Potato Salad by Zeamays (Originally uploaded to Wikipedia, here.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The incredible success of the potato salad Kickstarter is simply a modern example of performance art. Like the million dollar home page or the eBay-nanza of religious-icon toast before it, it won’t kill its medium (crowdfunding, web advertising, online auctions). No doom to say here, move along.

—jhunterj

But back in October, these were my contributions:

• Run Tro Lola Run

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY

• The Matrix Multiplication
• The Knights Inn of the Sixth Happiness
• The China Beach Syndrome
• National Lampoon’s Velvet
• You’ve Got Plate Mail
• The Thin Red Zip Line
• What About Bob Dole?
• Wing Dings Commander
• The Seven Year Jock Itch
• Afterbirth of a Nation
• Grease 2

That last dig was not the only one in the mem; sequels are easy targets in this game. And my favorite from my own:

• The Fall Fashions of the House of Usher

—jhunterj

An example XO Box

If I were going to name that kind of thing, I might call it an “XO Box”, since that’s also a five-letter palindrome and the thing itself ends up in a box shape.

Hypothetically, that is. But enough theory; I think I’ll go write this blog post about it right now, and call it an “XO Box” for reals! I’d love to see some more examples (or 4×4s or 6×6s or …), in the comments or linked back.

—jhunterj

Muppets mash-up movie poster for “Lord of the Grins”

These are from my contributions to a two-year-old Twitter meme #minoranagrambooks:

• The Lord of the Grins
• The Little Pincer
• Anne of Green Bagels
• The Scrotal Web
• Harry Potter and the Holy Lad’s Wealth
• The Very Hungry Cellar Tapir
• James Clavell’s Hung So
• Frank Herbert’s Nude
• What Color Is Up Your Trachea?

Others’ here: http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23minoranagrambooks

Feel free to contribute in the comments!

—jhunterj

“Social Meteor”

was followed shortly by today’s XKCD:

“Social Media”

So look to the skies! If you see evidence of an impending extinction-level event, post it to Instagram! (And check Snopes before sharing it on Facebook, please.)

—jhunterj

• 

  A duck with no stealth-coating on its quack. By Manjith Kainickara from Dallas, Texas, USA (Wood Duck Uploaded by Snowmanradio) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

  The quack of a duck does indeed echo, and lots of people know why: sound waves bounce off of solid surfaces.
• The Pony Express did indeed use ponies—they used thoroughbreds, mustangs, pintos, and Morgans, and a pony is a bronco, mustang, or similar horse of the western U.S. The fun fact seems to be confusing pony with foal or colt.
• The longest word you can type with the left hand only is ‘sweaterdresses’, not ‘stewardesses’. rec.puzzles adds ‘tesseradecades’, but it’s not in my word list, so I can’t tell you what it means.
• The longest word you can type with the right hand only is ‘hypolimnion’, not ‘lollipop’. The cold, low-oxygen region of water in a lake is its hypolimnion. rec.puzzles adds ‘kinnikinnik’, but it’s not in my word list.
• The longest words that you can type alternating left and right are ‘dismantlement’ and ‘neurotoxicity’, not ‘skepticisms’. rec.puzzles lists ‘leucocytozoans’ with this distinction, but it’s not in my word list.
• There are two 15-letter words that do not repeat a letter: ‘uncopyrightable’ and ‘dermatoglyphics’. Dermatoglyphics is the study of patterns on the skin, or the patterns themselves. (There is one word that uses 16 different letters, although it repeats a few: ‘phenylthiocarbamides’, the plural of a nice chemistry term for C₇H₈N₂S. rec.puzzles has more of these too.)
• There are lots of autoantonyms (words that are their own antonyms). ‘cleave’ is only the most popular. You can find more at http://thinks.com/words/autoantonyms.htm.
• There are 6 words that contain the vowels a e i o and u only once each in the correct order: abstemious, abstentious, arsenious, caesious, facetious, and parecious. Most lists mention only three of those.
• There are 6 words that end in ‘-dous’: decapadous, hazardous, horrendous, palladous, stupendous, and tremendous. Most lists mention only four of those.
• The longest one-syllable word is ‘squirrelled’, not ‘screeched’ or ‘strengths’. If you pronounce ‘squirrelled’ with two syllables, you can fall back to ‘scraunched’.
• Sentences such as “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” are known as pangrams. You can find more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams. (This ‘fact’ isn’t wrong, since it makes no claims to be the shortest, only, etc.)
• ‘chilver’ rhymes with ‘silver’, ‘sporange’ with ‘orange’, and ‘curple’ and ‘hirple’ with ‘purple’, according to rec.puzzles. There are no rhymes for angst, breadth, bulb, depth, eighth, else, fifth, glimpsed, gospel, gulf, liquid, mollusk, month, mulcts, ninth, oblige, sculpts, sixth, twelfth, width, or wolf.
• ‘Politician’ comes from ‘politikos’ (Gr: from polites, meaning citizen) + ‘-ianus’ (Lat: adjective suffix), not from ‘poly-’ (Lat: many) + ‘tete’ (Fr: head or face).

