Look at this because it is pretty, and also because it is pink

Revenge from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

My Newest Blog Addiction

I plow through favorite blogs on a never-ending, ADHD-fueled cycle. One week it’s Why Women Hate Men, the next it’s Fuck You, Penguin, and this week it’s Alice and Kev.

A game design student in the UK has created a homeless Sims family, and documents their struggles (with screenshots) on this blog. So what’s it like when you’re chronically exhausted from sleeping on a park bench, hungry and angry with some form of mental illness and no social skills? How are you going to relate to your immediate family members and the world at large when none of your basic needs are met? It’s fascinating.

Make sure you read it from the original post onward, as the story is chronological and shows their character development and aging process.

Alice and her father Kev, sleeping on park benches in the Sims 3

He e-mailed us to say, “I’m dating both of you” | Salon Life

I love this man and his advice. I seriously, seriously do.

Craving his attention is not a good basis for a relationship. Craving his attention is like needing a drug. He made you a nice dinner. He says nice things to you. Those things — the slow-dancing, the CD, the dinner — those are not the relationship. They are relationship-oriented products. He has shown himself to be an adequate producer of relationship-oriented products. You haven’t really encountered him as a person yet; you’ve only encountered him as a competent dispenser of feeling-like substances.

via He e-mailed us to say, “I’m dating both of you” | Salon Life.

Fuck You, Penguin: Moles have comically low expectations of themselves

Fuck You, Penguin: Moles have comically low expectations of themselves.

For some reason FYP is cracking me up more than usual today. Perhaps because I hate stupid happy people so much.

The Clearing

The Clearing

Originally uploaded by Erin_T

I adore this type of work. Any kind of landscape built in miniature and photographed to look life-size makes me feel like I am about three years old, and that all my daydreams are possible.

Any kind of forced-perspective, playing with scale and DOF work totally draws me in. I could look at this for an hour. Imaginary worlds – infinitely preferable to my own.

Go have a look at all of her work, some of the snowy scenes really remind me of creepy snowglobes.

Life Tends to get Distracting

As a result of the mind-numbing bullshitfest of boredom that has become my job, I am really easily distractable these days. Ask me to do something and I might do it. And then again it might be two hours later, I have 67 Firefox tabs open, I’m listening to some streaming audio, writing a blog post, checking my tweets and ordering a new handbag online. If you remind me about what you asked me, I will claim to be extremely busy and not had time to get to it yet, but honestly my brain is so distracted with bullshit and flinching from the constant barrage of INSANE ideas generated by my corporate overlords that I just couldn’t focus enough to get your shit done. Sorry.

Anyway, twitter so didn’t help yesterday. People kept posting the most distracting links, causing me to get lost for 30 minutes at a time. Here are a few.

@KBestOliver spread the joy with this little gem: http://www.whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com/which is all sarcastic commentary on men’s online dating profiles. It is sad and hilarious, and I am actually glad that a straight man writes it, as it gives me some faith in humanity after all. It reminds me of a time a year or two ago when my own blog had a large sub-section of horrific dating profile posts. (remember this guy? Or this one? Or this serial killer? Or my favorite “piss off the porch lifestyle” guy?[midway through that post])

There’s a companion site http://psychoticlettersfrommen.blogspot.com/ which is all whiny bitch-ass men crying about why women dumped their crazy asses. I love it.

Also @cbellers shared this gem FMyLife which has completely destroyed my last remaining hope that there’s any goodness left in the world. Just a bunch of horrible random bad things that happen to people, all collected together. Fascinating in a horrible way.

Then @violentecstasy posted she was looking for a new bag for her laptop, leading me to visit bluefly.com and this criminally expensive scrotal sac of a bag. And waste another chunk of time looking at bags.

And then somehow (popurls?) I found this link of 8 musicians who need to be punched in the face, which claims that the existence of Amy Winehouse is proof that “a Unicorn had once been fucked by Ol’ Dirty Bastard, sans prophylactic.”

OK I am sure there were more, but for now I have to go to work. Where I will toil with laser-focus and get a shitload of stuff done. Or update this post with more links.

