stu jones!

"It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can..."

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:56:49 -0400

“It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t.”

- I Will Not Read Your F@#$%^g Script - New York News - Runnin’ Scared

FBI: Test shows Mich. man not missing NY boy - TODAY People

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:31:14 -0400

FBI: Test shows Mich. man not missing NY boy - TODAY People:

I’ll summarize, so you don’t have to click:

NEWS: There was this boy who was kidnapped in 1955. No one knows what happened to him. Here’s a picture.

RANDOM MAN: I don’t really look like my dad. The boy is clearly me.

HIS DAD: What?!?

DNA: No, sorry.

MAN: Ok.

NEWS: FRONT PAGE!

Ebert's Gone Soft

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:32:54 -0400

Ebert's Gone Soft:

Ok, this does it. I have to say something — Roger Ebert is slipping. It’s been said before, but never before by me: Roger Ebert is no longer a fair critic. And as he shows in this review of The Hangover, the latest example of his faltering discrimination, he’s too easy on cruddy films.

Whatever happened to “I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie”?

"People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns: “These people (and they are numerous) are attempting..."

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:48:45 -0400

“People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns:

“These people (and they are numerous) are attempting to cultivate a cute quirk, but they are really just aping a cute quirk cultivated by thousands of cute-quirk-cultivators before them in a giant, gross, boring feedback loop. Yes, clowns can be mildly creepy. But come on. Among the many things that are scarier than clowns: fire, earthquakes, a guy with a knife, riding the bus, colon cancer, falling down the stairs (it could happen at any time!), rapists, people who just kind of look a little rapey and are standing too close to you in line at 7-Eleven, Marlo from The Wire, influenza, and scissors.””

- The Different Kinds of People That There Are - Features - The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper

We’re currently looking for a house in Meade County, Kentucky. I have been reading hundreds...

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:18:57 -0400

We’re currently looking for a house in Meade County, Kentucky. I have been reading hundreds of little blurbs touting the fine properties of each. It’s really amusing, I think, how each descriptive paragraph is peppered with utterly meaningless phrases. What does it really mean when a house is “must see”?

It seems to me that if I was trying to sell something, and I had limited space in which to describe its finer properties to entice the reader, I would want to make the best possible use of the space I’ve been given.

Instead, I read about how a particular piece of land “lays well.” Or,I even read one today that said, “This home is ideal for the professional who wants to make a statement that quality matters.” This raises questions, I think. Are there rumors currently flying around that quality may not matter? Are there then professionals who seek to dispel such notions with elaborate gestures such as real estate purchases?

“Generous sized rooms” is another one I saw. It’s enough to make one think, “thank heavens the builder had a sense of altruism.”

Or subtle suggestions embedded such as “great place to retire,” as if such a thought wouldn’t have even entered my head if I was of that age group. “Oh, hey, that’s right! I can retire now! And what better place to do it than at the place with the ad that reminded me of this fact!” Or would “great for horses” make someone remember that yes, they do have horses and that they should therefore stop searching the downtown apartment ads and instead be looking for someplace the horses would consider “great.”

More and more, we see words being used that really have no meaning.

I am so right, butt-face

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:59:10 -0400

Making up a name for people who disagree with you does nothing to legitimize your viewpoint; ad hominem attacks are universally considered a logical fallacy.

Gerry Canavan: Grown-Up Calvin and Hobbes Calvin and Hobbes, as...

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:39:00 -0400

Gerry Canavan: Grown-Up Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes, as imagined in 2009. This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen recently. My hope for my children is that they don’t understand this.

Louisville Wins Big East Tournament! I can’t believe it. ...

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:43:15 -0400

Louisville Wins Big East Tournament!

I can’t believe it. In a year this difficult, we get both the regular season AND the tournament! All that waiting through the rough 90s is paying off!

U2: No Line On The Horizon

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:43:55 -0500

U2: No Line On The Horizon:

In the record labels’ latest attempt (see: in Rainbows) to combat record piracy, U2’s latest is being offered in mp3 format for $3.99…today only!

Like Radiohead before them, expect the label to produce un-verifiable statistics citing the resounding success of this endeavor. (If you’re wondering how the In Rainbows Experiment turned out, check the album’s current price on Amazon. Maybe the “pay-whatever-you-want” theory is out the window!)

I’m enjoying watching the efforts of businessmen and musicians. It’s enough to make one give serious thought to the application of business (specifically capitalism) to the distribution of art.

But I think an answer’s coming soon! One day I imagine that we’ll look back on the early 2000s as “The Years Before We Got Digital Music Figured Out.”

Guide to dating: The classified ads of the London Review of Books | Life and style | The Guardian

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:45:35 -0500

Guide to dating: The classified ads of the London Review of Books | Life and style | The Guardian:

The funniest personal advertisements from the funniest anonymous Brits.

