(no subject)

May. 19th, 2013 07:29 pm
nestra: (Rodney)
[personal profile] nestra
Things yet to be unpacked, because they are in a box somewhere:


  • All of the remotes for the electronics

  • The hand towel that goes by my sink

  • Tweezers

  • A decent portion of my clothes

  • My brown sandals, damnit


A lot of stuff is unpacked though, and we have a new mattress, which means that the not-very-old mattress is now in the guest room, and it's starting to feel like a real house.

Also, it's a little hot during the day, but man, when the sun starts to go down and it cools off a little, it's glorious. I'm so glad to be back in the South.

まるです。

May. 20th, 2013 09:03 am
[syndicated profile] maru_feed

Posted by mugumogu




宅配便で荷物が届くと
When the product which I bought by a mail order arrives,



全部開ける前にまるが強引に入ってしまうので
Maru gets in the box before I open the cover.


いざ蓋を開けると
Therefore, when I open the cover, I say


でっかい猫が入ってた! となるんですよ、まるさん。
"Wow! Did I order a huge cat by mistake?"



「でっかい猫在中シールをお願いします。」
Maru:[This is non-returnable!]





[syndicated profile] joshreadscomics_feed

Posted by Josh

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

GUYS! First of all, thank you for your incredibly generous response to the fundraiser. Everyone who donated will be hearing from me in the next few days to figure out what sort of reward you’d be interested in and double checking on your mailing address. And let’s have a big hand for Uncle Lumpy for his always-awesome fill-in duties. It’s fun spending a week laughing along with the comics instead of thinking of ways to make you laugh, and he always does a great job.

Meanwhile, I have observed your hilarious comments from afar and have selected a slightly delayed comment of the week!

“Mister Fox, are you by any chance familiar with the article ‘Fever Response in North American Snakes’? Published in the Journal of Herpetology? 1996? I’m afraid, Detective sir, that your racist and inaccurate stereotypes are as offensive to me as your pose is to crabs.” –Annie

And some runners up! Also funny!

‘Hold on Tommie — isn’t your mother that worker bee who never leaves the house?’ ‘Sure is, Margo. I guess this is what they call a “character reboot.” Seems odd to spell it out like this, since I’m sure no-one remembers my old mom. Maybe they’ve updated her into a smart, independent woman for the modern age? Ha ha, just kidding, of course not.’” –pugfuggly

Mary Worth: “Tomorrow’s strip will feature explicit drawings of Tom and Beth enthusiastically shaking hands. Demands for the cancellation of the strip will flood editors’ in-boxes by mid-morning.” –LP2004

“It is now established that Newspaper Spider-Man is less harmful than a feeble, backward-delivered kick to the shin from an incompetent undercover police agent. With each experiment we come closer to a more exact measurement of Spider-Man’s incompetence. In time we will establish a precise value for his ineptness, which will of course be the most useless knowledge on record.” –Droopy Says

“I’m not sure how Heathcliff trashing that sign is really sticking it to the dog, but I dig the triumphant Black Power salute.” –Doctor Handsome

“The PARROT/RAPTOR double anagram is a rookie mistake. Leave the Jumbling to the professionals please.” –LUJBEM FEJF

“Actually, when the Governor says he’s right outside her door, he means right outside her door. There’s a Lincoln Towncar parked in the hallway and Lu Ann will have to crawl through the open passenger window before he’ll back up into the service elevator.” –Drewbear

“Snark all you want about the Governor talking like a six year old, but think for a moment to whom he is speaking.” –Zerowolf

“Yikes! For weeks Beth has been necking and nuzzling with Tom only on her right side, and now she has this terrible crick in her neck. Did no one tell her to alternate sides? Mary Worth, where were you?!” –Amos Snarkadder

I don’t even remember what my life was like before I met you! That’s … weird, isn’t it? I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something … do I have a dog I’m supposed to feed? Ah well, it’s been three weeks, whatever it was is probably dead, so who cares. Love is SO GREAT.” –Tophat

Again, huge thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

This post originally appeared as "Metapost: Triumphant return comments of the week!" on The Comics Curmudgeon, which is the best blog on the Internet.

(no subject)

May. 19th, 2013 06:14 pm
sophie_spence: Picasso's Dove of Peace (Default)
[personal profile] sophie_spence
AP writer Beth Harpaz worries that we are raising “a generation of nincompoops” because modern technology has obviated the need for kids to learn basic mechanical skills:

Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?

Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter “literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else.”

Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her “kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger.”

Many kids never learn to do ordinary household tasks. They have no chores. Take-out and drive-through meals have replaced home cooking. And busy families who can afford it often outsource house-cleaning and lawn care....

The issue hit home for me when a visiting 12-year-old took an ice-cube tray out of my freezer, then stared at it helplessly. Raised in a world where refrigerators have push-button ice-makers, he’d never had to get cubes out of a tray — in the same way that kids growing up with pull-tab cans don’t understand can openers.

