Category: Friday Linky

The linkys are back! Yes the linkys are back! Using hyperlink styles, we’ll linky their files! The linkys are back!
First, pour 40 on the kerb for the voice of “In a world where…”, Don Lafontaine, who died aged 68. A quite lovely five-minute doco about him is worth a look – especially the first 20 seconds or so.
Speaking of voices: episodes of the Fantastic Four radio show from 1975. Featuring Stan Lee as the narrator, surprisingly good adaptations of the source material, and – most shocking of all – Bill Murray as the Human Torch! Every line reading he gives is both straight and parody at the same time. Beautiful stuff.
FrugalMe is a neat blog by Stephen of Spleen renown; basically its about saving money. Its lovely and funny, and Stephen conceptualises all the little savings as being “wouldn’t you like to find $x behind the sofa at the end of the year?” which is a helpful frame if ever there was one.
George Orwell’s diary entries, published to a blog each day, 70 years after they were written.
I found this linked from Tor.com: The Gadgey by Alan Campbell, a story of alien contact in Edinburgh involving a couple of neds:

The alien climbed out unsteadily, like Rab’s dad getting out of his chair at halftime to get more cans of Export from the fridge. The tentacles under its chin were wobbling. Its mirrored mask reflected the woods and the Craigmillar skyline. It had a spacesuit on, a proper one with plasmaloid nodules, all silvery blue and rippling.
“Rack me rigid,” Gordie said. “It’s pissed.”
“It’s no pissed,” Rab said. “Probably got mongled in the hyperspace.”
Gordie considered this, then gave a stiff nod. “Well mongled,” he agreed. “Look at the wee shite go.”

Achewood in colour in Myspace Dark Horse Presents! I’m loving what they’re doing with MDHP, and this just adds to the site’s growing rep for awesome. Knifeman spotted this first, as is appropriate for the longtime Achewood envangelist.
Finally: Marie Antoinette likes Kate Beaton’s cleavage. Read Kate Beaton!

Never read Watchmen, the 80s comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that Time called one of the Top 100 Novels of all time? Now you can remedy that – read it online here at “Mah Shelf”. And if you have read it, here’s something for you too – a spoiler-heavy discussion with the creators from 1988.
The Mah Shelf site delivers a pretty good reading experience, fast and easy, I was quite impressed. Also on offer: the infamous Spider-Man comic from the 80s where Spidey reveals he was sexually abused by an older boy named Skip. And for good measure, here’s Skip’s entry in the delightfully obsessive Marvel Universe Appendix.
Knife Man spotted this one: a review of Dark Knight that… ah, I’ll just copy the same bit he did: “There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war”
79-year-old Groucho Marx on the last episode of failed comedy-music show, Music Scene, in 1969. He keeps getting laughs just by taking what the host says and repeating it with a slightly different emphasis – it’s marvellous.
Kind of comix-heavy this week, but that’s just how the cookie has done gone crumbled yessir.
Also: congrats to the Alligator for his ice cream being recognised in Seattle Weekly’s Best of 2008 series!

Have you seen the new Star Wars movie trailer? It is uninspiring! My childhood has been sacrileged and that! By George Lucas! So put him in the carbonite! Yes, freeze him! And his little dog too!
Over the last five years I have become increasingly conscious of the food I’m eating, and the role food plays in life. (Watching Jamie’s School Dinners gave me a lot of perspective, and it is a significant element of the work I’m doing both teaching and as a student.) I’ve been thinking a lot about the fairly complicated issues around food, without really having the head to put it together into something sound. That’s another of the reasons why I’ve been digging on the rise of foodblogging in my blog crew of late. Dan’s cooking blog, Freshly Ground, never fails to make me hungry with his excellent simple recipes, but posts like this one are the treasures I value most. Dan starts off riffing on Jamie and Gordon and Nigella, then drags it all into context and left me genuinely stunned and energised at the importance of caring about what we put on our plates. A great read.
The big geek dance hit this weekend past in San Diego, and it featured the first ever live appearance of a Fraggle. Fraggle Rock, it seems, was Jim Henson’s attempt to prevent war. Thinking back to watching that show as a kid, that seems right. (Also on the Henson tip: Sesame Street season 39 preview!)
Have you ever seen Winsor McCay’s 1914 animation, Gertie the Dinosaur? Take a few minutes to watch. It is, quite simply, wonderful.

