*POW!* *WHAM!* *ZAP!* *SMASH!*

If you have even an ounce of nerditude or je ne sais geek in you, whether of the comic book variety or not, then Chris's Invincible Super-Blog is, to use phrases he himself would, "the most awesome thing ever" and "will blow your mind"!

He's funny, folks; we're talking spit-take-on-the-monitor hilarious. His wit and snark are second to none, but never cross over into bitter, snide condescension, due to his adorable self-deprecation and obvious love of his subject matter. He's not afraid to call a spade a spade, however. If a comic book is bad, he'll tell you; and his evaluations of some of his most frustrating and... colorful customers are cutting and familiar to anyone who's ever worked in retail. And, frankly, any site that contains a comic book character cold-cocking a polar bear in its banner MUST be read-worthy! Go read! (Especially you, GayProf!) You are now freaking out!

Lezzie, Lezzie, Lezzie, Oi, Oi, Oi!

Female koalas in captivity turn into group-sex-loving lesbians. Know what this means? Coming soon: Marsupials Gone Wild! Wooooooooooo!

(Via The Fagats Guide)

One of Life's Random Little Annoyances

Know what I hate? That no matter how careful you are or how long you contemplate it, you never open a pack of saltine crackers the right way (the right way being so that the salty, slightly puffed top of the crackers are facing you). You end up, then, eating the pack of crackers backwards and I hate that!

Greeks Bearing Gifts

"...[L]eather pants, abdominal *eight*-packs and jiggling disco-tits"? These are bad things? They're exactly why I'm drooling to see 300! Screw heroism and Classical history and give me some man-candy and disco-tits!!!

Sidebar Updates

Added Snarky Bastards; the name says it all!

Vince has moved to Wordpress, so I updated his link. Snazzy new template, too.

Added Manhattan Offender. Prepare for offense and crotch shots!

"Luke, I Am Your... Teddy!"

Darth Ewok

But Is It FREE Cable?

(Via Snarky Bastards)

Don't Worry, British Conservationists...

...the "non-breeding" pair are just gentrifying the neighborhood before the breeders move in. It's nature's way: the "circle of real estate," if you will. Beautiful, isn't it?

Helen Keller''s Favorite Color

What was Helen Keller''s favorite color?

Corduroy.

(Via Comedy Central Jokes)

Sex Is Scary

At this point, I think I'm just scared of sex. Three reasons:

1) I don't know what I'm doing, so it's just going to suck like all the other times I've tried it, and I won't even get to cum (just like all the other times).

2) It'll never live up to porn or Scott's life.

3) I'm afraid of mess or embarrassment, so I don't want flatulence or excrement or vomit ruining a sexual encounter, to become someone's tale of bad sex related to friends in tones alternately of disgust and amusement. But douching is actually very bad for your colon and I have a fairly strong gag reflex, so it looks like sex is just gonna be a theoretical concept forever.

So Where Are All These "Many" Who "Would Die To Be With" Me?

You scored as The All-Round Cute Gay Guy. You are a cute guy who many would die to be with! The All-Round Cute Gay Guy 60% S + M guy 60% Raging Queer 50% A Big Bear 40% Straight Acting 30% Straight Queer Basher 0% Straight 0% What type of Gay are YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

(Via Manhattan Offender)

A Meditation On American Identity

Throughout American history, the question "What is an American?" has plagued our national psyche. I've come to think that this anxiety about "what it means to be an American" is itself intensely American. Since American-ness is not based on traditional, arbitrary ethnolinguistic sorting, but instead a set of shared beliefs regarding democracy, plurality, equality, and opportunity (beliefs often, sadly, more honored in the breach than the observance) as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it stands to reason that being an American is by its nature a precarious identity. Ideas are intrinsically harder to pin down than characteristics like ethnicity; what group you're born into is decided for you, but what ideas you subscribe to must be decided for oneself.

Of course, this is all high-flown and abstract; most Americans don't think about or question their American-ness, and see it in traditional tribal terms. And, in an increasingly diverse and multicultural world, a lot of Frenchmen (and Britons and Indians and Chinese and...) are thinking about what it means to be [insert nationality here] when they are no longer the homogeneous ethnolinguistic groups that once made national self-identification so simple.

But America is still unique: our history, from the very beginning, can be seen as a working-through of the question "What is an American?" It started out as "white, Christian, landowning adults" and has slowly, sometimes painfully so, expanded to include women, the poor, and those of color. We're still grappling with that question today, with controversy over illegal immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, and others. I don't think the question will ever be totally settled. And I think that's a good thing. It keeps us honest and allows us to grow and evolve as a people in a way other nations can't. Thoughts, anyone?

My Tatoo Says, "Meat Make Nice With Rat, Cousin"!