Vintage Hollywood Manga

Vintage Hollywood Stars As Manga Characters Contest.

Saw this Worth1000 Photoshop contest via Boing Boing, loved this image in particular. (Note: this isn’t mine, just thought it was cool. Can’t give attribution b/c the artist chose not to reveal their name on the site.)

Equal parts cool and creepy

Ruthenian woman

[Ruthenian woman.]
Originally uploaded by New York Public Library

The The New York Public Library has begun to post photos from its archives on Flickr. This image is taken from the “Ellis Island” pool.

Ruthenian Woman circa 1906.

Not only are her eyes arresting, but she looks as if she’s in costume for something. And of course she’s in costume for her real life. Still trying to wrap my head around this. I wonder if this is really her everyday appearance, captured as she went about her business, or if the photographer asked her to wear something that was traditional so that he could photograph her. I have a hard time believing anyone in 1906 went about their daily business wearing that many necklaces – but what do I know?

[Slovak woman and children.]

Originally uploaded by New York Public Library

And then we have this poor woman, trying to go about her business and take care of two children while wearing the bulkiest skirt in the history of fabric. That would be tiresome. Also, she looks about 22 or so. And that older kid looks about, what – 4 or 5?

Maturity Check

They couldn't have made the necklace a little rounder?

I accept that my mind is stuck somewhere in sniggering adolescence, but I think that this cake from the insanely talented folks at Cake Nouveau really could be some kind of maturity indicator for most people. If you think it’s suggestive, and gawked at it incredulously, you’re kinda filthy-minded. If you just see a pearl necklace (*snigger again* Dammit!) Then congratulations, you’re either a nun or way more mature than I am.

The Regular Beat of the Metrognome

Jezebel had a great piece the other week on this phenomenon of guys suddenly transforming into lumberjacks this time of year. It’s hilarious because I’ve noticed this myself with guys from around here. Regular 9-5 type guys will suddenly turn into Grizzly Adams once the snow falls. We see the south side of 35º and here comes the flannel, then out grows the facial hair.

I mean – come on, we’re in an urban environment here people. It’s not like you’re going to get stuck out on the frozen tundra somewhere between the parking lot and the office building. And how much warmer does a beard really make your face, anyway?

Girls don’t really have the option of looking like lady lumberjacks for winter.* We still have to wear skirts and tights and stuff, and a 15º upskirt draft is a bracing sensory experience in the morning, believe me.

In any case, I have to admit that I most loved the article because I find the wordplay of “metrognome” irresistible and have incorporated it into my lexicon.

*Actually I take that back, from what I heard last night there are some area girls who are going totally Grizzly Adams, just in places most people can’t sneak a peek.

Field Guide To Guys: The Modern Metrognome
from Jezebel, read full article at link above.

It’s that time of year again, when the thermometer drops below 40, and suddenly the streets fill not just with dry leaves and black ice but urban guys suddenly transformed into lumberjacks.

…

The metrognome will often claim a beard is for warmth. But there is also an element of dandified defiance to it: the metrognome says: I am not part of “the system.” The establishment has no hold on the metrognome. His appearance implies: in my heart, I am cut out for the challenges of the wild. I master the elements and am obscurely connected to an earlier time….

Yo Gabba Gabba This

Naughty? ONE EYED MONSTER Toy . . . ..FAIL Suggestive? Inappropriate? Rude? Toy Review Mike Mozart of JeepersMedia on You Tube

So people are trying to figure out if these toys are just FAIL product designs, or possibly something more insidious. Well, since I used to know Lance of Yo Gabba Gabba when he lived in StL I think that I will safely come down on the “wink-wink” side of the fence. He’s got quite an imagination and if he had anything to do with these characters, it’s not a coincidence they all look like dildos.

How much would you pay?

I would give a LOT of money to own this pink striped notebook.

more the engrish!

Because I really like pink.

I’m thinking about going to worship at the church of Peter Schiff

The economic disaster we’re in the middle of – this guy predicted it all before it happened, and people laughed. He predicted what would happen, how it would happen and why it was going to happen, and people didn’t listen. In his most recent posting at the Motley Fool, he says a lot of things that make perfect sense to me. Most sensible of all is the commentary about the credit crisis.

