C’est Rire category archive

Over at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards.

A pedestrian mall. How 1970s.

Now, a City Hall spokesman says the concept is being taken a step further. Broadway will be closed to vehicles at Times Square, from 42nd to 47th streets. A couple of blocks at Herald Square, 33rd to 35th streets, also will be closed.

The plan will provide amenities for outdoorsy types, including cafe tables and benches.

Every city that I know that has turned part of downtown into a pedestrian mall has subsequently ripped out the pedestrian mall and replaced it with streets.

And this surprises us how?

My guess is that, in many cases, this happens through ignorance and laziness, not through cupidity.

Anyone who has a profession tax advisor, though, has no excuse:

Only about 225,000 people paid taxes on household help including nannies in 2006, the latest year reported by the IRS. But the government estimates that 770,000 of the nation’s 1.4 million child-care workers work for private households or are self-employed.

That means that, at a minimum, tens of thousands of Americans fail to pay the tax – but experts in the field say that the number is probably much higher.

“It’s hard to estimate how many nannies are working, because the vast majority are paid off the books,” said Michelle LaRowe Conover of the International Nanny Association, the umbrella organization for in-home child care.

Money quote: “I might be a porn star, but at least i haven’t done anything illegal.”

At least she’s honest about doing it for the money.

Via Brendan.

Following up to this post, the Newark, Del., Hooters got a license on condition that there be no “Bike Nights” and no “Lingerie Nights.”

Now, where are all those middle-aged men with the Harleys and the fake pony tails going to go?

Aside: I once saw “lingerie” defined as something you think you can see through, but you can’t.

I need to change out the float valve in one of the toilets and clean the trap on the laundry sink. And it’s the funkiest trap I have ever seen.

And Chris is too far away for me to beg for a free plumbing job. Not that Karen would let him do it for free.

In the meantime, siphon, baby.

I’m watching Psych, which I really enjoy. It’s plotted in a most disjointed manner, but has a nice sense of humor.

Our heroes are chasing down a steam train as if it were a regularly scheduled mainline train. I know it was a steam train. The shot of the passing engine showed a triple-cylinder compound drive.

In a quarter of a century of working for the railroad, I never saw a steam train in scheduled mainline service. Or branch line service. Or siding service.

Diesel. Diesel-electric. Electric. No steam.

Furrfu.

The scientific method of disposing of a request to legitimize idiocy, that is. (Via CC.)

By the way, while we are on the subject, I got a kick out of this interview. From the website:

This month marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. We discuss the facts supporting Darwinian evolution by natural selection with JERRY COYNE, Professor of University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. His new book is “Why Evolution Is True.”

Follow the link to the website and search for February 13, 2009, or listen here (MP3).

Jerry Coyne was a year ahead of me at college; I knew him slightly. He probably wouldn’t remember me from Adam. If I remember correctly, he graduated with a 3.0 GPA in a college that used a three-point system (a “D” was no points). No easy feat anywhere, certainly not at my school.

He was brilliant and funny then.

He’s brilliant and funny and published now.

It must have been one of Britain’s most passionate places but now the rule in Warrington Bank Quay’s station is: “No kissing, we’re British.”

No-kissing signs were put up at the station’s taxi and drop-off zone designated for rail travellers, as outbreaks of passion appeared to threaten the punctuality of traffic at the station operated by – yes – Virgin Rail.

NPR points out that the railroad owns a parking garage near the station which is ideal for extended smooching (ka-ching!).

So I was in a local Rite Aid yesterday looking for some loose-leaf CD sleeves (the kind that go into a three-ring binder; ended up having to go to Staples). I grabbed a soda (that’s a pop west of the Appalachians) and was waiting behind a lady at the checkout when I noticed this rag.

Read more »

Dick Polman decodes an old back-up tape from when the internet was Western Union.

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and catching an infant, she will unhesitatingly choose to catch the infant, without even considering whether there’s a man on first base.

From Click and Clack.

A new opera in the works. Probably get at least a “D”:

This week, Turnage announced that the search is over: with the librettist Richard Thomas, he is musicalising the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith, the glamour model who became a tabloid diva through marriage to a tycoon 63 years her senior, and her own self-destructive early death.

(Title quotation from here.)

P. Z. Myers, via CC.

From the L. A. Times, an advertisement for

Two New Foreclosed Home Auction Events

(Follow the link above to bid. Yeah. Right.)

Here’s the details:

Location: Phoenix AZ 85048
Details: 3 bed / 2 bath; SFR
List Price: $234,900
Starting Bid: $70,470

Location: Peoria , AZ 85382
Details: 5 bed / 3.5 bath; SFR
List Price: $379,900
Starting Bid: $113,970

I find it interesting that the “starting bids” are about 30% of the “list prices.” Wonder whether they’ll even get their starting bids.

(Aside One: You’d have to pay me as much as an investment banker’s bonus to get me to live in Phoenix. I’ve spent far too much time in Phoenix already. Nice people, but without air conditioning, it would be just another rickety town in a just another Clint Eastwood western.)

(Aside Two: The Los Angeles Times does not abuse the privilege of having my email address. I get about one email from them every three months or so. And they usually give me the blogger’s biggest need: material.)

I’ve never been able to bring myself to read a Jane Austen novel and I’ve never been required to.

Maybe I’ll try this one.

Via Wait! Wait!

This house eats lighters.

Probably just as well.

El Reg:

The Spelling Society probed the prowess of 1,000 British adults and an equal number of stateside guinea pigs. The results revealed that the Yanks were less adept in the spelling department, and could outdo their Blighty-bound cousins only in the matter of “definitely”.

Well, if PECO can call their trash-to-steam plant “trash to cash,” I guess this might be “smash to cash”:

“Green” speed bumps that will generate electricity as cars drive over them are to be introduced on Britain’s roads. The hi-tech “sleeping policemen” will power street lights, traffic lights and road signs in a pilot scheme in London that could be rolled out nationwide.

(snip)

The ramps – which cost between £20,000 and £55,000, depending on size – consist of a series of panels set in a pad virtually flush to the road. As the traffic passes over it, the panels go up and down, setting a cog in motion under the road. This then turns a motor, which produces mechanical energy. A steady stream of traffic passing over the bump can generate 10-36kW of power.

And no “My Girlfriend’s Kitchen” any more. (It also appears that the company has been gobbled up by someone else.)

Closed. Kaput. All gone.

Delaware disappeared from their list of locations.

When I first saw the business and looked it up on the inner tubes, my gut reaction was, “Yeah. Right. People are really going to come to this here storefront and cook a week’s worth of meals and take them home with them for the week.”