Why was I banned? #bannedbooksweek

By poesygalore | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Check out more about Banned Books Week.

Happy National Punctuation Day!

Today is the 7th Annual National Punctuation Day - check out the official site.

The Savage Chickens are celebrating with a new cartoon
(once you're there, scroll down to see their earlier punctuation-related cartoons).

And check out "another" of my "favorite" funny "sites" - The "Blog" of "Uneccessary" Quotation Marks

Friday Fun: Social Network parodies

The Social Network comes out next week. I listened to the audiobook of The Accidental Billionaires (the book the movie is based on), and I have to admit although the book was interesting, I'm not sure how compelling a movie it can be. I fear endless montages of dramatic typing, but I've heard good things so far. I'm sure I'll see the movie, I'm just not sure whether I'll shell out the money for the theater or wait for it on video.

As soon as a full-length trailer came out earlier this summer, parodies started cropping up, recounting the "histories" of other social media companies.

First, the official trailer for The Social Network:




And now, the parodies. Trust me, they're worth sitting through. :)

Twitter...



YouTube...



...and MySpace

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip


Are you planning to see The Social Network? Would you rather see any of these other movies instead (or as well)?

A good tip. Make note of it:

Do Not Post Pictures of Strippers on the Hood of Your Cop Car on Facebook: "It's a tale as old as time whenever Facebook was invented. Officials from the Moncks Corner, South Carolina police department won't release the name of their boundary-deficient police officer, but offer that he is an officer no longer." (via Gawker)

Whoops.

There's that saying "To err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer." These days, as long as you have a camera phone, you can even skip the computer.

via TWiL on FriendFeed

Watch the full moon rise as the sun sets tonight!

According to Gizmodo, we're in for an awesome show at sunset tonight (if it's not too cloudy by then). Our local (Omaha) sunset is at 7:21pm

How to Watch the Super Harvest Moon Twilight Show Today: "Prepare for the Super Harvest Moon! For the first time in two decades, the Sun will sink as the full Moon rises exactly opposite to it on the day the summer ends, creating in a strange 360-degree twilight show." (via Gizmodo)

If you're not in Omaha, and you want to figure out what time the sun will set in your area, you can just go to Google and search "sunset" (without the quotes) and the time of your local sunset will appear above the search results:

History wishes it could really be this rad

see more Historic LOL

Ooooh! Somebody with money go bid for something...anything...for me! :)

Stargate Props Auction – September 25th and 26th: "Ever dreamed of owning your own Stargate or other items from the Stargate SG1 and Atlantis series? Well now is your chance. This upcoming weekend (September 25 – 26) a live auction will be held at the Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington."

Via How-To Geek ETC

Flickr Find: To Infinity and Beyond #starwars

Day 20 - To Infinity and Beyond
Originally uploaded by Mugen Toys

Interesting: Why is Facebook blue?

Big companies spend a lot of money to figure out just the right color scheme for their logos and websites, but Mark Zuckerberg's decision for Facebook's color scheme was simple, according to Darius A Monsef IV at COLOURlovers:

I once asked Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook why he chose blue for his site design... "I'm color blind, it's the only color I can see." ...and now 500 Million people around the world stare at a mostly blue website for hours each week.

The rest of the article is pretty interesting, as well. Check it out: The Most Powerful Colors in the World

via Mashable

So, Is Proofreading Impotent?

I've had this marred for quote a wheel, but just got aground to wretching it this weakened:



via Rachelle Gardner's blog.

I love this from the comments: "He who trusts his spellchecker has a fool for a proofreader."

The joy of bubbles

My friend *lizzie shared this video on her blog. It's so calming! Watch in full-screen if you can.

Friday Fun: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and....wait a minute...

By agan harahap 

Tech in 2014?

I want one of each of these, especially the mirror!

Phone or tablet? You may not need to decide. Awesome!




Even though I have no idea of the likelihood of Sweden winning the World Cup in 2014, I thought the note at the very end was cute.

via Unplggd

Emily Dickinson vs. Death (XKCD Comic)

Love it!

The Carriage:

Here's the original poem, in case you're not familiar with it.

Darn it, I KNEW I should have learned Morse Code!

