Here is that Steven Soderbergh Meme you Requested

Please print out stickers of this and put them on your car and on your pets and any billboards that you own.

Here is That Bizarre Species of Armadillo you Requested.

Did you know that this animal actually exists in real life?  It is called a Pink Fairy Armadillo, a name that is almost as hard to believe as the creature itself.  It has its own Wikipedia page and everything.  It is as though someone put armadillo booties on a prairie dog and then gave it a hat made out of scraps from a seafood restaurant.  What I mean to convey here is that this animal looks silly.

[UPDATE]

I still can't believe this animal exists.

Here is that Information about the Twenty-Oughts you Requested

I don't want to hear about how "the decade isn't over" or whatever - we tend to measure decades by the year's tens digit, so deal with it, assholes. ALSO you will have to click on this to read it, obviously.


For me personally, the oughts were pretty alright. I survived (or avoided entirely) the following things:

• A year-and a half of middle school
• Four years of high school
• Four years of college
• 2 moves (within a month of each other)
• 9/11
• The Nintendo Gamecube
• SARS, Birdflu, H1N109, S.A.D.
• 3 Star Wars movies* of varying degrees of awfulness

I GUESS IT ALL WORKED OUT.

Now, it is time to press on, into the future - 2010 (the year we make contact)**


*Episode 2, Episode 3, The Clone Wars
**Robert Zemeckis actually made Contact in 1997

Broadcasting from Home #1

Hey. I decided to do a comic for a little while. It's autobiographical, but try to find a better reason than that to dislike it. I hope to do a few, but we all know how I operate.

The real joke here is that Panel 3 has happened at least two more times.

RSPCTU2

Remember: May is Respect U2 Month. So are June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, and April.

Science Corner #2 - Airplane Edition

now you know.

A Return to Normalcy

This blog has a problem. The problem is not the fact that it is rarely updated and generally neglected, but that its content of late - what little there has been - has strayed from the original themes and motifs that made this blog worthwhile to begin with: Information, and Terrible Ideas Drawn on Notebook Paper. And Airshow Disasters. I hope to rectify this misstep as quickly and effectively as possible starting today, April 3rd 2009, a day that is rainy and sucky.
Please consider yourself Informed.

Operation Thermal Underwear is Under Way

Walking home from work today I realized that I don't carry out enough missions in my life. By "mission" I don't mean like, piling into a van with a bunch of my too-smiling friends and driving down to some country that sucks with the intention of digging a well and then putting up a 200 ft. tall cross right next to the well to Remind People about God or Whatever. I mean missions like carrying out objectives and Taking Care of Business. While walking it also occurred to me that long underwear would have been a fantastic addition to my outfit, because I couldn't feel my legs and the outside temperature made me wonder what walking on the surface of Neptune would be like (hint it would be impossible because your legs would break under your own weight).

Net Result: Operation Thermal Underwear (not to be confused with Operation Thunderbolt which is definitely Badassier).

Objectives

• Wear thermal underwear (pants and shirt)
• Do not freeze to death anytime soon
• Tell people how great the first objective is going for me (example: say to someone "I am wearing thermal underwear. It is going pretty great, trust me")
• Really, seriously, honestly Do Not Freeze to Death.

I am going to make a little design for a button or something later on, to be awarded to people who survive the mission.

Another Christmas Special

You're welcome

It Is Black Friday

Which means that many of you (well, not you, because if you're reading this site then you've got some sense and know not to go out into terrible locations on the biggest shopping day of the year) are getting all caught up in the raging, stabbing, hateful spirit of kicking in doors and buying the everloving hell out of anything stacked up near a checkout counter. It also means that you are officially in the market to buy me (yes, me, this is my site and you are reading it which means you must have some vested interest in my happiness, a happiness best fed by material possesions) what I want, be it for Christmas or otherwise.

Now, I know I rarely make it easy for those in your position, and this year will be no exception, mostly because I hate to break tradition. So, to those looking to curry favor, this is your charge*.

Be aware: You will likely be competing with a legion (more accuately: a handful) of collector-types, a couple of whom might have grown-up incomes. You will also be competing with me, a person who is not above sniping ebay auctions and who is selfish enough to spend more on himself than on you during this terrible holiday season.

Oh, and if you're feeling really ambitious there's also this and this and this.






*Listen: I do not actually expect to get this - I know how auctions like these turn out , frequently it gets ugly and staggering and depressing, at least when you are the guy who does not win. This post should mostly succeed in getting across my views on Black Friday, as well as serving as a permanent "Do not" to people who say things like "you never tell me/us/anyone what you want and blah blah blah," not as an official or functional guide to what I want for Christmas.

The Daily Robot is Happening

PLAN ACCORDINGLY

What kind of Tuesday is Today?

