Reverse Zombification

I don't love commercials. As an art form, I think they're largely corrupt. But every once in a while one comes along that is positively entrancing. This one features Rick Genest, Canada's own Zombie Boy. Apparently Gaga used him in her "Born This Way" video? He's making quite a name for himself in the fashion industry too. Good show, Zombie Boy.

 

Did You Ever Grow Anything in the Garden of Your Mind?

This is going viral, which is awesome and has partially restored my faith in humanity. PBS it seems has undertaken to create remixes of iconic figures from its catalogue of shows, beginning with Mister Rogers. Symphony of Science / Remixes for the Soul's John D. Boswell, aka melodysheep, put together this absolutely wonderful piece.

If you grew up with Mister Rogers like I did, this will probably resonate strongly. For me, remembering Mister Rogers conjures up memories of my parents' basement rec room with its orange carpet and wood panelling, and the ancient television set with the rotor that you turned to align the antenna so it would pick up the station. Along with Sesame Street and the occasional viewing of The Friendly Giant, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was a regular part of my formative years.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

 

A Note on Being Neglectful
So while I've been in blogger-limbo, a number of super awesome bloggers have nominated me for this award:

Apologies to those of you who've handed this to me without acknowledgement. I've buzzed by to let you know I still love you.

Go visit these people, will you?

Sherry Ellis, mommy blogger extraordinaire. Sherry writes short sharp hilarious pieces about family life. She should be more famous. I bet her books, The Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN (for parents) and That Mama Is a Grouch (for kids) are full of her great humour.

Jim Wright lives in Amman, Jordan. I loved Jim's blog from the moment I set eyes on it because his exceptional life takes centre stage. Lately he's been posting parts of a story called The Wall Crack'd, which is super intriguing and makes me want to pick up his book, New Yesterdays.

I am always happy when I land at Catherine Stine's Idea City because of the gorgeous banner at the top of her page. Catherine's book Fireseed One is on my TBR list. It should be on yours, too.

I'm short on time today so I'm not gonna nominate anyone for this award, but if you want it, please grab it!

I am supposed to put seven random facts about myself here, but I would love it if you left a random fact about you in the comments. I'll claim it for my own, and thus appear much more interesting than I otherwise would.

Goodnight, Darlings, Here's a Little Treat Featuring Sweet Chaos and Destruction

Via Colossal Art & Design, I give you Stupidity at 2500 Frames per second. If there is too much stupidity for you here, go to 2:48 for the stupendous Flour + Candle and forward to the end for the waterbed finale. So...much...fire.

Never Mind the Mass Hysteria

Why can't we have mass sarcasm more often?

 
 Via Failblog.

A Fun Thing

Tomorrow, the fine people at yourfonts.com are celebrating National Handwriting Day by offering YOU (and him and her and you and you and you) the chance to make a font (or more than one!) out of your own handwriting for free.

The offer is only good on January 23rd, 2012. Use the coupon CPN4NHD2012 at checkout.

As a longtime writer-by-hand, I can't wait! I suspect the results will be illegible, but they will also be stylish, and that's enough for me.

To make excellent Blacke Inke

Via Reasoning With Vampires.

Jim Meskiman's Night Before Christmas

Jim Meskiman does vocal impressions. Really really well. Since Christmas is fast approaching, but it's still too early to post the dancing pumpkinhead Christmas video, you can have this instead. Enjoy.

One of the Best Things I've Seen in Quite Some Time

Nothing to do with what I'm writing. I'm just trying to keep you amused so you don't notice that I'm not offering you any meaningful content.

I'm at 89021 words. Carry on:

Further Proof that Babies Are Basically Tiny Drunks As I've Always Maintained

Trailer for the short movie "Las Palmas" by Johannes Nyholm:

A Real Summer Game-Changer

I'm not talking writing tips here. I am talking dessert. Summery frozen dessert that will blow your mind with its simplicity, deliciousness, and brain-freeze potential. I don't care if you come here to read my thoughts on writing: I would be remiss and probably karmically damaged if I didn't share this with you.

Here's what you do: you know those bananas that are sitting in your kitchen and getting brown spots way too soon because the weather is getting warmer? There's no way you can eat all those before their skins turn black and they taste overripe and too sweet. You my friend are going to take those bananas and turn them into PURE MAGIC.

Peel the bananas and cut them into chunks a couple of inches thick. Place the chunks in a container - I use a stainless steel bowl - and nestle that container in your freezer. In a few hours, the bananas will be frozen enough for you to work your will on them.

Your will, and your blender or food processor.

Take the frozen banana chunks and pile them into the motorized chopping device of your choice. Chop or blenderize wantonly. If the chunks are reluctant to blend or chop, you can add a tiny skootch of some kind of liquid - milk or soy milk or almond milk or even a bit of water or juice will do - but just a tiny skootch, like a couple of tablespoons. (If you're using a blender, it helps to press down on the top of the banana chunks with something so that the blades can get to them. I use my potato masher, press and blend for a few seconds, then stir everything with a spoon. BE CAREFUL NOT TO LET THE MASHER GET DOWN TO THE BLADES. You will end up in the ER and miss eating your delicious frozen treat.)

See what's happening as you blend the bananas? They are taking on a creamy texture. A frozen, creamy texture that is a heck of a lot like ice cream. That's right. You didn't expect that, I bet.

