bampot /BAM-pot/. noun. An idiot; a fool; an obnoxious person. Scottish slang of unknown origin, probably related to Northern English barmpot (a container for storing yeast) and barm (the froth on fermenting malt liquor; the head of a beer) both also used as slang with the same meaning and from which we also get barmy, slang for being mentally unsound.
[Read more…]Links: March 10, 2019
- Ranging in size from a few millimeters (really) to a few inches, New York City’s Grolier Club is holding an exhibition of more than 950 miniature books. → Behold, the Tiniest of Books
- Have fun playing with this computeiful inventorface of portmanteaus and rhymes! → Portmanteau & Rhyme Generator
- This thread about a strangely browsable, occasionally accidentally beautiful compendium. → Helen Rosner: There’s this incredible book…. ※ You can dip into it yourself on Project Gutenberg: Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser
- As Reader B. puts it, “The concept here is amazing, but I also love the phrases: transient anus, warty comb jelly.” → Animal with an anus that comes and goes could reveal how ours evolved
- Recently discovered: a book of “literary confessions” with amusing, witty, occasionally cutting handwritten contributions from Virginia Woolf, Virginia West, Hilaire Belloc and others. → Really and Truly: A Book of Literary Confessions (Thanks, Reader C.)
- This link is everywhere, but for good reason. I find it mesmerizing. → This Person Does Not Exist ※ Pairs with, because…tasty, ironic, weirdness: Man angry his photo was used to prove all hipsters look alike — then learns it wasn’t him, which is based on this research: The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same
- A revealing con that didn’t take nearly long enough! → I Made My Shed the Top-Rated Restaurant on TripAdvisor
- Loving the pictures of Cal Cullen’s typewriter art installation in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center in this article… → Typewriter repair at the museum. ※ While I’m talking typewriters: if you are in or near enough to Rockford, Illinois on March 29-30, consider checking out the Paper Fingers: Mechanical Typewriting in the Digital Age event.
- “Don’t worry, the colleague you’ve never met isn’t trying to kiss you over email.” → ‘XX’? But I Hardly Know Her! ※ Related: How “XOXO” Came to Mean “Hugs and Kisses”
- Today is Mario Day (celebrated on MAR 10 because, written that way, the date resembles MARIO), celebrating the iconic mustachioed Nintendo video game franchise character who debuted as the jumping man in the 1981 Donkey Kong game. Mario Mario (yes, his last name is also Mario, at least according to the IMDB; he was named after Mario Segale, Nintendo America’s landlord, who burst into a development meeting demanding overdue rent) is a busy guy, appearing in more than 200 games, multiple film and TV shows, the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, and soon amusement parks in Japan and the United States. And that signature hat-and-mustache look? Turns out they were pragmatic choices: the artist found hair difficult to draw and the mustache was easier to see than a mouth, particularly on the low-resolution screens at the time. If all this is too newfangled for you, today is also International Bagpipe Day.
Becoming, a film by Jan van IJken
► Witness a single cell grow into a salamander, from fertilization to hatching, in this short time-lapse film by Jan van IJken
Compasses Mejor Conjunto Festival San Martin de los Llanos 2013
I had no idea the maraca could be played like a boss. → ► Compasses Mejor Conjunto Festival San Martin de los Llanos 2013