Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.
This isn’t really random—there’s a definite theme. But that’s not my fault.
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As found on xkcd, ’cause I’m not looking at any more white stuff unless I absolutely have to.
But y’all go ahead.
Let me know if the second from the left in the second row or the first one in the last row shows up, would you?
I have questions.
oooooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooooo
As if the snow and sub-freezing temperatures weren’t enough
Favorite description of an obsessive science nerd ever starts around 1:18.
This is fascinating stuff . . . but the second time I watched it, I noticed that Joe—who ranks high in my list of favorite YouTube science channel announcers—isn’t blinking. His eyebrows are working overtime, but he doesn’t actually blink until 5:07.
I realize knowing this—and/or confirming it with a third run-through—puts me at a solid seven on the Wilson Bentley scale . . . but that just makes me an extra special snowflake, amiright?
Random Thursday: the day when Sarah saves up all the weird wacky things that people have sent her and shares them in lieu of writing an actual post.
Only this time, it’s even more random: that’s right, your intrepid cub reporter Watson has stolen Sarah’s blog. Memes, memes, and more good memes!
I get random things emailed to me too, from my very random friends who include the “ladies” from my old all-girl biker gang (whose name cannot be mentioned on Sarah’s blog), a double PhD from MIT, a woman who sits on five corporate boards, and a guy with both a fine arts degree and a black belt in Krav Maga. Randomly, I appear to have an odd assortment of random friends.
Woe befall ye who read below.
******************* Act I: On Superheroes
Just Be Cos-Play
Sarah might be (slightly) obsessed with the Avengers movie, but I’m slightly obsessed with comic books in general.
Janie IS Captain Obvious
I have this weird tendency to make up nicknames, generally on a comic book theme for people, and will refer to people in public as The Purple Shirt when pointing someone out. In Janie’s case, she is either the old classic, Captain Obvious, or Captain Non-Sequitur. I was forced to explain what Captain Obvious was, so I found this:
Which of course just backfired, as now she runs around the house loudly pointing out “look, that’s the vacuum!” and “look, there’s my sister!”
******************* Act II: On Derping
Teaching Janie Math
Speaking of derping, Janie and I can have some serious derp battles over homework, and make the rest of the adults in the house wonder which of us is more mature (we might be tied at this point). She’s great at math, but tries to weasel out of having to do the problems. Problem is, she asks me ridiculous questions like “what’s 13 minus 8?” then gets mad when I don’t tell her. What I generally do to her resembles this:
******************* Act III: This Picture Says It All
(Sarah’s note: Thank you, Captain Obvious)
******************* Act IV: On Movies
Technological Difficulties, Please Just Stop
Blue-ray. Let’s take a moment to talk about blue-ray and the digital age. I’m dying to see Keanu Reeves’ new documentary about Hollywood’s current technological shift from film to digital. The Red system, a fully digital lightweight camera system, is cheap, by movie camera standards, and is therefore accessible to more and more filmmakers. And without the need for film and processing, anyone can make a moderately-priced movie.
But that doesn’t mean you can just take this new awesome format and go mucking about with my favorite old movies. Yes, please, transfer them to a new digital format so we don’t lose them in the first place! Please, save all the old movies from the 20s and 30s! I’m all for it.
But for the love of all that’s Hollywood, please stop trying to improve the movies as you transfer them. Leave them alone, or else we’re going to end up with this:
Because No Movie Discussion is Complete Without Mentioning Sean Bean
Someone once made a graph about the multitude of ways that Sean Bean dies in movies. It’s sort of a running joke around here. Game of Thrones is announced starring Sean Bean—I get stoked, then realize they tapped him for Ned Stark and give up. It’s bean years since I’ve seen him survive a movie.
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Act V: On Nerd Alerts
I Present To You a T-Rex With No Game
Janie and I tried to do the two-person thing where one person slides their arms under the armpits of another person and gestures while they talk. Janie was really bad at it, but Sunny decided she wanted to try. Have you ever seen Jim Carrey’s T-Rex impersonation in Series of Unfortunate Events? It looked a lot like that – short little stubby T-Rex arms. Doing T-Rex arms around this house is a bit in vogue occasionally, including the slightly awkward “high three” in lieu of a human high five, so the following was immediately emailed to Sarah — and possibly explains why the dinosaurs went extinct.
I Really Can’t Explain Why This Makes Me Laugh
Every single time I see it. It confirms my theory that ostriches are just funny.
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Act VI: On This Defies Description
Mad skills? Mad genius? Just mad in general? You make the call.
Earful of Cider 