Indubitably!

I am quite verbificent, if I do say so myself. It's one of my many charms.

(Via rogueclassicism)

I Will Be Avenged!

Ah, for the simpler days of yore, when gas was a dime, it was socially acceptable to be casually racist and sexist, and the smut was so much more intellectual. It's all grainy Internet clips of all-anal gangbangs with these kids today, not good old-fashioned literature. Hell in a handbasket, we're going to! Hell in a handbasket!

Ah, Memories!

It's been going on three years since I graduated from college, but I still remember well and fondly the "art" of writing papers.

Actually, I was a good boy and just did some old-fashioned bullshitting and minor font-fiddling to pad my papers, though most of the time I didn't need to. There were even a few times where I had to take stuff OUT because the paper was getting too long. (Yeah, I was one of them. Are you really surprised?) But I certainly saw some really... creative ways of padding papers in my college tenure. Not quite montages of Paddington Bear, but close.

Yep, Another Whine About How Chicken I Am

All the self-awareness in the world doesn't mean a damn thing if you let fear paralyze you and prevent you from getting off your ass and doing what you know needs to be done to improve yourself. In fact, self-awareness combined with paralysis is the worst of both worlds, since you know just how bad you feel, know how to change it, but can't, which makes you feel like a big, fat coward and failure, which makes you feel still more awful. It's a vicious cycle of over-intellectualized angst.

Skimpy Sundays

(Via The Pretty Boys Club)

This Blog Is An Important Archaeological Artifact!

To any future archaeologist excavating the digital tumulus of the early '00s Internet: Greetings! Mind the mummies! Oh, and those aren't images of fertility gods, that's just porn.

(Via Aardvarchaeology)

Health Update

Still sick. Not throwing up anymore. Now shitting out everything. Have headache. Ate a little more today. Ready to not be sick anymore.

I Wouldn't Give You The Time Of Day!

(Via kinesthesis breakthrough)

!:?...;

The History of Punctuation

I Just Threw Up In A Bucket A Lot

Here's how my day went: six hours of intermittent vomiting, a full day of by turns feverish freezing and boiling to death, little to no sleep, two cups of Jell-o, three crackers, one can of Coke, one can of ginger ale, a few bottles of water, a piece of toast, three teaspoons of an anti-nausea syrup, and now several hours of shitting out everything that I didn't hurl earlier. Good news: I ended up having Presidents' Day off; bad news: I would have rather have gone to work.

People really find it fun to induce this crap via booze? Bulimics have such body image issues they do this on purpose? Pregnant woman somehow resist the urge to kick the nuts of their baby daddy for granting them weeks or months of daily vomiting? The mind boggles.

Big Badger

A little peek into the secret life of badgers show that they're neat, tidy, and adorable.

The Truth Will Set You Free

Finally, some truthful banner ads.

(Via copyranter)

Skimpy Sundays

(Via The Pretty Boys Club; Jason Curious [NSFW])

That Portrait Sitting Must Have Involved A LOT Of Treats

Pre-Internet Cute Overload! picture sells for $66,000. I love the little terrier. He totally bossed those big dogs around.

These Are [Two] Of My Favorite Things!

Hot man + adorable puppy dog = *swoon*.

(Via Roids and Rants [NSFW])

Is That A Diving Board In Your Pants, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

I still prefer my swimmers shaved and in traditional skimpy Speedo bikinis, but these new, high-tech swimsuits are hot in a fetishy way.

Astrophysics Is Fun!

Black holes are really cosmic spirographs! Who knew?

Geek Hot

I've often talked about guys being "geek hot" or "geeky-hot" or "nerd hot" or the like, but it occurs to me that perhaps not everyone knows what I'm talking about. Well, behold this video of the new dancing Elmo, and get a load of the guys in the lab coats, especially the one singing and dancing along with Elmo. That is geek hot!

Still don't quite get it, though? Wondering how this "geek hot" stuff applies to women? Here you go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Be my Valentine?

