So it's time for a post of links. But first, a question. I went to Wine in the Woods with Mom today and ended up drinking a lot of wine (Mom doesn't really drink, so I ended up using most of her tickets too)... Whee. I'd blog about it, but I took a handful of pics and am actually considering turning it into an article for Scary-Crayon (see, anything to pad SC's content :D), in which case I'd just refer everybody there once I got it written. But here's a scan of one thing that I picked up while there...
And the question: DID EVERYONE ELSE KNOW THAT SARAH MCLACHLAN WAS SO GORGEOUS?!?!? I mean, I like her music, but I'm not the kind of person who gets so into singers and bands that I actually look up info and pictures about the artists, so unless I see 'em in person or happen to watch one of their videos -- or see them in a movie or on a magazine cover -- I'm not gonna know what they look like. But wow, she's really pretty. Reminds me of Juliet Landau...and you know how I <3 my Dru. Speaking of really attractive musicians, I saw Ani DiFranco on the cover of some magazine the other day. Be still, my fluttering heart.
And speaking of beauty, that takes us to the drawing that is our first link. First, a warning: If you're reading from work, WAIT UNTIL YOU GET HOME TO VIEW THIS PAGE. It's not pornographic (some other stuff on this site is, if you care to browse around...), but it is a very strange image. Very gory. And yet, there's something really beautiful about it. I can't describe it. It seemed like an expression of joy to me; another person to whom I showed it saw shock; yet another saw it and felt sadness. There are other images on the site that are more/less just sick, but something about this one, for me, catapults it into the category of legitimate art. It's wonderful. That said, have a look. I wish I could read the text, although I think perhaps it's better that I don't know what it says.
Political Night on SinFest. I really like SinFest (I've got it linked on the main page of SC), and while there are plenty of amusing strips I could've linked, this was the one sitting on my desktop at the time. That's not an apology -- I think it's kinda funny! -- but I wonder if any of my readers will find it offensive. 😉 It's totally work safe, though!
BBC News: Columbia prison blast kills five. Look where the woman concealed the grenade...
Vanguard Online Edition: Dog eats up one-year old boy's genitals. Poor kid. x_X;;
The two news links above, by the way, come from our darling Skeletoncrew of The Ossifiles, who's popped off to Egypt for a spell. Hope she has a good trip!
Check out god bless the children of iraq, where you can plug in your own statements and make your own funny images, kinda like those short comics they sold when I was little with empty speech bubbles for you to fill in yourself. Check out the two I made here and here. And I can't take credit for this one, but, well... It's so sick, and yet I'm chuckling. Anyway, make your own!
Courtesy of Tina at fidlet.com, The Do-It-Yourself Deity -- you plug in the attributes you think God has and the page tells you how plausible your conception of God is. Mine had a plausibility quotient of 0.9, which is way better than Tina's fared. ;P
Also from Tina, behold the meatshake. *Shudder* Somehow I don't even think I'd try something like this on SC even if I still ate beef and pork. But apparently they've also got chicken and turkey shakes, so perhaps I could try something like that...oh wait, they have that already; it's called chunky chicken soup. Or a Sloppy Joe with chicken? I dunno; it doesn't sound all that repulsive now that I really think about it. Unless they're making it with milk, ice cream, and sugar. That sounds disgusting. And yet I'd totally do something like that on SC... >:D But HOLY CRAP look at how many calories those things have! Meatshakes will turn your ass into a meatshake.
Encyclopedia Obscura: What's Up, Honorable Doc? Over at EO, Per Arne has written another piece about some of the strange animated propaganda that came out during the WWII era. Actually, I'm surprised we haven't seen much of this stuff related to the current conflict in Iraq... Scratch that; no I'm not. The PC pundits would deafen everyone with their protests, folks would get sued left and right... So nevermind. Anyway, have a look!
John Pearce, Classical and Romantic Guitarist. I came across this page while looking for sound files to compare to the music in a film that I'd begun to review -- I'm pretty sure that what was playing in the movie was a classical guitar, but I'm still not entirely certain. Anyway, John Pearce plays beautiful music, so if you're at home and are feeling kinda savage, let him tame you with his sound samples.
Are You a Freak? Take that test to find out! As for me, I'm 94% freak. w00t!
Virtual Birth Center: Placenta Suggestions. Alright, this one's been on my desktop for a while...it's probably one of the better links that I've posted EVER. Scroll down on the page for the motherlode, folks -- PLACENTA RECIPES. Yes, if you've recently had a baby and had the foresight to save the placenta, now you too can enjoy such tantalizing dishes as Placenta Lasagne, Placenta Pizza, and Placenta Roast. So if you've recently had a baby and didn't keep the placenta, you now have my permission to kick yourself really, really hard. You missed out bigtime.
Hey, speaking of food, does anyone else really want to try jellyfish? Or is it just me?
The lyrics to the "Heffalumps and Woozles" song from "Winnie the Pooh". If you've seen that sequence, you know that it's remarkably similar to the fucked up pink elephant hallucination from Dumbo, but this one scared the living crap out of me when I was younger...there's something about patchwork elephants slinking around in mud and TRYING TO STEAL YOUR HONEY that's incredibly terrifying. I'd love to get that "Winnie the Pooh" episode on DVD for the sole purpose of reviewing that sequence on SC. Come to think of it, Dumbo might be an interesting film to review as well...
And a handful of pieces (here, here, and here) on CYBER RAPE! It's actually a pretty interesting issue, as Pam well knows, since she chose it for a paper topic. (Can't wait to see how it turned out, Pam!) Personally, I'd just block/ignore a user or leave the chat if someone were trying to cyber rape me and that would be that. And while the thought of another person sitting somewhere at his/her computer with hand in crotch, masturbating to the thought of violating me would be slightly unnerving -- especially if the person were a reader of the blog or SC, since the reader would know me to some extent, which would somehow make the masturbatory rape fantasy "more real" -- I doubt I'd find it to be extremely traumatic or damaging to my psyche. Hell, I'd probably pop over here and post the more amusing excerpts from the chat log. But the issue is a little bit more complicated, given the existence of legitimate (I think) communities in cyberspace, and places where people feel at home -- and given the emotional attachments/commitments involved, perhaps, depending on where the cyber rape took place, some people really couldn't leave if that kind of textual sexual abuse began. Also, the first article linked has some interesting considerations from a feminist perspective that are worth thinking about. For example, the author, Debra Michaels, considering that most of the victims of cyber rape are women, writes in response to a view that for a woman to have the option of ignoring and removing herself from such a situation is "empowering" (after all, a rape victim in "real life" wouldn't have that choice):
Women either play the game or leave, which is hardly empowering. "In some cases, turning off the machine is a Copt and could be damaging to a woman?s perception of herself and her sense of control," argues Laurel Gilbert, coauthor of SurferGrrls (Seal Press), a women?s guide to the Internet. "It could be analogous to the ways in which women shut down after being sexually abused and are left feeling awful about themselves and what happened to them."
I don't entirely agree with the article, mind you, but it is thought-provoking. After reading Pam's paper, I may come back to this issue in the blog. But then again, I may not. ;P
Finally, "Getting Flakey" on Twisted Kaiju Theater/Neo-Monster Island. HILARITY.
And that does it for this lengthy post! Hope I've provided you with enough fun links to peruse until the next Scary-Crayon update. Not that I won't be back before then, but who knows. 'Till next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.