But his passivity was what bothered me most. Come on, kid! If your life depended on it, couldn’t you wrestle that ice-cube tray to the ground? It’s not that complicated!

Mark Bauerlein, author of the best-selling book “The Dumbest Generation,” which contends that cyberculture is turning young people into know-nothings, says “the absence of technology” confuses kids faced with simple mechanical tasks.

But Bauerlein says there’s a second factor: “a loss of independence and a loss of initiative.” He says that growing up with cell phones and Google means kids don’t have to figure things out or solve problems any more. They can look up what they need online or call mom or dad for step-by-step instructions.

 
I worry a lot about ignorance, including political ignorance, economic ignorance, and to a lesser extent ignorance about religion. But the kind of ignorance Harpaz emphasizes strikes me as a nonissue.

Most of it consists of ignorance of mechanical skills that have either been rendered obsolete by modern technology or are rapidly on the way there (as in the case of using old-fashioned ice-cube trays and cutting open tin cans). In every generation, there are some mechanical skills that were essential in earlier times that are no longer useful because technology has created machines that perform the same functions more efficiently. When I was in high school in the 1980s, I learned how to use a typewriter. Very few teenagers have that skill today because word processors are both simpler to operate and more efficient. In the generation before me, many if not most schoolchildren knew how to use abacuses and slide rules. By my day, we were using the much simpler and more efficient calculators. Does that mean that we were “nincompoops” compared to those who grew up in the 1950s and 60s?  ...If Bauerlein is right, than 19th century Americans should have been concerned about the spread of mass literacy and the declining price of books caused by improved printing technology. After all, kids who can look up instructions in books where their parents had to use their own know-how couldn’t possibly learn how to “figure things out” on their own!

-- Ilya Somin @ The Volokh Conspiracy (www.volokh.com/2010/09/30/a-generation-of-nincompoops/)

He is Iron Man!

May. 19th, 2013 08:05 pm
the_shoshanna: my boy kitty (Default)
[personal profile] the_shoshanna
I finally saw the movie on Thursday, with a friend. First we had dinner at a Persian restaurant she had been to several years before and I had been curious about but never gone to; it was very tasty, and I'm pleased to have added it to my repertoire. Then the movie, which I very much enjoyed! (And still hope to see with Geoff, as well.) Snappy (and often funny) dialogue, manpain, Pepper being awesome, it's a win.

The preview for Thor 2 (right? 2?) got me interested mostly by dint of having Loki in it; the preview for Superman had an emotional power that drew me in as well; the preview for Star Trek didn't interest me at all, but I'll probably end up seeing it.

Now I'm sitting next to Geoff surfing the net while he watches hockey, which is a pretty standard evening for us. What isn't standard is that we're on Cape Ann, on the enclosed porch of a lovely B&B with the ocean gently crashing on the rocks just outside. It's supposed to rain for possibly the entire time we're here, but it hasn't started yet; we had a leisurely three-hour stroll along the coast and through town this afternoon, and if we spend the rest of our time snuggling on the porch watching rain over the ocean, that will not be a horrible few days. Though I do hope we manage the whale watch we've booked for Tuesday afternoon.

(no subject)

May. 19th, 2013 06:14 pm
sophie_spence: Picasso's Dove of Peace (Default)
[personal profile] sophie_spence
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

― Robert A. Heinlein

Thanks, but no thanks

May. 19th, 2013 05:22 pm
pendrecarc: Text: You kill me so courteously. (Courteous)
[personal profile] pendrecarc
I haven't finished logging my time for last week yet, but I'm pretty sure it's going to clock in as the longest work week I've had so far. I'm working on a new product set to be released at the end of the year, which means that not only are we doing loads of customer demos and site visits, but we have to rearrange our development and testing schedules based on the dates for said demos and site visits. This week's trips included an executive visit with a VP at our company. There was a lot of staying up past midnight at various hotel business centers.

The week has been both invigorating and stressful, but among other things I've finally admitted to myself that I have to do something about my relationship with a particular colleague. Cut for length. )
[syndicated profile] wonkette_feed

Posted by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Joan of Arc libel! Well, Wonkers, we defeated one meritless lawsuit threat with the power of laughter. (At least we assume we did, since we never heard from Bradlee Dean again.) But now there is another! Our old pal M. Joseph Sheppard, to whom we tried to offer the gift of friendship, and who was so eloquently addressed here, has a new website, “M. Joseph Sheppard Legal Defense Fund – Support Me In Defending Sarah Palin And Smashing Her Enemies!” It is a website whose sole purpose is asking for money to start a “legal defense fund” to smash us! :(

Here, let us read it, together!

I am M. Joseph Sheppard, a warrior for Sarah Palin and a warrior for the Lord.

My enemies formed a firing squad and their weapons are aimed at me.

I am fighting for Sarah Palin. My blogs are “palin4president2016″ and “Recovering Liberal.”

