enough "ifs" we could put Paris into a bottle. ~ #Proverb from France

It's not enough to know how to ride - you must also know how to fall. ~ #Proverb from Mexico

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. ~ George Bernard Shaw #quote

Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame. ~ Stephen King #quote

Think enough and you won`t know anything. ~ Kenneth Patchen #quote

In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke. ~ Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf) #quote

I read.. because one life is not enough ~ Richard Peck #quote

I don't get enough credit for the things I manage not to say. ~ Meg Rosoff #quote

Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox #quote

Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. ~ Blaise Pascal #quote

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi #quote

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time. ~ Leonard Bernstein #quote

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. ~ Lenny Bruce #quote

Always go hard and fast enough so that when you hit the ditch you can pull out the other side. ~ Johnny Paycheck #quote

You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. ~ Joseph E. Levine #quote

Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences. ~ Mason Cooley #quote

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained. ~ William Blake #quote

Last words are for fools who haven't said enough. ~ Karl Marx #quote

We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. ~ Douglas Adams #quote

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. ~ G.K. Chesterton #quote

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination. ~ Anonymous #quote

No man is rich enough to buy back his past. ~ Oscar Wilde #quote

In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks. ~ Bill Watterson #quote

No man is ever old enough to know better. ~ Holbrook Jackson #quote

If life were just, we would be born old and achieve youth about the time we'd saved enough to enjoy it. ~ Jim Fiebig #quote

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. ~ H.W. Longfellow #quote

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret...and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence. ~ Eckhart Tolle #quote

I am deluded enough to think I can bring something to the table. ~ Huey Lewis #quote

I'm not popular enough to be different. ~ Homer Simpson #linesfromTV #quote

Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man. ~ James Thurber #quote

For God's sake, give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson #quote

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. ~ Howard Zinn #quote

I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough. ~ M.C. Escher #quote

I love the valiant; but it is not enough to wield a broadsword, one must also know against whom. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche #quote

You have the Answer. Just get quiet enough to hear it. ~ Pat Obuchowski #quote

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? ~ Douglas Adams #quote

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~ Herm Albright #quote

I never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. ~ Zsa Zsa Gabor #quote

My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough. ~ Noel Coward #quote

The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible enough to give none. ~ Eden Phillpotts #quote

A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around. ~ E.W. Howe #quote

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~ Abraham Flexner #quote

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. ~ G.H. Hardy #quote

Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare. ~ George Bernard Shaw #quote

Bossy & Selfish Launch the Bug

2012-02-07T06:00:00.002-05:00

Battle Not With Monsters

2012-02-06T06:00:00.003-05:00

musicmp3.ru

Monster by Lady Gaga

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Übermensch, amor fati, the eternal recurrence, and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.

Eating Insects

2012-02-05T06:00:00.013-05:00

Via: Daily Infographic

Stop Bugging Me!

Coping Strategies

2012-02-04T06:00:00.020-05:00

Via: Mimi and Eunice

Via: Calamities of Nature

Via: Carter Toons

Via: Gaping Void

Try & Remember How Lucky You Are

2012-02-03T06:00:00.003-05:00

Via: Dangling on a Hook

Try & Remember How Lucky You Are

It's All So Surreal

2012-02-02T07:55:00.000-05:00

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), commonly known as Salvador Dalí (Catalan pronunciation: [səɫβəˈðo ðəˈɫi]), was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem and to the irritation of his critics.

Surrealism

Humor is Just an Attitude. Insanity is a Way of Life.

2012-02-01T06:00:00.015-05:00

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life: by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion. ~ Charles Caleb Colton #quote

Det. Mike Kellerman: There's no absolutes in life; only in vodka. ~ Homicide: Life on the Street #linesfromTV

Life is an incurable disease. ~ Abraham Cowley #quote

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope. ~ Epictetus #quote

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. ~ Charlie Chaplin #quote

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. ~ Brendan Gill #quote

The worst mistake that you can make is to think you're alive when really you're asleep in life's waiting room.~ Waking Life #linesfrommovies

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. ~ Muhammad Ali #quote

All my life I've wanted to be somebody; I realize now that I should have been more specific. ~ Lily Tomlin #quote

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news? ~ W. Somerset Maugham #quote

I love life because what more is there. ~ Anthony Hopkins #quote

Life is full of misery, loneliness, & suffering & its all over much too soon. ~ Woody Allen #quote

And in the end its not the years in your life that count. Its the life in your years. ~ Abraham Lincoln #quote

They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life? ~ Waking Life #linesfrommovies

Look to the future, because that is where you'll spend the rest of your life. ~ George Burns #quote

In life you need either inspiration or desperation. ~ Tony Robbins #quote

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon #lyrics

Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts. ~ Jim Morrison #quote

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson #quote

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, the tissue of every day and hour. ~ Stephen Leacock #quote

Don`t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. ~ Dolly Parton #quote

I'm not going to spend my life being a color ~ Black or White, Michael Jackson #quote

There is only one success - to be able to spend life in your own way. ~ Christopher Morley #quote

Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep on believing, keep on pretending ~ Kermit the Frog #quote

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ~ Leo Tolstoy #quote

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. ~ Winston Churchill #quote

I tasted life. ~ Emily Dickinson #quote

Life, don't talk to me about life, hate it or loathe it, you just can't ignore it. ~ Douglas Adams #quote

My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse." ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer... ~ George Orwell #quote

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation. ~ W. Somerset Maugham #quote

Accept life, and you must accept regret. ~ Henn Frederick Amiel #quote

To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to create life out of life. ~ James Joyce #quote

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life... ~ Harvey Fierstein #quote

Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all. ~ Hans Christian Andersen #quote

Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life. ~ Benjamin Disraeli #quote

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~ Nelson Henderson #quote

The journey between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place. ~ B. De Angelis #quote

