Silly Site o' the Day

It's Hallowe'en! Here's a cute skeleton dance animation compilation I found at YouTube:



It's also Datsa's birthday and, if all goes well, finally my blogaround day. Catch you on the flip side!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

I opted for sleeping most of the afternoon instead of doing my blogaround, but hey, at least I got in the cat blogging before it turns Caturday! And not only Caturday but, of course, Hallowe'en, the day we've chosen to celebrate Datsa's birthday. This year he turns 17! But his old bones seem to be in good shape, as he poses on the chair against which I've draped some of my ironing to be done:



While 12½-year-old Amy still works the cute on the ironing board:



Yes, I'll get to that ironing this weekend for sure, give or take a bit of tendonitis, but I really want to do that blogaround first...

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, it turns out the roughest part of the procedure for me wasn't the prep or even the anesthesia, but the procedure itself. Not only was I not knocked out, it didn't even feel like I was sedated. Lots of fun abdominal pain. But it's done now, all being well I don't have to get another colonoscopy for ten years, and I can finally eat again! Naturally, one of the first DVR'ed shows I watched when we got back was this past week's Top Chef, and I was even happier about who got PYKAG'ed. Now we're busy catching up on other unwatched shows we've recorded during the baseball postseason, and I just caught the funniest rapid-fire meta-bit I've seen in many months on the brilliant sitcom Community:

Character 1, ending conversation: Cheers.
Character 2, passing by, misconstruing: M*A*S*H.
Character 3, English: Fawlty Towers, game over, have a nice day.

Okay, you had to "be there." Speaking of meta, do you think anyone will remember and understand this Untergang riff on "Balloon Boy," like, even a month from now?:



Via Xeni at BoingBoing, who's quickly becoming a regular on Rachel Maddow's show.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, I'm home early from work, as tomorrow I'm undergoing a certain procedure that requires me to drink a certain liquid concoction at regular intervals this afternoon and then to be near the "reading room" for much of the evening. Have I used enough euphemisms yet? Alas, Robin is feeling under the weather, but we're confident he'll be right as rain tomorrow, as I need to be accompanied from the hospital and I suddenly realized that I don't have a Backup Buddy. I must do something about that. Hey, you local-to-NYC Pen-Elayne readers, would any of you be my Backup Buddy for things like this in case Rob can't make it in future?

And speaking of the future, I hope I'll be in good enough shape by tomorrow afternoon to do a long-postponed blogaround and close some open bookmarks, and we all gain an hour on Sunday due to the end of Daylight Saving Time (or British Summer Time). Here's a lovely video that Carolyn Ibis found and emailed me reminding all Brits about the upcoming time change:



With any luck, by the time this all happens the Yankees will have won at least one World Series game.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Tony Bourdain's blog, he's trying a new venture: an animated web series called Alternate Universe. I tried to embed the sneak preview video but it doesn't look like the Travel Channel has such a mechanism, which isn't a surprise considering you have to sit through an ad (which you can't pause) before you watch the sneak preview (itself an ad, if you think about it).

Silly Site o' the Day

Via PZ Myers, here's a handy article on all current internet "laws", so that you too can be aware of all internet traditions!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via PZ Myers, from GrrlScientist:



I love the food-related queries!

Silly Site o' the Day

Long, busy and mostly terrific day, as we went to Macy Park for our annual foliage photo shoot (photos all uploaded to Robin's iMac but not yet online) and then to a family gathering celebrating Gene & Bridgette's first anniversary and first visit to New York, as well as some other family birthdays and such (photos uploaded but not yet online). Now I'm trying to stay awake long enough to watch the Yankees game, and so far my heavy eyelids are winning. Oh right, silly site. Here's one from Kevin Drum's employer, the Mother Jones create-your-own climate issue cover.

Silly Site o' the Day

Did you feel a fundamental shift in the Earth's consciousness around about 1974? Well, I've just found the explanation. Via Mark at BoingBoing, it's the 35th anniversary of Hello Kitty, lord help us all.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

We just returned from our evening in Manhattan with my CA-based brother and sister-in-law, and decided to give Amy a treat chasing the new flashlight. But first, a couple still photos:





Now the wild animal emerges:



As you can see - or rather, hear - Datsa doesn't like being left out of things.

One for Mom

My brother Gene and his lovely wife Bridgette are visiting from California, and Robin and I dined with them in The City this evening. Here's a photo for all the relatives:



Bridgette adores New York! Sunday will be their first wedding anniversary, as well as the day the family gets together for our yearly what-the-heck gathering (before Mom flies back to Vegas).