BBC Animal Report

Rare white stag found in Scottish Highlands.

Gold eagle gets sight partially restored by groundbeaking surgery. What I love most about the story is that she's now in with a male golden eagle with a broken wing, and "Staff at the sanctuary hope the pair will eventually breed." I can picture the male now: "Hey, baby, you're half-blind, I'm lame; LET'S GET IT ON!" *LOL*

Hamsters the "it" pet in China for the Year of the Rat. This guy totally agrees.

New carnivorous dinosaurs found in Sahara.

He's # 1!

Congratulations to Uno, the new Westminster Dog Show Best in Show, and the first beagle to ever win! Isn't he beautiful? (We're keeping my father away from the TV, lest he run out and get a beagle instantly. He loves his beagles.)

"That's right, bow down to me, bitches!"

Puppy-dog eyes.



Gotta keep in shape!

A couple of other pics from Westminster:

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?"

Why so sad, Scoob?

(Pics via Joe.My.God.; New York Times; Towleroad)

Yep, That's Pretty Much How Books Make Me Feel

Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity… we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.

Books, even ones I never read, really do make me feel good. Totally sick, huh?

(Via Languagehat)

Down With Gingerism!

I'm an Britophilia of the highest order, but one of the things about the Brits I've never gotten is their anti-redhead (or "gingers" as they call them) bias. I admit, I have a bit of a thing for redheads, so I just don't get the hatin'. Like my penchant for men in kilts, I think it's my Celtic blood singing in my veins, calling for a kilted, redheaded warrior-poet to come break down my door and ravish me. Heck, I'd settle for a damned barbarian Viking! (Yes, they're the enemy of my Gaelic ancestors, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for a horny helmet. *LOL*)

(Via Bookninja)

Duck Joke

The Duck and the Condom

Two ducks go on their honeymoon and stay in a hotel. As they are about to make love, the male duck says, ''Oh, we haven't got any condoms. I'll ring down to room service.'' He calls and asks for some condoms.

The woman says, ''OK sir, would you like to put them on your bill?''

''No,'' he says, ''I'll suffocate!''

(Via Comedy Central Jokes)

...And The Horse You Rode In On!

Lion: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Get me doooooooooooooooooooooooooooown!

Horse: OMG! Nobody say anything, but there's something on my back, and it's not a jockey!

(Via Deadspin)

Skimpy Sundays

(Via Roids and Rants [NSFW]; Jason Curious [NSFW]; Bill in Exile [NSFW])

Get Some Ambien To The Hedgehogs, STAT!

Global warming is playing havoc with hedgehogs' hibernation patterns. I say, let's give them all a little sleep mask, a nice hot toddy, and a Presidential debate feed. They'll be dozing in no time!

Shark!

Six-Gilled Shark captured on video by deep-sea explorers. Doesn't it look like it's grinning? Probably thinking, "Heh! Let me freak out the tourists!"

(Via Towleroad)

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Yeah, there's only twenty minutes left of it, but I couldn't let the day pass without wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year and welcome the Year of the Rat.

BTW, isn't the Google Doodle for this year just precious?

The Kitteh Has Landed

Come fly the feline skies with Iris!

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Cutest Of Them All?

Flocke, the polar bear cub, is so cute even she is entranced by her!

Gridiron Dogs

Puppy Bowl IV last Sunday drew a record eight million viewers. But who won the coveted MVP (Most Valuable Puppy) award? One Abigail, the Jack Russell terrier.

Secrets

Fascinating photographs of America's best-kept secrets. The picture of the nuclear waste storage, with its eerily beautiful blue glow, is my favorite.

(Via Gizmodo)

*Sniffle*

This story is the most curious mixture of gross, sad, and sweet I've ever seen. Grab your hankies before reading it and the comments to it. You're gonna need it.

