Heavy

In Back to the Future, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), who is from 1985, is always uttering the phrase "This is really heavy" or something like that. Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), the one from the 1950s, is puzzled by Marty's use of the word "heavy." He asks him "why, Marty, do you keep saying heavy? Is there a problem with excess gravitational pull in the future?" We think that is one of the funniest parts of that movie.



Isaac Newton is, of course, the recognized discoverer of gravity. Kind of like Columbus discovered the Americas. It was always there but someone (a white man in both cases, hmmm?) had to point it out to all the other white people (hmm?). For something to be discovered it had to be shown or demonstrated to white people. If the Chippewa had known this fact, we're sure they would have dashed off their discovery of America to the nearest academic journal of the time and Christopher Columbus would only be known as a movie director.



Someone over at McSweeney's uncovered Isaac Newton's diary and presented the entries he wrote in the week before he discovered gravity. Here's the link and below you will find exerpts.


Newton's diary entries:

Was walking through town today when an interesting thing happened: I tripped over a stone and fell down. Not up. Down. I contemplated this as I stood and dusted myself off. "Did you see that?" I said to the nearest witness, a homely wench by the alley. "I fell down." "Yes," she said, "and looked a fool doing it. Never have I seen a man fall so clumsily." I suppressed the urge to call the woman on her stupidity; I went 'round the corner where I tripped myself several times. And each time, I fell down. Query: Have I ever fallen up? Trying to jog my memory ...

The moon followed me last night to Mary's. That pestering moon, lighting my presence! Why does it continue to hang in the sky, like some unseen force is holding it? Does it have no purpose but to shine on those who do not wish to be seen? Luckily, I found the cover of some bushes as I peeked in Mary's window. I hoped to see her wearing nothing but her dressing gown, and perhaps to catch a glimpse of that pale, scrumptious neck. But lo: Looking in her window, I saw Mary in the clutches of another man, one more handsome than I. She was succumbing to his venomous advances like a soft, defenseless rabbit. Interesting finding here: It is possible to simultaneously feel insane jealousy and sport an erection. That relentless moon shone on the latter all the way home, where it was finally paid its attention.

Interesting cause-and-effect here: If called a "dirty whore," Mary automatically reacts with a slap to the caller's face. We were in town, discussing her loose ways, when I discovered this. I called her the name; she slapped, and hard. Sensing my discovery, I used the term again. She slapped again. "Dirty whore," I said again, as an experiment now, and she slapped me ever harder. "Dirty whore, dirty whore, dirty whore." Thrice she slapped in return. Then, perhaps some learned behavior interfered with the cause-effect: I merely uttered the first syllable of the action phrase and she slapped me three times, as if anticipating something that had not yet happened. Query: Can Mary see into the future? Will approach her tomorrow for another experiment. For now, I'm going to rest under my favorite apple tree, dreaming I am but an apple in a basket over which Mary will soon lean.

What the World Needs Now

Littleboxes Music has a new post, courtesy of our music reporter, The PANDA. Yes, he insists on having his name in all caps. It's the price one has to pay for hiring a no-talent hack.

Check it out. (link is to the left)

and is also right here if you are lazy.

Note that we've also added a little "my yahoo!" link on the right-hand sidebar towards the bottom. You can click on it and have our new posts show up on your My Yahoo! page. Very cool.

LINK to Littleboxes Music

Why liberals don't win elections

Gore Vidal breaks it down:

There is no people's party, and you can't even use the word. "Liberal" has been demonized. A liberal is a commie who's also a pedophile. Being a communist and a pedophile, he's so busy that he hasn't got time to win an election and is odious to boot. So there is no Democratic Party.

link

He also says, with some doom and gloom:

Well, let us say that the old American republic is well and truly dead. The institutions that we thought were eternal proved not to be. And that goes for the three departments of government, and it also goes for the Bill of Rights. So we're in uncharted territory.

Let My Cameron go

Respectful of Otters has been back in force for awhile now. Yes!

But, on a more serious note, 90% of the staff (in a formal poll) loved her post about the Schiavo case. The other 10% of the staff classify their dream job as "working for or with Tom Delay." This once again offers up proof that littleboxes is an equal opportunity employer.

link to respectul's post.

Here's a bit of the post:

What is at issue in the Terri Schiavo case is not whether it is legitimate to kill her or actively promote her death (for example, by an overdose of morphine), but whether it is legitimate to refuse medical treatment intended to prolong her life. (Make no mistake about it: nutrition and hydration are medical treatment, when they're supplied through a stomach tube.) While the distinction between active promotion of death and witholding lifesaving medical treatment may seem like hair-splitting, in fact they are critically different.

Two Things

1. In an informal poll, 50% of littleboxes staff members think that social security reform could be a giant distraction. Kind of like, try to steal the most expensive piece art and while everyone is freaking out trying to protect that piece of art you steal other less valuable pieces of art. If you still get the most expensive piece, great! But if you don't, you've still created to opporunity to loot other nice pieces from the museum. Anyway...we watch the Dems really around social security fairly effectively and yet they let artic oil drilling and the bankrupcy law pass. The 50% that disagree with this hypothesis think the Dems do not give a flying FU#$ about bankrupcy or oil drilling and that no distraction has taken place. Hmmm...

