Tattoo parlors should have copy editors on staff

see more Ugliest Tattoos

via Sarah Wendell

Oh No! Rogue Apostrophe!

I love Twaggies. They take interesting tweets and illustrate them. I especially liked this one they did for a tweet by Steve Martin.

Those rogue apostrophes strike when you least expect them. :)

New tree skirt #huskers

New tree skirt #huskers
Originally uploaded by mdesive

A remnant of fleece I found at Hobby Lobby. This wasn't what I planned to do
with it (not that I really had a plan) but I guess that's what I get for
decorating the tree while the game is on

If the founding fathers had Twitter

I laughed out loud at this one - especially John Hancock using a large font for his email sig:

We Hold These Tweets To Be Self-Evident [COMIC] 

Geek and Gamer Girls [Video]

Possibly slightly NSFW (though no worse than the original by Katy Perry) but I love this song. Besides Seth Green, keep an eye out for Stan Lee and Katee Sackhoff.


Geek and Gamer Girls - Director's Cut - Watch more Funny Videos

via Bonnie Burton

Thinking about ideas

I love Seth Godin's blog. The posts are often short, making them easy to read during a busy day, but they almost always hit me in the gut. He's usually referring to business, but his thoughts often stretch quite easily to writing and the rest of my life. This morning's post was a list of where ideas come from. I've included the ones which spoke most loudly to me here (with my notes in brackets). Click the link for the entire list.

1. Ideas don't come from watching television [I think mostly this is true, although once in awhile, something on TV will send me down the path to an idea]

2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture [This is true for me. I especially like the TED Talks]

3. Ideas often come while reading a book [Boy, do they ever!]

8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner's mind. A little awareness is a good thing [I find when I've started researching a subject I know little-to-nothing about, I'm soon bursting with ideas. Further down the road, when I'm more familiar with the subject, the ideas are fewer, so I have to agree with this one. This might make me tempted to be a dabbler, but I find that you need to keep learning in order to bring those ideas to reality]

9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week ["Spurts" of creativity or activity are when I do my best work]

10. Ideas come from trouble [What's that old saying? "Necessity is the mother of invention" I think creative thinking is best when it solves a problem]

16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we're not trying [The shower! My fountain of ideas :) ]

picture by qisur (Ramunas Geciauskas)

Skype Hits New Usage Record. So glad I could help.

I'm usually an early adopter, but I drug my feet on Skype. The only real reason I hadn't used it was that we didn't have a webcam or working microphone on any computer in the house and I just never got around to addressing that issue. Since our Thanksgiving trip didn't work out, I was pushed into action at last. Sunday night I finally got all the needed equipment together, signed up for a Skype account and made a test call, which worked perfectly the first try. Yay! Now I'm just waiting to actually use it...

Then I came across this story on Mashable today:

Skype Hits New Usage Record:

"With an IPO looming, Skype is touting a major new milestone: 25 million concurrent users. The number was reached on Monday for the first time, and the company says it represents a new all-time high"

Glad I could help. :) On some level, I feel like I've finally joined the 21st century.

photo by gurdonark (Robert Nunnally)

How Missy keeps me company while I work at the computer

How Missy keeps me company while I work at the computer
Originally uploaded by mdesive
Every now and then my posture slips and Missy takes advantage of it :)

How do you do Buffy without Joss???

Warner Bros. Rebooting Buffy; Joss Whedon Has "Mixed Emotions":

"I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER...I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly."

At least he has a little sense of humor about it: 

"This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself."

But, seriously, no Joss Whedon, no Sarah Michelle Gellar? I doubt I'll be seeing this movie. I don't see a link yet at IMDB. Can we hope Warner Brothers is not that far along with the project and could still decide not to do it? I'm crossing my fingers.

Disclaimer: Back in the day, I was a big fan of the original Buffy movie and was horrified the WB was going to make a TV series out of it. I had the same "Get your hands off!" reaction I'm having now. So, I might be surprised in the long run, but I will remain doubtful for now. I don't think they can manage to turn me around twice.

Ever wonder where the explosives come from in video games?

I love the show Dirty Jobs. This is a great spoof:

Dirty Gaming Jobs - Johnny Placement

PC Games - E3 2011 - Half-Life 2

If other directors made The Social Network

I still haven't seen The Social Network (I have to wait for it on video) but this is hilarious:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

via Nathan Bransford

More Social Network Parodies

I want a snuggie! But not just any snuggie...

