Random Thursday – The Friday Edition

Because I spent all day yesterday in a hospital waiting room without reliable WiFi and was too cheap to spring for a 30-day 3G data plan on my iPad just to write a blog post, and because vacuuming and dusting the house and doing the laundry are not tasks to be done without interruption, here’s a day-late Random Thursday article.

• This is the kind of interviewer I’d want to be if I was an interviewer. In this clip, Billy Ray Cyrus interviews Richard Dreyfuss, with droll and amusing (if that’s not too too redundant) consequences.
• Well, this is embarrassing. I’ve just been informed that in the preceding video, the interviewer is actually Gordon Keith and the interviewee is Zach Galifianakis (who in a more sane Hollywood era would have changed his name to something more typeable, like “Prad Bitt” or something similar). [Credit and back story goes to Stuff Christians Like]
• I’ve noticed an interesting cultural trend that I’m all in favor of and that’s using raptor references to make otherwise mundane things seem edgy, if not downright dangerous. For example, here’s a cool front-drive recumbent cycle made by a Dutch company called RaptoBike. (Although it just occurred to me that perhaps “Rapto” means something else in Dutch, like “recumbent” or “peachy keen.” I should really research these things before writing about them. *thoughtful pause* Yeah, right. hahahahahahahahahah)
  

  Then there’s the wisdom of Philosoraptor, a visual meme that’s taken the interwebz by storm. Here’s a recent musing by the venerable Saurian Sage (Tip of the RaptoCap to Twisted Sifter):

  

  I’m all in favor of this approach and am seriously considering changing the name of this website to “The Fire Raptor Ant Gazette” or something similarly edgy and/or dangerous.

• And speaking of things I probably won’t actually do, buying a $5,000 yo-yo falls squarely into that category. (At the same time, an MTV show entitled “Pimp My Yo-Yo” would seem to be fertile ground for imaginative use of street slang.)
• I don’t drink beer, but I still feel that it’s important that this list of The World’s Worst Beers gets widespread attention. Don’t thank me; it’s just part of the public service to which the Gazette has and always will give lip service. (Side note: There’s actually a class of beer called “Spice/Herb/Vegetable”? Wonder what the Philosoraptor would say about that?)
• I apologize to Seth Godin for including his article amongst these other things, and I also realize the irony of using a time-wasting useless distraction to refer you to an article warning about the dangers of wasting time on useless distractions. Nevertheless, go read it and salvage something from this post.
• Finally, we’ll close with something that will restore your faith in technology: a blind man’s account of how he’s using an iPhone to “see.” Just amazing. (Link via Neatorama)