Blue Donut

Tech Forecasts I Made in the '90s

2011-06-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

From GQ, August 1995:

0

From GQ, June 1997:

Numbers Pretending to Be Letters in Their Own Spelling

2010-11-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

The 10 Greatest Athlete Initials Logos

2010-11-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

Only the elite-of-the-elite athletes have formed personal logos out of their initials. But what does a sports star's unique monogram say about him? Let's go to the pictures. All the logos here are authentic.

1. Roger Federer. When they ask Roger if he wants to sell a line of women's luxury handbags, he'll be ready.

2. Reggie Bush. See, it's RB. But, look again: it's also 25. And look one more time: the face of an old woman in a shawl. Now stop looking.

3. Tiger Woods. Elegant and classic, like something Frank Lloyd Wright would kill a man with. All of Tiger's cattle bear this brand.

4. Chad Ocho Cinco. This incredibly merges three letters into one symbol that actually copyrights itself.

5. Tom Brady. He's trying to spell TB and 12, I think. But that's a 13, right? Why not just buy a Tampa Bay hat?

6. LeBron James. Here we go again with the initials and the number. Coincidentally this also is the Chinese Kanji symbol for "Braylon Edwards punched my friend."

7. Manny Pacquiao. This is either a cool, medieval-dynasty-looking insignia, or a cartoon cat smoking a cigarette (squint hard).

8. Kobe Bryant. Wow, that's a pretty fancy new logo for Burger King.

9. Terrell Owens. There's something overtly feminine and masculine about this logo all at once. Like it could go mate with itself.

10. Andre Berto. You didn't even know who Andre Berto was. Now you do. That's Logo Marketing 101, baby.

Who's Pooping Now? A Real-Time Poopinator.

2010-11-03T15:19:00.001-07:00

Insane, Made-Up Yard Games for Dads and Kids

2010-05-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

The insane yard games we seemed to make up every Summer, in the half acre of lawn and asphalt around my house, happened spontaneously. Only after the rules actually worked did they become family traditions. And so we have Yard Ball. Bolf. Bagball.

There was the time, for example, when I stood in the driveway beneath the basketball hoop, holding a football, but my boys, then 10 and 7, wanted something more intense than playing catch. A straight game of tackle football didn’t seem like a fair match between a huge, 5’8” man and two elementary school kids. So I put the street hockey net on the other side of the driveway.

“You guys have to throw the football...or…kick it…into this hockey net to score a point,” I improvised. “I play goalie, and I try to shoot the football into the basketball hoop.”

Yes, that’s the original story of how All Ball was born.

Every great sport, and every stupid one too, was invented once upon a time, by a pioneering nut with time to kill and equipment meant for other things. In 1891, gym teacher James Naismith concocted basketball to keep his hyperactive students from wrecking the building during winter months. He tried something called “battleball.” Then, inspired by a game called “duck on a rock” he had played as a kid, he got a soccer ball and some peach baskets (after first asking the janitor for wooden boxes), and he made 13 rules for basketball. Today, professionals are making thousands of dollars a year playing it.

   In early baseball, the pitcher was a human batting tee who merely served up the ball with a soft toss, to help the batter hit it. His ERA was garbage. Fielders could get a runner out by nailing him with a throw (an innovation that has made kickball our National Pastime).

   Obviously, you don’t have to be a genius to invent a sport that gives rambunctious youngsters and desperate dads a break from the same old stick-and-ball routine. You just need an old ball, a stick, some chalk, PVC tubing, a fish net, duct tape, a hula hoop, two sawhorses, a garage door, a couple of trees, grappling hooks, a swing set, and a maybe a garden hose.

   These made-up sports are specifically designed to let kids and dad compete on a more or less even footing. In their own way, they develop all kinds of athletic and competitive skills. Here are some that we play when mom won’t let us back inside. Play these, or think up your own for a change:

ALL BALL

All Ball is as straightforward as any sport that involves a football, a hockey net, and a basketball hoop. Simply set up a portable hockey goal facing a basketball hoop, a reasonable distance away. Generally we’re talking about the width of your driveway, or the length or your driveway, depending which direction your backboard faces. Park the Subaru and the Escalade somewhere else for a while.

The team that needs an advantage will shoot into the cavernous hockey goal, although in a game with even teams you may switch sides each half.

   To start, get a radio or CD boombox, because the length of each half is three complete songs. The dad team punts the football into the air. The receiving team’s job is to get the ball into the hockey net. Running with the ball is allowed, and dribbling isn’t is required, though feel free to try it. The ball may be thrown or kicked into the net, though all players on the offensive team must hold the ball at some point before a goal will count (this encourages passing).

    Tackling isn’t allowed, but pretty heavy-duty grabbing is. Each goal counts for one point. After a goal, the scoring team goes to its side and punts. Flagrant fouls and other infractions may be called by dad, granting the violated team member a foul shot or a penalty kick with no goalie.

    A ball behind a goal is in play, and if it goes on the grass you might as well tackle somebody. At halftime, drink from those juice containers that look like IV pouches. If at any point a team leads by 13, a technical victory is declared.

TROZY

Trozy is a mutant of volleyball, using a backyard swing set as its net. Its name derives from “throw,” which is what you do, using any medium-sized, round, rubbery ball. The game was invented for kids about five years old, who called their stuffed animal penguin Penguiny and the leopard Leopardy. So, Trozy.

Two players stand on opposite sides of the swing set about six feet back. Our set had one of those acrobat bars that you hang from by your hands or knees. To score a Trozy, you must throw the ball in such a way that the ball hits the hanging bar before proceeding through it, to the other side, and falling on the ground. If the player on the other side catches the ball, it’s no score, and then it’s his or her turn. If it goes straight through without hitting anything -- swish! -- no points. That’s a “Nozy.” If it bounces back, throw it again. Anything made to swing by the ball must be left swinging freely.

In a version of the game that’s easier for really little kids, a ball thrown through the aperture of one of the swings (of course it must hit the swing or its chain on the way through and land on the other side) can count as one point (an “Ozy”), in which case a successful hanging-bar shot is worth two points. First player to 15 wins. Then drink juice out of those bags that look like IV pouches.

