Monday, October 31, 2022
I want to know everything about the setting up of this Halloween candy delivery vehicle on a military base, and the decision to publicize it
How else would you expect us to give children candy on Halloween? FIRE MISSION!!!
— US Army Fort Sill (@OfficialFtSill) October 31, 2022
🇺🇸 💥 🎃 👻 🍬 🍭 🍫 🍪
💥Blast credit: 1-78 FA#happyhalloween #motivationmonday @178FABN1 @USArmy @TRADOC @6_fires @7Fires3 @USAFAS @U_artillery @75thFA_BDE @434FA_BDE @428THBDE @3ADABDE pic.twitter.com/j8ip6xG4pJ
(I mean, I'm assuming the blue check still means it's an official account.)
Today's funny posts
You think anyone is gonna see this tiny ass sign? https://t.co/HkjjFzf0om
— Bayley (@itsBayleyWWE) October 4, 2022
Sexy Hammer Museum lamppost banner costume; Fargo costumes for the whole family; Sexy Howl's Moving Castle
I'm a sexy 'what joan she didion means' lamppost banner pic.twitter.com/ASHPKmhqv8
— bailey (@baileybenns) October 30, 2022
Sunday, October 30, 2022
"Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections"
Texas Tribune:
At one point, churches fretted over losing their tax-exempt status for even unintentional missteps. But the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen.
The lettuce that outlived Liz Truss; Clueless and There Will be Blood couples costumes; Totally mundane costumes (and more)
Sorry but who *didn’t* go to halloween as the lettuce that outlived Liz Truss? pic.twitter.com/yLZhjoTJYu
— Alex Young (@alexdeboo) October 29, 2022
Today's funny posts
Checks in on Cal and Oregon. pic.twitter.com/KhQ6xQH53w
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) October 29, 2022
Severance portrait
(Had to look it up before figuring out where I'd seen her before. Speaking of, "Kovacs" is one of the agents that pranks Ford in "Spy.")
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Today's funny posts
sorry but the courtroom sketch of the Georgia sheriff on trial for civil rights violations makes it look like they were prosecuting a giant from Attack on Titan pic.twitter.com/zpYG2gMI4l
— CJ Ciaramella (@cjciaramella) October 28, 2022
— CJ Ciaramella (@cjciaramella) October 27, 2022Quite a list of scandals, starting with this: "On his first day in office in 2005, he fired 27 deputies and had them escorted out of their building as snipers were positioned outside, according to CNN affiliate WSB-TV. Courts intervened and the deputies were later reinstated." (I believe this is the courtroom artist.)
Friday, October 28, 2022
Today's funny posts
Can you guess why?Watching the "Stick Man" at hockey games is so insane. He touches the stick of whoever has the puck. pic.twitter.com/x1y6GpHUg2
— Remko Rinkema (@RemkoRinkema) October 25, 2022
"A gaping sinkhole has been growing for months, swallowing a Pittsburgh street and causing mounting concerns for residents"
This reads like an illustrated book for young children:
The enormous hole is surrounded by fencing and barricades, but continues to grow closer to homes. It currently spans from sidewalk to sidewalk, which forced the city to close the road.
However, the city apparently is not responsible for the repairs. A Pittsburgh spokesperson told Channel 11 that the matter all began as a private sewage problem with a private contractor.
...
“We are facing Halloween, which is a big deal in our neighborhood,” Dawson said. “We love to host the kids who come, but of course we don’t want them here now, this is a dangerous place.”
...
Wildlife, too, has been impacted, with a deer recently getting stuck in the massive pit.
