Revenge from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.