Featured Site: Back to the Future

Brilliant! Best idea since Born This Way (the site, not the Lady Ga-Ga song, though I like that too!).

The setup is, a photographer took "classic" photos of people from years gone by, and then posed shots as closely as she could from today, and put them together. Some of these are amazingly well done. The photographer, Irena Werning, should consider opening up her site to submissions. I know it would sort of be "competition," but I think it'd be a big hit.
Visit: Back to the Future

Found at: OMG!! Blog (which I won't link to since it can be naughty, but you're free to look it up!

Featured Site: FailBooking.com

Happy Monday, everybody! I couldn't find anything out on the interwebs that was particularly newsworthy (at least that I found interesting), so here's something fun instead. Careful, keep track of time, 'cause it's pretty funny stuff. I hope to be back later today, if I can dig up some good stuff.

Source: FailBook

Featured Blog: Sleep Talkin' Man

Image from source, Sleep Talkin' Man

Who knows if this site is for real or not, but it sure is funny. Apparently, a woman is logging her sleep talking British husband's utterances, and turning them into humor on her blog. I have experience in this area, as The Other Half also talks in his sleep. But he's nowhere near as articulate. Maybe the British accent helps. Here is just a sampling.

[Excerpt]

Sleep Talkin' Man

My mild-mannered English husband Adam lives quite an existence in his dreams. Having benefitted from hours of delight at his dead-of-night musings, I thought it only fair to share them with the world.

Dec 29 2009

"It's CHICKEN and you LIKE IT. Lentil-loving, bean burger-shitting wanker."

"Vegetarians will be the first to go. That's my plan. Vegans haven't got a hope. 'I eat air, I'm so healthy...' Bollocks!"

"Put it down! Step away from the yam. Step away!"

"Fluffy bunny + twitchy nose + big ears = great stew."

Read more at: Sleep Talkin' Man

Featured Site: That Will Buff Out

There are tons of fun "time waster" sites out there, and this one ranks right up there. Plus, it will make you feel better about your last fender-bender.

Anybody In Here Need A Ride Downtown?

Source: That Will Buff Out

Featured Site: This is Photobomb

Happy Monday, everybody. I don't know about you, but I had a freakin' busy weekend. Not on the blog, but on personal projects, such as making our yearly Christmas card, and a family photo DVD/CD project for the fam. Ugh. Pooped. And no clue where to look for some bloggy goodness.

Until, by chance, I found this site. The "photo bomb" is a relatively recent, and difficult to explain meme. Basically, it is any photo with something more interesting going on in the background than in the foreground. Sometimes it is deliberate, with a jokester making a weird face. Sometimes it is accidental, with an animal or some random event going on behind the photo's main subjects. But it is almost always funny. And that is what I need right now, some funny. You?

Source: This Is Photobomb

Featured Site: PhotoShop Disasters

Given the recent splash made by Ralph Lauren, their terrible PhotoShopping of models, and the letigiousness that followed, it was kind of surprising to see another hideous 'shopped pic from the same fashion house. As an artist (and a human) I'm simply baffled how anyone could have thought this looked good (or human).

Ordinarily, I wouldn't be too sympathetic to those who say, "won't someone please think of the children?" In this case, I sort of have to agree with that sentiment. Think about all those anorexia after school-type specials, where no matter how skinny the girl gets, she still thinks she's fat. Well a girl like that looking at this shot? Thinking she could diet her way to a pelvis that small? Yikes. And a tip to girls like that: no guy is looking at you, wishing you had a tiny, tiny pelvis.

Oh, and I should mention that the site this comes from is a ton of fun. It isn't just fashion houses that tragically alter their models. And usually, it isn't with the plan to make them look impossibly skinny either. Have a look.

Source: PhotoShop Disasters

Frivolity Break: Don't Judge My Hair!

I've been the unfortunate victim of bad hair during my life, I admit it. During high school, my mother never told me (while she was. . .eeek!. . .cutting my hair for me) that I had a 'do that was akin to Ted Koppel's. But I've never had hair that would be worthy of this site. Enjoy, and try not to make a silly fool of yourself like I did, crying and getting the hiccups from laughing so much. . .

Source: DontJudgeMyHair

Featured Site: TV Tropes

Wow. In my last post, I mentioned "Wiki-holes" and their many cousins on the internet. Basically, it is the phenomenon of getting sucked into a site so deeply that you look at the clock and it is hours later. One thing leads to another and the day (or night) is gone.

My last post got me enmeshed in yet another hole, a TV Tropes-hole. The site is dedicated to the conventions and contrivances in story-telling, mostly in TV but in other genres as well. And I'm telling you, one link leads to another. Basically, the site is for people who are too smart for the source material.

The job of a work of fiction is to engage your "willing suspension of disbelief." But if the writing or acting is bad, you get sucked out of that story zone. TV Tropes points out all the ways that can happen, and more. The terminology and the various sources sited land squarely in my pop culture sweet spot. Maybe yours too. Here's just an example of the types of entries you'll find at TV Tropes. . .

[Excerpt]

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them. . .

Go on, you'll have fun (and lose several hours) at: TV Tropes

Featured Site: This is Why You're Fat.

I used to work at the Los Angeles County Fair every summer, and I kind of miss the fair food. Of course, I was young then, and I could eat anything without gaining weight. Which is a challenge at a fair, let me tell you. They're constantly trying to top themselves with crazier and more fattening food items. Fried dough, fried onions, fried Twinkies. And that was just beginning.

But I really found the mother lode with this site. This is Why You're Fat features some of the most fattening, funny, sometimes gross out food items. Some look delicious though!


"Sloppy Joe On A Krispy Kreme"

Source: This is Why You're Fat

Featured Site: Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages

Frivolity break! Really, the site has gotten more than top-heavy with politics. Clear your head, and focus your eyes on this baby!




See lots more at: Akiyoshi's illusion pages

Where Can You Find the Cheapest Gas?

Hat-tip to my co-worker, Angie, who led me to a really nifty web site at MSN that finds the cheapest gasoline in your neighborhood, wherever you live. You type in your zip code, and it lists the cheapest gas, the most expensive, everything in between, and where they are.

In practice, it isn't perfect. I staked out my best bet, a Lucky on Eastern Avenue, where gas was just (!) $3.09. Along the way, I saw gas for $3.19, $3.23, and (just down the street from my target) $3.29. Traffic was a nightmare, one car having freaked out and driven over the "enter here" sign at the In-N-Out Burger. Arriving at our destination, I found that the real price was $3.15. It was $3.12 across the street, but I'd had it with the traffic, and just paid the $3.15.

Still, $3.15 is a darn site better than $3.29. Check it out, maybe you'll have good luck with it.

Visit: Gas Prices - MSN Autos