The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn. ~ David Russell #quote

I don`t want to get to the end of my life & find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well ~ D. Ackerman #quote

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. ~ Winston S. Churchill #quote

The meaning of life is that it stops. ~ Franz Kafka #quote

Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity. ~ D. Coupland #quote

You can get all A's and still flunk life. ~ Walker Percy #quote

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; It's about learning to dance in the rain! ~ Jean Howard #quote

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. ~ Mary Oliver #quote

Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. ~ Vladimir Nabokov #quote

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. ~ Elbert Hubbard #quote

Death is simple. Life is messy. Give me life, the more complicated the better. ~ Tom Robbins #quote

You should not confuse your career with your life. ~ Dave Barry #quote

Dean Vernon Wormer: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son. ~ Animal House #linesfrommovies

Humor is just an attitude. Insanity is a way of life. ~ Chloe Scarborough #quote

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes #quote

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on,
and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
~ William Shakespeare #quote

Follow the Instructions Carefully

2012-01-31T06:00:00.004-05:00

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: ExoComics

Via: Cat & Girl

Via: Surviving the World

Via: Dilbert

Via: xkcd

Bossy Finally Gives In

2012-01-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

Music is My Personal Saviour

2012-01-29T06:00:00.050-05:00

I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top. ~ Frank Moore Colby #quote

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn #quote

The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom. ~ C. Northcote Parkinson #quote

Music is my personal saviour ~ Sigred Philipsen

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. ~ Frank Zappa #quote

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand. ~ C. Day Lewis #quote

I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said. ~ Alan Greenspan #quote

Delay is the deadliest form of denial. ~ C. Northcote Parkinson #quote

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. ~ Franklin P. Jones #quote

Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done. ~ Burt Reynolds #quote

The most efficient labor-saving device is still money. ~ Franklin P. Jones #quote

Intolerance is evidence of impotence. ~ Aleister Crowley #quote

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt #quote

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. ~ Buddha #quote

Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too. ~ Aldous Huxley #quote

Anybody who thinks talk is cheap should get some legal advice. ~ Franklin P. Jones #quote

Death is very often referred to as a good career move. ~ Buddy Holly #quote

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit. ~ Francois de la Rouchefoucauld #quote

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye. ~ Francois de la Rouchefoucauld #quote

Being a foreigner is not a disease. ~ Alden Nowlan #quote

But you come to a point in your life when you can't pull the trigger anymore. ~ Evel Knievel #quote

Make your life a mission - not an intermission. ~ Arnold H. Glasgow #quote

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency. ~ Francois de la Rouchefoucauld #quote

Either war is obsolete or men are. ~ Buckminster Fuller #quote

Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God. ~ Bruce Shelley #quote

I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep. ~ Evelyn Waugh #quote

Live fast, die old, and make very sure everyone knows you were there. ~ Alan Cox #quote

Literature is news that stays news. ~ Ezra Pound #quote

I am often asked what the average Internet user can do to ensure his security. My 1st answer is usually 'Nothing; you're screwed. ~ Bruce Scheneier #quote

It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin and can't stand the company. ~ Bruce Springsteen #quote

Chapel in a Hospital

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald #quote

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors & furniture polish is made from real lemons. ~ Alfred Newman #quote

Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy. ~ F. Scott Fitzerald #quote

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. ~ Ezra Pound #quote

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer #quote

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. ~ Ezra Pound #quote

It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. ~ Bruce Lee #quote

I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible. ~ Ezra Pound #quote

I was introverted, shy. But if you win a lot you need to be extroverted, or they'll think you're arrogant. ~ Alberto Tomba #quote

Camera Stuff

2012-01-28T06:00:00.013-05:00

Via: Mashable

Via: Buzz Feed

Snapsort's Low Light Photography Infographic

Via: Designzzz

Used to Be a Contender

2012-01-27T06:00:00.033-05:00

Via: Geek and Poke

Via: Dilbert

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Surviving the World

Via: Reality Check

Factoids

2012-01-26T06:00:00.015-05:00

Via: Today I Found Out

#Factoids

[Source: Today I Found Out]

Jerry Vilhotti

2012-01-25T06:00:00.007-05:00

We first met Jerry when in 2004 he sent us a random story to be placed on Dangling on a Hook. It's been quite a few years now and still, from time to time, Jerry will forward one of his dense, bizarre & ultimately humanity revealing stories. We're always very pleased to hear from him!

Some of Jerry's stories can be found at Voices from Beyond and Googling his name will bring up even more. Below are a couple of his stories and below them is a short autobiography.

At our request, Jerry provided some background information, as follows:

I graduated from the only college that won the NIT and NCCA basketball tournaments in the same year but more importantly than that - Jonas Salk who helped rid some of the world of polio with his vaccine was also given the opportunity to contribute to Mankind and graduated from the same NYC school that's called in some circles: "The poor man's Harvard". This and the fact that there was a place of higher learning that indeed gave every race, nationality and creed an opportunity to play in the game of sculpting a better world gives me greater joy.

To use a lame analogy: I was a pretty good ballplayer in my day: I could hit singles, doubles and triples and sometimes home runs! I hit balls for fly outs or ground outs and sometimes I even struck out!

That's how I feel like a writer - no more no less.

I have been fortunate to have had stories published in the USA, Greece, India, Scotland, Ireland, England, Canada and Singapore; many of which were literary magazines.

I live among the Litchfield Hills with the ghosts of Mark Twain in the east, Harriet Beecher Stowe on the west and John Brown to the north. I live in a simpler place in time, with a beautiful wife who treats me well and waits for me to return from my imaginary meandering and WE both helped -- I swears to God! -- in bringing three sort of nice kids, a boy and two girls, into this tumultuous world - of whom we are very proud and I hope they find a loved one as good as the one who helped me become a writer.

