Month: January 2006

• Internet chatspeak as vintage type ligature:
  

  If, in some bizarre alternate history, chatspeak abbreviations like “LOL” had become popular long before there were computers and character sets, they might have, over time, become new symbols, like “et” became “&” and “at” became “@”. What might they look like? [via]

• Family Circus meets Cthulhu [via]
• Fark’s best Photoshops of 2005 — as with any Fark contest, mileage will vary. Some are so-so, some are kind of lame, a few are absolutely brilliant. [via]
• Visions of the Sponge — Iron Maiden album covers with Spongebob Squarepants inserted into them. Why? Because it’s the internet. [via]
• retrievr — “an experimental service which lets you search and explore in a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch.” [via]
• The artwork of Kurt Halsey Frederiksen [via]
• Randomized Garfield strips — Wait, this isn’t how Jim Davis does it? [via]
• Speaking of Garfield… (warning, contains strong language) [via]
• Paku Paku — “We want to know beautiful piece of scenery in the world through the eyes of panda” (Well, they’re cute anyway.) [via]
• Draw Batgirl — some of them are really incredible [via]
• I feel pretty much the same about Penny Arcade
• Well, now I know what to get our dog next Christmas

• More Famous Literary Liars:
  

  Whitman’s “Song of Myself” was not actually about himself, but about a blond neighbor boy named Todd. [via]

  Absent from his list, however, is about author J.K. Rowling, who apparently also doesn’t exist according to one theory:

  A Norwegian film director has sparked a debate in Norway over whether JK Rowling really is the enormously successful author who launched the Harry Potter craze, or whether she’s just a good actress fronted by multinational commercial interests.

  But, then again, as I noted here, the latter is a pretty silly theory. Of course, there are always these genuine literary hoaxes [via]

• Dictionary of Antarctic slang [via]
• POW! ZAP! BLAM! ERT! KABLOOIE! WHAMMO! BIFF! ZOWIE! HIKEEBA! TETSUO! Oxnard man reads comic books, brings shame upon family — Mike Sterling’s spot-on send-up of the typical comic-book general interest stories you sometimes see.
• Literary Fiction for People Who Hate Literary Fiction:
  

  There is a stereotype of literary fiction shared by both science fiction readers and non-science fiction readers: that academically-sanctioned, “serious” contemporary fiction is all about dull middle-class people having affairs, and that the writers of this fiction do such things as use a couple hundred pages to describe events that could quite easily be described in a paragraph.[via]

• Crunks ’05: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections:
  

  Norma Adams-Wade’s June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite. [via]

• True excerpts from stories submitted to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine:
  

  Out of the dark void came what looked like a giant rabbit followed by small rabbits which had looked as if they had undergone a mutation with three ears and 2 tails. They discovered they were on Rabbitania. [via]

• Some of nation’s best libraries have books bound in human skin [via]
• The Glamour of Writing [via]
• The Book Bar (the photos of Idiom are also pretty stunning)

• The Proper Words Song — “A fortysomething man in overalls sings about proper terminilogy for your anatomy. You don’t often see a song played on a miniature guitar that contains the word ‘vulva’.” Possibly not work-safe for that reason. [via] ^*
• Kateh — claymation Hello Kitty kicks ass [via]
• Subservient Donald — tell “Donald Trump” what to do (a take-off of Burger King’s Subservient Chicken) [via]
• Pants Pants Pants video for “Fabio Salsa” — “San Francisco’s Laptop Indie Rock pioneers succeeded in re-shooting, scene for scene, and in excruciating detail, the entire opening sequences of season 1 and season 5 of the popular television show ‘Full House.'” Just why they did this, I’m not sure I can tell. [via]
• Top 50 Music Videos of 2005 [via]
• Pac Man Puppet Show — sure, it’s an advertisement, but Pac Man as some kind of mythic cultural hero? What’s not to love? [via]
• iFilm’s top 25 viral videos of 2005 [via]
• John Cleese’s eulogy for Graham Chapman — I’d seen this plenty of times before, but it’s really quite touching and funny.
• The Old Negro Space Program — “It was a different time back then…” [via]
• William Shatner performs Elton John’s “Rocket Man” — Words fail me. [via]
• “Young Chuck Norris” — in case you missed it on last night’s Saturday Night Live [via]

1. We’re bobbing along in our barrel
   “I Wonder Why the Wonderfalls” (theme from Wonderfalls) by Andy Partridge, guessed by Remi
2. Woman of the country now I’ve found you
   “Delta Lady” by Joe Cocker, guessed by Kim
3. Lime and limpid green the second scene
   “Astronomy Domine” by Pink Floyd, guessed by John
4. What country shall I say is calling from across the world?
   “Stephanie Says” by the Velvet Underground, guessed by Kim
5. We’ve got these chains that hang around our necks
   “What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies, guessed by Anonymous
6. I am not your senorita
   “Raspberry Swirl” by Tori Amos, guessed by John
7. Every corner has its favorite clown
   “White Chocolate Space Egg” by Liz Phair, guessed by Eric
8. I need to sing with all I have
   “As I Go” by Richard Swift
9. They told you your music could reach millions
   “Napoleon” by Ani DiFranco, guessed by Eric
10. And as for Condolezza, she’s an intellectual tart
    “The FCC Song” by Eric Idle, guessed by Kim

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