Wednesday night I felt so sick to my stomach that I couldn't go to work, then found out Thursday morning that my dad was in a similar predicament. Friday morning my mum had the same bug. And Saturday the dog ate a whole ton of dry grass emerging from under the snow, and then threw up Sunday morning.

Somehow this just tickled me, that everyone in the family had the same, very brief stomach bug. Even the dog.




In other news-worthy news, I really like Duck Dynasty now.

I'm still sort of in aversion mode. Apologies. If it seems that I'm not doing anything here, it's because I'm not doing anything here. :/ It's kind of a personal crisis type thing. Or something. I'm kind of just nipping in and out again occasionally.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/525380_10151469522753827_389079505_n.jpg

I assume that the text means something like "attractiveness depends on your thoughts" or something to that effect (or what, German-understanders?)
*edit* It says "more attractive than you think". [Teufelsweib] knewed.

I'm sure it's just some kind of a visual clever thing, but I think it kind of points out how ridiculous it is to obsess over the thing on the front of women and then think that the same thing on the back on men is gross.

This gives me so much squee and I could just watch it go for hours <3

:*

I finally learnt what the breed of the dog I want is called. Borzoi. (In Finnish it's "Russian Greyhound"). It's kind of like an Afghan hound, but not so lady-like (the Afghan hound wears a dress).

I learnt it because of WNYC's dog project http://project.wnyc.org/dogs-of-nyc/
I get WNYC's emails because of RadioLab.

So this is all just another thing that RadioLab has done for me.
Thank you, RadioLab.
I should donate to them.

So the only thing I watch on TV is Star Trek Next Generation, and I never watch it as it airs, I watch it recorded. So I fast-forward the ads. And there is an ad that swishes by that is for some kind of a Finnish dating site, called "Elite Partner" and on the ads there is a picture of the usual ad model handsome/beautiful person, with a name and an age and a job title, and their jobs are all like, surgeon or CEO or such. And the last shot in the ad gives you the details like the website name, and in small text at the bottom of the screen it says "to join you must be at least" and then the fast-forward would change the picture and I was left wondering what one has to be in order to join an "elite partner" dating site. You must be at least an MA? Earning a certain amount? What could it possibly be? So one time I slowed down at that ad to see what it said.

It says "you must be at least 18 years old." Buh. How unexciting.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/01/24/170187741/rollergirl-displeased-with-hedge-fund-manager

Combining two cool things, Planet Money and Roller Derby :D

My dog fell down the stairs today :( It wasn't too bad, luckily he has quite a bit of bulk (to put it lightly) so he just sort of... paw slipped and he went down a number of steps like a sled, then skidded to a halt. Then got back on his paws and went down. But it really hurt the heart to see it happen.

And then ten minutes later he was back upstairs. -_-;

*has a bad*

Free comic!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanestrada/the-whole-story-winter-2013

So I backed the Whole Story comic bundle on Kickstarter, I think you all know about this. And it's pretty mad. The guy, Ryan Estrada, has raised a hugely mount of monnies already, and it's not over yet. And I'm really happy for him, because the Whole Story is really cool and if/when I make a comic I'm giving it to him to see if the Whole Story would want to do it. Because it's just so much awesomeness in that company.

Now this guy Ryan is way excited about comics. Like, way. And he does these project updates all the time, and he keeps adding to the backer package. So I'm actually going to drown in comics, come February.

And one of his updates recently was:
I want to make this even bigger. I want everyone who loves comics to find out about The Whole Story! But I hate promoting. I like sharing! So just for my backers, I’m going to give you a free copy of Plagued to give to whoever you want.
There are no strings attached! You can give it to anyone you like. You can give it to as many people as you like. It’s the whole book, not a preview. They don’t have to visit the site, sign up for anything, there are no ads thrown in, it’s the same book I gave you guys. You can give them that link, or download it and put it in an e-mail.

It's a pretty fun comic. And I like sharing too, so I want to share it too. But I'm not sure if by "sharing" he meant "post link to the Internet in a public place", so in case that wasn't what he meant, I'm going to ask you to talk to me and I'll send you the link. Just express interest.

This is actually a ruse. I just want to talk to people on ET. Even people who I don't know yet. But the comic is real. So if you like comics, here's a conversation starter. Just ask me to share Plagued with you.

http://io9.com/5976941/here-is-why-canadians-are-so-damn-dirty
Ignore misleading headline (io9 seems to love doing those) and the fact that they keep referring to "garbage" when it's more all-round about all eco stuffs.

But there was this commenter...

"So Canadians use a lot of water. Do you have any idea how much water Canadians have? Look at Canada on a map. It has the most coastline of any country on earth. And there are relatively few Canadians, so what's the big freaking deal?
Likewise garbage. Look again at that map Canada. See many cities west of Toronto? North of Calgary? It's a country full of nothing. With hardly anyone living there."

I must admit I don't fully understand what is measured here, but when you say "water usage per person" I think dishwater, showering, drinking, watering the yard etc... Aka, everything you can't use seawater for. Unless they... actually do take water from the sea and... do stuff to it to make it usable? Or maybe the commenter was referring to fresh water bodies and used the word 'coastline' in error. But this attitude of "we have plenty, therefore we can be wasteful" really bothers me.

"We have a population of 30 million people across half a continent, 70% of which is empty. We have lots of room to dump our garbage, it's a less expensive and more rational approach than implementing stricter recycling or other government run controls. The US has been 10x the population of Canada on a smaller land mass. We're not running out of empty space to dump our stuff. Australia has an even smaller population with a huge empty desert in the middle that's uninhabited. So ditto for them."

Recycling really is not about "where can we put all this shit?" -_- It's about resources. It's about not spending energy and raw materials to create a tin can or a plastic bottle (and the accompanying emissions), since you can wash out and reuse the one you just threw in the bin. It's about... recognising the perversion in the idea that you are rich enough to throw away things that have value, while other people on the other side of the planet have nothing. It's about the brotherhood of man. It's about the Earth as a whole. It's about living that idea in your own life.

The global problem with Canada being a pariah in all this (Kyoto protocol and all that jazz) is that responsibility and accountability are shared things, kind of like rules in a game. If someone all of a sudden says "I'm going to play by my own rules" the game loses its point. And that is problematic because... this isn't a game. :/

Sunday's are not always fun days. Most times they are not. Things like responsibility and lack of sleep and stress and worry just pile on on Sunday afternoon. So no wonder that by 10pm on Sunday one just kind of needs to cry. So I did, and went for my dog for comfort. He was lying on my bed, back to the wall so I slipped in between him and the wall, and cried in his back. And he knows exactly what to do when someone is crying. He mushes them against the wall. He pushed against the bed with all four legs and suffocated me with his furriness.

I can't stop giggling at that. I'll be a giggling mess at work tonight.

FINE.

http://101newthings2012.tumblr.com/

Dearly beloved.

We finally have a wedding date that isn't going to change: June 8th 2013. :D The wedding will be in Coventry, England, and you guys are all invited (with real invitations coming in the mail if/when you give me your address so I can send you one - I made the design and it's pretty awesome-win if I say so myself - and I want to send you one even if you're not coming). But it would be pretty cool if you did come, and I'm pretty sure I have enough friends with sofas that you can stay somewhere for free if you manage to get yourselves over :3

This will tell you all about the awesome movie Sleepwalk With Me which I have seen twice and I bought for Geoffrey it on DVD with Mike Birbiglia's signature so there! It's pretty awesome. And this video may infect you with some kind of strange insanity. It (un)did me. So go watch it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&;v=u4L-kFA_SmM

100 Things We Didn't Know a Year Ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2012/12/100_things_we_didnt_know_last_7.shtml

I want to draw these. And make a Tumblr of it. Curse you, thoughts! And curse you Tumblr too!

This could be my wedding countdown drawing thing. Not exactly a drawing a day, but something to that effect... Or maybe after wedding thing. I dunno, would this add more stress to the stress developing from the wedding arrangements, or be a way to relax amid the wedding hassle? I'll think of this for a while. If I remember to.

Go forth and write
https://yarny.me/

This is Harpo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&;v=7_nVEm5Yc3c#t=107s
Cpt. Picard is channeling Harpo in this little moment.
I will never watch TNG the same, knowing that Harpo is in control of the Enterprise.

http://youtu.be/WfGMYdalClU

I quite like this animation (I always think levity is a good way to draw attention to important issues and make people think - another such good way is science fiction) - except the ending. The whole thing is building up towards a point, you can see from the beginning that there is a point here being made, and the visuals get more and more gory and horrific and I'm sitting here thinking "come on, get to the point: you have me emotionally in a place where you can tell me your conclusion and what you think I should do, so come on and tell me what it is." And then it ends as it does and I'm left sitting here going "...what? The point is 'if we destroy our planet, aliens will come here and be very disappointed in us and punish us'?" Because that's the message I got. It was a deus ex machina moralistic ending of "if you do bad things, bad things will eventually happen to you." They might as well made the ending be "and then he died and went to hell and suffered there all eternity." That might have at least shaken the damnation-fearing part of the population (which, I would venture a guess, is larger than the alien retaliation fearing part) bit. Maybe. But the end really ruined it, because by the time there were cows getting flattened in a factory I was ready to go "yeah I should be a vegetarian again, not because eating meat is immoral, but because the way the meat is produced is morally questionable" - and then the animation just kept going, and then it went kableh. But how could it have ended? What would have been a better way? What would have worked for you?

The fear of "bad things will happen to me as a result of my bad actions" is a very immature thing. Children do that, making their choices in fear of punishment... Even the "what's in it for me" mentality (the positive side of the consequence coin) is immature and selfish. But mature people, grown ups, I expect them to make their choices based on a higher system, out of love or respect or sense of duty or something, knowing the consequences of their choices and reviewing those consequences from a perspective that's broader than "what can I get away with?"