Ever had the feeling that those Chinese characters so many people get tattooed on themselves don't actually say what they think they do? Well, in a lot of cases, you're totally right.

Control+Alt+...

Delete!

(Via Bookninja)

A Day Late, But, Since This Is Blog Is Free, You Ain't Short A Dollar

Happy Chinese New Year!

Welcome, Year of the Boar/Pig!

The Problem With America

The problem with America is that we have no castles, damnit!

(Via Books, Inq.)

Huh?

Look at this picture. (Warning: Picture contains gratuitous homosexuality.) Look at the guy on the far left with the fedora and sunglasses and crap. Is he making out with the other guy's forehead? Because that's what it looks like. Is that a fetish I've never heard of? Or are the little twinky boys just so damn high on E he thinks he's actually kissing the other guy's mouth?

Just Call Me Chip (Or Dale)...

'Cause when it comes to hoarding books, I'm like a squirrel with its nuts!

(Via Bookninja)

Y'All Come Back Now, Ya Hear!

More than y'all wanted to know about "y'all"!

(Via Languagehat)

Parrot Power

A parrot who fancies himself a bit of a humorist. (I'll resist a "Polly want a..." and "he has a bigger vocabulary than George Bush!" joke. You can insert them mentally at your leisure.)

For The Muggles In The Audience...

Top 11 Funny Ways Harry Potter Dies in Deathly Hallows

(Via Bookninja)

Black, Twelve-Inch...

etymology. Take it the base, bitches!

(Via Gawker)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO(+Chocolate)

Happy Valentine's Day
to all my wonderful readers!

Billy Joel

My place of employment (until Friday, anyway) is a retail environment. As many retail environments do, it has the local soft rock station playing over the loudspeaker. The backroom, by contrast, has the more rock-oriented radio station, which is more in keeping with my colleagues' tastes, playing. Either is fine with me; I have rather catholic and non-judgmental tastes in music.

However, I've been doing heavy computer work in the front for the past week, so the soft rock station is always in the background. As is the case with most radio these days, its playlist is a little... limited. They just don't seem to have much variety in their programming. They have certain songs and they just play them over and over and over again. Which is annoying, but it's the corporatization of radio, and Clear Channel is Satan, yadda yadda yadda, so it's the world we live in. I can accept that, if grudingly. But it's driving me absolutely insane because this station plays entirely too much Billy Joel. I was never much of a fan to begin with, but after the past few days, I want to go to the Hamptons and make him crash his car into something again. "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" and "Piano Man" are on at least twice a day and it makes me want to hurt someone. God, Billy, I just want to listen to music, not have to follow the plot line of an art house film! Enough with the narrative already! And you're really not a great singer, either. Gah!

Radioactive Webbing

Apparently, Spider-Man has killed Mary Jane with his radioactive cum. Well, that's one way to break up...

(Via Bookslut)

Lancing Out The Pus

I'm a bit of a packrat, a hoarder, especially of books (surprise!). Clutter is the order of the day for any area I inhabit. It's out of fear. Fear that if I throw something out it'll be worth something someday, or I'll need it, or I'll never be able to find another like it, or if I throw it away it won't be saved so it can help humanity reconstruct after Armageddon, or that if I get rid of it I'll lose forever whatever wisdom that particular collection of words and sentences can impart and be the worse for it, or... I could go on and on and on.

It ]the fear] is like a tumor or abscess or some other growth, metastasizing, diverting resources (namely time and money) away from "healthy" tissue to itself. But over the past few months, I've been forcing myself to start "draining" the abscess by thinning things out, putting things where they should be, actually throwing stuff out or giving it away, including books. I have to say, it feels good. I have to keep going slow, however, due to laziness and the habit of my anxieties to kick in when major change occurs suddenly. But I intend to keep on until I'm as close to a state of minimalism, mentally and materially, as I am constitutionally capable of. Because breathing the clear air of freedom from fear is exhilarating and spiritually positive and it's what I need in my life.

Party Hearty

The greatest parties in the history of the West.

(Via rogueclassicism)

Supervillain Test

You are Mystique

Mystique 44% Dr. Doom 44% Mr. Freeze 39% Lex Luthor 31% Magneto 29% Apocalypse 26% Catwoman 25% Poison Ivy 23% Dark Phoenix 21% Kingpin 17% Green Goblin 16% Juggernaut 16% The Joker 15% Venom 15% Riddler 14% Two-Face 4%

Sometimes motherly, sometimes a beautiful companion, but most of the time a deceiving vixen.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test


(Via Pharyngula)

I Don't Quite Know How I Feel About This

Bunny show jumping. Seems vaguely wrong, somehow, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

(Via Cute Overload!)

Box?

Pardon the vulgarity of the question, but could any female or straight male reader enlighten me as to why a euphemism for the female genital cavity is "box"? 'Cause, while I'm no expert or aficionado of the female genital cavity, but I know what it looks like via porn and stuff, and it in no way reminds me of a box.

