Get Cynical

A blog where artists, illustrators, designers and creative folk share the stuff on their desks.

(via Grow a Brain)

I was getting worried about ole Pete but he reappeared today:

Peter Genuius | pete@pete.com | IP: 24.22.17.xx

Please stop posting videos without comment or explanation — you are wasting valuable minutes of our lives. At least explain what is so interesting about a video that we should waste four minutes of our time watching it. If you are able….

Jun 7, 8:28 PM

Pete really doesn’t like the Two O’Clock trailers. I’m not sure why he just doesn’t avoid them but it’s been a month since he last threatened to never read my blog again so I’m glad he’s back so I can waste even more of his time. For those who don’t know who Pete is, here are his other comments.

Ben | ben@ben.com | IP: 24.22.17.xx

This blog has really gone downhill. Instead of interesting, thoughtful, and reasoned commentary, all you post now are videos without comment, as if we’re supposed to waste five minutes of our life to see what the point it — and usually, it is not that interesting of a point at all. You are failing in your role as editor and your blog is failing to be interesting. I will not be around much longer.

May 5, 5:54 PM

Yeah, I know. He tried posting under a different name but those damn ip numbers….

Peter | peter@peter.com | IP: 24.22.17.xx

This blog used to post cleverness, but now too often it merely posts a video and expects us to waste 10 minutes of our time getting to the point. People don’t have that kind of time.

This place is really going downhill.

Apr 17, 4:08 PM

Peter | pete@pete.com | IP: 24.22.17.xx

This video was a complete waste of my time. I am going to stop visiting your blog unless you post things of interest and of value. Wasting 4 minutes of my time like this is not of value. Wise up and do not post every stupid video you come across.

Apr 7, 5:56 PM

Thanks Pete. I’ll see you next month.

Ron Mexico may be in trouble once again:

RICHMOND, Va. — People have told investigators that Michael Vick was involved in a dogfighting operation at a house he owns in Surry County, the sheriff said Wednesday, and Vick will be charged if investigators can find evidence backing those claims.

Sheriff Harold D. Brown, who is leading the investigation, said he hopes members of a task force that have been gathering evidence in the case can meet by sometime next week to see how credible the evidence is and how best to proceed. At least one of those informants wrote from a prison in South Carolina.

“People are saying that he was there, Michael Vick was at the residence, and that he was involved,” Brown said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I don’t want to get into details of the case right now, but that’s what we’re looking at. If he was there, then we’re going to charge him, also.”

Brown said the task force involves five or six people, including a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Virginia State Police.

Vick, a registered dog breeder, has refused to comment directly about the case, saying his attorney “has advised me not to talk about the situation right now.” Vick has claimed since the investigation started that he rarely visits the home, and he has blamed family members and others for taking advantage of his generosity.

January 12, 1960. A second before the Japanese Socialist Party leader Asanuma was murdered by an opponent student.

Snapshots from the not so happy globe.

From wxyz.com:

PAW PAW, Mich. (AP) – A 21-year-old west Michigan man got the ride of a lifetime after his wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semi-truck and was pushed down a highway, police said.

The man, whose name police did not release, was unharmed but was transferred to a hospital as a precaution, WWMT-TV of Kalamazoo reported. He was secured to his chair by a seat belt, WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids said.

About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a female caller told dispatchers, “You are not going to believe this: There is a semi truck pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway,” Michigan State Police said in a release.

(via del.icio.us/revgeorge)

From the LA Times:

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — THE hem of my heavy Islamic cloak trailed over floors that glistened like ice. I walked faster, my eyes fixed on a familiar, green icon. I hadn’t seen a Starbucks in months, but there it was, tucked into a corner of a fancy shopping mall in the Saudi capital. After all those bitter little cups of sludgy Arabic coffee, here at last was an improbable snippet of home — caffeinated, comforting, American.

I wandered into the shop, filling my lungs with the rich wafts of coffee. The man behind the counter gave me a bemused look; his eyes flickered. I asked for a latte. He shrugged, the milk steamer whined, and he handed over the brimming paper cup. I turned my back on his uneasy face.

Crossing the cafe, I felt the hard stares of Saudi men. A few of them stopped talking as I walked by and watched me pass. Them, too, I ignored. Finally, coffee in hand, I sank into the sumptuous lap of an overstuffed armchair.

“Excuse me,” hissed the voice in my ear. “You can’t sit here.” The man from the counter had appeared at my elbow. He was glaring.

“Excuse me?” I blinked a few times.

“Emmm,” he drew his discomfort into a long syllable, his brows knitted. “You cannot stay here.”

“What? Uh … why?”

Then he said it: “Men only.”

He didn’t tell me what I would learn later: Starbucks had another, unmarked door around back that led to a smaller espresso bar, and a handful of tables smothered by curtains. That was the “family” section. As a woman, that’s where I belonged. I had no right to mix with male customers or sit in plain view of passing shoppers. Like the segregated South of a bygone United States, today’s Saudi Arabia shunts half the population into separate, inferior and usually invisible spaces.

JobVent is the web site for anyone who has ever said ‘I hate my job’, or ‘I love my job’. JobVent is the web site for people who are about to start a new job, and want to see what other people think of working there.

It wasn’t officially a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science until we had hit the gift shop and loaded up on space ice cream. Although to be honest, I don’t remember actually liking the taste very much.

Freeze-dried ice cream, also known as astronaut ice cream[1] or space ice cream is a brick of dehydrated ice cream that is always ready to eat, with no need for refrigeration. It was developed by Whirlpool Corporation under contract to NASA for the Apollo missions.[2]

Apollo 7 in 1968 was the only NASA mission on which space ice cream flew in outer space.[3] According to a NASA food scientist, although it was developed on request, “It wasn’t that popular.”[4] Skylab had a refrigerator that was used for real ice cream.[5], and occasionally shuttle and International Space Station astronauts have enjoyed real ice cream.[6]

Freeze drying (or lyophilization) removes water from the ice cream by lowering the air pressure to a point where ice shifts from a solid to a gas. The ice cream is placed in a vacuum chamber and frozen until the water crystallizes. The air pressure is lowered, creating a partial vacuum, forcing air out of the chamber; next heat is applied, vaporizing the ice; finally a freezing coil traps the vaporized water. This process continues for hours, resulting in a freeze-dried ice cream slice.

(via the Wikipedia Knowledge Dump)

This looks like a promising blog for the history buffs out there. A blog about women throughout history.