Gingerhaze is the bestest

Noelle Stevenson, a.k.a. Gingerhaze, is an awesome artist I found on tumblr who makes HILARIOUS comics, awesome illustrations, and so forth. She is pretty well-known for her awesome creation The Broship of the Ring, in which she re-imagines the various Lord of the Rings characters as hipsters, truckers, bikers, frat bros, hippies, etc. It is glorious.

The Broship! Can you tell who is who?

Other franchises she makes drawings and comics about include The Avengers (a lot!), Hunger Games, X-Men: First Class, and more. Here is a selection of some of my favorite works of hers!

(WARNING: THERE ARE PROBABLY SPOILERS FOR THINGS.)

The Amazing Spider-Man
(Teehee, butts.)

Hunger Games
(Man, I heart Haymitch, lol.)

Thor
(Lol, oh Loki. You so silly.)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
(This is such a true story, haha.)

The Avengers
(LOLOL HAWKEYE.)

Hunger Games again
(Peeta is the freaking best, ahaha.)

The Avengers again, sort of
(Lol, oh Antman. You are the lamest.)

The Prince of Egypt
(LOL RAMSES YESSSSS.)

The Avengers, once more!
(Thor + Loki = hilarity)

Gingerhaze also does this thing called The Pokeymans Project, where she basically has people describe to her what a particular Pokemon looks like and, based only on the description provided, she attempts to draw the Pokemon. Since she has virtually no knowledge of the vast majority of Pokemon, and also since Pokemon are weird as hell, the things she ends up drawing are proposterous and super freaking hilarious. Then she compares her guess-Pokeymans to the real Pokemon and....she has the best reactions ever. It's all just so hysterical and amazing and I love it the mostest better than french toastest.

For example, here is one description she got:

Kricketune: body like an upright cello, balled arm joints with scythes, two pointed crownlike head w/scythes on each point, mustache & 2 feet

And here is her response:

oh god oh god oh god WHAT

 

WHAT

WHAT

Ahahahahaha, those crazy Pokeymans. Gingerhaze is the best. So go check out her tumblr! DO IT RIGHT NOWWWWW GO GO GO.

via Gingerhaze's tumblr

Sesame snaps are like THE FOOD OF THE ANGELS.

Have you ever had a sesame snap?? HAVE YOU EVER HAD LOUCKS SESAME SNAPS?!?? They look like a weird old person treat, and maybe they are, but they are DAMNNNNNN TASTY, SON. They don't even have any kind of website, just that Facebook page I linked to, but they are nonetheless totally legit. So good. So freaking good.

Made of sesame seeds and sugar, they are very good to take along for hikes and such because they will give you lots of energy! By which I mean that they have like a billion calories. But that's okay, because they also have lots of protein and fiber. Although it is probably not okay that I eat multiple packs of them while sitting around doing nothing.....hm. Oh well. They are just too delicious.

And apparently, they also come in a CHOCOLATE VARIETY, which are comprised of the same sesame snap base with drizzles of dark chocolate on top. WHAT THE FUCK BRO, CALM THAT SHIT DOWN. No, Loucks will not calm that shit down, because they are in the business of making freaking tasty-ass sesame treats that completely blow people's minds. Or at least my mind.

These things are so awesome that I ordered a whole display box full, as shown above, from Amazon. You should probably also do that. Or maybe be more reasonable and just find them in a store and buy one or two. Whatever, it's your choice to not be truly happy in life, with your piddly non-large-box's-worth of sesame snaps. Have fun being sad and sesame snap-less.

...But seriously go eat some of these, they are amazing.

via some stores and random blogs (found using google image search)

Sleep Talkin' Man

Oh man oh man oh man. Sleep Talkin' Man is HILARIOUS. I first found out about this website from the ever-awesome Sofa Pizza, and I have been following it since. Basically, there's this British guy who very, very frequently talks in his sleep, and the things he says are quite understandable and also QUITE ridiculous. In fact, the sleep-talking personality of this man is so distinct, consistent, and persistent that he (it?) has been dubbed Sleep Talkin' Man (obviously), a.k.a. STM.

