Type in All Cats

It's bad form to type in all caps on the internet, a mode of communication generally perceived as "yelling." But what if, instead of caps, you could type in all cats?
Just when you thought the internet's obsession with cats could come no closer to all-consuming Ancient Egypt style worship, there arrives Neko Font, maker of the cat font.

A beauty but a funny girl, that Belle-parody-video

The first fab parody I saw of the opening number from Disney's Beauty and The Beast was "Bonjour, Girl."

I just recently was sent this one, titled "Beauty and the Beat." I think Jerome's solo is my favorite.

Tony Awards

Today the 2012 Tony Awards will be handed out in New York City for all Broadway, musicals and straight plays. It's not an awards show that gets a lot of TV hype, but it's still glitzy, that's for sure. In 2011 Neil Patrick Harris hosted (he'll host this year as well). Here's the opening number from 2011 -- an ode to how theater's not "just for the gays anymore!"

Dear Dr. Fleischman

For your viewing pleasure, a story (music video) that tells a tale of obsessive fandom. The fabulous, and slightly creepy, "Dear Dr. Fleischman" by Meira Marom. And yes, that's Dr. Fleischman as in the 90s TV show Northern Exposure.

In this week's news

A few quick sound bites for you for this Thursday afternoon ...

PayPay repeals its policies of censoring legal fiction at Smashwords. Somewhat questionable but not illegal love shall be censored no more!

Darth Vader leaves the Empire. In his terms, the Empire isn't taking Vader's interests and talents seriously anymore, nor do they have their priorities straight:  

"throttling people with your mind continues to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making people dead."

The SF/F magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies is giving away two copies of George R.R. Martin's tribute anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, signed by Mr. Martin. Rules to enter.

Chrystall Thoma writes about The Dangerous Task of Writing a Sequel. Lions and tigers and -- two bears? -- oh my!

And lastly, it was seventy years ago yesterday that the first human life was saved with penicillin, an antibiotic discovered accidentally by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

Christmas in geekdom

Two absolutely awesome holiday projects to share with you today. And I can't take credit for making or even attempting either of them.

The first is this absolutely awesome gingerbread AT-AT complete with little gingerbread dude swinging from a rope beneath the belly ready for AT-AT destruction and a nice big boom.

(Found via.) At first I must admit that I got a little huffy because I thought the gingerbread dude was supposed to be an Ewok and, if this is an Ewok, then this is totally the wrong sort of Imperial walker (the Ewoks attacked the two-legged kind that were on the jungle moon of Endor). Then I looked a bit more closely at the gingerbread dude. No ears. A helmet. Sort of a snowsuit collar and boots. Oh, oh, oh! That's not an Ewok, that's Skywalker! Sorry, my bad. It's so hard to tell humans from annoyingly cute savages who like to roast their sacrifices over the fire while still alive.

This gingerbread walker is rightfully the four-legged kind from the ice planet of Hoth. Duh: Christmas = ice planet + gingerbread -- it took me a while, but now I'm on board.

The next exhibit I have from Christmas in geekdom is what the site BuzzFeed is calling DIY Holiday Nerdflakes. They're instructions/patterns for how to make paper snowflakes featuring shapes from all our favorite sci-fi shows. This one is the starship Enterprise.

They also have patterns for a Tardis, a Cylon, storm troopers and bounty hunter masks. But I think my favorite is the laughing Darth Vader because he looks a little like a malevolent Santa. And I bet that if you make that snow flake and showed it to your non-initiated friends (those who've never come to play in the land of geekdom), that they'd never realize that it wasn't Santa and then you'd have the joy of having pulled one over on them. Of course, they might start to wonder what that strange cog-like shape was in the middle of the flake, but just tell them it's a geometric pattern not the not the symbol of evil that made the galaxy shudder. Wha, ha, ha! Ahem, I mean, Ho, ho, ho!

cat scan

I happen to have found an entire blog devoted to what happens when you put a cat on a scanner bed and push scan now.

They're strangely adorable.

Oh, and if you get so enamored of the cat scan concept, you can scan your own cat (or your own cat's butt given the way many of the scans turn out) and send it in to the cat scan blog owner. You may make the cut and appear in a future post.

My cats will not be appearing as I, sadly, do not own my own scanner. The cats and I would have to make a trip to the library ... or the English office ... and somehow I don't imagine that going well.

Happy Halloween

Must admit I found this through Elizabeth Twist.
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Pumpkin carving as an art

Believer it or not, I stole both of these pictures off of George Takei's facebook wall. There's just so many layers of geekery to unpack in this post that it's not worth thinking about it.  

Of the first one Takei writes:

One gourd to roux them all, two eggs to bind them, one gourd, add sugar and spice, and with some whipped cream pie them.

Takei had no witty captions for this next act of pumpkin carving brilliance, but my friend stepped in to fill the void. She writes:

I'm afraid this pumpkin will be quite operational...

Calender Men

If you've seen the film Calendar Girls you know the basics of the plot: older women decide to produce a calendar to make money for some very nice charity project by posing naked behind strategically placed items.  It's a funny and charming film -- and if you liked it I highly recommend Kinky Boots another British comedy with similar themes and wit though less nudity and more shoes.

I bring this up because I've recently come across The Men of the Stacks a 2012 calendar of, you guessed it, male librarians.  There's ... well you should really just see it. The pictures range; obviously they weren't all shot by the same photographer, but the proceeds go to the It Gets Better Project. http://menofthestacks.com/

Also sent to me was this series of photos of men in traditional pin up poses. There's such a brilliant combination of the traditional pin up and the average man that these are absurdly amusing.

It's that time of year again ...

Avast, me hearties! It's Talk Like a Pirate Day.  No, seriously, it is.

So you better start talkin', you scallywag, or I'll have you kissing the keel at dawn!  Talk like this guy ... not that our skeletal, peg-legged friend in the picture will be doing much talking.

Tomorrow, when we're done speakin like pirates, matey, we'll have one of previously promised MFA related posts:

• How to find a program (Tuesday)

• Why you should pay no attention to "rankings" for any school or program (Wednesday or Thursday)

• And then another long awaited Link+Love post ... so leave me comments if you think there's a post/article/something that should be included/promoted in my next link+love

Photo credit (for above): Svadilfari on flickr.

Also from flickr, kristen_a (Meringue Bake Shop)'s adorable pirate cake:

Character Sketch Writing Contest

If you are interested, a "mini contest" is now open at Diamonds and Toads, the sister site of the magazine Enchanted Conversation. They're looking for a 300-word character sketch of the fairy of summer -- more info.

If I had a band ...

If I had a band, we probably wouldn't be named the Crown Prosecutors. But following these guidelines, that's my band:

1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days...(tharr be more)”. Third pictu...re no matter what ...it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use picnik.com to put it all together.

Introducing Crown Prosecutor's debut album Bits of a Star Gone Wrong

I've seen these instructions online before, but this is the first time I've put together the album cover.  It's just a bit of fun on the internet which appeals to my Photoshop skills.  Okay, the above picture doesn't take much in the way of photoshop skills, but it at least was a reason to open up the program and play.