Knit Your Own Nautilus

Remote Controlled Robot Shark

Both via Pharyngula.

Hope and Fear

An interesting suite of surreal photographs from Phillip Toledano.

"Breathing" Lifelike Pet Dog and Puppy Plush Labradors

Not only do real dogs need food, care and attention, it's hard to find one whose presence in your living room will have house guests eyeing available exits the way this thing will.

Via Happy Furry Puppy Story Time (dog-related blog-title a sheer coincidence).

Some fun with overdubbing at YouTube, in this case some rockgod guitar instruction videos.

Via Firedoglake.

Photos from North Korea

Sorry, I've forgotten via whom I found this.

Just like the types at Drawn!, I'm a huge fan of La Linea, so I'm chuffed to see there's an online archive. I tried to find something about 70s Italian stop-motion cartoon The Red and the Blue but most of what comes up from that search is tossers droning on about that entirely ludicrous Red State / Blue State meme from US politics. (I guess you couldn't really drone on about Left and Right in that context - Centre-Right and Utterly-Insane, perhaps.)

Still, the search did lead me to Francis' Knee.

Hakan's Space Balls

(For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says "You are here.")

Harrisand

Photos from the international sand sculpture festival at Harrison Hot Springs near Vancouver.

Deviled Ham

A weblog featuring appearances of the behorned bloke in popular culture. I particularly liked this unfortunate typo:



They've got a pretty cool blogroll, too. I'm quite taken with Groovy Age of Horror.

Nice collection of art by Virgil Finlay, pulp illustrator (especially for the legendary Weird Tales), compiled by the Datajunkie.

Fletcher goes in search of Hannes Bok. Oh, here you go.

Sand Art

Via Eyeteeth.

More visual japes, also on Flickr (all over Flickr in fact), and not new by any stretch:



See, huge manatees are simply funny. The pun and the referencing of a tragic air disaster are just icing on the cake.

Incidentally, according to this cache of Wikipedia's page on the LZ129 Hindenburg, the image is a "recent internet meme". Apparently, Wikipedia editors felt it necessary to suppress this vital information, as this datum has been excised from the current version of the page. So far I've turned up a reference to the pun, with a similar image, from 1998, which leads me to believe I need to get out more.

Via Pharyngula.

The Cats That Look Like Hitler Weblog*.

Hope that's amusing. Personally, I've been laughing at this gloriously trivial conflict of cultures.

*Via The Poor Man Institute for Freedom, Democracy and a Pony.

Did you know that if you look up "optical illusion" in Google Image Search, you get three different versions of the same "if you look carefully at this photo you'll notice an obvious landmark behind the half-naked woman" joke, and that's just in the first two pages of results? And one of them is the most popular result.

Ah, Google - helping you find the stuff a majority of idiots are looking for.

Oh, apparently that "post-web styling" is called CamelCase. Isn't that uninteresting? Wikipedia has a section on everything. Well, except nodding dogs. Fuzzy dice, they have an entry. The nodding dogs, not so much. Such injustice.

Yeah, that's right. I got nothing. But you gotta love that note on the Fuzzy Dice entry. "This article or section does not cite its references or sources. You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations." I tell ya, if there's anything I hate, it's people mouthing off about dashboard ornaments without appropriate footnoting.

Pictoplasma, home of The Bunny Mandala.

Incidentally, I just noticed that "yesterday's" post strongly suggests Stephen Colbert is the AntiChrist. (Note the post-web styling - none of this AntihyphenChrist shit. Satan2.0 r00lz j00!)

Stephen Colbert's (yeah, that guy) commencement address to Knox College.

Today is about you—you who have worked so hard to pack your heads with learning until your skulls are all plump like—sausage of knowledge. It’s an apt metaphor, don’t question it. But now your time at college is at an end. Now you are leaving here. And this leads me to a question that just isn’t asked enough at commencements. Why are you leaving here?

This seems like a very nice place. They have a lovely Web site. Besides, have you seen the world outside lately? They are playing for KEEPS out there, folks. My God, I couldn’t wait to get here today just so I could take a breather from the real world. I don’t know if they told you what’s happened while you’ve matriculated here for the past four years. The world is waiting for you people with a club.

...

There are so many challenges facing this next generation, and as they said earlier, you are up for these challenges. And I agree, except that I don’t think you are. I don’t know if you’re tough enough to handle this. You are the most cuddled generation in history. I belong to the last generation that did not have to be in a car seat. You had to be in car seats. I did not have to wear a helmet when I rode my bike. You do. You have to wear helmets when you go swimming, right? In case you bump your head against the side of the pool. Oh, by the way, I should have said, my speech today may contain some peanut products.

...

I mean even these ceremonies are too safe. I mean this mortarboard...look, it’s padded. It’s padded everywhere. When I graduated from college, we had the edges sharpened. When we threw ours up in the air, we knew some of us weren’t coming home.

Via Brilliant at Breakfast.

99 Rooms

Artsy graffiti, urban exploration and interactive weirdness.

Revelations: The Video Game

This game immerses children in present-day New York City -- 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards children for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian. The game also offers players the opportunity to switch sides and fight for the army of the AntiChrist, releasing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on conservative Christians and their panicked proselytes (who taste a lot like Christian).

As testament to the supernatural subject matter of this post, it comes to you from THE FUTURE.

Unless you're reading this after June 2nd. I would put the wrong year on it, but you can only go up to 2007 and it hardly seems worth it.

A US accountant has proof that he is descended from Genghis Khan

Genetic tests have revealed that Mr Robinson, a professor of accountancy at the University of Miami, shares crucial portions of his DNA with the Mongol ruler...

He has little in common with his infamous ancestor. He is not a keen horseman. Though a Republican, his politics are moderate...

“I’m proud to have such an interesting ancestor. I’ve been reading a lot about him since I found out about the link, and it does seem that his reputation is a little unfair.

“He conquered a lot of countries, but he had a pretty good system of government.”

Some jokes just write themselves.