Due to the absolute absurdity STM, the man's wife began documenting his night-time ramblings by taking audio recordings every night and transcribing the particularly entertaining parts. Reading the things STM says is very funny, but the real hilarity comes when you LISTEN to the sound clips provided with each quote. SOOOO AMAZING.

Here is a selection of some of my favorite STM quotes. I highly, highly recommend that you go to the corresponding STM blog posts and listen to the sound bytes as well. TRUST ME, IT'S WORTH IT.

x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x

"Stop throwing dinosaurs everywhere! It's gonna take me forever to get the pterodactyls down from the wardrobe. Oh, you messy little velociraptors."

(Listen here!)

"The fruit flies have escaped! Hide your plums! Satsumas flee! FLEE! Oh, this is gonna be total fruitocide. Fuck you, avocado, you're on your own."

(Listen here!)

"No, you're NOT going out like that. Your feathers all ruffled and beak covered in that nasty lipstick, and that excuse for a skirt. You look like one of those street-corner dirty chickens. Go back upstairs and put something decent on. You live under my coop, you behave and you dress like a good chicken! This is hard-boiled love, you know."

(Listen here!)

"Everybody kneel on your swimming towel. It is time to pray to the omnipotent baby squid. (chanting) Squidyyyyyy. Squidyyyyyy."

(Listen here!)

"Hey, look at me! I just made bumble bee pajamas. They're so cuuuute, with their little leg holes. This one's bright fuchsia with some black spots. I think that's my favorite. And this one's got a night cap that fits right over the antennae... (gasp!) TOSS! Wing holes! I forgot to put wing holes! Oh, well. '...and all the honey was oozy woozy, sticky and gooey, but it tasted good.' Awww. Bed time story for tired little bumble bee. (whispering) Go to sleep, bee."

(Listen here!)

"Ladies and gentlemen, grab your partners! Time to dance like you're my washing machine. Can you spin it? Yes you can. Let's take it down! I'm talkin' 40 degrees."

(Listen here!)

"I'll have a baby on the rocks. Yeah… What the fuck is this? Seriously?! A baby smoothie?! What the fuck, barkeeper, I asked for a baby on the rocks. Baby, rocks. Simple. Goddamnit, people. A baby on the rocks."

(Listen here!)

x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x

Ahaha, dang, I love me some Sleep Talkin' Man. Go check it out!!

via Sleep Talkin' Man

Short story: The Lottery

I am planning to read The Hunger Games series some time before the first movie comes out in March. In fact, I read the first couple chapters of the eponymous first book of the series, just to make sure it was tolerable and that I could go through with my read-then-see-movie plan. Actually, Alan read the chapters out loud to me from his Kindle because I, in my lazy and sleepy state, asked him to and he obliged (he has already read the whole series, btw.). Verdict: It seems pretty interesting and exciting, although it may take me a bit to get used to the fact that it is written in first-person present tense. I tend to dislike first-person narration, and I HATE WHEN STORIES ARE WRITTEN IN PRESENT TENSE. But I'll get over it. Lol.

Aaaanywayyyyyy, I stopped reading The Hunger Games for now because I want to finish the volume of The Wheel of Time series that I am currently reading (WoT 4 LIFE SUCKAHHHHHHHHS!) before really diving into the HG books. But I did also read the first few HG chapter reviews/read-alongs at Mark Reads, which is an absolutely hilarious and wonderful site and you should go read all of the Mark Reads Harry Potter posts, they are amazing. (Actually, that reminds me that I need to do a whole blog post dedicated to Mark Reads. But I digress.) ANNNDDDDD getting back to the topic of this post FINALLY, in his reading of the first chapter of HG, Mark mentions how The Reaping brings to mind a short story called The Lottery (a.k.a. the title of this blog post) (p.s. don't read that Wikipedia article for The Lottery yet because it has spoilerrrrrs omg no not that).

Naturally, I went and found the story and read it because I was intrigued and because I ♥ short stories due to my short attention span, as explained in this previous post, lolololol oh. Anywhoo, Mark is correct as always because he is the most awesomest and it is indeed a really really good short story sooooooooo without any further incoherent rambling ado go read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson right HERE!! You're welcome.