BOLF

Bolf is golf: using a wiffle ball and bat as the club and ball, your hand as the tee, and a hockey goal as the hole. Place the hockey net in a distant corner of the backyard. Walk to the other side of the house and mark a starting place. Hit the ball out of your hand -- you know, toss it up and bat it. Where it lands, pick it up and hit it again. Repeat until you hit it into the hockey goal. The player taking the fewest strokes wins. Each player should have a ball, though you can share the bat. You can experiment with different course designs (bunkers, sandbox traps, etc.), and if you convince 17 neighbors to set up their yards, you get your own Pebble Beach Bolf Course.

BAGBALL

Bagball wasn’t invented at home. We were at a pick-your-own vegetable farm, and it got, uh, boring. So we tried to see how far the wind would carry those flimsy plastic bags you put the okra and green beans in to weigh them. Turned out to be far enough to make a game, requiring nothing more than those stupid free bags, some breeze, and two lines on the ground, which need be no more exact than “past that tree.”

Grab a bag. Face the wind and establish one line on the ground in front of you (The Release Line) and one behind you (the Goal Line). Twenty yards or so ought to separate them. Hold the bag up so that it fills with breeze and is ready to move if you let go. Run forward until you are over the Release Line and release the bag. You opponent’s job is to stop the bag from crossing the Goal Line. If it crosses, it’s one point. If he catches it, then he runs over the Release Line quickly, hoping to catch you out of position, and releases the bag toward the Goal Line.

The feeling of “playing with the wind” is an indescribable, natural high. Not really. But it does test your agility and you get a good run.

YARDBALL

A warning: Yardball is the most violent of our fun backyard games, and the most requested by the children. It is best played with a slightly deflated beachball, which has the unique properties of being easy to grasp in one hand, hard to throw any real distance, and soft when whipped at your head or groin. Set up two goals at far sides of the yard. They may be a chair and a rock, doesn’t matter. One team has to touch the ball to the chair. The other team has to touch the ball to the rock. By any means necessary (note: there is no hitting or kicking of other people allowed, nor scratching or gouging, and, conforming to Ultimate Fighting rules, no tickling).

After you score, you punt or throw the ball to the other team. Play to 15, or until someone gets hurt.

INFANT BALL

Here’s a sport you can play competitively against children as young as eight months. And at first they’ll kick your butt. Hold the child in one arm so that your heads are at about the same level. Hand the child a soft item such as a rolled-up baby sock. The infant’s goal is to throw the sock on the floor, and the little jock gets one point for each successful flooring. You score one point each time you catch the sock with your free hand before it hits the ground, provided the child doesn’t hit the ground either. The best child players are completely unpredictable. Most don't even know they are playing.

First player to 20 wins, and please be careful when diving for the sock near walls and doorways.

The Or Movie-Title Tournament

2010-05-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Things that Haven't Happened Yet

2009-11-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

As a public service, here is our newly updated list of the remaining things that haven't happened yet:

~~African-American elected president of United States~~
~~Water found on the moon~~
Peace in Middle East
Joe DiMaggio's consecutive-game hit record broken
World oil supply runs out
Bin Laden captured
~~Saddam is hanged~~
~~Starbucks announces cutbacks~~
Asteroid hits populated city
~~Major U.S. city ruined by flood~~
~~World Trade Center demolished by terrorists~~
Pete Rose enters baseball Hall of Fame
~~A famous ex-football player who kills people~~
Quantum mechanics reconciled with relativity
~~Britney Spears photographed without underpants~~
Time travel becomes possible
~~Global computer network for sharing pornography~~
Adam Sandler wins Best Actor
~~Polar ice caps begin melting~~
~~Huge tidal wave smashes 11 countries~~
Australia completely submerged
~~Secret identity of "Deep Throat" revealed~~
~~A prescription drug to induce erections~~
National ID cards implemented
~~Sisters genetically bred to play tennis~~
~~A "man" becomes pregnant~~
~~Electric cars that actually go~~
~~Bestselling memoir that inspires millions is mostly made up~~
Real mummy comes to life, attacks people
~~A popular Al Gore movie~~
Ability to turn invisible
Proof of extraterrestrial life
Respected actor wins top government job in California
~~Phillies win World Series~~
A national rating system for public drinking water
Cure for cancer
Robots take over
Chinese Democracy album is released

cross posted at Huffington Post

How Old is Your Car in People Years?

2009-11-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

Example: a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier with 131,824 miles on it. Do the math:

131824/1994 = 66.1.

That car would be a 66 year old person.

Enjoy. (Oh, and like they say: your mileage may vary.)

thanks to these sites that picked up this item:
Jalopnik...S2KI....Japanese Nostalgic Car...Irontrybe...Subi-Evo Treff...Digg...
(originally posted 11/28/2008)

To restart election, please press Ctrl-Alt-Del

2009-11-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

This originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, before election day, on October 31, 2004

Congratulations! You are standing in the most sophisticated, all-digital voting booth ever used in a real election. Now you can cast a ballot to shape the future - and experience the future - all in one mind-bending session.

We developed this new generation of electronic voting booth because, frankly, we were frustrated with the way our old vacuum cleaner worked. The bag quickly clogged with dust, destroying the suction. More than 5,000 prototypes later, we perfected this space-age voting kiosk.

By following these instructions, you'll make your few moments inside this advanced voting booth rewarding and easy - and hopefully keep your state out of the newspapers. Here we go:

Step 1: Touch any metal surface to minimize the risk of static shock, then press the "Touch Here" screen to begin. Disengage the restraining bolt and insert the bar-coded Voter ID ticket you were given at the registration table. A list of candidates will appear along the right side of the screen, each name with either a parallelogram or a tilted diamond beside it. (Once you vote, each candidate you select will have a trapezoid beside his or her name, and those you don't choose will appear with a rhombus.)

Step 2: To make your selections, take hold of the crankshaft with your right hand and turn in a clockwise motion until the name of your desired candidate is highlighted in reverse type on the screen. At this point you have five seconds to hit the toggle switch above the "Verification" LED to confirm your selection. If you hear the familiar "Pac Man dying" sound, you must try again. Repeat this process for each vote you want to cast.

Step 3: Remove your Voter ID ticket. Your ballot "receipt" will print out onto the floor outside the booth. A wastebasket for receipts is located near the exit.

Troubleshooting:

Problem: The presidential portion of the vote screen lists the candidates as George W. Kerry and Jeffrey Nader.

