Why I still love my poor dead bank

If you got just funny left and not much dignity, work the funny. New WaMu ad today:



HT to ChangeOrder, via Gawker.

A little soothing schadenfreude

Such a day. While we ponder the markets, the Hubble, and other rattiness of the day, take heart: You're not as lost as this little chickadee. Though I'll bet it's warm and happy and rainbow-colored in her head. I'd bet there are ponies, even. Ponies. (HT to The Blingdom of God and Jeff T., who got the first laugh of the day out of me.)

When the mainstream media shines

Okay, NY Times, this is why we let you live: Check out this impressive team-reported investigative piece on a shady situation with Long Island Railroad retirees and their disability claims. The reporters and researchers involved heard about a strange situation (an anomalous number of former LIRR employees going for occupational disability payouts -- your tax dollars, even if you're not in NYC) and dug in, talking to employees and management at the LIRR, union officials, industry experts, medical folk, people on an obscure government agency called the Railroad Retirement Board, and the lady who's in charge of those free state-park golf-course passes for disabled folk. They do the legwork, they lay out the evidence, they make a very good case for the system needing fixing. Beautiful work.

We are all New York Yankees

(Yeah, BoSox fans, go cry for a few sentences.) They shone, they stunk, they rocked, they made you want to cauterize every damn brain cell that holds the baseball stuff: They will still be the Yankees next year, I reckon, but they're not ever again going to be the Yankees of Yankee Stadium. Last time I was there I dropped $20 of beer on some poor bastard after slipping on the upper-deck steps; it's a fond memory of baseball's cathedral -- which, like most medieval buildings, is more pleasant to contemplate from the outside. Moving on. (Okay, Boston fans, you're safe to start reading again...)

Money talks and sings

I'm ashamed to say that I had to be sent this clip from The Stranger, our local weekly, by someone 3500 miles away. I'm a wretch. Please accept the clipping itself as my apology, with great thanks to whoever AFT keeved it from in the first place:

Fly-by crazy is fun to watch, but...

...it takes a bit of time to clean up after the droppings. Until the flock flaps away (if you've been watching the DFW thread, you know what I'm talking about), comments will be moderated before they post. Sorry for the inconvenience, sane members of the congregation! As we've learned from other venues, the skies will clear again soon.

Holding the journalists to account

This isn't usually how the Net-vs-mainstream-media thing works, but the readers commenting on Lou Lumenick's NY Post coverage of the Toronto Film Festival feel that the writeup should have included an apology for his smackage of Roger Ebert, and they are making their thoughts known most engagingly. They're in his review of The Women too. (Ebert, apparently serene in the knowledge that he's four or five orders of magnitude more talented and respected than the Post writer will ever be, ain't talking.) Post management would be smart to have the guy step up and say his piece, that piece consisting of OMG I AM SO SORRY GOD DO I SUCK FORGIVE ME AAAAAA or resign themselves to anarchy in the comments for a while. Which, hey, it's the Post -- either way works for me. (HT to Defamer.)

“Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Oh, Sarah Palin. Sarahsarahsarahsarah Palin. I am so pleased to hear that bloggers can get under your thin white skin.

The Times today has a not-bad vetting of the woman's personal / political style, which is... well, if this was your boss you'd be chatting up HR pretty much daily. Once you've been through that, may I direct your attention to a film made about the woman before she was even born? It's called A Face In The Crowd, and it was made in 1957 by Elia Kazan. It's the story of a folksy plain-talkin' charismatic with a serious case of megalomania, and it will keep you up nights. The star is Andy Griffith; you will never look at Mayberry RFD quite the same again, and you will have clarity of thought re Sarah Palin's sort that only great art can provide. YouTube has, for the moment, the whole freakin' movie in twelve parts. Get it while you can.

David Foster excuse me WHAT?!

I go offline for 24 hours and this is what happens? David Foster Wallace checks out? Dammit, interwebs, I apparently can't leave you unattended for a minute without getting the feeling I've been punched in the side of the head. Because that's obviously why I'm sitting here barely able to breathe. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Cosmic Variance has perhaps the most perfect tribute quote.

No words. Great dismay at having no more from himself.

(But I do have this. I generally have a lot of sympathy for those who decide to depart on their own schedule, but for those who choose to leave the remains for family to find? Fuck you. Seriously, talk about leaving this life as a piece of shit. I respect the man's work and I'm sorry about whatever led to this choice, but I'd spit on his fucking corpse right now if it turned up.)

Lead. In my vitamins.

Oh, that's just fantastic. Interested that they didn't also test men's vitamins, though OTOH, I don't know any men who take 'em. In any case, this profoundly sucks; my eating habits are weird enough that I really need to not skip the supplement, but I definitely don't need the extra heavy metal. What to do? (HT treehugger.com.)