Silly Site o' the Day

The fabulous political-parody team The Yes Men are at it again, and my favorite thing about this site (via BoingBoing) is that, whenever you click through to an actual link, there's a big message at the top banner from the actual U.S. Chamber of Commerce reading "Welcome to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It looks like you've arrived from a hoax version of our site - learn more," with those last two words linking to the CofC's humorless press release response to the parody.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Cory at BoingBoing - DUCK!



More information here.

Silly Site o' the Day

Been awhile since I've passed along funny political videos, so I'll do two days in a row of those. Hey, did you know that, if you're looking for just about any below-the-belt kind of sleazy behavior, there's a rep for that?:



Via Bint Alshamsa. Tomorrow, from the other side of the pond - ducks!

Silly Site o' the Day

Ah, I vaguely remember the days when I had the time to explore point-and-click adventure games like Machinarium (via Sheila Lennon). Here's a cool walk-through, though:



Very steam-punky!

Silly Site o' the Day

Jingle Cats, eat your hearts out!



Via Melissa McEwan.

Silly Site o' the Day

Got a little bit of a lot of things done, but nothing really caught up on, least of all blogs. And I continue to run low on Silly Sites. Here, have a punk rock jacket generator (via Gerard); yes, it's come to that.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, Robin's gone off to the comic con, having shown me how to transfer our many saved programs and movies from our DVR onto a DVD recorder, leaving me alone in the house with the cats and the cooking and ironing to be done and one or another version of A Christmas Carol recording. It's weird being in the house without him, this happens very rarely (most of the time it's me leaving and him staying in), but the sound coming from the TV soothes me and makes me feel as though he hasn't left. And of course, the cats. No steak for them, as in this video:


Via Robyn at Serious Eats. Apologies for the embedded ad, I don't know how to get rid of it.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

The landlord came 'round and fixed our heat today, at least on one side of the house. We're keeping an eye on the kitchen (not a big deal as it generates its own heat when I cook) and, more importantly, the bathroom to see if we need to call him back. Quite a contrast to last weekend, which was nice and sunny, and of which both Robin and the cats took advantage:







Alas, no naps for Robin tomorrow, as he's headed off to the Big Apple Comic Con. As our current financial circumstances can't really justify us both paying the admission fee (I really miss the pre-Wizard-takeover days of, well, last year when we not only got in but got a table for the weekend gratis) he'll be going it alone, as I face an exciting day of cooking and ironing. Probably barefoot (if the heating holds). But definitely not pregnant.

Silly Site o' the Day

I've been so busy I haven't even been thinking about Hallowe'en yet, even though no kids ever visit our house because it's set off from the main street, and I don't really dress up except for themed earrings. But I needed to pass along, via Mark Evanier, this HuffPo cavalcade of the most inappropriate Hallowe'en costumes possible.

Silly Site o' the Day

So sleepy. Maybe I need more exercise.



But I gotta tell Volkswagen, if you have a bum leg you're not going to be climbing piano stairs no matter how cool they are.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Lauren at io9, a very impressive Flickr set of photos featuring Lego Zombies.

Silly Site o' the Day

When I was younger I took in my share of Star Trek Creation conventions, and one of the highlights was always the showing of the blooper reel. It's nice to see the new ST movie keeping up that tradition:



Via Charlie Jane Anders at io9.

Silly Site o' the Day

Another winner from Sarah Haskins, this time on How to Pick up Hot Chicks...



...Not! Seriously, I know the promise of sex sells, but it seems to me that ads also need just a teensy bit of internal logic to be effective. Not to mention, they seem to delight in alienating half their potential audience.

Foliage at Mom's

To tell you the truth, the foliage was nicest along the Garden State Parkway. Not sure why all the leaves are turning an hour and a half south of us and not really here yet, but there you go. Anyway, couldn't take photos as I was zooming along at 65mph, but here are a few I did take. First, the gift we got Mom:



Actually, that's the 5 x 7 triple hinged frame she paid us for. This is the 8 x 10 I found afterwards, so that she could take the smaller one to Vegas and keep the larger one at the Jersey place where it now resides:



We went food shopping, and this is what the parking lot looked like foliage-wise:



A couple more shots from the car:



Every so often, I like blurry photos:



Speaking of blurry, better get to dinner before I get any more exhausted...

Silly Site o' the Day

It is balloon!



Via Mustang Bobby. Photos from Mom's place to come...

Silly Site o' the Day

The wifi connection at my mom's seems to be working fine, but I still can't get the hang of Whack-a-Wingnut (via Crooks and Liars). I get to the point of choosing my implement but it doesn't work. I sense the key may be to position the implement to the right of the holes, but maybe it's just my MacBook's tracking pad...

