Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.
All of these were sent to me in the last two weeks by friends and family, because y’all are awesome.
This isn’t everything that showed up in my inbox, though, so if your link/image/time suck isn’t here, please don’t assume I didn’t receive it or I’m ignoring it—I’m saving it for a future, semi-themed random or to illustrate an actual post.
Or I can’t show it in public. You know who you are.
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The Question is Familiar
Most librarians are familiar with the Lost Blue Book of All Knowledge,* which is also rumored to be red.
Everyone in the world has seen it at least once, about ten years ago,
and it held exactly the facts/figures/article/images needed . . .
but its actual title cannot be retained by the human mind.
It is also frequently quoted on NPR.
So, obviously, it’s being kept in the vaults of National Public Radio Headquarters in D.C.,
or possibly just in someone’s cubicle.
Hey, guys—you do know that you could charge a buck an answer from that book
(fifty cents for members)
and you’d never have to do another pledge drive every again.
Right?
(thanks, caitlin!)
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Smooth Moves
I mentioned to a friend that it might possibly be getting warm enough soon to use my garage-based treadmill again without freezing to death.
He sent me this as “encouragement.”
Encouragement for what, I’m not sure.
But Dave IS a chiropractor.
Hmmm . . .
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Elemental, my dear SkNfH**
Do you have any idea how many super-powered beings exist in the whole of the mixed media milieu since the first writer decided to put a cape on a crusader?
I sure don’t.
But Chris Simms over at Comics Alliance has made it easier to classify the myriad powers of the superpowered set with this brilliant table.
(If supervision isn’t one of yours, click the above image to get to an image that you can enlarge.)
The only power missing here is Control over Spandex Fibers, so I’m going to assume that this is a Universal Constant for all superpowered beings.
I will also assume that metabolism-defying adipose tissue with anti-gravity properties is a Universal Constant for all superpowered mammals who currently have X-chromosomes, or the biological equivalent in species of non-Earth origin.
(Thanks, Matt! You’re such a GeDcFm.)
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Watson’s New Project
Watson is alive and well in Houston,
and hunting yellow chairs…
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Stainless Slow Motion Time Suck
Adam Magyar has made—and may still be making—a series of beautiful, haunting,
and slightly creepy
high speed video recordings
of train and subway platforms around the world.
Watson sent me the Japanese station and Siobhan sent me New York.
But I like Alexanderplatz best, because of the children racing across the frame.
Adam Magyar – Stainless, Alexanderplatz (excerpt), 2011
The full version of Shinjuku station is available,
but I desperately want to find the full version of Alexanderplatz
and my googlefu has failed me.
Can anyone help me out?
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*Not to be confused with the blue book of all used car prices, which is orange now, anyway.
**If you don’t think Dr. Watson is a superhero’s sidekick, I don’t want to talk to you.
Earful of Cider 