Confessions of a Chronic Dork

Singing along to: the Pogues, Fairytale of New York

I don't remember where most of these links came from.

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I read Penny Arcade because it frequently makes me laugh even when I don't actually get the esoteric gamer jokes (which is most of the time), but lately it's been in a bit of a slump. Nevertheless, one of their recent comics exactly sums up my feelings about the Hobbit sequel movie that New Line will be releasing...some time. I mean, I just don't get what the movie will be about, other than "making lots o' money." Which, come to think about it, is plot enough for most studios (and many audiences) these days, but still. Tolkien deserves better.

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Somebody made a sand sculpture of Yoda sitting on Darth Vader's lap. Don't you feel a little more fulfilled now?

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I haven't bothered actually reading this article, but I do love all the pictures of deliciously retro Soviet space-race propaganda. They even had moon-landing Christmas cards!

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I'm sure that ice buckets shaped like R2D2 are a dime a dozen, but Han Solo in carbonite ice cube molds? Now those are a treasure.

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io9 has the trailer for Joss Whedon's upcoming show, Dollhouse. It looks cool, and hey, maybe it'll last an entire season before it goes the way of Firefly.

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Also from io9, from forever ago, a silent animated video about the loneliness of space. Take home message: Space is huge, beautiful, and depressing as hell. Excellent! Seriously though: it's a pretty video.

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And at this point, my typos seem to be outnumbering my correctly-spelled words, so I'm going to put away the computer and crack open a good old-fashioned science fiction novel. Currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert, and Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Enjoying both.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Simon & Garfunkel, Old Friends

One of my professors showed us this YouTube video in class the other day, and it was too good not to pass along. Behold, the Bayeux Tapestry, animated:

It starts about halfway through the Tapestry, skipping past the politics straight through to the blood 'n guts. It's pretty awesome, and maybe if I watch it enough times, I'll be inspired to start my paper on the Bayeux Tapestry for my medieval art history class.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Nick Drake, Hazey Jane I

• Today's Hijinks Ensue speaks to my heart. To say that I am excited about the beginning of Battlestar Galactica, Season Four tonight would be an understatement. For one thing, it is a phenomenal show. No, really. Good acting, good writing, compelling storyline, the works. Watch it. For another, thing I almost never watch TV, so finding a show that I love is something different for me.


• Threadbared is long dead, at least in Internet time, but reading through the archives and mocking terrible sewing projects from back in the day is still a fantastic way to pass the time. Personally, I like Barbie & Ken's Crocheted Paradise.


• Reason #764859 why Helen Mirren is who I want to be when I'm 63: she apparently turned down free botox. (She also proves that women don't have to cut off all their hair upon reaching a "certain age.") You stay classy, Helen Mirren!


• Speaking of girly things and British ladies, Caitlin Moran writes an ode to "big pants," which is worth reading simply because she coins the term "arse trinkets" to describe tiny undies. Yes, I've been sitting on this link since January, but good humor transcends time.


• Science fiction author John C. Wright has issued a literary manifesto of the most noble type, namely a clarion call for the launch of the New Space Princess Movement. I whole-heartedly support this idea, mostly because I think it would be pretty damn cool to be a space princess.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN:

I GOT THE INTERNSHIP AT SAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now my hands are shaky and I can't type right, so I think I'm going to put away the computer and have a one-woman dance party and maybe drink some more coffee, because why the heck not?

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Falling Slowly. Apparently they'll be preforming this song live at the Oscars, which means I may actually tune in, maybe.

I feel like I have things to say here, but darned if I can think of any of them now. I am so tired I can't really think, but my job requires me to stay up for another hour and twenty-one minutes (not that I'm counting), so I'm filling the time with whatever I can think of, including blog posts about how I don't have anything to post about. I can't even summon the energy for a links post, and goodness knows I have about seventy-five bookmarks waiting to be dealt with.

I know! How about a video of a hedgehog eating? It will only take forty-one seconds, but it will probably be the cutest thing you've seen all day. His little scrunchy eyes just kill me.

Yeah, I give up. That's all I got.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Amy Winehouse, Rehab

After posting last night's little ray of cyber-sunshine, I feel compelled to offer the Internet something less, well, angry. Like, say, a video Bassett Hounds romping in the snow.

I don't know about you, but I feel a little better about life now. God bless YouTube!

Labels: Links

I watched half of the Super Bowl, and then I came back to my room and watched this:

Guess which one I liked better?

(Thanks, Oh! How Lovely!)

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Sunset and Soon Forgotten




(Stolen from The Ironic Catholic. Make your own here.)