Silly Site o' the Day

Okay, this one's a weird video. It interacts with your browser, so you have to resize it manually afterward. Via Mike at Left is Right.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Dang, the Yankees game is still going on! I need a break. How about a few photos of Amy being meticulously clean:







Of course, given her litter box avoidance issues, she's not fooling anyone on the hygiene front.

Silly Site o' the Day

Ooh, cool:



Via Mark at BoingBoing.

Silly Site o' the Day

"It's been taken apart, stacked up and labelled!" Today Google commemmorates the anniversary of the first bar code being patented. So here you go, here's a bar code generator for you! Apparently, mine is below:



Via Robin.

First Fall Foliage Photos

Well, for 2009 in any case. As mentioned previously, on Sunday we drove up to Bear Mountain in Rockland County to see if any of the leaves had turned yet. Meh, not as many as we'd hoped. But we still had a nice time.



The day started out very pretty and sunny. They say Bear Mountain got its name because it looks like sleeping bear. Do you see it? I don't.



I don't even think it's obvious in this panorama. Maybe we were looking at the wrong part of the mountain?



Well, there are a couple of bear stautes, at least. They stand in front of the Bear Mountain Inn, closed for renovation until goodness knows when. So, on to some live animals!



Some of the many ducks on Hessian Lake. You can see some trees starting to turn in the background.



Duck!



The very non-famous Hessian Lake Sign.



More lake, yeah yeah yeah.



The famous Robin Riggs standing with his camera by the not-really-famous-at-all Hessian Lake Sign.



The restroom cabin had a window cutout that frames the trees as though they're in a picture.



And though they feel as if they're in a play, they are anyway. Here's the same grove from a closer angle, taken through the window cut-out. On to the pretty foliage!











Does this one look like a sleeping bear? I'm so confused.



Bear Mountain also has an indoor carousel, housed in this structure:



You saw the carousel in a previous post, as I videoed it. But I took a still photo of the mural in the building.



By this point it had clouded up, so we drove back down 202 and 9W. I like Rockland County; have I mentioned how it's my ancestral spawning grounds?

Silly Site o' the Day

See, here's the problem with Silly Sites. On the one hand, I'm running out, so any sites you can send my way (via email) would be appreciated. On the other hand, sometimes I just miss the window of opportunity, as with Kanyelicious, which I saw at PZ Myers' place at least three weeks ago when it was relevant.

Silly Site o' the Day

I don't think I've passed along this video yet:



Via my ex.

First Fall Foliage Footage

So we went to Bear Mountain today, and all we got were a few photos. Their so-called Oktoberfest was a little lacking, and the famed Bear Mountain Inn was closed for renovations, so we pretty much just walked around Hessian Lake and the carousel and snapped some pictures. Not that much more foliage up in the Rockland County mountains than down here in the big bad city. Here are a couple short videos I shot:





Still photos to come. For whatever reason the strolling and the drive exhausted me more than I thought it would.

Silly Site o' the Day

Off to the mountains; foliage photos to follow, if we're lucky. In the meantime, I can't make heads nor tails out of this weird site (via BoingBoing), but maybe you can.

Silly Site o' the Day

A nice, needed, restful day, and tomorrow we hope to travel into Bear Mountain and take in some fall scenery. I must admit, a lot of this desire is fueled by Ken Burns' documentary on national parks; we're up to episode five as I type. So much of it makes me wish we had more people of vision in power these days. But times change. For instance, certain books would have very different titles if written today, muses the author of Your Monkey Called (via Henry at Crooked Timber).

Silly Site o' the Day

I know that talk of Little Women and Werewolves is all the rage these days, but I'm still smiling over the open-source Zombie Bible (via Graeme at io9).

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Robin's turn with the camera today! He took this one of our "kitty bookends" during the day:



It's fairly unusual for Datsa to situate himself on that left pillow, he usually chases Amy away from the one on the right. But apparently she was having none of that today.

Silly Site o' the Day

White rabbits! October is probably my favorite month, at least in terms of the weather. Let's hope some editors at Marvel or DC make it my favorite month in terms of giving Robin some work. Speaking of comic book folk, Marv Wolfman ran this very neat stop-motion "life story" on his blog:



Don't know whether you've noticed, but YouTube now allows use of a specific color at the bottom of its screen, so I chose the color scheme that best matches the blog. It's not a coincidence that Pen-Elayne features autumn colors. Hoping to go up to the mountains this weekend, weather permitting, and take my first fall foliage photos of 2009.