Tom McMahon

Explained At Last: Why Women Need All Those Bathroom Stops On Long Road Trips

Left: Male Pelvis   Right: Female Pelvis

Item Number 2 is the bladder. Now can we stop arguing?

The Drunkard's Progress: From The First Glass To The Grave

The Drunkard's Progress: From The First Glass To The Grave

Click to biggify. The steps:

Step 1: A glass with a friend.
Step 2: A glass to keep the cold out.
Step 3: A glass too much.
Step 4: Drunk and riotous.
Step 5: The summit attained. Jolly companions. A confirmed drunkard.
Step 6: Poverty and disease.
Step 7: Forsaken by friends.
Step 8: Desperation and crime.
Step 9: Death by suicide.

The print was made in 1846 by Nathaniel Currier, a few years before he met Mr. Ives. More temperance posters from that era here.

An observation by John Anderson:

That's right folks, take a drink and someday you'll shoot yourself in the head with a dueling pistol. What I find additionally interesting is that we all know that recovery takes 12 steps, but we find out here that the descent only takes 9. That doesn't seem quite fair.

(via even yet another blag)

Nitrogen Triiodide: The Explosive You Can Detonate With Just A Feather

Nitrogen Triiodide: The Explosive You Can Detonate With Just A Feather

Click on the image to view the video. As the page says "It is an explosive with no use other than a novelty."

An explanation from Matthew Jenks:

What you see there is nitrogen triiodide. The beauty of nitrogen triiodide is that, when it's wet, it's completely stable. When it dries out, the shit's as touchy as an overweight, middle-aged man about his car. As you can see, just brushing it with a feather can get it to go off. Later in my chemical career, my undergraduate professor for gen chem, quantitative analysis and p chem, Dr. Awesome, told me about how his room mates would whip up some nitrogen triiodide (he called it ammonia triiodide) and then those wily chemists would paint Dr. Awesome's keyhole (to his door, you sick f**ks) with the wet stuff. That way, when he finally rolled back to the dorm, he'd stick his key in the door and BLAM! Instant Heart Failure!!!

He said he was usually tipped off when he would step in front of his door and he'd hear a faint "Paff!" come from under his foot where he had stepped on a spot where the nitrogen triiodide had dripped off the paintbrush and dried on the floor. We chemists know how to have an awesome good time.

A long, long time ago I knew a couple of guys who were really into this stuff. It was amazing how big a bang a teeny-tiny grain of this stuff could make.

Milwaukee

Milwaukee

Green Graffiti

Green Graffiti

From Adrants:

Well we didn't see any this morning but maybe you did. The sidewalks of New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have been covered with 220 applications of 'green graffiti." Green graffiti is applied by placing a stencil (in this case, Dominoes) on the sidewalk and then pressure washing the cut out so the message applied is simply a cleaner version of the area around it. So, no paint, no chalk and no dye. Possibly just a few angry city officials who may end up asking the sanitation department to go out and make the sidewalk messy again.

via Bill Geist's Zeitgeist

In Concert: KSHE and 40+ Years of Rock In St. Louis by John Neiman

In Concert: KSHE and 40+ Years of Rock In St. Louis by John Neiman

Bit o' the blurb 'bout the book:

After 9 years, 95 interviews, hunting down 100 hours of vintage KSHE broadcasts, and reviewing thousands of artifacts and photos (900 images made the cut), the book is finished. This is likely the most complete book ever put together about KSHE, or any radio station for that matter. An odyssey that began in 2000, this book has given me access to things I could never imagine — photos that hadn’t been seen by anyone but the photographers and countless recordings unheard since they were broadcast decades ago.

KSHE is the longest-running FM rock radio station in the United States. After switching from classical to rock music in 1967, KSHE became an influential player in rock history by becoming an early proponent of many legendary rock bands. KSHE’s impact has been felt far beyond the reach of its broadcast signal by giving bands such as REO Speedwagon, The Eagles, Heart, ZZ Top, Journey, Kiss, and countless others airplay before other radio stations touched their music.

Like the changing of the guard back then, from KXOK to KSHE, from AM to FM, from Top 40 to Rock. End of one era, the beginning of another.

The Driving Activity Reporter

The Driving Activity Reporter

The Blurb:

This is the device that monitors a car's activity and provides a detailed report of places, routes, and speeds traveled. It uses a 16-channel GPS receiver to track the movements of the car to which it is attached (internally or externally, using the device's built-in magnet for covert purposes), storing locations on its built-in flash memory that holds up to 100 hours of driving activity. Removed from the car, the reporter connects to your computer's USB port, and the included software allows you to view the time, date, and precise locations visited--even how fast a driver was traveling--using animated digital street maps. The data can also be examined using Google Earth (a free application from the Internet) for precise satellite pictures of locations visited. Durable, water-resistant frame enables operation between -15° to 185° F. Two AAA lithium batteries (required) provide up to three weeks of operation; device will enter sleep mode if it does not detect car movement within two minutes. 3 3/4" L x 1 1/2" W x 1 1/4" D. (1 oz.)