A cool personality quiz you should take

This personality quiz is really interesting! It's called VisualDNA and, as the name implies, it is an image-based visual personality quiz. For each question, it gives you various pictures to choose from as your answer. I've never seen a personality quiz set up like this before! And...I have taken a lot of them. Lol. (I may do a post in the future with some of my favorite/the most informative/the most entertaining ones. -3- )

Here are some of the answers I chose. *w*

Apparently I am a Harmonizer! Which means I am organized and like when things go according to plan. This is true. And apparently I have great style! But the quiz also tells me I need to exercise more. Um, rude. But still true, lol.

Anyway, if you have some time to kill and/or enjoy taking personality quizzes, I recommend that you take this one! And tell me what your results are. :) Just click the link I gave above and start picking photos! Huzzahhhhhh.

via the Visual DNA website

Fuzzy Potter

OH MY FREAKING GOD THIS IS THE CUTEST SHIT EVER.

Oh my god. I want to be in Kittendor. For more ridiculously adorable things, you should check out Everyday Cute, as well as the site for my FAVORITE Everyday Cute character, Pusheen. Holy crap, PUSHEEN.

via Everyday Cute

Caturday: Cat-pile edition.

I love kitties. This is a well known fact. It should therefore come as no surprise that I especially love PILES of kitties. Let the cat-pile photos COMMENCE!!

How did this even happen?? LOL.

Sink pile! Awwww, I love brown tabbies. *3*

Neko nabe, aka cat pot!
Look how lined up their heads are! Another case of "how did this happen?!"

HOLY CRAP SO MANY KITTENS!
I like that loner one that climbed onto the carrier. :)

Eleven kittens! That's so many kittens.
That little rascal in the front is awake during naptime, aww.

Cat-amari, get it?! Lolol.

And now, since two cats does not really equal a pile (a pile of two cats....it's like a pile of one faces. Just...don't ask.), here are some photos of donut kitties, aka one kitty wrapped around another kitty. :3

Awww they fit perfectly in that cat bed!

I LOVE CAT DONUTS.

The kitty in the front is a Bengal! They're so awesome~
And that nice fluffy kitty in the back is giving it ear licks, cuuute!

While these photos are just random ones I had saved on my computer, if you'd like to see many, many more cat-piles and donut-kitties (aka actually primarily kitten-piles and donut-kittens) take a look - or a LONNNNNNNNNG STAAAAAAAARE - at The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, aka LIKE MY MOST FAVORITEST BLOG OF ALL TIME. Soooooo manyyyyy kittenssssssss. :D

OMGEEZIE, if you like Harry Potter at all you have to check this out.

These. Are. AMAZINGGGGGG. Basically, this artist/comic-writer named Lucy Knisley made these one-page comics summarizing each HP book. AND THEY ARE AWESOME. So far she has done them up through Half-Blood Prince.

Here is the one for Sorcerer's Stone, for example. (Hint: click to enlarge it.)

HELLO LADIEZ.

So good! And quite accurate/appropriate summaries, I think. My favorite thing in these comics are all the parts with Snape in them. Because he is frickin' hilarious.

Want to read the rest of them? OF COURSE YOU DO DON'T LIE YOU LIAR.
So you better go -->RIGHT HERE<-- and ch-ch-ch-check it!

via Lucy Knisley's LiveJournal

How well can you see colors?

This is a really interesting test! Go to this website to take the FM 100 Hue Test and see how high or low your color acuity is!

After arranging the tiles in order by hue, starting at the left-most locked tile color and ending at the right-most locked tile color (as shown above in my example), it will give you your "ColorIQ" test score.

The lower the score, the better - thus, zero would be a perfect score. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but that means that my score of 4 is pretty awesome. Yusssss. \(-w-)/ It also gives you a breakdown of which colors you are not so good at discriminating. Damn you, turquoise!

Then, if you pick your age range and gender, it will show how your score compares with your age-and-gender peers. Apparently those other girls in their twenties are pretty awesome at seeing colors, if I am that far over on the distribution scale. And someone got a 1520?! Can they only see in black and white or something?? Well, I suppose I personally know of some people *cough Alan cough* who could only break into the two-digit score range after retaking the test multiple times....poor semi-colorblind bebe.