Solution: It's possible you have the "Fast Shutdown" registry key enabled. Try deleting the COMVER.BIN file in the AOL directory and the MAIN.IDX file from the IDB folder, then copy the MAIN.IDX file from the backup folder to the IDB folder.

Problem: The nitrogen sensor appears to be blocked.

Solution: Telemetry may be off. Remove the shelving unit beneath monitor with a 1/8-inch Allen wrench. Insert any pen or pencil into the "reset" hole to function as a circuit breaker. Replace shelving unit and retighten bolts.

Problem: The "ejector" light is illuminated and a timer is counting down toward 0:00.

Solution: Somehow a polymerase chain reaction has been initiated. There is a risk of mutation. Open the access panel marked "no user-serviceable parts inside" and locate the node of wires connected to the centrifuge. Carefully cut the blue wire - no, wait, the red.

A Letter from the NBA to Hockey Fans

2009-10-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

This originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sept. 20, 2004, prior to the NHL strike:

Dear Hockey Fan,

Those of us at the National Basketball Association were saddened to hear that the NHL season is "on ice," as they say. Not sad for ourselves - we're having a great time chuckling about it - but sad for you, the fans, who might miss a whole season of sitting in refrigerated arenas, watching the exciting sliding of a tiny rubber disc across a frozen surface with bent sticks.

We can't make hockey come back. (Actually, some of us probably could, because we own hockey teams, too.) But what we'd like to say is: This fall and winter, why not check out the game of basketball?

Sure, our invented-in-America sport, with its "ball" and "technical fouls" and more than 60 points scored by each team in every game may seem hard to follow. Perhaps it will look not quite as white to you as hockey does, because our playing surfaces consist of auburn-colored wooden boards rather than sheets of ice.

But basketball isn't such a difficult game to understand, and you'll be happy to know that many of the shouts of encouragement you are able to scream anonymously at players from the stands of a hockey arena are adaptable to basketball. Numerous terms used in hockey have similar meanings in basketball, such as "center" and "shoot" and "the lawsuit was dropped."

The first thing you may notice when watching a basketball game is that our nets are not at ground level but are mounted on poles 10 feet high. Of course, this makes playing goalie quite a challenge. In fact, goaltending is illegal in basketball, saving our players thousands of dollars every season in custom-painted animal-face masks.

Of course, our players don't use sticks, either. Not since Shawn Bradley bulked up his legs. They don't use all the equipment and layers of protection and clothing that hockey players do, and you may find the tattoos visible on many NBA players' exposed skin to be quite engrossing. That's not a helmet you'll see on the Detroit Pistons' Ben Wallace. It's a special hairstyle he has, with the head protection built right in.

Simply translating the hockey terminology you know into equivalent basketball lingo will take you a long way toward understanding our game.

For example, instead of having two "defensemen" on the ice for each team, we have two "guards" who, in theory - well, perhaps it used to be this way - also work hard playing defense and make passes to set up their team's offensive-minded players.

You have "penalties." We call them "fouls." Both are called as ways of saying to players, "Hey, you really shouldn't have broken that guy's neck." A penalty in hockey forces one player to sit down and his teammates to work harder. A foul in basketball leaves one guy to work while everybody else stands around watching.

Hockey players move between the bench and the game "on the fly." In basketball, we have a horn that we sound to proclaim the moment when any player actually gets tired enough to sit down.

A "goon" in our game is simply called "Ron Artest." It's that easy.

We invite you, as a hockey fan, to embrace basketball in the coming weeks and months because - get used to it - it's going to be a while. You will be amazed watching our athletes turn straightforward two-point shots into crazed, over-the-top public exhibitions. You'll marvel at the acrobatic mascots gyrating at something we call "halftime." You'll be awestruck by the freedom we give our team owners to disagree with the commissioner.

And our games are only 48 minutes.

And parking is free.

Just kidding about that last one.

Sincerely,

National Basketball Association

Polite expressions that now sound kind of dickish

2009-08-18T22:52:00.001-07:00

Thanks a lot
If it's not too much trouble
May I ask a question?
I'd really appreciate it
Can I help you?
Could you please
I hate to bother you
For your information
That would be great
Sorry
You're welcome

If James Dean Had Lived...

2009-04-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

What would have happened if James Dean didn't die in a fiery car crash in 1955?
Until now, no one knew. Now, experts from the psychic world and the entertainment industry have been brought together to provide some real answers.
If Dean hadn't been tragically killed in 1955, he would have spent the next several years making three more movies, say experts. Then he would have died in a motorcycle accident in 1959. If he hadn't died in the motorcycle accident in '59, he would have lived until 1961, at which point he would have succumbed to a tragic drug overdose.
But what if the overdose wasn't fatal? Experts say Dean would have lived for several more years before experiencing another fatal car accident in 1965. Then in '67, he would have disappeared and been presumed dead. In '68 he would have died from another drug OD, and in '71 he would have fallen to his death in a Hawaiian cliff-diving accident. In '75, Dean emerges from his 1967 disappearance. He is okay. But then he dies again in late '78, killed by a deranged fan.
In 1982, during a comeback, he again is murdered -- this time anonymously in an attempted mugging near Denver. Other than that, thanks to a reclusive lifestyle through most of the Eighties, Dean would be alive today and living in Wyoming.

Google Search Comes in Colors

2009-03-15T18:37:00.000-07:00

So now Google Image Search lets you specify what color you want. A perfect way to search for blue donuts, pink squirrels, or orange pants.