Beyond Texting : Savage Chickens – Cartoons on Sticky Notes by Doug Savage

Real-life Mario?

see more Hacked IRL - Truth in Sarcasm

It's Deadwood's amazing annual migration of bag chairs!

Oh, it's not? Well then, it must be in anticipation of Sha Na Na playing in Deadwood tonight.

To see what the street looks like right now, check the webcam!

OMGDonuts!

OMGDonuts!
Originally uploaded by mdesive

I have no idea where these came from, but I just had to share

The Secret of My Geekery

TWiT is the biggest part of how I keep up on tech news. Now you know my secret. Okay, so it wasn't such a secret. It's easy to listen to TWiT at work, in the car, on my phone...now if I could just pipe it into the shower... (you only think I'm kidding). Today's LA Times Technology Blog features a profile of TWiT's helmsman Leo Laporte:

Podcaster Leo Laporte, the everywhere man | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Star Wars as old silent film

I love the bits with the Imperial March on the old-timey piano.



via The Daily What, via Chris Brogan

Oooh oooh oooh! [jumping around] New Pirates of the Caribbean teaser!

For your Saturday morning viewing pleasure:

Pee Wee in Sturgis on The Tonight Show

Here's the finished product from the bit Pee Wee was filming in the earlier post:

Continuing my string of vicarious virtual attendance: Sturgis

Pee-wee Herman is ALL OVER Sturgis events this year. I really wish I'd been able to go. Here's Pee-wee leading the Legends Ride:



More about Pee-wee at the rally here.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Inception

I haven't seen Inception yet (I'll probably wait for it on video) but I keep seeing mashups of it with other movies. One of the best I've seen so far is this one (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure has always been one of my favorites).

Felicia Day on TWiT!

If you've read this blog at all, you know I'm a fan of Felicia Day and a big fan of TWiT.tv. This past week was like Christmas because Felicia Day was on not one, but two, TWiT shows!

Friday Fun: Old Spice Guy Remix

My answer to Mike's question: You could have just mashed up your own answer ;)

Wed Pic: Vampires Do Not Sparkle!

A coworker attended a local sci-fi con last weekend and brought back this nifty pin for me:



:-)

I don't know what it's about, but I think I want one

Yes, that's Wil Wheaton with Felicia Day. My view of Wesley Crusher has always been more brotherly than ohh la la, and I think that's why I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around this picture (yes, I realize he's supposed to be Fawkes here, not Wesley, but it doesn't seem to make a difference to my subconscious self). Cover his head and it would be fine - I'd probably buy that book. :) (It's a little like getting on Facebook and coming across a picture of someone you used to babysit when they were a toddler, except now they're all grown up and chugging a beer. You "knew" they grew up but you didn't know (ya know?). It takes some mental adjustment.)

Apparently, the romance cover image plays a part in Season 4 Episode 3 of The Guild, but the episode won't be out until next week, so I have to wait with everyone else who wasn't at Comic-Con to see what this is all about. [pout, pout, pout]

Meanwhile, The Guild has released the music video they premiered at Comic-Con:

I need to get over the Wesley thing by the time the poster comes out because, really, that'd just be geektastic to have on my wall. Maybe I should go watch more of Evil Wil Wheaton on Big Bang Theory to scrub some of Wesley out of my head (after all, EWW is kind of hawt)

Jane Austen's Fight Club - I would sooo watch this movie!

via Mashable and AustenBlog

Friday Fun: Comic-Con 2010!

Trolley signs in Klingon!

Comic-Con is going on right now in San Diego, and that means the world is full of shiny! In other words, no matter what else I'm doing, I'm mentally AFP (Away From Planet).


Here's a cute video from the LA Times with some of the characters wandering the halls of the San Diego Convention Center:

Update: Embedding doesn't seem to be working, so here's the link.

Best Old Spice Spoof. Ever.

I work in a library, so maybe I'm biased, but I think this is pretty darn awesome:




"I'm on a cart." Love it.

Follow-up: AT-AT Day Afternoon

Back in June, I posted AT-AT Day Afternoon. Patrick Boivin has now posted a making-of video. It's pretty cool, even though my first thought was "Gasp! He took it apart?!?"



via Distracted By Star Wars

Wed Pic: Double Rainbow Lightning

My reward after an hour of battening down the hatches this evening, was this shot:

Ninja vs Pirate vs Old Spice Guy...who would win?