Food Facts

2012-01-24T06:00:00.024-05:00

Via: Healthy Times Blog

Source: Today I Found Out

Sensitivity in Today's World

2012-01-23T06:00:00.002-05:00

Via: Reality Check

Via: Dilbert

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Geek and Poke

2012 Year of the Dragon

Selfish Declines to Answer

2012-01-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

The Ascent of Money

2012-01-21T06:00:00.015-05:00

The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World is Harvard professor Niall Ferguson's tenth book, published in 2008, and an adapted television documentary for television. It examines the long history of money, credit, and banking.

Ep. 1: Dreams of avarice ~ From Shylock's pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the "promises to pay" on Babylonian clay tablets to Medici banking system. Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

Ep. 2: Human bondage ~ How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century.

Ep. 3: Blowing bubbles ~ Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.

Ep. 4: Risky business ~ Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insurance. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state in post-war Japan.

Ep. 5: Safe as houses ~ It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housing? An economic theory says that markets can't function without mortgages, because it's only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneurs can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?

Ep. 6: Chimerica ~ Niall Ferguson investigates the globalisation of the Western economy and the uncertain balance between the important component countries of China and the US. In examining the last time globalisation took hold – before World War One, he finds a notable reversal, namely that today money is pouring into the English-speaking economies from the developing world, rather than out.

Via: Bill Eater

Via: Number Sleuth

And I Feel Fine

2012-01-20T06:00:00.009-05:00

Via: Daily Infographic

Via: Software.com

Via: Grammar.net

Via: Del Community

Perception

2012-01-19T06:00:00.048-05:00

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Natalie Dee

Via: Gaping Void

Via: Rubes

Via: Naked Pastor

Via: Abstruse Goose

Via: xkcd

Rat Race

2012-01-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

Words VX

Random Quotes & Random Things

2012-01-17T05:00:00.002-05:00

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. ~ George Eliot #quote

Nothing is really so very frightening when everything is so very dangerous ~ Gertrude Stein #quote

If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian. ~ Linda McCartney #quote

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. ~ Thomas Jefferson #quote

There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. ~ Steven Wright #quote

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. ~ Mark Twain #quote

You don’t hit a man on the head when you’ve got your fingers between his teeth. ~ African #Proverb

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." ~ Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science in 1949 #quote

"Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave." ~ Ad slogan "Pepsi Comes Alive" as originally translated into Chinese #quote

If necessity is the mother of invention, conflict is its father. ~ Kenneth Kaye #quote

It takes 46 muscles to frown but only 4 to flip 'em the bird. ~ Prairie Home Companion #quote

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon. ~ Susan Ertz #quote

"Is there a number higher than infinity?" "Oh yes ~ infinity plus shipping and handling" ~ Johnny Carson (The Tonight Show) #linesfromTV

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion ~ Robertson Davies #quote

You'll never get rid of a bad temper by losing it! ~ The Half-Wit and Wisdom of Alfred E. Neuman #quote

Next week there can't be any crisis. My schedule is full already. ~ Henry A. Kissinger #quote

Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you. ~ C. Coolidge #quote

Everyone has issues except me - I have a damn subscription. ~ J.D. Ives #quote

A man that has never lied to a woman has no respect for her feelings. ~ Woody Allen #quote

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust #quote

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy. ~ Henry Kissinger #quote

Nobody who can read is ever successful at cleaning out the attic. ~ Franklin P. Jones #quote

I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution. ~ Wernher von Braun #quote

The only difference between a RUT and a grave is how deep, how wide and how long you are in it. ~ Charles Garfield #quote

The world is not only queerer than we imagine – it is queerer than we can imagine. ~ Aldous Huxley #quote

The role of the press is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. ~ Edward Willis Scripps #quote

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. ~ John W. Gardner #quote

Just because something has always been done in a certain way is never a sufficient reason for continuing to do it that way. ~ C. Birdseye #quote

In order to make a difference, you must first be able to tell the difference. ~ Stuart Heller #quote

I'm immortal... so far. ~ Earle Robinson #quote

Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it. ~ Jules Renard #quote

The important thing is not to stop questioning. ~ Albert Einstein #quote

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. ~ Frank Zappa #quote

The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational. ~ A. N. Wilson #quote

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. ~ Picasso #quote

There is more to life than increasing its speed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi #quote

If you can't find something to live for. You best find something to die for. ~ Tupac #quote

Only in the darkness can you see the stars. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr #quote

It is better to break one's heart than to do nothing with it. ~ Margaret Kennedy #quote

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. ~ Josef Stalin #quote

A man said to the Universe, 'Sir! I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation ~ S. Crane #quote

Alcohol (Mostly Beer)

2012-01-16T06:00:00.059-05:00

See Get Drunk Not Fat for an interactive chart
that lists and ranks alcohol based on
amount of included alcohol % versus calorie content.

Via: Pimsleur Approach

Via: Flavored Delights

via

Via: Infographic List

via

Control

2012-01-15T06:00:00.004-05:00

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian"—now a byword for any totalitarian or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society—have entered the vernacular.

