Snow Saureses

Can you believe it hasn't snowed, like, at all yet this year? It's kind of a relief. I would only like to see big piles of the white stuff on the condition that somebody makes me an amazing snow sculpture like these:

I would put on my snow pants and ride them! These Dinosaurs are from the Saporro Snow Festival in Japan. They are truly in the tradition of Calvin and Hobbes!

ASDIAOFNSGSG!1!GNDG

That is the sound of my brain exploding. I've reconstituted it in order to write this post.

It all started a few days ago when my second cousin, raised in a very christian family, posted this cartoon on facebook:

Hahaha, get it? Evolution isn't real, it's all millionaire liberal scientists colluding with the media to trick us into not believing the bible.

For some reason, this led me to torturing myself reading like 3 years of backlog of these "After Eden" comics, which only served to make me more and more annoyed.

There are a few repetitive messages to them, we're all cursed and fallen, the days god took to create earth are literal days, and people who buy into evolution are fools who think their parents are monkeys.

It turns out these comics are directly partnered with Kentucky's notorious Creation Museum. There are even a few comics depicting people getting converted at said museum. NOW GET READY FOR SOME IRONY!

Part of the museums facilities include, admittedly, very beautiful gardens and a petting zoo. You can go for camel rides there, just like the Magi.

And among their collection of fauna, they have....

A zorse. That's right. The cross bred combination of a zebra and a horse. A creature that only exists because of human intervention and *gasp* complimentary genetics. The selective breeding of zorse hybrids is even expressly discussed in Darwin's evil Origin of Species. These animals only started existing in the 19th century because members of the British aristocracy got bored at their country estates. Hardly a good example that everything in creation was rescued by a 600 year old man in a gopher wood boat. I'm just sayin'.

DIsney Confessions!

OK! My latest obsession is http://waltdisneyconfessions.tumblr.com/.

It is like the seminary confessional website Post Secret, but it is all teenagers posting their opinions about disney.

It's actually gotten me thinking about the music and movies from this media giant that I like best. OMG I should write a confession you guys!

My Top 5 Favorite Animated Disney Movies - As Depicted by Disney Confessions!

5. Lilo and Stitch

4. Hercules

 

3. Up

 

 2. Tarzan

1. Beauty and the Beast

OUCH- She doesn't even consider her a princess you guys!

Do you have a top 5?

Too True!

D+D

As some of you probably know, Paul and I have been into RPGs lately. We've been playing a bit with our good friends from out in Athol. From now on when we play- this will be my anthem -



My character is a Rogue Halfling girl. I would definitely be cut in half by Baby Cakes. My skills are mostly stealing, sneaking and hiding!

Heart!

I recently read all of John Allison's webcomic Bad Machinery. In one sitting. Yes, it is that good!

It follows the adventures of 6 private school children in England who have a propensity for mystery-solving and discovering fantastical beasts in their midst.

I like the humor, the art style, the characters, and the somewhat surreal alternate reality that exists in the fictional Town of Tackleford.

You should read this!

The Present

here

Caturday XXXII- Have I mentioned before...

How much I LOVE Books of Adam? It's a great, auto-biographical illustrated blog by Adame Ellis. His so-called "poor stupid cat" is the subject matter of many of my favorite posts.

This story about his pet Lola's eccentricities introduced me to his work.

His artwork is awesome, and I love the way he tells a story.

 "Now, I'd assume running to be a pretty self-explanatory undertaking, but apparently it's more difficult for some to master. The guy started glancing my way with increasing worry on his face. He seemed to be taking cues from me, matching his machine's settings to mine, searching my face for reassurance, as if he expected me to be his Sherpa through the trials and tribulations of gymnasia."

Caturday XXXI - Pet-owner-observational-humor

Cat vs. Human is a great slice of life sort of comic by Yasmine Surovec. She owns many cats and a dog, and provides a viewpoint on pet ownership that isn't sugar coated. Even though she's a self professed crazy cat lady, she's completely honest about the fact that kitties will fukkin rip your face off if they get the chance.

Enjoy one of her comics, complete with dinosaury goodness:

SCALIA!

I don't have much to add to the discussion on changing technology and the constitution, but I do really like the idea that Scalia is like a time-traveling kool-aid man.

Elite Fleet

How awesome is that my favorite web comic ever, Perry Bible Fellowship, is making cartoons now?


Elite Fleet Ep. 2 - The Broken Code from New Picture Agencies on Vimeo.