2. Media is spinning a suprisingly large attack by insurgents as a sign of success against the insurgency. Strange, but to be expected. We suppose it's possible that staging a large attack signals desperation but it could also signal an increased ability to stage large scale attacks, which is probably not good. Or, and possibly most likely, it could signal absolutely nothing.

The high number of deaths in Sunday's daylight battle south of Baghdad was attributed to the large number of attackers, unusual in a country where most clashes are carried out by small bands of gunmen or suicide bombers.

"I was surprised at the numbers," said Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, a squad leader for the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., and a native of Henryville, Ind., involved in the firefight. "Usually we can usually expect seven to 10."

As the U.S. military reported that and other successes against the insurgency, attackers struck several times Monday, killing seven civilians and three Iraqi soldiers. A roadside bomb in Aziziyah, 35 miles southeast of Baghdad, killed four women and three children, police said.

Take My Glasses

Here, use my glasses so you can read my porn.

Folks, this is definitely our favorite moment of the Michael Jackson trial. As jurors learn that Michael Jackson has (gasp!) some legal, heterosexual porno mags, Jackson actually lends his reading glasses to a police officer so he can find out that a particular DVD could not have been shown to the child in question because it was not released until months after it was allegedly shown. Snap!

On cross-examination by Jackson defense attorney Robert Sanger, each of the police witnesses agreed the material was legal to possess and that the singer's young accuser had not remembered seeing any particular magazine or DVD.

In fact, the officers conceded, some of the magazines and DVDs were not published or released until after the young boy and his family left Jackson's Neverland Valley Ranch for the last time in March 2003.

In one instance, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Detective Victor Alvarez was unable to confirm the release date of a DVD in late March 2003 because the print on the label was too small -- until Jackson lent him his reading glasses from his seat at the defense table.

Breaking News

Sports Illustrated just announced that they will produce an annual "Baboon Swimsuit Issue" starting next year. Here's a sample photo.

Scented Balls

Todd bowled over 100 this weekend with the help of a scented bowling ball. Unfortunately, for Todd, the citrus scent did not affect the olfactory scenses of his opponents so much as to render his 100 score even second lowest in his group. Todd sucks.
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Odors associated with bowling traditionally include smelly feet, cigarette smoke and beer. But what about grape, amaretto and cherry? One bowling ball manufacturer — Storm Products Inc. — is putting fruit and other popular scents into its mid- to high-end bowling balls, resulting in a steady increase in sales.

More than half the bowlers on the Professional Bowlers Association tour last year used them, including four-time PBA champion Ryan Shafer.

Shafer, who has a contract with Storm, said he may have won a match two years ago in Kansas City because an opponent was distracted by his black licorice-scented ball.

"He asked me if I had to use that ball and I said, 'Yes, this ball is working' ... and I think that is why I won," he said.

(link to article)
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description:

features: On the outside of the Trauma is the finest reactive material available today, ACCU-Treadô. ACCU-Tread cuts through oil for constant reliability shot after shot producing the strongest move through the pins of any ball available today. Completely new from the 3-color ACCU-Treadô coverstock to our latest state-of-the-art innovation of this new enhanced core-weight block system, Traumaô is a perfectly matched product throughout.

color: Sky/Amethyst/Pewter Pearl

scent: Cinnamon

narcissistic bo-listic

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is distinguished by

a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy..., indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. An exagerated sense of self importance...
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes the he or she is "special" and can only be understood by, or associate with, other special or high-status people...
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behavior or attitudes

...it has been estimated that 1 percent of the American population is afflicted with NPD. Indeed, to a noteworthy degree, narcissists fuel the cultural, spiritual, and economic engines of Western society. Narcissism is especially common among accomplished businessmen, attorneys, physicians, and academics. Such people have a vast sense of self-importance and believe they're smarter and better than anybody else. They're willing to work incredible hours to provide confirmation to support their grandiose ideas.
[Alternately stolen and paraphrased from "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer)

Tune in next week for more "Ways to succeed in business or possibly get tenure!"

A Pathetic Piece of Logic

Given the effects of this medication and the sheer amount of recommended hours in therapy we have considered making this place more of a weekly "we post on monday, only monday" kind of thing.

However, sometimes the medicated fog clears for breif moments. And in these moments, we move from continually licking our arms clean to doing something more constructive, like watching television or readings articles on the internet. These moments are fleeting and provide us, sometimes once a week, other times twice a week, with what we'll call a "good feeling." We're feeling pretty good right now, but not too good, Doc. The barbituates are still safely locked in the Dennis's shoe box, underneath his bed, behind the gray blanket, next to the old socks.

We recently came across this article and thought we'd share some of our favorite quotes with you, our sober readers.

The article concerns how animals (non-humans) feel about, you know, things.

Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety — they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.

Webster and his colleagues have documented how cows within a herd form smaller friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows and can bear grudges for months or years.

Dairy cow herds can also be intensely sexual. Webster describes how the cows become excited when one of the herd comes into heat and start trying to mount her. “Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs,” he said.

Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, who is presenting other research at the conference, will describe how cows can also become excited by solving intellectual challenges.

In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves.

“Their brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,” said Broom.




“Sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it,” said Webster. “You only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer’s day. Just like humans.”