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Link catchup ...

A huge list of excellent hiding places

I Love the Yeti All things Sasquatch.

Fun with crappy comics: The Nietzsche Family Circus and Marmaduke Explained

Thousands of found Grocery Lists (and the companion book TK)

Real doctors review every episode of House

Good to know halfbakery is still going strong ... here are illustrations of various ideas/inventions by Farmer John and the late Bristolz (eulogy)

Drawer Geeks: Every week, artists and illustrators reimagine/draw a different fictional character in their own style.

Bryan (6'8") took offense to his sister's emailed assertion that her new boyfriend (6'4") was "very tall." He replied:

6'0" - 6'2" = average tall / not short
6'2" - 6'4" = pretty tall / living on the outskirts of Tallville tall
6'4" - 6'6" = hey you're tall / back row, middle tall
6'6" - 6'8" = damn tall / change light bulbs, get stuff off top shelf
tall
6'8" - 6'10" = freaky tall or duck through doorway tall
6'10" - 7' = really, really freaky tall / special order tall / (baby giant)
7' & above = giant / sasquatch / guaranteed scholarship tall

Puppetjungle.com via Palacechime

Ask Metafilter: Electronic Placebos ...close-door buttons in elevators not hooked up to anything, faux office thermostats, and computer status bars that get stuck at 90%. Think about it.

Great Big Stuff catalog (via Metafilter)

How old were the roommates on Three's Company supposed to be?

A question posed by moi. Help me out here.

This Page Intentionally Left Blank, the project

If I were to imagine the ideal embodiment of "Excitement Machine," it would be this for sure. Via Metafilter.

On the Clear Channel morning zoo today someone joked that they should shower Captain Kangaroo's casket with ping pong balls. Even though I'm a child of the seventies I don't remember CK much. Now I have linked him in my mind to Krusty the Clown, persona-wise. Is that semi-accurate or am I way off?

Yay! Mister Pants is back. Now we only need Sharpeworld and we can get this show on the road.

After watching this loop for the past few hours, I feel I can do anything

GARY DUSCHL
GUINNESS WORLD RECORD GUM WRAPPER CHAIN shows you how to make your own too. (via Craftster)

I hope you have seen Mo Kin, three-year-old xylophone prodigy, in action. Mr. Rob Pongi has the best videos at his site! Like dog sliding on ice, and North Korean physical education dance.

Metafilter: Mnemonics

"J. Hermann et al wonder whether Lincoln and his son Tad had Stickler syndrome, 'the most common autosomal dominant connective tissue dysplasia in the North American Midwest.'"

"Fillmore was the first President who was a health nut. He did not smoke or drink, and was fastidious about measures he believed could affect his physical well-being."

"Harrison's handshake was 'like a wilted petunia.'"

Medical history of the American Presidents and other notable leaders (via Yahoo Picks)

The World Beard and Moustache Championships: Nov. 1, 2003, Carson City, Nevada.

"two fellas started this so that you could write yourself a letter to be delivered at a later date. we've all had to do them in high school and college. it's sorta cool to receive a letter from yourself about where you thought you'd be a year (two years? more?) later. FutureMe.org is based on the principle that memories are less accurate than emails. we strive for accuracy. "

(Some people make their future e-mails public so you can look through them.)

via the Morning News.

Celebrity Rants is somewhere in between Fametracker, The Smoking Gun, and Fanimutation. You have to pay little bits of money to hear the "premium" rants though. But, the Celebrity Buzz section is free. Forget pesky words! The hypnotizing, quivering needles let you know at a glance exactly how insufferable your favorite celebs are being this week. (Via April Winchell)

Brooklyn's Free Store, where everything is free. Customers have taken it upon themselves to keep the store tidy and well-stocked. I now have faith in humanity. (Via Kottke)

"Barn swallows, for example, have deeply forked tails. The deeper the fork, the greater the appeal to females. Female barn swallows paired with males whose tails are only so-so tend to sneak copulations with neighboring males whose tail forkings have been artificially enhanced by researchers. "

Welcome to the twisted moral world of The Ashley Madison Agency, probably the most evil website I've ever seen. Maybe that's too judgemental of me? Or maybe you're just evil too. Enjoy!

