The Flaming Lips

Saw them recently at the Treasure Island Music Festival. Apparently it's perfectly routine for the lead singer to come out on stage in a bubble and roll over the crowd. Made for a fun video; check it out.

Epilepsy warning: may induce seizure. View at your own risk.

Another ad I like

Have you seen the Southwest Airlines "bags fly free" series? Worth pausing your DVR fast-forwarding.

I go on vacation and leave you a dinosaur

"I'm so tired of all my actions having consequences! OH MY GOD, is there SERIOUSLY no room on this planet for a dude who loves actions but hates their consequences??"

Bye kids. I'll be back when all that's left of the turkeys is bones.

Flaubert's "The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas"

Lawyers. Too many in Parliament. Their judgment is warped. Of a lawyer who is a poor speaker, say: 'Yes, but he knows his books.'

Typical father-daughter convo

"Why can't attorneys be more like normal people?"

Dad, I wish I knew.

What any author's website biography should aspire to be

"Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida, where he still lives with his incredibly tolerant family and numerous personal demons.

"A graduate of the University of Florida, at age 23 he joined The Miami Herald as a general assignment reporter and went on to work for the paper's weekly magazine and later its prize-winning investigations team. Since 1985 Hiaasen has been writing a regular column, which at one time or another has pissed off just about everybody in South Florida, including his own bosses. He has outlasted almost all of them, and his column still appears on most Sundays in The Herald's opinion-and-editorial section. It may be viewed online at www.miamiherald.com or in the actual printed edition of the newspaper, which, miraculously, is still being published. . . .

"Together, Hiaasen's novels have been published in 34 languages, which is 33 more than he is able to read or write. Still, he has reason to believe that all the foreign translations are brilliantly faithful to the original work. The London Observer has called him "America's finest satirical novelist," while Janet Maslin of the New York Times has compared him to Preston Sturges, Woody Allen and S.J. Perelman. Hiaasen re-reads those particular reviews no more than eight or nine times a day. . . .

"One of Hiaasen's previous novels, Strip Tease, became a major motion-picture in 1996 starring Demi Moore, and directed by Andrew Bergman. Despite what some critics said, Hiaasen continues to insist that the scene featuring Burt Reynolds slathered from his neck to his toes with Vaseline is one of the high points in modern American cinema."

I thoroughly enjoy this guy's books, in large part because they remind me of the real Florida. (It doesn't hurt that the books are just super-fun to read, too.) As Hiaasen says, "Nothing that happens in my books, no matter how twisted, transcends the reality of South Florida."

You and I are complicated but we're made of elements!

Catchy. Lyrics in comments in case you're a science geek like me.

Hope is touching, and sad

"In 1992, Arkansas convict Ricky Ray Rector, who had brain damage from shooting himself in the head after killing a police officer, ate a final meal of steak, fried chicken, and cherry Kool-Aid, but famously said he wanted to save his pecan pie for later."

It's been a while since we had one of these

Makes sense

"She stated that earlier he had broken a window in their home on accident and then broke another because he was upset about breaking the first one."

Metaphor for life

"No matter what you do, your battery will become a useless piece of junk—one day it will reach a point where it can no longer be charged, and then you'll have to recycle it. It will die if you use it often. It will die if you hardly ever use it. It will die if you charge it too much. It will die if you charge it too little. You can pull the battery out of your camera, stuff it under your mattress, and come back for it in five years. Guess what? Your battery will be dead."

Self-proclaimed martian sues doctors, President Clinton, and others for falsifying his DNA results

While conspiracy to do harm to someone is the basis of many actions in this Court there is a fundamental flaw in the position of Mr. Joly. Rule 1.03 defines plaintiff as “a person who commences an action”. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines person as “an individual human being”. Section 29 of the Interpretation Act provides that a person includes a corporation. It follows that if the plaintiff is not a person in that he is neither a human being nor a corporation, he cannot be a plaintiff as contemplated by the Rules of Civil Procedure. The entire basis of Mr. Joly’s actions is that he is a martian, not a human being. There is certainly no suggestion that he is a corporation. I conclude therefore, that Mr. Joly, on his pleading as drafted, has no status before the Court.

Joly v. Pelletier, via Volokh Conspiracy.