Very Awesome.

Oj!

I recently re-read all of Rene Engstrom's wonderful webcomic dramedy "Anders Loves Maria".
If you haven't read it yet, you really should. It's a surprisingly complex love story of two Swedish art students and their strange social worlds. The art is really striking, and it's cool to read from the beginning and see Engstrom's style refine. I would describe it as a page turner, you (or at least I) get really invested in the characters and want them to come out of it all unscathed. It's a complete story too, with a really surprising end. The artist has a new comic "So Far Apart" that I haven't read yet, but want to soon.

"Ima hump you"

I'm in love with David Heatley's comics. His stories are autobiographical, and capture the most telling details of events. I'm a big fan of his series "Portrait of My Dad", in which he uses little vignettes of memories to create a rich character sketch.


My favorite part of this strip is "Hump" (on the right side). It really tickles me and I'm not sure why. I think it's because we've all had moments where we've said something impulsively and immediately regretted it.

I really love when Heatley draws his dreams too. He captures how seriously we take surreal stuff when our subconscious is in control.

On a lighter note...

Yeah!

I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long

5 years ago today,one of the only stand-up comics I really ever liked passed away. Mitch Hedberg was too young and too cool to die, but ce la vie.



"You should never make cookies untouchable." Agreed!

It stinks that he's gone, and Carlos Mencia still has a TV show.

Alex Chiu's Immortality Device

Thanks to the awesomeness that is the wayback machine, I've been enjoying reading some vintage Alexchiu.com, circa May 2001.

Alex Chiu is the inventor of the magnetic rings, an "immortality device" that stops aging by "enhancing" your body's electrical current. He thinks his invention is going to change the entire world, and compares himself to Thomas Edison, Tesla, and Einstein. He also submits a serious challenge to anybody who doubts the awesomeness of his eternal life invention:

"Who can come up with a health device better than my immortality device? I owe that person 1 million dollars. Print out this page for proof."

Alex also provides a hefty list of testimonies from his valued customers, so you know this product has to work. My favorite one:

"Hey man, it is me the kid that kept calling you and emailin you some nasty shit. Hey, you were RIGHT about the magnets!! Guess what, PLEASE, I am beggin you to forgive my nosiness. Before, I weighed 178 pounds. I had a 21% body fat. Now, I have more muscle, a smaller gut, and I lost 16 pounds in like 1 or 2 weeks. I could not do a situp. Now I can. I could do one pull up. Now I could do 7. Before, I could run 1 miles tops. TODAY, my fourth time I worked out in the last six days. I RAN 3 MILES NON STOP!!!!!! I SWARE TO GOD. I SLEEP BETTER!!! IN SOCCER, I AM SO FAST NOW THAT I OVERUN THE BALL OFTEN!!!!! I SWARE, I THINK IT IS YOUR INVENTION. I CANT CALL YOU BECAUSE I AM FORBIDDEN, MY PARENTS HATE YOUR SITE. BUT I TELL YOU, I WENT FROM NOT BEING ABLE TO RUN 1 MILES TO BE ABLE TO RUN 3 MILES IN JUST A WEEK!!!!!!!! I KNOW YOU THINK IM TRYING TO BOTHER YOU BUT IM NOT!! I SWARE TO GOD HOPE TO DIE IM NOT. INFACT, CAN YOU EMAIL ME BACK ON HOW I CAN WRITE A TESTIMONIAL? IM SO SORRY MAN. THESE MAGNETS WORK, IF THEY DONT THAT MEANS IM SUPERMAN. "

He's gonna live forever!

Since Alex Chiu has made himself immortal with this new innovation, he has some very wise, enlightened opinions about they way people should live, politics, and science. These opinions are best demonstrated with ridiculous comics:

Thanks to immortality rings, humans will stay young and beautiful FOREVER. That means that overpopulation is a real risk. Thank goodness that people will simply grow to resent their deathless children and their horrible money grubbing ways. Annoying peers are the ultimate birth control! The last panel of this one is a priceless work of art.
In the realm of world politics, Alex envisions a post WW3 world where global powers consolidate into a giant mega corporation. Alex explains the rationale of corporatizing the global government quite succinctly; " The military leaders, the presidents, the powerful government leaders will all become extremely rich. This is the attractiveness of this corporation idea. Hey! You are not selling your country. You are just saving the world by making peace!"