Either the most brilliant parody of wacky Christians since, well, Landover Baptist Church, or the wackiest wacky Christians ever. You decide! Their surreal Cafe Press store is just the icing on the cake. Via Reenhead.

Just read this entry at Brad Zellar's Open All Night. I hope to incorporate any of these quips into my daily repetoire.

Defective Yeti: the Momalizer

To this list please add this.

Are you paranoid, dyslexic, both, or neither? An oldie but goodie from Suck.com.

In honor of spring: here's a collection of beautiful time-lapse photography of plants and flowers in motion. My favorites are the Morning Glory vine twining, the Mimosa leaf's response to heat, and the blooming Passion flower. Via Pop Culture Junk Mail)

I've been enjoying Vagabonding, a chronicle of one dude's one-year trip around the world. This video of a Tuesday night wedding parade in the streets of Bodhgaya, India made me cry. Does anyone know anything about this Indian music played with marching band instruments?

Hey joiners! Please join Swappingtons, and you don't have to use me as a reference, but if you want to, my member name over there is kmel. That way I get points and can become all I can be. Thank you.

Researchers at Columbia University are testing the Small World hypothesis (that everyone in the world is connected by around six degrees of separation). I signed up despite my unwillingness to send people e-mail that would be construed as spam, and got assigned to a target lady in Indonesia. Oh, the intrigue! You sign up too, here, Even though the Man will probably use your information to take you and your people down someday. (Via Incoming Signals)

OSHA's "Fatal Facts" wins for "most innappropriate use of alliteration in a title" and because it has ILLUSTRATIONS! (Via Ultimate Insult)

link :: Comments (0)

Worst Manual Contest Winners (via Kisrael)

Other People's Stories: "Every story on OPS is a story a contributor heard from someone else. These stories have been overheard and misheard, told and re-told and sometimes refined over time. They do not shy from hearsay, gossip, myth or guys we knew in high school. OPS is dedicated to the time-honored tradition of stealing other people©ös material and we therefore recognize our debt to those from whom we©öve stolen and acknowledge that these stories do not belong to us.

New stories will appear every Tuesday and Thursday."

Good art, too.

(via Travelers Diagram)

Quiet American, a site dedicated to field recordings from around the world. Wow. Wow wow wow. (Via this Metafilter thread.)

Hot diggety! A weblog dedicated to weirdos with unique skills, collections, occupations, etc. Magnificent Obsessions is subtitled "the passion, the heroism, and the glory of people with too much time on their hands."

As the season turns to Autumn, a girl's mind turns to demolition derbys. (Derbies?) Travelers Diagram links to two kinds of xtreme derbys (or "demos," as they're called in the biz): school bus and limousine. There's also the motorcycle demolition derby", but there's not much in that link unless you like exclamation points. A quote!:

"Motorcycle demolition derbies are great. They are not as spectacular as school bus demolition derbies but they are funny!!! This is the type of demolition derby that shows off the drivers personality the most!!!So if you have a great personality this is the demo derby for you!"

From AZcentral.com's Dia De Los Muertos website: Artist Teresa Villegas discusses her altar dedicated to El Santo, a 1960s Lucha Libre wrestler. (Real Video)

Now's the time to try the Mexican version of hot chocolate. Cornstarch makes it thick and delicious.

Troubled CEO Halloween Masks make for delightful last-minute costumes. Please, please! Just don't do a pun costume. Cereal Killer? No fun-size Twix for you, my friend.

Dessicant Silica Gel Do Not Eat (via Metafilter)

Black People Love Us. I know you've seen it before, but maybe your brother hasn't. Hey, I'm just doing my part. Oh how I chuckle every time I think of it, still.

What do you call the night before Halloween? My people call it Devil's Night. Apparently in Detroit it's celebrated with an arson blitz. We in the suburbs were insulated from that, our traditions mostly involved eggs, toilet paper, and soap, oh, maybe some flaming poo bags. If you're feeling vengeful, let me know: I'm feeling nostalgic.

The United States According to Todd Levin's Racist Aunt

One Mr. Nikhil Patel wrote me today and submitted an excellent list. You can read it here, or on his own site, beard.blogspot.com. The site is a chronicle of one Brown man's attempt to grow a beard in the post 9-11 age, and an exploration of facial hair throughout history and in current popular culture. Hooray stubble!

