Stuck In Customs » Uncategorized

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan

tratcliff — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:09:39 +0000

Thanks Andrew for the mention on your cool blog… I’m honored. I offered to let him use the picture I took in his upcoming book, but I think it has already gone to print. I guess we just met too late.

Anyway, here is another trippy picture of Holland for Andrew; I know he had too many space cakes, and perhaps this is the passed-out-view he saw every morning when he awoke.

Ayds

tratcliff — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:04:34 +0000

This is a real commercial that was made in 1982 right before the AIDS scare. This is perhaps the worst named product of all time.

Tripod Love Song

tratcliff — Wed, 10 May 2006 18:31:59 +0000

This is a pretty funny song that this Australian group performed on comedy central. I am easily enterained by nonsense on occasion.

Volcano Picture Makes Flickr Front Page

tratcliff — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:45:30 +0000

I woke up this morning to find a deluge of comments on one of my volcano pictures on Flickr and I had to figure out what was going on. It turns out that one of the volcano pictures made it to the Flickr home page as one of the most “interesting” pictures for the day. They use some formula called “interestingness” that is a combination of views, favorites, and comments. If you click on the first picture below, you can see some of the comments…

I took this one from about 10 km from the west side of the dam that forms lake Arenal at the base of the volcano. I had the tripod set up for several hours trying to wait for the clouds to arrange themselves in the right way. The good thing was that it was so windy the whole scene changed every five minutes.

The Unicorn and the Volcano

tratcliff — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:37:02 +0000

After driving around and around and around the volcano on roads that barely qualify as roads and after hopping over barbed wire fence after barbed wire fence, I finally managed to find a nice shot of the volcano. It was not easy to get that horse to cooperate with me. I had to figure out how to say, “I am not a glue-man” in Spanish.

This is the most active volcano in Costa Rica and one of the most active in the world. Later days would take me up higher into the danger zone to get some rather suicidal shots. Those will be coming in a few days…

Mannequins

tratcliff — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:27:42 +0000

It started raining pretty hard while we were walking around the streets of downtown San Jose, so we decided to duck into a strange clothes store. While milling around inside, I found these interesting mannequins.

This may be the last update for a while (admittedly, this is a weird one). We are driving up to an active volcano in the north of the country and I may not have internet for a while.

The Milanese Allegorical Muse of Dance

tratcliff — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:24:31 +0000

Inside the foyer of the Teatro Nacional were various marble statues that were created in various countries around the world. The three statues - Dance, Music, and Fame - in the foyer are real, and the ones on the roof are reproductions. They used to have the originals on the roof, but the birds’ poop was overly acidic so they moved them to a safer place.

This one is the Muse of Dance and was sculpted in Milan.

A Night at the Opera House

tratcliff — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:39:46 +0000

Laughing Babies

tratcliff — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 23:42:25 +0000

This is a really funny video. It’s sort of like the Tipping Point of laughing, but the kids seems to spread the laughing virally very quickly. It’s almost a little bit eerie, but still totally funny.

Funny Choose Your Own Adventure book covers

tratcliff — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:56:08 +0000

Here are some doctored Choose Your Own Adventure books…Â I read all of these when I was a kid.

Very strange but funny video

tratcliff — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:04:13 +0000

I don’t know why I find this funny… but this is a video of a Walkman on zipline with someone screaming on it.

Under Duress

tratcliff — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:03:57 +0000

My friend sent me this picture.Â This features a marine shaking hands with The Hillary, while flashing the secret “under duress” hand signal with his other hand, since he was obviously forced into this untenable situation.

Funny picture from the UT Game

tratcliff — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 23:26:39 +0000

This went around the net right after the championship game, but I did not see it until recently… This picture was taken when Vince scored the winning touchdown for Texas.

Funny Jon Stewart Video Concerning Corruption and Taint

tratcliff — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:26:50 +0000

Here is a clever bit on the Daily Show.

God Warrior!

tratcliff — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 20:08:22 +0000

Some friends just told me about this episode of Wife Swap that I missed… this woman is something else!

Painting the Living Room

tratcliff — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:03:53 +0000

For the past year or so, our living room has been as grey as a Stalineque apartment building, so we are finally adding some color to it. Here is a picture of the base coat before they have done the faux-finishing.

