Shack Attack

Japan's 74-Year-Old Bodybuilder

(via 不良外人)

English, Wonderfully Remixed

This is a little off-topic for Arudou Debito, the outspoken Japanese foreigner-rights advocate, but it's wonderful nonetheless. My fave? "sarchasm," for sure. Not only does it describe situations I run into daily, but I can say it without cuing the subject in. The dopeler effect is a close second.

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Here are the winners of this year’s Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.. The bozone layer unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you..

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just afteryou’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The colour you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

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(via Debito.org)

Katie Couric Wins My Heart

This is such a delicious piece of video. I wish words would come around and bite the punditocracy more often.

The Best Explanation of Survivorship Bias I've Read

Get a list of email addresses of people interested in sports betting. Say you have 32,000. Email 16,000 of them to say that the home team will win this week's big team, and 16,000 to say the home team will lose. Now, half of the people will have gotten the correct prediction, and the next week, you do the same thing with them. After 5 weeks, you'll have 1,000 email addresses of people who have seen you pick the winner five times in a row!. Now you pitch your 1-900 number or paid email list subscription to this amazed group.

The Distributed Republic, via a great post on stupid Wall Street performance-chasing tendencies from I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

Speakeasy Blues House Party

Dancers know how to party. A few of the big people in Portland's burgeoning blues dance scene moved into a new house with nice, big hardwood floors, and decided to make their housewarming an all-night 20's speakeasy.

Ghosts on the dance floor:

A full assortment of period cocktails in a basement bar tucked away from the long arm of the law.

They had an open living room/dining room, which made for more of a dance floor than a lot of bars. We probably had a hundred people come through over the course of the night, and even had some people drive down from Seattle just to catch the party.

Nothing satisfies after you've been up all night like diner food.

Blues happens at Lenora's Room in SE Portland every Tuesday, and in secret, ever-changing locations on the weekends.