Labels: Links

Singing along to: nothing at all

• Looks like Christianity is not the only major religion sacrificing its dignity on the altar of "attracting the youth." Japanese Buddhist monks recently put on a fashion show--complete with a Buddhist prayer set to a hip-hop beat--in an effort to connect with the disaffected youth. Or something. I have a number of responses to this. One, such efforts NEVER WORK. Even the most disaffected young people have a razor-sharp ability to sense condescension, and setting beautiful ancient prayers to a hip-hop beat REEKS of condescension. Two, even a slow but dignified slide into cultural irrelevance, while tragic, has got to be better than this. Three, so much for poverty and detachment from the things of this world. Four, I suddenly feel so much better about Masses with electric guitars and ugly vestments.


• Are you desperate to catch yourself a man? Well, I bet you're not as desperate as this poster on Craigslist, who has expanded her qualifications for "potential relationship material" to include lawyers, her intellectual inferiors, barflies, politicians/the criminally insane, polygamists, and anyone with a toupee. Among others. (Alternately, are you a man who continually fails to meet any woman's standards? You may want to relocate to the Greater Portland area and try your luck there, although the listing is more than a year old.) (Warning: salty language ahead!)


• From the Daily Mail, outrageous, politically-incorrect advertisements from the less-enlightened parts of the twentieth century. ("The harder a wife works the cuter she looks!") I'm not offended; I love this sort of thing, if only because it's a lighthearted reminder of how far we've come. Sort of. As some of the commentors point out, the portrayal of men in today's advertising is not so different from the portrayal of women in older advertising. (Other commentors, though, need to speak for themselves, like the one who said, "Women were far more fulfilled in those days." Actually, dear, I'm finding equal pay for equal work, college education, and the equal partnership I have with my boyfriend very fulfilling. Thanks for your concern, though!)


• On a lighter note, do you like to start your day with cute pictures of cute animals? Me too! So check out The Daily Coyote and feel your heart melt into a puddle every single morning. Bonus: they're actually good photographs, too.


• Is there anything more fun than watching journalists call out hypocritical politicians? Of course not! In fact, it's a source of entertainment that transcends national and cultural boundaries, which is probably why the YouTube video (and accompanying news story) about a Venezuelan interior minister decrying capitalism while wearing Gucci and Louis Vuitton has been so popular. Real-life comedy gold.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: La Vie En Rose, the Edith Piaf movie

Today is Black Friday, of course, and also, apparently Buy Nothing Day, although I have observed neither of those "holidays." I didn't go to Walmart at 4 AM, but I didn't utterly reject the siren song of consumerism, either. Instead my mom and I went, as always, to a craft show in western Maryland. Money changed hands. I don't feel particularly remorseful about this.

Also in the spirit of rejecting consumerism and lead-painted children's toys, there is an Internet movement urging shoppers to buy handmade (or, I suppose, make it yourself), rather than continue sacrificing at the altar of Big Business.

So, in celebration of all of those things, I present my first (and probably last) Handmade Gift Guide. Enjoy!

• The ultimate source of all things beautiful and handmade is Etsy.com, which I love so very much. The key to Etsy, which I've discovered through lots of browsing, is to buy promptly, before someone else discovers that gorgeous notebook you were eyeing.


• Of course, making it yourself is always a fun, too. Design*Sponge has a couple of DIY projects, although some of them require special tools, like a woodburning tool. But if you're feeling adventurous, there might be some good ideas there.


• I like eating cookies, but I do not like baking. That is why I love making cookie mix jars for people. It's like giving them a tin of fresh-baked cookies, but without the baking part. I like to jazz up the top of the jar with some pretty ribbon, too.


• Family Fun has a long list of crafty gifts to make with kids. I like the hungry alligator pencil holder myself.


• Once, when I was little, my dad and I made snowball candles, which are cute. These ice candles from Family Fun are also cute, and you have the added fun of dropping ice into hot wax.

And.... I'm out. If I think of more, I'll post a take 2.

Labels: Links, lists

Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Lion's Mane

Well, it's that time of day again: time to cobble together a blog post before midnight, because dammit, if I can write 50,000 words of fiction in a month, then dammit, I can write a blog post a day. Dammit.

But although it's been relatively easy so far, I am coming up empty today. And that's why God made links posts.

• If these literary secrets were actually true, AP English literature would have been a lot more interesting. Alas.


• Are you a girl (or a boy; we're open-minded here)? Did you grow up in the nineties? Then of course you read the Babysitter's Club books. (I know I did.) Enjoy a new look at those staples of serial preteen literature with the blogs What Claudia Wore and BSC Headquarters. (Personally, I always admired Claudia's artfully mismatched earrings and her gigantic candy stash.)


