what’s in a name

“things” are getting pretty wild in my lighthouse pretty fast. the other day i flew a kite (that i made from a soiled dish towel) and just this morning i won two straight games of solitaire (without much cheating). because of my solitude, an army friend promised to send me some playboy pin-up posters to keep me company. the rascal failed to mention that the posters would be these, jason salavon’s graphical averages of playmates by decade. without the satisfaction i was looking for, i decided to create my own and thought it might be a larf to average other playmate statistics.

i came up with the above name chart though my methodology was sketchy. i determined through “algorithms” that both the playmates’ first and last names had an average of six letters. i then pieced together the most common first two letters + the most common middle two letters + the most common final letters to generate names. technically what i did was not averaging so much as moding, but that is splitting hairs and in the world of playboy playmates, there are not always a lot of hairs to split.

things to observe when looking at pictures of playmates’ [names]

• watch how their first names change from ending in e to ending in a over time.
• gawk at how their last names either end exclusively in er or on.
• ponder why the relatively underused english letters j and k are oddly predominant.
• fantasize about what the averaged playmate name for all playmates from 1955 to 2010 could be. hint: it’s the very unsexy “maarne collon.”

anywhosies, i’m off to meet my voluptuous invented girlfriend candra callon for some shrimp cocktails and couples foot massages, cheers.

stand with me, my brothers, in solidgoldarity

while i am on the subject of academic æsthetical honours… it just so happens that yesterday, the aglets on my armani snow-jogging shoes blew out and i went to the internet in search of replacements. one click led to another and i wound up at goldenlaces.com (like goldenpalace.com, but without a p and a, and with an extra s). it seems that the alchemists at this site learned how to aurify laces—much to my glee. pictured above are the sweet summa cum laude gold laces that are currently ups-ing their way to my handsomely pedicured hoofs.

BUT WAIT: it has just occurred to me that this retailer is engaging in a nasty price fixing scheme. notice that: 100% of the jock-related laces are priced at $4.50 and all but one of the scholar-related laces (spelling bee champion, honor roll, etc.) are priced at $7.50. this is just another example in a long (shoe)string of academic biases that i have been combating throughout my life. as much as i am eager to golden lace my alligatorskin armanis, i think i must, on principle, return my new 24 carat strings to sender until such time as academics are afforded the same low low cost of golden novelty shoelaces as their meatheaded colleagues.

audiobooks out of context #5

this is the fifth post in the audio books out of context series. posts in this series publish themselves every (π²√5)² hours. the next post is scheduled for release on january 18th, 2010 at 22:30. by that time, i will have had my mandibular and maxillary third molars surgically removed. they are expected to fetch a blackmarket price of $50 each or $175 for the whole shebang.

__

the previous post in this series was excerpted from douglas adams’ the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (1979) and was read by the author. the person behind the elena is my name blog was the first to spell it out in the comments section.

emigre has finally released a mr eaves typeface and thus a new character is introduced in the exciting adventures of john baskerville & mrs eaves series.

also, this has allowed me to finally make use of the new sex position that i discovered a year ago.

previously.

i made this for a project in woodshop class and got a d+. major bummer!!!! i ran home and hid under a pile of blankets until it was time for dinner.

gif party!

i have taken a few i.q. tests in my time and none have involved pinning a fake tail (a terkin?) onto the sexy undulating derriere of a donkey. so when i saw this FREE i.q. test (it is a banner ad on thesaurus.com) i thought why not, carpe diem!

sadly the results are in and it turns out that yours truly has an intelligence quotient in the 80-99 range which apparently is the metaphorical equivalent of a donkey’s perineum. fiddlesticks!

for bestiary: the surinam toad, an ugly frog that lays its eggs inside of itself

if you dare click play, eat some saltines® and get a bucket ready because watching the surinam toad give birth to toadlings will most likely cause uncontrollable retching. grosser still is how the eggs form like festering pimples on the lady-toad’s back. ahh… the miracle of life!

an iris by any other smell

some flowers are named after objects that they resemble, some are even named after the way that they feel, but my favourite flowers of all are the ones named after their odor. in this latter category none is more exemplary than the roast beef plant—an iris that is said to have a pungent beefy musk.

In his English translation of Rembert Dodoens’s A New Herbal (1619) Henry Lyte, calling it `Stinking Gladin’, pulled no punches. He said that the leaves were “of a lothsome smell or stinke, almost like unto the stinking worme”.

first butterflies that defecate butter and now plants that smell like roast beef!?! what a marvelous age of discovery it is for this indoor naturalist!

i wonder if the roast beef plant goes well with armoracia rusticana.

a superhero for wordaholics

letterman (the younger brother of david letterman) first appeared in animated skits on the electric comapany in 1972. he was voiced by gene wilder (willy wonka) and his adventures were narrated by joan rivers (also willy wonka).

a typical segment shows his arch enemy (an arab stereotype) called spell binder (voiced by zero mostel) using his magic wand (stored beneath his turban) to change a key letter in the word (e.g., “custard” to “mustard”). bedlam ensues—the people who were enjoying flavorful custard suddenly and unknowingly begin eating red-hot mustard, causing them to turn red and burn from the mouth. enter letterman (in his all-too-literal varsity sweater getup) who restores the altered letters much to spell binder’s dismay.

actually, now that i think about it, the true hero of these episodes is not the doofus do-gooder, letterman BUT the witty trickster, spell binder.

and you thought that taking the know your dvořák quiz was the maximum amount of mirth that you could have on the internet… well guess again, pipsqueak. i give you the know your odyssey translation quiz.

the following are seven famous translations of the epic’s opening line. can you match them to their translators? (note, for each answer that you get wrong, poor odysseus must wait an additional year before returning to his special lady friend (and to ratchet up the gravitas, he’s not allowed to engage in any autoerotic proclivities))

αʹ Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

βʹ Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.

γʹ Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers, and endured
Great suffering on the deep

δʹ The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d,
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall

εʹ Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.

ϝʹ The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way
Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;
That wander’d wondrous far, when he the town
Of sacred Troy had sackt and shiver’d down;

ζʹ The man, my Muse, resourceful, driven a long way
after he sacked the holy city of Trojans:
tell me all the men’s cities he saw and the men’s minds,

the translators: george chapman (1616), alexander pope (1713), william cullen bryant (1871),  robert fitzgerald (1961), richard lattimore (1965), robert fagles (1996), and edward mccrorie (2004).

answers can be found here. also: which translation do you think is the tops? (for my money, it’s fitzy-fitzgerald’s but maybe this is because this was the first interpretation that i read. related: doesn’t it always seem that the first version of a song that you hear is always the standard and all covers become inferior?)