Listen: it is not easy to be me, ever. Today, however, it is especially not easy to be me, and here’s why: that PC from those smug commercials has just released a book that does what this blog is supposed to do, only it does it more eloquently, in print, and to a greater degree than I do. God damn him.

He's even interested in exactly the same things I am, the joke is that I have already heard this item.

Oh well, right? At least I’ve got one thing he doesn’t: drawings of robots.

Do You Think it is Okay to Like Brian Eno?

And I'm not talking about the Brian Eno that produces Talking Heads records and sometimes makes an album about taking a mountain by strategy, no no. I'm talking about the Brian Eno that just sort of gets in front of some kind of music making device like a simple piano or control board and makes background noise for a body to listen to when that body is having conniptions. Because I'm not sure it's okay to like this Brian Eno, but the fact of the matter is that I really, really do when the Time Calls For It.

Listen: as a person who is pretty prone to panicking and worrying about things that don't make an enormous amount of sense I can tell you that the sensation is god awful at best. One time, about nineteen months ago I found myself in a situation that got me real worked up, worked up in a looking-desperately-for-the-exits kind of way. Eventually I did find the exit (it was a door), and I made my way back to where I needed to be. Somehow, through logic that now escapes me, I got it into my brain that I needed to listen to Music for Airports. I don't know how I knew about this album, and I'm also not sure that I'm allowed to call it that. Maybe I'd heard it at some point before that time 19 months ago, but I wouldn't testify to the fact. Regardless, that is what I listened to, and back then, much like now, I found it remarkably soothing.

Listen: I bring this up only because in the past couple of days I have been getting myself awful worried about something that, now, in the light of greater preparedness and a healthy dose of Ambient 1: Music For Airports seems a lot less threatening and terrible than it did about eight hours ago. In conclusion I am making this album the first-line treatment method for when I get too upset, okay? So now you know.

Also, if you were wondering, the second-line treatment for when I get too upset is putting this on a screen and myself in front of that screen. Thank you.

The Latest Disappointment from the Letdown Factory

Situation: Campus Movie Fest(ival) reared its ugly head on the confines of Tufts University this past week. In a fashion similar to the two other times this has happened my accomplice and I were interested enough in the annual ordeal to fill out the necessary online forms and offline papers in order to be granted custody of a simple camcorder, black Macbook, and unnecessary tripod, the first and last of which were left unused for a week or more, while the laptop was put on loan to an ally upstairs for purposes more noble than poor movie-making.

Yesterday evening, however, the deadline for our completed movie was looming within the 24-hour mark, and it became clear that something had to be done. In a trademark easy-way-outist decision, we opted to adapt something written months ago into a workable solution to our as-yet un-thought-about movie conundrum. Eighteen hours later the following emerged, springing fully-formed from the head of iMovie '06.

Enjoy, I'm sorry, you're welcome, and now you know.




Prediction: The powers that be at CMF will opt not to screen this labor of love at the University's finale event, and I will not be there to see it not happen.

This is an Example of Problems

Today is My Brother's Birthday

That is the main fact of today. Despite raised eyebrows from the small but vocal minority that remains skeptical of his existence, I sent him a brief and to-the-point email wishing him a good birthday. If you see my brother in the two hours that remain of his birthday please congratulate him. If you see him tomorrow tell him you are sorry to have missed his birthday but that you hope it went well. Thank you.

Soon: Information that pertains to You Personally.

El Triste, El Verdad

I don't think either of us are worried about the way this blog is slowly turning into a gallery of things I draw in class.

On Nature and its Wonderous Creatures

I realize the heading "More Information about Nature's Best Friends" might at first be confusing to some of you, as in all likelihood unless you spend a fairly specific two and a half hour period of the week with me you have not received any information about nature's best friends. I will explain this concisely now: in nature, the kookaburra and the koala are best friends, and have the best best friend relationship (inter-species or not) of any two-critters on earth*.





*Some (including myself) have considered that the friendship between cats and ducks (patos and gatos in Spanish-speaking locales) have a better best-friendship than the koala and the kookaburra. This is an issue too complicated to get into right now, suffice to say that the matter is not settled.

Information for Parents - or - a P.S.A.

In other news I realize this place has not been "up to snuff" in fast and efficient delivery of Information. Let me assure you that this is not because anything interesting or remarkable is in the works, my taciturnity is the sole product of poor planning, reticence, corrective lenses, and bad weather. Look forward (or don't) to more of the same in the immediate and distant future.

They Showed a Looney Toon Before Casablanca Last Night

And in other news the world is a livable place. Casablanca, however, continues to be a wildly inappropriate movie for Making Out Valentines Day Couples Who Deserve Misfortunes.