Bossy Wonders Again

2012-01-14T06:00:00.013-05:00

Test Your Awareness

2012-01-13T06:00:00.041-05:00

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Pop Strip

Via: Cat & Girl

Via: Calamities of Nature

The Illusion of Knowledge

2012-01-12T06:00:00.007-05:00

In the Andes, Ecuador

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. ~ Confucius #quote

Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart. ~ Countess of Blessington #quote

The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along. ~ Arnold H. Glasgow #quote

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. ~ John Naisbitt #quote

Criticism is often the first line of defense for ignorance. ~ John Hartman #quote

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. ~ Thomas Carlyle #quote

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. ~ Thomas H. Huxley #quote

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. ~ Martin Luther King #quote

Education costs money, but then so does ignorance. ~ Sir Claus Moser #quote

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens ~ Jimi Hendrix #quote

If ignorance is bliss, why isn't the world happier? ~ Mark Twain #quote

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object... ~ Paul Gauguin #quote

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again. ~ Vincent Van Gogh #quote

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. ~ Socrates #quote

The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. ~ Irving Howe #quote

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin #quote

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty. ~ Jacob Bronowski #quote

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. ~ Laurence J. Peter #quote

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. ~ Wilbur Wright #quote

I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. ~ Reuben Blades #quote

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. ~ Ralph W. Sockman #quote

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism. ~ William Osler #quote

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. ~ Henry Adams #quote

The endless cycle of idea and action / Endless invention, endless experiment / Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness ~ T.S. Eliot #quote

Prejudice is the child of ignorance. ~ William Hazlitt #quote

A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere. ~ Charles Kettering #quote

Knowledge shuts a man's mouth ~ Erwin Sylvanus #quote

The excuse is always / Ignorance / Outlaw the excuse / And ignorance does not cease to exist ~ Sigred Philipsen #quote

Though science can cause problems, it is not by ignorance that we will solve them. ~ Isaac Asimov #quote

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. ~ Immanuel Kant #quote

Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free. ~ Bill Richardson #quote

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. ~ Albert Einstein #quote

It is harder to conceal ignorance than to acquire knowledge. ~ Arnold H. Glasgow #quote

For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance. ~ Adlai Stevenson #quote

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. ~ Stephen Hawking #quote

What Is It Good For?

2012-01-11T06:00:00.046-05:00

Via: xkcd

Via: Surviving the World

Via: Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics

Via: Chalk Board Manifesto

Via: Luke Surl

Via: DJ Bog Trotter

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Pop Strip

The Crosses of Ecuador

2012-01-10T06:00:00.003-05:00

The cross is one of the most ancient human symbols, and is used by many religions. It is frequently a representation of the division of the world into four elements (Chevalier, 1997) or cardinal points, or alternately as the union of the concepts of divinity, the vertical line, and the world, the horizontal line (Koch, 1955).

The Christian cross, also known as the Latin cross or crux ordinaria, is the most common symbol of Christianity, intended to represent the death of Jesus when he was crucified on the True Cross and his resurrection in the New Testament.

As Ecuador is primarily a Catholic country, crosses (and angels) abound.

Of course you see them on churches, but often the corner stone of a building will have a cross in it and Cuenca is known for it's own special crosses.

It is not known when the first cross image was made; after circles, crosses are one of the first symbols drawn by children of all cultures. There are many cross-shaped incisions in European cult caves, dating back to the earliest stages of human cultural development in the stone age.

The tallest cross, at 152.4 metres high, is part of Francisco Franco's monumental "Valley of the Fallen", the Monumento Nacional de Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caidos in Spain.

A cross at the junction of Interstates 57 and 70 in Effingham, Illinois, is purportedly the tallest in the United States, at 198 feet (60.3 m) tall.

The tallest freestanding cross is located in St. Augustine, FL and stands 260 feet.

Christians didn’t use the sign of the cross as their religious symbol for many generations after Christ was crucified. Rather than being a Christian symbol of hope and love, it only had the negative association as an execution apparatus for criminals.

So initially, Christians adopted the fish symbol or the trident symbol to identify their religion. Then, early in the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine publicly declared that Christianity should be tolerated, execution by crucifixion was abolished and the cross became the emblem for Christians.

Crosses are used for many different purposes: in mathematics, as emblems and symbols e.g. the Red Cross, in heraldry and in flags throughout the world,

A cross with flared ends is known as a Greek Cross or Crux Pattee.

This and the cross below, are examples of one of the crosses built in Cuenca by artisans. They can be seen all around the city.

This cross picture was taken at a large shrine across the street for the Church in Turi (a small district just outside of Cuenca). It again represents the crosses made especially in Cuenca which often have the ladder & the chicken, etc. at the base.

Click here to see more pictures of Ecuador's Angels & Crosses

Beethoven & Shakespeare

2012-01-09T06:00:00.038-05:00

Beethoven - Moonlight

The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata (Mondscheinsonate in German), was completed in 1801. It was dedicated in 1802 to his pupil, the then 20-year-old Countess Julie Guicciardi, with whom Beethoven was, or had been, in love. It is one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas, as well as one of his most famous compositions for the piano.

Courtney Welbon had to memorize Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy (by William Shakespeare) for an English class and figured that it might be a bit easier to remember it with a melody.

Courtney tells us: I just wanted to clarify that, yes, the melody does not reflect the content nor Hamlet's tone in the actual play. I saw that some listeners were very worried that I did not grasp this concept. Simply put, I needed a way to memorize the piece for a quiz solely based on memorization. As for the analysis quiz on this soliloquy, I got an A+ :)

Refuge from Misery

2012-01-08T06:00:00.006-05:00

musicmp3.ru

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

Via: Graphadelic

Via: The Pet Central

Via: Infographic List

Introverts & Extroverts

2012-01-07T06:00:00.018-05:00

Source: LiveScience

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Sangrea

The Things We Remember

2012-01-06T06:00:00.014-05:00

The Middle

We've been ExPats now for more than 3-1/2 years. Brian's been back to Canada once to attend the funeral of his brother but Shelley hasn't been back at all in those 3-1/2 years.

As we told people in our blog Planet Irony, Shelley had pretty bad home sickness for the first 6 months in Ecuador. After that, things settled down and these days, we pretty much feel right at home here in Cuenca.

It's funny though...the things that'll take you back.

They say smell is one of the major reminders but this small story isn't about smell it's about noise.