• From Design*Sponge, instructions for DIY custom bulletin boards. Probably much cuter than what you have hanging next to your telephone right now. I want to make one for next to my desk.


• Also from Design*Sponge, instructions for making cute pocket-sized notebooks (aka, list holders!) and a sleeve to contain them.


• Surprise, surprise: self-righteous people do some pretty crappy things. Then they justify it with more self-righteousness. Isn't human nature grand?


• Finally, the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books found a video of a crazy Bollywood dance scene, transcribed in English. (PS: "transcribed" does not equal "translated.") It's hypnotic and hilarious. Behold:
  

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Death Cab For Cutie, We Looked Like Giants

• This may come as a surprise, but I like lists. I like making them and I like reading them. They are organized, they are linear, and it's satisfying to cross items off them. And look! I am not the only one who feels this way.


• Do you wax nostalgic for 1977? I didn't think so, but if you do, this should snap you out of it right quick: pages from the Summer 1977 J.C. Penney catalog. It burnsssss us, precious.


• A lot of people like to say that there are no stupid questions. Blanket statements like that always unnerve me, and now I have found solid proof that all those people were lying. Finding Wonderland interviewed science fiction author Connie Willis, who says, "I know people sometimes have a very odd idea of what [science fiction] is. 'Oh, you write science fiction,' they say, sort of wrinkling up their nose as if they smelled something bad, laugh nervously, and ask, 'So, have you ever been abducted by aliens?'"

And a video, "Hey There, Khalilah":

Labels: Links

The other day, I was browsing Go Fug Yourself, when they mentioned Celine Dion, and more specifically, her video for "It's All Coming Back to Me," which they described as "possibly the most dramatic thing ever committed to film":

Which, yes. That pretty much sums it up. But it is also ten kinds of awesome.* Let's analyze this cinematic masterpiece, shall we?

• Very cheesy Leader-of-the-Pack style motorcycle crash? CHECK.


• A house, set, and costumes straight out of a Gothic romance? CHECK.


• A dramatic lightening storm to symbolize the dramatic lightening storm in her heart? CHECK.


• Flickering flames along the bottom of the screen to show the heat of their hot hot love? CHECK.


• Images of them making out floating in every mirror, haunting her frantic flight through the house? CHECK.


• Shadowy ghost-man riding his ghost-motorcycle through the halls of the mansion? CHECK.

I am trying to imagine ways in which this seven-and-a-half minute long festival of melodrama could be more perfect, and frankly, I don't think it could be. It is a truly satisfying viewing experience.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should add that I don't mind mocking Celine Dion, because once upon a time, I owned one of her CDs. And listened to it. A lot. I was probably eleven or twelve at the time, so cut me a little slack. I also listened to Phil Collins, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, and assorted other terrible music. Say what you will about my un-hip taste in music now, but I have come a long way, baby.

*I know, I know. But it IS awesome!

Labels: Links, Music

Singing along to: the Pogues, A Pistol for Paddy Garcia

• Apparently, New South Wales, Australia is having a major problem with young men speeding. So the government's begun a new campaign to speak to the speeders in their language, as it were. Check out the campaign video and enjoy the double-entendre. You go, New South Wales.


• I know this news is weeks old, but it still breaks my heart: Marion Jones has finally admitted to taking drugs for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. In 2000, I was an aspiring runner and she was my hero, a term I have never in my life used lightly. I'm too disappointed to even muster any sarcasm about this.


• A recent study revealed that elephants can actually smell danger. Will there be terrorist-sniffing elephants next time I go to the airport? Because that would make flying really awesome.


• Check out FreeRice: not only is it a superior time-waster, but it's educational and it's for a good cause! Go ahead, spend thirty minutes trying to up your score. And if you cheat, well, it's ok, because it's for charity. Right?


• The New York Zoo has a cute website where you can "build your wild self" complete with body parts from all your favorite wild animals. Sure, it's geared towards kids, but I had fun making myself into an octopus.


• A graphic designer has taken spam subject lines and made them into fun hand-lettered art. I wish she'd sell prints.


• I just discovered a comic called Left-Handed Toons (by right-handed people) and I kind of love it. Of course, I will laugh at virtually anything.

Labels: Links

Last December, James and I saw Damien Rice perform at the Lincoln Theater in DC. Damien Rice was awesome, but we also fell in love with the duo that opened for him: Glen Hansard (of the Frames) and Marketa Irglova. Well, exactly a month from today, we're going back to the Lincoln Theater to see them live. Here's a preview:

I'm pretty excited.

