Unlikely Words » this is who i am

This is only exciting for me and my friend Ben

aaron cohen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:22:31 +0000

This is one of my biggest internet sleuthing successes of the last year or so. Get excited for me, because that's the only way any of this will be interesting to you. About 7 years ago or so, Ben started working for the same company I did. We were bursting at the seams, people were jammed everywhere, 2 to a desk, etc. Ben ended up sharing an out of the way table with the printer. I sat around the corner and heard people asking Ben about print jobs all the time. I remembered hearing a This American Life about a guy in an office who sat in the hallway next to the copy machine. He was constantly getting badgered by people about the copier and no one really knew his name. In any case, I started telling Ben about this and figured it'd be no problem to find the show for him to listen. This was around 2005-2006 and the TAL website wasn't what it is now. Search was available, but it was terrible. I couldn't find the show. Anywhere. But I knew it was there. I knew it existed. And so every now and then when I thought about it, I'd try new search terms and variations on the TAL site and Google. Nothing. Ever! UNTIL the other day, I started fresh and happened upon this blog post talking about a very similar story and mentioning This American Life. Success! But wait. Unfortunately, since TAL changes their website every quarter or so, the link was dead. I knew I was close, though, and I persevered, finally finding Episode 241: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes and the mystery was solved. The reason I never could find it is this episode doesn't have a summary of all the stories so regardless of what I put in to search, the words were never there. In any case, I am now triumphant and Ben has heard the story.

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A list of things I read while flying back and forth across the country

aaron cohen — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:44:18 +0000

Last week we from from Boston to LA and then flew back on Wednesday. The long flights gave me a chance to clear a bit out of my Instapaper backlog. I was going to do some sorting, but I though it was also interesting to see what order I read everything. Expect to see some, but not most, of this blogged over the next couple weeks. Especially good articles are starred. Check out the list, you'll find something to read this weekend.

Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles.

Das Racist And Other Friends I Never Made In College | The Awl.

Dynamite the Levees: Amazon’s Triple Threat to Undercut the Consumer Biz | Epicenter | Wired.com.

Amazon's new Kindles.

The Sporting Scene: Baseball’s Wild Night : The New Yorker.

A VC: Minimum Viable Personality.

Rays, Cardinals to Playoffs: Baseball's Unforgettable Night - TIME NewsFeed.

**On Why We're Not Doing A Food Truck : Lonestar Taco.

Kal Penn: It's Time to Ignore the Paralyzing Cynicism and Get Engaged.

The Fraying of a Nation's Decency - NYTimes.com.

The Call of the Feral | HiLobrow.

Dishing - Boston food blog.

Sam Sifton Out As 'New York Times' Restaurant Critic, Named National Editor.

Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, On Americans (Not) Getting By (Again) | TomDispatch.

Very Deep in America by Lorrie Moore | The New York Review of Books.

Culinary school grads claim they were ripped off - Yahoo! News.

As a chain, value comes in simpler, hearty dishes - Food & dining - The Boston Globe.

**Jody Adams Under Construction - Boston Magazine - bostonmagazine.com.

How Whole Foods "Primes" You To Shop | Fast Company.

Eric Schmidt challenges teachers: get with the program — Tech News and Analysis.

Square, the iPhone Credit Card Machine, Goes Mainstream - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic.

Cochinita Pibil at El Centro - Feed.

**How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela | Felix Salmon.

**California and Bust | Business | Vanity Fair.

Bill Simmons' NFL preview has a some relatively bold predictions and a message about the value of togetherness - Grantland.

**Malcolm Gladwell on Bruce Ratner and the Barclays Center - Grantland.

**Coaching a Surgeon: What Makes Top Performers Better? : The New Yorker.

rickwebb's tumblrmajig (Disrupt, Disruption, and the Nobility of the Tech Scene).

**Chuck Klosterman interviews Bill James - Grantland.

**Everybody Loves Our Town – Full Chapter Excerpt | MTV Hive.

Why America Is Addicted to Olive Garden.

Are You Building The Right Product? | TechCrunch.

Q&A: Paul Ford, writer, nerd, father | DADWAGON.

American Drink | The Old Fashioned.

Don’t ignore Tim Cook’s sexuality | Felix Salmon.

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Cindy Brady’s Fluff art

aaron cohen — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:25:16 +0000

Susan Olsen, who you may know as Cindy Brady, from The Brady Bunch, also makes Fluff art. Her work is currently showing at Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square, Somerville. Union Square is the home of this weekend's Fluff Fest. I know all of this because that's me on the Cooking Contest Judge page right under the astronaut and State Representative. No offense, Mr. Astronaut and Ms. State Representative.

