The Shins will change your oil.

1. Cool optical phenomena can be found by looking up into the sky. Fascinating pictures and descriptions.
   
   
2. Awww! squirrel raised by cats dogs! AWW!
   
   
3. It's the 25th anniversary of Steve McQueen's death, and Ursi is celebrating him with some good links. He was so cool.
   
   
4. I made a surrealist painting, and so can you with this museum-based generator.
   
   
5. The trendy hookah pipe is even worse for your teeth than cigarettes.
   
   
6. I am, sad to say, a ROCK SNOB.
   
   
7. I do not want Macromedia Flash in my car. I do not like it, Sam I Am.
   
   
8. Marvel Origins of Supersneezers? I see trouble ahead.
   
   
9. SEA MONSTERS ARE ACTUALLY JUST WHALE PENISES!!! [punchline]

Buddha under the Bo Tree (2005, Paris)

The wreckage of a car used by rioters to break through the glass door of a McDonald fast food restaurant lies amid the rubble of the restaurant in Corbeil-Essonnes, south of Paris. Photo: Jacques Brinon/AP

Surefire retirement plan.

Find the person who's got the idea for the next generation technology that will make tattoo removal quicker, cheaper, and less painful.

Invest in this person's business or patent as much as possible.

Wait ten years.

Retire and slurp umbrella drinks on the beach in Tahiti.

If I find the right technology there is no possible way this strategy can fail.

door to door encounter

Ding dong. Open the door. There's a high school kid there, well-dressed. He says he's my neighbor from "down the street". He launches into a description of how he's in a public communication class and they're supposed to meet friendly, nonviolent neighbors. I smile and fake a punch. He smiles back. Then he gets to the meat of it: he's going to go overseas to intern at the BBC but must raise funds! Here we go. He's not selling magazines! No, this is "worse"! They're making him sell books. Now, lots of people are "saturated with books" so what they're doing for us book-saturated householders is allowing us to buy books for others. In this case the "kids in Intensive Care at Childrens Hospital". The pitch arrives at "what most people are doing" which is sponsoring a boy and a girl (nice way to set up two sales).

I politely refuse; I have to cut him off to do so.

He asks "Why?" He says that this is about public communication! I respond that he's publicly communicated very well, but he's not getting money from me today. Again he says "Why? I just want to know, so I can improve for the next people I talk to. What could I do differently next door?"

I said "You could find someone nicer than me." There was a pause and I smiled brightly.

"That shouldn't be too hard," he said. Off he trudged.

I voted.

I put my voter sticker with the flag on it on my shirt, but upside down to indicate distress. The flag outside in the parking lot wasn't upside down yet, but it was looking a bit forlorn. Will the last small d democrat out of Orange County please bring it?

texas question

So, are the beers and steers going to have to stay in the closet now also?

Dept of Inappropriate Clip Art

As joyfulagitator said, "they should just have used the theater masks."

late posting of too much due to too much too late today

1. This year's Yo-Yo championshows off his stuff (video).
   
   
2. All gave some. Some gave all. Courtesy kynn.
   
   
3. VillainyWatch: Auto engineering expert alters evidence for Honda against paralyzed girl's lawsuit. Some people don't want to wait to go to Hell.
   
   
4. Ha!! The director of the poison-industries shill group American Council on Science and Health, the "arsenic is good for you" people, is a delicensed doctor who did four years in prison for Medicaid fraud. He was also convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Nice.
   
   
5. Is Hepatitis B killing huge numbers of Asian women?
   
   
6. This is an amazing optical illusion!
   
   
7. More toy piano fun for changeng and others!
   
   
8. The OC Weekly has an article about my local WACK JOB CULT LEADER, who rules with an iron fist and sells fibercraft supplies.
   
   
9. Finally:
   The Dog Will Not Fly