That hurt me, too.

Just this instant watched my middle child get her ears pierced... held her hand, soothed her, gave her a lollipop.

She'd been wanting to do it for a while -- years, really -- and kept freaking out but today, she overcame her fear and got it done.

So now I'm waiting here in Claire's while she picks out more earrings... apparently, jewelry can ease the pain.

WTF? Neil Patrick Harris as an Evil Scientist?

Not sure what's going on here, but I'm soooooooooo in.


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

But where's Harry Hamlin?

Great stop-motion animation, courtesy zefrank:

Pretzel Robot

I gave my kids a bunch of pretzel sticks after dinner this evening and challenged them to make something interesting; my five-year old made this awesome pretzel robot (with mini marshmallows as part of some processing unit, I think).

UPDATED

Whoops! This was my seven-year old's creation. My five-year old spelled her name, and my nine-year old spelled out a sycophantic comment about me being cool in order to procure more marshmallows.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, and Star Wars

Gotta love the web. This is from Worth1000.com (for the Star Wars gallery, click here). Click the pic to see it full-size.

Time for some Campaignin'

Asimov's 30 Laws of Robotics

A must-read for any Asimov fan. Here. Three examples:

8. A robot may not act in such a fashion as would make dogs obsolete, because dogs are less expensive than robots, and robots should be reserved for science things.

10. A robot, when given contradictory orders by two human beings, and assuming those orders do not violate the First Law, must decide which order to follow based on which human being has a deeper voice.

16. A robot may take only one item from each house when trick-or-treating, unless that robot has been tasked with collecting as much candy as possible for me, Isaac Asimov, in which case that robot may ignore the First Law.

[Thanks, BoingBoing, for telling me about this.]

Oil From Canada

Did you know we get most of our oil from Canada? Sure, if you treat OPEC as one exporter its numbers look bigger... but Canada is the single largest exporter of oil to the United States.

Check it out here, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Graphic Designers Love Appropriation,And Here's Why

[The artist who created the one on the right is Shepard Fairey, now very familiar for his Barack Obama poster.]

No, it's not the newNerf Herder song.

Trees of Mystery

And here's what the view looks like from the Sky Trail at the world-famous "Trees of Mystery" in Klamath, California.

B2

Getting Gas

I stopped in Brookings, Oregon, today to buy gas... we were nearby.

Gasoline was only $4.37/gallon, a full $0.40 cheaper than back over the border in Crescent City, California (where we are staying on vacation)

AND

in Oregon (the pump jockey told me as he filled 'er up) the public can't operate the pumps -- so that the price for FULL SERVICE

AND

he washed the windows

AND

he recommended some a good place to eat dinner.

George Carlin RIP

I pulled this from Poliblog, he has another good on up too, check it out.

1983 Star Wars Activity Book

You wanted more, and you've got it -- I've scanned in full-size versions of nine more pages from the 1983 Star Wars Activity Book I posted about the other day; you could print them out and fill them in if you wanted, but I think the real pleasure to be taken is in just
looking at them.

You'll see Yoda's head replaced by a crossword puzzle, a Tusken Raider's face covered by a maze, and more! And don't miss the geometric beauty of "Who's Tailing Luke?", "Take Cover", and "Not Wanted" (color it in to figure out "something that is not wanted in Endor Forest").

Yoda Crossword Clues



Yoda Crossword Puzzle



Who's Tailing Luke?



Take Cover!



A-mazing Tusken Raider



Doodles of Droids



Find The Hidden Objects



What's In The Forest?



Not Wanted

DIY Papercraft Darth Vader Dime Bank

Apparently my in-laws' garage is not without hidden treasure -- I just stumbled upon two great Star Wars activity books from 1983, and I had to share.

The publisher partnered with Lucasfilm -- they have a copyright notice and everything! -- but even so, this is the possibly the worst collection of officially-licensed Star Wars-related kids' materials I've ever seen.

For your pleasure: the official Darth Vader Dime Bank!

Friday!

Hebrew School Musical

If you're a parent with children between the ages of 3 and 13, you're no doubt familiar with "High School Musical." If you're Jewish as well, you'll probably get as a big a kick out of this joke as I did. My kids loved it so much they had me make shirts for them to wear to camp.

Pool Shark

“On a cloth untrue / With a twisted cue, / And elliptical billiard balls.”
William S. Gilbert (1836-1911), English lyricist

I was debating whether to show a Keith Olbermann video ranting about Bush or show you a video of what playing pool with me is like. This clip shows how I deftly handled the pool stick, ask On The Mark if you don't believe me.

Finally.

Edward Hopper ParodiesStill Incredibly Popular(And We Continue ToRide Hopper's Coattails)

For some reason, a lot of people seem to be looking for parodies of Edward Hopper's famous painting, "Nighthawks." And somehow, we've become the go-to location of choice for such materials.

Once again, the original:




So as part of the great responsibility that comes with such power, I have five more parodies to share with you.

First, a little Lego (for you Legomaniacs out there):



This is from an issue of "Bongo's Futurama Comics," another Matt Groening endeavor:



Nighthawks in space? Why not? This is a piece created by a guy who goes by the handle "epicpics":



What collection of parodies of anything would be complete without the Simpsons? This is yet ANOTHER still from a Simpsons episode which parodied "Nighthawks"; in this case, the episode titled "Homer Versus the 18th Amendment":



Last, a photo showing a shot from Wim Wenders' film "The End of Violence," in which he recreated the famous painting:



Need more? Here's the first batch and the second batch.