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Wednesday, August 31, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI agree with The Mary Sue, this is a heck of an ad for this impressionist's act:
Of course, I'm not sure he'd be announcing the voices in his act so it's bound to be slightly less, if you will, impressive than the video. Tuesday, August 30, 2011Silly Site o' the DayWow, more work than I'd anticipated today. Just want to go to sleep, like these people taking naps with stuff on BoingBoing...
Monday, August 29, 2011Silly Site o' the DayA fellow who goes by the monicker tylercap on Reddit (and presumably other places) has done a couple of brilliant and funny bro-speak-ish cooking pictorials, illustrated here and here. Go check them out! But I would recommend copious amounts of "pinky bismoop" afterwards. Via My Food Looks Funny.
Sunday, August 28, 2011Silly Site o' the DayAnd now, something to take all our minds off the now-departed storm Irene: Banana Art! Via My Food Looks Funny.
Apres Le Deluge......a leak in the ceiling, and that's about it. Wind still not dying down, but we've had much worse gusts and the power's still on so far. As I mentioned on my Facebook page, I'm not sorry that I was concerned and that we took the usual precautions, as we've had power out before (and from what Mom tells me the power is out at my brother's house in New Jersey), as it could have been so much worse. Crossing my fingers that we come through the next few hours with no problems.
Saturday, August 27, 2011Good Night, Irene
Last post before the deluge. Apres le deluge, electricity, we hope. Emergency supplies (flashlights, candles, matches, extra batteries, isopropyl alcohol and microfiber cloth for cooling humidity-soaked skin) sitting right behind me, blinds and curtains drawn over windows, bathtub filled with washing-and-flushing water, baggies of now-frozen water in our fridge's freezer bulking out the space... we're about as ready as we can be. My thoughts go out to all in the path of this hurricane. See you tomorrow or whenever electricity is restored.
Silly Site o' the Day
Depending on when our electricity goes out due to the impending hurricane, this may be my last post for awhile. Heaven forbid I make it a good one:
Via Chuck McCann's friend Mark Evanier, of course. Friday, August 26, 2011Silly Site o' the DaySo I'm sorry, I'm freaking out about this hurricane. I don't want another huge log to fall on my car like one did a few years back with a 75mph wind surge. I don't want the electricity to go out, which it almost certainly will, taking with it my beloved desktop and AC and fridge and cable and smartphone chargers. And now I've worried myself into such a tizzy it's affected me physically. I'm going to go lie down; you can amuse yourself with this extremely clever Disney-money-fied OK Go Muppet Show video:
Chock full of yummy self-reference! Via everywhere, 'cause it's Just That Good. Thursday, August 25, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI encountered some bad website designs at work today, with lots of jargon, so this site (via DocTech on Firesign chat this evening) amused the heck out of me.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI'm still getting used to the idea that a Twitter hashtag can be used as a silly site, but this must be at least the third one I've linked to. April and the Regretsy gang have started musing about Why Etsy Is Down. Lots of in-jokes, but then Etsy itself is kind of inside baseball for those who don't peruse it.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011Silly Site o' the DayMonday, August 22, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI've recently entered the time-sucking vortex known as Facebook games, at which I suck (except for the word games), and therefore Matthew Inman's What it's like to play online games as a grownup brought a smile to my face. Now, back to Gardens of Time, if I can ever figure out how it works without paying any actual money to advance the game.
Sunday, August 21, 2011Silly Site o' the DayNeed some filler dummy text but are getting tired of the ol' "Lorem Ipsum"? Try Hipster Ipsum. "Synth biodiesel tofu lo-fi cliche squid," indeed! Via Gerard.
Saturday, August 20, 2011Silly Site o' the DayWe're headed out to visit Mom in the Land of Dial-Up later this morning, so no more posting today, not that anyone would notice because I'm no longer sure anyone reads this blog any more besides me and a few friends and relations. Ah well, it's what I get for not posting more often, having a life, playing Words With Friends when I have no life, etc. But enough about me, let's travel back to the 1960s, or was it the 1940s? Some Etsy seller was confused so April Winchell thought she'd take that ball and run with it. Thanks to Regretsy's clever viewers, these 40s-or-was-it-60s war propoganda posters are the hilarious result. At least for those of us born before 1980 who actually know the difference between the two eras! This was one of my favorites:
But then it would be. Friday, August 19, 2011Silly Site o' the DayJust curious, does this chart work both ways gender-wise?:
The post would seem to indicate that it does. Via The Awl. Friday Cat Blogging*Wow, some storm that just passed. Amy was under the bed for much of it. But then I came into the bedroom, followed by Datsa, and I guess Amy then considered the area safe so she settled on the bed as well.