A new era of change! via jeffrubinjeffrubin

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:31:00 -0500

A new era of change!

via jeffrubinjeffrubin

Attention advertisers:

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:51:40 -0500

No matter what you’re selling, commercials that contain the sound of an alarm clock are off-putting. I realize that it gets attention, but I think it’s a negative association; avoid at all costs!

Dream Theme

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:56:00 -0500

Why is it that in so many dreams I have that someone in them will completely turn into someone else right in the middle of the dream?

For example, I’ll be duck hunting with, say, Ted Kennedy, and then the next time I turn around, he has morphed into my grandmother. No big deal, nothing is said, and I get the impression my grandmother in the dream would be upset if I asked her why only moments ago she was Ted Kennedy. Usually it’s more like I get the vague feeling that this person has been my grandmother all along, and that I was only mistaking her for someone else.

I use the example of Ted Kennedy and my grandmother, but it has happened in so many other dreams with so many other people.

It’s also true of locations. The setting for a certain dream will be the house in which I grew up, and then I walk outside and it’s Florida, and THEN I look back at the house I just came out of and it’s a little straw bungalow. Hey, I don’t remember that!

(NOTE: Normally after a few paragraphs like that I’d feel compelled to distance myself in some way from the insanity (by writing, “better quit with the cheese pizza before bed,” even though I usually don’t eat right before bedtime), but I won’t this time. Everything I wrote up there is the honest truth and I will give no explanation for it.)

Dear Geico, there was a time when your commercials were clever...

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:25:11 -0500

Dear Geico, there was a time when your commercials were clever and original. Yet now you’ve gone from “different and unexpected” to “rehashing ad nauseum.”

Can’t we just say goodbye to the Caveman?

Also, while on the subject of “played out,” everyone please stop using the expression chillax. It had a nice six-month run; now it’s time to put this one to bed forever.

My Last.fm profile

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:19:13 -0500

My Last.fm profile:

…is probably over and done with. One day it just stopped scrobbling to the page, and no uninstall/reinstall of the software could fix it.

So there you go, last.fm. I hope you develop a fix for this. I kind of liked your product.

My websites

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:16:23 -0500

Before I begin, I need to preface this post with the statement that:

I am by no means a web designer.
I know little about html, and even less about css. And let’s not even discuss flash or MySQL, please.
I don’t even host my own material.

But! That’s not going to stop me from creating and setting up websites! Here are some that I have done, or the ones I currently maintain:

2-1 ADA

69th ADA

East Side Baptist Church (my current project)

America’s Racist Belt [PIC] Warning: extreme stupidity...

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:06:54 -0500

America’s Racist Belt [PIC]

Warning: extreme stupidity lies through this link.

The site claims that any *whole county* who switched from voting for Kerry in ‘04 to voting for McCain in ‘08 is making said choice based on bigotry. According to the author, “Race is the only reason that makes sense for a Democrat to switch sides this election cycle.”

Sure, if you’re looking at it from an extremely narrow perspective.

Of course, I can’t say for sure, but I would wager that this small article was almost certainly written by a white person who voted for Obama and enjoyed telling as many people who would listen about it. “Hey! Now the pressure’s off, right? There’s no way I could be a racist — after all, I voted for Obama!”

Seems like these days just about anything falls in the category of “possible discrimination.” Why are we so eager to label someone a racist? Because it means that we look “un-racist” by comparison? How awful is that?

Army stops Iraq GI from bringing puppy home - Military- msnbc.com

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:17:08 -0400

Army stops Iraq GI from bringing puppy home - Military- msnbc.com:

“[Beberg] said Iraqis view dogs and cats as nuisances and carriers of disease, and U.S. soldiers have rescued many of them from abuse.”

This is a terrific example of how being completely self-concerned and refusing to consider the larger picture can hurt!

If we allow one girl to bring a stray dog home from Iraq simply on the basis of the too-sweet picture plastered all over msn.com, where goes the authority of the Department of Defense? Where goes concern for the health of our men and women in the combat zone?

This sounds like a slippery slope we should avoid. Hate to say it, but the army is exactly right here.

The Other Side of the World Is not China!

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:21:46 -0400

The Other Side of the World Is not China!:

When I was growing up, I always thought if I dug down deep enough, I’d end up in China. But! Thanks to this map tool, I discovered that now if I had been somehow able to dig completely through earth with my six-year-old hands, I’d have come out in the ocean, off the west coast of Australia! Not nearly as fun.

Only children in Argentina and Chile have any hope of digging straight down to China. Stupid lucky kids.

Smokey did what?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:15:33 -0400

Smokey did what?:

I love Smokey and the Bandit I and II (and well, ok…III, sort of), but have you read the plot for the second movie on wikipedia? It reads like it was written by a precocious 8-year-old:

“When Cledus opens the crate containing the elephant, Charlotte races out, nearly trampling Frog. The Bandit saves the day by doing a backflip onto the elephant’s back and riding the elephant out of the quarantine shed. Noticing a nail was stuck in her foot, the Bandit removes it from there and the elephant takes a shine to Bandit.”

Amazing!