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My food stuff

aaron cohen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:34:03 +0000

Our friend Ali made a video of the pop up restaurant we put together in May. It's only a minute and I'm psyched with how it came out.

Also, our summer project Eat at Adrian's got a nice review in the Boston Globe.

Eat at Adrian’s is part of a motel, and the atmosphere is fairly basic, aside from the view of Cape Cod Bay. The food, however, is anything but. The menu incorporates seasonal ingredients and local seafood, including a sampler of fish charcuterie. One evening it features a pot of cod rillettes, fish pate with pickled mustard seeds, smoked salmon, and fuchsia beet-cured scallops. These are accompanied by a variety of pickles (sunchokes!), mustard, and toasts.

Click through for the rest. Yes, we have a drink called the Honey Badger.

In more exciting news, tickets for this year's Ice Cream Showdown are on sale right now.

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What I’ve been doing

aaron cohen — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:49:54 +0000

Unlikely Words posting has been sporadic the last couple months, mostly because other projects have gotten more priority. I've been meaning to post an update on this stuff, and hosting Kottke.org this week seems like a good opportunity. First, other places on the internet you can find me posting most often: Unlikely Words Tumblr, @eatBoston, and @UnlikelyWords.

The biggest project is Eat, a food event and pop up restaurant company. My business partner, Chef Will Gilson, and I have dabbled in a little of everything over the last year or so, but things are going well. We've produced pop up restaurants in the Taza Chocolate Factory on Valentine's Day and the British Consulate among other places. The Bacon and Beer Fest sold out in 2 minutes, and many of our other events sell out in less than a day. Eat at Adrian's is our summer long pop up installation in a restaurant in Truro on Cape Cod. If you're out that way and looking for an amazing meal, stop by. Chris Piascik does almost all of the art for our events and it's excellent every time. Here's me talking about pop ups on Greater Boston. Here are some pictures of our pop up in a hair salon that you NEED to see. And here's an AP story talking about our pop ups. We're having a good time so far, feeding people well, and making them happy though our events and pop ups. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

East Coast Soul is Boston's best young wedding band. My friend, Dave, asked if I wanted to manage them, and how could I say no to managing a wedding band? I couldn't and it's awesome.

I've posted about Pets Are Superheroes before, but not recently. Chris and I had an idea that pet owners see their pets as superheroes and everyone else should have the opportunity, too. We haven't been able to push this too hard lately because Chris is too busy, but I have faith he'll figure out how to get more superheroes out there.

That's about all that's come to fruition lately, but there are always other things bubbling about. If you came over from Kottke, thanks for checking out Unlikely Words.

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What would you take from your burning house?

aaron cohen — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:20:02 +0000

The Burning House is a Tumblr asking people what they'd take out of their burning house.

If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It's a conflict between what's practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question.

The photos of future-rescued items are poignant and haunting in a way, possibly mostly because the early submissions are from photographers and designers... I've definitely spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd take from my burning house, and it's mostly "grab the cat". Of course I don't have a good back up for my computer, so I'd want to grab that, and hell, why not, the hard drives. Looking through 4 pages of The Burning House, there's only one cat, which means people were being artsy instead of serious or they don't have cats.

I actually went through The Burning House experience about 10 years ago (a story which I still really need to put on here because it's awesome). I brought my computer and NOTHING else, not even the charger.

Via Derek and Buzzfeed

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2010 Year In Review

aaron cohen — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:58:13 +0000

Continuing a tradition from 2008 and 2009, here's a look back at 2010 featuring some of my favorite posts on Unlikely Words and other stuff I did. Consider clicking through to see some things you might have missed.

This year, I had the incredible honor of guest editing Kottke.org (TWICE!), and that's about all I've ever wanted to do on the internet. With Scott, I created 815 Sentences About Lost, a project where I got 108 people (some of whom you've heard of), to write a total of 815 sentences about Lost. I made 2 Keep Calm posters: Fried Clam and Curry Prawn and Keep Calm and Fuck You ooo ooo oooo. Here's my offering to the Miracles meme: Fucking Beignets. Chris and I recapped Mad Men all season with original drawings and thoughts. Lastly, I stepped up my food game by producing and promoting some events like, Ice Cream Showdown!, the 2010 Boston Bacon & Beer Festival, and Guacaholics Anonymous. Here's an I Write Like Analysis I did before I Write Like fell off the face of the earth.