Related:
One Year Later: Remembering The Downtown Sinkhole That Swallowed A Port Authority Bus
Joytoy's Marneus Calgar and his Gauntlets of Ultaramar is up for preorder
(Kieron Gillen and Jacen Burrows created a terrific comic about Marneus Calgar, available at Amazon.) The latest batch of 3.75" scale Joytoy Warhammer 40k Space Marines includes Marneus Calgar and a Techmarine:
Thursday, October 27, 2022
New toy preorders, including 3.75" Ghost Rider and hellcycle, and a die that transforms into an owlbear
My favorites from the just-revealed Hasbro preorders:
Retro Ghost Rider with Hellcycle,
Dicelings Owlbear and Beholder,
Power Rangers Blue Centurion:
Retro Ghost Rider with Hellcycle,
Dicelings Owlbear and Beholder,
Power Rangers Blue Centurion:
A suggestion that an international crime wave stealing engines from small aircraft is providing the engines for Iran's drones
The Austrian-made Rotax light aircraft engine recently found in a Russian-operated, Iranian-made Mohajar-6 drone recovered by Ukrainian forces is a model that has been at the center of a puzzling and prolonged theft campaign around the globe, but especially in Europe. Sophisticated criminals who know how to circumvent airport security measures and find engines that often have low operating hours and surgically remove them have been the hallmark of the widespread thefts.
So many have been stolen just in the U.K. alone that Operation Opal - a national intelligence team focused on organized crime - was called in to investigate the matter, according to the British Microlight Aircraft Association (BMAA), which along with the Light Aircraft Association (LAA) is collating information about the thefts in the U.K. These facts certainly point to the possibility that Tehran has been getting at least some of its drone engines by having operatives systemically literally rip them out of aircraft in foreign countries.
New Humble Bundle features the Pathfinder and Starfinder RPGs
Starting with $5 for the Starfinder and Pathfinder beginner boxes plus various additional adventures.
Anyone in Georgia? Liquid Death is offering you a $1 Election Hydration Kit
"Georgia residents, don’t die while you wait in line to vote! Each kit comes with a fanny pack and one can of Liquid Death Mountain Water. Make your own plan to vote"
Today's funny posts
My friend's sister's Halloween costume is too good not to share pic.twitter.com/4V0eMy7CIm
— Steph (@EristicEnigma) October 26, 2022
A Dutch talk show invited a climate activist to talk about "proper ways to protest" aka if you really should be glueing yourself to stuff and tossing soup onto paintings.
— Steffie 🇪🇺🌈 Witch: Fated Souls 2E coming soon! (@100thingsilove) October 26, 2022
AND THEN HE GLUED HIMSELF TO THE TABLE.
5/5 Highly entertaining #extinctionrebellion pic.twitter.com/MzXlUD9dOx
An explanation for how that letter on Ukraine came to be published and retracted
Semafor (everyone they interview should demand to be described with similar terms):
Joe Cirincione is blunt and smart when it comes to war and nukes. His knowledge and charisma have made him a key figure in the progressive national security world. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, President of the Ploughshares Fund, which backed the Iran nuclear deal, and then joined the Quincy Institute, an influential new foreign policy think tank that embraces American “restraint” in global affairs.
That is, until July, when he resigned his position over the Quincy Institute’s call for diplomatic talks with Russia on Ukraine, which he found divorced from realities on the ground.
...
JOE CIRINCIONE: Terrible staff work + terrible expert advice - Member involvement = Debacle.
To produce the shortest-lived Congressional letter in history, the CPC policy director worked in June with a few outside groups to write the letter. They were told they could release it when they got 30 of the 100 CPC members to sign it. They couldn’t hit that number until October, when they blindsided the members by releasing it 2 weeks before key elections. CPC Chair Jayapal tried walking it back, then had to pull the plug. It was the right call. The letter was an incoherent mishmash of contradictory positions based on an outdated analysis of the war. It was written when the war was stalemated, released when Ukraine is winning. Of course the positions don't make sense.
Verso Books made Mike Davis's "City of Quartz" a free download
Click the ebook tab and just trade them an email for the download. (Might be US only)
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Today's funny posts
My hotel phone in Iceland has a special button that will wake you up if there are northern lights in the sky. pic.twitter.com/fOQcEFUomU
— Mildly Interesting (@interest_mild) June 27, 2021
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Ghastly story about a USC linebacker
Lincoln Riley revealed that LB Tuasivi Nomura sustained a compound fracture on a finger during a game earlier this season, didn’t tell anyone and played three more plays with the bone sticking out of his finger before telling anyone. #USC
— Antonio Morales (@AntonioCMorales) October 25, 2022
I don't know if anyone's dug up the specific play, but here's a recent highlight:
— Tuasivi Nomura (@sivinomura) October 17, 2022
Tuasivi Nomura giving Troy Polamalu vibes on this TD saving play for @uscfb 🤯 pic.twitter.com/VGTtPG3SBV
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 16, 2022
(Ever hear about former Trojan Ronnie Lott's finger?)
