And that’s how I want to go. Although, now that I think about it, there should be aliens [...]]]>

“While I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.”
– Roger Zelazny

And that’s how I want to go. Although, now that I think about it, there should be aliens involved too. At least a ray gun.

Brought to us by the always accurate xkcd.

Saturday, April 24, 2010 Matinee at 2:00 p.m. Evening show at 7:00 p.m.

North Hollywood Masonic Temple 5122 Tujunga Avenue North Hollywood, CA 91601-3782

Produced by Sacred Circles Productions, and benefiting the Midnight Mission‘s Family Housing Unit.

The usual way. Buy tickets now!

Afterparty at [...]]]>

Click to enbiggen

When

Saturday, April 24, 2010
Matinee at 2:00 p.m.
Evening show at 7:00 p.m.

Where

North Hollywood Masonic Temple
5122 Tujunga Avenue
North Hollywood, CA 91601-3782

Who

Produced by Sacred Circles Productions, and benefiting the Midnight Mission‘s Family Housing Unit.

How

The usual way. Buy tickets now!

Bonus

Afterparty at the Amsterdam Cafe in North Hollywood from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. A $5 donation is requested! Performers at the After Party include Kalima Satori, Jessica Martinez, Desert Lotus Tribal, Irina, & Chimay.

I’ll be there. Will you? You know you want to.

What could be simpler? For ease of reference, it’s also available as a t-shirt for the next week or so.

Now you know.

Via Sed Contra.

Only $15 from Muttropolis. Via 2modern.

The more you love, the more you can love and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

– Lazarus Long in Time Enough [...]]]> Words to live by:

The more you love, the more you can love and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

– Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

Via Sooz.

See also:

Trying to make someone fall in love with you is about as pointless as trying to control who you fall in love with.

(source unknown)

Via Richard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

From the band that brought us that wacky and wonderful treadmill music video for “Here It Goes Again.” Keep up the good work fellas!

Source unknown, but it doesn’t make it any less funny.

From the ever optimistic Small Victories.

From the darkly awesome Small Victories, for those who like their humor like they like their wo/men: dark and bitter.

From Savage Chickens, daily cartoons about chickens on post-its.

From the increasingly good Small Victories.

Fine folks from the League of S.T.E.A.M. are having a gallery show tomorrow night in Santa Monica. These are always a blast. You should go.

The League of S.T.E.A.M. presents An Evening with the Unfamiliar: Scientific Investigations of Paranormal Oddities

Location: Renee’s Courtyard Cafe & Bar 522 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA, 90401 [...]]]>

Fine folks from the League of S.T.E.A.M. are having a gallery show tomorrow night in Santa Monica. These are always a blast. You should go.

The League of S.T.E.A.M. presents
An Evening with the Unfamiliar: Scientific Investigations of Paranormal Oddities

Location:
Renee’s Courtyard Cafe & Bar
522 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA, 90401 [map]
Parking available at 1234 4th St., $3 flat rate after 6pm

Time:
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
7:00 PM to Midnight

UPDATE: LA Weekly was at the show, and has a nice little write-up and some photos to boot! Go Team S.T.E.A.M.!

From the new and already fantastic Small Victories.

via No Smoking in the Skullcave (an occasionally NSFW site)

via Il Lupo > Marooned

Quarter provided for scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

I’m not very good at singing songs, but here’s a try:

If you wish to make An apple pie from scratch, You must [...]]]> To my fellow Crewtons: The sky calls to you, my friend, and a still more glorious dawn awaits you, a morning filled with 400 billion suns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

I’m not very good at singing songs, but here’s a try:

If you wish to make
An apple pie from scratch,
You must first
Invent the universe.

Space is filled
With a network of wormholes.
You might emerge somewhere else in space,
Some whenelse in time.

The sky calls to us.
If we do not destroy ourselves,
We will, one day,
Venture to the stars.

A still more glorious dawn awaits.
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise,
A morning filled with 400 billion suns.
The rising of the Milky Way.

The Cosmos is full beyond measure
With elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature.

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this Cosmos,
In which we float, like a mote of dust,
In the morning sky.

But the brain does much more than just recollect.
It intercompares,
It synthesizes,
It analyzes,
It generates abstractions.

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning.
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world.

A still more glorious dawn awaits.
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise,
A morning filled with 400 billion suns.
The rising of the Milky Way.

The sky calls to us.
If we do not destroy ourselves,
We will, one day,
Venture to the stars.

For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe.
Did it stretch out forever?
Or was there a limit?

From the Big Bang to black holes,
From dark matter to a possible Big Brunch,
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas.

How lucky we are to live in this time:
The first moment in human history
When we are, in fact,
Visiting other worlds.