Paint Chip Poems by Shannon Holman. There's lots of other lovely stuff on this personal site ... don't skip the photos. (Via Caterina)

Thomas Pynchon paper dolls. Via many.

Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names (via BoingBoing)

From TVParty.com: a Brief History of the Tabloids, on the occasion of the National Enquirer's 50th birthday.

At the Illuminated Donkey: It's Skee-Ball Week!

Sharpeworld TV (that's in the left-hand column, turkey). Rappin Christian Pirate Puppet, anthropomorphized chimps, 1940s banjo hotfootin', treadmill infomercials, and more! Doing it to you on your desktop, yaaaow!

Whatever happened to Phranc, the 80s lesbian folksinger? Well, I'll tell you. She's a Tupperware Lady! Honest! I think that's just terrific, don't you?

Geocaching and Letterboxing. Anyone ever done this? I've never heard of it till now. (via Metafilter)

In case you had any doubt to the excesses of the wedding-industrial complex: Exact Miniature Replicas of Your Wedding Gown. When you get to the part about them being "precious little miracles," put on your best evil hand-wringing toady voice.

Do read Metafizix, not because he has the Excitement Machine listed as one of merely three "hipsites," but because it's the weblog of a guy who works on Major Motion Pictures, currently the third installment of the Terminator series.

Fuckthatjob.com is a place to post ridiculous want ads and related frustrating job search ephemera. Stupid employer-driven job market. It was bad enough when I was told at interviews that I was competing with a dozen interviewees whittled down from 300 applications received in the space of two days ... in the past month I simply haven't been able to find anything to apply for.

Anyway, it's comforting to find that it's not just me. Or disturbing.

(via Metafilter)

This lights my fire for the web and its possibilities like nothing else has in quite a while: old yearbooks online. School staff, alumni, or genealogy freaks scan old yearbooks in their entirety (or close to it) and put them online for the world to browse. What a labor of love, and what a source for outsider-y design inspiration and image-lifting. Here's a list of the book collections I've found so far.

Greece Athena High, Rochester, NY (1971-2002)
Montreat College, Asheville, SC (1955-2000)
Wagner High, Clark Air Base, Philippines (1953-1991)
Lake Shore High, Detroit(?) (seven books between 1959-1969)
Eisenhower High, Decatur, Illinois (1958-2002, frames, click "yearbooks" in left-hand navigation)
Belair School, Mandeville, Jamaica (1970-1985, sparse -- mostly covers, some pictures)
Heidelberg American High, Heidelberg, Germany (nine books between 1948-1983)
Frankfurt American High, Frankfurt, Germany (1960-1966)

Bonus: yearbooks featuring Star Wars cast and crew, including scans of covers.

Unintentional video game porn and intentional video game porn. Which turns you on more? (Via Metafilter and Sharpeworld, respectively and respectfully)

Apocalpyse fears go in and out of fashion like so many pashminas, but at least two sites keep you constantly abreast of end-of-the-world news and information. There's Surfing the Apocalypse dot com and Surviving the Apocalypse dot com, similarly named and both designed in that Heaven's Gate style. Only the latter seems to have undergone its own Armegeddon in February 2002. What a great weblog this subject could make, hmmm?

The former points to this: Astralware.com, past-life regression software. Hello!

Footnote: Ah, of course, the Rapture Index.

I just want to give a shout out to the Asiafirst Weblog, which focuses on "the art and culture of India and China." Please, if you can recommend any other specialty weblogs here, do. I have a few under the "logs with focus" category on the links page, and would like to add to it.

My Sexual Encounters is a simple program that allows you to record details on all your sexual encounters/aquaintences. Sic. Sadly, it's only available for the Pocket PC.

Coffee Pot Ghosts. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one.