And finally… Rest In Peace, Charlie Brown.

Guy runs for office in Kansas and earns his campaign budget with a call for tiny donations from lots of people framed as an homage to geek-webcomic extraordinaire xkcd. Kinda wonderful, geeks inheriting earth, etc.
Clay Shirky (whose book “Here Comes Everybody” is on my must-read list) at TED in 2005, talking about how the internet is revolutionising co-ordination and groups by shedding institutions. “Flickr replaces planning with co-ordination…” Also, photos of a mermaid parade! Good stuff.

Wonderful group blog from Tor, featuring stuff on SciFi and Fantasy fiction and media, science, games, allsorts… Featuring some free novels from Tor writers until Sunday! Very cool, worth bookmarking if you’re into any of these subjects.
And: LEGO BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY:

Friday Linky returns! It took a break last Friday because MICROSOFT vs ZONEALARM FIGHT BATTLE happened, but now I am guns blazing, roofs raising and links… er… liaising.
Workers in the programming mines will appreciate Flatlander’s account of the secret origins of his programming career:

As a poor Victorian youth, Mr Babbage (bless ‘im) used me and my fellow urchins to demonstrate the principles of the Analytical Engine to the nobs. “You pretend to be wheel number six,” he’d say. “When young Pip next to you carries the ten, you adds one to yourself, and when you gets up to ten, you lets Randolph here know about it.

Delightful photogallery of geeks, in costume, in their own homes. . Steve Schofield is the photog. After seeing this, you will never again need to see an artfully-framed photograph of a klingon in the kitchen.
The Alligator has been blogging lately of miracle fruit, the weirdo fruit that makes sour things taste sweet. If you were as puzzled as me, the AV Club does an extensive taste test.
This one is basically just for Pearce. A blog about a dude watching all 73 “video nasties” banned in the UK in the 80s. Featuring lurid movie posters!
You’re already watching Dr Horrible, right? It’s a singing superhero short film in three parts, written by Joss Whedon and starring Doogie Howser, Captain Tightpants and Cute Girl What Was In Buffy Season 7. Viewable free of any charge up until Sunday night (U.S. time). Very worth your while.
And last… well, I hesitate to link to this because the site is loaded with popups and weirdness. In fact, I don’t recommend clicking on this link unless your virus security is up to date because, man, something untoward is going on with all that code. But I’m going to link to it anyway because the photos are interesting. It’s a “door to hell” in Russia – a big gouge in the earth that’s been aflame for 35 years. Weird, beautiful, unsettling.

Notice all the meaning signified by that cough? If I whack it at the front, like so:
*cough* Friday Linky
Then it means something completely different to when you put it at the end.
And if you put it in the middle – well, you’ve all seen The Movies, and if a character EVER coughs in the middle of what they’re saying they have A Fatal Illness and will be tragically deaded by third reel! WOES!
Anyway, I’ve got that cold that I knew was coming. Suxxor. Am concentrating on getting over it in time for Rumpus!
Now, your linky for today:
100 year anniversary of the Tunguska event, complete with new scientific explanation (When you’re a little kid and you think UFOs are awesome and you want to know everything you can about them, Tunguska is like the next level of knowledge above Roswell.)
Why I Write, another from the “get around to adding to your blogroll you lazy morgue” pile. This is by Sean, a stand-up gent and very clever fellow, and each post he discusses a reason why he writes/is a writer. Highly recommended for all, but particularly for those writery types among us.
This entertains me on some irrational level and I’ll be quoting it for years. If whales talked like Kiwi boys, this is what it would be like. (The accent is a bit wonky in places, but the vocab is pure New Zild.)

