A truth universally acknowledged...

I was prepared to dislike this, but then it just reeled me in.

What if he’s gay?

What if he’s a serial killer?

What if he’s a gay serial killer?

More episodes here.

Olympic fever already has me in its clutches

I am an admitted Olympics junkie. My people, you know who you are. Every four years we re-learn the intricacies of curling.

I cannot wait for the London games. Gymnastics! Tandem diving! Handball! Handball? Yes, handball! I love it all!

Remember those P&G commercials that will make you cry at the drop of a hat? They've started already. I can't even...

Happy Birthday, Pops.

Today is my Dad's birthday. I hope he will not mind if I tell people he's sixty. Sixty! I will add here that my parents still seem so young and lively, which is probably why I have never feared getting older.

I didn't have work today, so I tagged along with Jen, Jules, and Jack for a surprise birthday visit to Dad at the post office. We stopped at Mid's to pick up some treats to take him.

Getting ready to yell, "Happy Birthday, Pap!"

Pappy lets Jules play with the stamps.

She stamped me with a "First Class" (my request in lieu of "Perishable" ) and a Revloc postmark.

Then she stamped Jack. Sorry, Laura.

It was lots of happy birthday fun.

Did you know...

Soviet MiG aircraft (the ones they're always talking about in Top Gun) are named for the company that made them, the Mikoyan-and-Gurevich Design Bureau, founded by Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich.

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

Other interesting facts I’ve collected whilst falling down the black hole of the internet:

Do you know what the most widely-recognized word in the world is? Be thinking about that one. The answer appears at the end.

The iceberg that took down the Titanic was disguised by a mirage of haze, which also probably disguised the ship’s emergency flares from being seen by the Californian (the closer-by-than-the-Carpathia-ship that could have saved them all).

"Everyone, please stop blaming us!"

In chess, the knight can visit each square exactly once.

The distance covered by the total number of runs scored in major league baseball thus far (since 1871) would get you halfway to the moon.

(I must confess, I'm surprised it wouldn't get you further. Baseball games are interminable.)

NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, where they assemble our spacecraft, is one of the largest buildings in the world by volume, and is the largest single-story building in the world. But the coolest part is that you have to keep the air conditioning on all the time, otherwise clouds will form in the roof of the building and it will start to rain inside.

The VAB with the Apollo 16 Saturn V rocket

In related news, this is how they transport the Shuttle. That does not look secure to me.

And finally…

The most widely-recognized word in the world is “okay.” Also, most etymologists agree that “okay” comes from an abbreviation of “oll korrect,” an alteration of “all correct” from the 1830s, when it was popular to facetiously alter the spellings of various words. Those crazy 19th-century people...

I told you birds were evil!

But would anyone listen to me?

"According to witnesses, the swan continued to swim after Hensley as he tried to make it to shore. By the time rescue personnel arrived, Hensley was under water."

Swan kills swan caretaker in horrifically ironic accident

Evil!

Words are weapons. But weapons are also weapons.

Man, I hope you like The Hunger Games, because I’m just realizing that I post about it a lot, and here’s another one. Who doesn’t love a good, vintage-looking propaganda poster? Very cool.

Be a good citizen. The Capitol is watching!

Titanically stupid

I'm going to see the Titanic re-release tomorrow. But first, let's weep for the future.

Never opine short of certainty.

It’s never enjoyable to have our own words thrown in our faces, but it’s fun to watch it happen to other people. Have a look. (Oh really, Mr. Khrushchev?)

“So unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music.”

—National Review founder William F. Buckley, on The Beatles, 1964

"Preempt Doris Day? Are you out of your mind?"

—CBS network president Bob Wood, rejecting an offer to air "Monday Night Football," 1970

“Tiger never does anything that would make him look ridiculous.”

—Golf Digest, asserting that Tiger Woods would make a fine role model for President Obama, 2010

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”

—A Yale University management professor, on a paper by Fred Smith proposing reliable overnight delivery service, 1960s. Smith went on to found FedEx in 1971.

“Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.”

—United Artists executive, rejecting Ronald Reagan as a lead for the 1964 film The Best Man, a behind-the-scenes look at presidential campaigns

“The Japanese don’t make anything the people in the U.S. would want.”

—John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State, 1954

"Get rid of the pointed ears guy."

—NBC executive on the Mr. Spock character in the new series "Star Trek," 1966

"You’ve got to call yourself ‘Rock’ or ‘Jack’ or something. Anything as long as it’s not 'Elvis Presley.'"

—Rockabilly musician Ronnie Hawkins to Elvis Presley

"Of all the nations, [Germany] is probably the least corrupted by the lust of conquest...."

—Boston Daily Globe, 1901

"Nothing of importance happened today."

—King George III, in his diary, July 4, 1776

“We will bury you.”

—Nikita Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, predicting that communism would triumph over U.S. capitalism, 1956

"I don’t need bodyguards."

—Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, one month before he disappeared in July, 1975

“To throw bombs from an airplane will do as much damage as throwing bags of flour. It will be my pleasure to stand on the bridge of any ship while it is attacked by airplanes.”

—Newton Baker, U.S. Minister of Defense, 1921

“And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam."

—Newsweek magazine, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s

All hideous opinions courtesy of the Bad Opinion Generator.

Small space living...

The annual Small Cool contest is underway over at Apartment Therapy. Have you ever seen this? They add new entries every day during the contest, and they're in five categories (Small, Little, Tiny, Teeny-Tiny, and International). I love checking it out each year and seeing how people make the most of their space. You can get some great organizing ideas. My favorite is the Teeny-Tiny category because it makes every other place seem huge by comparison.

This comes at a great time for me because there’s no way the DC apartment I find will be anywhere near as spacious as my place in J-town. But hey, if this girl can make it work in 312 square feet, I should be able to survive.