Wesleyan frames a Cornell professor for murder. That’s unfortunate. [IvyGateBlog]
A couple days ago, what I thought was a forest fire turned out to be a truck belching an inconceivable amount of smoke. I think just driving by it increased my chances of lung cancer so, anyway, this FAIL reminds me of that… [Fail Blog]
My Mom Is a Fob totally takes a college career counselor off guard. [My Mom Is A Fob]
Friend of Irony reminds us of our own mortality [Friends of Irony]
Roger Ebert has always been the most eloquent movie critic of our generation — of any generation for that matter, seeing that movies themselves have been around for so few generations in all — but, it seems, with the loss of his voice, Ebert has transcended his well-creviced niche, branching out into blogging about anything and everything, transforming himself into certainly the greatest artiste of the blogging form and rapidly becoming one of the greatest writers of our age, irregardless of medium.
As Chris Jones describes in a poetic, epic-long feature in Esquire, Ebert’s foray into the blogging world began without any ambition.
The original entries are short updates about his life and health and a few of his heart’s wishes…. They’re followed by a smattering of Welcomes to Cyberspace. But slowly the journal picks up steam, as Ebert’s strength and confidence and audience grow.
“You are the readers I have dreamed of,” he writes.
He is emboldened. He begins to write about more than movies; in fact, it sometimes seems as though he’d rather write about anything other than movies. The existence of an afterlife, the beauty of a full bookshelf, his liberalism and atheism and alcoholism, the health-care debate, Darwin, memories of departed friends and fights won and lost — more than five hundred thousand words of inner monologue have poured out of him, five hundred thousand words that probably wouldn’t exist had he kept his other voice. Now some of his entries have thousands of comments, each of which he vets personally and to which he will often respond. It has become his life’s work, building and maintaining this massive monument to written debate — argument is encouraged, so long as it’s civil — and he spends several hours each night reclined in his chair, tending to his online oasis by lamplight. Out there, his voice is still his voice — not a reasonable facsimile of it, but his.
“It is saving me,” he says through his speakers.”
The rest of the article is a little maudlin and tries a little to hard to be picturesque for my tastes, but it’s worth a read for the insight into Ebert’s life. If you want a lesson in witty, informal writing, read Ebert’s blogged response.
Apparently, for law geeks, getting tickets to see the Supreme Court is akin to a tween getting tickets to the midnight premiere of a Twilight movie [Lowering the Bar].
Listen up lawyers! Here is the definition of conflict of interest: sleeping with a married dame, then, when the marriage inevitably breaks up, representing hubby in the divorce proceedings [Lowering the Bar].
Best personal injury law firm ads ever! [Lowering the Bar]
Can you believe these disturbing sculptures are made out of bread??? By artist/baker’s son Kittiwat Unarrom.
Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.
-Dorothy Parker, on Los Angeles
Sources (Continued)
Ask people what gender they are
Note: This is a series where I feature a selection off a hilarious list by blogger Joe Crawford about How to Tick People Off.
Three bears at a German zoo are going bald. Look at those knees though! Looks like a human in a bald bear costume. Just sayin’, maybe with budget cuts and all… 
By now, you’ve probably figured out that I never liked writing anything the typical way as kid. At 16, I had to write an autobiography. I, of course, decided to write it in the frame-work that I’d been abducted by aliens to, well, the first lines of my paper explain it best.
Mission: To search out and find a typical human being.
Purpose: To discover what really happens in the course of a human’s life.
They may have picked the wrong kid. In my defense, this was for a creative writing class and I’m pretty sure I’d been reading too much Ray Bradbury…
My interviewer was the king of the aliens, a creature astoundingly stereotypical.
[The alien] was big, bigger than any of the other odd shaped beings filling the room, and it had a long, pointed chin that made its face look like a sharp triangle. Its gigantic eyes seemed out of proportion to the rest of the body and its green color reminded me of very sick grass.
That’s right. Sick grass.
But how did one greet an alien king? “May your highness live forever,” sounded good, but a humble “Your servant, your majesty,” would always work. As it was, all I could squeeze out was a strained, “H-h-hi.
And, guess what, there are even more pics of this rescued baby moose.