And in the realm of science, Alex Chiu has gone so far as to define a "New Darwinism" for the 21st century. ("Full of animated GIFs and wonderful graphics. A must read for all scientists!"- Alex Chiu) He covers topics like the reason for different sexes, how animals think, and how chemicals form a cell. Not surprisingly, most of his theories are built around the principles of magnetism.
This one is from the lesson "Why can animals crawl, swim, or walk?"

He also discusses "What causes gravity?", "Black hole is not magic" and "How to build a UFO?"

Also "A good theory on how to build a teleportation machine. Not yet built or tested" and "A cure for AIDS or Herpes?"

I've sure used a lot of quotation marks in this post, huh?

PS- I noticed that the specific links I provided actually just take you right to the homepage. Apologies, I don't think the wayback machine can do it any other way.

How I spent the first day of November

Paul and I went to the Lupa Zoo today! It was really cool, I had never been there before. It was fun to see all the animals, and be outside on such a great fall day. We made friends with this cockatoo that did tricks for treats. Somebody should have told him that Halloween was yesterday. He was kind of a show off. We also saw a really scary black throated monitor lizard that was trying his hardest to escape it's habitat. He was huge! It was digging persistently at the door and flitting its tongue like crazy. It was a little scary, we definitely watched our backs after that.


There were all sorts of cute little marsupials and monkeys too. I really loved seeing the fennec foxes. They are truly real-life pokemon.

It was a lot of fun. There were lots of sweet things to pose with in the park. Tableaus with the heads cut out so that you could put your head through. Lots of neat/ kitchy animal statues too.


It was a really fun time. It's so cool that it's only about 20 minutes away from the house.

When we got home, we shared a delicious treat. A pomegranite.

So delicious. I don't think there's a fruit that's more fun to eat.

One of my favorite web comics, Wasted Talent just did an ode to the pomegranite too.

Twits

There has been a whole lotta buzz about Twitter lately. For a long time it's been seen as this revolutionary media tool, giving people the opportunity to broadcast previously unseen vantage points on events. Sometimes, even breaking big stories before the major news networks.

With the craziness of the swine flu panic (or mexican flu, if you roll with the Hebrews), people are starting to see that the web 2.0 can simply surmount to a world wide web of mob mentality. People are tweeting about the illness soo much, it's crazy. I twitter searched swine flu, and got about 80 gazillion results. 140 additional tweets were added to the results page before I had even been on there for 5 minutes. So much of what is being put out there is innacurate too, creating a pandemic of faulty knowledge.

I have no interest in joining twitter, and can't say that will change ever. I already spend too much time on the facebook, I can't become a slave to another social networking time waster. I'm having a kind of hard time understanding the fervor about it too...and I've started wondering if I'm just old and out of touch. I am one of theose people who still types "thefacebook" into my web browser.

So many pop culture figures have become devotees of twitter too. It's genius personal marketing actually. Giving people the sense that they have a personal window on their favorite stars; It's the same reason that "behind the scenes" advertisements for movies and tv shows are so prevalent now. People like to feel like they're in the know, like they have a special connection with their celebrities and products. Being able to see what "the real shaq" ate for breakfast probably makes some basketball fans (and perhaps even Kazaam fans) feel like they're included in the daily life of their hero. That simulation of inclusion is a huge part of advertising today.

Jeph Jaques is a local webcomic artist that writes Questionable Content, which I read often. It's set it Northampton, so sometimes it's fun to spot familiar buildings in the background of the strip. This guy takes twittering to a whole 'nother level. All of his characters from the comic have their own twitter accounts, which is ridiculous. He must spend all day on twitter, writing about what fictional peopl are doing in their daily lives. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Maintaining these accounts, writing in character for all these different people, and keeping track of what they're doing in cartoon Noho shows a real dedication to developing the world of his story. But it also says a little something about the cartoonist. A little something that sounds like "crazy."

Ah well.
In other news, Paul and I have been watching the first season of Lost together. I wanted to try and get him caught up in time to watch season 6 with mike and me. At the rate we're going through them, it's a goal that seems pretty attainable. The best part is, Paul is very eager to watch them. I think I got him addicted! We're watching the the season finale tonight. I'm very excited that Paul is liking the show, and that I'm getting a chance to watch all the old episodes in a row. It's a good way to remember all the crazy shit you forgot about. Like, how Charlie used to be the resident sass factory, and how it used to be all about the numbers!

The good ol'days!