Ring Tone Symphony

Found this while "wandering around the Beadosphere", by which I mean reading jewelry artist blogs on my Google Reader page. From Lori Anderson's Design Blog:

I Bet There's a Perfectly Fine Bowl of Water on the Floor Nearby

I think the best part comes at about 2 minutes in. Thanks to Kristie at Simply Shiny where I saw this first.

Yes, I Was Cat Waxing and Found This...

Link provided by Cat Waxing and Colour Coordinated Pens (a great new blog, btw) - not my usual musical fare, but love this on other levels...

New Engineer Guys Cat Video - Worth Waiting for the Concert at the End...

Mom Song

You've probably seen some version of this (or maybe even this one) but I saw it for the first time today. Must say I grinned through the whole thing.

Extreme Sheep LED Art - Another Brave Astro(bat)naut

I watch a Live Journal group, Discworld, and a member, mama_hogswatch posted this today (it's fitting for the Discworld group because she references Granny Aching and the Aching clan are shepherds) - it's rather amazing, not too long, do watch the whole thing.



Wow. The sheepdogs are the truly amazing part of the story - that they can take the commands and control the sheep to produce these amazing movement patterns.

And my DH just sent me the link to this clip (via Gizmodo)



Enterprise fans will recognize the theme song...

Lastly, I won't go into details, but I'm very happy right now with BofA's credit card customer service. Several things were frustrating me and now I've finally gotten to the bottom of it and they're fixing it all up. *whew*

Yeah, I Know You've Probably Already Seen This...

...but I really enjoyed it, and wanted it here where I can watch it again without clicking around to find it.



Today's Random Thing (#2 see this post for #1): In 1985 I began deliberately thinking of Friday the 13th (prior to that, it really didn't merit thought as I'm not generally superstitious) as a lucky day.

See, my son was born on Friday, September 13th that year. So I celebrate each Friday the 13th with a bit of reminiscing about that tiny baby boy and all of the joy he's brought into my life these past 24 years. On the 14th I go back to grumbling about the annoying parts of parenting a son.

Political Post - Sorta

what more needs to be said?



Well, I should mention that I first saw this at Pharyngula. By the way, though I'm linking, I must mention that when he's not foaming about religion, I really do enjoy the blog, but radical anything (religion, atheism, politics) is not something I'm comfortable with, so don't think I'm endorsing or agree with his more vehement atheist subjects.

Meet Some of My New Friends

Found a "new" (to me) blog I'd like to mention to ya'll and encourage you to read - especially any Science Fiction writers/fans out there. It's Biology in Science Fiction and it's a really good read.

I've also decided to add Pandagon and Sadly, No! to my reader. I may not always, or even most of the time, agree with what they say, but they sure are interesting and have a very fun commenter crowd/culture. Sadly, No! seems to have a running feud going with the blogger at Ace of Spades - I'm wavering over whether to subscribe there or not.

The season finale of Heroes was on Monday night. I really enjoyed the show - even though I caught on to it late in the season and had to catch up by buying and watching the first episodes on iTunes, it was worth it. I thought it was a fitting finale to a compelling story arc. Now what am I going to do on Monday night?

Hubby grilled burgers today. mmmmmmm. I love having bbq'd burgers.

There have been some really good and thought provoking comments to my posts (thanks folks!) about learning to read. Christine summed it up best, not to say that any of the other comments weren't equally valuable, it's just she said in a couple brief paragraphs what it took me two long posts to try and say, and said it better - what would you expect of a pro writer? I'll be doing a post about her new book, with some interview questions over on Drive By Booking as part of her virtual book tour in mid-June. I'm very excited about that.

Two other things I found wandering around the net recently. One is the huge fanfic community discussion about a new site called FanLib.com. I'm not linking there, btw, because I'd rather not contribute to any site traffic. Read about it over on Making Light (and click through to some of those links on the fanfic community's reaction) before you visit FanLib (if you must visit).

I am in agreement with the fanfic folk, this doesn't look like a good idea at all for them. It looks fraught with hazards and a pretty ugly attempt to wring major profits for everyone involved *except* the writers of fanfic - who aren't in it for the money, but why should the use of their work line some venture capitalist's pocket?

The other thing is this clip from YouTube (below) a friend of mine, C. Montgomery Stuart pointed out to me. Over 140k views! I did a bit of digging into the group that did the clip. There's nothing on their site about who they are, why they do this, etc., but there's an index of their work. I think it can speak for itself. (note - it's not the greatest in terms of production values, but what do you expect from a hidden camera filming?)





dawno

"The Civil War in Four Minutes" (Great!) and the Comments on YouTube (Not so great)

I was very impressed with this clip that my husband forwarded to me - and as it's been viewed nearly 19k times, I'm not alone, I bet. I'd guess that it's from a professionally produced documentary, it's so incredibly well done.



Upon reflection, I would say that I watched it from the perspective of pure visual input, the ebb and flow of the battlelines - the early hesitant movements, where it stalled in various places and the places that kept going back and forth, the eventual split of the Confederate west from the east at the Mississippi, and then how quickly the Confederacy shrank and dissolved at the end. I didn't try to process it intellectually the first time, nor did I perceive what I was seeing came laden with an agenda or any political motivation. I am curious, then, as to why the commenters on YouTube, unfortunately a great number of them, have turned this into a Civil War debate? Unfortunately, as well, one mostly trafficked by trolls and flamers.

There's even someone posting blather like: "When you face an enemy that has no uniform, targets civilians, hides behind women and children: Hides weapons in homes and mosques it is time to FINISH ENTIRE CITIES! NO QUARTER NO PITY NO TOLLERANCE!" there.

Um, mosques? Makes me want to ask, "You aren't talking about the American Civil War, are you...you do know that's the subject of this video, right? See, it's a map of the United States. Yes, that's what our country is shaped like. Have you ever looked at a map before?"

I suppose it doesn't matter. It could be the Swiss Eurovision contest clip, and he'd (yes, I assume it's a he) say the same thing - three or four times.

Uh, dude, do you turn every conversation you have into something about terrorists?

"Do you want fries with that?"

"NO! The enemy is faceless and hides behind them! Bomb them all! I would like a large milkshake, though."

I know that I should only expect the lowest common denominator - it's not a venue for serious discussion, it's entertainment for the masses, by the masses. But sometimes the sheer weight of 'teh stupidz' out there is exasperating.

The only thing you can do as a concerned user on YouTube is flag the post as "spam" which it really isn't. I learned my lesson - don't bother with the comments. I feel sorry for the person who posted the clip - it would have been nice to actually get to converse with the viewers ABOUT THE DAMN CLIP. *ahem* sorry...

When the innernetses grows up, do you think it will finally be reasonably civil?

Later: more on Althouse and teaching reading. Got a comment I'd like to respond to...


dawno