Nazi Zombies + Vampires + Werewolves

It's these kind of questions that keep me up at night.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

International Penguin Day

Happy International Penguin Day!

For those of you who've read my profile you'll know I like penguins so I decided to take the opportunity to celebrate them.

The Sunday Rundown

I'm still working on "Anna Karenina" but am also trying to work my way through "Imperfect Birds" by Anne Lamott. While I enjoyed her writing in "Bird by Bird" this is the first novel I've read of hers. The first few pages didn't impress me but we'll see.












Okay, it looks fake but this Honda commercial took years to make and was accomplished by taking apart a car. It looks CG but I think that has to do with the lighting. I saw the 'making of' video and some of those interviewed said they'd been working on the project for, get this, five years. How insane is that? The creepiest part is definitely the windshield wipers.





I heard this at the end of "Kick Ass". This is the perfect music to run to, trust me.

Mika vs. Redone

Earth Day 2010

I took a quick walk this afternoon, got my hands on a free copy of "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell and tried Bubble Tea for the first time.

I hope all of you had a great Earth Day. The weather here was beautiful. Bright and sunny, more than a little windy to blow clouds away.


Flowers

The sunset, a huge flower, wilts on the horizon.
Robbed of perfume, a raw smell
wanders the hills, an embarrassing smell,
of nudity, of awkward hours on earth.
If a big man stands softly, his wide arms
gentled at his sides, women dissolve. It is the access
to easy violence that excites them.


The hills are knobbed with hay,
as if they were full of drawers about to be opened.
What could be inside but darkness?
The ground invisible, the toes feel the way,
bumping against unknown objects
like moths in a har, like moths
stubbing themselves out on a lamp.


The women sit in their slips,
scattered upstairs through the houses
like silken buds.
They look in the mirror,
they wish they were other than they are.
Into a few of the rooms go a few of the men,
bringing their mushroomy smell.


The other men loll against the outsides of buildings,
looking up at the stars,
inconsequential.


One of them bends down to smell a flower.
There are holes in his face.


- Roo Borson

Abbott & Costello: 7x13 = 28

I'm currently working on another review and can't wait to do a photopost for Earth Day tomorrow but until then, here's a little piece of fluff from Abbott & Costello. This is my kind of math!

The Sunday Rundown

I'm finding "Anna Karenina" slow going. It reads more like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in that you need to really concentrate and read in large chunks in order to 'get' the story. I'm not sure I understand why we start with Levin and not Anna but I have no complaints.













I've never been a big fan of Apple's 'i' products, mainly because I'm not that tech-saavy but this illustrated "Alice in Wonderland" for the Ipad video made me rethink my opinions. Doesn't the interactivity look amazing! I would have loved this as a little kid.



This is Ok Go's newest video extravaganza called "This Too Shall Pass" and it's one giant Rube Goldberg machine.

Oh Shelley

I had a bad day at work and it's comforting to know that I can come home to something like this.

Read Aloud

The Bog Queen

I lay waiting
between turf-face and demesne wall,
between heathery levels,
and glass-toothed stone.

My body was braille
for the creeping influences:
dawns suns groped over my head
and cooled at my feet,

through my fabrics and skins
the seeps of winter
digested me,
the illiterate roots

pondered and died
in the cavings
of stomach and socket.
I lay waiting

on the gravel bottom,
my brain darkening,
a jar of spawn
fermenting underground

dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
the vital hoard reducing
in the crock of the pelvis.

My diadem grew carious,
gemstones dropped
in the peat floe
like the bearings of history.

My sash was a black glacier
wrinkling, dyed weaves
and phoenician stitchwork
retted on my breasts'

soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
like the nuzzle of fjords
at my thighs-

the soaked fledge, the heavy
swaddle of hides.
My skull hibernated
in the wet nest of my hair.

Which they robbed.
I was barbered
and stripped
by a turfcutter's spade

who veiled me again
and packed coomb softly
between the stone jambs
at my head and my feet.

Till a peer's wife bribed him.
The plait of my hair,
a slimy birth-cord
of bog, had been cut

and I rose from the dark,
hacked bone, skull-ware,
frayed stitches, tufts,
small gleams on the bank.

- Seamus Heaney

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

"'If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now,' said Jo, always ready with a plan."

Josephine March is a headstrong tomboy. She, along with her three sisters, Meg, Beth and Amy struggle through the hardships of being young women and make do with an absent father and little money during the American Civil War. They are much comforted by the friendship of their neighbour 'Teddy' Laurence though. And they all have dreams: Jo wants to be a writer, Meg wants to marry and have pretty things, Amy wishes to marry rich and fix her nose and Beth wants to take care of everyone. As they grow up they face the trials of love, marriage and loss, including the formidable Aunt March and gruff Mr. Laurence Sr.