Even though it was 2009, I'd be remiss not to mention the Jersey Shore Nickname Generator, which continues to bring in a lot of visitors, and the success of which was a giant surprise. Thank you, Snooki. To celebrate the final season of Lost, I watched Season 5 and transcribed Everything Hurley Said, Everything Sawyer Said, and in my first piece for Esquire.com (WHAT?!), Everything Locke Said. Later in the year, I did Everything Tracy Jordan Said.

I loved this picture of a guy biking upside down, this infographic showing Mars' failure at the Olympics, this picture imagining an after-school brawl between Calvin & Hobbes vs Christopher Robin and Pooh, and this picture of Kermit and Jim Henson.

Remember: Don’t Be Diculous, Kitten Thinks Of Nothing But Murder All Day, and
anything unrelated to elephants is irrelephant.

Someone took the time to calculate Charlie Brown’s Baseball Statistics, while someone else compared Massachusetts voting data to Netflix rental patterns to find that Cities That Voted for Scott Brown Like Paul Blart.

I liked The Pig & The Butcher, a video of Vadim the butcher breaking down a pig. The Red Sox traded for Bill Hall in a salary move more often seen in the NBA. Remember how big curling was at the Olympics or the I Can Walk Like A Penguin commercial from when you were growing up? "No, wait, there's an invisible monkey" was my favorite commercial this year, even though I'm not sure it even aired.

You know who impressed me this year? Surprisingly, Jimmy Fallon. The History of Rap with Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, and the Roots was really well done, as was this trailer for an imagined movie where Boo Boo kills Yogi for the reward money.

The Humpty Dance turned 20, Matthew Wilder's Break My Stride is even older, and my street flooded again.

Peyton Manning’s Interception Quote was great, and so was this Randy Moss Remix, this trailer for the fake Commando: The Musical, and this soccer save.

I liked, and posted, a lot of biking and skateboarding videos this year, this one of bikers jumping into a pond was fun, while this video of a 23 Year Old Guy Learning How To Ride A Bike was exactly what you would expect.

Manute Bol may or may not have had a hand in popularizing the phrase, "My bad", and 3 new new dinosaurs were discovered.

This video of the little kid from Back to the Future III is creepy, as is this death spiral of ants. This dad telling his son he wasn't a single lady was hilarious, and why Saturn has a ring is related. Did you know Mexican Coke might not actually be made with real sugar?

Here's a picture of Bears Riding Horses, an Investigative Look at the Nitrous Mafia (you should check this out), a picture of Danzig carrying kitty litter, a list you don't want to be on, and Bill Simmons’ List of Comedy MVPs Since 1975.

Happy New Year, everyone! What did you like?

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Commando: The Musical

aaron cohen — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:38:59 +0000

My favorite movie growing up was Commando, so this trailer for a musical send up resonated in a number of ways. I want to become rich so I can bankroll Commando: The Musical by Jon and Al Kaplan. I remember every single one of these scenes and I was happy they included Arnie gearing up at the Army Navy store. That was always the best scene. Remember when he was just an actor?

Via TDW

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Fire alarm in the office

aaron cohen — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:08:06 +0000

It's pouring rain out and has been for the last 2 days. The fire alarm went off about an hour and a half ago. We all went out for 20 minutes, got soaked, and then they told us we could go back in, but the alarm "wouldn't reset for 15 more minutes." It went on for another 55 minutes. Jon made a video of office antics so you can get a taste of what it was like. I'm the one with tissue in my ears. It worked.

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Ice Cream Showdown 2010!

aaron cohen — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:16:29 +0000

My latest @eatBoston event is today and tomorrow. Ice Cream Showdown! The best ice cream shops from the Boston area setting up in a parking lot to support deserving local organizations. This year is 2 days in 2 different parts of town. Full info including participants, T Shirts, etc at the link above.

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Guacaholics Anonymous

aaron cohen — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:01:53 +0000

My latest @eatBoston event was this past Wednesday, Guacaholics Anonymous. It was pretty awesome. 8 restaurants, 7 amateur chefs showcasing the best guacamole in the city. There was traditional guacamole, guacamole with fruit, guacamole with bacon, cowboy caviar... If you like guacamole, it was pretty awesome. Additionally, we raised some good money for Community Servings, Share our Strength, and Lovin' Spoonfuls. There still a few tshirts left over If you are a guacamole lover, it goes without saying that you need one of these.

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Boston Globe Article on Anonymous Posters

This Week On Unlikely Words

aaron cohen — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:00:49 +0000

Hope you all enjoyed the Kottke.org guest editing this week. If so, you should subscribe by RSS or email or check out Unlikely Words on Twitter, Tumblr, or on Facebook.
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Hi all. I'll be guest editing Kottke.org this week, so posting might be a light to non-existent over the next couple days.

