Lanier Phillips, survivor
It sounds like a bad Newfie joke: the Newfoundlanders who had never seen a black person before and tried to scrub the colour off his skin. But the story is real: in 1942, Lanier Phillips was the only black survivor of the wreck of the USS Truxton off the coast of Newfoundland.
Like the white survivors, he was half-dead and covered in oil when he
arrived on shore, and the women nursing the survivors were puzzled when
they could not clean the black colour off his skin. What happened next
affected Phillips’ self-perception and prompted him to push for equal
treatment in the US Navy. He went on to become the first African American US SONAR technician, and continues today, at the age of 84, to speak across the US about his experience with the people of St. Lawrence.
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eh?
Woman develops spontaneous Newfie accent after suffering a stroke. I’m not making this up.
Foreign accent syndrome is obviously very intriguing from a medical standpoint, and strokes are usually no laughing matter. But the particular circumstances of this case are…well…just begging to be made light of.
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Vote in my space.
Newfoundland’s Progressive Conservative Premier registered his Anything But Conservative campaign today with Elections Canada. The same agency also deemed that the online vote swap on Facebook is in fact legal. They’re hiring.
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PMSbuddy
PMSbuddy.com is a free service
created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your
wife, girlfriend, mother[!], sister, daughter, or any other women in
your life are closing in on “that time of the month” – when things can
get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all.
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Ghetto Big Mac
DallasPenn.com and OhWord.com bring you an instructional video on how to make your own Big Mac for a fraction of the price! It’s time to remix the dollar menu!
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The origin of the anus
Getting to the bottom of evolution: Genetic study investigates the origin of the anus.
Just for your Paul!
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The Who we never knew
The Russell T. Davis papers – As he prepares to leave the role of Doctor Who show runner he’s releasing a book of email exchanges with Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook about his time on the longstanding British SF series, revealing the younger face of Who he’s like to see, and plans for a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover which never materialized.
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Script-Doctorin’ the TARDIS
As of 2010 Steven Moffat will be replacing Russell T. Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who. In 2005 Davies revived the series, which had been dormant (bar the odd US co-production or audiodrama) since 1989, for BBC Wales. It won awards and was successful enough to spawn the spin-offs Sarah Jane Adventures and the popular-in-America Torchwood. He is replaced by Moffat, one of the regular writers on the show, whose highly acclaimed episodes have won a number of awards and nominations.
“I applied before but I got knocked back ‘cos the BBC wanted someone
else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I’m glad the BBC has finally seen the
light and it’s a huge honour to be following Russell into the best –
and the toughest – job in television. I say toughest ‘cos Russell’s at
my window right now, pointing and laughing.”
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Mosaic
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RobDurdle.com, AllJenn.com, and the kids
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A clear message
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From my friends at LeastICoulddo.com. Love it.
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World’s Greatest Cupcake Maker
My woman is now (officially) the “World’s Greatest Cupcake Maker”.
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Strange fences
The above fence sculpture comes from Dark Roasted Blend’s picks of
“Some of the World’s Strangest Fences.” Also included, a very long
fence decorated with bras in New Zealand, a fence outfitted with a
domed dog window, and many other oddities. Strange fences.
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Bad judgment in choice of kids’ book cover
I’m inclined to agree with Andrew Hearst of the Panopticist that this is an unfortunate choice for a children’s book cover. A Children’s Book About Animals–and Group Sex.
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Birth of a ‘Horrible’ Fandom
A brief look at the Big Bang birth of a fandom: the explosion of ‘Dr. Horrible’ fandom in just 47 days.
First, there’s the fanfic videos that try to expand the universe. Such as Dr. Horrible: the Early Years (1 2 3 4 5), and Dr. Dreadful’s YouTube Riposte. There’s applications for the Evil League of Evil as well, including Average, Yin and Yang, Short Change, the Allergen, the Parasite, the Horse Thief, Custodious Rex, Capt. Shrovewreaker (the Breakfast Pirate), Mistress Paragon, and the Death Giggle. (Ever wonder how Dr. Horrible‘s application was received at the League?) There’s Evil Horse’s rival, the Evil Germ-man; Dr. Horrible has the Weapon gunning for him; the Henchman’s Union is recruiting; and catDWM’s made a musical application to be Dr. Horrible’s sidekick (her competition is puppetry).
Second, there’s the fan creations that take the show and do something
adorable or amazing or weird with it — always cute kid covers such as Laundry Day (aw!) or Bad Horse (Preschooler Mumbler Edition), not to mention a few good covers by adults, too. (Speaking of adult covers, rickrolls are so passé … have you been Bad Horse’d? Felicia Day has. Although she wasn’t Bad Horse’d in German.) There’s the guy who plays a duet with himself on “My Eyes/On the Rise” — in character — as both the “Penny violin” and the “Dr. Horrible violin”, playing his own piano backup as well. There’s ringtones, limericks, HALO machinima (1 2 3 4 5), My Little Horrible Ponies (including Capt. Hammer) (which is almost as cute as a commercial L’il Kaylee), and karaoke tracks (soon to be officially touring as a singalong, although the show is already being Rocky Horror-ed). (And there’s LibraryThing doing crowdsource research as to what’s on Horrible’s library shelf.)
And the world isn’t lacking for official Dr. Horrible material, either. There’s Felicia Day, with her own Twitter channel and her own excellent fan production, The Guild; she’s caught “twittering under the table“, requests that someone post it on Vimeo, and comments there. She does a duet with Jonathan Coulton on “Still Alive“, and the Penny Arcade guys want to groom her. The Whedons aren’t exactly naifs when it comes to an online presence either; they’re Twittering as well (and even passed along this little off-topic gem to their followers) and the world now has a Capt. Hammer comic and the official Evil League of Evil website (e-mail Bad Horse). (Not to mention presences on MySpace and Facebook.)
If you’ve not been over-Horribled by now, you might want to sit down for the 53-minute Dr. Horrible ComicCon panel with Joss and the cast (1 2 3 4 5), read Entertainment Weekly‘s oral history, read Warren Ellis‘ comments on the musical, or muse upon what would happen if Capt. Hammer and Mal met. If you’re still not over-Horribled, you could go to WhedonFilter or Wonderflonium, where there’s a great deal more singing, fan art, and music videos.
All in just 47 days. That’s a lot of Wikipedias, I imagine.
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Fascination with the Dodo Bird, by Adam Savage
Adam Savage’s talk at The Last HOPE: Fascination with the Dodo Bird
parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C
(YouTube with a great audience Q&A session)
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Geoffrey Perkins
Legendary British comedy producer Geoffrey Perkins died
in a freak accident yesterday. Chances are if you watched some British
comedy over the last 20 years, and liked it, Geoffrey Perkins had a
hand in it.
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Look at all the MAPLE SAP I got!
The worst comic strip ever? Thrill to the stilted, unfunny adventures of Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy, brought to you by Jerry Beck, of Cartoon Research fame.
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Lard: The New Health Food?
As I sent my friends home bathed in the warm glow of hog grease, I
felt sure that our generation would pass the test of lard. We might not
cook with it every night–natural lard is expensive and (all right, I’ll
admit it) deep-fried foods are often loaded with calories, no matter
which fat you use. But we won’t live in fear of it, either. When we want deep-fried excellence, we’ll reach for the best fat for the job: lard.
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Mythbusters Adam on education issues
MythBuster Adam Savage: 3 ways to fix U.S. science education.
RobDurdle.com 
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