www.leefur.com

Admittedly ripped this from my newly minted absolute favorite read, Spider's Graffiti, and I love the idea. To pullquote:

There is a legend that one night at their regular round table meeting at the Algonquin Hotel, Ernest Hemingway said to William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and the other literary all-stars in attendance "I'll bet each of you ten dollars that I can write a novel in only six words." Hemingway jotted six words. It read: "Baby shoes for sale. Never used."

So Hemingway collected on the bet.

So I'd like to make this a group project. Try to write your six word novel. Don't worry about sucking - they basically all suck, unless you're a literary luminary. A couple of mine, as commented on Spider's blog:

• The disease. The operation. The mistake.
• A life in an office. Wasted?
  

Personal update - I'm leaving work a bit early to go to Street Scene, where tonight I'll be seeing The Adolescents, Hot Hot Heat, Kasabian, Flogging Molly, Garbage, and The White Stripes. (Skipping Black Eyed Peas, since they became a shit machine)

Tomorrow I'll return to see Spoon, Death Cab, The Flaming Lips, The Pixies, and hopefully at least some of Mixmaster Mike, Method Man, and Snoop.

Timing'll be tough, but there's so much to see. Poor us. 

I've posted a lot today already, but I had to post this.

It seems that Coke is working on a beverage that actually burns calories. Each 12oz can burns 50 to 100 calories by speeding up your metabolism.

Now, this sounds a bit like heroin to me, but who am I to split hairs?

Link

A recent study shows that, after much debate, the naysayers said nay for good reason. Echinacea is ineffective to treat or prevent colds.

I'll leave it to my research-minded friends to poke holes in this (and you can generally poke holes in research until you're blue in the face), but consider this a promotion for Airborne, which I've still never used, but I've heard is a miracle treatment for colds ... despite their circa 1996 web design.

Link

You know The Who's Tommy, yes? It's a "rock opera", the story of a boy who is deaf, dumb, and blind, but a wiz at pinball.

Now witness 17-year-old Brice Mellen, born blind but a wiz at video games like Mortal Kombat and Soul Caliber 2. For real. How'd he do it? Years and years of frustration-laden practice.

Have I mentioned that when I was ten I smashed my head against a marble table - to the tune of five stitches - in a misguided disgruntlement-spasm because I died in World 8-4 in Super Mario Brothers?

Link

I'd like to send a little shout out to the genetic engineering scientists who have allowed us to harnass the power of DNA to create big, meaty chickens to make my lunch so tasty.

Not since the days of high school beatings will you so assuredly be able to ascertain your true (lack of) popularity.

AIMFight.com allows you to go head-to-head to see if your screenname is connected to more people than, say, your loser friends'. Give it a shot - I'm "leefur1000" if you'd like to fight me. (Thanks Markie)

Link

Try to contain your explosive shock at this ... but ... it turns out that major news organizations are significantly more concerned with Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson than hundreds of thousands of dying Africans.

As anyone who's seen Hotel Rwanda can attest, this is no surprise. But I will continue to blather on about it, despite the fact that I quite assiduously avoid all news. I guess I sorta gave up.

But anyway, check this out:

ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.

If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.

I mean, this is just apalling. "But Lee, you're not exactly consuming news stories about Darfur either, prick." Yeah, true. But I'm also not reading anything about Tom Cruise, the Runaway Bride, or Michael Jackson. Absolute ignorance, I say. Link

Your children will usher in the Apocalypse, it seems.

This new dolly has fantastic 'artificial intelligence' that allows it to recognize it's "mommy's" voice, recongize her stuff, and even pout if mommy yells at her. And the photo is just striaght eerie. Link  (Thanks Jesse)

Scientists have made a major advance in the study of why we don't generally notice when we blnk. Read the letdown of an article here.