People You May Know (March 6, 2009)

2009-03-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Caitlin Batman Shaw
Michael Dung Nguyen
Jackie Earle Haley
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Vijay Mallya
Adolfo Doring
William "Bud" Cowsill
Alexis Stenfors
Archimandrit Efrem
Shannon Jenest
Latreasa Goodman
Cash Warren

High School Nicknames Throughout History

2009-02-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

The classic, one more time:

Jesus
“J.C.,” “Jeez”

Sampson
“Sam-bone”

William the Conqueror
“Conks,” “Conky”

Nero
“Neroid”

Henry VIII
“8-ball,” “8-dog,” “Hank”

Claude Monet
“C-Money”

Pope Pius III
“Pie-eye,” “Threepeat”

Oedipus
"Fast Oeddy," "Octopussy"

Marco Polo
"Marky Mark," "Water"

Confucius
"Connie," "Luscious," "Con-fuc-u-ous"

Ferdinand Magellan
"F-Mag," “Ja-Mellon”

Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Dusty,” “Skeezer”

Franz Kafka
“Vitamin K”

Nikola Tesla
“Testes”

Emperor Hirohito
“Hitman”

Mohandas Gandhi
“Mogus”

Queen Elizabeth I
"La Liz," "Her Heinie"

Charlemagne
"Chip," "Charlie McCarthy"

Euclid
"Ukee," 'Urkel"

Karl Marx
"The Mailman"

Louis Pasteur
“Germbo,” “Milkman,” “Big Lou”

Julius Caesar
"Jujubee," "Salad,"

Johannes Gutenberg
"Typo," "Jojo," "Steve"

Martin Luther
"The King," "El Protesto"

Chiang Kai-Sheck
“Kaiser,” “Shecky”

Alexander the Great
"A-Rod”

People You May Know (February 11)

2009-02-11T12:16:00.001-08:00

Bob Skelding
Amanda Gessner
Emma Sophina
R. Dodd Haynes
Ruth E. Hogg
Vavra Suk
Chad Joy
Morgan Tsvangirai
Stewart Parnell
Ilya Dall
Reggie "Concrete" LaCrete
Tyler Winklevoss
Graham Gooch

People You May Know (February 6)

2009-02-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

Schapelle Corby
Shai Agassi
Shane Hurlbut
Dewey Martin
John Schnatter
Boaz Weinstein
Felix Gen
Nadya Suleman
Christian Susana
Osamu Tezuka
Rodson Tong

If this list didn't bother you much, you'll love People You May Know: The Mega Directory.

Where Are They Now? With real-time updates!

2009-02-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

A fancy new online service called Google Latitude lets you track your friends on a map in real time. Reminds me of something I did more than 8 years ago with the help of a site called Modern Humorist: a celebrity "Where are They Now?" tracker. Here it is. Though, uhh, this introduction sorta spoils the joke a little.

Johnny Bench
A member of the Cincinnati Reds from 1967 to 1983, Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench was arguably the greatest catcher in baseball history.
Where Is He Now?

Janine Turner
As Maggie on “Northern Exposure,” Janine Turner was one of the hottest television stars of the early ’90s.
Where Is She Now?

Michael Dukakis
This four-term governor of Massachusetts was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988.
Where Is He Now?

Ray Walston
As the lovable spaceman on “My Favorite Martian,” Ray Walston was a ’60s TV favorite.
Where Is He Now?

People You May Know (January 29)

2009-01-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

Bennie Wint
Vince Offer
Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana
John Bulloch
Esther Wenck
Cecil Suwal
Tiffany Cherry
Reina Villatoro
Richard Lobb
Knowshon Moreno
Helio Gracie

Flashbacks

2009-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

When I was around 14, my dad showed me a book he had read when he was around 14. It was a 1948 compilation of zany stories by Max Shulman, a novelist and TV writer best known (and now forgotten) for creating the Dobie Gillis TV character. I actually never read the book. But together my dad and I read the introduction, which was hilarious at the time. The intro was titled "How to be a Writer, or Oblivion Made Simple." My favorite part was a section on how to use flashbacks in narrative. In my opinion it belongs on every writer's shelf next to Strunk & White. I'd like to illegally share it:

"A story can be told in one of two ways: chronologically from the beginning, or in flashback. Flashback, in turn, lends itself to several variations:

Simple flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Triple flashback -- Three characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(There are also quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, etc., flashbacks. The beginning writer is advised not to go beyond sextuple.)

Telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Telescoping double flashback -- This is not to be confused with double telescoping flashback. In double telescoping flashback, you will recall, one character remembers an incident in his past in which one other character appears who remembers an incident in which one other character appears. But in telescoping double flashback, two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Double telescoping double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(As you can see, any number of attractive variations suggest themselves. For example, telescoping triple flashback, double telescoping triple flashback, triple telescoping double flashback, etc.)

False flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. Then it is discovered that the incident never happened to this character at all.

False telescoping flashback -- This is like telescoping flashback except both incidents never really happened.

False telescoping true flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident really happened. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened.

True telescoping false flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened. However, a character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past which really did happen. This incident is narrated.

(Again the combinations are endless. Indeed there are types of false flashbacks for which the nomenclature has not yet been determined. An example is a flashback in which three characters remember incidents in their pasts, the first false, the others true. In the narration of these incidents three other characters remember incidents in their pasts. But -- and mark this well -- the character in the false incident remembers a true incident, and the characters in the true incidents remember false incidents. To call this flashback either a false double telescoping true triple flashback or a true double telescoping false triple flashback would be misleading.)"

-- Max Shulman, 1948

Rock the Jokes: As of Today, Your Vote Counts

2009-01-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

Hello. Thank you. For the past seven years or so, Blue Donut has been home to a page called the 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time (applause). The list was compiled originally for a late-1999 "comedy" issue of GQ magazine. Everyone in the media was making contrived end-of-the-millennium lists at that time, and I thought it would be funny (and also funny) to list the "funniest jokes ever" and rank them in order, as if it were as precise a science as listing the top 100 novels of the century. I talked to some comedians and piled up old joke books and put together a list, which the magazine chopped down to 75 jokes for space and added some stupid ones. After that, I put the original, non-editor's-cut version online, and for lack of anything better to do it has become the world's #1 Google result on searches for "funniest joke " and #3 for "funniest jokes."

The list has always been static, and stuck in the past, just like the cultural references on a newspaper comics page. Now that all changes. Thanks to finding a guy who knows how to write online dabatase code, the joke list is undergoing the biggest change in its history. Now you can vote on each joke, giving each a rating from one-half-a-star to five stars. Jokes will be re-ranked continually based on their average world ranking. The hegemony of the French Toast Joke is over! I will be able to add jokes to the list (we'll still call it the "100"). And, coming next: I will accept jokes from site visitors and add many of them, too (after reviewing each submission -- you know how much I dislike the mean and the tasteless). I encourage you to take this opportunity to make your voice heard. The ballot awaits here.