For all you new visitors, welcome to Unlikely Words! Take a look around, there's plenty of internet here. To get you started, here are a few of my favorite posts: Jason already told you about Everything Don Draper Said, Everything John Locke Said, and the Comprehensive Election Round Up, but you might also want to check out Everything Tracy Jordan Said, Marshmallow Peeps On the Internet – A Study, and the Jersey Shore Nickname Generator. I also write @eatBoston about Boston food, and 815 Sentences About Lost, which is self-explanatory. If you want to get in touch, say hi here.

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Matthew Wilder – Break My Stride

aaron cohen — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:12:43 +0000

It's not clear why this performance isn't more heralded. Break My Stride was the first song I remember thinking of as my favorite song and it was on the radio incessantly when I would be riding in the car with my mom. But this video. Wow. It's from Matthew Wilder's appearance on Solid Gold, which explains the numerous backup dancers. But there's absolutely no explanation for his crazy shirt. Also, the 3 keyboards? WHAT THE HELL DOES HE NEED 3 KEYBOARDISTS FOR? Anyway. Enjoy.

Fun fact, Matthew Wilder was the producer for No Doubt's 1995 hit Tragic Kingdom. I wonder if he's available for interviews. Or if he was in the No Doubt Behind the Music?

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815 Sentences About Lost

aaron cohen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:26:08 +0000

Lost is ending this year and I've stuck with it through the entire series - from the exciting beginning to the rudderless middle and finally the rejuvenated last season and a half. I figured one way to celebrate this would be to take on an overly ambitious project. If you watch Lost, you'll know numbers play a big role. I'm going to find 108 people to write 815 Sentences About Lost.

To help with this project, I got Scott designed a great looking home for the project even designing some custom Lost buttons for use on Tumblr.

If you'd like to submit something please click here (submissions should be 7-8 sentences each and include a 1-2 sentence bio about you).

I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far. You should check it out.

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About the Time I Locked Myself in an Office

aaron cohen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:49:54 +0000

I've learned from the government that if you have to release something embarrassing, you do it as close to the end of the day on Friday as possible. Well, here you go. Mind the cursing. (By the way, I put tape on the lock so it wouldn't happen to anyone else.)

Thanks to Zack for ~~helping me get out~~ documenting the situation.

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2009 Year in Review

aaron cohen — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:12:22 +0000

Last year, I enjoyed putting together a post documenting my favorite posts of the year and thought I'd do so again. For you newer readers, this can function as an Unlikely Words primer. This year's post took a lot longer as I had to go through about 550 posts compared to around 150 last year. What were your favorite posts of the year on Unlikely Words. Let me know in the comments.

2009 was a big year for Unlikely Words. I set a goal at the beginning of the year of increasing daily traffic 5.5 times from where it was during 2008. The year was rounding out well and we were on track to miss the goal by about *this much*. However, thanks to the amazing viral success of the Jersey Shore Nickname Generator daily traffic is set to increase 20 times from where it was in 2008. From a visual perspective, we finally pulled the trigger on a long talked about site redesign. Emdash did a little customization of Derek Punsalan's Grid Focus theme and incorporated 3 logos designed by Unlikely Words favorite, Chris Piascik.

In 2009, I continued tracking plastic bag bans around the world and reviewing, in 3 sentences or less, all of the media (movies and books) I consumed. There's a backlog of about 40 reviews that need to be written and/or posted, and I'm trying to think of a creative way to get these out. There were several posts about Michael Lewis and the movie version of 'Money Ball', and I remain saddened by the lack of a 'Liar's Poker' movie. I post about Michael Lewis so much because people are interested in what he has to say, but he doesn't keep a blog to make it easy to find what he's saying. This applies to Chuck Klosterman, as well.

Sharks made their customary frequent appearances (including this post about a hero shark fighting dog). This spring, I even got an opportunity to interview George Burgess, one of the foremost shark experts in the world. I also had the pleasure of interviewing 2 of my favorite rockers Blake Schwarzenbach of forgetters and Ben Nichols of Lucero, as well as author Davy Rothbart and ‘V’ Creator Kenny Johnson. These conversations were a lot of fun and I hope to interview more folks in 2010 who are equally out of my league. (Though, according to this LinkedIn rejection, everyone is out of my league.)

