Sunday, February 28, 2010

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Quarantine

Would being deathly ill be worth it if it meant being quarantined with this Aussie? It just might. And not only is he hot, and funny, but also a total geek! I mean, Wolverine, Darth Vader/Stormtrooper, and a Transformer? I'm definitely in love. Get well soon, you magnificent wallaby!

Bear Blowout

Bad news: grizzlies are encroaching on polar bear territory, probably due to ecosystem shifts due to global warming. Good news: the possibility for more "pizzly" hybrids, which you know I'm obsessed with.

(Via The Awl)

I Was Born Old, Apparently

So I scored 28/100 in this Millenial quiz thing, which means I'm more like a late-Boomer than I am like my actual generation. This makes me haz a sad, because Boomers are so annoying! But then a lot of people think Millenials are narcissistic idiots, and Gen-X are whiny middle children. Basically, everyone sucks.

(Via
Alex Balk)

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Battlestar Teddybearica

Teddy Ruxpin was created by man. He rebelled. He evolved. And he has a plan.

(Via Gizmodo)

Send In The Palms!

Forget the HEPA and the Ionic Breeze, plants are all you need to filter your rooms.

(Via Gizmodo)

Beauty Is Dying

Art Wolfe is a photographer who hosts a PBS show called Travels to the Edge. I caught the season premiere for this show, which chronicles his tour of the Japanese winter, about two weeks ago. During the episode, a Japanese woman talked about how the Japanese see beauty as fleeting and impermanent; indeed, things are beautiful because they are fleeting.

This really struck me. The more I've contemplated it, the more I am convinced it is a profound truth. A sunset is beautiful because it is only a few moments of the day; if the sun just stayed there all the time, we wouldn't look twice.
Snow, which has of course been on my mind a lot lately, is beautiful because it melts. A polar bear probably doesn't think snow is beautiful, because it's not interesting; it's just there all the time.

Great art is celebrated because it is rare and precious and very, very fragile. It requires museums and climate control and restorers to keep each item from crumbling away. Even stone and metal, the monuments and architecture of civilization, aren't immune to the ravages of time. Ruins are beautiful because they've, at least in part, succumbed to inevitable entropy. Like Ozymandias, they remind us that all is impermanent.

That which dies is beautiful, because death is a part of change, and change creates beauty. A block of stone changes into a Pieta, a blank sheet of paper into a sonnet, the Earth's orbit brings the changes of the seasons. Stasis can produce nothing beautiful.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Toy War Is Hell

Your childhood is now a post-apocolyptic wasteland! Strawberry Shortcake is the leader of rebellion against the totalitarian Brainy Smurf. You always knew it would end that way.

Hustler History

Meet "the most influential hustler of the last century." Frankly, judging by that picture? Meh.

(Via This Is FYF)

Big Dog

The new World's Tallest Dog is George, a Great Dane from Arizona. He's got Facebook and Twitter pages, his own magazine spreads, and was just on Oprah. He also has his own queen-sized bed! Such a diva!

(Via Wonkette)

Monday, February 22, 2010

Shakespeare Just Got A Little Fiercer!

What Shakespeare's ladies really needed was a Sassy Gay Friend! Desdemona totally needed a gay friend to claw that bitch Iago's eyes out, and Juliet needed someone to slap the suicide thoughts away. "He ain't worth it, girl!" Plus, it's theater: those queens could play that role in their sleep!

(Via Towleroad)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Point/Counterpoint

Logical errors are, I think, of greater practical importance than many people believe; they enable their perpetrators to hold the comfortable opinion on every subject in turn. Any logically coherent body of doctrine is sure to be in part painful and contrary to current prejudices.

Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Oscar Wilde

Prescience

Our [Western civilization] superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slowly built up during the Middle Ages. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why this superiority should continue. In the present war [A History of Western Philosophy was written towards the end of WWII], great military strength has been shown by Russia, China, and Japan. All these combine Western technique with Eastern ideology--Byzantine, Confucian, or Shinto. India, if liberated [which of course it was], will contribute another Oriental element. It seems not unlikely that, during the next few centuries, civilization, if it survives, will have greater diversity than it has had since the Renaissance. There is an imperialism of culture which is harder to overcome than imperialism of power. Long after the Western Empire fell--indeed until the Reformation--all European culture retained a tincture of Roman imperialism. It now has, for us, a West-European imperialistic flavour. I think that, if we are to feel at home in the world after the present war, we shall have to admit Asia to equality in our thoughts, not only politically, but culturally. What changes this will bring about, I do not know, but I am convinced that they will be profound and of greatest importance.

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

This man was writing in 1945, yet in an off-hand paragraph in a chapter on "The Papacy in the Dark Ages" presaged whole books written in this past decade, countless newspaper and magazine articles, and whole think-tanks and academic conferences. Of course, the West still dominates both militarily and culturally, but his point, especially at the end, still stands, and largely involves the same players. Remarkable.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Whoooofps!

So, somehow, I totally missed Westminster this year. As usual, though, the Internet consoles me with cute pictures. Congrats, Sadie! Fuck PETA!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

It Better Not Just Yell, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Every Time I Turn It Up

For sound quality, I don't think I'd go for Darth Vader and a stormtrooper, what with all the static and the heavy breathing and the serving and evil empire and all. Chewie would probably be better: loud and clear! Or Threepio: fluent in six million forms of communication!

Philosophy

Because I'm just a smarty fancypants who thinks he's better than you, I'm now reading A History of Western Philosophy (Strangely, my copy of the book uses "The" instead of "A" on the cover and spine, but "A" on the title page, and some editions seems to omit the in/definite article all together, so who knows what the actual title is!) by Bertrand Russell. So good! Get back to me, though, when I'm still slogging through to page 836. Thing is long!

Monday, February 15, 2010

What's This?!?

Oh look, it's a new column on Will Clark World... by me!

Book People Are Weird...

...but man can they build a library!

My Big Fat Geek Wedding

If I ever get gay-married, these weddings will be my inspiration. I'm thinking for the cake-topper, Han Solo and Boba Fett. Maybe Qui-Gon and Obi Wan or Obi Wan and Anakin (all that "Master" talk, hello?).

High School Ruins Everything; or, We're All Just A Little Bit Gay, And THAT'S OKAY! (But Fuck Sports.)

As usual, I'm late to the party, but this is just something that must be shared. I particularly love the ending, just because I saw it coming a mile away.

(Via The Awl)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

If you have a Valentine, enjoy your sweetie and your chocolate and your sexy times today. If you're like me and are a bitter, lonely loser who will never be loved by anyone, at least you can enjoy some Valentine's love poems read by British actors with great accents. Or you could listen to porn stars talk about their Valentine's memories. Whatever you're in the mood for!

(Via Bookninja; The Sword [NSFW])

Skimpy Sunday











(Via Fleshbot [NSFW]; Unzipped [NSFW])

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

More Snowstorm Thoughts

1) Bend with your knees!

2) Snow definitely loses its appeal as an adult, because instead of a day off from school, you might, if you're lucky, get a day off from work... to shovel for several hours.

3) Shoveling is definitely a workout. Definitely the most exercise I've gotten in quite a while (though this is not really saying all that terribly much).

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

I Think My Plasma Injectors Just Erupted

Star Trek: The Sex Generation

(Via Roids and Rants)

For All Those Information Age Martha Stewarts

Cooooooool!

"Men Are From Mars, Women Are..." Oh, Fuck It!

"[T]hey present me with this awful, appalling world of Bitchy Women and Immature Men and How They'll Never Understand One Another, and then they ask me to find it funny" is pretty much the perfect encapsulation of why most sitcoms, romcoms, and "funny" SuperBowl commercials are of the Devil. Really, though, I more and more wonder just why anyone can watch TV at all and not be insulted just on principle, male or female. It's gone beyond misogyny or misandry (though, really, let's be serious: outside of a few radical feminists from the 1970s, there has never and will never be such a thing as misandry in our culture) into cartoon misanthropy, and not of the cute, curmudgeonly kind that I ascribe to.

