Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
As I start to get caught up with my e-mail and get back into the swing of things, I’ve been bouncing around my usual haunts. What in the world happened to Boing Boing? While the current page is certainly friendly and cheerful, it’s not quite the Boing Boing I’m familiar with.
Odd. I just hope everything’s okay over there.
New from Mattel, just in time for Halloween — Secret Spells Barbie!
By day, Barbie, Christie and Kayla are fashionable school girls, by night they turn into magical enchantresses. Each doll comes with 2 outfits, spell book, case, edible potions and potion cups. Transform Barbie from an ordinary girl to one of the Charm Girls. Just put on Barbie’s enchanted Charm Girl jacket and she’s ready to mix up delicious potions that you can really drink. Barbie comes with costume, dragonfly, mixing pot, stand, spoon, stirrer, three bottles, book with a secret compartment, and two packets of magic powder (sugar-based mixes you mix with water). Barbie measures approximately 11.5 inches tall.
Just imagine all the fun you could have! Mixing up “love potions” with your friends. Finding spells to turn all the clothing of your best friends (or worst enemies) bright pink. Having tea parties with your Secret Spells Barbie, Hermione and Harry Potter (isn’t he the lucky little stiff?). Painting pink pentacles on your body as you dance around the bonfire in your backyard under the full moon.
Hrm. Did I just go too far?
(via Mark Morford, via Burningbird)
…and I still don’t have a costume. Maybe I should go as Bill Gates? ;)
(via Phil)
The lengths that people will go to in their homophobia in the name of religion is really scary. Bishop-elect Gene Robinson is currently under 24-hour FBI protection due to death threats.
The first openly gay man to become an Episcopal bishop is under round the clock FBI protection following threats on his life, according to media reports.
Gene Robinson is to be formally installed as Bishop of New Hampshire on Sunday.
“The only thing that will stop this happening is if I am not around any more,” Canon Gene Robinson, who is to become the Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire, told the British newspaper The Independent in an interview published today. “We have to take that seriously.”
(via Atrios)
…erections in space are difficult to achieve because in zero gravity, blood tends to collect in the head and feet.
— Constance Adams during PopTech! (via Jason Kottke)
Well, okay, so I knew that it was raining pretty hard as I went to work today. It had been raining when I woke up, and I hadn’t heard it let up at all, and it’s always kind of fun to see the streams running down the hills in the downtown Seattle area.
I didn’t realize that it was this bad, though (if King5 asks you to log in, use king5\@djwudi.com / kingfive)!
After a brief respite, heavy rains resumed Monday in Western Washington and four rivers that spilled over their banks late last week were on the brink of overflowing again. Motorists were finding flooding on city streets, including Aurora Avenue near the Seattle Center.
I really was planning on getting something done today. Unfortunately, I haven’t — and it’s all Royce‘s fault.
He sent me a link to Something Positive, a web comic that I’d never heard of before.
I’ve spent the entire day reading it. So far I’ve made it from the very first strip from Dec. 19th, 2001 all the way up to April 16th, 2003 — about a year and a half of strips. I’ve still got about six months to go before I catch up to today. Unfortunately, I do need to take a break for a bit, and go out and bounce around for a bit.
Still, the strip is hilarious. Often very wrong, but that just makes it all the better in my book. Go check it out.
And I want my own Choo-Choo Bear!
You’ll understand if you read the comic.
Trust me.
:)
I’m not a big baseball fan — heck, I’m not a big sports fan — so I haven’t been paying much attention to the baseball games. I’d seen people mention the Cubs here and there, knew that there were big games coming up, but it just wasn’t a big thing for me.
Then the news broke about That Guy in Chicago reaching for the foul ball. So far, I’ve been absolutely disgusted at what has been done to this poor guy — practically within minutes of the event, his name, workplace, and even address had been published across the ‘net, with thousands of angry Cubs fans blaming him for the Cubs loss. Bad enough that the guy might have to wonder whether the ball would have been caught if he hadn’t reached for it — but now he has to worry about his privacy and, quite possibly, personal safety. The handling of the event by the media and various websites has been absolutely horrible.
At least there seem to be as many people also disgusted by this and concerned for the guy as there are people upset with him. Wil Wheaton has a wonderfully written (and funny) open letter to That Guy:
I used to be on this big cult TV show that had lots of very passionate fans. Many of those fans absolutely (and irrationally) hated the character I played on that show. Most of them wrote me nasty letters and heckled me whenever I’d show up at one of their events, they never called my house, or tried to hurt me, but I can sort of imagine what you’re going through. That thing that makes a sports fan wear only paint and a diaper to a ball game when it’s 15 degrees outside? It’s the same thing that makes a Star Trek fan wear the same unwashed uniform for 5 days in a row at a big ass con.
>
I’ve read that just about every Cubs fan in the world is giving you hell for going after that foul ball. Well, That Guy, last time I checked, baseball fans like to catch foul balls. It’s something we do, like paying too much for terrible beer and screaming at a player for not picking up that slider that we’re so certain we’d be able to hit if they’d just put our fat asses in the game. Hell, I’ve been going to 20 or 30 games a season at Dodger Stadium for almost 30 years, and I try to catch a foul ball every single time I’m there. I’ve even had my hot wife flirt with the teenage bat boy in a pathetic effort to score one. To date, I am still empty-handed. But that bat boy, Jesse, is convinced that my wife’s going to leave me just as soon as he gets out of high school.
Rock on, Wil. And good luck and best wishes to That Guy.
Randomly following links, I just stumbled across I used to believe, a site collecting all the wonderful and weird things that children believe about the world around them. It’s so worth spending some time going through.
When we were little, my mother had bought us a book titled, “How You Were Born”. In this book, there was an illustration of a sperm under a magnifying glass. For years, I thought the magnifying glass was a frying pan and was totally mystified by where and how the frying pan fit into the reproductive process.
I had a strange fear that if I closed my eyes in the bathtub, William Shakespeare would come up through the drain and kill me. I knew his name, but I had no idea who he was, so I just naturally assumed he was some sort of bathtub vampire.