I, of course, talked a lot about Television this year, including many posts about Mad Men and The Wire. Lost is a show that I don't LOVE, but end up posting a lot about, mostly because the stuff the fans create is so awesome. You all really seemed to enjoy Everything Tracy Jordan Said Seasons 1, 2, and 3 as well as Everything Don Draper Said Seasons 1, 2, and 3. I was shocked to find out Jericho Reruns Get More Viewers Than Mad Men, but the concept of cell phones killing the sitcom makes sense when you think about it. "24" received more words than it deserved, but I had fun liveblogging it, and will probably (oh, crap) do it again this year.

Some projects I was relatively proud of: The Tiger Woods Mistress Generator, a study on the idea of an official state sandiwch, and then writing to every senator and representative for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts asking their opinion on making the Fluffernutter the Official Sandwich of the Commonwealth. I did an Appreciation of Rickey Henderson on the occasion of his induction to the Hall of Fame, conducted an Unscientific Survey of Books People Love Annoyingly and Books People Hate, compiled 208 Facebook Status Messages from the 24 hours of Obama's inauguration, created a 10 part Free Barcelona, Spain Travel Guide, and in Marshmallow Peeps On the Internet, I collected practically every single website of note about Marshmallow Peeps. Plus, I answered What a Zombie Looks For in a Woman.

My favorite vandalism of the year, along with my favorite effort by young people, interview by someone else, cat video, urban wildlife sighting, fan made music video, Mad Menspoof, movie posters, Boston music video, character assassination, single serving site about bad art dedicated to Barack Obama, and picture of Smart cars parked sideways.

This is a fake list of Reasons I Gave When Asked, “Why Are You Growing a Mustache Again?” and a real List of Facebook Usernames I Wish I Had Gotten.

Here are a few cultural events that I reviewed: forgetters at Great Scott, Lucero at The Middle East, Ann Coulter vs Bill Maher Debate, Shepard Fairey at the ICA, Al Gore at the Wang Center, Karl Rove vs James Carville, and blogger day at Taza Chocolate.

Did you know that there's No Apostrophe in “Veterans Day”, You CAN Eat Quinoa during Passover, or anything at all about Patriots’ Day? RCN started a DNS redirect, but here's How to Opt Out, The New York Times killed itself and the bacon meme at the same time, and Allessandra Stanley Had a Bad Day. James Brown Saved Boston, McLean Stabbed Mingus, Buddy Rich Yelled At His Band, and Susan Boyle knocked it out of the park. David went to the dentist, The Roots watched 2 Girls, 1 Cup, ESPN featured the Konami (Contra) Code, Matt Lauer hit a deer, ON HIS BIKE, and the internet cheered the cultural impact of 1984 (the year, not the book).

Michale Jackson had mad pull at one point, but then, a proposed auction of his stuff turned into an allegory of the economy. (Another allegory of the economy? The Snot Boogie Rules.) Media is changing, "Twitter is a media/marketing vehicle disguised as a social network”, I missed how big of a deal Snuggies would be this year (only four million sold as of the end of January).

In June, my little cat dude, Charlie, died and it about crushed me. If you've read this far, you may as well check out that post if you want to read about him. Except for that, 2009 was a great year on Unlikely Words. I hope we have as much fun next year.

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Monday Cat Blogging on Tuesday

aaron cohen — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:56:22 +0000

Feels like a Monday, though. Here's a picture of James in the sink. But also, how many of you put a clip on the end of the toothpaste? Makes toothpasting much easier. Believe.

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I’m Huge in Hungary!

aaron cohen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:02:38 +0000

The Hungarian site Comment.hu linked to Everything Don Draper Said Season 2. Since the write up is in Hungarian, I used Google Translate to figure out what they said. And actually, it's just a more artful way of saying what most other people say about the Everything They Said series.

Click the image below to see what they say about me in Hungary.

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Garden in Your Basement

aaron cohen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:23:46 +0000

Please add following these tips for growing a garden in the basement to the list of things I desperately want to do, but probably never will. Actually, that's a clumsy sentence. Following the tips isn't what I want added to the list, growing a garden in the basement is. I might however, find space to put up a grow light so we can have fresh herbs year round. We'll see.

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Fake Traffic Explained

aaron cohen — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:45:41 +0000

I've written before about "Fake Traffic" and a developed theory called "The Wave Theory of Traffic" and I'm happy once again to write that scientists have used math and science to prove that ‘Phantom’ Traffic Jams exist and they're working to mitigate them.

The MIT team found speed, traffic density and other factors can determine conditions that will lead to a jamiton and how quickly it will spread. Once the jam forms, the researchers say, drivers have no choice but to wait for it to clear. The new model could lead to roads designed with sufficient capacity to keep traffic density below the point at which a jamiton can form.

Via Boing Boing.

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