Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
A collection of quotes that I’ve found interesting at one point or another over the years.
I’ve been reading Something Positive for a while now, since Royce showed it to me, but yesterday’s strip has two of the best quotes I’ve seen from it yet.
If masturbating was supposed to be cute, pink bunnies would do it in meadows and they’d ejaculate rainbows and flower petals.
I’m an artist and mindfucks are my medium.
iTunes: “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 from the album Rattle and Hum (1988, 4:27).
Confidential to T-Mobile: NASA is downloading 36 MB TIFFs from Mars and I only get 2 bars of signal on my cell phone inside my house. Please look into upgrading.
— stevenf, via BoingBoing (who also point out an incredible full-screen Quicktime VR of Mars from the Spirit rover)
iTunes: “Djvd” by Nitzer Ebb from the album Ebbhead (1991, 4:20).
What did we do for endless and disheartening time-sinks before computers? I never lost twenty hours trying to make a fridge work properly, or to make a chair I’d accidentally upgraded turn itself back into something you could sit on.
&mdash Neil Gaiman
After his many years of flying with the USAF and AANG, I’d bet that Dad has heard many of these before, or can at least vouch for their truism…
Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death…I Shall Fear No Evil…For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing.
— sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location Kadena, Japan
You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3.
— Paul F. Crickmore, test pilot
There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky.
— Blue Water Navy truism
When a prang (crash) seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and gently as possible.
— Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII
The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you.
— Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot
A pilot who doesn’t have any fear probably isn’t flying his plane to its maximum.
— Jon McBride, astronaut
If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible.
— Bob Hoover, renowned aerobatic and test pilot
If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down.
— Ernest K. Gann, author & aviator
There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.
— Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970
Now I know what a dog feels like watching TV.
— A DC-9 captain trainee attempting to check out on the ‘glass cockpit’ of an A-320
If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it’s probably a helicopter — and therefore, unsafe.
Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying club.
What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up, the pilot dies.
The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviation are: “Why is it doing that?”, “Where are we?” and “Oh SHIT!”
Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.
Progress in airline flying; now a flight attendant can get a pilot pregnant.
Airspeed, altitude, brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.
A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication.
I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous.
Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!
Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of storing dead batteries.
Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.
When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten.
Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day.
Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.
The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time.
If something hasn’t broken on your helicopter, it’s about to.
You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.
(via the usual suspects)
During a discussion of iTunes music sharing, which allows you to see what other people on your network are listening to, I mentioned that that didn’t do me much good, as I just have my little two-machine network in my apartment. Phil came back with this…
You ought to turn on your G3 and launch iTunes and give it a totally different name and pretend you have a friend.
Ouch. ;)
The consecration of Gene Robison as bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church is an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church’s founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage.
— Paul Emmons, West Chester University
(via Dori Smith)
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
…please exuse my formality- I am drunk and you are a stranger.
— Courtney, who left this in a comment on Kirsten’s blog
Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth’s many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more.
— John Updike
(via Dad)