Girl asks restaurant for free curly fries for life. Girl gets free curly fries for life. To whomever it concerns:

I would like to take this moment to express my sincere wish to receive a bucket of cash every day for the rest of my natural life.

Thank you,
Jason

Respect iPod. Do not taunt iPod. Please, do not ‘steal’ with iPod. This prompted the first belly laugh of the day.

Fine, and you?

EU Court cops out on gay adoption: “In a 4-3 decision, the judges cited divisions within the scientific community about ‘the possible consequences of children being brought up by one or more homosexual parents ’ [and] ‘wide differences of opinion both within and between individual countries’ and the evolving nature of laws on the subject.” In other words, they have no problem with gay people, but their constituents would never understand…

Where the product is co-star: It’s getting harder to tell the show from the commercial.
“‘Our phone has almost become a character on Alias, and that has worked out very well for us,’ says Nokia spokesman Keith Nowak.” I can state with no uncertainty whatsoever that I have never, not even once, noticed what sort of cell phone a character on a TV show was using. The question is whether this is alarming, given that I used to spot a product placement at 20 paces, or merely a coping mechanism for our modern age of ubiquitous advertising. (via RCBG)

Semantic warfare, revisited:
Over the last 7 months:

• “the war on drugs” fell 43% to 102,000
• “the war on drug users” fell 46% to 288
• variations on “drugs are bad, mmkay?” fell 5% to 611
• new entrant “the war on some drugs” showed strong at 1,850
• new entrant “the war on black men” 2

Happy 51st birthday, 22nd Amendment! [insert your own snarky comment here]

What utter bollocks. “The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds, the same as a goldfish. […] With literally millions of websites at our fingertips, the attention span of the average web surfer is measured in seconds.” Yes, exactly. This is what’s called the nature of the medium. (Nice to see that journalistic standards the world over are still pretty much uniform, though. Which is to say, declining at an analogous rate.)

Check this out, really cool.

Two Parents Not Always Best for Children, Study Finds. [nytimes] “The finding sounded a cautionary note today in the debate over what the government should do in the next welfare law to promote marriage.” What the government should do to… what? *smite* *smite* *smite*

More disturbing science news from Reuters: “January was the balmiest in the 123 years temperatures have been recorded globally.” It does help to remember that 123 years is half an eyeblink in every scale but the human one… but not much.

Caffeine linked to pre-diabetic condition. Oh, that’s just fabulous. My favorite drug decreased insulin sensitivity in test subjects by 15%, reducing ability to process blood sugar by the same amount — roughly the same amount that diabetes medications are able to correct. Experts do caution against panic, though, as “[the study merely] adds another item to the list of potential deleterious effects of caffeine.” Fun!

“So how’s that working out for you, being [rich]?” Very well, apparently.

It started, innocently enough, with Hometime on PBS. A little framing, plumbing, or wiring (CAT-5… gaaahrgh) never hurt anybody. Then I started watching This Old House, even though Bob Vila makes me itch, when the 10-a-week syndicated reruns of Hometime on TLC weren’t enough. Then I came to Joanne Liebeler’s post-Hometime effort, despite its inane and repetitive instructions on how to do simple things like wire a light switch. If I surf through and see a wall being ripped open or cable being dropped, you have me. I will put the remote down. And eventually, I gave up all pretense of just “catching” these shows, because “nothing else is on.” On the other side of that mental leap, there lies HGTV. I am transfixed by Before & After, Lofty Ideas, Fantasy Open House, Extreme Homes—which is basically the home-show heroin. I’ve watched more HGTV in the last week than I normally watch television, total. I leave it on all the time now. If you snuck into my house while I slept and turned on my TV, you would find it’s tuned not to CNN, not to NBC, not to UPN, not to FX. (You’d also find a world of hurt, but that’s beside the point.) And now, just as I’m on the cusp of total addiction, comes a sign that not only am I not alone, I’m also far from the worst off among the pantheon of home-improvement addicts: the Hometime drinking game.

Five Latest Representative Songs
It’s been quite some time since the last update, so here are some highlights:

» Hedwig and the Angry Inch - The Origin of LoveAlong with a slew of the rest of the songs from the soundtrack.
» Diana Ross & The Supremes - Some Day We’ll Be TogetherOh yes. Oh yes.
» Toni Braxton - You’re Making Me HighAlong with half her back catalogue.
» Garbage - Androgyny“When everything is going wrong / And you can’t see the point in going on / Well nothing in life is set in stone / There’s nothing that can’t be turned around”
» Nicole Kidman - Sparkling Diamonds“Men grow cold as girls grow old / And we all lose our charms in the end / But square cut or pear shape these rocks don’t lose their shape / ‘Cuz diamonds are a girl’s best friend” Along with the rest of the soundtrack.