The Best Opening Seconds in Recorded Music

2009-01-16T10:56:00.001-08:00

Is there anything better than an awesome opening to a song? It's like a thrilling first line in a book, or that first sweet bite of a juicy nectarine, if you like nectarines. Not all songs with classic opening moments stay awesome all the way through. And sometimes books with promising starts become dull and you fall asleep, or nectarines end up all grainy or gushy. But blasting out of the gate with an explosion counts for something.

What are the greatest opening seconds in recorded music? Here are some ideas. You'll surely disagree. I'm no music snob, more a hits guy. I'm picking radio songs. I like guitars. If some of the choices below seem obvious, they're obvious for a reason. You're not going to leave Abe Lincoln off the "Best Presidents" because it's not cool anymore to include him. He has earned his place in Cooperstown, with his awesome riffs. I invite all rock snobs and friendly freaks to share suggestions better than mine, in Comments. But it's about time we got this discussion started. I'll add to this intro-palooza as more ideas arise. (UPDATE: some selections from comments have been added.) You may need the Flash player installed to play the audio clips; may need to click twice on the arrow to play 'em, just to show you mean it.

The best opening 1 second in recorded music: I Feel Good, by James Brown

The best opening 2 seconds: A Hard Day’s Night, by The Beatles

The best opening 3 seconds: Blitzkrieg Bop, by The Ramones

The best opening 4 seconds: September, by Earth Wind & Fire

The best opening 5 seconds: Jumping Jack Flash, by The Rolling Stones

The best opening 10 seconds: T.V. Eye, by The Stooges

The best opening 11 seconds: The Magnificent Seven, by Elmer Bernstein/Henry Mancini

The best opening 12 seconds: Rebel Rebel, by David Bowie

The best opening 14 seconds: Theme from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes

The best opening 25 seconds: ABC, by The Jackson 5

Are these choices lame? Give me better ones!

People You May Know (January 15)

2009-01-15T05:17:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm still digging this People You May Know feature, and I'm going to keep doing it until it everyone else caves. Here's a chance to reach out and learn by clicking on interesting names. It's an all-new name-based approach to the news:

Marcus Schrenker
Adolf Hitler Campbell
Ed Podolak
Bradley Schlozman
Rachel Glandorf
Jamal Woolard
Nicole Zobkiw
Rocky Rawstern
Jurgen Liebig
Luke Ravenstahl
Gotz Spielmann
Ivana Hong
Tsitsi Singizi

The Ripoff of Widescreen TV Sports

2009-01-13T07:07:00.000-08:00

Today let's take a break to explore a serious issue: the giant fan ripoff of sports broadcasts on widescreen TVs. You're going to need a little bit of math sense and a bit of common sense to follow this, but the pictures help a lot. Watching sports is a big reason why guys purchase big widescreen high-definition TV sets. But the fact is: no TV sporting event on any major network is being shot to take advantage of the wider screen. Here's a sneak peek of what I mean:

See those black vertical lines I've drawn? They define the extra space you get with a widescreen TV set. As you can see above, in the standard baseball shot from the center field camera, the extra space on the sides (it's mathematically one quarter of that pricey wide screen you've paid for) is useless. They show a few bums in the crowd. This isn't just about baseball or ESPN. It's ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Comcast, Versus. They intentionally leave 1/4 of the screen pretty vacant. The practice has a name: "center-cut protection." It's meant to ensure sure that millions of older TV sets that aren't wide don't miss any action. Here's another example -- I've got a million:

Congratulations on buying your fancy new widescreen TV set. Now you get to see the ball boy.

Most new TVs sold these days are HDTVs in the widescreen aspect ratio called 16-by-9. It's a reasonable estimate that Americans will have spent $100 billion on widescreen TVs by the end of this year. Yeah, $100 billion. That's bailout kind of bucks. I base this estimate on data supplied by the Consumer Electronics Association that shows U.S. digital TV sales reaching about $85 billion wholesale from 2003 to 2008.

A lot of people think that widescreen TVs are bigger. Actually they are just a different shape. In fact, at any given diagonal measurement -- say 37 inches -- a 16-by-9 widescreen has less screen area than a traditional 4-by-3 TV. That's just basic geometry. Pythagoras was doing this stuff years ago. It's just a different shape. The question is: how do you use this new-shape frame to depict the world? Is it even an improvement?

Wider screens are great for movies, which are filmed wider. And the promise was that widescreen TV would deliver new ways of looking at sports: you could have a quarterback way over here on the left and a receiver way over there on the right. Cool! But no.

You just get the standard shot, framed the standard way, with essentially blank space on the sides. This isn't going to change soon, because millions of 4-by-3 TV sets aren't going away soon. Even if the "Digital Transition" of television signals isn't delayed past its planned February 17 date (a delay now seems likely), the federal government has spent $1.34 billion to help people buy converter boxes that will keep 4-by-3 TV sets in wide use for a long time.

Which means TV sports producers really aren't even thinking about new ways to frame shots to take advantage of wide screen. Think about it: the ideal tennis shot on widescreen TV might not be the usual overhead from one end of the court. It might be a panoramic overhead shot from the side. Basketball is tougher. Much of the game is played half-court, the players aligned in a square box. Would there ever be an advantage to a wider-angle shot of basketball?

Hey, at least in this one, widescreen viewers get to see the other 3/4s of the referee.

The Arrow

2009-01-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

People You May Know (January 9)

2009-01-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

I like this People You May Know feature, and I'm going to keep doing it until it everyone comes around. Imagine it -- a chance to see what's happening in the world by clicking on interesting names:

Usama al-Kini
James Blanning
Percy Harvin
Joe Quesada
Josephine Quintaville
James Walton
Charles Carneglia
Yvonne Prettner Solon
Jose Angel Rios
Moses Wetangula
Freida Pinto
Joan Cunnane

People who were interested in People You May Know might also be interested in:
People You May Know: The Mega-Directory

Familiar Phrases that Came from Shakespeare

2009-01-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

"Sweets to the sweet. "

"Something is rotten in Denmark."

