Wednesday, May 09, 2007

On the Internets

Where I grew up, guns were such a matter-of-fact part of life that everyone took a gun safety course the same way they took driver's ed. A buddy who moved from Boston always marveled that at the general store, the gun section began where the milk section ended.

Anyway, I'd not seen a good articulation of the proper attitudes towards - and proper uses of - guns, until the always spectacular Teresa Nielson Hayden posted one.




Isn't this a heart-warming shot?

The great Stephen Hawking got to fulfill a lifelong dream to be weightless via a trip on the vomit comet. He reported that it felt wonderful since the weightlessness relieved the pain he has from the effects of gravity on his body.




im on the internetz makin u laff

Perhaps you've already encountered "lolcats," aka "meme cats," in your travels on the web, but if you haven't, you're in for a treat.

See here, here, and here. Oh, and here's a sendup of "lolcats" where the whole episode of Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles" is done in lolcats-speak.




This is brilliant (via Syaffolee). Someone has quantified the rules for "Literary Fiction."

It's entirely dead-on.

I think I'm gonna make a poster out of it and sell it to Literature Depts.




This really does say it all.




Was stumbling around and found a picture of a fortune cookie message that read: "A can of worms won't open itself."

I thought that was rather deep and strikingly true.




There is a snarky opinion amongst some in the commercial media that most blogs are essentially a waste of everyone's time. Personally, I find blogs the best reads on the web, but I have to admit I come across sites sometimes that make me wonder about their creators.

On this site, some asks "What's Special About This Number?", and goes on to list every number up to 1,000, giving a factoid about each. You suppose his mom knows that's what he's spending all his time on in the basement? I bet she'd be happier suspecting he was just jerking off.

For months now I've wondered how to point to this obsessive-compulsive gem, because I don't want to mock the creator of it. I admire what he's doing, in an amused yet concerned sort of way. He logs every time the "Silent Penultimate Panel" is used on a cartoon.

But it's a beautiful paradox, because I think he thinks it's overused and lazy, and is trying to make that point; but how many people would have the energy or enough of an obsession to comb through all the comics daily looking for Silent Penultimate Panels? In other words, someone with that much drive is not someone anyone can take seriously if they label others lazy.




Here's a collection of great animated Gifs.

Here's an example:


The creator of that little gem should meet Mr. "Silent Penultimate Panel". They would have wonderful long discussions on the proper dissipation of time.




Dear Lord. There's an entire wiki devoted to Star Trek. Ok, the "Silent Penultimate Panel" guy is looking more well-adjusted all the time.




Ever wanted to hear the famous final Beatles rooftop concert in it's entirety?

Also check out the other lost gems and live shows he's got available.

There's even a version of Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones (one of my favorite albums of all time) that includes contributions from Art Garfunkel. Seems it was to be their reunion album, but when that went by the wayside, Simon left Garfunkel out of the mix and finished it himself.




Well, along with Kurt Vonnegut, we've lost the wonderful Johnny Hart, creator of my favorite childhood comic strip, "B.C." It was beloved by my whole family, and we bought every collection ever published. It's a stack about 2 1/2 feet high. Sadly they're falling apart from being loved too much. Each one got read about 20 times.

This cover never failed to make us laugh, and was a family in-joke whenever we saw a maroon in the street.


So long, dudes. Thanks for the laughs.




In other sad news, the best stylist on the web, James Lileks, gets repurposed as a general reporter in his daytime job at the Minneapolis StarTribune. They've cancelled his column and now he has to show up and sit in his cubie.

I'm taking this as hard as if it were happening to me. If someone as talented as Lileks can be treated this way, it just seems to diminish the world a little bit more. Know what I mean?

I hope they see what a dumbfuck thing that is to do and pull their heads out of their ... you get my drift.

4 comments:

Whisky Prajer said...

I'm not sure why, but my browser doesn't pick up any of the other pictures after Hawking (which is indeed a pleasure to behold). Weird.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out.

I've found if you select "view picture", you can see them.

But, I'll keep trying to figure out how to get them visible.

Whisky Prajer said...

The gifs are alive!! What'd you do?!

Anonymous said...

Used my flickr account rather than my geocities one. Geocities apparently has a bandwidth limit smaller than flickr's.