I was reading Atrios this morning, when in the comments section on one thread—I don’t usually read the comments threads, because, well, it’s the same ol’ echo chamber and I have dishes to do, but today I read the comments and boy am I glad I did—someone mentioned Anybirthday.com. For some reason I thought it was one of those lists of famous people’s birthdays, and I’m always interested in who was born on my birthday. So I went there and checked it out.

Oh. My. God.

Everyone’s birthday is on there. Everyone’s. Forget famous people: I’m talking about you and me and that guy over there. Well, I can’t say for sure that mine is, because after paging through several screens of “Diane Patterson” I still hadn’t gotten to mine, but I’m going to assume everyone’s is on there. I looked up several people I know, and their birthdays are sure there, so I’m assuming mine is too.

Everything’s available on us these days. It’s really quite shocking.

Batgirl, a rabid baseball fan, is one of the funniest blogs I’ve come across:

The political climate in classical Greece was largely defined by the struggle for supremacy between two rival city-states輸thens and Sparta. Athens (hereinafter the Minnesota Twins) was renowned for its intellectual and artistic achievements, while Sparta (hereinafter called “Cleveland”) was known for its military might. While Minnesota was pursuing advances in philosophy and astronomy, Cleveland was devoting itself to expanding its power. Minnesota’s citizens thrived under a democracy, while Clevelanders cowered under the rule of tyrannical kings. Minnesota’s youth were encouraged to become thinkers and artisans, while Cleveland’s served only the state. All Minnesota children were cherished and educated with the hope that they might further advance civilization, while all Cleveland babies were examined at birth for physical fitness, and those found inferior were drowned or abandoned in the woods where they were eaten by rabid New York Mets.

You don’t need to be a fan of baseball to enjoy this blog. The Lego re-enactment of a bench-clearing brawl is particularly choice. (Via Ceej.)

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Another favorite blog of mine these days is Cracked Cauldron Spillings, a blog that has done the impossible: it makes me want to visit Oklahoma City. Cracked Cauldron Spillings is the blog of a mother-daughter team, referred to as “Moneybags” and “Manager,” who are in the process of opening their own bakery in Oklahoma City. The descriptions of putting together their business plan, combined with description of their yummy treats, keep me coming back.

Manager and I have been discussing a (working name, but it seems “sticky” – people are already referring to it by this name) “guinea pig hour”, a special day and time each month where we prepare a new item to add to the menu in multiple variations. All the customers in the store get free samples of them along with an evaluation sheet, and they can tell us “too much cinnamon”, “not enough vanilla flavoring”, “needs more yeast”, “too hard”, “too soft” or whatever. We’ll fiddle with the recipe until it’s just right according to the majority of customers, and place it on the menu for the following month – placing a photo of them all (those who want their picture taken, that is) with the product they chose on the menu board.

Several people we’ve surveyed have asked if we’ll sell T-shirts that say “Official Cracked Cauldron Guinea Pig” on them during that time. An artist friend has offered to draw a cracked cauldron with a guinea pig inside it eating bakery goods. Here in Oklahoma, maybe the casualness of this would work?

What’s particularly unusual about this venture is that it’s not just a bakery—it has larger social ambitions in the surrounding community. (You have to read the archives to find out why.) And Moneybags’s committment to buying locally and supporting other merchants turns out to be harder than she expects, but she explains why it’s important.

If you want a blog that definitely tells a story, check this one out.

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Tad Bitter: Tales from a Hollywood Screenwriter is a very entertaining and well-written blog about (what else?) a writer in action in Hollywood. I can’t imagine how someone who’s clearly so busy has time to write so much in a blog, but I’m glad he does. His take on Collateral is right on:

If you池e not familiar with the concept for Collateral, the film is about a hitman (Cruise) who痴 come to Los Angeles for the night to kill a few people and force his cab driver (Foxx) to take him on his rounds. Once Foxx finds out Cruise is a contract killer (he does in the first ten minutes so I知 not giving anything away) we have to assume that Cruise痴 Vincent is ultimately going to kill him since not only has he seen his face, but he also now knows what he does. This of course provides us with the obligatory conflict and tension. At times during the movie, you think or maybe hope that Cruise won稚 kill Foxx when he痴 done with him because Cruise is probably the sloppiest hitman to ever grace the screen. At virtually every stop Cruise allows at least one person to place him at the scene. He also leaves at least a dozen finger prints at every scene and he shoots all his victims in the exact same pattern. So perhaps Cruise doesn稚 care if Foxx has seen his face since everyone else has. Hell, maybe they値l end up taking a singles cruise together when the night is done.

Tad doesn’t make me miss LA very much, though.

Yes! I’m still a nerd! I found How To Catch A Lion hilarious:

The Bolzano-Weierstraﾟ method

Divide the desert by a line running from north to south. The lion is then either in the eastern or in the western part. Let’s assume it is in the eastern part. Divide this part by a line running from east to west. The lion is either in the northern or in the southern part. Let’s assume it is in the northern part. We can continue this process arbitrarily and thereby constructing with each step an increasingly narrow fence around the selected area. The diameter of the chosen partitions converges to zero so that the lion is caged into a fence of arbitrarily small diameter.

(Via Darby, who picked the Schrödinger’s Lion method.)