A still more glorious dawn awaits,
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise,
A morning filled with 400 billion suns.
The rising of the Milky Way.

A still more glorious dawn awaits,
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise,
A morning filled with 400 billion suns.
The rising of the Milky Way.

The surface of the earth
Is the shore of the cosmic ocean.
Recently we’ve waded a little way out,
And the water seems inviting.

As a metaphor for our current curmstance, it ain’t bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHVwA1D8fE

Via Coilhouse.

From the genius of xkcd.

“Who is this Junice??” I hear you cry. I’m glad you asked:

That Midge, she’s a [...]]]> One of my favorite costumes at work to day, Midge as Junice:

“Who is this Junice??” I hear you cry. I’m glad you asked:

That Midge, she’s a hoot.

Available as a poster or print-on-wood from Nakatomi. If you really loved me, you’d buy me one.

Quoth he:

My only issue with this is that it is creating a double standard for expression of religion (or lack thereof). How is it that the Ten Commandments are banned from public court [...]]]> Reader Dave commented on yesterday’s post about those pro-atheist ads that will be running in New York transit stations soon.

Quoth he:

My only issue with this is that it is creating a double standard for expression of religion (or lack thereof). How is it that the Ten Commandments are banned from public court houses everywhere but tax payer funded public transportation can be used for support the Atheist movement? I don’t think this is right. I think there are a plethora of other places this could have been done without encroaching on public funded domains. I certainly understand why someone would not want to have to go ride the subway everyday and have the ten commandments, or any other religious doctrine, staring you in the face. However, there are two sides to that story. I do believe in God and I would not want to have to go ride the subway everyday and be visually told that I should just denounce that belief. I respect your convictions and definitely empathize with, what I am sure, is a personal belief that you may find yourself constantly defending. I just ask that you respect mine in return.

I replied to Dave’s comment, but I’d like to re-post my reply here because, frankly, I want to be really clear about a couple things.

In my (ever so humble) opinion, freedom of religion and freedom of speech are essential human rights. Therefore, I will not only respect your beliefs, but I consider it my duty to promote and defend your right to believe as you will, and your right to express yourself as you will.

In this context of these ads, I think that the MTA is using the advertising space in transit stations to generate revenue, so no taxpayer funds are being expended to run these ads. Big Apple COR is paying to post their ads, just like any other advertiser.

Also, the MTA does not discriminate at all when it comes to deciding which ads to accept, so anyone can pay to use the ad space. To quote further from that same CNN article:

In a statement to CNN, Metro Transit Authority spokesman Aaron Donovan said, “The MTA maintains basic advertising guidelines with prohibitions on nudity, four-letter words, and the like. Beyond that, to accord with the First Amendment, our advertising guidelines are written so as to not prohibit the free exercise of religion or abridge the freedom of speech.”

Flying Spaghetti Monster in front of Tennessee Courthouse, from laughingsquid.com

The ten commandments inside a courthouse is a different issue. Those are (typically) paid for with taxpayer money, and (typically) don’t allow for alternate points of view due to the nature of the installations in question. However, off the top of my head I can point to one example of religious statuary at a courthouse where a) no public funds were used to pay for the installations, and b) all viewpoints are welcome to participate in the forum. Everybody wins.

Honestly, though, the only reason I blogged about the Big Apple COR ads was because they made me happy. I can point to countless examples of prominent messaging here in Los Angeles that promote one religion or another — giant illuminated crosses on hilltops come to mind — but not a single one that expresses my personal beliefs. In a sense, those pro-atheist ads kind of made me feel heard.

Jebus Saves in Downtown L.A., from la.metblogs.com

That being said, I’m also big fan of just about anything that makes my fellow human happy, and if religious messaging in public places makes people happy, so be it.¹ There was a post on the Los Angeles Metblogs just the other day about a prominent religious message in downtown L.A. that made me smile, too, the last sentence of which reads:

But for the lady at the bus stop who saw it when I pointed it out to my husband, it seemed to mean a lot to her; like she needed it.

Who would take that away from her? Not me, I assure you.

CNN reports:

On October 26, a dozen bustling New York City subway stations will be adorned with the ads as “part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don’t [...]]]> These posters will soon appear in subway and transit stations all over the city of New York. I approve.¹

CNN reports:

On October 26, a dozen bustling New York City subway stations will be adorned with the ads as “part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don’t believe in a god”, according to a statement from the group, the Big Apple Coalition of Reason…

[Michael De Dora Jr., executive director of the New York Center for Inquiry,] says the ambitions behind the advertisements are threefold.First, the coalition hopes the promotion will enhance awareness of New York City’s secular community. He explained that the coalition also hopes to encourage “talking and thinking about religion and morality,” as well as support involvement in groups that encourage a sense of a social community for non-believing New Yorkers.

