Yay!

More of Simon’s Cat!

What passes for amusement at our house

Yeah.  We’re easily amused.

WALRUS.

Several years ago, we brought my brother Brian and his then-boyfriend Matt to Linden Vineyard .  It’s in a lovely, bucolic spot, and Matt, a bit of a city boy, spied a large, white ruminant lying on a hill as we drove past.

"Is that a cow or a goat?" he asked.

My brother turned and calmly replied, "It’s a walrus, Matthew."

For some reason, this struck all of us as incredibly funny.  And all of this is simply backstory to the video below.  This one’s for you, Bri.

“Show this guy, then cut back to these two.”

For anyone who grew up with "Friday Night Videos."  (You know who you are.)  What happens when videos get literal:

I admit, I had "Hunting High and Low" on vinyl.  I can’t say I remember a single other song from it, though.  Also, Wikipedia says a-ha is still extant.  Amazing.  I’ll have to check out what they’ve done since 1985 at some point…

Apparently, all the cool kids are doing it

Mangatar

My "Manga avatar" from "Face your Manga." Hat tip to Sweater Project for letting me know I was behind on this important trend…

ETA: for comparison’s sake, a real photo of me (taken by my insanely talented brother ):

Another non-headshotty-headshot from Brian

I promise I’ll have SOMETHING to say again…

…SOMEDAY.  My brain has been running rather boringly on how to get more freelance work lately, which doesn’t leave much room for scintillating blog content.

But for now, I present you the most interesting thing my father ever forwarded to me via e-mail:

Shining Eyes and One-Buttock Playing

I can think of worse things to do than to watch the entire series of TED talks. What an amazing group of smart, funny, inspirational people.

Here’s Benjamin Zander on classical music.  Brilliant.

The inevitable Wordle output

jillasmith.com as a wordle picture

It’s not of this site, though – it’s the output from my professional site.

Even though I feel like I’m probably the last person on the planet to do a Wordle, I know one or two of my readers might not know how to make their own, so if you’re one of the one or two, wordle is here.

Meep.

I have a nasty cold and sore throat which is making me very cranky.

However, this was good enough to make me laugh despite the crankiness, so I thought I would share:

You already know about this, right?

Okay – so if you don’t, here’s the deal: Joss Whedon (pause for that angelic choir going "waaaaa!" in the background*) apparently decided he couldn’t stand to not be creative during the writer’s strike.  So he did what any normal person in that situation would do.  He wrote a three-episode, 45-minute miniseries specifically for the web.  It’s an anti-super-hero story comedy about a nebbishy guy who wants to be a super-villain.  And it’s a musical.

You know – run-of-the-mill** stuff.

It’s free on the web until July 20, and it’s available for download, own-it-forever purchase on iTunes.  The first two episodes are available on the website, the last will be available on Saturday.  It’s funny and sweet and seriously silly. Go.  Watch.  Tell ’em I sent you.

*Okay, so it’s probably "aaah!" but it always sounds like "waa" to me…

**Have I ever written a post with this many hyphens?