Ecuador is a marvelous land, colourful, warm, full of sights & noises & textures to attack all the senses but it wasn't until they started doing renovations in the apartment below us that we discouvered a small remembrance of "home".

They'd been banging and thumping for days. Then it stopped for a few weeks and then they started again.

One day they started sanding. The sanding went on all day and late into the evening and it was still going on when Shelley went to bed that night.

The End

The next morning, Shelley got up and asked Brian how he slept.

"Great!" Brian replied a bit surprised because his sleep patterns have become quite erratic of late.

"Me too!" Shelley told Brian.

"I was thinking about it for a while and you know what?"

"What?"

"I figured it was the sanding."

Brian thought about it for a moment and then smiled & laughed & agreed with Shelley.

The Beginning

You see, at the Marina where we lived in Vancouver. there was almost always someone doing work on their boat, and that work almost always involved sanding.

Being on the water, the noise carried, so it didn't much matter if it was the boat right beside us or the one 4 fingers away.

Demolition City

2012-01-05T06:00:00.005-05:00

Online Physics Games

More Human Quotes & Graffiti Art

2012-01-04T06:00:00.005-05:00

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings” ~ Dave Barry #quote

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind. ~ Cleveland Amory #quote

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. ~ Heinrich Heine #quote

To err is human, to purr is feline. ~ Robert Byrne #quote

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ. ~ W. Somerset Maugham #quote

...Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities. ~ Robert Anton Wilson #quote

Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God. ~ Jeff Valdez #quote

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity. ~ Voltaire #quote

It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart ~ Ulysses Everett McGill, O Brother Where Art Thou? #linesfrommovies

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. ~ George Eliot #quote

Our ideals, like the gods of old, are constantly demanding human sacrifices. ~ George Bernard Shaw #quote

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. ~ Carl Gustav Jung #quote

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. ~ William James #quote

I was the shyest human ever invented, but I had a lion inside me that wouldn't shut up! ~ Ingrid Bergman #quote

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. ~ Albert Einstein #quote

We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind. ~ Eric Hoffer #quote

Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless. ~ Audre Lorde #quote

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. ~ Hermann Hesse #quote

To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult. ~ Isaac Asimov #quote

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. ~ Mark Twain #quote

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~ Harold Wilson #quote

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? ~ Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. ~ Desmond Tutu #quote

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end. ~ Immanuel Kant #quote

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does. ~ Bill Nye #quote

The one thing that unites all human being...is that we all believe we are above-average drivers. ~ Dave Barry #quote

Man’s inhumanity to man / Makes countless thousands mourn. ~ Robert Burns #quote

Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power. ~ Benjamin Disraeli #quote

The speed of the human mind is remarkable. So is its inability to face the obvious. ~ Simon Mawer #quote

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. ~ Herbert George Wells #quote

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. ~ Eldridge Cleaver #quote

Human rights are praised more than ever - and violated as much as ever. ~ Anna Lindh #quote

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~ James Michener #quote

I had taught myself that a human[s] might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards & punishments that were fair ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests. ~ Breyten Breytenbach #quote

International business may conduct its operations with scraps of paper, but the ink it uses is human blood. ~ Eric Ambler #quote

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words. ~ Alfred Korzybski #quote

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction. ~ Evelyn Waugh #quote

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment. ~ Freeman Dyson #quote

Problems only exist in the human mind. ~ Anthony de Mello #quote

The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists. ~ H. Allen Smith #quote

All of us are much more human than otherwise. ~ Harry Stack Sullivan #quote

Human nature is above all things lazy. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe #quote

The human mind is like a TV set. When it goes blank, it's a good idea to turn off the sound. ~ Anonymous #quote

Nothing will benefit human health & increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet ~ Einstein #quote

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. ~ Farmers' Almanac, 1978 #quote

Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful. ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

An extreme optimist is a man who believes that humanity will probably survive even if it doesn't take his advice. ~ John McCarthy #quote

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way. ~ Rollo May #quote

To err is human - but it feels divine. ~ Mae West #quote

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race. ~ Mark Twain #quote

The absurd is born of the confrontation between the human call and the unreasonable silence of the world! ~ Albert Camus #quote

...all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone ~ Blaise Pascal #quote

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. ~ Sigmund Freud #quote

It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it. ~ John Steinbeck #quote

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. ~ Martin Luther King Jr. #quote

Humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. ~ Eckhart Tolle #quote

Of all the creatures on this planet none is more dangerous than a human being. ~ Robert A. Heinlein #quote

After 5000 years of recorded human history, you wonder, What part of 2,000,000 sunrises doesn't a pessimist understand? ~ R. Brault #quote

Personal & Interpersonal

2012-01-03T06:00:00.042-05:00

Via: XKCD

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: Dilbert

Via: Poorly Drawn Lines

Via: Amazing Super Powers

After Christmas

2012-01-02T06:00:00.002-05:00

Light the Way

2012-01-01T06:00:00.148-05:00

Last year on our blog Lest We Forget we talked about one of the most important Ecuadorian traditions for ringing in the New Year; the making of años viejos ~ effigies. The burning of these effigies represents a cleansing of all negative happenings or influences over the previous year. Thus one can enter the New Year with a clean slate and a fresh start.

Last year we bought an effigy for the first time and ended up naming it Emilio. Although Emilio's stay with us was quite short, he had a definite impact on our lives.

2011 certainly turned out to be a better year for us than was 2010, however, towards the end of the year certain happenings occurred that we would just have soon missed. Therefore, we found ourselves quite looking forward to the New Year tradition and putting behind us the grief, upset & annoyance of the old year.

We walked up to the corner where we'd purchased Emilio last year and picked out a small effigy we thought would do the job. Just as we were leaving we asked if it had a name. The elderly woman and her daughter/granddaughter (?) both instantly smiled and simultaneously told us "Chavo! El Chavo del Ocho". Upon arriving home Wikipedia supplied El Chavo's history to us.