Perhaps you didn't realize that many of the hackneyed cliches you use every day appeared originally in the works Mr. William Shakespeare. Blue Donut proudly presents a compendium of familiar expressions that came from Shakespeare:

"Sweets to the sweet"
"Something is rotten in Denmark"
"Strange bedfellows"
"The naked truth"
"This mortal coil"
"What's in a name?"
"Kiss my grits."
"You and what army?"
"Go for it."
"It's not the tool -- it's the mechanic."
"Hey, porcupine head."
"They're Grrreat!"
"Getting to second base"
"You got a problem with that?"
"Get out of my dreams, get into my car"
"And the beat goes on."
"Word up"
"Takin' care of business"
"I wouldn't kick her out of bed."
"Rico, Suave"
"The Heartbeat of America"
"Please return trays to full, upright position."
"This time it's personal."
"Havlicek stole the ball."
"Ya think?"
"Employees must wash hands before returning to work."
"Three-peat"
"Think outside the box"
"Celebreality"
"My bad"

Tournament of the Week: America's Favorite Vegetables and Obama Cabinet Nominees

2009-01-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Further Cutbacks

2009-01-05T01:13:00.000-08:00

TO: All employees
FROM: Company management

This has been a tough, emotional day for all of us here at the company -- especially for the nine percent of you who, as of this morning, are officially "on the History Channel," as the kids say. We'd really hoped to avoid layoffs, but the bailout check still hasn't cleared for some reason, and we just can't spend money we don't have, according to some new regulation. Along with the staff downsizing, we regrettably announce the following further cutbacks:

* In order to contain shipping costs, all overnight deliveries now will go out once a week, on Thursdays.

* We are suspending our Workplace Sensitivity Training program. It will replaced by a simple chart that highlights where not to touch other employees.

* For corporate accounting purposes, a "billion" will now be eight hundred fifty million.

* To lighten the mood in the office, we will continue to hold our annual holiday party for disgruntled employees, but this year it will be "bring your own weapon."

* Effective January 1, company-paid health insurance will cover only one child per family, so for many of you, it's decision time.

* In an effort to reduce payroll costs, we have begun merging several job functions. When you have a chance, stop by and say hello to Herb Miller, our new "janiccountant."

* Due to rising raw materials costs, we are scaling back the size of our industrial hydraulic lifts and will market the smaller models as "Bite Size!"

* Vacation days still may be applied to time served in prison but only if the sentence is company-related.

* In the cafeteria, Special K and Total breakfast cereals will no longer be available. They will be replaced by Regular K and Partial.

* Friday foot massages will be self-service.

* The foosball table in the employee lounge will be removed, chopped up, and used for firewood.

* Do you like your desk or your chair? Is there a co-worker you've secretly had a crush on? Make us an offer!

* The free Starbucks service in the kitchenette will be removed on February 5. After this date, if you need a little pick-me-up to stay alert during the workday, Sheila in human resources has volunteered to staple your hand. The service will remain free.

* Remember: we are all salespeople! Please alert management if you are able to sell the company.

The Chart of 2008

2008-12-31T16:07:00.001-08:00

People You May Know (December 24)

2008-12-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

Bee Vang
Danny Ahern
Eduviges D. Gonzalez-Matsumura
Pranab Mukherjee
Ilan Rubin
Steve Pacheco
Jane Lubchenco
Michael Thompson
Renato "Babalu" Sobral
Nora Rynkiewicz
Moussa Dadis Camara
Art Sandcrafts
Gonzalo Arconada
Connor Cruise
Erik Kolar

People You May Know (December 23, 2008)

2008-12-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

Todd Richmond
John Kyees
Ketzel Levine
Laura Zuniga
Malavika Namitha
Rayver Cruz
James Taylor
Bianca De La Garza
Brian McNamee
Andrew Barron
Coy Bacon
Andres Piedrahita
Cary Sherman
Ian Halperin
Tats Wada

Movie Taglines for Historic Documents

2008-12-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

The Declaration of Independence
Coming to Save the World This Summer

Constitution of the United States
We the People are Not Alone

First Amendment
There’s Free Speech. There’s Free Assembly. But There's No Such Thing as Free Cable.

Second Amendment
He’s back in town…with a few days to kill

Fifth Amendment
Sometimes saying nothing says it all

Sixth Amendment
Their trial was speedy, their romance forever

Eight Amendment
He was cruel. He was unusual. And then things got really weird.

The Federalist Papers
An adventure 65 million years in the making.

Plessy v. Fergson
Two divided by love

The Monroe Doctrine
Ain’t no stoppin’ us now!

Gettysburg Address
Freedom never felt this good.

Dear Computer Question Man

2008-12-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Dear Computer Question man,
In Microsoft Word, I noticed a thin horizontal line going across the page below some text I typed. I can’t get rid of it! It moves up and down with the text. I can’t select it with the cursor, and the delete key skips over it like it’s not there. I must have done something accidentally to make this line appear, and now I can’t make it go away.

answer: Some versions of Word automatically convert three consecutive asterisks or hypens into a horizontal rule, or border. Of course, the software doesn’t care whether you did it by accident or intentionally. What matters is that you did it. Now you’re just going to have to live with it.

Dear Computer Question Man,
I have Windows Vista, and I try to shut it down properly at the end of each day. But lately I get the message that says “Please wait while your computer shuts down.” Sometimes I wait a really long time. Yesterday while I was waiting, I went into the den and started watching the movie Elf , and I forgot all about the computer. Two hours later I remembered – and it was still it telling me to wait. Now what?

answer: Don’t worry! There are a few possible culprits behind this common “hanging” problem -- and one easy solution. You may have a damaged Exit Windows sound file or an incompatible device driver loaded. It’s possible you have the “Fast Shutdown” registry key enabled. There may be an incompatible Advanced Power Management (APM) or Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) setting. Or it could just be a video adapter card that isn’t assigned an IRQ in real mode. The simplest fix for all these problems is to buy a new computer.

A Poem in Amazon.com Product Links

2008-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

JFK: A View from Late December Back in '63

2008-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's hard for me to imagine the complete state of shock that gripped the nation -- really the whole world -- when President Kennedy was assassinated 45 years ago today, on November 22, 1963, and then assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was slain two days later on national television. I was an infant at the time. Books have been written about the politics and the conspiracies, but what about the national mood during those weeks of sorrow and uncertainty after the tragedy? What was the average person feeling? My only real point of reference for understanding the aftermath is a song I once heard on the radio, a song that seems to get at some of the emotions Americans were dealing with, late December back in '63. The song takes me back to those days: Americans feeling as if they'd been hit by a rolling bolt of thunder, spinning their heads around, taking their bodies under. People didn't even know the feeling's name, they just knew they were never going to be the same. I wonder a lot of things about that terrible time. I wonder whether Oswald knew it was coming, if he got a funny feeling when he walked into the room? It all happened so fast -- did viewers recall it ended much too soon? And there was a special lady. Hypnotizing, mesmerizing me. She was everything I dreamed she'd be. What a lady. What a night. Looking back, it seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right. And historians can merely ask: why'd it take so long to see the light?

cross posted at 23/6.com and The Old Yorker.

