#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!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins by LilGirl and Auntie Erin

It's Talk Like Jane Austen Day!

What an amiable and agreeable thing, to speak like our dear Jane today! 

Since it's so close to Halloween, I thought I'd share a video that mashes up the holiday with Jane's work quite nicely:



The book trailer for the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies prequel, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, was perhaps more fitting, but it's not for the squeamish (I have one foot in that camp), so I'll just link to it here for those more stout of heart.

Check out how you can get free tickets to Haunted Hollow!

I know it's last minute, but if you're interested, Haunted Hollow has free tickets here.

Happy Halloween!

Bwahahahaha!!! }:)

Zombie apocalypse hits Sears!

Sears has embraced its "Zombie Side" with a special website - you can view it in English (if you're shopping for your zombie friends) or Zombian (if you are a zombie). They've even got some helpful videos:



I tend to exercise just like this!




I think I've been on an elevator with this guy...er, zombie




Don't let your zombies get cold!

Sometimes costumes are TOO good

see more Historic LOL

Behold the power of Lord...er, I mean...Lady Vader!

I'm pretty strict about my rule on not putting pics of LilGirl on the Internet, but last night, hubby got by with tweeting this one because she's wearing a mask. It got retweeted by the official Star Wars Twitter account, which was pretty cool. So here's her 15 seconds (if that) of (fairly anonymous) fame:

http://twitter.com/#!/starwars/status/28936718957

Doin' it all for my baby! Doin' it, doin' it...

For your Halloween week viewing pleasure!

Would you give up your ipod to stay out of jail?

Apparently, this guy's got his priorities confused:


see more Failbook

Houston, we have a check-in!

I don't use Foursquare, but I'm always interested in hearing about the more interesting check-ins. This is one badge not too many people will unlock:

You'll be humming it all afternoon

I'm always amazed when people can rewrite lyrics so well (it's a talent I absolutely don't posses).

JoT 1458: Bye bye polycarbonate pie as sung to Don Mclean's American Pie.

So, pumpkin seed oil is really interesting...

This is just craaazy and cool:

"The oil in pumpkin seeds has a very rare quality. In a thin layer, it's green. In deep pools, it is red. Pumpkin seed oil is one of the most dichromatic substances in the world."

io9 has an explanation here.

What did I learn from NaNoWriMo last year?

If you're thinking about trying NaNoWriMo this year, I'm over at Heartland Writers Group today talking about what I learned from NaNo last year.

Friday Fun: Zombies in Plain English...yes, again

I know I post this every October, but I still love watching it, so here we go again:

Want your kid to read? Let them pick their own book!

According to the Kids & Family Reading Report Online Press Kit:

"Nine out of ten children say that they are more likely to finish [a] book they choose themselves."

Um, no offense, but "Duh!"  

Finding a book on your own, whether by chance or through the grapevine, is half the magic of reading books. Amazon counts on this. Teachers and parents tend to forget.

In fact, I've started to realize the more I push a book, the less likely my daughter is to want to read it. Gee, I have no idea where she gets that (I once gave a book report in high school for an assigned book in which I mostly listed the reasons I didn't finish it.)

Report via @gregpincus via @glossaria

Grover takes on Old Spice. Awesome!

You may remember my earlier near-obsession with the Old Spice ad campaign and the subsequent spoofs (like this and this, plus a remix). My friend Cheri LaClaire found one more & posted this video on her blog last night (addressed to me, no less). I love it!



If you're not familiar with the original commercial, you can watch it here.

Want to mutiny against your teachers? Call on Capt. Jack Sparrow!

Cute story! I wonder if Captain Jack would help me start a mutiny at work (not that I need or want to, but, hey, if it'll get ol' Jack to show up...)

Captain Jack Sparrow to the rescue as Johnny Depp arrives at Greenwich school: "When nine-year-old Beatrice Delap wanted to organise a mutiny against her teachers, she knew who to call on. And it took just one letter to enlist the aid of the world's most famous pirate: Captain Jack Sparrow."

Target targets me (and hits the target)

I mentioned to Hubby how disturbing this commercial is (as in, hitting too close to home) because this is how women think when they buy hats, and probably some other items (been there done that).  

Hubby replied that men buying hats think [in his best Hulk voice] "Sun bright. Hat shade."

I find it interesting that most commercials want to get us to think what this woman thinks, while this commercial just shows her thinking it. But then, this latest series of Target ads has been focusing on these odd little moments in life and this kind of fits into that, even though it's a little different form.

The sad thing is, most of the time I buy a hat and then NEVER wear it, because I totally don't wear hats (Don't tell hubby. I just got him to order me a couple hats online. But they're really cute! And they were really really on sale. And if I wear them, I'll have a really great life! Right? Right?)

Penny, you're in my spot

Bill Prady posted this picture via Twitter yesterday. Kaley Cuoco broke her leg recently, but is now back at work on The Big Bang Theory and she got to sit in Sheldon's spot!

If you're not a fan (Gasp! You should be!) and you don't yet understand the significance of Sheldon's spot, watch this.

Sometimes, you shouldn't add "in bed"

We had Chinese food tonight, and all was well until we opened our fortunes and did the usual game where you add "in bed" to the end:

My fortune is a little disturbing with the addendum:

Hubby's is even more so:

Come visit Stonehenge with me!

Isn't this awesome! I was checking out the Seven Continents of Street View in the Google Maps Street View Gallery and I found that you can walk around (virtually, anyway) within Stonehenge! Not as good as really being there, but maybe the next best thing. :)


View Larger Map

I also spent way too much time wandering Pompeii. There are a lot more places to wander if you visit the gallery.

Good Grief! 'Peanuts' Turns 60

And I still read it almost every day...



To celebrate, I think LilGirl and I will sit down and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here's a clip:




Thanks to Jade Walker for the heads up!

Friday Fun: Rowan Atkinson's Invisible Drums

via Epic Win FTW

Check out Google's Yabba-Dabba Doodle

The Flintstones first aired on TV 50 years ago today and Google is celebrating with a cute doodle. 

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.