Now I need your help. I have to take legal action against my enemies who are using libel and slander to destroy me.

The communists at Wonkette and Daily Kos have started a war. They are also at war with Sarah Palin’s son Trig. They are evil.

Their false smears will prevent them from going to heaven and meeting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Sarah Palin needs my help, and she needs your help!

You know, when we grift our readers — or in M. Joseph Sheppard’s words, “milk” them — it is for good reasons, like to buy bloggers (or in M. Joseph Sheppard’s words, “non-union muff-divers”) and web servers and really nice booze!

ONE of us is doin it rong. But which?

[MJosephSheppardLegalDefenseFund]

wendy's frosty

May. 19th, 2013 06:59 pm
zats_clear: (Default)
[personal profile] zats_clear
 according to a Pinterest post, you can make something that tastes "just like a Wendy's Frosty" using 15 ice cubes, 3/4 cup of almond milk, 1/3 banana,  1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1-2 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder.  This would taste so much better if I'd actually used the vanilla instead of the guifenesin that was sitting on the counter.

I am officially a ditz

braindump

May. 19th, 2013 05:49 pm

Second draft: DONE

May. 19th, 2013 11:23 pm
qian: Tiny pink head of a Katamari character (Default)
[personal profile] qian
I finished the second draft of the novel! I am full of glee. It's clocked in at around 105,000 words, which astounds me. And having got it done now means I have Monday and Tuesday evening to pack and sort myself out before flying off, so yay!

Things I will do now I have finished the second draft:
- Go to Wiscon
- Read books totally unrelated to Regency England
- Restart Operation Friendship! I have RSVPed for a karaoke night for a sort of Asian-themed meetup group the weekend after I'm back from the US. YES GOOD.
- Run spellcheck!
- Line-edit!
- Proofread!
- Start a new, hopefully regular exercise thing, since I stopped Bikram yoga at the end of April, and haven't really done anything else since
- Dance around in glee!
- Villette space minuet??? Something new, anyway!

I'll also be spending a couple of days around Wiscon in Chicago, so if anyone is there and wants to meet up, let me know!
[syndicated profile] the_mary_sue_feed

Posted by Rebecca Pahle

In case you’re one of the five people who hasn’t seen it yet, last month Patton Oswalt improvised an eight-minute rant on what star Wars: Episode VII should be like (keywords: Boba Fett, Tony Stark, X-Men, robot spider Chewbacca) for an episode of Parks and Recreation. And now Isaac Moores has created an animated version of that pitch. It’s geek-o-licious. Enjoy.

(via: Kotaku)

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

[syndicated profile] the_mary_sue_feed

Posted by Rebecca Pahle

By Jacques Louis David at Worth1000. (CubicleBot)

Fake Geek Girl shirts for guys, available as part of WeLoveFine’s Kelly Sue DeConnick-curated collection. (CBR)

  • CoverGirl is teaming up with Lionsgate for a The Hunger Games makeup collection. (The Hollywood Reporter)
  • Congrats to director Benh ZeitlinKim Stanley Robinson, and the other winners of this year’s Nebula Awards. Check out the whole list over at io9.

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

(no subject)

May. 19th, 2013 04:51 pm
[personal profile] dsgood
Friday May 17, 2013 Email: GOD HAS CHOOSED YOU TO HANDLE THIS CONFIDENTIAL PROJECT SO PLEASE DO NOT DISAPPOINT

***Saw a vehicle labeled "Air Taxi." It was traveling on the ground when I saw it.

Later, saw a taxi which advertised "Any city Any time." Paris in the 1920's, anyone? Or Hong Kong a century from now?

***A prescription had been written for the brand name, rather than the generic. Since the brand name would cost me over twenty times as much as the generic, I had called the clinic. Was reassured that it would be filled with the generic; but I could call HealthPartners pharmacy central phone number to make sure. Was again reassured.

At HealthPartners Riverside pharmacy, the medication was waiting: the brand name version.

It got straightened out.
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
These volumes provide all sorts of climactic, dramatic, startling action, and then a surprisingly relaxed and even sweet and sometimes funny interlude... with DOOM hanging over it.

I like how, especially in these two volumes, people generally behave reasonably and listen when people say they have something important to tell them, and sometimes change their minds when presented with new evidence. There are definitely jerks, bad people, and people being ruthless, self-destructive, and cruel. But there's very little totally random assholery.

I have read way too many recent fantasy novels in which people behave completely irrationally to serve the plot and ensure that the obvious course of action taken by the protagonists won't work. ("Screw your evidence proving that you're not the person who killed my wife and someone else is! I tear it up and drink it like a milkshake, HA HA HA!") I appreciate how Hale often has the logical course of action work, but then new obstacles or unanticipated complications arise.

Everything else is completely and utterly spoilery.

Read more... )

Enemies and Shadows (The Rifter)

The Silent City (The Rifter)

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