Listen people, I am in this book.

2008-11-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

"Brainteasers: the Aftermath" is on pages 382 - 384

The Adventures of Boswell and Johnson

2008-10-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

A Mad Night at CNN

2008-07-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

cross posted at 23/6.com

The Monolog-o-tron

2007-11-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

Sure, TV comedy writers should be paid what they deserve, for all the ways their work is used on the Internet and in other new media. In a perfect world, robotic online replacements like this for cranking out late-night TV talk show monologues might not be necessary. But as long as the writers are on strike, the Monolog-o-tron will have to suffice. Just use the handy pull-down menus to build your own late-night monologue:

1) Dennis Kucinich is at it again. Yesterday he claimed he saw hovering over

2) It was a grim day of violence and civilian casualties in Or as they call it in ,

3) Scientists say they have discovered a way to eradicate Unfortunately, the solution might never catch on because it would require Americans to give up their

4) With imported oil nearing $100 a barrel, California Governor Schwarzenegger has suggested that the state's residents switch to heating their homes with a resource more plentiful in California,

5) Apparently several key passages have been censored from According to insiders who saw the complete version,

cross-posted at 236.com

Woody Allen's Sleeper (Cell)

2007-09-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Woody Allen's Sleeper (Cell)
by Don Steinberg

FADE IN
Abrupt medium close up of Harvey, speaking directly into the camera.

HARVEY
There's an old joke. Two terrorists decide to kill an important government official. At 10 o'clock the next morning, they meet across the street from a building where the president is scheduled to have a meeting, and one of them brings a rocket propelled grenade launcher. Ten o'clock comes and goes, but no president. Then eleven o'clock. Eventually it's noon and the president still hasn't arrived. One terrorist turns to the other and says, "Gee, I hope he's okay."

I guess that's how I feel about life. You wait and wait for the glorious victory, and by the time it arrives, tsch, you just want to go home and watch the Knicks. Gladys and me, we thought we had it all figured out --

CUT TO: Harvey and Gladys are standing in their kitchen.

HARVEY
I'm really looking forward to my martyrdom, in particular the part about having relations with 72 virgins. Can you imagine what that would be like?

GLADYS (looking away)
Uh, no. Why do you think I would know about that?

HARVEY
It's the death part that has me a tad nervous. I'd be interested in a suicide attack where you could fake the suicide, collect the insurance money, and just buy a lot of really good, you know, Reuben sandwiches. Did Dr. Kevorkian call back yet?

GLADYS
I don't think you know how do to this.

HARVEY
I know better than Ned. For his suicide attack, he gave himself smallpox. He was so miserable with it, he didn't feel like going out. Look, I have to go now to the hideout. We're having a very important meeting with all the guys in the sleeper cell, and I'm the only one who knows the address of the secret Web site that contains our instructions. Me and Google.

CUT TO: Four men around a small table. Above it, by a thin wire, hangs a bare lightbulb.

OZZIE
I heard in Europe they are using palladium. It's very a sophisticated material.

HARVEY
Palladium? It's polonium. Jeesh. That stuff is…that's dangerous. I heard they slipped a tiny bit of it onto the desk of a lawyer in, in Berlin, and it mutated him. He ended up with the head of an attorney and the body of a memo.

PHILLIP (toying with a surface-to-air missile launcher)
Where does the missile shoot out of this thing?

HARVEY
Put that thing down. For God sake, do you know how to operate something like this? You have the missile pointing backwards.

PHILLIP
It looks cooler this way.

HARVEY
I'm surrounded by cretins. Terror would be just having you talk to people. Somebody please hit me on the head with a shoe.

LEONARD
You don't want me to do that. It's explosive.

HARVEY VOICE-OVER
After that we all had to go. We set up another secret meeting, and I think in the end we just enjoyed one another's company more than executing our big plans. It…it reminded me of that joke, you know, this guy goes to a psychiatrist, and he says, 'doctor, my brother thinks he's a sheep.' And the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" And the guys says, "We would. But we need the anthrax."

Gods Also Receiving Votes

2007-05-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

“A new survey of religion in the USA finds four very different images of God’s personality: the Authoritarian God, the Benevolent God, the Critical God, and the Distant God....Respondents could check off 16 adjectives they believe describe God…the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points.” -- USA Today

Gods also receiving votes:

The Distracted God
The Distracted God is omnipotent but overscheduled. Even when he is everywhere, his mind often is elsewhere. Americans who believe in Distracted God don’t believe in the traditional good-versus-evil schism. It’s more like "items on God’s shortlist versus items on his wish-list." These believers understand why prayer books repeat the same lines, over and over.

The Handsome God
Americans who believe in the Handsome God envision their lord as the best-looking, coolest guy ever.

The Dumb Boss God
Dumb Boss God has been around for longer than anyone can remember, and he likes things to be done a certain way: His way. But he’s easy to deal with. Listen attentively to what he says, post his rules neatly on the bulletin board, and then do whatever you need to do to get the job done.

The Picasso Cypher

2007-03-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

To call The Picasso Cypher another ordinary historical baseball murder thriller would be far more than a lie. This latest novel from the author of The Abraham Lincoln-Confucius Jinx and Five People You’ll Never Meet is such a fiendish feast of twisting, interwoven yarns, it is essentially like a wool blanket that is both fiendish and delicious.

In the opening pages we are confronted with a scene that seems both familiar and disjointed. It is 1939, and the Yankee baseball great Lou Gehrig is giving his impassioned “I Have a Dream” speech. Gerhig, whose unbroken streak of games played earned him the nickname "Iron Mike," is being forced to retire from baseball by the disease that would some day, if all went well, bear his name.

Suddenly shots ring out. Gehrig slumps lifeless on the gravel surrounding the pitcher's mound. Pandemonium erupts. What did Gehrig know about the genetic code that later in the book will become a big deal? Who is trying to silence him?