From the WSJ, "How Los Angeles Avoided National Academic Plunge During Pandemic"
A timely report in light of the mayor's race:
Test scores from the Education Department showed that fourth- and eighth-grade students struggled in every state. But amid a national plunge in math and reading scores on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Los Angeles Unified School District stood out, recording higher scores in three of the four categories.
Los Angeles scored below national averages on the tests, but among all 50 states and 26 large city districts it was the only place to post such gains on the exams, according to a federal analysis.
...
Federal education officials singled out Los Angeles as a model for other districts on Monday
A short, funny story about Mike Davis
Happened to see this a few days ago:
Here's Davis's "The Case for Letting Malibu Burn"
I will be teaching an architecture writing class in the spring @YaleArch. I will not be teaching anybody to shoot guns. But I can imagine how indelible this whole experience would have been. RIP to a great one https://t.co/sZu7YqwLXM
— Christopher Hawthorne (@ByCHawthorne) October 22, 2022
This reminds me of something I learned the first and only time I taught @sciarc. The course was about imagining a new kind of architecture guidebook for LA that might include future/speculative projects as well as existing/canonical ones
— Christopher Hawthorne (@ByCHawthorne) October 22, 2022
I had what I thought was the bright idea of dragging the students out from behind their screens and out of the building and into the city—to Skid Row, specifically, which is just a short walk from @sciarc but otherwise of course worlds away
— Christopher Hawthorne (@ByCHawthorne) October 22, 2022
I soon learned that I wasn’t the first to have had this idea. Mike Davis had taught there some years before. He didn’t just take the students to visit Skid Row. They *spent the night* there. Or so I was told.
— Christopher Hawthorne (@ByCHawthorne) October 22, 2022
Here's Davis's "The Case for Letting Malibu Burn"
Articulated and "transforming" model of Isamu's YF-19 from Macross Plus
Up for preorder:
To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the anime Macross, a new series of Bandai Spirits Macross plastic models has started for the HG line of models, with the first being the YF-19! Adopts a new deformation mechanism that incorporates replacement parts to simplify transforming from the models 3 forms. The YF-19 model can transform into 3 forms: Battroid, Gerwalk, and Fighter. Capable of a range of motions for an increase in poseable forms.
Today's funny posts
when the game designers add random puzzles to stall for loading time pic.twitter.com/HeQzPbAKu2
— Kane 謝凱堯 (@kane) October 12, 2022
"Not only can you tow a Tiny House (or Airstream/camper) to the middle of nowhere, you can also power it and heat it with the F-150 Lightning"
From a long article that's mostly about the extreme unpredictability of the truck's range.
One amazing thing about the F-150 Lightning is that it can not only tow a Tiny House into the middle of nowhere but it can power it, including 240V Mini split heater. For days. pic.twitter.com/tNuh792NKw
— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) October 19, 2022
Monday, October 24, 2022
Beastie Boys kaiju two-pack and third party transformers up for preorder
Some good toy preorders today: Intergalactic two-pack by Super 7 (listed for next month), Tigerhunt with removable armor, and Scorpion Samurai (the scorpion and mech are separate figures I believe):
These "Bite Size Shorts" horror movies to promote Skittles and other candies are great
20 minutes of roughly two-minute horror tales. The mini-movies don't even hint at the candies, but I assume they included bumpers when they aired on television:
To break through the over saturation of all of the candy brands in October, we disrupted the traditional commercial block with four adrenaline-raising two-minute horror films. The films debuted in marquee programs on FOX like American Horror Story and The MLB playoffs.
The Mars films, Skittles’ “Floor 9.5”, M & Ms’ “The Road”, Starburst’s “The Replacement”, and Snicker’s “Live Bait” were created by up and coming horror directors. We created the brief for the filmmakers, curated the pitches, developed the scripts and produced the films.
