Bart King's Blog, page 272
March 31, 2010
Of Pranks and Child Geniuses
Hey, April Fool's Day is right around the corner! But that's not important right now, because I want to tell you about
T
homas Macaulay
(1800-1859). This guy was a child genius. How do I know? Well, according to historians, the British child said a lot of things that blew people's minds. For example, when Thomas was a toddler, he looked at a chimney with smoke coming out of it and asked his father, " Is that hell? "
What a delightful kid!
And when Thomas was four, someone accidentally...
March 30, 2010
March 29, 2010
I Have Good News and Bad News
GOOD NEWS! New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof recommended that every boy in the U.S. read The Big Book of Gross Stuff! In his column "The Boys Have Fallen Behind" in yesterday's edition, Kristof wrote:"One remedy [for poor reading skills:] may be to encourage lowbrow, adventure or even gross-out books that disproportionately appeal to boys."(Okay, so he ALMOST recommended it!)
BAD NEWS! An article on Gross Stuff that ran in the Oregonian yesterday ended with this unfortunate line:...
March 25, 2010
Three Things That Will Make Your Life Complete
1.) Three baby otters were born in Ohio. These otters are so fearsomely cute, the humans taking care of them at the Columbus Zoo call them the "Thermonuclear Otter Triplets."
2.) A guy named Ben Heck made a pinball machine devoted to actor Bill Paxton. It's about time!
3.) A friend took a picture of a bookstore named Growing Needs in Glastonbury, England, that sells my stuff. While not quite as cool as the otters or the pinball machine, that's still a little bit of all right!
2.) A guy named Ben Heck made a pinball machine devoted to actor Bill Paxton. It's about time!
3.) A friend took a picture of a bookstore named Growing Needs in Glastonbury, England, that sells my stuff. While not quite as cool as the otters or the pinball machine, that's still a little bit of all right!
March 24, 2010
BAD IDEAS: I'll Never Look at Root Vegetables the Same Way
In 1983, author Jane Asher's book,
Fancy Dress
, came out. In it were different creative ideas for fun costumes...including this photo of a man dressed as a carrot.
I've been trying to figure out why this picture is so horrible. The beard? The cigar? I think I have it narrowed down to either the glass of red wine (clashes with the orange carrot) or the, er, black pantyhose!
I've been trying to figure out why this picture is so horrible. The beard? The cigar? I think I have it narrowed down to either the glass of red wine (clashes with the orange carrot) or the, er, black pantyhose!
March 23, 2010
On Your Way to School? Don't Look Down!
How do you get to school? While a skateboard or the bus might SEEM like an adventure, I'm guessing it doesn't compare to how 9-year old Daisy Mora travels.
Living in the high ground of a village in Columbia (South America), she gets on a steel zip line and flies down it at almost 40 mph. But it's probably not the speed that's scary...it's the fact that she's over a thousand feet up in some places!I know that you're wondering "What's that in her sack?" It's just Daisy's homework…and her...
March 22, 2010
March 18, 2010
Routine Maintenance from On High
Okay, the variations on Google Maps are now officially blowing my mind. Take this image from West Bromwich, England, that shows colossal pliers descending from the heavens to do some... routine maintenance?ADDITION: The mystery is solved! According to this Telegraph story:
"There appears to be a giant pair of pliers about to strike a chimney of one of the homes in the terraced street. The oddity appears to be down to a mistake by a Google technician who was making adjustments to the...