John Rafferty, president of the Secular Humanist Society of New York, another member group of the coalition, said the ads are in no way an anti-religious campaign. They are looking to reach out to more people who have similar feelings, but might not be aware of an outlet to express their beliefs, he said.

Rafferty and De Dora cite the American Religious Identification Survey, released earlier this year, as evidence of a shift away from organized religion. Those checking “none” for religion rose from 8 percent of the population in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008, effectively making “no religion” the fastest growing religious identification in the United States.

It is nice to be reminded occasionally that I’m not alone in my godless decadence lifestyle.

Via jesthered.

This highlights a valid and common concern for people like me, who conduct so much of our personal and professional lives via email. I had settled on “Thanks” myself, but now I’m totally switching to “Piss off.”

Piss off, -thatbaldguy

From the always helpful Savage [...]]]>

This highlights a valid and common concern for people like me, who conduct so much of our personal and professional lives via email. I had settled on “Thanks” myself, but now I’m totally switching to “Piss off.”

Piss off,
-thatbaldguy

From the always helpful Savage Chickens.

Flickr user pausetivespace took this amazing photo1 of her friends dressed as Merryweather, Princess Aurora and Fauna at at the Georgia Aquarium during Dragon*Con Night 2009. (She herself was, of course, dressed as Flora.)

You really have to click through and check out the larger sizes to see it in all its glory.

Surfline reports that white sharks are flying through the air, mere yards1 away from Sunset Blvd. They don’t explicitly mention pedestrian deaths, but, you know, be careful.

Note to self: never go to the beach again. Ever.

Via John Gheur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF6PyIML0hI

You’re welcome.

Via Jen G. and jesthered

From the always observant xkcd.

Because that’s the kind of reaction that Locke and Demosthenes’ blog would get in the world you and I inhabit. I mean, if I can’t get billions of readers, how could they?

(Yes, I know. I don’t have any readers because I never post anything good.1 Still, I’m going to keep [...]]]>

Because that’s the kind of reaction that Locke and Demosthenes’ blog would get in the world you and I inhabit. I mean, if I can’t get billions of readers, how could they?

(Yes, I know. I don’t have any readers because I never post anything good.¹ Still, I’m going to keep telling myself that I am the best blogger ever. Please be gentle with the fragile ecology of my delusions.)

From the ever acute and accurate xkcd.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this post is really about me complaining that I don’t get enough visitors, and uses a reference that less than 0.00003% of the population will understand. I think I may have inadvertently put my finger on my problem, so to speak. Silly bald man.

Yelp has the details:

You’ve seen them on stage — now you can have an LA Opera costume of your very own!  Wear it for Halloween, wear it to work, wear it around the house, wear it where ever you want because it’s yours!

For the first time ever, LA Opera will [...]]]> SUQEE!

Yelp has the details:

You’ve seen them on stage — now you can have an LA Opera costume of your very own!  Wear it for Halloween, wear it to work, wear it around the house, wear it where ever you want because it’s yours!

For the first time ever, LA Opera will be doing a little fall cleaning to make room for new costumes, and will be selling gowns, hats, gloves, shoes, capes, coats, bodices, and complete ensembles from its costume shop located in downtown Los Angeles.  You can purchase costumes and accessories priced $5-$250 from your favorite LA Opera productions like La Traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni, The Fly, and more.

Parking is available across the street in the Little Toyko Shopping Center.

I’ll see you there!

LA Opera Costume Shop Sale
330 S. Alameda St
Los Angeles, CA 90013
[map]
Saturday, October 10, 2009 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Via the socalsteam, the Southern California Steampunks Yahoo Group, the members of which keep chock-a-block with fantastic leads like this.

Of the stand-out moments, Holmes gets to re-enact the “Travel Agent” sketch from the [...]]]> What a fantastic show, with a great cast and an excellent arrangement of material! iFMagazine has a better review of the show than I could write, but suffice it to say that I highly recommend it! From their review:

Of the stand-out moments, Holmes gets to re-enact the “Travel Agent” sketch from the show and goes off on a long involved tangent that never quite stops. Tudyk (a Joss Whedon regular on FIREFLY and DOLLHOUSE) gets to showcase what a truly underrated performer he is. He’s flawless throughout the show and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was British. He is given the Cleese part in the Parrot sketch, but takes it into surprisingly darker and more intense territories. It’s a signature moment for him and he delivers it with zeal.

It’ll be at the Ricardo Montalbán Theater in Hollywood¹ through October 4, then in NYC² October 6-10.

From the official site (which also has a link to buy tickets):

A celebration. A very, very funny night. Not your usual theatrical experience. A Celebration of Forty Years of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

A very silly and refreshing interlude of Sketches, Spam, Songs and Custard Pies lovingly drawn from the Python canon.

