Muttroxia

Honestly, I have no idea what this is telling me to do.

How can you screw up a toilet paper holder? The ‘bumps’ where the holder goes into the wall are big enough that the roll rubs on them. The friction means that the roll doesn’t roll. If it was a quarter inch wider or further from the wall… doesn’t anyone test these things before they are sold? How come the Sheraton is still buying them?

I’ve never been in a hotel room that had overhead lighting. Instead the lighting is from a half-dozen individual lamps. Each of these lamps takes up a lot of space and only illuminates its own area of the room. Even within the same room, they are controlled by different switching interfaces – wall switches, base switches, bulb switches. Why not just have regular overhead lighting, like pretty much every room in America?

Upon further reflection, there is often overhead lighting in the bathrooms. That only makes this phenomenon all the more puzzling, since that shows it’s not the hotel infrastructure that physically prevents overhead lighting from being installed everywhere.

As long as I’m at it, would it kill them to install a dimmer in the bathroom? Either it’s pitch dark or shockingly bright. It would be very helpful to have an in-between setting.

As long as I’m complaining, the Glee version of Bohemian Rhapsody (which I’m told is selling more than the original) is similarly bad. Cheesy and overblown, and that’s before you have to suffer through the video. Clearly lip-synched (more so than usual), featuring a birth sequence that (as usual for bad television) features no pain drugs, no hygiene, no timing of pushes, no cutting the cord, no afterbirth, and finally produces a baby who is clearly a few weeks old already.

(Making fun of Glee is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I must point out that I love their version of Don’t Stop Believing. Although you are again well served by turning off the video and just listening to the music.)

This is a sign for the business center at a conference:

Man, I just want to make a couple xeroxes! Calm down, Hewlett Packard!

OK Go is vastly overrated. Their clever videos hide the fact that their songs aren’t any good.

This goodbye piece, from a long time congressional worker, should be mandatory reading.

James Fallows provides an interesting follow up.

In a related piece, Joe Nocera has a fawning profile of Jim Cooper as “The Last Moderate”. It reinforces one of my perennial themes, the perfidy of Newt Gingrich. “To Cooper, the true villain is not the Tea Party; it’s Newt Gingrich.” Absolutely true. It was Gingrich who put politics before policy, party before country, and set in motion all the forces that have destroyed the institution of Congress.

The world hits seven billion (that’s 7,000,000,000!) people!

A Texas senator I suddenly like. A lot.

Oprah and the yelling goat made me laugh out loud.

Beavis & Butthead are back. Here they are, watching Jersey Shore.

Where the music industry makes profits – 30 years in one graph

Magnetic soap bubbles. Eerie.

On first plane trip, man spots his own house being robbed, saves the day

Trippy Optical Illusion

That seems unpleasant

Firefighter test

Vlad

Even spiders love it

Amazing art morph

If they ever invent Cookies n’ Cream pizza, I’ll never eat anything else for the rest of my life.

90 Great Prince Phillip quotes

Taiwanese Baseball is Truly Awesome

Neat video: Everywhere on earth, 1 second per location

Buzz Lightyear fun

Another great 404 page

Superman’s life story. Sticks with you.

Honest protesters

Oh Google, Who do you love?

Seeing guitar string oscillations

Arrested during haircut

No, we can’t

Extreme fishing

Where is the batdog!?

This parent has failed already.

Parent of the year

How to beat the lottery (at least, this one particularly poorly designed lottery)

Mad scientists

Trim: Best short haircut movie this month

An oral history of The Dana Carvey Show. I loved this show.

Great geek marriage proposal. Watch all the way to the end.

Neat drumming video

Last night, we told the boys the story of the Garden of Eden, man’s fall, original sin, baptism, etc. Of course there were lots of hard questions. Where is the Garden of Eden, is it in America? Why didn’t God give Adam and Eve a time out? Was the snake big or little? Can we call Adam to see if he is still mad at God?

Today on the way to school, this conversation happened.

Five-year old: I wish that snake was still around. I’d get him and keep him, because he can talk.
Me: Wait – you mean the snake that got humans kicked out of paradise, that cursed all men and women ever born in all of history to original sin, you want to get that actual snake and keep it for a pet because it can talk!?
Him: Yeah Dad, that’d be really cool!

We watched The Lion King on Broadway last night. It was exactly as good as advertised. The costume and set design was incredible.

It also reminded me of one of my annoyances with the plot. Nala is a better fighter than Simba. She pins them when they are children and then pins him again as an adult. Why doesn’t Simba have her fight Scar!? Let’s face it, he stinks at it. In the whole story, he never beats anyone at fighting! Nala should have done the dirty work.

Mrs. Muttrox also points out, where are the other male lions? Besides Simba’s family, there are no males at all in the whole pride!

I also wonder if Scar goes up to the stars like the other kings. All the lion kings are supposed to be there, and Scar was a king. Maybe Simba and Nala’s kids will turn to Scar for advice. Ooo, that’s the plot to the sequel!