Time to take this bull by the horns and milk it.
Seth Godin’s blog has a list of The top 1,000 things to know.
Actually, he only lists the top 20, but they’re pretty good. I saw this guy speak live at a gathering in New York a couple of years ago, and he was entertaining, but seemed to be talking a load of crap in areas where I’m actually knowledgeable. Nonetheless he has a lot of interesting ideas. (He’s the author of Unleashing the Idea Virus, one of the first new books to be given away free on-line as an e-book.)
“There are all degrees of proficiency of knowledge of the world. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist and the naturalist and the man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the essay Prudence
That last “chink and cranny” reminds me of a part in Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant, where the BFG tells the other giants they can search his place from “frack to bunt,” and “look in every crook and nanny.”
God help me, I was actually doing work, like I’m at work, at my desk, doing real “work”, when a necessary Google search plopped King of the Hill Quotes: “Peggy’s Magic Sex Feet” into my lap.
(It’s really kinda sick when you start reading it out of context, but it has closure.)
I can’t believe it – The Lady Janet and I forgot to watch Survivor last night. But it looks like someone here at work either recorded it or Tivo’d it, so we’ll have a chance to see it, but DANG!,
I am, however, very pleased with the outcome, which you can see here: CBS.com.
The cover story on this week’s free Sacramento News & Review is Sacto Blogo, and it turns out Asparagus Pee has gotten a pretty nice write up. (Read it all, but they used my story for the close, so please scroll out to the end.)
They called me “Smary-pants blogger Chris Benson,” then went on to say that Asparagus Pee is “…a reliably clever, good-natured look at science and politics.”
I’ll take that.
Special thanks to Mayagirl over at Postcards from Sacramento for making me aware of this article. Thanks Maya!
P.S. With this recent little bit of local notoriety, I’m coming to understand the meaning of journalistic phrases like “though he never responded to e-mail requests for an interview” – if I’d thought for one second that one of the 600-800 spams I deleted that day was SN&R wanting to talk to me about my blog, do you think I might have granted the interview? (Uh-huh.)
Paul from Paul’s Posted Notes has received his free Elliott Smith CD, From a Basement on the Hill, and he’s done the required listening assignment, and blogged about it over here. He’s also gone above and beyond, and started his own “mini-contest,” so do pay him a visit.
Finally, a poll whose results I can relate to:
In today’s e-mail, Daily Inbox sent me a link to The Contortion Home Page. It never ceases to amaze me what a hairless monkey with a too-big brain can do if he works hard enough at it – I mean, I can still put my foot behind my head, but this is PFR!
(PFR is a codeword that The Lady Janet and I use for “pretty f***ing ridiculous”, it’s along the same lines as “No BFD”… just thought I’d share this handy tool – hey, maybe it’s the next LOL!)
Curvy finally got her free Elliott Smith CD and blogged about it on her Blyg:
She says, among other things, elliott smith “*is what jewel would sound like if she were male, a better songwriter, and could play more instruments.” Insightful.
“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum, and here they will break out in their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns and they mope and wallow like dogs.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson