Silly Site o' the Day

Psyched for Superbowl ads tomorrow? I think England already has us beaten:



I suspect cheekiness like this is part of the reason why we've been watching QI instead of catching up on our DVR'ed Daily Shows and Colbert Reports. Via Robyn at Serious Eats.

Belated Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Ah, the sunbeams were back! Even though it didn't get above freezing outside, the cats were nice and toasty indoors. Datsa scored a cat treat (look at the tüng!) in the dappled living room:



And Amy snuggled in the bedroom:



Life's good when you have kitties...

Silly Site o' the Day

Another tiring day. I'll be happy to see the tail end of this month. Speaking of tails, Friday Cat Blogging will be belated again. We spent the last hour or so watching the Let It Be film on the 40th anniversary of the rooftop concert. Wish I had a ticket to that one!



Ticket generator via Gerard.

Silly Site o' the Day

Long workday, lots of posts I haven't gotten through because Bloglines (which appears to be working better) finally rediscovered Livejournal posts, so nothing more than another Silly Site, I'm afraid. How about a new dose of Sarah Haskins?



She always makes me feel better.

Silly Site o' the Day

That's it, Bloglines has been acting up all day, continually refreshing posts that I've already read (and doing that "+200 posts" thing intermittently). I give up. Here, have some YouTube-style activism from Tim Minchin:



Via KTK at LeanLeft. I'd love to see Mika do this song.

Silly Site o' the Day

You know, it's weird, but a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at my current job is a lot like a fairly good day at my old job. All my tsuris today was of my own making, but I still need to get a better grip on my modulation. And all in all, things could be (and have been) much worse. Why, I could be a pet in uniform (via Cute Overload), for one...

Silly Site o' the Day

Ah, the things I'd do if I had the time and inclination to spiff up my blog! For instance, via Gerard, here's a free template generator...

Silly Site o' the Day

Robin's just finished listening to an 8-hour session A/B Road today, whilst I attempted to spend the day productively online (is that an oxymoron?), trying to split my time in this room between "finishing the internet" (i.e., catching up on blog reading) and in the bedroom getting through another DC comp box (alas, I'm only up to "G") prior to delving into this year's Glyph Awards submissions, which I have to finish reading and judging by mid-February. Looks like I may be going into semi-blog-hibernation again as my priorities keep shifting. Let's face it - I don't have complete online access during weekdays, I don't yet use a smart-phone to check blogs and email and Facebook during my commute, and I'm usually doing other stuff on weekends; something has to give! So while I don't have the blogaround I was hoping to do earlier in the day, I'm finally caught up with my blog-reading and can at least give you your daily Silly Site dose. Via Scoobie Davis, it's the Jack Chick parody The Trance Cracker; enjoy. It does seem though, at least as long as this exhausting winter drags on, I think lengthy blogging will be taking something of a back seat for me in favor of other considerations.

Belated Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Very belated, I'm afraid. But today's a catch-up day, what with the heat finally working well enough to encourage longer, comfortable stints in the computer room sans thermals, and Robin preoccupied with other entertainment (more about which later). So sorry I missed FCB, and even Caturday posting, but at least I took this photo of Amy yesterday whilst I was putting clothes away in the closet:



See, that's her in the corner (apologies to Michael Stipe):



And yes, I've inadvertently "locked" her in there more than once...

Silly Site o' the Day

We've been busy today enjoying a marathon of Quite Interesting episodes (I'd always wondered what happened to Rich Hall, who is actually funny in his appearances on this show), and in one of them host Stephen Fry mentions Jack Handey, a name I've not heard in many years, and never seem to hear enough. So here's some Deep Thoughts for you.

Silly Site o' the Day

Lovely day, got a lot done, too tired to blog at the moment. So I put it to you that Burger King has come out with a meat-scented body spray (at least according to Serious Eats). I put it to you, and I leave it to you. Night.

Silly Site o' the Day

Late day at work, so I'll just pass along a site via Keith that generates supposedly Native Americsn-style names. Mine is apparently She-who-lives-alone, and I'm exceedingly glad that I don't.

Silly Site o' the Day

Very happy with the state of my workload, and with the weather report for the next couple days, and especially what I'm hearing come out of Washington so far. The more visible evidence we see of actual morality in action, the less one has to worry about fake "morality":



Via Dr. Myers at Pharyngula.

Silly Site o' the Day

President Obama. I get all giggly just thinking it. Wonderful watching the inauguration in my office's lobby with a couple dozen coworkers. Great looking out at the driveway and seeing it's been plowed, if not salted. And the apartment heat's been very nice today, and, with the snow finally cleared off the midtown Manhattan sidewalks, dare I hope the weather will climb above the freezing point by week's end? Anyway, I'm currently happy enough to hug a Haminal (via Serious Eats)!

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm afraid I'll be spending this Day of Service serving at my job, but on the other hand there's a TV in the main lobby of our offices so I'm hoping to stroll over about 11:30 or so tomorrow morning to watch the inaugural ceremony. Somehow I doubt President-elect Obama requires the help of this Inauguration Speech Generator (via Gerard)...

Silly Site o' the Day

Another good indoor day when I got a lot done, including finishing one out of the four boxes full of DC comps. I'm now getting through the letter "F" going alphabetically. Wow, I can't believe that death in FINAL CRISIS. The Martian Manhunter was always one of my favorite charac-- what? There's another death coming, in an issue which we haven't gotten yet? I don't think I want to know. Watched the slickly-produced Inaugural Weekend concert this afternoon; great seeing Pete Seeger up there playing the banjo and leading the crowd in all the verses of "This Land Is Your Land" (written by his fellow Almanac Singer, Woody Guthrie). HBO's camera panned briefly onto George Lucas in the audience, which made me recall that I still haven't run this, via Graeme at io9:



And yes, Lucas was unmic'ed.

Silly Site o' the Daty

Best way to spend a very cold day? Inside, under the covers (okay, unconscious) for most of the morning, then ironing and dinner prep in the afternoon and evening. I have no idea if it also keeps away killer circles, but it couldn't hurt.

Silly Site o' the Day

Made it through what I hope will turn out to be the coldest day of the winter, about to go back into the bedroom where the space heater's on (we're dreading the next electric bill), but first, via BoingBoing, here's a slide show of Far Side re-enactments! Because, as Rachel Maddow says about something entirely different, somebody's got to do it.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

So I did some ironing earlier in the week, and decided to replace my old ironing board cover because the covers' thick padding didn't actually wrap around the board, making it much more difficult to actually do the ironing. Then it occurred to me that Amy in particular adored jumping onto the board, mostly (I reasoned) due to the padding, and the cats could probably use a snuggle-place in this cold weather, so I folded the pad and put it beside their cat toys. And sure enough...



Datsa is fighting her for a spot on it now and, since he's a bruiser even without any teeth, he usually wins. But he's also becoming slightly more enamored of the catnip mouse toys I bought him and his sister:



I have to say, in this kind of weather it's very comforting to cuddle kitties, particularly as their lush winter coats have some in. Did I mention that Datsa actually puts his arms around my neck when I hug him? Aww...

Silly Site o' the Day

Brr! Good day at work, I got a lot done and cleaned up, and I didn't have to stand and walk too much so it went a little easier on my poor widdow toe. And I made it across the driveway ice twice, with Robin's help! Not going anywhere this weekend, but still dreading tomorrow. Meantime, I wouldn't mind curling up with a fuzzy little subatomic plushie (via Lis)...

Silly Site o' the Day

Food shopping done! Not going anywhere other than work for the foreseeable, due to the imminent temp drop. Alas, our driveway is still icy as all get-out, and me without ice treads and with a very sore toe (corn? bunion? who knows?). All I want to do in this kind of weather is crawl under the covers. Which I will do shortly, after posting my Obamicon photo:



Obamicon.me care of Sheila Lennon.

Silly Site o' the Day

A well-spent evening: I did my 20 minutes on the bike, washed the dishes, showered, and actually caught up with my email, wherein I discovered that the brilliant mind behind the International Norbert Conspiracy has a new hobby, the Build-A-Lantern project. More at the New York Comic Con in a few weeks, when Vinnie brings his bears to bear!

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, except for the seemingly perpetually-iced driveway and losing an ice tread (I knew I should've bought two pair), I've had a simply bacolicio.us day (via Serious Eats); how about you?

Silly Site o' the Day

Oh yes, oh yes, oh YES, it's Sarah Haskins on Dieting:



By the way, if anyone can think of a fun, fat-friendly alternate suggestion to a company-run "Biggest Loser" contest, I know of an extremely accommodating HR department that's all ears.

Silly Site o' the Day

Once again the weather scuttles my plans. Pushed the optometrist to another day, sometime after we dig out and it's not frigid any more. At least we got some minimal shopping done before the white stuff came down and pretty much froze my brain. Gah. This video, via Will Shetterly, made me feel better:




Not so much silly as kind of inspiring, I guess.

Silly Site o' the Day

Cold! Need coat! No, wait, not that kind of coat (via Gerard)...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Dat is Not the Cat in the Hat:



"What are you DOING?"



"You have GOT to be kidding me."

Silly Site o' the Day

Look, more games I'll never have time to play!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Neil Gaiman, those magnificent bastards at The Office have created an actual, for-sale Princess Unicorn doll (you need to see the holiday episode to fully appreciate the joke, but they're all available on Hulu). The "legend" page is a brilliant parody of the origin copy for countless quasi-meaningless girls' toys. And the audience participation page is seriously weird. Um, in a good way.

In with the New Blogaround

At this point of Epiphany I’ve only gotten through the letter “C” in my quest to catch up on eight months’ worth of DC Comics comp box reading. Goodness knows how or when I’m going to finish the rest of the DCU titles I’ve filed alphabetically, much less the Vertigo and Wildstorm books. Mind you, this is all voluntary, I want to read the stuff. (It’s also in preparation for reading and judging all the Glyph Awards submissions.) I just don’t seem to be able to conjure up the enthusiasm. Same for blog posting. Maybe it’s the winter doldrums. I just want to sleep a lot, y’know? Anyway, let’s see if I can’t get some of these open bookmarks taken care of:

• With the new year comes many changes, so we bid farewell to Andrea Rubenstein, Chris “Lefty” Brown, and Wayne "PSotD" Kessler. All three bloggers get moved to my “Dead Zone” Bloglines folder in the hopes their blogs may someday be resurrected. Elsewhere, Elaine decides to take a mini-hiatus; Devra has moved to Mokshya; Melissa Silverstein has shifted Women & Hollywood to its own domain; Augie has started a photoblog called AugieShoots; and all the wonderful writers who used to be at Blog@Newsarama are back, under the auspices of Comic Book Resources, with the group blog Robot 6. My sidebar has been adjusted accordingly, I hope!

• Left over from the holiday season are Ken Jennings' attempt at an internal chronology for It's A Wonderful Life, Mike Gold's good fight against the X in Christmas, and Thers' plea for no more Rankin/Bass. And Steve Benen echoes many people's can't-stand-it-any-more anticipation about getting that bike of state up and going. And speaking of anticipation, the General has a doozy.

• Hoorah, Bint has made it to another birthday! Over three years of beating the odds; you go, Bint! And JK Parkin brings a welcome update on Carla and Lance Hoffman.

• It’s the time of year when everyone votes on awards. Except for the above-mentioned Glyphs, where all the submissions come to me, I’m disinclined to participate in this yearly ritual, as I have the retention of a fruit fly when it comes to reading for pleasure. I couldn’t even tell you my own favorite blog posts, for instance, much less anyone else’s, so I declined Jon Swift’s gracious request to participate in his annual ritual. But if you like to see what lots of other bloggers consider their key posts of 2008, Jon’s got the summary up now.

• I understand the Weblog Awards are also in full swing. I’m only following them peripherally –- as indicated above, what with my job search and then actual work to concentrate on, 2008 was not my best or most memorable year in terms of blogging –- but I was pleased to hear that the comic XKCD is in the running. Check out this very funny bit about metric conversion tables. Robin still thinks in metric so I had to pass this on to him.

• Your daily dose of Macca-demia: Toby Barlow at HuffPo sings the praises of an incredible simulation (we have the song in question in iTunes now, and it’s okay, but I wouldn’t call Joey Curatolo is a “McCartney soundalike,” his voice just doesn’t have the same power). Also, Cory updates the situation with the “legal” Beatles MP3 archives; and I’m looking forward to diving into Cara’s feminist analysis of Yoko Ono (here’s part 3, which also includes links to previous installments) as soon as I have some, um, leisure time...

• Speaking of unsung women, Heidi follows up with another post about female comic creators, always worth reading. Another woman in comics, Dark Horse editor Rachel Edidin, bemoans the repeated “there are no women in comics” male-led insistence (why aren’t these people immediately directed to Friends of Lulu’s Women Doing Comics list? This ongoing nonsense is exactly why I created it!). Melissa S. brings us a Meryl Streep interview wherein the actress points out once again how women-oriented entertainment (in this case, Mamma Mia!) gets marginalized or ignored by male-led Hollywood even when it rakes in the cash. Echidne wonders why Nathan’s more Famous than his wife, and Melissa McEwan looks at celeb gossip that “disappears” a grieving mother because presumably the famous actress in question isn’t as famous as the grieving father. Truly, if you’re female you can be as accomplished and successful as the men in your field and you still can’t win for losing. Especially when you still have uphill battles against things like boring sexist comedy, as Kate illustrates.

• As if you couldn’t tell by the last paragraph, Amanda confirms that much celeb gossip is political, and why. I too find the “good girl/bad girl” cooked-up dichotomy with Aniston and Jolie to be distasteful, although when the tabloids and public are harsh on a woman because she’s acting like a money-grubbing flake (*cough* Heather Mills *cough*) I’m inclined to believe it’s less a matter of sexism than of flakiness and money grubbing. Your mileage may vary; after all, I will also admit to not seeing much gossipy put-downs of flaky, money-grubbing men, at least since Kato Kaelin...

• Al Franken’s not a flake, but he’s played a few on TV. Autumn at Pam’s place transcribes his memorable “me, Al Franken, Decade” bit on SNL’s Weekend Update so I finally have it in a handy place! I’ve been quoting this incessantly for weeks.

• What Becky said about "lactivists." This is about as popular a stand in some circles as Val D'Orazio's stance against illustrated child porn (see here and here for follow-up posts). While I theoretically support the CBLDF's fight in general, when most of what I see from them amounts to the freedom to exploit the female body, I would imagine it makes it harder for a lot of women to consider themselves fellow travelers.

• What Digby said, about the cult of personality as it pertained to Mr. Andrea Mitchell, and about how the current opposition party is actually the obstructionist one (and was the obstructionist party even when they were in power), and about how eager these same people are to never be called to account for their crimes.

• Is third-hand smoke harmful? Susie is sure of the hazards; Cathie isn’t convinced at all.

• Counting their influences are Val on Bill Mantlo and Lance Mannion on the Three Stooges (I'd never heard of Bonus Marchers before, so this was a nice little gap filled in my history knowledge).

• I can definitely get behind Kevin Drum's blogosphere whines for 2009, particularly the ones about partial feeds since I read almost all blogs via their feeds and can't always click onto the blogs themselves because of various blockages. And yes, I giggled at the end of the list.

• Wow, cool, Hulu has the entire Milk documentary online! Thanks, Davidson/Corrente! And Sheila Lennon reports that all of Andrew Lang's Fairy books are now available online; neat! I think I have 'em all on my bedroom bookcase, but still. Oh, and thanks to Natalie, I spent some time at the Chauvet Cave website; also very cool!

• So why did the folks who made off with Madoff's statue bring it back? Susie has the scoop.

• At last, someone's trying to put together a compendium of all the alternate nicknames Maru Soze has made up for our 43rd President! This silliness is one of the most endearing things about WTF Is It Now?!? for me.

• Until I read Bryan's remembrance, I hadn't realized both Eartha Kitt and Harold Pinter were activists.

• I wish I still had time to write my old ComicMix column at Michael Davis' place, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite new writer over there - Q. Reyes. All four Artistic Warfare columns he's done so far have been outstanding. I also wanted to mention that Tom Gedwillo's Chromium Switch site now features not only every single issue of my old Four-Alarm FIRESIGNals in PDF format (except the earliest one-pagers I did in INSIDE JOKE, which Tom has inspired me to scan this year) but the entire Firezine archives; do register and check it out if you can! In Firesign publication chronology, my FAlaFals were sandwiched in (tasty!) more or less right in between Tom's in-print Chromium Switches and Freditor's Firezines.

A couple photos to end the blogaround. In today's mail was the last of the holiday cards folks have sent us. I'm one of those weird people who prefers the paper things, because I like to decorate our card holder wreath. Here's this year's wreath from two different angles:





Just in time to take 'em all down tomorrow!

Silly Site o' the Day

Just for Robin, as I believe today is the first day of the MacWorld convention thingamajig:


Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

From the Onion News Network, via David McCandless.

Silly Site o' the Day

I know it's so last-year, but are you a budget hero? Misty at Shakesville wants to know, and so do I. And so to bed.

Little Baby Mondegreen

Oh, come on now. A babbling baby doll spewing nonsense words that tons of paranoid paraedolic idjits hear as "Islam is the light?" Really? And nobody's naming her Noora?

Silly Site o' the Day

Blogaround coming later, if I feel like it. Meanwhile, via Rich Watson in email, it's F--- You, Penguin, someone's very funny answer to Cute Overload.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via email, Kate "Cruella" Smurthwaite reminds us to watch her Christmas video before it's too late, which seasonally speaking it almost is:



This piece reminds me of a more relaxed, British version of Sarah Haskins. Hey Kate, Fluffy Jr. says hi!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Datsa has rediscovered his plinth in the computer room, basically a big red pillow we put on top of a couple boxes (one containing all my old INSIDE JOKE issues, which I've resolved to scan and make into PDFs this year) and just under the window in case he wants to look out:



And Amy's rediscovered the wonders of writhing around looking for the light -- which in this case had been coming from the camera itself -- while the Tournament of Roses Parade is on:



Is there anything as insipid as a Rose Parade script? I miss all the Firesign parodies of that...

Silly Site o' the Day

Sorry about the lack of New Year blogaround yesterday, I wound up doing other things - thus, I'm sure, setting the pattern for the year! I'll try to wrap up 2008 this coming weekend. Meanwhile, off to work today, but not before throwing my I-Ching (via Ginger), "out the window!" as Firesign would say. (Last night's Firesign chat was a lot of fun, by the way!) I may as well have defenestrated it, for all the sense it makes to me; it would take way too long to try to interpret it...

Silly Site o' the Day

White rabbits, and happy new year! I tend to have little use for retrospectives and speculation (seriously good album name, by the way), but Eric Gjovaag passes along one from a pop-culture site called Pop Waffle that's well worth checking out:



Yeah, even if you don't get many of the references. The fashion thing, for instance. The only fashion trend I'm seeing now is those really dorky winter hats with tie "flaps." When Rupert Grint wore one in a Harry Potter movie (the first time I remember seeing one) I honestly thought it was part of the "Ron Weasley dresses in poor hand-me-down clothes" bit so often mentioned in Rowling's books, I didn't realize it was supposed to be trendy!