- Your end-times moment of the day: chocolate drought predicted by 2014 [via]
- Did you know “the total literature of Iceland is [only] under 50,000 books”? Makes the idea of putting it all online not sound so far-fetched, now doesn’t it? (And is this the literary equivalent of a seedbank? A Canticle for Sveinbjörn perhaps?) [via]
- So Fringe might actually be safe from cancellation? We just have to hope a network executive wasn’t ly — oh crap, it’s doomed, isn’t it?
- Say what you will about Joe Biden, the man certainly has a sense of humor about himself. [via]
- And finally, the Zombie Tabernacle Choir. Some things don’t have to be useful or even particularly interactive to still be sort of strangely neat. [via]
humor
Tuesday various
- Oh sure, when you pee on a colleague’s office door it’s a crime. When you pee on another author’s grave, however, it’s an artistic act. [via]
- Could we really have two suns and no night by 2012? Get ready for a Mayan apocalypse/sparkly vampire crossover! [via]
- We all work for Facebook now. [via]
- A Guide to Lunchtime Social Groups, Through Life [via]
- And finally, Bing caught cheating off of Google, totally has to go to the principal’s office afterward. [via]
Wednesday various
- I like Todd VanDerWerff ‘s write-up of Dancing With the Stars a lot more than I think I would ever like the show itself.
- Popular Mechanics looks at shipping scientifically: “One disheartening result was that our package received more abuse when marked ‘Fragile’ or ‘This Side Up.'” [via]
- The Harry Potter series from Hermione’s point of view [via]
- John Scalzi’s accurate but misleading descriptions of famous science fiction films. Mild spoiler warnings all around.
- And finally, John Cleese on the creative process [via]:
Thursday various
- Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but is “it’s on like Donkey Kong” actually such a popular phrase? I’m going to try to popularize the phrase “This is gonna hurt like Q*bert!”
- I didn’t love what I saw of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and it seemed a little like a well-intentioned but disjointed mess. But I’m perfectly willing to accept Jon Stewart’s argument (expressed in this long and compelling interview with Rachel Maddow) that those intentions were entirely apolitical on their part. That they were just trying to put on a comedy show, and whatever “message” the rally had, it was not the same message that so many of his viewers, so many of the left-leaning progressives who attended the rally and are bemoaning its outcome, clearly wanted it to be. I’m perfectly willing to let Stewart pass for falling short of what I hoped the rally would be — a call to arms, groundbreaking satire, something, anything other than a singalong with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I’m willing to let Stewart pass on this, the same way I’m not willing to let Obama pass for falling short on his own call to arms, because when you get right down to it, I buy Stewart’s contention that he’s just a comedian. A comedian with a political bent and sometimes important insight, but one following in pretty well-established treads and with pretty well-established boundaries. It can seem like a cop-out, and I think Stewart acknowledges that, but I think he also does a good job of explaining why it’s not, why his job isn’t drumming up progressive activism (on the left or right) but instead making people laugh.
I think you can argue that the rally wasn’t entirely successful on that front either, but I think it’s important to weigh expectations against intentions.
- On a less serious note, Harry Potter as space opera [via]
- Uwe Boll: he just might make you root for the Nazis.
- And finally, building the perfect zombie safe house.
Tuesday various
- Christine O’Donnell isn’t a witch. She’s also not a qualified candidate.
- Is the bacon bubble about to burst? [via] The zombie bubble? The Singularity? [via]
- The Anatomical Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man [via]
- It’s things like this that make me love Community. [via]
- And finally, Tea Party takes over the comics page. [via]