Lying

I don't like to lie. I like to believe I'm a fundamentally honest person, so it makes me uncomfortable. I'm also enough of a worrier (who ME?) that I'm always afraid I'll get caught. Plus, I'm not particularly good at it. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't still do it.

I particularly don't like lying to my parents. But sometimes there's just no better option. To illustrate this, let's say I went to Seattle to visit Scott. (Don't worry, Scott, BTW; I'm not going to show up at your doorstep unbidden... for now.) What on earth would I say to my parents? That I'm going to visit this guy on the other side of the country who I've only ever met online and whom I consider a sort of surrogate big brother? Yeah, that'll go over well! My mom's paranoid about cyberstalking and stuff as it is! My only choice would be to lie.

Lying is just so much easier than the truth sometimes, which I guess is why so many people do it so often. It's just so tempting and potentially dangerous. It's very hard to know where to stop, especially for some people of less-than-strong constitution. Frankly, I sometimes worry about myself, that a flaw in my character allows me to lie with relative ease to those I love and trust (and who love and trust me in return). Am I not the good person I see myself as being? Am I just a lying schmuck? Or am I just human?

Nest Values Have Never Been Higher!

Gay penguins in San Francisco gentrifying the neighborhood. How stereotypical! And adorable.

It's A Jungle Out There

And by "out there," I mean "on your skin".

Embarrassing Books

Books famous figures wish we'd all just forget. If only we could!

(Via Bookninja)

The Sun Shoots Its Wad

Because I'm twelve: Coronal Mass Ejection. *snicker*

But Reading Is Like Lovemaking For Your Brain!

People prefer reading to having sex. Kinky!

(Via Bookslut)

Chris Is Cute!

Cute animals and cute guys together? I'm in love!

(Via Homer's World)

Blog

I've heard/read many people say that "blog" is an ugly word. I guess I can see why they would say such a thing. It's not as mellifluous as... well, the word "mellifluous." The sounds that comprise it aren't the world's most attractive. I mean, "blah" and "guh" don't exactly scream "music to my ears!"

Still, to me, there's something satisfyingly Anglo-Saxon, in the same way that all the good curse words in English are, about the word "blog." Also, I've never really heard a good suggestion to replace it, and, at this point, it has stuck and will be around for the foreseeable future. Sometimes, utility outweighs aesthetic considerations. And sometimes beauty is beside the point. Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. .... Wow, cliche much? How about another one: Beauty is only skin deep. (I'll stop now before we get too hackneyed!)

So, to sum it up, I like the word "blog."

I've Found It! I've Found It!

A loooooong time ago, I wrote about how I knew there was a word that meant something along the lines of "the beauty or elegance of a piece of writing." (It was so long ago, I can't find the relevant post with a cursory search; if you remember when it was, let me know, so I can go and see if I'm totally embarrassing myself by totally misremembering what I wrote.) There were a few suggestions by kind commenters, but I never really figured out the word I was talking about. Quite by chance, however, I think I've stumbled upon it at Rogueclassicism's Classical Words of the Day feature! "Concinnity"! It's a beautiful word.

concinnity • \kun-SIH-nuh-tee\ • noun

: harmony or elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other

Example Sentence:

Julia maintains that no modern play can rival the concinnity of the classical Greek tragedies.

Did you know?

The Romans apparently found perfect harmony in a well-mixed drink. The cocktail in question was a beverage they called "cinnus," and so agreeably concordant did they find it that its name apparently inspired the formation of "concinnare," a verb meaning "to place fitly together." "Concinnare" gave rise to "concinnus," meaning "skillfully put together," which in turn fermented into "concinnitas." English speakers added the word to our mix in the 1500s as "concinnity."

Live! Nude! Greeks!

Despite what one could conceivably conclude from their art, particularly their sculpture, ancient Greek men weren't nude all the time. But it's actually quite fascinatingly complicated as to when they actually were nude and in what contexts they depicted nudity in their art.

(Via Rogueclassicism)

Okay, Now COUGH!

How to diagnose the ills of a piece of fiction. Unfortunately, fiction has a sucky HMO, so its "doctors" aren't always the best.

(Via Books, Inq.)

Thanks A LOT, Creepy Guy With The Ridiculous Mustache

Thanks to that infomercial (you know the one, it's always on and it has that lady in the sparkly shirt), I'm obsessed with my colon. Is it impacted? Is it negatively affecting my health? Should I trust a man who looks like a pedophile and buy his colon-cleaning supplement? Damn you, colon-obsessed pedophile with an awful mustache! Damn you to hell!

First Polar Bears...

...and now hedgehogs are getting screwed by global warming. Poor little fellow.

(Via PhDiva)

February

Some trivia on this month.

(Via Books, Inq.)