The Inter-Webs: Not Just For Political Blogging and Porn!

So, via a site that I don't visit nearly often enough (unspeak.net), I found a link to another website called wordle.net where I was able to generate this totally awesome thing called a "Wordle" from the text of my blog:



But you can do it with any text you like. For instance, here's the text of Obama's wonderful speech on race from a few months ago:



And this is from "Hamlet," 'O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!' (Act 2, scene 2, 555-612):



And this is Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:



And those are just the one's I made myself, here's a link to their gallery. I found these gems, like "Santeria" by Sublime:



And "Sweet Child O' Mine" by G-n-R:



And the entire text of "The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy"



And "The Raven":



And, in honor of Billy Joel's performance tonight at Shea (the final music performance ever at Shea - apart from the national anthem at Mets games), and to highlight my friend Broadway Carl having attended the second-to-last show night before last, I give you "We Didn't Start The Fire":



Seriously, go check it out. It's a lot of fun, actually.

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The Intersection of Sports & Politics

While we're on the topic of comparing sports and politics, I love me some good baseball analogies (via Balloon Juice):

Barack Obama has just retired Hillary Clinton in the top half of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the American League Championship Series.

He's the home team, and he's leading 9-7, so he's already won, not just the game, but also the series.

But Clinton is insisting on taking the field to play out the final meaningless frame. It's never been done before in the history of baseball, but Obama, being a gentleman, is obliging.

Strangely, the umpires don't do anything to stop the game from continuing, even though it's completely under their control.

After Clinton finishes her warm up pitches, Obama steps up the plate. Clinton delivers three fastballs, each right over the heart of the plate, but Obama doesn't lift the bat off his shoulder. He strikes out in three pitches (West Virginia), clearly mailing it in in the hopes of avoiding injury.

Clinton, not recognizing the reason for Obama's nonchalant attitude, taunts him mercilessly. "You can't hit my kind of pitches!" she she screams.

Subway Series

I have a very important post about Peak Oil and the end of modern civilization I hope to have up before the end of the day, but in the meantime, as a sort of invocation of the way in which we should be tooling around the countryside in this fair land of ours (in my mind, anyway - to everyone else it's just a baseball game), the two hometown teams are playing each other in the celebrated Subway Series.

The series should have started yesterday, but it got rained out - cold and wet (stupid Climate Change). Today is a glorious, clear-skied day, however. I am not at the games (must work - bills to pay) but I am there in spirit. Neither team is doing so well right now, the Yanks are in the basement of the AL East and the Mets are in the middle of the pack in the NL East. But, it's Santana versus Pettite today. May the best team win.

GO METS!