Labels: Links, Music

Singing along to: Dropkick Murphys, The Rocky Road to Dublin

My list of bookmarked links to blog about continues to exceed my will to actually blog about them, even when I eliminate the ones that are, on second or third thought, completely stupid. Curse you, Internet, and your terrible expansiveness.

• In case you weren't aware, my birthday is rapidly approaching. This year my wish list consists of one item only: the Magna Carta. But since Sotheby's isn't auctioning it off until December, I'll take an IOU. Funny, my mom laughed at me when I told her that.


• Continuing the medieval theme, the Vatican is releasing (after only 700 years) the trial documents of the Knights Templar. The facsimile looks cool, but I'm holding out for the Penguin Classics edition. Mostly, though, my attention was caught by this phrase at the end of the third paragraph: "a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives." Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that I have found my life's calling.


• Are you a indie coffee shop/bookstore/movie theatre snob? Me neither. But if you are (or heck, even if you're not), check out Delocator, which finds all the "non-corporate" artsy hangouts in your zip code. Works in the US, Canada, and the UK.


• It really is housework week in the news. Apparently, tidying up is bad for your health. Finally, a good excuse for my laziness. Except not: it isn't the work itself that's bad for you, it's the "frequent use of household cleaning sprays." Darn.


• Also sort of related to my last post, science proves that feminists are not man-hating, ugly lesbians destined to die cold and alone! In fact, they may have better and longer-lasting relationships than people who don't identify as feminists. Hm, maybe there is something in that "equal partners" idea after all...


• Last but not least: I really love me some pulpy retro art, and this site showcases it in spades. Will be saving this one for future pop-art inspiration.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: the Ramones, Garden of Serenity

Story of my life: I don't have as much time as I'd like for pleasure reading, so I spend a lot of time lovingly browsing Amazon and Half.com, compiling lists of books I want to read and/or buy (I love lists!), and otherwise wasting a lot of time that I could otherwise spend, um, reading. So hey, let's write a stupid book post, one that will probably take me fifteen or twenty minutes, easily enough time to read one of the short stories in the Ray Bradbury anthology I'm currently working my way through. (Alternately, this wastes time that I could be using to study for a test on Hinduism and Buddhism tomorrow. Interesting subject, particularly Buddhism, which seems to share my passion for Lists of Everything, but still. When it's studying vs. the Internet, there's really no competition at all.)

And if you really want to go nuts on the books and the list-making (and honestly: who doesn't?), then check out this list of 1001 books you must read before you die, neatly sorted by century. I feel as though the 21st century (with 69 books) is somewhat overrepresented, while the pre-17th century period (12 books) is underrepresented. (Seriously: No Homer. No Beowulf. No Chaucer. No Dante. No Boccaccio. No Shakespeare. WTF?) The list is apparently from a book of the same title, by Peter Boxall. The Amazon reviewers, unsurprisingly, had very mixed opinions on Boxall's work, most of which were indignant variations on "Where's my favorite book?!" As it happens, none of my super-favorite books made the cut, but many of my somewhat-favorite books did: The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, etc. So did a lot of books on my to-read list: another point in their favor, then. Also, a lot of books to which I was largely indifferent (Ethan Frome, Lady Chatterly's Lover), and one or two or three books which I hate hate hated (Madame Bovary, Frankenstein). And I'm guessing that virtually any literate person you polled would come to the same conclusion, which just goes to show the subjectiveness inherent in any list, no matter how definitive it pretends to be.

This person offers for download an impressive spreadsheet listing all the books, calculating what percentage of them you've read, and how many you need to read per year to fit them all in before you die. Nice! I have read 39 (3.9%), most of them 19th century entries (thank you, AP English). I would like to up that number before I die, certainly, although there are many, many books that I need to read that aren't on that list. For one thing, it skews a little literary for my tastes. For another, I've recently developed a taste for non-fiction. A surprising number of the books I read over the summer were non-fiction, which I take to mean that I'm either getting smarter (unlikely!) or just more patient (more likely). Whatever the reason, it means that my own personal list of Books I Must Read just expanded infinitely, because yes, I totally need more unachievable goals in my life.

So... What do you think of Boxall's list? Have you found your new life's calling in checking off all one thousand and one books? What books would you have added to the list? Or do you believe that such freakish list-making is a sign of a deep mental disturbance, possibly one that could be put right through a combination of medication and therapy?

Labels: Books, Links

Singing along to: Bruce Springsteen & U2, Stand By Me

I have a lot of links today, possibly even two posts' worth. We'll see.