Bite Size Horror from 20th Digital Studio on Vimeo.
University of Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian apologized "for not singing 'The Eyes of Texas,' the school song, before leaving the field"
ESPN:
The song has been the subject of a controversy over the past few years as the school has reckoned with its origins likely tied to a minstrel show sung by performers in blackface. Former head coach Tom Herman was criticized for letting players choose whether they wanted to sing it.
At Sarkisian's introductory news conference in January 2021, he made a strong statement that it will not be a question going forward.
"I know this much, 'The Eyes of Texas' is our school song," he said. "We're going to sing that song. We're going to sing that proudly."
But on Saturday, after the loss, only a few players remained on the field in Stillwater for the song.
Sarkisian said. "I apologize to everybody for that. That'll never happen again. But again, it was not intentional. It was not premeditated by any means.
Texas Tribune in March 2021:
From June to late October, over 70% of the nearly 300 people who emailed [the UT-Austin President]’s office about "The Eyes" demanded the school keep playing it. Around 75 people in emails explicitly threatened to stop supporting the school financially, calling on the university to take a heavier hand with students and athletes they believed were disrespecting university tradition by protesting it.
...
"[Alumni] are pulling planned gifts, canceling donations, walking away from causes and programs that have been their passion for years, even decades and turning away in disgust. Last night one texted me at 1:00 am, trying to find a way to revoke a 7-figure donation," President of the Longhorn Alumni Band Charitable Fund Board of Trustees ... wrote to a group of administrators, including [the university president]. "This is not hyperbole or exaggeration. Real damage is being done every day by the ongoing silence."
Alumni and donors threatened to cancel season tickets, end donations and boycott games. They complained that [the university president] was not forcefully defending the song and school traditions enough, accusing him of cowing to political correctness.
May 2021, Texas Monthly wrote at length on the topic and described the song's origin:
A few hours later, Sinclair handed over a piece of brown paper, a wrapper torn from a laundry bundle. It contained the first draft of a poem, written in pencil, with words scratched out and revised. Lines five and six read, “The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the livelong day.” The line echoed the favored refrain of university president William Prather, who ended nearly every speech with the saying, hoping to encourage students to work hard and act with integrity. In a 1900 address, Prather explained to students that his saying was inspired by a Confederate brigadier general who once told his troops, “The eyes of General Lee are upon you!” Prather used the phrase so much that students started to make fun of him.
The Royal Ballet does Frankenstein; Bat cupcakes; Disturbing, alternative ideas for treats
The Guardian in 2016, "The Frankenstein household’s dancing domestic staff are a case in point: choreographically charming but contextually ludicrous"; "Much fun is had with dancing nurses nonchalantly arranging body parts"frankenstein ballet by the royal ballet pic.twitter.com/Gb3AzzgXJG
— 🏰 (@moonbisous) October 13, 2022
Sunday, October 23, 2022
The "Zombie Rampage" experience lets you use a paintball gun to mow down "zombies" as you ride in a converted bus
An attraction in Minnesota:
@shelbyinminnesota Check out Zombie Rampage, a unique paintball experience at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, MN! #shakopeemn #minnesota #twincities #zombierampage #zombierampagemn #paintball #onlyinmn #exploremn #canterburypark ♬ Jackass - TV Theme Players
Today's funny posts
My cartoon on former leader Hu Jintao 's dismiss at the closing of China's congress today.#China #HuJintao #XiJingping #二十大闭幕会 #胡锦涛 pic.twitter.com/X0TwczGeGP
— 巴丢草 Bad ї ucao (@badiucao) October 22, 2022
Just picked up some books from my wishlist for $.99-$1.99
Wergen: The Alien Love War is $0.99 (shortlisted for Clarke Award, ludicrous cover)
1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is $1.99
Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories is $1.99
Eaters of the Dead is $1.99
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems is $1.99
New toy preorders including deluxe Willem Dafoe doll with "separate rolling eyeball function" and blind-boxed chibi Stranger Things creatures
Hot Toys Green Goblin (No Way Home) with articulated light-up glider, Krampus figure by Fresh Moneky Fiction available in green or red, and Stranger Things: Demopets blind-boxed figures:
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