Author Neil Gaiman has written a small Valentine’s Day poem:
Roses are red,
Violets are purple,
Which is a very hard word to rhyme
And makes me happy that on February the 14th we don’t traditionally have to give each other oranges.
Um, yeah… me, too, Neil.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a sampling of homemade (i.e., Photoshopped) Valentines with a Star Wars theme. I must admit, most of them are pretty lame (although these aren’t any lamer than the professionally made SW Valentines you can buy at your favorite Mart-type store), but there are some genuinely funny ones to be found. For instance, you’ve got Luke pledging to give his right hand for you, followed by the return of FrankenVader (Robert, that one’s for you). You’ve got a funny but disturbingly kinky one involving Leia and Jabba. And then there’s my favorite, for those who have a very high sense of devotion to the cause…
Happy V-Day, everyone.
If you, like me, are showing the world more and more of your skull with each passing year, through no desire or action of your own, and you’re not terribly happy about that state of affairs, fear not, for Bruce Willis knows your pain:
You’ve all seen it, you’ve all read it, you’ve all seen the little things trying to make you feel less of a man because you’re losing your hair, but they can all suck my… you know what I mean? I’m a man and I will kick anybody’s ass who tries to tell me that I’m not a man because my hair’s thinning.
I try not to be too self-conscious about the hair-loss thing — God knows plenty of other men in my age demo have the same issue these days — but every once in a while it feels really good to ball up my fist and let out a defiant shout, you know?
Continuing this afternoon’s quest to ignore the deepening stack of material in my inbox, here’s something I found on Scalzi’s AOL Journal: an interactive Johari window. This is an Internet version of a ’50s-vintage psychological model used for mapping personality awareness. It works by having the test subject — that would be me, in this case — choose from a pre-determined list five or six words that he or she feels describes them best, then asking other people to describe the subject from the same list. Fun awaits as you compare and contrast the answers to see the difference between how the subject sees themselves versus how everyone else sees them. Since I naturally want to be just like Scalzi, I’ve followed his example and set up my own Johari window. Assuming my three loyal readers go through with this, I’ll post the results in a few days. Here’s the link:
Have fun, kids…
On the heels of the previous entry, here’s another funny: a pictorial representation of the Ten Ways Vice President Dick Cheney Can Kill You, courtesy of Boing Boing. Curiously, none of them involves a shotgun…
I don’t know about you, but I’m having a Monday… I’ve had no particular disasters or anything, but I’m plagued by a general inability to get back into the work-week groove. So naturally I’m killing time on the InterWeb, looking desperately for things that may amuse me. Things such as, for instance, the following quip from TV comedy writer Ken Levine, discussing his weekend run to San Diego:
San Diego’s premiere strip club, the Body Shop is still in business… which is a relief because I still have my lifetime pass from 1974. Only problem is, the strippers from 1974 are still there.
Hm, well, this is a new experience. I’ve been “tagged,” meaning someone — that would be you, Jen — has specifically requested that I do a particular blogging meme. It’s a good thing I didn’t live during the period when dueling was still legal, because I seem to be incapable of turning down this kind of a direct challenge! So, Jen, just for you, here’s my response to “Five Random/Strange/Weird Things.”
Our guide warned us that we’d likely encounter bison on the road to Old Faithful, but there’s a big difference between hearing something like that, understanding it intellectually, and actually coming around a bend to find your path blocked by an animal the size of a Volkswagen.
Okay, this still isn’t my long-promised travelogue, but I found it interesting enough to share. Andrew Sullivan on what we ought to be hearing from the minority party:
I’m not a Democrat and don’t think I ever could be, but here’s what I’d say if I were in opposition right now. These guys [the Republicans currently in charge of things] are corrupt and incompetent. They have screwed up the Iraq war, turned FEMA into a joke and landed the next generation with a mountain of debt. We’re for making the homeland safer, winning back our allies, and taking on the Iranian dictatorship. We’re for energy independence, universal healthcare and balancing the budget again. Now, let [Karl] Rove do his worst. Hey, we need Democrats who relish the fight, not timid ones who cower at the prospect. Bring back the happy warriors. Please.
Say hallelujah. I am so frustrated at the inability of the Dems to say or do anything effective. It’s not like the other side doesn’t have any genuine vulnerabilities to exploit. Come on, guys, get a frickin’ clue! I could go on, but I need to devote my energies to writing about Yellowstone…
In case anyone is wondering — and you’re probably not, but I feel like telling you anyhow — I found the missing part of my Yellowstone entry this morning. Somehow, no doubt due to the unforseen side-effects of my superhuman PC powers, I ended up with two copies of the thing on my work machine, one in a folder where I keep my blogs-in-progress and one on the desktop. The desktop version was the one I was working on yesterday, but the incomplete folder version is what I mailed to myself before I left the office. D’oh! Stupid mistake, but ultimately no harm done.
I’m hoping to find a moment to finish it today and, if I do, it’ll be up this evening. Hope you’ll come back for it, as it’s going to be, in the immortal words of Ed Sullivan, a rillly big shew.