• I assume by this time, most of the Internet-surfing population has already run across the whole lolcat thing, which for the record, I find hilarious. And hey, you can never have too much of a funny thing, right?* Of course right! So have some lolbatman! And lolbabies! And lolsaints! And (my personal favorite) lolsecretz! (They have the added bonus of incorporating that other big Internet phenomenon, PostSecret.) Have you stopped laughing yet? Good. Me neither. (links from, ummm... everyone?)


• If your brain is ready to do a complete 180, check out the coolest book art I have ever seen. Like, damn. The craftsmanship is amazing, the level of detail is impressive, and the concept itself is pretty fascinating. You could get lost in those. It's hard to pick favorites, but I think I like the New Testament and the two round ones near the bottom best. (link from Dooce, I think.)


• Here are the Top 10 Rejected Opening Lines to "The Hobbit." The book is kid-friendly. Most of these opening lines are not. (link from SF Signal, probably.)


• Also courtesy of the good people at SF Signal, did you know that George Lucas is thinking about a Star Wars TV show? And if so, does that scare you as much as it does me? Seriously, George Lucas, stop toying with my emotions.


• Gentlemen, take note: some dude in Boston just proposed to his girlfriend through a specially-made Boston Globe crossword puzzle. The ante has just been upped. Unless your girlfriend likes Sudoku, in which case, good luck with that!


• Phil Borges does some beautiful portrait photography of people of indigenous cultures from around the world. Like National Geographic, but more artsy. (Link from Dooce again.)


• I dare you to look at these photographs of faces in places and not feel a little bit better about your day.


• My dad found this one: Hello Kitty Hell. One part of me feels as though this guy has to be making some of these products up. The other part of me is convinced that there is nothing--not even Hello Kitty sausages--for which a market cannot be created.

I have more links, but they can wait for another day.

*I am pretty sure the whole reason that the Internet exists is to test that hypothesis.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: Flogging Molly, Screaming at the Wailing Wall

"No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place." (Isaac Babel)

Y'all, I am so disappointed right now. Apparently, yesterday was National Punctuation Day and I missed it. I didn't even know about its existence until the Smart Bitches mentioned it today. (Things make a lot more sense now: yesterday, two different people consulted me on matters grammatical. I was celebrating and I didn't even know it!) But, obviously, I can't just let the holiday pass by without at least a belated celebration. Next year, we'll celebrate properly and on time. Perhaps a solemn reading from Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, Lynne Truss's delightfully British tome on the joys of punctuation, will be in order. We'll see how the spirit moves us.

But for now, I just have a series of links, most of which I stole from the Smart Bitches and their comment board. For instance, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has eliminated the hyphens from about 16,000 formerly-hyphenated words, in a bow to common usage. I was a little alarmed by this at first, but it turns out that I didn't know most of those words were supposed to by hyphenated anyway. (Seriously--ice cream? Bumblebee? Potbelly? Did you know they were officially hyphenated?)

Also, I'm definitely not the only one who is driven up the wall by extraneous, improperly-used quotation marks. You know, "cheap" used cars, best "service" in town, etc. The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks is here to save the day, or at least to raise the blood pressure of punctuation purists everywhere by providing a gallery of user-submitted samples of bad quotation marks in action. (For a historical footnote, and yet another example of why punctuation matters, check out this very interesting post hinging on differing uses of quotation marks. No, really, it's actually interesting.)

People who start hyperventilating over misused apostrophes should probably avoid Apostrophe Abuse, which is all about the myriad way's people misuse apostrophe's. My particular favorites are the ones like this one, that aren't just wrong, but are also deliciously ironic.

(My dad took the above picture several years ago at a McDonald's. If their food isn't enough to make you lose your appetite, that sad, sad sign should do the trick.)

Labels: Links

Singing along to: U2, North and South of the River

...but then I stumbled across this entry and stopped breathing for a few minutes:

And this large, pointy thing is where Washington conceived his firstborn

Tourist woman with her children, pointing at the Lincoln Memorial: And that's where Lincoln was shot. By John Wilkes Booth.

(Ok, I have a juvenile sense of humor...)

Courtesy of Eavesdrop DC, my Internet dream come true.

Labels: Links

Singing along to: U2, A Celebration

As I was taking the quiz, I kept wishing they had an "agree strongly" option, instead of just a wimpy "agree." Although, I can't help but notice that the wording of the questions seems to point to a libertarian bias, and, indeed, it's a libertarian website. So maybe they're trying to subtly manipulate people, just a little bit. All in good fun, right?

Labels: Links