$230. Resolving those nagging suspicions does not come cheap.

Michael Jackson Birthday Card

Michael Jackson Birthday Card

Recipe for Chilean-Style Dal, Including Photos and Step-By-Step Instructions

Recipe for Chilean-Style Dal, Including Photos and Step-By-Step Instructions

Three Posts About Blogging

• Some Notes On My Philosophy of Blogging
• The Tom McMahon Lord Haw Haw Theory Of Blogging
• A Blog Is Like A TV Series

Government Bubble: Run All You Want. You Can't Get Away.

Government Bubble: Run All You Want. You Can't Get Away.

The Solution To Binge Drinking On College Campuses

From the New York Times Letters to the Editor via here:

The solution to binge drinking problems on campuses is simple: college curriculums need to be more rigorous. If college programs required their students to put in a significant number of hours per week doing work related to their classes, campus drinking would soon find itself limited to one or two nights a week.

Furthermore, those few nights a week would be more moderate, since the students would drink knowing that they needed to get up in the morning and keep hacking away at that thermodynamics problem set.

I suspect that one of the main reasons students who aren’t in college drink less than college students is that they have to get up in the morning and go to work at a real job, where they are accountable for their behavior.

Caroline Figgatt
Munich, July 1, 2009

The writer is a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Can You Identify These 4 Ladies?

Can You Identify These 4 Ladies?

Hint: The one on the right played the first "Bobbie Jo" on Petticoat Junction.

Another Hint: The one on the left played in 15 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Click on the photo for the answer.

Nothing Makes People Forget Their Differences Like The Opportunity To Make Money Together

Nothing Makes People Forget Their Differences Like The Opportunity To Make Money Together

Grandpa Harry S Truman

Via the American Presidents Blog, Clifton Truman Daniel tells a story about his Grandpa:

Grandpa was the last truly accessible ex-President. When he retired, the Secret Service protection vanished. It was not extended to ex-Presidents until after John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. There is a five-foot steel fence around the house, put up by the Service in 1947, but from 1953 to 1964 it wasn't locked. Anyone who wanted to could walk up and knock on the door.

My favorite story is about the man whose car blew a tire on Delaware Street, right in front of the house. Not knowing where he was or whose house he was approaching, the man walked through the unlocked gate and up to the front door where he rang the bell. Grandpa answered in his shirtsleeves.

"Can I use your phone, please?" the man said. "I have a flat."

"Sure," Grandpa said. "Come on in."

The man called a local mechanic, who said it would take 20 minutes or so to get to him.

"I'll wait outside," he told Grandpa.

"Nonsense," Grandpa said. "Have a seat. Relax."

As far as we know, they spent the next 20 minutes chatting amiably in the living room. When the tow truck arrived, the man stood, shook Grandpa's hand, and thanked him for his hospitality.

"Not at all," Grandpa said, showing the man out. "It was nice talking to you."

The man got halfway down the front steps before he stopped and turned.

"I hope you won't take offense," he said. "But you look a lot like that son of a bitch Harry Truman."

"No offense at all," Grandpa said with wide grin. "I am that son of a bitch."

The Parasite Syndrome

A couple of excerpts from Marty Nemko:

Here's how the Parasite Syndrome prototypically plays out:

1. After graduating from a brand-name college, the parasites in-training go abroad, for example to India or France, to "find themselves." They return a month or year later, no clearer, although perhaps more desirous of a pleasant and fulfilling life.

2. They take a pleasant and/or fulfilling but low-paying job. (Most pleasant and fulfilling jobs pay poorly--supply and demand.) But because of a desire to live a middle-class lifestyle, the person mooches off parents or romantic partner.

3. At this point, many of the female parasites-in-training think guys who don't make good money are losers. Most males don't think that way of educated low-income women, and so are more willing to marry them. And so, many more female than male would-be-parasites find a host.

4. Sometimes, the income-generating spouse prefers that his spouse not work, but that's uncommon except among the wealthy. More often, the income generator (or his or her parent) asks the spouse to try harder to land a professional-level job so she can contribute to the family income she's good at spending.

So, the non-earner makes a half-hearted failed effort after which she or he rails, for example, "You don't understand how tough the job market is, especially for a woman, and especially with a liberal arts degree."

Few husbands or parents have the guts to tell the non-earner, "Then why did you major in art history?! (or French literature, sociology, women's studies, etc.)" They fear the onslaught of fury, tears, or retaliatory accusations likely to follow. ...

11. Women live much longer than men, in part because of the stress of an out-of-home job, so it is likely that women non-earners will bury a beast-of-burden husband or two and go to her grave having taken far more from family and society than she has given. She has been a parasite.