Because it's so much easier to time the poaching than to count on the dishwasher! What is it about les guys? Two centuries ago, it was randy gentlemen who consulted cabinetmakers about the decoration of their houses. Not even crypto-gay. And now it's fun to cook fish in the dishwasher.

Where are the men who know that one must learn how to produce a perfect soufflé, time after time after time. Each time, I think, "This is the one that's going to flop." It never is. The ladies think I'm quite remarkable; this is no "nice guy" slot. When did being a man become being a slacker?

¶ Nurse! Nurse! This man's singing a strange song about Spongebob Squarepants! My little Felix is... beginning to sing along! Do something!

I am the very model of a modern Libertarian:
I teem with glowing notions for proposals millenarian,
I've nothing but contempt for ideologies collectivist
(My own ideas of social good tend more toward the Objectivist).

¶ Why We Sleep, Part Umpteen. Carol Zimmer reports on some late developments in sleep research. It tickles me that we still don't have a "scientific" definition of sleep.

¶ Two names that don't belong in the same sentence? "Malcolm Gladwell" and "Leonardo diCaprio." So you'd think. But now this.

¶ JR, at L'homme qui marche - love that new yellow banner - found this animated ad for Stomp, having seen the show on a recent trip to London.

¶ Here's an interesting human-interest story from New Orleans that doesn't involve destruction.

¶ This smells like a hoax to me. World's oldest noodles uncovered in Yellow River silt. (Thanks to kottke.org.)

¶ somehow this sounds a lot more appealing than cremation: promession. A/K/A freeze-drying.

¶ This "all-in-one" computer media center looks great, and I hope that it becomes standard, but two a desktop and two laptops in a row made a determined no-Sony purchaser out of me.

В блоге Slimbolala отец двоих детей описывал подробности эвакуации в город Мемфис, и решении вернуться на побережье. В понедельник он написал: «Мы только что обнаружили, что на первом этаже нашего дома воды по пояс». Позднее, для поднятия своего духа, он предложил всем присылать ему шутки и анекдоты про ураган.

¶ Oh no! The International Male Catalog, home of unbespeakable outfits for - well a certain market niche - may go out of business.

For almost 30 years a curious clothing catalog has sold ruffled pirate shirts, pink sleeveless suits, and sequined black capes to a seemingly invisible public. What’s it like to go through life in a mesh top? Andrew Goldman treks from the stands at Yankee Stadium to the banquettes at the Four Seasons to investigate life as the ultimate fashion victim.

Straight male Andrew Goldman looks into the matter, but I'm not sure that he finds out. From Radar. Prepare to snigger.

¶ Not Safe For Work: The trailer to an animated movie, dont je ne sais rien, about puberty. It reminds me - did anybody else ever see this? - of Tarzoon, Shame of the Jungle, a film that the St Joseph County sheriff yanked from a theatre in 1978. My word! It's available on VHS!

¶ Spend an hour on Memory Lane, where Meg Hourihan, one of the founders of Blogger, recounts her life in technology and her relationship to a form of communication that not only survived the dot-com bust but thrived because of it. (That would be Web logging.) Meg's dim view of the recent adoption of a paid-subscription policy at The New York Times, still in the future when the interview was recorded in May, is well worth considering. Meg's blog, Megnut, has been given what looks like more than a facelift.

¶ Time for a rethink!

Kim Pease, a Fema spokesman, said: "The volunteer doctor [Dr Perlmutter] was not a credentialed Fema physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area."

From the Telegraph (Thanks, Max)

¶ Are we having fun yet? Are we ready? Are we ready for Monica: the Musical?

¶ Patricia Storms has launched another strip into the ether, "The Shadow of Too Many Books." No, it's not about my house! Patricia can work magnificently twisted wonders in no time at all. I see now that there is a reason for the existence of Chuck Palahniuk after all.

As it happened, I was sitting at the desk when Joe posted the entry, and mine comment is at the top of the list. But I'll copy it here anyway, lest Joe get tired of carrying it around some day.

In theory, everybody's linked to everybody. The question would be how closely. I would not aim for a one-size-fits-all rule here.

Before de-linking the intermediate blog, which presumably still interests you, examine links other than the one that bothers you. Check to see if the intermediate blogger has other blogs, with other personalities. If you're okay with most of the links, then leave the intermediate blog on.

This really is an immense cocktail party, where nobody is host and everybody invites himself. I frankly prefer the idea of knowing, via links, that unpleasant things are going on elsewhere, to allowing an abscess to mushroom out of sight.

The last time I looked, most comments were of the same mind. Many suggested something that I left out: at least for the time being, every blogger has the right to his or her own policy. Which mostly amplifies the negative answer to Joe's question.

¶ How to detect altered images. Not that I understand it, but the illustrations are fun.

¶ I believe - in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Question is, how much to put in the plate. Boing Boing has raised the stakes to $250,000.

¶ Gotta get me one: Bullshit Deflector.

¶ Who says the US Constitution covers everything? Here's a little list of omitted matters.

¶ But we can call God. Why not? God has a blog!

The pamphlet reminds one over and over again that blogging is "an undertaking which was totally voluntary and which does not directly contribute to his or her continued survival on this, our plant earth." This is true only in the narrowest, most technical sense. Most bloggers really need to blog, or they give it up. Some bloggers really need to a good job, because readers are important to their continued survival on this, our planet earth. Believe me!

But of course this neediness is never supposed to show; it queers the pleasure on both sides. Good performers cultivate an entirely false modesty in order to make themselves more appealing. (This false modesty also lends an air of dignity to rough times.) When I'm particularly grateful for a comment, I usually send an email to the writer (if it's possible) that begins, "Thanks for the kind words." This is an invariable formula, but it is totally sincere. The false part is what's left out. "It made me jump for joy. Did you like this part or that part? Do you come here often?" &c.

The pamphlet breaks down five classes of bloggers, supplying an identifying complaint for each one. Community Builders, for example, will be heard to complain, "got plenty of visitors, so why is no one commenting?" (Then it gets vulgar.) My favorite is the plaint of Newbies: "Why am I still ranked only 148.926 on Technorati? It's been three months." Wouldn't 148,926 be a pretty good ranking in a blogosphere of over ten million sites? Then there's a page of symptoms. "Pressure!!!!" is one of these. "If you feel overwhelmed with a crushing pressure to post to your blog, a pressure so acute and strong that you can't post anything at all, try to remember, no one cares." I love this tough love. I have also learned always to have something, at least an idea, in what I call the pipeline. At least one post daily entry on the Daily Blague was written the day before, if not earlier, and published before midnight the preceding night. Once you've committed to daily entries, you do not want to wake up in the morning wondering what you're going to write about today.

Now for the helpful part: "Some Action You Can Take." One thing the beleaguered blogger can do is to stop believing that "just because you have heard the word blog on television countless times" blogging is therefore important. Perhaps you have something better to do. The final page of the pamphlet features a wonderfully simplistic drawing in which the sun drives away clouds of grey while warming a happy camper whose shirt reads "blogs suck." The final slam: "It need not ruin lives or waste perfectly good URL's."

ROTFIHCLOL! CB! Here's the link.

By the way, the pamphlet urges against following "how to blog" entries on other blogs. But The Doorman at Clublife has complied a pretty good guide. I've been sending everyone the link; now it's time to post it here.