Was it just me

Or was the Oscar ceremony this year...entertaining?



It starts out all...oh god, he's gonna sing, this is gonna suck, but by the end you're totally with it, "I am a Slumdog, I am a Wrestler, I'll rent The Reader, I am WOLVERIIIINNNNEEEE!"

I also liked the Pineapple Express skit. "Dude, why is there a film crew in my living room. No look, it's Janusz Kaminski!" Lulz.

Friday Random Ten

The "I aced my Dinosaurs test, so why the hell not?" Edition.

1. It's True That We Love One Another - The White Stripes
2. Thursday - Morphine
3. Cloud My Tongue - Amos, Tori
4. Little Man - Waits, Tom
5. Everybody's Happy Nowadays - The Buzzcocks
6. In The Morning Of The Magicians - The Flaming Lips
7. Can't You Hear Me Knocking - The Rolling Stones
8. Close To You - Ethyl Meatplow
9. Faerie Queen - Alexander, Heather
10. Anarchy In The U.K. - Sex Pistols

And because that last one was a little cliche, we'll go to eleven.

11. What Would I Know - The Datsuns

Oh, The Dautsuns were playing the Launchpad when my friend, whom shall go unnamed but you know who you are, got me good and kicked out after harassing the bartender. Good times.

All I want are some fucking shoes that fucking fit!

Apparently I have two pot roasts at the end of my legs of such unimaginable enormity that no low-cost shoe designer would ever deign to make affordable shoes in my size, lest I be the only person who buys them.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or are my feet really that wide?

Happy Darwin Day!

I'm going to ignore for now how woefully behind in my studying I am and celebrate Darwin Day with a bunch of cool science timewasters.

Check out this cool video from SEED magazine.

eLucy lets you compare the bones of A. afarensis with H. sapiens and P. troglodytus.

Sneezing iguanas of the Galapagos!

I'm not embarrassed to say that the arthropods of the Burgess Shale have always given me the heebie-jeebies. Is it weird to have a phobia of extinct animals?

Neat clicky-zoomy deep time timeline thing from pbs.org.

Also from pbs.org: the website for the most recent episode of NOVA, which is about the Dover Intelligent Design vs. Evolution trial.

I'll add more if I find cool stuff.

Please Don't Divorce Us

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

I pretty much started crying .02 seconds into this video. What the hell is wrong with people who would actively seek to destroy the happiness in this video?

Although, I might add, this is the sort of thing you probably want to release *before* the passing of something like Proposition 8.

Taos Aelthing 2009

Off to the Aelthing again. See you next week!

**UPDATE**
It was quite the success this year. Here's the pics!

Superbowl Ads

I had no dog in the hunt for the Superbowl this year, which I always find kind of liberating because you're free to root for either side and change loyalties if you feel like it. Pretty thrilling game overall.

How about the ads though? Cara at Feministe lists some she hated (the "Talking Flowers" one was so offensive people in the room I was in literally got all quiet and weird for a second).

But here are the ones I liked.


A bit cornball, maybe, but well done. Also, is Pepsi somehow riding the coattails of Obama?


I thought this one was pretty cute, and must admit have had similar daydreamings.


I've had this job.


I've also had this job. In fact, I've screamed in the car in the parking lot just like that.


This one ellicited a cute Abbie response: "Oh no, what are they doing with the soda??!!??"


This one made my dad laugh.


And Alec Baldwin, as usual, brings the hilarity.

You can see them all here. The fact that there was a mixture of horrible, sexist, cute, and moving ads means that at least some advertisers realize that you don't have to appeal to the average male football fan's inner asshole to sell stuff. Not only are there people other than fratboys watching the Superbowl, but a lot of men aren't slaves to said inner asshole.