Look, I am the furthest thing from an economist, but to me what’s happening in the credit market needs to happen. Very few people are saying that. There’s all this bailing out, and trying to keep things running, when actually things really need to change. Things need to fail if they’re badly built, not be propped up on some kind of crazy scaffold made of toothpicks and the taxes we hope will be paid by our grandchildren. (Read the entire piece at the link below. Bolding mine.)

Peter Schiff: The Humpty Dumpty Economy
We Shopped and Dropped

This week, the bankruptcy filing by Circuit City and a profit warning from Best Buy, served as proof positive that America’s national shopping spree is over. As I have long said, the business model of importing cheap goods for Americans to buy with credit cards was unsustainable. We were told to “Shop till we dropped,” and we did.

Americans two primary sources of spending money, home equity extractions and unlimited credit card availability, have been shut down. With only dwindling paychecks to rely on, Americans are justifiably economizing. As a result, many more retailers will file for bankruptcy over the next few years, and those that remain solvent will only do so by drastically cutting their capacity.

In a desperate move to arrest this necessary process, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced his intention to use part of the $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program) funds to re-liquefy consumer lending.

Paulson observed that “illiquidity is raising the cost and reducing the availability of car loans, student loans, and credit cards”, “creating a heavy burden on the American people” and reducing jobs. While all of this is true, this is precisely what needs to happen. Americans need to reduce their spending on all of these things, and market forces are in the process of bringing that change about. By encouraging even more borrowing, Paulson’s plan will aggravate the crisis.

Along those lines, our nation’s various bank regulators issued a joint press release this week that “encouraged” banks to make more loans and to reduce their lending standards if need be. Since lax lending standards are one of the primary reasons that those banks “needed” to be bailed out in the first place, it is lunacy to now encourage them throw good money after bad. More risky lending (and currently nearly all lending is risky) interferes with the market’s attempts to rebalance our economy along the lines that Paulson himself admits is necessary, and sows the seeds for even bigger bailouts in the future when this new crop of loans go bad.

Coming from someone who doesn’t carry credit card debt at all and has paid off her students loans, it may be easy to say that there should be a tightening in those credit markets. But hell, you think I don’t want a new car? You think I wouldn’t like to get a Home Depot credit card and replace my faulty appliances? I am putting off things that aren’t emergencies because I can’t afford them, and that’s how it’s supposed to work. Making it easy for us to borrow money again will just let the average person go right back to the “buy now, pay forever” model that they’ve been running for the past twenty years. If there’s one thing that gas prices have taught us it’s that we only care about solving problems when there’s a crisis. Once it’s not hitting us directly the impetus to solve the problem permanently goes away. Sorry, but America needs to feel the credit crunch – not just have it bandaged over with play money that Paulson looted from our great-great grandchildren.

It all makes me want to start stocking up on bottled water and dry rations. I don’t think it’s going to look any better a year from now – I hope like hell I have a job and I hope that my salary will still be enough to pay my mortgage plus the cost of basics like food and heating. But I am really, really worried about that.

This reminds me of something

But I’m not saying what.

more animals

Dirtiest Mad Lib Plath Poem

moist button’s moist button

“I lick my buttons and all the button licks button;
I lick my buttons and all is lick again.
(I lick I lick you up inside my button.)

The buttons go licking out in moist and moist,
And moist button licks in:
I lick my button and all the button licks button.

I licked that you licked me into button
And lick me moist, licked me quite moist.
(I lick I lick you up inside my button.)

button licks from the button, button’s buttons lick:
lick button and button’s button:
I lick my button and all the button licks button.

I licked you’d lick the way you lick,
But I lick moist and I lick your button.
(I lick I lick you up inside my button.)

I should have licked a button instead;
At least when button licks they lick back again.
I lick my button and all the button licks button.

(I lick I lick you up inside my button.)

- Susan & Sylvia Plath

Create Your Own Madlib on LanguageIsAVirus.com