Even if you didn't know the name –– a combination of "article" and "list" –– you've probably clicked through one of these short articles. They promise valuable content in a compact package, which seems ideal.
Formula? Take an integer + an over-the-top modifier and noun + a promise and Bob's your uncle. Like this:
27 Times Bacon Has Changed the Course of Modern History (Number 3 Will Make You Swear Off Eating in Restaurants!)
It's kind of addicting, actually, once you get going: 35 Things You Absolutely Need to Know about Roqueford Cheese
The numbers alone make me stop and think. I consider the cabalistic weight of them: are they prime numbers? is it whenever the data ran out?
And I wonder -– is it better to have 17 of the Most Adorable Hedgehog Videos or 13 of the Most Adorable Hedgehog Videos?
Trick question: There are not EVER enough adorable hedgehog videos in the world.
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A river of words is usually in flood. And while I write about nearly everything, my blogging impulse is toward humor. This spot abounds with absurdities and piffle. This week has thwarted me. Not on a personal level, but at the world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket level. I'm not ready to josh around with words today.
I have high hopes. The sun'll, as Annie would belt out, come out –– tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun... Mashed up, inevitably, with the melancholic fall "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. Be as kind as you can be out there. The drums have begun to pound. The bagpipes have begun their slow wheezing and skrilling. Piles of camping and survival gear have accumulated. Boats have been readied.
As a requirement of the event, each person has an EPiRB (an emergency beacon) and each vessel has a SPOT personal tracker. They also recommend a snake-bite kit, but that's a whole other story. A quick overview of SPOT: it's a hockey-puck sized piece of tough electronics that the user can set to "ping" and as long as it has an unobstructed view of the sky, a satellite will pick up the signal and put the user on an electronic map. It also has a "rescue me" and "I'm okay" message that the user can pick as needed. This is the individual ping track for Spawn of Frankenscot and the team of TwoBeers, Ninjee, and Moresailesaid. (In real life, that's Jeff Linton, O.H. Rodgers, and Jahn Tihansky.) To follow the action from shore as it happens, there are several options. First is the WaterTribe tracking site, which has dots for each of the competitors and gives a pretty-close-to-realtime picture of the race. It's a touch glitchy. Spawn of Frankenscot's dot has the green Frankenscot head and the skipper is TwoBeers. And in the interest of a better mousetrap, the competitors are also going to be tracked on RaceOwl, a tracking site that even has a smart-phone app. On RaceOwl, Spawn of Frankenscot will appear as boat number 2755. It's new to me, so I can't say how it will work, but for those of us who hit "reload" a LOT in the middle of the night during the event –– it's got to be good to have an option. Finally, (and the least immediately gratifying) is the Spawn of Frankenscot Facebook page, which I'll update as I can as I chase the team down the state. Thanks and fingers crossed!
And as if their great-grandparents didn't say the same damn thing about the egg-head scientist working on penicillin, chemo-therapy, seat-belts, gel insoles. Jupiter!
References www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-secret-life-of-bees-99559587/ www.goldengooseaward.org/awardees/honey-bee-algorithm www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/24/136391522/natures-secret-why-honey-bees-are-better-politicians-than-humans https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/09/22/how-honeybee-research-improved-your-internet-experience/?utm_term=.01028bb510d3 I took this photo in Rome. I don't actually remember why I took it or what I was hoping to memorialize. Nor why I manipulated the color to make it pop like a 1970's postcard. But while flicking through the many images from that trip, this one struck me as asking for an explanation. A line of dialogue. Something. So you tell me. Jot down your story, dialogue, caption, in the comments area below.
