Dear Reader

Posting will be light in the coming weeks. We are starting a new job where the promise of an 80-hour work week requires more skill and efficiency than we possess this early on, and there is also this curiously vexing female (abstinent and teetotaling but incredibly sexy by virtue of being the quickest witted smart ass we know) we can't get off our minds, with the result that there isn't time for blogging.

We'll get to you with some Friday drinks in a couple weeks though. Promise. God knows we'll need one if we don't get anywhere with the girl.

Have Some Watermelon

It has been cold and rainy around here all month. But it is finally starting to warm up and we want watermelon.

Sure, you could just slice it open and bite right in, but how about this: Spiking it up! Cut out a core from the watermelon, just deep enough that it will tightly hold the neck of a bottle of your favorite vodka or light rum. Open the bottle and insert it; prop up the watermelon in your refrigerator so that the bottle of booze is upside down. Overnight, the watermelon will soak up the liquor as it chills. The next day, slice it however you like and enjoy. DD recommended. On second thought, better get two 'melons: One for right now and one to soak up the vodka for tomorrow.

Cool Photography... For a Purpose

You know that transparent screen trick people do with their computer wallpaper? Amnesty International has started doing the same thing with their ads:

If only the US were well-behaved enough that we could be friends with AI...

Wild

Go here. Stare at the color-negative picture for a minute. Without moving your eyes, move your mouse, which swaps the color-negative for a black-and-white photo--but wait! you see it in full color! How'd they do that?!

Al Gore's Movie

Now that we've settled into our new digs in Beantown, we hit up the Coolidge for a showing of Al Gore's masterpiece (website here). After his appearance on SNL last month, we remembered how much we like the guy, so how could we not see the movie? A documentary about a PowerPoint (excuse, Keynote) presentation is an odd format: We get snippets of Al Gore playing professor alternating with tidbits about why the environment matters to him, which range from the loss of his sister to lung cancer, indirectly attributable to Gore Farms' tobacco to his college science teachers, who pioneered the measurement of atmospheric CO2. What it comes down to, more than the environment or how sexy a PowerBook and Keynote can make statistics, is what a great president Al Gore could have been.

Look at it like this: He lays out his credentials as a gentleman farmer. He shares his universal sense of humor. His accent is unmistakably Southern but refined. His Biblical references (he calls some of his slides a "nature hike through the Book of Revelations") are perfectly tuned to meet the religious requirement without going over the right field foul line. He is the spurned suitor trying his damnedest to prove that living well is the best revenge; he seems to say, "All of this could have been yours, baby, but you went with the grinning loser. Have a nice life!"

Date and Time

It is 06:06 06/06/06; just had to commemorate that with a post. BoingBoing has been having fun with numbers this year, too--back in April, the clock briefly read 01:02:03 04/05/06, and in August, the clock will, for a moment, record 11:10:09 08/07/06.

The Sisyphus of Morons

Bill O'Reilly is making an ass of himself, as usual, and Keith Olbermann is all over it. Nearly a year ago, O'Reilly justified Abu Ghraib by saying that American soldiers slaughtered some SS Officers at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge--except that Malmedy went the other way 'round, with the SS Officers slaughtering Americans. He repeated this horsepuckey again the other night and Olbermann stepped up to defend the honor of the slain Americans and pour some whoop-ass on C&L has the Olbermann video, replete with Simpsons references and Stewie voice-over, along with a rough transcript.