I think the Snuggie is one of the stupidist inventions ever. Half of it is because of the name. I mean, I have to smirk every time someone says "I want a Snuggie," or "Would you like a Snuggie?" or "Do you have a Snuggie?" or any variation I haven't thought of here. However, tonight I found one I actually do want:

This is just freakin' made of AWESOME!

If someone has taken the hint and wants to give me one for Christmas (hey, my birthday is coming up, too!), or you just want to get one for yourself, Hot Topic seems to have them.

via Meljean Brook

An Ounce of Prevention by Wallace McRae

I was going through some old papers and found a photocopy of this:



I love Google Books! It keeps me from having to keep those old photocopies in some file or box where no one (including me) will ever see them again. I also have a strange love of cowboy poetry that I can't explain.

Arrrrr! It be a pirate doodle!

Yes, it's another Google Doodle, but this one has pirates! The doodle marks Robert Louis Stevenson's 160th birthday today.

Oddly, I've had Treasure Island on my TBR (to be read) list for about 30 years and somehow have still never read it. I think that's what Nathan Bransford would refer to as a gap book:

"We all have our "gap" books, those books that everyone in the world has read and talks about all the time and look we are really meaning to read them but we're all very busy and there are a lot of books to read and no one could possibly be expected to read them all and why do I have to defend myself aha;sldkjf;aj"

 I guess I need to get on that.

Beware the Raffle Snake!

via GoComics

Playing with X-rays

Google has another clever doodle today (it's hard not to post EVERY time they have a special doodle), to celebrate the 115th anniversary of the discovery of x-rays, and GeekDad has an easy way you can "play" with x-rays with your kids:

 "While it’s not so simple to do x-ray activities with your kids at home or in the classroom, there is a related activity tied to an interesting discovery made in 2008: you can actually generate x-rays by simply ripping a piece of clear adhesive tape off a roll. That’s it. Just regular household tape. Of course, you do have to do it in a vacuum. But even if you don’t have a vacuum chamber handy, you can observe a similar effect by taking an ordinary roll of tape (clear or duct tape works well) and ripping it off the roll in a totally blackened room. Give your eyes time to adjust, and you’ll see a flash of blue light — the same kind of emission, except given off in the visible spectrum." via GeekDad

Is there anything duct tape CAN'T do?

Bonus: If you click through the logo's link, it takes you to the search page for X-rays, and the very first image in the smple of image searches is this:

(Unfortunately, the link to the image itself no longer seems to work correctly. D'oh!)

Time Management for Writers #nanowrimo

My friend *lizzie shared this on her blog the other day:

So, there's just one thing you all should say to me during November: "GET BACK IN YOUR ROOM!"

YouTube

Keeping you from embarrassing yourself? There's not an app for that

From Mashable:

Don't Drink and Facebook: New Plugin Mitigates the Fallout: "The deal is simple, download the plugin [for Firefox] and customize the settings for a variety of social media sites — from Facebook to MySpace toTumblr (for the bloggers among us) to e-mail accounts like Gmail or Hotmail....Set your hours of intoxication, and if you try to sign on to one of those sites during those times, you’ll be asked to pass a test."

Okay, great idea, but...

"This plugin doesn’t work on mobile devices, which means that when one is out and about — Android or iPhone in hand — one’s only protection is one’s own common sense. Good luck with that."

So, it only works if you've made it home before you try to update, or if you stayed home to get drunk in the first place. Um...yeah.

photo by Lethargic Avenger

Remember, remember...I almost forgot!

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.

Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!

via Wikipedia

Photo by heatherbuckley 

It's raining (regency) men!

video via Risky Regencies (yes, I've been hanging on to this one for awhile)

NaNoWriMo Angel

I found this calendar with a great quote when I was poking around last week for a calendar to use for NaNoWriMo. I ended up going in my own hacked-together DIY direction to track my progress, but this was too cute not to share.

#NaNoWriMo Day 2: Full of FAIL

Well, I've got a big, fat goose-egg of a wordcount tonight. Plenty of excuses. None worth sharing. 

I WILL do better tomorrow!

Do you know where to vote tomorow?

Okay, NaNo-ers, on your marks, get set...

Go!