CNN Splash Page of Terror, brought to you by 0Format

The Name-O-Meter, programmed by staggernation for Parenting.com, charts the popularity of names over the decades. Apparently there were no Kims before the 1940s: I did not know that. Then hop on over to the Baby Namer, which has -- gasp -- actual facts on your name (as opposed to this bull puckie) that might even make you laugh. See?!:

"KIMBERLY. Kimberly was the Ashley of its day, but the sun set on this name a couple of decades ago. It would seem to be stretching it to spell the name KIMBERLEY and claim it as a hot new place-name, but both spellings were indeed probably inspired by the South African diamond town. Kimberly has been big in movies and television at least as far back as the seventies, when Jane Fonda played Kimberly Wells, TV reporter, in The China Syndrome, and the name was attached to a prominent character on Diff?rent Strokes. As the years have gone by, the Kimberly characters have grown more bimboesque. The shortened form KIM had its run of popularity earlier, epitomized by Kim Novak (born Marilyn) in the fifties, and although Kim (born Kimila) Basinger is holding the fort, the name is rarely given to babies today. Alternative KIMBA seemed like an interesting possibility for about as long as Judge Kimba Wood was under consideration for Attorney General."

Wow ... South African diamond mines, and sluts. I hope I'm able to live up to that.

Girls Are Pretty where every day is a holiday. Don't neglect the bottom right hand corner links, under the header "bullshit." (Via Mister Pants)

No Pants Day 2002 is today and its epicenter is right here in my own damn town! The founders do all sorts of other performace art projects. No Pants Day's radio promo is something you might like to have in your mp3 collection.

How to talk like Inspector Clouseau

The JC Penney Fall-Winter 1980 Catalog got a link from the April Winchell Show website, and we are most honored! Miss Winchell has a show on LA's mostly conservative AM talk radio station, KFI. It's on during the weekend, the only time you'll find liberals on talk radio, because they're not funny. Except April Winchell, who is insane. I've only heard one show on a recent visit to California's inland empire, but hey look, she has an audio archive!

Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age, you big loser. (Via Bad Samaritan

If you liked the JC Penney Catalog Fall-Winter 1980, you may also enjoy It Came From the 1971 Sears Catalog!.

Flak Magazine introduces their new weblog Why They Hate Us. Oh, Flak.

Ted Nugent Summer Kamp for Kids. If only I lived in Michigan and had children. Don't miss the Ask the Nuge advice column. (Via Kelegraph)

Sweet Sunday Fun Link: "Handpainted resin statues on a solid wood base are the perfect gift for every young Catholic athlete. These statues portray Jesus actively participating with boys and girls in a variety of sports. A wonderful way to reinforce Jesus 'as friend' in everyday activities."

Note, Jesus don't need no helmet.

"Also available in Ballet, Gymnastics, Skiing, Martial Arts, Golf, & Biking/Rollerblading."

(Via Metafilter)

Homemade backyard roller coaster. Woooohooo! The photos are just great. That reminds me of this. (Via Travelers Diagram)

The Museum of Hoaxes: Gullibility through the ages. (via Dr. Menlo's Good Shit)

(a random Craig)

Mister Pants says plug first names into the Google Image Search to see what people with that name look like. This yields way more fun and satisfaction than Googlewhacking. Here's Laxman, Shadrock, Kevin, Rusty, Wolfgang, Miguel, Sandy, Patricia, Craig, Joost, Festus, Edward, Kenneth, Carl, Carol, and Jebediah.

Killing the Buddha is an intelligent, fascinating, and witty webzine "for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not," and "for struggling honestly with the idea of God." Some finds so far:

• A piece on the Louvin Brothers' struggle with Christianity
• A history lesson on Unitarian Universalists which includes a recipe for Unitarian Beer Bread
• a report from Benares, India during its nine-day festival celebrating the Hindu mother-goddess
• a selection of questions from a 1913 survey of Jewish Folklore (2073. Are holidays observed in Paradise? 2009. What stories do you know about graveyard worms?)

B-May works at the Olympics and has funny, funny stories about culture clashes and portable toilets. (Via Cardhouse)

If walls could talk. The Detroit Metro Times has a new column called Abandoned House of the Week. Funny what people (over)value and what people throw away. (Via Alt-Log.)

Found Art with focus: Keaggy.com collects other people's grocery lists. (Via Pop Culture Junk Mail).

"I feel that I may be one of the many sons of Mr. Screamin because I enjoy climbing in and out of coffins as well as shaking around skulls on poles. Thank you."

"I think he's my poppa and that I was put up for adoption and given to the parents I have now. You see, I am very creative. I write, act, sing and produce and none of my parents do this. They work in industrial factories."

