Posted on August 6, 2010 by danspira
Clary Shirsky’s new book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, provides some nice validation for those of us geeks who prefer to spend our discretionary time away from T.V. but instead ”working” online. According to the New York Time Book Review by Farhad Manjoo: The time we might free up by ditching TV is Shirky’s “cognitive surplus” — [...]
Filed under: Diversions, Productivity, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 25, 2010 by danspira
Over 150 students have enrolled in my “Word Power: Vocabulary Builder” course on SpacedEd. Try it out at: http://www.spaceded.com/DanSpira/courses/299-Word-Power-Vocabulary-Builder …it’s fun, fast, free, and colloquially expansive!
Filed under: Diversions, Jargon, Learning | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 18, 2010 by danspira
Last Friday an oral surgeon cut into my gums with a blade, then using a high-power saw, some clamps and brute force, cut and tore out two large teeth from the back of my jaw. They call them wisdom teeth because apparently when you have them removed, you’re supposed to be smart enough to give [...]
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Posted on April 19, 2010 by danspira
Some people walk around with a metaphorical rain cloud over their head. For others, there’s no rain cloud, but there’s something else: an Invisible Ash Cloud that you can’t see and won’t bother you, as long as you stay on the ground.
Filed under: Diversions, Life, humor | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 13, 2010 by danspira
The Meme Menagerie will be returning from vacation in Japan shortly.
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Posted on August 17, 2009 by danspira
Last week, some over-zealous deletionist Wikipedia editors permanently removed the Peanut-Butter-Jelly-Time Dancing Banana entry, thus downgrading the implied cultural significance of this meme. You may be thinking: (A) What is a dancing banana, and (B) Why would I care about its inclusion/exclusion in a open-source encyclopedia? Answers: (A) Look it up on Wikipedia… oh wait, never mind… [...]
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Posted on July 30, 2009 by danspira
What is it about the combination of food and government antics that send journalists into a pun-frenzy? Never mind the Europeans and their food regulations. Here’s what the news ticker looks like regarding the whole White House “Beer Summit” silliness: White House “beer summit” aims to quench racial flap Beer Diplomacy: The Red, Light and Blue [...]
Filed under: Diversions, Uncommon Comestibles | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 4, 2009 by danspira
Dragon’s Eggs… they’re just like popcorn, only buttered with a magnesium-aluminum alloy… Tasty! Whistlers… or as D.E.S. would call them, Screaming-Slytherin-Quiddich-Players-From-Hello-Without-the-O Scrambling Comets… cf. Whistlers Salute… used for those grande finales, blinding-Titanium-white explosions of earth-shaking, ear-splitting, bowel-moving power The World’s Biggest Firework Shell… 48 inches of incinerating love… haven’t seen this one personally, but apparently [...]
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Posted on July 1, 2009 by danspira
Here’s a follow-on to last year’s little video tribute to Canada Day: Living in the U.S. can be a challenge for Canucks. As a literature professor once explained to me, in the American story, a hero’s rite of passage consists of a road trip across the United States and/or losing his/her virginity. The Canadian hero, on the other hand, either battles [...]
Filed under: Diversions, humor | Tagged: Canada Day | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 7, 2009 by danspira
“I’m the kind of guy who will spend half a day working out a way to avoid doing something twice.” “Yup, I can relate to that. I just did that yesterday.” Frustrated with his struggle to conform with the world of time sheets and seeking a better way to manage his time, Michael Hunger [...]
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Posted on March 24, 2009 by danspira
Twouble with Tribbles-er-Twitters-i-mean-Tweets-wait-uh-what… (hat tip to Mitch Joel) There are some really brutal rips on the Twitterati out there, each one less appropriate than the other. Seriously, if you’d of asked me if you could Twitter my Blog ten years ago, I would have slapped you across the face. Today I learned that a person who is able to [...]
Filed under: Diversions, Social Media, humor | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 19, 2009 by danspira
Cleaning my desk yields the following half-baked ideas, scribbled on various scraps of paper: “A thud is the sound of success in the making.” – M. Lyon margarita recipe: 2 shots Captain Morgan on ice 1/3 orange juice 1/3 cranberry juice 1/3 pineapple juice – M. Lowenthal Use BLOCK letters or script letters on flip [...]
Filed under: Diversions | 2 Comments »