As it turned out, Chavo too had quite an impact on our household. Fitting right in almost instantly, Chavo was polite, entertaining & self-effacing.

Again, as with Emilio, we cannot express adequately our gratitude to Chavo for giving up his existence for our well being.

Once it got dark, we ventured out to the street and encountered several of our neighbours. They were quite pleased that we too were taking part in their traditions. We were hugged and had our pictures taken jumping over Chavo as he burned our troubles away.

One of our neighbours asked us what we did in Canada on New Years Eve and we explained there were often fireworks (only shot off of course, by duly authorized fireworks people) but that the burning of an effigy on the street, in parking lots, on the grass by the river, in school playgrounds & store parking lots, would never be allowed in Canada.

We believe our neighbour somewhat pitied us our rather restrictive New Years traditions and was proud of the freedom of expression here in Ecuador.

So now we face 2012, cleansed, free of baggage & looking forward to the adventures it will give us!

Happy New Year 2011 to 2012

2011-12-31T06:00:00.047-05:00

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. ~ Anaïs Nin #quote

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time. ~ Jean Paul Richter #quote

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. ~ Thomas Mann #quote

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling;
He who makes one is a fool.
~ F.M. Knowles #quote

I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's. ~ Henry Moore #quote

It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets. ~ William Thomas #quote

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions. ~ Joey Adams #quote

I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. ~ Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary #quote

Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year's resolutions, and I've stuck with it ever since. ~ Dave Beard #quote

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things. ~ John Burroughs #quote

And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
~Thomas Hood #quote

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas. ~ Author Unknown #quote

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits. ~ Andre Gide #quote

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ~ Mark Twain #quote

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850 #quote #poetry

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie #quote

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~ Hal Borland #quote

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~ Oprah Winfrey #quote

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. ~ Author Unknown #quote

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~ Bill Vaughan #quote

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. ~ Author Unknown #quote

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce #quote

All the above pictures

taken around Cuenca during the last few weeks

leading up to Christmas & the New Year.

via

12 Days of Christmas

2011-12-30T06:00:00.006-05:00

Courtesy of Seldo

Christmas Now and Then

2011-12-29T06:00:00.011-05:00

Santas Around the World

2011-12-28T06:00:00.006-05:00

Source: TravelInsurance.org – Via: Only Infographic

Santa

Good Will Toward Men

2011-12-27T06:00:00.057-05:00

Via: Mordant Orange

Via: Carter Toons

Via: Dilbert

Via: Abstruse Goose

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Chaos Pet

Via: Calamities of Nature

Via: Cat and Girl

Via: Natalie Dee

Cuenca's Christmas Eve Parade 2011

2011-12-26T06:00:00.006-05:00

Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. ~ Dr. Seuss #quote

If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun. ~ Katharine Hepburn #quote

Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is. ~ Steve Martin #quote

The funniest line in English is "Get it?" When you say that, everyone chortles. ~ Garrison Keillor #quote

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. ~ Katharine Hepburn #quote

Sometimes in the most tragic situation, something just profoundly funny happens. ~ David Hyde Pierce #quote

No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary. ~ Kurt Vonnegut #quote

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game. ~ Michael Jordan #quote

It's the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they're gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it's my turn to leave. ~ Tupac Shakur #quote

Rock is so much fun. That's what it's all about - filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows. ~ Jimi Hendrix #quote

If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one. ~ Andy Rooney #quote

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself. ~ James Thurber #quote

It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality. ~ Rick Riordan #quote

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny... ~ Isaac Asimov #quote

It is fun to be in the same decade with you. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt #quote

And on Earth Peace

2011-12-25T06:00:00.004-05:00

Global Peace Index

via chartsbin.com

Click here to see larger interactive chart

Christmas Traditions Around the World

2011-12-24T06:00:00.004-05:00

[Source: Today I Found Out]

via

Festivus

2011-12-23T06:00:00.012-05:00

Via: Infographics Showcase

Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as a way to celebrate the holiday season without participating in its pressures and commercialism. It was created by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a screenwriter for the TV show Seinfeld, as part of a comical storyline on the show. The holiday's celebration, as shown on Seinfeld, includes an unadorned aluminum "Festivus pole", practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength", and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles". Celebrants of the holiday sometimes refer to it as "a Festivus for the rest of us", a saying taken from the O'Keefe family traditions and popularized in the Seinfeld episode to describe Festivus' non-commercial aspect.

It is Unwise

2011-12-22T06:00:00.016-05:00

Reposted with permission from Dangling on a Hook

The Maddening Crowds

Endangered Species

2011-12-21T06:00:00.014-05:00

Courtesy of Mother Nature Network

Endangered Species

Monsters

2011-12-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction? ~ Wes Craven #quotes

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up. ~ Mohandas Gandhi #quotes

Behind every tree there's a new monster. ~ Todd Rundgren #quotes

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. ~ George Eliot #quotes

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche #quotes

Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. ~ Wilfred Burchett #quotes

I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters. ~ George A. Romero #quotes

The real world is where the monsters are. ~ Rick Riordan #quotes

Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters. ~ Stephen King #quotes

What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams. ~ Werner Herzog #quotes

I love zombies. If any monster could Riverdance, it would be zombies. ~ Craig Ferguson #quotes

What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters. ~ Charles Baudelaire #quotes

"Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be that a monster." ~ Jim Butcher, Ghost Story #quotes

There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win. ~ George R.R. Martin #quotes

Enlightening?

2011-12-19T06:00:00.025-05:00

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: Monty

Via: Rubes

Via: Gaping Void

Bossy Gets Put Into Her Place

2011-12-18T06:00:00.012-05:00

Angels in Ecuador

2011-12-17T06:00:00.002-05:00

Ecuador, being a Catholic country, has an abundant supply of angels; near or built into churches, on the road side in small shrines, decorating buildings and in artwork.