OR

SIMPLY, THE VERY BEST OF MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS’ SKITS & SONGES PERFORMED L I V E !
(But only for a few nights.)

Starring the very Python-esque: Jeff B. Davis, Jane Leeves, Alan Tudyk, Rick Holmes and Jim Piddock performing:

(This is the partial list of sketches)
PEPPERPOT MONTAGE – SPAM SONG – CAMP JUDGES – MICHELANGELO – SILLY WALKS – SPANISH INQUISISTION – NUDGE NUDGE – LION TAMER – WORKING CLASS WRITER – ALBATROSS (Also featuring the original fowl!) – CRUNCHY FROG – ARGUMENT CLINIC – THE BRUCES – TRAVEL AGENT – PARROT SKETCH – FOUR YORKSHIREMEN – CUSTARD PIE – LUMBERJACK SONG.

All written and composed by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Jealous?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Quoth the creator, John Boswell:

A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn – Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and Stephen Hawking’s Universe series.

Invented by Creative Kingdoms, a company that designs theme-park attractions, the game is built around infrared sensors embedded in the wands. “It’s like having a joystick that controls a 20,000-square-foot facility,” cofounder Denise Watson says. After paying $14.99 for a wand (plus more to soup it up with fantasy bling) and a $10-per-hour activation fee, players begin a scavenger hunt for Tolkienesque paintings, sculptures, and installations scattered throughout the hotel. Video kiosks of wizards and maidens dispense clues and track your progress by picking up your unique IR signature. Guides in Elizabethan garb roam the grounds dispensing advice. Victories and discoveries trigger up to 150 visual and audio effects, and frantic kids drag weary parents to and fro until they catch them all.

The franchise has 15 installations in the US and two in Japan. I can only echo Pat Cadigan’s sentiment: “If they’d had this when I was a kid, I’d have *killed* to do it.”

Read the whole article at Wired.

Via Cadigan.

Here’s a commercial for MagiQuest, which is strongly (and, one supposes, intentionally) reminiscent of a Saturday morning toy commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL8Rze7myv0

Thanks J!

NB: Remember that this video is an example of satire. “What is this satire you speak of?” I hear you ask. Well, according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:

satire
n.

1. 1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
   2. The branch of literature constituting such works. See synonyms at caricature.
2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

You’re welcome.

Interesting news from Reuters:

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed…

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage [...]]]>

Neodymium on Wikipedia

Interesting news from Reuters:

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed…

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines…

Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius “the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world.”

Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota’s plans to boost the car’s fuel economy, he said.

Via GreatDismal (William Gibson) > Gromit01.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65PiKsNhCsc

Via Dr. Tiki.

Pogo also put out this Alice in Wonderland composition back in 2007, which I once played for about two hours straight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwR6w2TgxY

Click to enbiggen

It is also available as a wallpaper.

There’s also this:

Click to slightly enbiggen

Which of course reads “My parents never taught me [...]]]> Apropos of the Chihuanhas movie, this is a new t-shirt design from the good people at Wondermark:

Click to enbiggen

It is also available as a wallpaper.

There’s also this:

Click to slightly enbiggen

Which of course reads “My parents never taught me Arabic.”

S/he kinda looks like s/he’s been caught in the act. I’d be embarrassed too, but it’s totally understandable. Four beers is a lot for a dog, and would, I imagine, lead to a slight deficit in good sense. Heck, leave me alone with a bottle of rum, some strategically placed cardboard [...]]]>

S/he kinda looks like s/he’s been caught in the act. I’d be embarrassed too, but it’s totally understandable. Four beers is a lot for a dog, and would, I imagine, lead to a slight deficit in good sense. Heck, leave me alone with a bottle of rum, some strategically placed cardboard and packing tape, and TOS running on the tube, and see what you come back to.

Via Sci Fi Wire. Original source: http://imgur.com/9zbiP.jpg, origin unknown.

No really, it’s an actual movie. It’s listed on IMDB and everything:

A school/pack of vicious, cross-bred Chihuahua and Piranha are unleashed upon a pristine Mtn Lake and quickly consume summer campers before a team of misfits, led by the lake’s ranger, evade and destroy the evil little critters.

And here’s [...]]]>

No really, it’s an actual movie. It’s listed on IMDB and everything:

A school/pack of vicious, cross-bred Chihuahua and Piranha are unleashed upon a pristine Mtn Lake and quickly consume summer campers before a team of misfits, led by the lake’s ranger, evade and destroy the evil little critters.

And here’s the 3D concept art:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JIfOByfQds

Try to unsee that!

via jwomack >  io9.

Now you know.

Via Laughing Squid.

From 9 0 0 0‘s Plan 9.001 photoset.

Via lupowolf.