Prayer for the Dying

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ;
Rest your weary ones;
Bless your dying ones;
Soothe your suffering ones;
Pity your afflicted ones;
Shield your joyous ones.

O Lord Jesus, who once died in agony, have mercy on those who will die today.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, grant that they may breathe their last in peace with you. †

What ISN'T disgusting about this?

A site for men to track SO's menstrual cycles. Thank you, Dwight Schrute.

Only watch the SuperBowl for the commercials?

Then check this out.

Drinks with LBJ

Now that cocktail parties are once again allowed at the Whitehouse, we'd like to share this beautiful anecdote about LBJ, drinking and driving:

In the early afternoon, the President, with me next to him in the front seat, took his white Lincoln convertible, top down, for a drive around the ranch. It was incredibly hot; the dust clouds made it hard to breathe. But there was relief. As we drove around we were followed by a car and a station wagon with Secret Service agents. The President drank Cutty Sark scotch and soda out of a large white plastic foam cup. Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice. A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup and go back to the station wagon. There another agent would refill it with ice, scotch, and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon. Then the first agent would run the refilled cup up to LBJ’s outstretched and waiting hand, as the President’s car moved slowly along.

See, if we were President, that's what we'd be doing.

Word of the Day

Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth. Via.

The Rev. Lowery at Obama's Inauguration

Arrested Development Fans Just Blue Themselves

Portia Di Rossi confirms that she is excited to be Lindsay Bluth again, and says that all the cast is onboard but they just need to schedule some face time to finish up the movie. With cluuub sauce.

Round up of Bush Farewells

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

• The Economist: Assessing the Bush years: The frat boy ships out*
• Esquire's Five Things We'll Miss Most About George W. Bush
• Slate: W's Greatest Hits: The Top 25 Bushisms
• Letterman's Top 10 G W Bush Moments
• Compilation of Onion headlines from the Bush Years
  

* Award for best title

Gadget Obsession

The iPhone is hot, sure, but we love the QWERTY keypad on our Treo. Also, it only does one thing at a time--can't chat without interrupting whatever else you're trying to do with it, for example, or pull up a webpage while talking on the speaker phone. Enter the Palm pre. Other than the dumbass name, it has lots going for it: it fixes all of the above shortcomings of the iPhone, and adds magic-level synchronization of contact info, calendars, email, and so on. That alone is worth the price of admission.We're getting one as soon as they hit the shelves.

Baker Artist Awards

Check out our buddy Samuel Burt's nom and do him a favor and vote for him!

Friendship vs Burger King

Which means more to you?

Shout out Victrola

A "quirky ambient lady band" including a friend of a friend from our good ol' undergrad days.

More with Less

Espousing the idea that frequent flier miles add up.

Missed by That Much

A 4-alarm fire broke out across the alley early this morning and destroyed half the block, taking 2/3 of the neighborhood's restaurants out. Pics at Boston.com and also at the Herald.

Quotes on Love & Wealth, and a Resolution

"Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,
but gold that's put to use more gold begets."

- William Shakespeare

"Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay;
Love isn't love 'til you give it away!"

- Oscar Hammerstein

Just thinking.

How Facebook Adds to the Trials & Tribulations of Dating

Months ago, happily in love, we posted our relationship status with a gorgeous, wonderful woman on Facebook. She de-friended us on Facebook (and otherwise), and Facebook updates to say we are "in a relationship," the change being that it no longer lists the wonderful, gorgeous woman. Facebook also tells all of your friends the new status, ie, that you are "now in a relationship."

Thanks to all you well-wishers out there, though. We know you mean well.

For Free Culture, Please Send Money To...

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales breathes a sigh of relief now that 6 million dollars has been pledged, PBS style, to keep the free online encyclopedia afloat until June--but please send more. Even better, if you try to donate a few bucks, you'll find that the suggested minimum donation is $30.

The Wiki project does not lend itself to the usual kinds of advertising:

[Even] companies like YouTube have had serious trouble trying to monetize user-generated content through advertising, and it's not hard to see why; what big-time brand wants to take a chance on appearing above unvetted and potentially libelous entries that could, at any moment, have key words replaced by terms for genitalia?

The obvious solution is to allow people and corporations to write their own entries (and have them protected from editing) for a fee, which hasn't been working well to-date. Or you might charge people for the right to edit, may $30/year or $100/life. Anyway, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Box Wine in Nine

Dr Vino rounds up the best boxed wines of 2008, to which we'd like to add Hardy's Stamp of Australia shiraz. One of our favorite restaurants in Harvard Square offers it for about $8/glass, so the prospect of buying 3L in a box for $15-20 dollars rocks.