The Old Spice Guy is responding to questions from Twitter users:



More of his responses here

California Dorks [awesome geeky Katy Perry spoof]

This is so cute!




via Star Wars Blog

(Yes, this seems to be turning into a link/video blog, but I swear some longer posts are coming - I just seem to be having a very "Oooh, shiny!" summer...er, year)

New lows of geekiness...but I like it

I spent a good chunk of Monday keeping an eye on the streaming video of TWiT.tv's studio revamp as they set up a new lighting grid. Riveting, I know. Yes, I'm kind of pathetic. You can now watch the entire process in the much faster time-lapse version.



If you're not familiar with TWiT (named for This Week in Tech, their original show), they're kind of like CNN For Geeks, complete with live coverage of geeky events. I discovered TWiT just a few months ago, when I had a bout of nostalgia about TechTV and started poking around in Google. I found that TechTV didn't really die, it just changed forms! There was Leo Laporte! There was Patrick Norton! There was John C. Dvorak (gosh, I used to read his PC Magazine column in high school)! And the longer I watch, the more TechTV alums keep showing up. It's geek heaven.

TWiT has a lot of shows, but I think my favorite is This Week in Google - you should check it out.

Maybe I think I need to look into getting one of those things...what do you call them?...you know....oh yeah, a life!

Nah....I'm off to watch TWiT live!

Kids Reenact The American Revolution

Happy Independence Day!



via Mashable

John Cleese rants: Soccer vs Football

It's funny because I don't really care about either sport ;-) (I'm preparing for grumpy comments from Hubby, though)



(via Travelin' Librarian)

Friday Fun: A Lovely Story About Me

A Lovely Story About Me:

One day, long, long ago, there lived a woman who
did not whine, nag or bitch.  
(That would be me...)

But that was a long time ago and it was just that one day. 
The End

(Thanks to sis-in-law who e-mailed this to me)

Embrace the Fail!

I lurve Felicia Day - she's a geeky girl after my own heart. She posted this interview to her blog yesterday. Near the end of the video Felicia gives her younger self (and us) some good advice:



via Felicia's blog

Sure it's cute when it's little, but I've seen how big those things get!

The video's creator, Patrick Boivin, says "When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got... A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker."



via Distracted by Star Wars

The Boy Your Man Could Smell Like

I loved the Old Spice commercial from the Super Bowl and blogged about the making of it here. Hubby recently pointed me toward this spoof:



So adorkable! (and very creative! I love the little clouds that fall down)

Friday Fun: Uh....videos!

Why spelling is important

This commercial made me LOL this morning!

Humor is built on juxtaposition...

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

Found this quite awhile ago, but never got around to posting it:

Wed Pic: My dogs are fired

This rabbit has my dogs figured out. He knows that if he sits still in the shade or a brownish area, my dogs can look straight at him from a few feet away and won't see him. Today, after both dogs looked directly at him and went on their way, he decided to relax and enjoy the day.



"OMG my carrots!" is fighting with "Ooooh, he's so cuuuute!" Those poor carrots...he'll enjoy them...*sigh*

------
UPDATE:

Not five minutes after I posted this, I looked outside and saw this:



Think you're king of the hill, Mr. Rabbit? Oh, it is on!

But, awwww, he's so cuuuute....

Wed Pic: My Poor Peony

I planted this peony two years ago and two weeks later, we had the "not a tornado (yeah, right)" storm. My peony was chopped off about an inch from the ground and I was sure it was dead. Last year, much to my surprise, it grew back but it never got around to blooming. I was so excited when it bloomed last weekend, but then yesterday came.

The largest bloom, Sunday...



...and after yesterday's storm:


Oh, well, I guess we'll see what it does next year, and you know the instant it blooms, I'll be out there with my camera. The top picture is the only good one I got with my cell phone. *sigh*

We've had some interesting BBQ sauce before, but this might win in the "weird" category

We've had some interesting BBQ sauce before, but this might win in the "weird" category
Originally uploaded by mdesive

Friday Fun: But nobody expects the...oh, nevermind

see more Lol Celebs

Yes, it's not much, and at the last minute, but most of my Friday Fun was In Real Life today. It was the first day in months I got to take a day off because I wanted to and not just because life happened. LilGirl and I went to the library, took a walk by a lake, went to the bookstore, then met hubby for lunch and had a super lazy afternoon. It was a goood day :)

The Curse of the Internet, or Ooh, Shiny!

