Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Bonus: dubtrot.
funny
Clever, clever corvid
Luckily for humanity, our potential new sapient overlords turned out to be more interested in clowning around than taking over the world. Found via MeFi
(The funniest thing Sandra ever saw a young jackdaw do was land on a very, very hot and steep slate roof in the middle of summer, then glide down to the ground going ow ow ow in jackdawsian as he burned his claws…)
Yet another video post
Have some Dara:
To be honest, the freaky sex toys are less scary
And here I thought the most disgusting thing I’d on the internet all day would be the Rule 34 confirming Scary Sextoy Friday blog (very NSFW sample) but the New York Times proves me wrong with a much more mainstream piece of filth:
Beyond any of that, though, the wedding was probably the first in the city to be held as a kind of TED conference. After the ceremony, in which chants were chanted and vows, written by the couple’s friends, were exchanged, guests sat down to a series of talks, with PowerPoint presentations, on subjects of interest to the couple — ecological efficiency, neuroscience, holistic healing. Those who did not care to listen wandered about eating dumplings and popcorn, which made up the entire nuptial meal.
The evening’s keynote speaker, more or less, was Graham Hill, a TED alumnus — Technology, Entertainment, Design, that is — the founder of the Web site Treehugger, and Mr. Friedlander’s employer at LifeEdited, where the groom works in marketing and communications. LifeEdited is a commercial enterprise and a movement, one that aims to get people to rid themselves of many of the excesses that industrial living has caused. Mr. Hill gave a talk about the importance of personal downsizing, which was largely a talk about his life.
[…]
When he moved to New York he settled into a small apartment. Soon he will move into 420 square feet of sleek, economically designed space in SoHo with a Murphy bed and movable walls. The purpose of LifeEdited is to develop more apartments and buildings like his and to get people to live with fewer things of higher quality. The motto of the movement is “the luxury of less.” (Mr. Hill did not seem aware of how unnerving it can be to hear rich people talk about the pleasures of not spending money.)
The rich are different from you and I — more obnoxious for a start.
layaway
Via Metafiler comes a story that restores some of your faith in humanity. In America there’s a tradition of layaways, setting aside something you want to buy but don’t have the money for just yet and pay for it in installments, after which you can pick it up. It’s old enough that the Isley Brothers could make it into a metaphor for delayed love and thanks to the crisis it’s gotten a new lease on life. Layaways are popular, especially this time of year, to pay for Christmas presents.
But of course, if you’re poor enough to need to pay for Christmas this way, you may end up never quite getting all the money you need to pay off your layaways. Which is where an army of secrets santas has come in, as all over America anonymous people have paid off layaway tabs for complete strangers:
— Indiana. “An anonymous woman made a special trip to the Indianapolis Super Kmart and paid off the outstanding layaway balances of several customers, according to ABC affiliate station WRTV-TV6.”
— South Carolina. ” ‘Probably two weeks ago, we started seeing people coming in asking to randomly pay off strangers’ layaways,’ Terry Northcutt, manager of the Mount Pleasant Kmart, told Mount Pleasant Patch. It adds that “so far, eight shoppers have come in to pay off stranger’s layaways, and as similar stories across the country are reported, Northcutt expects to see more.”
— Nebraska. “Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son,” the AP says. “I was speechless,” Bremser told the wire service. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”
What makes this so good is not so much that this solves anybody’s problems, as that it brings some cheer to people who can use it the most. I’ve never been really poor myself, though I’ve been skint sometimes, but I imagine that one of the most awful bits of being poor is having that feeling that you’re not allowed to have nice things, a feeling that must be even worse at Christmas time. Having some stranger pay for your presents this way, without expecting anything in return or wanting publicity for it, in short without having any of the trappings of charity.