Whoa. This caught me off-guard.
I’ve learned that actor James Gandolfini died suddenly in Italy after a suspected heart attack. He was 51. Gandolfini will be forever known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on the seminal HBO series The Sopranos, which won him three Emmy Awards.
Paula Deen has always creeped me out so I really, really want this to be true:
If a damning new report from the National Enquirer is to be believed, celebrity chef Paula Deen is a racist. Lisa Jackson, a former General Manager of Deen’s Savannah, Georgia, last year filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against Deen, claiming that the celebrity chef used the N-word and that Deen’s husband was physically abusive. The case is now underway, and the National Enquirer reports that during three hours of questioning last month, when Jackson’s attorney asked Deen if she’d ever used the N-word, Deen said, “Yes, of course.”
“It’s just what they are — they’re jokes…most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folk…I can’t determine what offends another person,” said Deen.
When asked what she thought about casting black men as slaves at a wedding, Deen said that a restaurant she went to with her husband inspired the idea: “The whole entire waiter staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie.”
“I mean, it was really impressive. That restaurant represented a certain era in America…after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War…It was not only black men, it was black women…I would say they were slaves.”
From Wired:
So, there has been some buzz about a video of a fellow “running up a lava flow.” Now, normally I try to ignore videos of people doing things that are generally perceived as idiotic — and running up a lava flow fits nicely into that category. However, upon watching the video, I realized that although he sure did run up the lava flow, it actually wasn’t as crazy as it seems. DISCLAIMER: This isn’t to say you should ever do what this guy did. Don’t. There are many things you could do and survive but shouldn’t because there are very high probabilities that you’ll get hurt. This guy beat the odds.
I’ve tackled the issue of someone falling into a lava lake before — you wouldn’t sink like Gollum in Return of the King, but you probably wouldn’t like the experience much either as you explode from within when the water in your body turns to steam. I have even tackled how you might walk on lava (check it out — I have changed my tune somewhat). The biggest thing most people don’t realize is just how viscous lava is. It isn’t like water, where if you step into a pool, you sink to the bottom because the water lacks any strength to hold you up. Lava does have strength and speaking from experience, lava, even when red hot, does offer a lot of resistance when you try to pull some out as a sample. The cooler lava gets, the more strength it gets as the silica tetrahedra that make up much of the lava bond into polymers or form minerals like olivine, pyroxene or plagioclase feldspar (amongst others). All of this increases the viscosity of the magma and gives it the ability to not yield when a force is applied.
(via Kottke)
From messynessychic:
A Parisian apartment left untouched for over 70 years was discovered in the quartier of Pigalle a few summers ago and I’ve been meaning to share the pictures with you. Time to unlock the vault …
The owner of this apartment, Mrs. De Florian left Paris just before the rumblings of World War II broke out in Europe. She closed up her shutters and left for the South of France, never to return to the city again. Seven decades later she passed away at the age of 91. It was only when her heirs enlisted professionals to make an inventory of the Parisian apartment she left behind, that this time capsule was finally unlocked.