They would very much like to see the CarFax, apparently. *(Friday Cat Blogging is ™ Kevin Drum) Thursday, August 18, 2011Silly Site o' the DayThis one goes out to Doc Tech from Firesign chat, nicely recuperating from recent surgery and looking to stave off boredom: The Movie Math Quiz, via The Mary Sue. Speedy recovery, Doc!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI've been playing Words With Friends a lot on Facebook, as it's easier to manipulate and see the board and such on a nice big desktop monitor. But you know, there are all these hidden factors when you deal with something like Facebook. Now, thanks to Slackory, you can read the entire Facebook terms of service in bro-speak English, as it was probably meant to be read. Via those crazy kids at The Awl.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011Monday, August 15, 2011Sunday, August 14, 2011Silly Site o' the DaySo you're in the Burbank area, tooling around Disney and Warners animation and so forth, and you decide to make a little spoof film about The Greatest Thing On Teh Interwebs. Here's the result:
Apologies for any ads beforehand, apparently Pixels Per Second is quite the professional outlet and it is, of course, Hollywood. Via Robin, but I also saw it on The Mary Sue. Saturday, August 13, 2011Dog Day BlogaroundOne reason I don't do blogarounds more often is because I keep thinking "I need to finish reading all my unread items before I comment on them," which is silly because I'm never really done. I mean seriously, I have bookmarked blog posts going back to January, and eight months is way too long to keep links (unless they're Silly Sites but that's a different story). On the other hand, maybe this can serve as a good guideline to essays which readers might wish to nominate for this year's Koufax Awards, if those still exist. So, on with it, more or less chronologically from the beginning of 2011: • I know it was long ago and far away but Amanda Marcotte's musings about people who believe appearances are everything, and why they go for the gold, and wingnut urban legends, are still relevant. • And I still like what the Rude Pundit had to say about the bowdlerization of Huck Finn, all these months later. • And how Heidi MacDonald celebrated International Women's Day, and how (via The Mary Sue) NASA celebrated Women's History Month. • With all the post-San Diego Comic Con hoopla about diversifying comics more in terms of creating stories and characters to appeal to demographics outside the current narrow post-adolescent-white-male-superhero-loving one (which I have nothing against, I've married two of those!), it's always worth looking back to see how we got into this mess. Vinnie Bartilucci posted a good summary. Hard to plan for where you're going if you don't have a clear idea where you've been and why. Also highly recommended: When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege (via Ladies Making Comics); and Women in Comics by Heidi MacDonald (with a follow-up at, where else, Ladies Making Comics). • I love this examination of trochees from Randall Munro:  It's my theory that just about any two or three trochees put together would make a good idea for a comic, or at least for a limited-edition poster at Robin's table at this year's New York Comic Con. • For those friends of yours wondering what was so bad about "Saint Ronnie," over at Jill's place Mike Flannigan has a pretty comprehensive list. It's worth remembering, as I've often said, that Reagan's election and Lennon's assassination were the two markers of the beginning of the end for this country; the downward spiral we're still on didn't start in 2008, but has been going on for 30+ years, just as the current problems in England didn't start with the recent austerity measures but have been handed down from the days of Thatcher). (Michael Moore pinpoints the turning point as the day that Reagan fired the air traffic controllers.) A bit more recently, Jill has another great "rant" about how we got to where we are now. Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to, well, become Tea Partiers, I suppose. • Bully grits his teeth in the winter, tools about London in the spring, and picks on the Partridge Family . Careful, little bull, that's my teen obsession you're mocking there. (Speaking of which, I had no idea I would feel any sort of nostalgia whatsoever for The Impossibles until this essay by Vinnie.) • Speaking of obsessions, my favorite current one is Words with Friends. I agree totally with Reeves Wiedeman at The Awl when he talks about words you can play in that game that I could never have gotten away with playing old-fashioned Scrabble. By the way, ignore the byline wherein Wiedeman claims he "welcomes all honorable competitors" - he rejected my invite to play a game. Fortunately, now that Words with Friends is on Facebook (yeah, that's my home page, what of it?), I have plenty of opponents! • Wow, I never knew April "Regretsy" Winchell used to write for Roseanne! Here she tells a great story also featuring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. • The Mary Sue looks at "dumb men" commercials, a terrific example of how Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and how advertisers like to make women feel needed only when traditional gender roles are rigidly enforced. Also, something I've long believed, Joss Whedon is feminist up to a point. • Roger Ebert travels through time and space. • Check out this chart that Kevin Drum found:  Perception is everything! Most of us are in quite a different income level relative to where we think we are, which is why, while objectively the numbers prove the middle class is disappearing, subjectively most people still consider themselves middle class. • Money matters, of course. Particularly in the freelance field. The recent well-quoted Google+ article by Meredith Gran about the need for comics publishers and readers to pay female freelancers for their efforts put me in mind of this post from Mark Evanier about the importance of getting paid and not undervaluing yourself. • And now we're up to May, and Jill's observation that the late Osama bin Laden achieved pretty much everything he set out to do in terms of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy." The bastard should never have been allowed that kind of legacy, and had common sense secularists won the day he wouldn't have been. Kids, this is your government on religious fanaticism. Meanwhile, Ted Rall was less than thrilled with the way things went down to begin with. • Ted also sounded a fairly early clarion regarding President Obama being Not That Into his base, and Melissa opines he's just Not the Right Guy for these particular times. • Ooh, I'd forgotten this nifty essay by Heidi rounding up internet reaction to the question of whether "hot" women can be nerds. If "hot" guys can, then why not "hot" gals? Now I've never been "hot" so I wouldn't know for sure, but to me being nerdy has always felt like a consolation prize for the less pretty and popular. They get adulation and social acceptance, we get to play nifty games and read cool stuff. It reminds me a bit of what used to happen way back when in the days when a comic book was turned into a movie and suddenly non-fans came into a shop and fans reacted like "their" world was being usurped by outsiders. Or, you know, like Twilight fans at the San Diego Comic Con. Speaking of which, here's Heidi's eyewitness account of the infamous DiDio "hire more women" panel at this year's con; and some good observations about whether comics not geared towards, or featuring, white males can actually sell. • I love Mark's theory about why the birther movement seemed to peter out so quickly once Obama produced his long-form certificate. • Michelle Dean's review of Bridesmaids at The Awl was food for lots of thought - essentially, she says the movie was kind of a Hollywood-ized idea of radical and feminist. • Until Lance Mannion's essay about ladies' men, I never realized the whole picking-up-chicks thing was actually not about trying to attract women, but about male bonding. Wow, that was a real "click" moment for me. Thanks Lance! • I was shocked when I heard the news via Jill that Gary Carter (on whom I had quite the crush back in the day) had inoperable brain cancer, but I'm heartened by last week's news of the tumors having shrunk by 80%. • Amanda loves her some smartphone. I do too. I've owned a smartphone for only nine months now, and already I can't imagine my life without one. Heck, my life is ON that little hand-held computer - everything from my to-do and shopping lists to my medical info to blog-reading to retrieving anything I need to know immediately when I'm away from my desktop. I love Amanda's list of how smartphones have changed our society! Along the same lines, Amanda talks about how our brains' memory storage is changing with the advent of the 'net. • Martha Thomases makes some great points about how nobody ought to have been surprised or shocked over Anthony Weiner's fairly human behavior. • Roger Ebert takes a look at Rupert Murdoch, with a great deal of personal satisfaction; and the unseemly nature of political prayer pep rallies. • Hear hear, Susie: "whenever voters understand what Republicans really want, they reject it." • Amanda resents culture snob hacks who hate stuff simply because it's trendy. Me too! • Via Melissa, a terrific essay by Sady Doyle about reading the Hermoine Granger series in my preferred alternate universe. • Ken Jennings asks the musical question, Why are game show champions better with their money than lottery winners? • Kath David has a great list of Things I Have Learned. Someday I'll make my own list; I might even put it on my smartphone! Lastly, I'm sorry to report that, as upyernoz notes, the Liberal Coalition, to all intents and purposes, has gone by the wayside. It doesn't surprise me, in this era where newer forms of social networking are replacing older forms, it seems, every few years or so. Who even reads blogs any more? I mean, besides me. And you, bless you all. Have I mentioned that in a few weeks, on September 7, Pen-Elayne will be marking our NINTH blogiversary? I may not post stuff besides Silly Sites and photos all that often, but when I do write I still enjoy the heck out of it. So I'll be rejiggering parts of my sidebar soon, breaking up the Lib Coalition into its component parts, putting individual bloggers among the men and women who still link to me, and maybe doing a bit more cleanup in the process. But hey, it took me eight months to finally get to this blogaround, so no promises! Silly Site o' the DayBelieve it or not, I've been working on, as it turns out, my first blogaround of 2011. Yep, I found saved posts going back to January! With any luck, it'll be posted shortly. Meanwhile, I'm sure I saved BoingBoing's boring magazine design contest in the wrong category, I believe it should be a Silly Site rather than a blogaround post, so that's one more down!
Friday, August 12, 2011Friday Cat Blogging*Yeah, I remember how to cat blog. I just don't blog, period, all that often. Here you go.
All things being well, I do hope to have a blogaround this weekend, but we'll see. *(Friday Cat Blogging is ™ Kevin Drum) Thursday, August 11, 2011Silly Site o' the DayHey, time to get into the Back to School mood by playing some Evolutionary Psychology Bingo!
Via Digby. Wednesday, August 10, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI have to stop getting home so late and not being able to eat dinner until at least 9. It's getting so even this (via My Food Looks Funny) is starting to look good to me.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011Silly Site o' the DayVia BoingBoing, another meme is born, this one from an upper-class twit's rantings about the internet.
Monday, August 08, 2011Silly Site o' the DayYeah, I'm back-dating this because I forgot to actually post on Monday. Or maybe Pen-Elayne was hacked. I mean, if it can happen to the New York Times (via Mark Evanier) it can happen to anyone, right?
Sunday, August 07, 2011Silly Site o' the DayTwo great hates that go great together - the E-Trade baby and our sucky economy:
Via Man Are We Screwed... and we probably are. Saturday, August 06, 2011Silly Site o' the DayI shot half the day at the auto shop with preventive maintenance and my annual inspection, so I didn't feel like doing too much else today. Not even reading. Although it was the kind of day I wouldn't have minded skimming through bad SF and fantasy book covers (via Arthur)...
Friday, August 05, 2011Silly Site o' the DayQuick, those of you with an interest in Twitter, Stephen Colbert has taken over MLB's Twitter feed today! My favorite tweet so far: "SCORE FINAL from my fantasy baseball league: Shape Shifting Faeries 6, Enchanted Dragons 4." Now I'm off to watch the Yankees/Red Sox game.
Thursday, August 04, 2011Silly Site o' the DayAfter work today a bunch of us went bowling. I'd forgotten how much I sucked at bowling. But hey, the food was good. Even so, looking at all of this (via Arthur) for some reason I'm still hungry.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011Silly Site o' the DayHave I mentioned lately how much I love my smartphone, and adore the low monthly cost for my unlimited data plan? Of course, it doesn't hold that many apps, so I'm not even going to explore this one:
I mean really, virtual drugs? What's the point? Via BoingBoing. Tuesday, August 02, 2011Silly Site o' the DayStill keeping up with as balanced a diet as I can make it, following the new government food chart:
 Wait, that is the chart, isn't it? Did I err? (Via BoingBoing.) Monday, August 01, 2011Silly Site o' the DayWhite Rabbits! Today we had our company picnic in 90-degree weather, and while I had a good deal of fun I think I also got a bit dehydrated (despite almost constant water-bottle emptying). The food was terrific, pretty much every kind of picnic food one can think of. Even pasta:
 Different Types of Pasta via My Food Looks Funny.
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