I know that this is making the rounds, and that this may be the fifteenth time you've all seen this linked to in one place or another.

If even one person sees it who might not have seen it otherwise, it's worth taking that risk.

I give you: The Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody.

There's a reason for that.



This is rather brilliant. Thanks to 3_2_1 for the pointer.

Back when I first acquired the FFXII soundtrack, I noticed that one of the songs was called "Clash on the Big Bridge". The title was somewhat familiar, the song itself even more so, but it took some cross-checking with my Black Mages albums to discover that it was based on a battle of the same name in FFV. I hadn't remembered hearing it anywhere in the game, so I chalked it up to poor memory and moved along.

Then today, a hunt called "Battle on the Big Bridge" showed up in my queue, so of course I had to check it out.

( Minor spoilers for a hunt in the latter half of FFXII. And also for FFV, perhaps. )

I approve. It's a fun little nod to fans of the series, and I love that it takes one of the less-played games as its jumping off point.

You would think that some things go without saying. For example, that it's a bad idea to try and bring a hand grenade onto an airplane.

You would be wrong.

Presenting the 2009 winners. I haven't read them all yet, but the grand prize winner actually made me laugh out loud.

binsybaby suggests some names for kick-ass movies about girls, such as "Sisterhood of the Traveling MONSTER TRUCK ON FIRE" and "Bridget Jones's Diary OF COMPLEX TIME MACHINE BLUEPRINTS". I know I'd see that last one! There are many more, in the post and in the comments, so make sure to read the threads. Some of the commenters make suggestions in the other direction, too, like "Die Hard AND THEN GET A PEDICURE" and "Batman Returns FROM THE ORCHID EXHIBIT".

Thanks to Jed for the link; if you don't have time to read all of the comments, he's posted some of his favorites here.

Even if you aren't normally a fan of LOLcats, you have to see this one.

( The world must be warned... )

I've had a few occasions to pass this along lately, so I figured I might as well share it with all of you, as well: The Postmodernism Generator

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Related, the story of a famous parody paper that deconstructed quantum physics, which then got taken seriously. As always, Wikipedia has more.

Hanging out and watching bad television with amybang. It's telling, I think, that out of all of the ridiculous things that have happened in "The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines" (librarian as fact machine and action hero, magical books, plot twists that a five year old could see coming, the book of Solomon being written in English, various crazy coincidences, obvious editing mistakes), the thing we can't get past is that the main character, Flynn, somehow managed to complete five PhDs by his 32nd birthday.

It's Proposition 8: The Musical!



A not-to-be-missed bit of political satire with an A-list cast, even if you usually hate musicals.

Via SE, the Atlas of True Names, maps of the world and Europe that show the etymology of country, region, and city names. Some are fairly straightforward ("Land of Indians", "Virgin's Land", "Sea of Sand"), but there's a lot of fun stuff, too. Can you guess where "Land of the Chaste One" is? Or "Canal of Many Fish", or "Town of Respectables"?

But I think my favorite must be "I Don't Understand You!"

I wish the big map images on this page were enlargeable. Of course, then they'd be a lot less likely to sell the print versions. I have to admit, I'm kind of tempted.

more music charts

Like many sources of online amusement, GraphJams can be hit or miss. When it hits, though...

Almost there. I can't believe that after two years of non-stop campaign news, we're finally less than 24 hours from the first polls closing.

All kinds of reasons to be excited and nervous and worried, but I've managed to narrow my focus to two: the presidential election, and Proposition 8. And since the alternative is unthinkable, I've made plans to head down to the No on Prop 8 San Francisco headquarters after work, to see if there's anything I can do. I'm not much for making phone calls to strangers, but surely there's office work that can be done, and, well, if not, maybe I'll just suck up the phone phobia for the evening. It might not even be a drop in the bucket, but I at least have to make the attempt.

In the meantime, have two owl-related distractions (I'm always posting moose stuff; it's about time to give the other half of my handle a little love):

Hiding place for sleeping owl is not so hidden after all.
Everyone is fond of owls. (Warning: Flash animation with loud sound, auto-plays with no way to stop or pause, extremely silly.)

Got a good owl picture, link, or story? Leave it in the comments!

Like everyone, I'd thought that Sarah Palin looked a great deal like actor and comedian Tina Fey, but I never really realized how uncanny the resemblance was until they appeared together on SNL yesterday.

So it's no surprise that it only took twelve hours for the Tina Fey or Sarah Palin quiz to make its world debut.

I did get them all right, but I had to think about some of them. If nothing else, I am entertained by the concept. Thanks to Jed for the link.

Jed also gets the thanks -- or perhaps I should say "blame" -- for linking me to Dicewars, which is a lot like Risk, except it plays a lot faster, and is way more addictive. Don't start it unless you have a little time to spare, and by "a little" I mean the next few days.

Counter-protesters in pirate costumes drive away demonstrators from the Westboro Baptist "Church".

The counter-protest was organized by a group of Pastafarians, naturally. The Flying Spaghetti Monster has brought the world so many gifts, how can we not believe? Ra-men.

This reads like something that ought to be in The Onion.

PETA writes a letter to Ben & Jerry's urging them to use human milk in its products.

We had this running joke about making butter in college, but we never thought of ice cream. Clearly, we were behind the curve.

An afternoon of library blog surfing led me to a laugh-out-loud funny list of odd book titles, including such gems as:

The Great Pantyhose Crafts Book
227 Secrets Your Snake Wants You To Know
Cheese Problems Solved and
Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them

Many of the books on this list are winners of the Diagram Prize, presented each year by The Bookseller (which looks to be the British Publisher's Weekly) to honor a book with an (intentionally funny or otherwise) unusual title. This year's winner? Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers.

The vote to discover the oddest title of the past 30 years was run in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Tittle of the Year. The prize was first conceived by The Diagram Group's Bruce Robertson as a way of avoiding boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In its first year, in 1978, Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice picked up the award.

But why go as far as the title to make your judgments? In some cases, you might just stop at the cover...

The 2008 Bulwer-Lytton awards are up. A mixed bag, as per usual, but there are some laugh-out-loud gems, also as per usual -- the Vile Puns winner, for one (and there are a lot of puns in this batch), and the "honorees" in the Romance category.

Also, because it's been awhile I think, I want to point you all to an homage/parody: the Little Lytton, which is the same thing, but shorter -- there's a 25-word limit. I could do without quite as much commentary from the judge, but it's still pretty fun. The 2008 winners are here.

Besides being 8/8/08 (I wanted to post at 8:08, but the pesky work thing got in the way), today is also Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day, which as anyone who's ever grown the stuff knows is a key day to observe.

I had a zucchini muffin for breakfast to celebrate. Warm from the oven. Tasty stuff! (Also the only way I will eat zucchini.)

Also, my aunts are having their (30-years-overdue) wedding reception tomorrow, and if that's not a reason to celebrate, nothing is.

This is quite possibly the funniest blog in the history of the Internet.

GraphJam: Songs, books, movies, and other pop culture forms explained in the form of graphs.

Some choice examples:

So simple, it is

Comparison to a summer's day

Things we'll need where we're going

Classification of young American females (according to Brian Wilson and, later, David Lee Roth)

I could go on (and, as amybang can attest, earlier today, I did). Suffice it to say this is one of the cleverest things I've seen online in a long time.

Maybe while I'm bored at jury duty tomorrow, I'll come up with more...