I had seen three movie adaptations before reading the book so I was well aware of the plot and characters and knew what to expect. Jo is the main focus of the story, serving as a stand in for Louisa May Alcott as the book is loosely based upon her own childhood. Jo is a strong character with her own convictions and her more modern sensibilities allow readers to connect with her. That being said, some of the dialogue and attitudes of other characters are archaic with the book being set 150 years in the past.

I enjoyed the fact that each sister was given equal time and developement withint the book and emerged as individuals. While some of their antics seemed ridiculous such as Amy's obsession with pickled limes (ew), her behaviour when it came to trying to fit in and impress her peers was completely believable.

The vivid descriptions are few and far between in this book but my favourite by far was this. "A Russian prince condescended to sit in a corner for an hour and talk with a massive lady, dressed like Hamlet's mother in black velvet with a pearl bridle under her chin." I couldn't help but smile imagining a langourous prince talking to Gertrude.

Overall I found this book a slog to get through which was unfortunate. I found it long and tedious. A main frustration came from reading 200 or so odd pages and believing I was finished the book. It turned out the book was split into two parts, the second part being called "Good Wives" as Alcott was unsure of how part one would do. As well, while I can appreciate that Mrs. March wanted her daughters to be happy and marry for love I found it difficult to believe some of the advice that she gave Jo in matters of love. Also, I wasn't sure I understood what was going on with Beth towards the end of the book. What were her motivations? Strangely enough I found that I liked the movie adaptations better, the 1949 version specifically.


Rating: 2.5/5

The Sunday Rundown

I'm still working my way through the beginning of "Anna Karenina" but I'm enjoying it. I think the characters names will shortly become difficult to remember but that was also true of Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Unlike Marquez there's no family tree but there is a list of character names.

One thing I don't understand is why some characters seem to be members of royalty. What was the point and wasn't Tolstoy all for the peasants?

I think I'll eventually have to watch the Vivien Leigh movie version. I'm sure the costumes will be great but I'm not sure about the rest of the film.






Witness here the most adorable parallel parking job you will ever see.



This is Edith Piaf's "La Vie en Rose". She first came to my attention because of Marion Cotillard's Oscar win but I'd heard the song many times before. Please to enjoy this blast from the past.

Read Aloud

"Franklin. Hair carrot and brass. Irides seagreen, pupils hyacinth. Pathfinder brogans, collapsed socks. Lots of practical irony and cautious reticence, the hippety-hop who invented electricity. Love me some geography, he says to the mush bowl, because a map is a jigsaw puzzle. What I like is where the driblet island make a trail at the south poke of things, left behind, all on a drift to the west. And to teh north, crumbly islands. Love islands."

- Guy Davenport

Photopost - Pure Fashion

The Sunday Rundown

Happy Easter!

Here are some easter chicks from England and no this hasn't been Photoshopped. The chicks are actually that colour. Apparently the farmers injected non-toxic dye into the eggs before they hatched. The article was quick to stress that the dye doesn't hur the chicks and that when they grow their adult feathers, they'll come in as the normal yellow everyone's used to. Aren't they adorably colourful?















I found the most amazing book yesterday. It's called "the death of picassco" by Guy Davenport and it was a steal at $4.

I'm struggling with the last 100 pages of "Little Women" but I'm so close that I'm not going to give up. I'm frustrated by the sexism inherent in the book and it's tough to remember that at the time it was written it fit perfectly into society's views on women.

But I need to finish it because the heavy lit that is "Anna Karenina" starts tomorrow.






This is amazing. I found a mashup of Michael Jackson's "Bad" with the Ghostbusters theme. Surprisingly they fit well together. The only explanation I can find is that they were both made in the 80s, which had a certain sound to it.

Girl On Top - Nicole Williams

"Some people search their whole lives and never find a career they love, some fall into love on day one and are committed for life, and still others fall in love8 over and over again. I've come to believe that just like in our relationships, loving your career has a lot to do with expectations - ultimately you get the love (and the career) you think you deserve."

This is an Early Reviewer copy that I received from LibraryThing.

The book is divided into sections that each address certain aspects of work life, some that fall by the wayside if an employee is inexperienced or shy when it comes to asking for what they deserve. The book has a flow, making it easy to read and includes several visual aids, from appearance to how to ask for a raise. Interestingly Williams' no non-nonsense advice can be applied to both the workplace and in relationships for a variety of situations. For example, Williams writes on loyalty, how it's important to reward it, that trust be earned through action and to believe in your instincts, all qualities that can apply to both.

Williams made the read enjoyable by peppering the book with humour, separating it from other career success books that can often read more like wheat germ.

One drawback I did find was that the guide seems tailor-made for a very specific job type, such as a media/PR person. I'm not sure how this advice would work outside the corporate world. As well, some of the advice seemed more common sense than anything, telling the reader things they would already know.

Rating: 3/5

MysteryGuitarMan

One of the geniuses of YouTube. Enjoy!

Pegasus Automaton

Do want!