First, this will confuse those of you who don't have cats, and awe those of you who do: the ultimate Japanese cat house.

No, not that kind of cat house. Get your mind out of the gutter.


Second, I have a new and favorite on-line radio station: KCEA, a big band and swing station run by a high school in Atherton, California. I've been listening to them on and off for a couple of weeks and have never heard a repeat. Some amazing, and occasionally really obscure stuff.

And they're a high school station. Awesome.


And third and finally, a Brit's-eye view of the American Thanksgiving tradition. "In just under an hour, I’m heading out to my first ever Thanksgiving dinner; I gather there will be turkey involved, and sweet potatoes – whatever they might be." I liked the Glenn Beck/Howard Beale comparison :)

And I hope all who celebrate it had a good Thanksgiving.

"There are some life years gained. But it’s not very large."

Based on today's vote, this is the entire future of America's health care system.

Now, is the the hope part, or the change part? I'm curious, here.

It's bombproof. And it's wallpaper.

For some reason I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the thought, but it's still exceptionally cool. I just want to see Popular Science test it with a real bomb, not just a wrecking ball. Looks like amazing stuff, though. I grew up in tornado country; it just takes seeing one house hit by a hundred and ten mile an hour two by four to appreciate the potential civilian applications.

Be sure to watch the video; also, there's a link to a previous PS article explaining the technology of the stuff.

Bombproof wallpaper.

Awesome.

The following item was cheerfully ganked from robyngoodfellow.


"The M25 slowcoach: Tortoise who wandered across five lanes of rush-hour traffic."

I loved this bit: "We think he’s American, which would explain why he was going the wrong way down the motorway." Heh.

I've a friend who is working on a scene and needs a description for what the character does. You know how you'll get frustrated and sort of sigh and blow a Bronx cheer at the same time? How do you neatly describe that without it sounding silly? I suggested "he makes a horsey sound", but for some reason she doesn't think it properly captures the seriousness of the moment :)

Open to suggestions, and thanks!

This guy has way too much time on his hands, sure. But I very desperately want to try the same thing, myself.

I like the fact that women ask "Why would you possibly want to do that?", while men mostly just go "Cool..." :)





I have to wonder just exactly how one becomes a 'world champion' anvil shooter. Is it just a matter of surviving long enough?

... stayed up all night thinking up the lead sentence for this article, or someone stayed up all night drinking, then wrote it immediately before passing out in the trash can:

"A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbours by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat."

You can't make stuff like this up. You just can't.

... what his most embarrassing incident as a pilot was, the creator of Salon.com's "Ask the pilot" column confessed to this spectacular blunder. Quite well written, actually, and also funny:

"The fountain grows taller, and he sees now that the toilet is not actually spraying, but bubbling -- a geyser of boiling, lathering blue foam topped with a thick white fog. And suddenly he realizes what has happened. It was not a block of ice, exactly, that he fed to the toilet. It was a block of dry ice."

Ouch. Just... ouch.

I laughed, I cried, I plotzed.





Ridiculous, no? :)

"Writing a book is an adventure; to begin with it is a toy, then amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant, and the last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you will kill the monster and strew him about to the public."

Sir Winston Churchill

Vera... excuse me, Dame Vera Lynn, at ninety two years young, is on top of the charts in the U.K.

I cannot even begin to say how cool that is :)

[obscure]

Good heavens! It's the Giant Rat of Sumatra Papau, New Guinea!

[/obscure]

"For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

"This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do."


The scary part? I honestly can see this happening. Oh, not immediately, but... well, just read the author's note at the end.

So I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up a few things, and while there looked around a bit. I found a wine. Oy, did I find a wine. If my jaw didn't hit the floor, it damn well should have:





I don't know about you, but I certainly want to associate My dinnertime wine with lymph node swellings indicative of bubonic plague, gonorrhea, tuberculosis or syphilis. I can hear the marketing, now: "We're Bubolicious!"


Yes, yes... I know what the name additionally means (hence, the owl on the label). But come on. Is that going to be anyone's first reaction?

"In this new world, radicals are the ones who protest adding trillions to our debt and who have the temerity to ask if legislators have read the bills they sign. You've seen them. Those radicals who are ranting and raving about silly things like the Constitution."

The last I heard, over a hundred thousand people had turned themselves in to the 'narc.your.bud@whitehouse.gov' address set up so people can report "fishy" statements from websites, TV shows and individuals who say things critical of Obamacare ("I'd like to report myself for being critical of your really stupid plan"). Now THAT'S funny...

Today's experiment in planned demolition... fails.

Roll over, play dead :)

"... first set foot upon the moon. July, 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

From The Investor's Business Daily: "It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal."

As Paul Simon put it, "I'll repeat myself, at the risk of being rude": '... making private medical insurance illegal.'

If this piece of... legislation... passes, all private health insurance will die out in America, and you will HAVE to go to Obamacare. The federal government will run all aspects of the US health care system, since they do such a good job in all their other bureaucracies.

Oh, yeah. This'll end well.


By the way, if you read the article and thought "Hey - it can't be that bad... look at Canada!", then my response is "Hey - it can be that bad... look at Canada!



*: Besides the editorial staff at the New York Times and MS/NBC, et al - which is not unexpected, given their inability to comprehend anymore the difference between "news" and "advocacy"**.

**: And if Helen Thomas says it's happening, there's got to be something to the idea. Come on, admit. It's Helen Freakin' Thomas :)

"I had suggested right-leaning ideas weren't welcome on campus and in response the faculty had tied my viewpoints to racism and addressed me with profanity-laced insults."

Okay, show of hands. Is there anyone who thinks that displaying such hostility on college campuses to a different political point of view - one shared by pretty much half of America to some extent - is a good idea, or will end well? Discuss, but be prepared to show your work. You may use the back of the internet if necessary.

<br?

"The fact is, Obama is an intellectually mediocre narcissist with a thin resume who’s lost without a teleprompter and whose entire campaign had all the substance and gravity of a Pepsi commercial. Yet people say Sarah Palin is a fluffy bunny diva." This, from a liberal feminist who voted for Obama. Interesting stuff - and the comments are fascinating.