And Mary goes round and round, all night long...

In case you're having #Lost withdrawals

Jimmy Kimmel's got you covered!

Don't Panic - It's Towel Day! #towelday

From Mary's Ramble

I've got my towel today, and so does Quinn Dogga. Do you know where your towel is? You should. 

After all, anyone "who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

If you're wondering, the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is "a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you." So, you wrap your towel around your head, and you're safe!


And if you're still thoroughly confused, you should read, listen to, or watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and check out the sentiment behind Towel Day. Douglas Adams is sorely missed.

This is not your daughter's technology

On the flip side of "rewinding" a DVD, this strip reminds me of my daughter's recent experience with the VCR. I hadn't realized just how long it had been since we'd had one hooked up (probably since before we moved into our house 4+ years ago, and maybe before the apartment before that, so she probably hasn't seen a VCR since she was 4). We were cleaning out boxes one day and she found the videotapes. She wanted to watch some of them, so I hooked up the VCR and left her to it.

After a few minutes, she called me back in.

"It just keeps playing the credits. How do I bring up the menu?"

"There isn't a menu. You need to rewind it."

She looked at me like I'd just told her to walk to the moon. "Re...wind?"

I showed her how to rewind it and told her she'd have to wait a couple minutes for it to get back to the beginning.

Soon, she called me back again. "It won't stop playing the previews. You're sure there isn't a menu?"

"Yes. You just need to fast-forward through the previews."

She raised an eyebrow at this, but turned back to the screen to give it a go.

A few minutes later, she called me back again. "How do I turn on the subtitles?" (We're very big on subtitles in our house, but that's a post for another day.)

"There aren't any subtitles, honey."

She sighed. "Maybe I'll just watch a DVD."

I can just see how it will go when she encounters the Edison Player at her grandparents' house....

(Do you read Unshelved? If you like libraries AT ALL, you should!)

Will Lost give us answers tonight? Sawyer says:

see more Lol Celebs

Congratulations to the lucky man...or Wookie

May 21, 1980 was a Big Day: Not only was Pac-Man unleashed on the world, as Google commemorated today with a logo you can actually play...

...it was also the day The Empire Strikes Back came to theaters. Here's an interesting interview with Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford (unfortunately, it's in two parts to remove the clip in the middle). I find it interesting that Mark Hamill hints about the prequels and there is wink-wink-nudge-nudge talk of who Leia will end up with.





(Via LA Times)

Friday Fun: Laundry, I can't quit you!

SIX MONTHS OF DETERGENT! Wait, what?

Stop flashing me!

 

These are all true (I encourage you to click through to read the others). I especially agree with #7. It's gotten to the point that my eyes are like a heat-seeking missile looking for "Skip Intro."



Maybe it's just the combination of "flash" and the guy's stance, but it seems like he should be wearing a long coat and nothing else, don't you think?

I'm planning to make this face again tonight

see more Lol Celebs

Friday Fun: Brontë Sisters, power up!

I love the Brontësaurus!




Watch at YouTube

Happy Jedi Day!

May the Fourth be with you!

Dance-Dance...Stormtrooper? by ~utenafangirl on deviantART

Wrinkled Ladies [Awesome Beyonce Parody!]

I love this!

I do not "Like!" (with 70% less tin foil hats)

Last week Facebook rolled out its new Open Graph (seen as the new Facebook "Like" button across the web). I'm the Queen of Oversharing on the web (maybe in frequency rather than depth) but I don't feel comfortable with Open Graph.

Last night, I wrote a fairly snarky "Put on your tin foil hats!" kind of post, but this morning I found a post by Valeria Maltoni which says basically what I wanted to but in a much more level-headed way, and she links to most of the sites I was going to. So, here it is: Five Reactions Around the Web on Facebook Announcements

Once you've read through all that, if you want to know how to opt out, Mashable has a step-by-step tutorial. For now, I've opted out. We'll see what the future brings.

Unfortunately, there isn't another social media site quite like Facebook out there. It's allowed me to reconnect with friends and family I haven't seen in years, and that's hard to walk away from. So, I won't be going as far as deleting my account, but I will be keeping a weather eye on Facebook's horizon.