The theological study of angels is known as angelology. In art, angels are often depicted with wings; perhaps reflecting the descriptions in Revelation 4:6-8 and the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible -- of cherubim and seraphim (the chayot in Ezekiel's Merkabah vision and the Seraphim of Isaiah). However, while cherubim and seraphim have wings in the Bible, no angel is mentioned as having wings.

Early Christians inherited Jewish understandings of angels, which in turn may have been partly inherited from the Egyptians. In the early stages, the Christian concept of an angel characterized the angel as a messenger of God.

The earliest known Christian image of an angel—in the Cubicolo dell'Annunziazione in the Catacomb of Priscilla (mid-third century)—is without wings. In that same period, representations of angels on sarcophagi, lamps and reliquaries also show them without wings. The earliest known representation of angels with wings is on the "Prince's Sarcophagus", discovered in the 1930s at Sarigüzel, near Istanbul, and attributed to the time of Theodosius I (379-395). From that period on, Christian art has represented angels mostly with wings.

This whimsical picture of an angel riding behind a nun on a bicycle and (a bit lower) the angel contemplating itself in a mirror were both done by the Ecuadorian artist Catalina Carrasco. We snapped the pictures at Cuenca's Museum of Modern Art.

In terms of their clothing, angels, especially the Archangel Michael, were depicted as military-style agents of God and came to be shown wearing late antique military uniforms. The basic military dress was shown in Western art into the Baroque period and beyond and up to the present day in Eastern Orthodox icons. Other angels came to be conventionally depicted in long robes, and in the later Middle Ages they often wear the vestments of a deacon.

A putto (plural putti) is a figure of a human baby or toddler, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. The figure derives from ancient art but was rediscovered in the early Quattrocento. Putti are distinct from cherubim, but some English-speakers confuse them with each other, except that in the plural, "the Cherubim" refers to the biblical angels, while "cherubs" is used more often to refer to the child-like representations or in figurative senses. Putti are allegorical, non-literal figures, and later in Christian art came to represent the omnipresence of God.

A cherub is a type of spiritual being mentioned in the Bible, usually associated with the presence of God.
Cherubim are also mentioned in the Torah. The prophet Ezekiel describes cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, feet of a calf, and four wings each. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves.

This picture was snapped near the church at Turi (a small suburb just outside of Cuenca). It was then put through an antiquing process.

Angels have appeared in works of art for millennia. Angel-shaped beings appear in ancient Mesopotamian and Greek art. Angels remained a popular subject for Byzantine and European paintings and sculpture. Angels have also become an integral part of Anime culture, particularly in fan art and webcomics.

Here in Ecuador angels watch us constantly.

Click here to see more pictures of Ecuador's Angels & Crosses

Do You Know Who's Watching You?

2011-12-16T06:00:00.003-05:00

Infographic byWordStream Internet Marketing – Via: Only Infographic

Via: Bunny

Via: Brainless Tales

Via: Toothpaste for Dinner

Via: Mimi & Eunice

Via: Chalkboard Manifesto

The Hippy Continuum

2011-12-15T06:00:00.009-05:00

Via: One Block Off the Grid

Via: Clean Technica

Via: Well Home

Via Auto In the News

Via Solar Gains

Time for Even More Time Quotes

2011-12-14T06:00:00.020-05:00

Everything matters. Time is precious. ~ Jessica Hagedorn #quote

We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time. ~ Jack Kerouac, On The Road #quote

Any time you try to win everything, you must be willing to lose everything. ~ Larry Csonka #quote

You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time. ~ John Knox #quote

We tried not to age, but time had its rage. ~ Pete Townshend #quote

There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment. ~ P.D. James #quote

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling. ~ Paula Poundstone #quote

The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall. ~ Orville Wright #quote

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. ~ Barack Obama #quote

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. ~ Leo Tolstoy #quote

My time coming, any day, don’t worry about me, no / It’s gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so ~ Grateful Dead #lyrics

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. ~ John Lennon #quote

Nobody ever lays on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office or made more money. ~ Unknown #quote

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. ~ Coco Chanel #quote

Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases. ~ Stephen Hawking #quote

I said, Stop, old man!
You've got a nerve
'cos there's only one rule that I observe
Time is money, and money I serve
~ Peter Gabriel #lyrics

Sail on silvergirl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
~ Paul Simon #lyrics

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch. ~ John F Kennedy #quote

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away. ~ Elvis Presley #quote

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power & not truth ~ Nietzsche #quote

In time we hate that which we often fear. ~ William Shakespeare #quote

Time is an illusion. ~ Albert Einstein #quote

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. ~ Thomas Szasz #quote

A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure. ~ Lee Segall #quote

Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it I wash my mouth out with chocolate. ~ Charles M. Schultz #quote

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. ~ Victor Hugo #quote

'Tis human actions paint the chart of time. ~ James Montgomery #quote

It always takes awfully long time to understand unbelievably simple things. ~ Joe Chung #quote

If I've to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library ~ S. King #quote

Got Time for a Laugh?

2011-12-13T06:00:00.010-05:00

What About Cancer?

2011-12-12T06:00:00.007-05:00

Via: Lung Cancer Causes

Via: Information is Beautiful

Via: Best Infographics

Via: Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog

Via: Cool Infographics

Human Interaction

2011-12-11T06:00:00.036-05:00

Via: Savage Chickens

Via: Surviving The World

Via: Sangrea

Via: Mimi and Eunice

Via: Agent X

Bossy Worries About Full Moon

2011-12-10T06:00:00.010-05:00

Amazing Grace

2011-12-09T06:00:00.014-05:00

All About the Dead

2011-12-08T06:00:00.014-05:00

Produced by Life Insurance Finder

For a larger version of the above, click here.