—jhunterj

Have you ever:
Q: Kissed someone on your friends list? Five or six of them…
Q: Been arrested? No
Q: Do you like someone? You kids get offa my lawn!
Q: Held a snake? Yes
Q: Been suspended from school? No
Q: Sung karaoke? Yes
Q: Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t do? Yes
Q: Laughed until you started crying? Yes
Q: Caught a snowflake on your tongue? No
Q: Kissed in the rain? Yes
Q: Sung in the shower? Yes
Q: Sat on a roof top? Yes
Q: Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? No
Q: Broken a bone? Hairline fracture, but yes
Q: Shaved your head? No
Q: Played a prank on someone? Nothing major
Q: Shot a gun? Yes
Q: Donated blood? Yes

Last person…

1. You hung out with? You kids get offa my lawn!
2. You texted? Lori
3. You were in a car with? My kids
4. Went to the movies with? My family
5. Person you went to shop with? Teh Intertubes
6. You talked to on the phone? Brags
7. Who made you laugh? D.
8. You hugged? Maha

Answer truthfully… [whatever - JHJ]

1. Sun or moon? Sun
2. Winter or Fall? Winter
3. Left or Right? Left
4. Sunny or rainy? Sunny
5. Where do you live? If we’re friends on Facebook, you can see my profile.
6. Club or pub? Pub
7. Are there 1 or 2 people who you can always trust and rely on? Yes
8. Do you want to get married? You kids get offa my lawn!
9. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirl
10. What time is it? 1:07pm
11. Are you afraid of commitment? No
12. What is your greatest hope/wish? Eternal life
13. Do you cook? Yes
14. Current mood? Optimistic

In the last 48 hours, have you…

1. Sung? Yes
2. Listened to music? Yes
3. Danced crazy? No
4. Cried? No
5. Liked someone you can’t have? You kids get offa my lawn!

21 firsts…

1. Who was your first prom (or homecoming) date? Amanda
2. Who was your first roommate? John B.
3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time? Wine coolers
4. What was your first job? Winn Dixie
5. What was your first car? Plymouth Volare
6. When did you go to your first funeral and viewing? When my grandpa died
7. Who was your first grade teacher? No idea.
8. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? No idea
9. Who was your first best friend? Jamie Williamson
10. Who was your first best friend in high school? I can’t fathom why this question exists.
11. Where was your first sleepover? No idea.
12. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day? The person screwing it up.
13. Whose wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid or groomsman? Scott’s
14. What is the first thing you did when you got up this morning? Wii Fit
15. What was the first concert you went to? Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
16. What was the last concert you went to? Dayton Philharmonic Opera
17. First celebrity crush? Madonna
18. Current celebrity crush? Nate Silver
19. First crush? You! Kids! …
20. Current crush? Get Offa My Lawn!
21. First time you tied your shoe laces? Preschool, no doubt.

Five names you go by:

1. Hunter
2. Jeff
3. jhunterj
4. Dad
5. That old guy yelling at us to get offa his lawn.

Three things you are wearing right now:

1. Long-sleeve polo
2. Jeans
3. A surly disposition

Three things you want very badly at the moment:

1. Replace the old car
2. Remodel the bathroom
3. Have a kid-free lawn

Two things you did last night:

1. Generation Dayton Holiday Celebration
2. Uh, yeah, that was the whole night

Three things you are going to do tomorrow:

1. Go to work
2. Look for checks in the mail
3. Read more of Michael Stackpole’s A Secret Atlas aloud to the family

Two longest car rides

1. West Palm Beach to Fort Lawn
2. Fort Lawn to Niagara Falls

Favorite beverages:

1. alcoholic: Bell’s Two Hearted Ale
2. non-alcoholic: water

—jhunterj

Back in October, Chris Shea, the man behind Free Shakespeare, has reached out to his Facebook contacts for people who could come participate in a no-experience-needed Free Shakespeare! recording project. I’d participated in a Free Shakespeare event before (Shakespeare for Life marathon reading with Jamie McQuinn in October 2011) and since I love overloading my schedule with things I’ve never done before, I signed up, and the lot of us got together at the Loft Theater. The “scriptâ€? consisted of various words and well-known phrases coined by William Shakespeare, and there are a lot of those. Puking, watchdog, majestic, eaten out of house and home—those were some of the selections on my list.

We read them many ways, in sequence, in unison, quietly, uproariously, emotionally, roboticly, and then all over again. Chris and Charmaine Renee then assembled the installation: a collage jumble of the phrases strewn behind a set of headphones, playing the cut of our cacophony. At the opening reception last night, the ambient noise was enough to make listening to the cut problematic, but if you go during the regular hours, you should have no trouble. It’s over in the corner, like this:

Such Stuff As Memes Are Made On: you can hear my voice among many others in the headphones indicated

That image is linked to the full-size version.

The exhibition runs through February 15, with a performance “Seeing Is Receiving: Performing the Meme” with Will Davis, Free Shakespeare!, and Rodney Veal on January 24 at 7:00 pm. The gallery is normally open from 1–4 in the afternoon (closed Sundays and Mondays, and closed December 21–January 2).

—jhunterj

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDThrTxWBmw

—jhunterj

Reflecting the tone of this campaign (and the several leading up to it), they spend their energy talking about what they are not, attempting to counter the stereotypes that make modern political discourse so popular and useless.

I hope you have friends from multiple points along the political spectrum (remember, at best only half of the country agrees with you). I would wager none of them match the image of “The Other Side” painted by either campaign. Some day soon, we will all find out which political team won this battle, but remember your neighbors are not The Enemy, and they want things to be better tomorrow than they are today, even if they disagree with you on how that might happen. We’re arguing from different assumptions, and the campaigns have armed each side well with sound bites and fury, signifying nothing.

Two of my favorite quotations for election season:

• Those who disagree with you are not necessarily stupid or insane.—The Economist.com Style Guide
• Every day, like-minded people can and do sort themselves into echo chambers of their own design, leading to wild errors, undue confidence, and unjustified extremism.—Cass R. Sunstein

—jhunterj