"I'm 73, white and of Swedish ancestry, but I feel I am one of Jay's kids! "

If I didn't know about this site till now, despite it having been written up in just about every major American media outlet (see especially the the New York Times Magazine piece), then maybe you didn't either. Jayskids.com, a gathering-spot for the scores of kids allegedly fathered by legendary blues/soul/voodoo maniac Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

Nothing more boring than dream stories and drug stories. Don't know about the drug stories, but dream stories can be astounding ...

with a specific focus: witness Hungry Ghost's Sept. 11 Dream Project.

in comic form: Jesse Reklaw's Slow Wave.

in comic form with a specific focus: The Stranger's post 9-11 experiment called "And Then I Woke Up."

with the magic of Flash: TCUP: The Collective Unconsciousness Project lets you "travel through [a] dream database in a fluid and exploratory manner."

If anyone knows of anything similar, please alert me.

When you're as down as we are, send in the dumb funny shit.

Driving back from San Antonio a couple weeks ago I heard a year-in-review edition of a radio show called The Lost Tapes, on which the host, George Gimarc, paid loving tribute to many obscure musicians who died in 2001. Well howdy, turns out Gimarc is the co-author of a book that I happen to own, Hollywood Hi-Fi, about celebrities who made records. Some sample chapters on Gimarc's website include Robert Michum, Herve Villechaize, and Hugh Downs. Comedy gold!

I looked for a website dedicated to paintings on the sides of vans. You'd think there'd be something out there, but if it indeed exists, I failed to locate it. And yet it seems that there are billions of pages dedicated to Dr Pepper knockoff brands, which I get behind fully, but. Where are the van paintings?

Hoo boy, this one's a doozy. Suddenly my Baby Animals 2002 calendar seems so uninspired. Peace Dividend, I thank you.

As someone who has seen Kenny more recently than all you suckers out there (Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo, March 2001, take that!) , I say Kenny #6 doesn't deserve to be a pimple on the Kenny-butt of Kenny #1 or even Kenny #6. So why is he currently two points ahead in the polls? Please help remedy this situation. Vote.

Irrational Exuberance is a good thing to keep with you as you go forth into the holiday shopping season. What is this yatta? Is it anything like natto? (Link via memepool)

My officemate Kate just figured out that you could take a plastic supermarket bag, cut off the bottom, and wear it as a tank top. Do this with the new crop of bags printed with the American Flag, and you can make quite the politico-fashion statement.

Two delightful links cribbed from the Royal Journal: Captain Cupcake Returns! is an excellent photo essay documenting the seafaring snack cake's triumphant return to dry land after an unexplained 20-year absence from the public eye. Twinkie the Kid, a yo-yo expert, and a psychic parrot were among the throngs that amassed to welcome him back. Cream filling ahoy, arrrrr! Also, twin sister miniature-cat-molding civil-war re-creationists: Rebecca's interests leaned toward learning about the Confederate Army, leaving Ruth to concentrate on the Yankees. "After all," said Rebecca, "somebody's got to make the Yankees."

David Bronner of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap and the Hemp Industries Association Food and Oil Committee (not to mention, oh, freedom and liberty and all that is right and good) is screwed by new anti-hemp policies. One Plastician imagines a Bronnerian response:

Ninety-year-old Food/Drug Act clears way for all to see!! Czar gets on ukase, shows true meaning of teaching of W.J. Bryan to the real Anslinger: "Make a shirt out of it, and your grandson won't wear it out!," but smoke it and axe-murdering brown people will! Exception eternal absolute none!

Lock Up!! Lock up!! O.K.!

(Links via Cardhouse)

The Texas Lineman Rodeo is coming up this weekend, and I had to do a little research on it for the paper. That's lineman as in guys who suspend themselves eight stories above the ground to mess with high voltage, that's rodeo as in guys testing their shimmying skills (with raw eggs in their mouths, for some reason) and racing to rescue their electrocuted compadres. You'd think these are some harcore folk, not the sentimental types that Glen Campbell would have us believe they are. But take a look at this site -- it turns out they're both. It has lineman poetry and lineman sculpture and more lineman sculpture and a continuously updated lineman photo repository (which contains some doozys, like this possum barbecue and these shots of a gas main fire). Linemen apparently also have a strong and active oral tradition.