The Best Speech Nixon Never Gave

In the year 1969, the Apollo 11 NASA mission made it to the moon. Richard Nixon, I'm sure, gave a stirring speech to congratulate Neil Armstrong and crew for being the first men on the moon. But Nixon's trusty speechwriter William Safire was prepared for everything. Today we have the speech that Nixon would have given in the event that the astronauts had been stranded on the moon.

It begins with the line "IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER". I think I need say no more.

LINK IT UP

Not (Quite) Dead

Hello loyal readers. Or reader. Or whoever it is that comes out to this shady park of the blogosphere. Regardless! One may have noticed that this blog has not been updated for nearly a month. And one may have also noticed that the termination of blog entries neatly coincided with the beginning of my school year.

The fact is, school + debate + editing the newspaper + afterschool orchestras + piano lessons + tennis + college applications makes me one busy person, and I've really not had much time to update this blog.

"But Jon," you say. "Doesn't it take just a few minutes each night to update this godforsaken pile of drivel and stupidity?"

"Well... erm... PUFFINS LOOK LIKE PENGUINS BUT ARE ACTUALLY A SEPARATE SPECIES," shout I as I speed off into the oblivion.

The truth is I've been ignoring my dear old blog, and it has suffered in the meanwhile. And I apolgoize for at least not even making it known that I was on semi-extended hiatus.

So, the current status: I am still on semi-hiatus until my college applications are finished (which will likely be the case by the end of October.) In the meanwhile, I may pop in once a week or so (or not as much).

In the meantime, please enjoy this video regarding the topic of profanity.

Back to School

Well, so ends the summer. It's been... well, it's been a unique one, I guess. Really busy, but lots of good fun at the beach, with friends, and even with coworkers working on stem cells. I just can't believe how quickly it went by.

So, to cope with the agony of the ending summer and to drown my sorrows in food, I have decided to be the test guinea pig for the KFC Quadruple Down. It's a proposed sandwich for KFC which substitutes two deep-fried chicken breasts for buns. Between those lies another two fried breasts, with bacon, special sauce, Swiss and pepperjack cheese. It's sort of like ordering a quadruple bypass without paying for it. But man would that ever be good.

To KFC: Do it. I dare you.

Happy (not) school year everyone!

Pogo - Alohomora

About ten minutes ago I found out about an Australian artist named Pogo. He creates electronic and dreamy trip-hop beats to sound clips from popular movies. Which makes it all the more trippy... er.

He's thus far done Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Mary Poppins, and the rest I haven't gotten to watching yet. Below is a track called Alohomora. If you like, follow the link to youtube and check out the rest of the videos from user "Faggotron" (yes, really.)

A Chat with an Afghan

Back from a week at the beach. Good stuff, very relaxing. Woot woot. Now I'm ready to confront the school year. Sure.

Anyways, you may remember a former post about a service called Omegle. Well, browsing upon that site, I met a very interesting man... who claimed to be Afghani. Now, I can't confirm his claims. But what he said, to me, was really, really cool. There's just something... weirdly interesting about talking about the daily life of someone who's customs and life is so radically different from yours.

The transcript of the conversation can be found here. Check it out.

High Fives are Pretty Great

Done with my summer internship. No more commuting, yay! Still, I really will miss the people in the office. Nice, good people can be hard to find, and man, did I run into a lot of them.

In other news, high fives are pretty great. Epic street sign from New Haven, CT.

Also, Barney Frank is pretty badass. Well, not really - he kind of sounds like Droopy Dog from Looney Toons, really. Still, at a town hall meeting in Dartmouth, he told it like it was. When confronted with a woman holding a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache and comparing universal healthcare to a Nazi policy, Frank lashed out with an apt, "on what planet do you spend most of your time?", arguing that talking to her further would be "like trying to argue with a dining room table." Well done, Barney.

A Mathematical Guide for When Zombies Attack

How this actually got funding (yes, really) is beyond me. It's a mathematical model of what would happen in a theoretical mass zombie outbreak. The recommendation: "We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all."

Czech it.

R.I.P. Benson (1984{ish}-2009)

On July 29th, Benson, the supposedly most beloved fish in England swam up to his watery maker. He was 25, ish, although I haven't the slightest idea how you measure a fish's age. Normally, this sort of heartbreaking story wouldn't really catch my eye and I'd be completely ignorant and oblivious to it. But this obituary is nothing short of bizarre, if not remarkable. This is a full one-page obituary in this week's The Economist, dedicated to a fish. Written in poetic style.

It's a bit wordy. Read anyway. It's an obituary about a fish.

Hotel Survival with George Egg

It is impossible to eat in a hotel without being charged $600 bazillion. This is a fact. I mean, I read out the prices next to room service items for fun. Just to demonstrate the absurdity.

The video you are about to see is how to avoid the crazy charges on the road and still eat well, compliments of British comedian George Egg. It is funny in that it is completey absurd, but it actually seems like it could work. Keep this in the back of your mind the next time you visit the Holiday Inn.

Alive in Joburg

Today marks the opening of District 9 in box offices across America, and from what I've heard, it's getting rave reviews. We may even have a sci-fi classic on our hands. I really want to see it - it looks fantastic.

A little known fact about District 9 is that it all started out as a short film by director Neil Blomkamp in 2005 known as Alive in Joburg (or Johannesburg, whichever it was supposed to be.) It's a six-minute short about a peaceful group of aliens who land in South Africa around 1990, only to be met by xenophobia and intolerance (insert not-so-subtle apartheid reference here.) But this was the project from which the supposed gem that is District 9 stemmed. For all I know, it might even be sort of an extended trailer, four years in advance. Either way, it's a fun, interesting little short.