This morning the painters came into the house - there was a white guy that came in first followed by a black guy. They were both here yesterday… very friendly guys. Anyway, when they walked in carrying their paint cans, Ethan darted between them with some crazy Star Wars Jedi move, and I quickly scolded, “Watch out BOY!”. The black guy glared over at me for an instant before I pointed at my son - indicating that he was the “boy”. I think I smoothed over the situation, but I am gonna go hide my VCRs just in case.

Arnold

tratcliff — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:46:56 +0000

Here is an old random picture I found of me hanging out with Arnold in front of a trailer, where I usually hang out with 70’s sitcom stars. Right after this picture was taken, Arnold offered me some crack and invited me back to his bicycle shop to look at magazines.

Smooth Girl

tratcliff — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:45:00 +0000

One of the best written magazines available today other than the “New Yorker” has got to be “Smooth Girl”. It has some real insights into multiculturism and smooth skin. It is truly a tour-de-force for the intellectual elite.

Google Zen Video of the Day - Borat at Republican Meeting

tratcliff — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:49:59 +0000

Here is another funny video of the great Borat. Tell me if the page is still auto-refreshing halfway through the video.

South Korean Clone

tratcliff — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:28:59 +0000

Here is a picture of one of my cloned friends from South Korea. She is really good at Starcraft and can eat twice as much kimchi as other “lesser” girls.

My South Korean professor friend Fed-exed her eggs to me and I grew her in a pot of soil on the window sill.

Michael Jackson’s Malibu Racing License

tratcliff — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:17:00 +0000

I was in Monty’s office yesterday and he showed me the latest thing he bought for Golden Palace - Michael Jackson’s Malibu Racing License. He paid $1500 for it. Here I am holding it, and you can tell this is pre-1995 from the juxtaposition of my caucasian skin next to Michael’s OJ-Time-Magazine mug shot.

Google Zen Video of the Day - David Brent Dancing

tratcliff — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:12:14 +0000

I just finished watching both seasons of “The Office” - the British version. It was totally funny… Here is a scene from Season 2 Episode 5 when David Brent did not want to be outdone by a previous office dancer during a charity event:

The Office (British) is just as good as the American Office. Both Gervais and Carroll are hilarious in their own way. As Will put it, Gervais is more subtle and Carroll is more zany.

Google Zen Video of the Day - Chris Parnell

tratcliff — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 20:55:53 +0000

I think this Chris Parnell is one of the funniest and most underrated guys on SNL. Here is a little short film he made about the Chronicles of Narnia.

Google Zen Video of the Day - Crazy Dog

tratcliff — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 19:18:23 +0000

This dog… has issues…

Google Zen Video of the Day - Borat in the South

tratcliff — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:55:56 +0000

For those of you that don’t know who Borat is - now it is too late! This guy is hilarious… it’s actually the same actor as Ali G. Here is one of his classic videos:

Google Zen Video of the Day - Naked Trucker

tratcliff — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 15:37:05 +0000

Now by popular demand by one of my blog readers who has a questionable background and a questionable future, here is The Naked Trucker.

Google Zen Video of the Day - Insane Cats

tratcliff — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:23:03 +0000

As many Indian video lovers as I have, I also know there are a lot of cat lovers. So for them, I present this video:

A liink to the video

I gotta find that other video you mentioned GFailure - that one will come up in a few days… but only if it is offensive to people or to cats.

Google Zen Video of the Day

tratcliff — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 06:04:34 +0000

This is a very funny video that really goofs on a PETA activist:

Bollywood Video

tratcliff — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 17:52:35 +0000

I thought all my Indian Bollywood friends would really dig this video. It is an important commentary on Indian Culture:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4807397690444864476

I have no idea where that video came from. I found it as I was surfing through Google’s new video store.

Tax cut = rev increase

tratcliff — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:48:58 +0000

This is a good simple graph that shows federal tax revenue increasing after the tax cut. Of course, this stands to reason for all of us good capitalists that do pay a lot of taxes that do anything legal they can to avoid paying them. When the government absorbs and redistributes more money, it is less efficiently spent in a capitalist system, causing “income” earners to earn even less. It’s simple Friedman stuff. Additionally, taxes were so high that several high income earners either a) left the country or b) changed their compensation packages to avoid a big income tax. If taxes are kept at a more reasonable level to encourage and enable additional income, revenues will increase, as illustrated below: