Unexpected pre-coital comedyposted by bryanjbusch at 3:52 PM on January 4, 2010 [3 favorites]
"Wow, that's a cool nightstand."
"Actually, it's an 'occasional table'."
"Why do you suppose they call them that?"
"I don't know. I sometimes suspect that, at night while I'm asleep, it becomes an armoire."
"I try to be my own hero. That may sound flippant, but 15 years ago when I was really trying to grasp a direction for my life, a friend wise beyond his years reminded me that no one is perfect, that heroes fall and white knights on horseback are rare. Instead, he said, I should identify those qualities I found heroic and good and valuable in anyone I admired, and cultivate them in myself. "You won't always succeed," he said, "but you'll be better for trying. Losers sit and wish. Heroes try. Be your own hero."I'm sure you will, Brad.
It ends up, though, that most of the admirable qualities I want to have I saw in my father. He was the smartest man I've ever known and understood better than most the difference between education (of which he had little) and knowledge (of which he had much). He was incredibly gregarious, could always find something to talk about -- at length -- with absolutely anyone and in conversation with him, you always felt as though you were the absolute center of his universe right then. Dad had a story about everyone, and I never met anyone who knew him who didn't have five or ten about him.
There's a quote by Mark Twain, something along the lines of "You should endeavor to live your life such that when you die, even the undertaker will be sorry." The procession of cars at my dad's funeral stretched out four miles and, yes, the usually stoic funeral director cried. I should be so lucky. "
-Brad, May 2001
There have been eight years of April Fool japes altogether here in The BradLands. That's a lot of foolery:As I tried to describe him on Twitter: "we shared exactly the same sense of humor, plus he had about seven more."Thanks for fooling around with me for so long!
- 1999: Ethay entireyay itesay asway anslatedtray intoyay Igpay Atinlay orfay ethay ayday.
- 2000: The site heard Avon calling and became The BardLands
- 2001:The DrabLands re-rendered the entire site in monochrome (and this was before I knew about CSS, so that was done all by hand, kids!)
- 2002: What a sell-out I am! For 24 hours, this was The BrandLands
- 2003: A Bunch of groovy changes brought about The BradyLands
- 2004: A bit of fiction for the RSS-reading crowd: More Fool I
- 2005: My (under-)wired website: The BraLands, Must-See Double-D, and The Daily Bra.
Envious, eh? Well, please note that the OED also preserves for posterity my usage of the phrase “Tee-hee!”posted by Tin Man at 12:27 PM on January 6, 2010
*hangs head*
Thanks for bringing this up. Of course, we'll help out with the Brad Graham project.So, there's a long email blabla going on at the moment but it sounds like ibiblio can not only put Brad's stuff there -- and at some point later we'll get in touch with his Mom, make sure this is okay, etc -- and possibly set up something for other similar content further down the road.
To do something bigger has been on my mind for a while and your note helps to get me back on the case. I'm trying to get some time with the University Librarian to talk about the very same idea.
Carolyn Hank is doing her dissertation on preserving faculty blogs as part of scholarly discourse so I'm included her on this note as this work will certainly be part of her ongoing research and service.
I've also included Cal Lee is teaches archiving here at UNC and is particularly interested in digital curation. What you are, I think, proposing is right in line with so many of the born digital archives that he and his students will be working with now and in the future.
I'm not sure where this will go but we def need to pay attention and see what we can all do together.
posted by djacobs at 3:01 PM on January 4, 2010