We're in such a weird place in terms of gender relations, where men are, in the face of rising female success and the breakdown of old gender roles, retreating, or being told they should retreat, into infantile paralysis or whiny Neanderthalism. I mean, can you see the "Real Men" of yesteryear, like John Wayne or Cary Grant or Clark Gable talking about "mancaves" or playing man-children? Meanwhile, women are more successful than ever, but are being told they're all castrating bitches keeping the poor menz down, when they're not doing Girls Gone Wild and taking just any fuckhead because they might be a spinster otherwise. I find the whole "men and women can never and will never understand one another" thing the biggest lie ever perpetuated. If everyone would just get their heads out of their asses for a few seconds, they'd realize we're all pretty much the same.

Leave Beaker Alone!

The Muppets meet Internet commenters.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Hoth Is For Lovers (Of Tauntauns And Abominable Snowmen)

Pack up the YT-1300, y'all, we're going on vacation! The Tibanna gas on Bespin is supposed to be very relaxing this time of year, I hear.

You Better Work!

I recently caught the rerun of the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race, which I hadn't watched the first time. I really enjoyed the show, and liked how it gave a window into the drag world and what it takes. One of the things that struck me the most, though, was RuPaul herself, how quick and funny and wise she is. I mean, I never thought she was a dummy, but to see her fully in her element was a revelation She really is a fascinating and quite astute person, as this interview with blog colossus Rich from FourFour attests.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Snowstorm Thoughts

Another week, another snowstorm here in the Northeast. After three rounds of shoveling this time, I'm tired, my thighs hurt, and my back aches.

While shoveling as the blizzard winds tried to knock me down, I came to two conclusions: 1) There really is no worse feeling, in my opinion, than sweating in the middle of a blizzard. You're cold and all at the same time and your clothes are damp and it's just very uncomfortable. 2) Never have I wanted to be
a roided-out Muscle Mary with a meth habit than today; it'd make things much easier.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Phasers On LOL!

LOLCats do Star Trek. And why not? They already have the pointed ears.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Another Reason George Lucas Sucks

The prequels weren't just bad, they were immoral.

Lucas has said that his conception of the whole Star Wars saga is as a "Greek tragedy" where the great hero (though you kinda have to take his word for it that Anakin is such) falls into darkness but then is redeemed. Which is all a bunch of post hoc bullshit, because the original trilogy was about Luke's journey, of which his father was only a part of. But, anyway, if he wanted to convince us via the prequel trilogy, he should have made us really feel the tragedy of his fall. To do that, though, you have to make him more than a petulant, and utterly stupid, brat, which Lucas didn’t bother to do in lieu of more Jar Jar.

But, and I've touched on this before, the moral underpinnings of the prequels are kinda fucked up. I mean, he made the “good guys,” the Jedi, a bunch of dicks.

I admit that I never really considered just how odd it is that a sadistic, mass-murdering cyborg is ultimately redeemed by not-killing his son. Killing the Emperor, literally rejecting him, for the love of his son is a good first step, but it's like he did a Force-leap from there straight to hanging out with Obi Wan and Yoda in glowy Force heaven. Whatever, I guess. I think it was more a feel-good thing he threw in at the end than anything else. I mean, at heart this was geared towards kids (big and small), so we can't have a sad ending, according to Hollywood.

The Invincible Super-Writer!

Chris Sims, long one of the Internet's premier comics commentators, is living the dream: quitting his comics retail job for the joys of a full-time writing career! The chance to make a living full-time writing is a rare and precious gift these days, but no one deserves it more than our Mr. Sims. Let us congratulate him, even as we seethe with jealousy, by all going out and punching a bear or beating a criminal with a car battery in a junkyard!

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Make It So!

Only Captain Picard could make email and the Internet sound sexy again. It's of no surprise to me, BTW, that he uses his iPhone all the time; it's a 21st century PADD!

Polar Bears FUCK YEAH!

This is the most ludicrous, ridiculous, and nonsensical thing ever... and it is AWESOME! Take that, global warming!