Update: This doesn't mean I won't "like" stuff you post directly on Facebook - that's a horse of a different color. I just won't be using the button on sites outside of Facebook.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/pong/ / CC BY 2.0

Happy Birthday Shakespeare!

If you're a little rusty on Shakespeare's bio, the Reduced Shakespeare Company offers a quick version here:

Friday Fun: The iPad, the $500 pet toy!

For your cat...



...or your dog...



...or, maybe not.

Crescent Earth

This is why I lurve Flickr. This picture was taken by Voyager 1 in 1977, but I don't think I'd ever seen it until NASA Goddard Space Flight Center uploaded it to their Flickr account this week. Just gorgeous!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/ / CC BY 2.0

I knew there was magic smoke, but had no idea about the holy water

I've also left a few solder blobs in my time...okay more than a few...okay it was probably the only thing I ever actually did to a circuit. "A blob here, a blob there...hey, it works now!...sort of."

You really have to sit and absorb this one. Every time I glance at it, I notice something I didn't see before. Enjoy!

via xkcd.com

Beautiful Volcano Pic

I came across this last night and thought it was just gorgeous and a bit reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. If you click through, the photographer explains that this is not Eyjafjallajökull (that's on the right, still dormant when this was taken), but the equally-unpronounceable Fimmvörðuháls. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fridgeirsson/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

via ReadWriteWeb

Wed Pic: Seagull tracks

I don't know why, but I think these little trails are adorable - I love how they sort of make a chain of footprints.

Is your favorite on the Fictional 15?

Every year, Forbes publishes its "Fictional 15," a ranking of the richest characters from fiction. Here's this year's list:

1.  Carlisle Cullen from The Twilight Saga
2.  Scrooge McDuck
3.  Richie Rich
4.  Tony Stark from Iron Man
5.  Jed Clampett from "The Beverly Hillbillies"
6.  Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) from Watchmen
7.  Bruce Wayne (aka Batman)
8.  The Tooth Fairy
9.  Thurston Howell III from "Gilligan's Island"
10.  Sir Topham Hatt from "Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends"
11.  Artemis Fowl from the novels by Eoin Colfer
12.  C. Montgomery Burns from "The Simpsons"
13.  Charles Bass from "Gossip Girl"
14.  Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby
15.  Lucille Bluth from "Arrested Development

Forbes gives more information on each character in their slideshow. 

I have to say I'm surprised by the inclusion of Sir Topham Hatt (does the "Thomas the Tank Engine" show get that specific?) and the Tooth Fairy. I'm glad to see Jay Gatsby holding up (I've had an itch to re-read The Great Gatsby lately). My current fave from the list is Tony Stark.

Friday Fun: Star Wars + Butter = uh, yeah...

see more

8 (and then some) years later, IT IS FINISHED!

I bet it didn't take David McCullough this long to write the darn thing, but I finally finished reading John Adams. Maybe that should be "reading" because I finished the last third by getting the audiobook from the library.

I got the book as a gift for Christmas 2001, and I don't really know why it took so long to work through it. I would pick it up, read a bit, put it down, not get back to it for months. The story was interesting, but it's not like I was hanging on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next. I knew the arc of Adams' life, I was reading for details. And details just weren't enough motivation to keep me reading consistently, I guess. I found very quickly that it was not good bedtime reading, since I would barely get through a page or two and fall asleep, and it's a very heavy book to let fall (this does not imply it was boring - if I can fall asleep reading about a dragon crashing through Gringotts bank, I can fall asleep reading anything).

The book had languished on my TBR pile for about a year before I did the Great Book Purge and cleared away the "I'm really never going to read this" books. Those went into a giant "Donate" pile and John Adams went on the "Keeper" shelf as a "I will get back to it, but I don't want it staring me in the face every day" book. (guilt, guilt, guilt)

Then a couple months ago, I was wandering through the audiobook section in the public library. As soon as I saw John Adams, I snatched it up. I started from the beginning, and 26 discs and almost 2 months later, I FINALLY finished the book yesterday while I was cleaning the house for Easter dinner. It felt a little anti-climactic, but I can now move on to other books completely GUILT-FREE! Yay!

What about you? Have you ever had that one book that you couldn't get through, but also couldn't let go?