Entries from December 2008 ↓

Tousle-headed Timmy is about to discover one of the worst taste combinations known to humanity: Fresh toothpaste-mouth washed down by orange juice.

Bleccchh. We’ve all accidentally combined the two. But why is it so awful?

Continue reading →

By creating the Sydney Opera House, above, Danish architect Jørn Utzon, right, who died in his sleep of a heart attack over the weekend, at age 90, did more than make a great and transcendent building. He accomplished that rarest of architectural feats: He created a symbol that, as the U.S. Capitol does for this country, or the Eiffel Tower does for France, became part of a nation’s identity.

Or, as I like to put it, he made a building that, were you to wake up out of a long sleep and see it, would tell you exactly where in the world you were. Trust me: It’s harder than you might think.

The great irony, though, is that he never saw it finished. Wrote The New York Times,

When only the shell of the opera house was complete, the architect found himself at odds with Davis Hughes, the New South Wales minister for public works, over cost overruns and delays. When Mr. Hughes stopped payments to Mr. Utzon in 1966, the architect packed up his family and left the country.

Continue reading →

I absolutely have no patience for white people who try befriending dangerous, wild animals, not only because the animals never get to negotiate these arrangements—except with claws—but more because I view such efforts as seated squarely on the continuum of white arrogance.

However, in this clip, these two men attempt to re-introduce themselves to a male lion, in the wild, that they’d befriended earlier, after he had acquired his own pride and mate. Take a look at what happens.