Winning entrant to be determined not quite at random, as this is a contest. But he, she, or they has a darned good chance to win a plasticky prize of uncertain provenance and dubious value. Or maybe a pie. Good luck! To the sound of cheering crowds (modern-day crowds, that is –– the noise a swellign crescendo of plasticky key clicks) Spawn of Frankenscot arrived safe and sound in Key Largo 1 day, 12 hours, and 46 minutes after starting the 2016 Everglades Challenge. They were the first boat to finish and they broke the previous monohull record by 12 hours. Click-click-click hurrah! Social media applauds! Here's a gorgeous short video of the team –– shot by Ninjee's cousin Simon Lew via helicopter over the Gulf of Mexico. They were fortunate in the conditions. The wind stayed mostly abeam or aft, so that they were running or reaching about 75% of the course, with only a few chunks of rowing against the tide (like at the Indian River Pass), and short slogs upwind with crew on the wire.
The Spawnsters barely had time to snack during the trip, though they wouldn't have starved: an unfortunate Spanish mackerel, leaping boisterously from the water somewhere out in the dark blue empty, landed with a surprising thud in the cockpit in the middle of Saturday night. The team trained their headlights onto the piscatorial visitor. "What is it and where should I grab it?" Moresailesed inquired before flinging it (by the least harmful corner of its tail) back into the sea. The mighty yacht herself landed with a thud from time to time in that last stretch of what navigators call "skinny water." Florida Bay (Rod Koch describes it as "lunar") is shallow and full of both mucky sand and hard coral. Said boat designer Ninjee, "I didn't realize how much running aground we would be doing." Discussion of a stainless-steel leading edge on the centerboard followed. Spawn disturbed at least one hazard of the course: a 7-foot-long shark had the startle of its weekend when the boat passed over it in about 2 feet of water. "It looked like an explosion of mud behind us," said TwoBeers.
Special thanks to Ensign RumsDown, who IS a driving Ninja and generous friend.
As he announced to the team in a manly bellow from the shore of Chockoloskee (after Mary and I had warbled "I love you" across the starry, echoing darkness) "I LIKE YOU!" Really do. The blog will be taking a short powder due to software difficulties...Evidently, all the wireless technology in the world and good upgrading habits can't save me from an operating system upgrade that absolutely, positively HAS to be downloaded via blah blah blah. Yawn. It bores me to type it, so I imagine it would bore you to read it.
Cross fingers the various computer issues can be resolved without too much gnashing of teeth. I snapped this photo offhandedly, thinking, ooh, spooky statue looming over some flowers -- doesn't he just look like a ghost? My attention was on the Arc de Triomphe, a speck in the distance, whither I was hauling my traveling companion on our blitzkrieg tour of Paris. Later, I wondered who in the world this bronze guy was meant to be*. One of the many reasons to rejoice in having survived until this point in human history: this website here, which lists all the sculptures that can be found on the streets and public gardens of the City of Light. Sorted and searchable by area, by subject, by artist, et cetera. With links. I know, I know -- the internet offers so many surprises and pleasant diversions, but Jupiter! A listing of public art for a whole city? A really complete listing? Because, as the site explains, unhappily (perhaps my favorite word in French: "malheuresement"), visitors and passers-by might not know the names and artists of the many many pieces of art that grace the streets of Paris. That's just crazy cool. Nerdy amazing. In a different decade, I'd have to give up the idea of identifying it until a return trip. If I could find it again. If I went again. If it were labeled. *The sculpture is called "Hommage à Georges Pompidou." It's in Les jardins de Champs Elysées and was made by Louis Derbré in 1985. Pompidou was of course a former president of France, and I stand by my initial assessment of the sculpture. He looks a little spooky.
Joy. What IS that stuff? Ineffable mood? Attitude? Describing what joy brings to any activity is like trying to answer, "Why Jell-o shots?" "Who would do Parkour?" or "What happened to the undercarriage of your grandfather's car?" That is, you can answer, but you can never really explain. And like many another, it's a quality easily identifiable at ten paces. As an illustration, take a look at this strangely joyless rendition of the goofiest, happiest of dances: It's easy to imagine these people are on their last legs, and that the Chicken Dance is the only part remaining of their memory of life above ground. This flying lawnmower (yes, I know this video has been around for ages. And yes, I understand how they did it. Don't be a buzzkill, bro) on the other hand, is utterly joyous: |
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