Bruner Blog

Man bitten by rattle snake in Mall-wart.

How many of the other candidates even read the NY Review of Books? General Clark writes for it: Iraq: What Went Wrong

UPDATE:
Hmmm. Now, I just see this: he believes in time travel.

The government agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is so dispirited about how fat and lazy Americans are, it has loosened its recommendations as to what constitutes exercise in pace with Americans loosening their belts. AP reports:

For those daunted by even moderate exercise, the CDC has a list of even less intense activities it says would be at least a step in the right direction, including making photocopies, playing video games, coloring, sitting in a whirlpool bath, floating and “purposeless wandering.”

The agency says an hour of such light activity is equal to 30 minutes of moderate activity, but light activity wasn’t included in the latest survey. Light activity includes almost every activity that involves motion and some that don’t: playing table tennis, miniature golf, darts or pool, shooting a pistol, yachting, fishing while seated, even light office work that includes movement of “little more than hands and fingers.”

I especially like “purposeless wandering.” That would make a great hobby on a Nerve personal or a Friendster profile. Also works as a post-ironic band name.

Speaking of Genes, we’re pleased to see that our friend Gene is featured as the “personal of the day” on Nerve and its affiliates (including Gawker, shown here — his picture is in the lower right of the screen shot). I’m sure this will do wonders for his dating, and his profile does indeed paint an appealing picture (I can attest, ladies, he’s handsome, charming, well-traveled and possesses other marriageable features that my wife thinks are too personal to blog about; no, not that), but I have to wonder about his choices for “music that puts me in the mood.” Kraftwerk?? On what planet is Kraftwerk sexy?

Needless to say, this is Japanese. Very sexy, eh? What is with those people? Thanks to Andras for the link.

Reminds me of my favorite limerick:

There once was a man named Gene
Who invented a fucking machine
Both concave and convex
It could serve either sex
But, oh, what a bastard to clear!

(With apologies in advance to my mom, who recently emailed me: “I read your blog yesterday and have decided that you really are entering middle age. All that sex and suck stuff! It speaks either of delayed adolescence or the frustrations of middle age.” I vote for delayed adolescence.)

Miki pointed this out. Funny stuff. What is it about George Bush action figures?

I’m always raving about how gorgeous Hungarian women are (and not just because I married one). Best of all, they don’t just tease: Reuters reports, Hungarians are the horniest breed on earth. Probably better publicity for them than the usual, being most suicidal.

I saw only pieces of the Emmys tonight on TV, and during the news heard that they gave a rich remembrance for John Ritter, so I went to check out Emmys.com and quickly concluded it severely sucks (in the intransitive sense; doutless there is plenty of transitive sucking involved in the Emmys, too, but I don’t really have a problem with that).

So far as I can tell, the site doesn’t feature even a single video clip. Laaaaaame.

For some stupid reason, last April I was “inspired” for no earthly good reason to compile a list of slang synonyms for that glorious essence of womanhood. At the time, a few people pointed out other similar, longer lists of the same, but I thought it was probably best to leave well enough alone. Now, Mark comes across a list so impressive — at 798 entries — that I’m obliged to submit to you here The Pussy List.

I realize this is highly unlikely, but I think I saw the Dalai Lama changing trains from the #1 IRT subway to the N/R line at Times Square Saturday night, as I was also doing (though I didn’t notice him showing up later at the Gogol Bordello concert to where I was headed).

Yes, you’d think the Dalai Lama might have a limo or something, but who knows, Mayor Bloomberg takes the subway everday, so we’re told.

At the time, I didn’t think it was the Dalai Lama, I thought it was one of the actors from this Sony commercial, which I had just seen. After getting a pretty good look at him (and the two other Tibetan monks he was walking with), I decided it wasn’t the guy from the commercial and forgot about it. But then I saw on the news tonight that the Dalai Lama was addressing a huge crowd in Central Park today, and seeing his picture on the news, I am fairly sure that’s the guy I saw in the subway.

Or not. Could have just been a bunch of other Tibetan monks in town for the speech. They do seem to go for the same look in terms of outfit, hairstyle and glasses. I know I should be cultured enough to know the Dalai Lama when I see him, but my mind was on Gogol Bordello, so you’ll have to forgive me.

Who knew? Elizabeth is not actually B?zsi’s first name, it’s Mary. (Via Gothamist)

You joined Ryze, you joined Meetup, you joined Friendster. Now you will join Upcoming. It promises to be actually useful, but time will tell.

I woke up this morning with a memory of when I was maybe 10 years old and playing Little League baseball, and my best friend, Kevin, hit a home run. He was on the other team, so as he was rounding third, I shouted in an envious but good-natured way, “You suck!”

My father then pulled me over by the elbow and said, “Don’t say that! That means that he sucks penises.” You can imagine my horror at trying to get my 10-year-old mind around that one.

Dad was of a much different generation, 10-20 years older than everyone else’s dads. Maybe that was the literal origin of the usage, but I’m relieved to see this morning that Dictionary.com indeed recognizes the intransitive sense of “suck,” in which one exists simply in a general state of suckiness, with no implication of sucking any direct object in particular.

Adi and I have been Radiohead fans since “Creep” was a hit on Euro MTV and no hipsters working at the used record shops on St. Marx place had heard of the band (when we came back from Budapest for a visit, cf. 1992) and tried to buy a copy. Turns out, however, that the music is not meant for young minds, as this experiment as to the reactions of 10-year-olds exposed to the band demonstrates. At left if 9-year-old Jeffrey’s interpretation of their music, including the signs “Free Suicides” and “Road to Hell.”

Yikes. Photos from the International Space Station of this week’s hurricane.