Reading Offline: Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments
by Alex Boese
Really odd book about various "scientific" experiments, some gruesome, many just insane. Have't yet gotten to the elephants on acid part, but am definitely freaked out by the "let's decapitate an animal and try to keep just the head alive" chapter. Ugh.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford
I never read much of Millay before, but Milford wrote a really interesting biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, so I was interested to see her next book. Still in the first chapter, but the prolog was amusing in itself. I always appreciate reading the background of how the author started on the book.
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
I gave this to Jon as a gift a while back and only just recently remembered I never did borrow and read it myself. Am very amused so far. Sadly it's not the updated edition I've linked to - preface in our copy's dated Nov. 2000. Wonder what's been added/changed/corrected.
The New Kings of Nonfiction
by Ira Glass
Collection of nonfiction articles previously published in various magazines. Bought a while back in an airport and there are still a few articles I haven't finished reading. I really liked the Bill Buford article that became Among the Thugs.
...About?...
Batgrl is a pop culture junky who loves to mess about with cameras and video games. And is constantly amused by Jon, who she did honest and truly did meet online. Though she's been blogging since the '90s, evil sp@m'rs managed to break the old blog, and thus there's only more recent stuff here. (No great loss, actually!)
In mundane Around Our House News Jon has managed to hurt his shoulder (the joys of a pulled muscle) and I'm having my (far too usual) bout with joint aches - so we are a couple of large land crabs. Rawr. Fear the snapping of our pinchers.
I'm a devoted follower of the Skull A Day blog - I'm always amused at the artwork that the author (it only just now occurs to me that I've never noticed the author's name...and still can't seem to find one there) comes up with, especially the use of various materials. In a recent entry it was Skull-Brite, which made me remember buying a Lite Brite in college just to mess around with. I know I had one when I was little - one of those "where did that toy disappear to" moments. And apparently at Skull A Day there was also that nostalgia - especially for the Lite Brite song, which of course I can sing on cue. In case you've forgotten it:
I had to listen to that multiple times yesterday until "You can make lots of pretty pictures with Lite Brite!" echoed through my skull.
And then, thanks to the time suck that is YouTube, I bumped into this gem...
"A "What if?" scenario of Robots taking over and destroying the Earth is told on a Lite Brite."
Maldroid
"Heck No! (I'll Never Listen to Techno)"
Directed by: Ryan Divine
The "Techno, heck no!" is now bouncing merrily through my brain, and it's an Earworm Festival in there. I went and bought the song on iTunes because frankly, anyone doing something that fun with a Light Brite deserves my dollar.
And because I'm still in Lite Brite Nostalgia Mode:
A now famous Lite Brite quote: "It's so not threatening -it's a Lite-Brite."
And the rebuttal quote, same link: "It had a very sinister appearance. It had a battery behind it, and wires."
[CNN link no longer works - a great example of why I often quote multiple paragraphs from online articles. See Wikipedia's 2007 Boston Bomb Scare page for information about the lite brite quote.]
Lite Brite Neon can rent you a cool sign or two. I'm partial to the As Seen On TV sign for some reason. And the cup of course.
Skull A Day also led me to Bent Objects, my new favorite blog. I'm sure everyone's already seen these and I'm late to the party as usual. But if not, I thought these were amusing:
Took me a couple of seconds to get the last one, then I felt silly for not realizing what it was. But it's been so long since I've seen a...actually I'm not even sure if they have a name - paddle ball? Many more images of this sort on Bent Objects.
Oh and comments now working over at Hooha.org. Which has turned into a Warcraft Blog. Big surprise, right? Sadly I've culled through all that I saved off of Hooha (and the other sites) after the Great Spambot Attack of '06 (or was it 07? my memory's fuzzy) - not much left of all the text and images that I and others had posted there. Still feeling badly about that. *sigh*
So sorry about Jon's shoulder and your continuing achiness...Bill and I are trying to get more exercise...today he walked for an hour and I managed a half hour...and drinking VERY LITTLE alcohol to try to stave off his astronomical trigliceride count and my high cholesterol. It seems that the Red Yeast Rice doesn't do it, even with a low fat diet, when we induldge in desserts, potatoes, pasta, white bread, and beer and wine - not to mention Jameson! Ssooooo...I guess our age and lifestyle are catching up with us...At least we have the incentive of "growing up" with Morgan!
Someday I will have to explain to Morgan that he's motivational - just think, he has no idea!
And yes, I too need to get into the more exercise thing, sigh.
I hadn't thought about Lite Brite in years, but then yesterday, Alan and I started reminiscing about it. Now I click over here, and you're blogging about it! *Plate O' Shrimp!*