Produced by Life Insurance Finder

Don't Accept

2011-12-07T06:00:00.005-05:00

Fredi 2011

Think Thoughts

2011-12-06T06:00:00.041-05:00

Cuenca, Ecuador

Think for yourself, question authority. ~ Timothy Leary #quote

I'm a philosophy major. That means I can think deep thoughts about being unemployed. ~ Bruce Lee #quote

You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. ~ Henry Adams #quote

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~ Dr. Seuss #quote

You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were. ~ Ray Bradbury #quote

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. ~ A Bit of Fry and Laurie #quote

It's better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. ~ Bible #quote

Cuenca, Ecuador

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer. ~ Jim Carrey #quote

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo. ~ Jean Cocteau #quote

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool. ~ William Shakespeare #quote

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again? ~ A.A. Milne #quote

All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau #quote

Think wrongly if you please, but in all cases, think for yourself. ~ Charles Seymour #quote

Care more than others think wise. ~ Howard Schultz #quote

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking. ~ John Maynard Keynes #quote

This and all the rest of the pictures taken at the Sol y Agua Resort in Yunguilla, Ecuador

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. ~ J.K. Rowling #quote

Clearness ornaments profound thoughts. ~ Luc de Clapier #quote

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger. ~ Dan Rather #quote

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ~ S.J. Harris #quote

A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases & thinks in a groove. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti #quote

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. ~ John Steinbeck #quote

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~ John F. Kennedy #quote

I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree ~ Joyce Kilmer #quote

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be. ~ Ken Venturi #quote

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. ~ J. K. Rowling #quote

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes #quote

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow & said 'I think I’ll drink whatever comes out of these when I squeeze ’em?' ~ Bill Watterson #quote

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much. ~ Peter Ustinov #quote

Sometimes I think I have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just behind my shoulder, looking out for me... Only he's an imbecile. ~ Spider Robinson #quote

Are we controlled by our thoughts, or are we controlling our thoughts? ~ Raymond Holliwell #quote

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. ~ Benjamin Spock #quote

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. ~ Nietzsche #quote

If people said what they thought, most conversations would be very brief. ~ Unknown #quote

There's a skeleton in everybody's closet / I can think of one or two in my own room ~ Crash Test Dummies #lyrics

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it. ~ Bette Davis #quote

I really think that I can make the grade / Daddy-o, Daddy-o / There'll be some changes made ~ Chet Atkins et al #lyrics

The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought. ~ Leon Blum #quote

Too many lonely nights in the real world / Too many fools who don't think twice ~ Roy Orbison #lyrics

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. ~ Soren Kierkegaard #quote

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. ~ John Steinbeck #quote

I never did give anyone hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell. ~ Harry S. Truman #quote

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer #quote

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. ~ Dee Hock #quote

If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe #quote

This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. ~ Euripedes #quote

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other persons enemies say about him. ~ Napoleon Hill #quote

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead #quote

Take me down little Susie, take me down / I know you think you’re the queen of the underground ~ Rolling Stones #lyrics

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle #quote

Politicians and dictators and the guys with the dough / They think they run the world but they just don’t know ~ Todd Rundgren #lyrics

I thought love was more or less a giving thing / Seems the more I gave, the less I got ~ Neil Diamond #lyrics

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~ Ernest Hemingway #quote

To find yourself, think for yourself. ~ Socrates #quote

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. ~ Mark Twain #quote

You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff ~ John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) #quote

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy. ~ Salman Rushdie #quote

When you're drowning you don't think, "I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning..." You just scream. ~ J. Lennon #quote

She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS. ~ Henry James #quote

We don't need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave those kids alone. ~ Pink Floyd #lyrics

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. ~ Sir Francis Bacon #quote

To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. ~ Tom Robbins #quote

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all. ~ Voltaire #quote

ARCHIE: Everybody's scared o' death 'til it hits you. After that, you don't give it a second thought. ~ All in the Family #linesfromTV

I don`t think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it. ~ Arthur Golden #quote

Ugarte: You despise me, don't you? / Rick Blaine: If I gave you any thought I probably would. ~ Casablanca #linesfrommovies

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr. #quote

MR. CARLSON: As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. ~ WKRP in Cincinnati #linesfromTV

The guilty think all talk is of themselves. ~ Chaucer #quote

We count our miseries carefully, and accept our blessings without much thought. ~ Chinese #Proverb

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. ~ Douglas Adams #quote

If everyone thought the same way, no one would be thinking. ~ John Diefenbaker #quote

I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. ~ Oscar Wilde #quote

Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind. ~ Dean Koontz #quote

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think ~ A.A. Milne #quote

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel. ~ Horace Walpole and/or Jean de la Bryère #quote

But We Were Just Too Cheap

2011-12-05T06:00:00.021-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association. Vonnegut also taught at Harvard University, where he was a lecturer in English, and the City College of New York, where he was a Distinguished Professor. Vonnegut's work as a graphic artist began with his illustrations for Slaughterhouse-Five. Later in his career, he became more interested in artwork, particularly silk-screen prints, which he pursued in collaboration with Joe Petro III. Though he was a dissident to the end, Vonnegut held a bleak view on the power of artists to effect change.

"During the Vietnam War," he told an interviewer in 2003, "every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high."


There is a Ceiling on Human Thoughts

More of Vonnegut's Graphics can be found at: http://www.vonnegut.com/

How to Live Forever

2011-12-04T06:00:00.012-05:00

Via: Consumer Media Network

Via Visual Loop

Click on picture & proceed to interactive Lifespan Calculator

Life Goes On

2011-12-03T06:00:00.005-05:00