It’s Friday afternoon at the end of a hectic and horrible week. Time for something a little fun before I head down to the pub to begin my official decompression. I know: how about videos of cats doing silly things?

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Awesome image courtesy of Astronomy Photo of the Day:

As usual, click the picture to embiggen. Click here to read scientific goodness about what you’re looking at. Looking at this makes me wish I was right there, with a big slice of thin, street-vendor pizza folded in my hand and the warm summer evening in front of me. Yeah, that’d be good, the sort of scene that would make me feel young and full of possibilities. Hell, in that kind of mood, I probably wouldn’t even gripe about the humidity…

Ah, the wonders of the Internet… here is the complete MTV Cribs segment I mentioned in the previous entry:

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I’ve recently discovered the highly entertaining Secret Fun Blog, an offshoot of a Web site called the Secret Fun Spot; both are dedicated to all the weird and wacky toys, ephemera, and retro crap that strange, overgrown kids like me love.
Yesterday’s entry on the Fun Blog is particularly interesting: It features a number of screen grabs from an episode of MTV Cribs that showcased the enviable home of heavy metal/industrial musician Rob Zombie. Why is that interesting to me? Well, Zombie is an afficianado of old horror films, you see, and his house is a treasure trove of collectibles; while my own collecting tastes run more toward science fiction, I definitely identify with his general aesthetic. I especially liked the pirate bar, the built-in, floor-to-ceiling curio cabinets full of toys, and the walk-in video library. Ah, yes, some day I will have a walk-in video library…

Just a quick one to note that Anne’s and my friends, Brozinski and Puff Bird (better known in the Real World as Steve and Jennifer Broschinsky), welcomed their second child into the world last night. It’s another boy. Steve describes him thusly:

8lbs 14oz, 21 and a half inches long. Dark hair and a Kirk Douglas cleft chin. Ian Bradford Broschinsky.

Ian Bradford… ’tis a fine Scottish name, laddie…

Just a few of the interesting links I’ve run across today:

• Remember that gag video about how the iPod package would look like if it was designed by Microsoft? It seems that was created by Microsoft itself as an in-house presentation about the problems of branding and packaging. Details here.
• Courtesy of Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog, a pretty nifty animated gif of Earth rising into the Martian sky. Naturally, this was assembled using photos taken by those amazing little Mars rovers. As Phil points out, “Everyone you know is in that picture, on that tiny mote of light.” I find this humbling, and really, really cool.
• And finally, something that should come in most useful for you “workin’ for the weekend” types, a German blog that demonstrates through photographs 1,000 methods for opening a bottle of beer. Prost!

Have a good night, folks…

Although tear-jerking, heart-warming tales of sick little kids are all over the Internet and I suspect at least half of them are probably bull, this one raised a genuine lump in this old curmudgeon’s throat: last Friday, the Idaho chapter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation organized virtually the entire city of Boise to fulfill a young cancer victim’s desire to become a superhero. Yes, a superhero, complete with a costume, a super-villain to pursue, and super-sidekicks to help out. The kid girl even got a phone call from Adam West, which is kind of silly when you think about it; a six-year-old wouldn’t remember Michael Keaton’s Batman — or even Val Kilmer‘s or George Clooney‘s — let alone West‘s. (West was no doubt cheaper than the other fellows.) Still, what a great gesture of community compassion. And just about the time I was ready to give up on the whole human species as a bunch of selfish jerks…

From the “We’re living in the Future!” department comes news of a wild new “liquid armor” that could supplement or even replace the conventional Kevlar vests used by soldiers, law-enforcement officers, and anti-government wackos. At the very least, it could protect the unarmored limbs that kids are currently losing in Iraq:

“We can make thin layers of material for use on the arms and legs that remain flexible under normal motion, but become rigid and absorb energy when impacted by a ballistic threat or a knife,” [researcher Norman] Wagner says.

Cool, cool stuff. Of course, science-fiction writers came up with this idea a long time ago, so this is really only a case of life imitating art… which brings me back to my usual question: where is my Skywalker-style speeder bike, anyhow?

All right, it looks like we’re going to give Andrew Sullivan a run for his money on this “view from the window” thing. We’ve just received some pics from Chenopup, taken from his home office:

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Continuing with this whole “view from the window” motif, here’s the awe-inspiring urban vista I can see from the Proofreaders’ Cave, located high atop one of the glorious metropolitan skyscrapers in fabulous downtown Salt Lake City:

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