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...

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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?

Why don't you Topeka that?

Google has done some awesome April Fools jokes over the years (CADIE, Virgle and hiring for jobs on the moon, for instance), but I don't think they've ever gone as far as changing their name before.

I especially love their usage guidelines:

Why Topeka? Find out here

Find of the Day: Jane Austen's Will

The National Archives of the UK recently joined The Commons on Flickr, and today I came across this gem:

I haven't dug very far through their photostream yet, but I already found both a note written by Jack the Ripper and the only surviving letter written by Katherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife. It's not just documents; there are plenty of photos. But it's certainly the documents that caught my eye.

Writer's Block

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Ten years ago today...

...I married my sweetie!

I love you, Dan!

Back to basics with Big Bird

I've had a very crabby, headache-y day (poor Hubby, poor LilGirl). I finally retreated to my cave...I mean, the office, and eventually I tripped across this video (did you know Sesame Street has a twitter account? Not verified, but still).

I remember having a set of these Sesame Street records when I was little (I still have the one with Rubber Duckie on one side and the Sesame Street Theme on the other). The ABC-DEF-GHI Song was in this set. Watching this video gave me a few minutes of childhood reverie.

Even when you're an adult, you can count on Sesame Street to cheer you up. :)

Friday Fun: The only movie trailer you'll ever need

Bleardy bleardy bleardy* St. Patrick's Day!

*my attempt at spelling Swedish Chef's words

WedPic: Photo"Pommed"

Last Christmas, our Pomeranian tried to imitate a famous squirrel.

"It's not a waste of time. Do it."

Like a lot of other people, I watched the Oscars last night. I was mostly unimpressed by the show, the speeches (mostly meh), the dresses (mostly ugly & some which were fine, but not worn by the right person) and the dancing (what was up with that?). The entire show was a bit of a slog.

However, I was especially struck by a couple of speeches near the end of the night. Sandra Bullock's acceptance speech made me cry - it was so very much the sort speech you'd expect from her, with humor and tears, and I'm very glad she won.

Another speech spoke to my heart and was probably missed or ignored by many, since it wasn't one of the big six. Michael Giacchino received the Oscar for Original Score for his work on Up. His words echoed through my thoughts the rest of the night and still do this morning, and I wanted to share them with you. Unfortunately, I can't find an embeddable version of the video, so if you'd like to watch it, you can watch here. I'll also include his words below:

Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you. [via Oscar.com]

I hope every child can receive this kind of encouragement and support in their life. And it's a good thing for adults to be reminded of, as well, since the world tends to stop telling us creativity is not a waste of time once we're grown.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vlastula/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0