links for 2007-09-05
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Author Archives: Jon Lowder
Some Poor Kid in Oklahoma
Some poor kid in Oklahoma is also named Jon Lowder. I know this because he’s a pitcher and appeared in relief in a game covered by the paper in Ada, OK. I hope that when he’s applying for a job or college admission that the folks who Google his name for the background check is not the same person who calls himself the Turd Man of Alcatraz.
Familianthropology
I’m adding a new category to this old blog: familianthropology. The category is dedicated to things I find that might help explain to my children the world their parents and grandparents grew up in. This inaugural post features an old advertisement for the "Card Callmaker" (picture to the left, found via Boing Boing) circa 1973. Although my family didn’t have one, and I seriously doubt Celeste’s did either, this ad shows two pieces of technology my kids have not encountered: rotary dial phones and punch cards. To be more accurate the kids have seen a rotary phone but whenever Celeste and I have tried to explain the old punch card computers the kids have looked at us like we have trees growing out of our ears. Hopefully this will help.
Speaking of rotary phones, I was watching TNT’s The Closer the other night and noticed that the Kyra Sedgwick character has a pink rotary phone in her room. There’s a scene where she’s calling someone and it is absolutely torturous to watch her dial, waiting for the wheel to come back to zero before dialing the next number. How did we ever tolerate such inconvenience?
Mrs. Tarmey at Bookmarks 2007
Danielle Tarmey was one of my daughter Erin’s 5th grade teachers the year we moved to Lewisville and she was one of our son Justin’s 5th grade teachers this last year. She and her husband, Joseph Mills, co-authored A Guide to North Carolina Wineries and they will be appearing at the Bookmarks 2007 festival this Saturday (Sep. 8) at Historic Bethabara Park. Unfortunately Justin will be out of town, but Erin’s soccer game is in that neck of the woods on Saturday so we should get the chance to swing by and check out the festival and say hi to Mrs. Tarmey.
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links for 2007-08-31
CelJon
What happens when you morph two 41 year old folks who’ve been married for 15 years? The picture to the left is the morphed pictures of my wife, Celeste, and me, Jon. The result is CelJon. Here’s the link to the web page that shows the original pictures and the result. I’m pretty sure our kids are grateful that this isn’t how genetics work.
Want to do your own morph? It’s free at www.morphthing.com.
Ernest Angley King of the Televangelist Toupee Crowd
Believe it or not one of the most popular posts on this blog, out of over 1,000 posts I’ve made, is this one I did on Ernest Angley back in April, 2006. It gets a lot of traffic from people who search the term "Ernest Angley" on Google (six people just this morning) and as you can see from the comments on my post he still has his share of supporters.
Today the folks at Boing Boing pointed to a blog called Televangelists with Toupees and that site ranked good ol’ Ernest’s mop as the number one televangelist toupee. The site claims that Ernest once offered locks of his dead wife’s hair in exchange for a donation and it also has a Youtube video of one of Ernest’s 80s era promos, but I wanted to find a video that would give you an idea of what made him the finest in unintentional late night comedy in the days before cable. Here it is:
Lourdes Help Us
I’m not sure what I find weirdest about this story:
- The Vatican has started an air service, right now just one 737 painted in "yellow-and-white papal livery", offering flights to Lourdes from Rome. They hope to expand service to "Fatima in Portugal, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and possibly even Jerusalem." Too bad "Virgin Air" was already taken, huh?
- The in flight refreshment was swordfish canapes. What, no peanuts?
- French officials wouldn’t let some of the holy flyers keep their holy water for the return trip, forcing them to abandon their "plastic containers in the shape of the Madonna." Apparently the plastic Madonna’s held more than the allowable 100ml. One man decided to drink his holy water rather than leave it with security.
- The water from the Lourdes spring is so valuable that it will cost you £64 for a litre.
I wonder how Catholics around the world are feeling about their contributions to the collection plate these days?