Primary Voting

I'm a Democrat, and I honestly like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I think they're both strong candidates, if in different ways. So when I went into the booth to vote today, I really didn't know who to vote for. On the one hand, Hillary was going to win New Jersey anyway (and she has), so I could vote for Obama just to be different and be in on this "Hope" thing. I like Obama's message, the way he's energized so many people. On the other hand, Clinton is obviously more qualified, a savvier politician, and the irrational hatred she inspires in people both astounds me and makes me sympathize with her. There was also my family to consider, though. My family are HUGE Clinton supporters and just as hugely anti-Obama (sadly, it's mostly a racial thing). If I voted for him, I'd probably be disowned.

In the end, I went with Obama, just to be different. I told my mother and she was not pleased, but since Hillary won anyway, I'm still in the will. I can never tell my sister, though; she'd perform an honor-killing on me.

Writing Wrongs

Everyone has a "writing style": turns of phrase, idiosyncratic grammatical constructione, particular words always misused or misspelled, particular grammar errors, not to mention the culture-wide abuse of things like "there, their, they're" and the apostrophe. The Internet, with its acronyms and peculiar dialects, is a gallery of idiosyncratic linguistic quirks, and even encourages the creation of new ones. So I got to thinking about my own way of writing here and elsewhere on the Internet, and recognized four writing habits, mostly stuff I use too much, I have that are really annoying.

1) Overuse of *LOL* and *hehehe*. One of the handicaps of the Internet is that encourages the type of informal conversation -- via chat, blogging, IMing, etc. -- that in a pre-digital age would be strictly verbal, and verbal communication is full of intonation and body language cues to indicate things like sarcasm that are totally lacking, or at least incredibly difficult to convey, in written form. So we use smilies and *LOL*s. But over time these things lose their meaning. When I *LOL*, I very rarely am actually "laughing out loud." It's just a way of saying, "that's funny!" And sure, you can just write "that's funny" or "I'm being sarcastic," but it reads so stilted and didactic. But *LOL*s just get annoying, and, in many people's opinion, immature. I cannot figure out a better way to convey that kind of information, though, so I keep using them.

2) Overuse of "and" and "but" at the beginning of a sentence. You may have actually been taught that one cannot use "and or "but" at the beginning of a sentence. This is a prescriptivist, pedantic lie; one can and naturally do use them. But I use them this way too much, I think, particularly "and." It's a function of my propensity to want to get all my thoughts out there, and, since I'm an overthinker, so it comes out as a string of "and another thing!" I could use "Also" more, but there's something a bit antiseptic about that as a transition. So, it's annoying, but I have nothing better.

3) Overuse of parentheses. Another function of my overactive mind, my endless obsession with and need for clarification and qualification and contextualization drives me to put twice as much information in an already probably long sentence by shoving some parentheses in there. I'm just not a concise, Hemingway-esque writer; I'm into thoroughness and exhaustiveness and inclusiveness rather than concision. I'm wordy rather than terse; I revel in verbosity rather than brevity. I could just force myself to leave stuff out and focus, or at least mix it up using dashes, but meh....

4) The semi-colon is supposedly an "endangered" punctuation mark, according to experts, but not on my watch! I'm an unapologetic semi-colon booster. It's only recently that my somewhat inexplicable block with regards to comfort using commas and coordinating conjunctions other than "but" has eased, so the semi-colon was always a good way to connect two sentences together correctly. Some sentences belong together, and the semi-colon is their Justice of the Peace. Plus, I like the hybridity of the semi-colon, and it's overlooked underdog status.

So there are my bad writing habits. What about yours, dear readers?

Nothing "Lesser" About This Panda!

Red Panda Chang Tan is ready for his close-up! BTW, did you know that the "firefox," as in the browser, is actually the English translation for the Chinese name for the red panda? They used a fox in the logo because the red panda isn't as instantly recognizable as the red fox.

(Via Cute Overload!)

Don't Worry, It's Definitely Safe For Work

Bookstore Porn

(Via Languagehat)

Sneaky Searching

Ten Obscure Google Search Tricks

Skimpy Sundays

(Via The Pretty Boys Club)

Geek Love

The perfect Valentine's gift for your geeky sweetie.