Friday, December 14, 2012

Did Dustin Rip Off Calvin and Hobbes?

Exhibit A: Today’s strip of “Dustin” - ones of the best comics being written today - compares Santa Claus to the Department of Homeland Security:


Yes, cute and timely, but twenty or so years ago, Calvin and Hobbes compared the jolly old Elf to the CIA with basically the same gag.

Exhibit B:
Coincidence? Plagiarism? Asynchronous parallel inspiration?

Conclusion: I am way too obsessed with comics.
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Friday, December 7, 2012

Drew Brees on New Tide Sport for Men Bottle

NBC News tonight had a brief segment about how Tide detergent is now marketing “Tide Sport with Febreze” to men. Same formula, just new marketing. The example they used has Drew Brees on the bottle. 

So is the slogan “Tide Sport for Men, now with Drewbreze! The best detergent for intercepting dirt!” (Hahaha - just kidding, Drew - we all know you’ll bounce back out of this slump, probably when the new baby starts sleeping through the night. Just wait until next year!)


And someone at Tide must have a sense of humor: the web page that shows this bottle has a picture of what looks like a trash-talking San Francisco 49ers fan next to it (screen capture below for when the page changes):


That’s just mean!

The video of the NBC story is here (follow link or, hopefully, embedded here):

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

According to Brian Williams, the real slogan for the detergent is “Tide Plus Febreze Sport with victory-fresh scent!” Saint fans will be happy enough with the fresh scent of a break-even record this season.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Post-Election Law Review Revisions?

So now will we see law review articles like this? -



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Monday, May 14, 2012

Best Library Cartoon Ever

Non-Sequiter had the best library cartoon ever on Sunday:

Non Sequiter - Public Library

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Mistakes in 2012 ABA Take-Offs


The 2012 ABA Take-Off data was released in the past few weeks, and I do some number-crunching for a few committees I’m on, so I’ve been updating past reports with this year’s data. This involves combining numbers from various ABA Take-Off reports, and so I have to make sure that the list of schools is the same between different reports. They usually are, but off three reports I’ve looked at, two had what are either careless commissions or sloppy errors.

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Monday, May 7, 2012

Second Hottest (Temperature-wise) Jazzfest Ever! (Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day)

Today, for the fourth annual JazzFest Global Warming Update, there is fodder for the alarmists: 2012 was the second hottest JazzFest on record. To review from past years, in 2006, Professor Oliver Houck of Tulane School of Law wrote Can We Save New Orleans?, 19 Tul. Envtl L. Rev 1 (2006) (PDF), which, among the many possible effects of global warming climate change on New Orleans, included:
Here in Louisiana we will be warmer in summer (think, maybe, 103 degrees at Jazz Fest) .... Houck, 19 Tul. Envtl. L. Rev 1, at 27. (PDF)
But the source he gave for that sentence:
Envtl. Prot. Agency, Climate Change and Louisiana 3 (1997) available at http:// yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/UniqueKeyLookup/SHSU5BURCA/$File/la_ impct.pdf
Said only that:
[It] is projected that by 2100, temperatures in Louisiana could increase about 3°F (with a range of 1-5°F) in spring and summer, slightly less in winter, and slightly more in fall. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Climate Change and Louisiana 2 (1997).
(Yes, its at page 2, not three like he specified, and since the site has link-rotted away, I put the report on Google Docs.)

Full blog post...

Thursday, April 12, 2012

"Pilots 'n Paws": Volunteer Aviator Dog Rescue


Reading an old issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I came across this article:

The dogs in the plane tell the whole story - they got a reprieve from being euthanized and were flown by volunteers to no-kill shelters around the country. The George Mason professor's non-profit group, Pilots-N-Paws, connects like-minded pilot volunteers and receptive shelters who promise to place the dogs in new homes.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Mysterious Face in Local Chapel

It was in the Times-Picayune this morning: the shadow of the lights in the Ursuline Academy chapel here in New Orleans appears to be a familiar figure; this is the picture from the story:

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us


But at breakfast, my wife solved this mystery! Its not an image of Jesus, its Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's!


Ursulines Academy chapel mystery image is Audrey Hepburn, not Jesus

(Click for full-size image.)


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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Twitter Follower Deluge

Even though I don't use Twitter much, I guess I'm on enough lists and have other people who follow me that are much more active, so I get one or two new follows a week, usually other law-librarians or something related to New Orleans. But today, in the space of forty-five minutes, I had eleven local restaurants follow me:

New Orleans Restaurants on Twitter

Funny! Guess there's some new service handling the Twitter accounts for all these places. If I Tweet about food, will they respond with virtual coupons or other offers? Will have to try that...
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Tuesday, March 6, 2012