Afrodisiac takes on Dracula in this 70s comic pastiche from the Meathaus crew. “Dracula’s hold over Afrodisiac’s women wavers in the presence of Big Daddy Bad Ass!”
And finally, this video: Where The Hell Is Matt – has been doing the rounds and it deserves to be seen by all. This guy Matt goes places and dances and makes short films out of it. Just lovely, guaranteed to put a smile on your face this Friday.
Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to have yourself a rumpus, wherever you are!

Horn o’ plenty, right here, that old horn filled up with the linky delight!
Neil Patrick Harris continues his Shatnerian rebirth with an Old Spice gig and a starring role in Joss Whedon’s new weirdness (clip here)! (h/t to talula and Craig Oxbrow for these). He’s not even decrepit yet!
Graphic design heads will love this view of all the covers of French magazine metropoli.
Webcomics – a detailed history, covering Argon Zark, Sluggy Freelance, Dilbert, PVP, Megatokyo, Sinfest and many more. The web has given a huge bounce to the comic strip format. If you’ve never gone digging through the delights on offer, you should. Garfield it ain’t. (Literally, in some cases.) (h/t to Draw for this one)
I was gonna linky to this great site where you could create your own Star Wars Opening Crawl, but Lucasfilm dropped a cease and desist so it is over.
Sugar Bush Squirrel. I can’t explain this one, you have to see it for yourself.
Jason Lutes (who did Berlin: City of Stones, reviewed here a couple years back) got permission from James Kochalka to host Kochalka’s delightful four-page Hulk story. This was from that short but delightful period when big comics companies were luring the wild indie kids and giving them space to play. Heady times, and probably a last chance of some kind for mainstream superhero comics.
And I’ll leave you with this incredible Salon article about Korean breakdance crews. Every new paragraph surprised and delighted me in some way. And it links to footage of nailbiting championship battles at a huge international contest – I could only watch the first half of each battle before the feed died but man, what I saw was jawdropping incredible!
(Okay one last linky while we’re on the subject: The AV Club actually watches Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and finds it… good?!)

I am outlinkied by my colleagues this week.
talula linked up to famous photos remade with lego – this may be the weirdest thing I’ve seen in ages.


Clayton Cubitt, photographer/designer, happened to be passing through NZ when Warren Ellis linked to him. He took some incredible photos. Start here, in the Air NZ lounge at LAX.
Heaps of good stuff at the brother Moose blog, like the prank collection and the 1910 farmer’s manual, Farming With Dynamite.
This just released into the internetosphere: the U.S. special forces counterinsurgency manual, explaining how all that stuff in El Salvador etc. was orchestrated.
And finally, relax and enjoy this comic from 1950, Astra, Girl of the Future

The original draft of Barry Hughart’s incredible novel, Bridge of Birds (warning: its a pdf file). I haven’t read this yet, but I understand it is quite different from the published version (which I was given long ago by, I think, the Alligator).
And speaking of the Alligator, he gets an interview in the Seattle P-I on account of the ice-creaminess; probably only of interest to those in Seattle or those who know Aaron… (or those who just like to think about ice cream, and that’s fair enough)
What newspaper cartoons used to be like. Plenty more from the same cartoonist. (Picked this one up through Journalista.)

Here’s a thing of beauty: The Reality Of Running Away From Stuff. When you watch a movie and the hero out-swims a shark, or runs faster than an explosion, etc. – this is the definitive source to check to see how plausible that moment was!
And to balance the above, here’s a thing of unspeakable, un-nameable horror, even worse than the Mao/Che slashfic I lured some of you into looking at two weeks ago…

(bekitty is responsible for spreading this one around)

Art on the street:
Little People (via GrizzlyDog):

Via the knifeman, an incredible animated wall – I watched this with my mouth hanging open:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Also:
A life in polaroids, with sad ending. (via xenogram)
And file under ‘useful’, the psychologist who turned ordinary folks into aggressive prison guards in the deeply unsettling Stanford Prison Experiment tells you how to resist all kinds of influence.