New Hampshire mourns the loss of an old friend

The state's landmark stone face crashed to the valley floor sometime in the last day or two. (The mountain was obscured by fog, so no one knows exactly when it happened.) The Concord Monitor writes:

The Old Man of the Mountain, the stern granite profile that symbolized the state's independence and stubbornness, is gone, likely the victim of the same natural forces that created it thousands of years ago.

[...]

Daniel Webster, a 19th century New Hampshire statesman, once wrote, referring to the Old Man,

"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

Bling Bling added to the OED

It's official: the term "bling bling" is now part of the Queen's English, according to MTV.

The next time you and your pals coin a slang term to describe your latest bejeweled accessories, don't bet on keeping it exclusive. The linguistics "gangstas" over at the Oxford English Dictionary aren't "new jacks" to the latest "def" lingo.

The venerable definitions resource has already added other hip-hop-turned-mainstream terms like "jiggy," "breakbeat," "dope" and "phat" to the online updates of the 20-volume dictionary, and now it has started drafting an entry for the latest OED-approved term, "bling bling."

The term, which is used to describe diamonds, jewelry and all forms of showy style, was coined by New Orleans rap family Cash Money Millionaires back in the late '90s and started gaining national awareness with a song titled "Bling Bling" by Cash Money artist BG.

Thanks to Xeni over at BoingBoing for catching this.

What planet do these people live on?

From the AP: Georgians Plan Whites-Only Prom Party. My jaw was on the floor. What year is this, anyway?

Radio programming in the bible belt

From a Tennessean story about a month ago about how local radio stations deal with explicit lyrics:

Popular stations receive more than 100 songs a week and have to decide which to play. Program directors often rely on their experience and knowledge of their listening audience to make that call.

"I follow the 'hell-damn-ass' rule," said Kiki the First Lady, former program director and on-air personality of Clear Channel's The Beat. "Those are the only three you'll hear. All three of those words are in the Bible."

Goin' for some street cred...

My goddamn rock solid ghetto shiznit name is Fellatio D.
What's yours?
Powered by Rum and Monkey.

(I did this with my "real" name -- when I put in "Newton's Kumquat," I got "Tempestuous Kawfi!")

More pics posted yesterday. And Aaron got loose in Club Photo and started captioning some of the albums.

From a paper we had to read for class:

It's a dubious success if the project dies when its manager is hit by a beer truck.

From this I draw the conclusion that if you are a manager you should watch out for beer trucks.

Man bites dog!!!

It's not just a J-School cliche anymore. Some guy actually got into an altercation with a police dog outside my favorite Syracuse brewpub. In his own words:

"I don't think I bit the dog. I just got into a fight with him. I don't really remember (what happened). I was pretty drunk. After I got hit in the head a few times, I blacked out. It's all one big fog to me."

I almost missed this, but luckily Page saw it on CNN.com.

Pics from Italy (episode 1 of many)

I'm still trying to sort through more than 2000 digital photos, sound clips, etc. from Italy. I am uploading the raw images to Club Photo. There is a lot of garbage -- at some point I hope to put together a "greatest hits" website, and add in the movies and audio and captions and stuff. But for now you're welcome to look for the gems amongst the rubble.

So far I've uploaded the first 6 days of the trip -- the rest will be coming along as I have time. (I'm also editing a group paper for class and trying to pretend like I didn't just ignore schoolwork and workwork for two weeks.)

It is amazing to me that you can find people in graduate school with the writing skills of a 7th grader on smack.