Abruptly we flash to a laboratory where the young inventor Walt Disney is performing his famous "animation" experiments on dead animals. As he hears the chaos on his radio and reaches to turn up the volume, his hand topples a beaker of a luminous green fluid, which oozes across his desk to engulf a spider that had bitten him earlier. The spider becomes radioactive, and the bite becomes retroactive.

In a hyper-alert state, Disney grabs the Baseball Encyclopedia and begins running Gehrig’s career RBI totals through his oscilloscope. The waveform they produce on the glowing screen, when reflected in a “da Vinci device” (a mirror) spells out a genomic code. Emboldened by the finding, Disney recruits sidekick Thomas Aniston (a character resembling the real-life inventor Thomas Edison) to begin a trek to Africa, where they will hunt for the virus that may later destroy humanity. Aniston has just returned from his fateful experiment in which, flying a kite in a thunderstorm, he harnessed nature’s raging power of electricity. He set up elaborate networks to distribute electric power to businesses and homes across America, but soon turned his attention to what would become a ruinous, life-long obsession: vowing to do everything in his power to put makers of batteries out of business and to physically crush battery-operated toy rabbits.

Disney and Aniston soon plunge into the African jungle, where, using a crude satellite-based tracking device, and by listening to hooting noises, they stumble upon a village inhabited by savages. Surrounded by human skulls and bones is a man who appears to be of European descent, and there Disney utters his famous words, “Dr. Atkins, I presume.” Atkins, a former Tufts University cryptologist and author of Leadership Secrets of the Child Actors, tells them of the clandestine international religious society that is plotting to steal the gene responsible for hypertension. The sect is led by an insane bishop who can only move diagonally.

The page-turner continues like this for page after page, especially in the large-print edition, as the three men of science unite to unlock the shrouded mysteries, also recruiting a symboligist (someone who studies symbols), a chromachronologist (someone who colors clocks), and a young mute boy named Charlie, who would later star in silent comedy films.

Are You Another Vietnam?

2004-08-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Take Our Best-Ever Summer Quiz and Find Out!
- - - -
BY DON STEINBERG

1. Some so-called friends have started calling you "a war we can neither win, lose, nor drop":

a) Not that I've heard.
b) People supposedly said that, but not to my face.
c) Constantly—it's so true!

2. Your increasing, unanticipated guerrilla resistance is freaking people out:

a) That is basically bogus.
b) Let's just say it keeps people on their toes.
c) Guilty! It's my worst trait.

3. A local man is walking down the road wearing classic khakis and a white cotton shirt. He:

a) Is a grateful citizen who wants to help jump-start his country's new government.
b) Launches an armed attack. What was that about?
c) Could be a great guy—or a bad guy. That's what's so confusing!

4. You are so intense that people are "losing it" and doing terrible things they'd never do at home:

a) It's only "a few bad apples."
b) There's some socially unacceptable behavior, but it's not what it looks like.
c) It's completely gross!

5. People say you are taking longer than expected:

a) Hardly!
b) With me, people must learn to expect the unexpected.
c) I'll stick around for the long haul. That's what commitment is all about.

6. There are doubts and second thoughts about the reason for the engagement:

a) Just the normal "cold feet."
b) Sure, but nothing serious enough to alter the plans.
c) This should be so over already.

7. A group of Americans gathered at the mall is discontented because:

a) The new Abercrombie catalog is lame.
b) Several are wearing the exact same vintage blouse.
c) They don't want to die.

8. American soldiers are marrying your native women, just like in Vietnam:

a) Never. That's a strict no-go zone.
b) There's definitely been some flirting.
c) Hello! It's like The Bachelor!

Scoring

For each question you answered (a), give yourself 1 point. For each (b), 2 points. For each (c), 3 points.

The Verdict

0-10 points: Phew! You aren't even another Canada!
11-16 points: You may be like Vietnam, but mostly just the food.
17-24 points: Hey, is thatVietnam staring back at you in the mirror?

also posted at McSweeney's

Debunking "The Bible Code"

1998-08-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

If Music Acts Merged

1997-05-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Santanica
Three Doggy Dog
The Corrs Light Orchestra
Pink’s Floyd
The Kansas Jayhawks
Black Eyed Peas & Korn
R. Kelly Clarkson
Kajagoogoo Dolls
NSYNCUBUS

People You May Know: The Mega Directory

1990-01-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Please ignore the date on this post. Until Blogger creates a way to post pages that are frequently updated and timeless, early 1990 is just place to stash the Mega-Directory:

Shai Agassi
Danny Ahern
Gonzalo Arconada
Coy Bacon
Andrew Barron
James Blanning
John Bulloch
Moussa Dadis Camara
Adolf Hitler Campbell
Charles Carneglia
Tiffany Cherry
Schapelle Corby
Connor Cruise
Rayver Cruz
Joan Cunnane
Bianca De La Garza
Felix Gen
Rachel Glandorf
Eduviges D. Gonzalez-Matsumura
Helio Gracie
Ian Halperin
Percy Harvin
Ivana Hong
Shane Hurlbut
Usama al-Kini
Erik Kolar
John Kyees
Ketzel Levine
Jurgen Liebig
Richard Lobb
Jane Lubchenco
Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana
Dewey Martin
Brian McNamee
Knowshon Moreno
Pranab Mukherjee
Malavika Namitha
Vince Offer
Steve Pacheco
Andres Piedrahita
Freida Pinto
Ed Podolak
Joe Quesada
Josephine Quintaville
Luke Ravenstahl
Rocky Rawstern
Todd Richmond
Jose Angel Rios
Ilan Rubin
Nora Rynkiewicz
Art Sandcrafts
Bradley Schlozman
Marcus Schrenker
Cary Sherman
Tsitsi Singizi
Renato "Babalu" Sobral
Yvonne Prettner Solon
Gotz Spielmann
Nadya Suleman
Christian Susana
Cecil Suwal
James Taylor
Osamu Tezuka
Michael Thompson
Rodson Tong
Bee Vang
Reina Villatoro
Tats Wada
James Walton
Boaz Weinstein
Esther Wenck
Moses Wetangula
Bennie Wint
Jamal Woolard
Nicole Zobkiw
Laura Zuniga