Yes, you can blenderize any frozen fruit. The higher the banana quotient, however, the greater the proximity to ice cream rather than sorbet.

I keep a bowl of frozen banana chunks in the freezer at all times once the weather gets warm, so I can make this dessert any time. Apparently you can refreeze the pulverized banana cream after you're done blending, and it will scoop like ice cream. I haven't tried this myself - I usually make just enough to go around at a time - but I am intrigued, to say the least.

The more ripe the bananas, the sweeter your dessert will be. I find this recipe doesn't need extra sugar, but you can amp up the deliciousness by adding a few frozen berries or a big scoop of cocoa into the mix. I recently found a recipe online that suggests adding peanut butter - I think I'll be trying out some almond butter or cashew butter and see how that goes.

I won't point out the obvious benefits of having fruit for dessert, but if you have someone in your life who is vegan (use only water or juice in the recipe) or has dessert-limiting food allergies (ditto), you will probably make them very happy with this. I find this treat more satisfying - texturally and flavour-wise - than ice cream. Plus you can eat a giant bowl of it and feel great instead of gross.

You're welcome.

Fill Your Boots, Man

Love this:



Via Stephanie Skeem.

Also love Shit My Students Write (for the grammar nazi in you).

Bits and Pieces

An object lesson for writers over here at BigAl's Books and Pals. The moral of the story: if you're going to strenuously object to a review of your self-published book that points out its numerous errors, you might want to master grammar, spelling, and English idiom first. Recommended if you enjoy shadenfreude and delicious commentroversy. Be forewarned: it gets unfunny sometime shortly after the author under review drops her second f-bomb.

Via Dread Central: Brad Pitt's battle to turn the brilliant World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War into a film might be successful after all. I admit I'm torn. The book was so jaw-droppingly amazing and so uniquely constructed that it is likely to lose its essence as a film. Go read it and tell me what you think.

Newsflash: Googling "Where did Rebecca Black come from?" produces this Crushable article that details the diabolical machinations of Ark Music Factory, "a company that lets people pay a lot of money so that their kids can sing a song and make a music video." Well, that explains that, doesn't it? Ark seems kind of like the Disney machine but without the raw talent or interest in investing in their stars in exchange for stealing their childhoods and turning them into human train wrecks. I found this interesting as a writer because it seems that although there has been much buzz of late about why new authors should think like indie bands, lookie lookie, here is a part of the "music" industry that is taking its business model from vanity publishing.

Personally, I hope they do a lot more. Rebecca Black's "Friday" was insidiously earwormish and so very meme-worthy.

If you haven't experienced it, here's the original:



Sorry about that. But you'll thank me now that you can fully enjoy the spoof by Bad Lip-Reading:

For Those Who Saw E.T. When It First Came Out In Theatres

Fond childhood memories? Replaced with hilarity!

I give you the E.T. sequel trailer:

Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

It's the 202nd anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, and we all get a present! Since we all can't be at Fergie's Pub in Philly tonight to celebrate with the Raven Society,  Random House offers us this spooky, atmospheric reading of Ulalume, performed by Jeff Buckley.

Jane Austen's Fight Club

The thing about Jane Austen is, she was quite a bitch. I mean that in the most respectful, loving way possible. You can tell because of her narrative voice. Seriously:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

From the opening of Pride and Prejudice, as if you didn't know that already. This narrative voice belongs to a woman who has watched everyone around her bound by convention, and oblivious to its effects. She sees social obligation where others simply see "the way things are." I'm sure that, if you were like minded and a part of her circle, Jane Austen was a breath of fresh air. If you were just another sheeple, she was probably a bit tough to be around.

In any other era, Ms. Austen would have been brawling it up with abandon. She would have Tyler Durdened her way through high society, low society and all points in between. Want to know what that would have looked like? Check out Jane Austen's Fight Club, by the lovely ladies of Relatively Badarse Productions:



The best thing about this trailer is, it's eminently gif-able. Images after the jump, to avoid spoilage if you haven't already viewed the video.

Delicious Exhibition, or, Battle of the Green Screens

Because of recent rearrangements in our household, I've been getting up at an ungodly hour this week, and will be doing so for some time. Unfortunately my body has yet to admit that this new schedule requires an earlier bed time, so right now I'm a little punch drunk and crashing out.

Inevitably, this state of mind has led to some random web surfing and revisiting of old amusements.

So now I am in a quandary: I cannot decide which of the following hot messes is the most awesome.

I'll leave it up to you and your conscience to decide:

I give you Shine:



Vs the Hoff:

Don Hertzfeldt's Wisdom Teeth

Don Hertzfeldt of Bitter Films releases Wisdom Teeth on YouTube, "just in time to ruin the holidays." I laughed hard, and nervously, through the whole thing.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Lovecraft and Derleth enthusiasts Bad Advice for Good Times have a very important message for us all.



On a slightly more obscure, even more brilliant note:



Well played, Bad Advice, well played.

I am not usually quite this hilarious

Dave and I went to see Kick-Ass tonight. (In a word: amazing! Run and see it now! Go!) One of the trailers was for The Expendables, of which I was not previously aware.



At the end of it I turned to Dave and said: "I didn't know they made a sequel to The Bucket List."

Can I get a rim shot?

I need one of these

Oil Master's Brain!

Invisible Runner

Go and try Invisible Runner by David Ferriz. An aesthetically gorgeous game with a here-and-gone-again protagonist.