Be an Expert on Anything, by Stephen Colbert. “Speak from the balls not from the diaphragm. In the expert game, you’ve got to have sack. That means speaking with confidence. In America, you’ve got to steer clear of nuance and ambivalence – and don’t even contemplate doubt.”
Aaron’s tattoos are more awesome than yours. I don’t care what your tattoos are like, his will beat yours down into the ground and not even break a sweat; woodcut-style looks so lovely on skin. (Ranjit, you need to get a Dokonjo Daikon tattoo!)
How to sniff out the nerds at work via chat, a short demonstration by Andrew.
Hilarious piece in today’s New York Times by Alex Mindlin about trying to find enough registered Republicans to sign candidate petitions:
Around 8 p.m., though, a young volunteer ran up to report that he had found a perfect spot down the street, between two doorman buildings.
“You can’t lose,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t even ask anyone who isn’t wearing a Polo shirt or a suit. It works great. And pearls, on women.”
And yes, if you know your city neighborhoods, that totally did happen on the Upper East Side.
(Some people might find this surprising, considering that both Bloomberg and his predecessor Giuliani are Republicans, but Democrats actually outnumber Republicans five to one in NYC.)
[ via Amy’s Robot ]
“Could YOU date someone whose home looks like this?” asks my friend Chris. When you see the photo you will understand why the only appropriate answer is, as one of my exes would say, HELLS NO.
Hack your way out of writer’s block, from 43 Folders. Minus points for the egregious (even in 2004) misuse of “hack” but extra plus points for having useful tips. What usually works best for me is moving on to write something else for a while, even if it’s just a paragraph or two.
Warren Ellis, on what it’s like when you have trouble writing:
It’s the blank page thing. Aaron Sorkin talked about it a bit, at the top of one of the WEST WING scriptbooks. The blank page is the only critic that can hit you where you live. In one of the episodes, in fact, a journalist asks Sam why writing a major speech is hard, and Sam says, because it’s a blank piece of paper. It knows all your secrets. In Sorkin’s words, it sits there and hisses, “I know how you’ve been scamming all those people all these years, GIFTLESS, you wanna dance with me?”
Marcos Chin is the artist responsible for those gorgeous illustrations of impossibly willowy people in Lavalife’s subway posters. I’ll never understand how could they hire someone to make such lovely art for their ads and then have such an ugly website for potential customers to end up on. [ via Drawn! ]
How to do a pixel head, a tutorial by Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Flyin’. [ via kottke.org ]
Jessamyn, on how social software makes post-breakup periods even more awkward:
I started this relationship before the dawn of most social software and the ubiquitous presence of “network” in my life, and I’m ending it afterwards. (…) Do I take my ex off my buddy list? Do I remove his blog from my RSS feed reader? Should I stop commenting on his Flickr pictures or block him from commenting on mine? How many passwords do I need to change? Do I deauthorize his computer from my iTunes store? Miss Manners has very little guidance on these matters and yet in my world many of these choices have implications as deep or deeper than if I was pillaging his CD collection or changing the locks while he’s away.