My woman is now (officially) the “World’s Greatest Cupcake Maker”.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

MythBuster Adam Savage: 3 ways to fix U.S. science education.

Waffle Bike is a fully weaponized waffle-making machine.