So go see how well you can discriminate alllll the colors, and tell me how you did!

Nyan nyan nyan? Nyan! Nyan nyan. Plus other nyans I nyan (videos I like).

Do you know about Nyan Cat? DO YOU?! Well if not, before even reading that previous link, go to -->THIS LINK<-- and be enthralled and amazed. And/or really annoyed. Lol.

I like Nyan Cat because not only do I enjoy kitties and weird stuff and pointless dumb internet junk, I also have a long history with nyan. You see, nyan is the Japanese onomatopoeia for "meow." And when I was little and dumb, I would call cats nyan-nyans even if I was otherwise speaking in English. It did not even occur to me that someone might not know what a "nyan-nyan" is. Because what kind of idiot doesn't know what a nyan-nyan is?! I also called dogs wan-wans because, you guessed it, wan is "woof" in Japanese. So, basically, I have nyaned for nearly 22 years, which is waaaaaay more than the other nyaning high-scores people have gotten, seeing as Nyan Cat has only existed for like a month.

If you enjoyed Nyan Cat, which I KNOW you did not at all totally did, you should go here and play Nyan Cat Fly, a game where you control Nyan Cat to get him to omnom tasty yummies and avoid omnomming yucky veggies. My favorite thing about it is that you can customize your own Nyan Cat, that's right, CUSTOMIZE your OWN NYAN CAT to play with. Bomb! Above you can see my personalized nyan. White-furred chocolate nyan with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles! :D Another nyantastic nyan-finding is this video of a dude playing the nyan song on the piano. Check it out!

And please notice that the video description contains a link to a tutorial for how to play the nyan song. Nyaice! If I was better at playing the piano and not confused by that style of piano tutorial, I would totally learn how to play it. But enyaough about nyan! Since I am pleased with my discovery of Blogger's easy-to-imbed YouTube video tool, I will now share a couple non-nyan videos which I currently find very entertaining.

This commercial makes me laugh a lot. I love how the older girl says "happy," and the face the younger girl makes when the grandpa rolls over, ahaha. I read that they told the actresses playing the daughters that the cream actually does work and they believed it, so they are probably being totez srs when they are putting it on the old dude actor, LOL.

I looooove corgis, omg!! The best kind of dog. This one is particularly awesome. Why is he doing that? Why is he so crazy?? He's just all flipping out and smacking the ground with his front paws, hahaha. So great.

Okay I lied, this is nyan-related. But not Nyan Cat-related! I sometimes (oftentimes) watch videos of cats meowing because....well, I'm a crazy cat lady? I have no legitimate reason. Anyway, this video confirmed the fact that I - quite idiosyncratically - enjoy old cats a lot more than kittens. That noisy gray kitty when he is in grown-up stage with his big fluffy tail? SOOOOOO AMAZEBALLS.

And that is it for now because long post is gettin' looooooong.

Excellent sci-fi short stories.

Do you like sci-fi? If so, read on! Because I do. Of course I do. *makes a nerd face*

I also really like short stories because a) I have a short attention span, and b) I do not have to commit to allotting a certain, extended reading time-period to them. For instance, my extracurricular reading time for the last, oh, almost two years has been dedicated to the re-reading and continued-reading of the Wheel of Time series, which I had read up to the latest release back in middle school (and which is probably my favorite book series ever). Before that was a couple-month time period dedicated to reading H.P. Lovecraft stories. And so forth.

So anyways, you should probably read these really great short sci-fi stories!

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The first one is called The Last Question, written by Isaac Asimov. (If you do not know who he is then you were clearly lying earlier when you said that you like sci-fi.) I discovered this story when a friend posted a status about it on the Facebook, and I agree with his accompanying assertion that it is very brilliant. Asimov apparently considers it his best short story, which must mean it is fantastic! (It is.) Read it online here. (If you are going to read any of these stories, read this one. The ending is pretty much mind-blowing.)

The next one is also by Asimov, yay! (I have not yet read any full-length sci-fi works by him, but his short stories are great, let me tell you.) I found out about Nightfall when I was looking up info about The Last Question (via Wikipedia, obv.) Anyway, the wiki page mentioned Nightfall as one of his other most well-known and acclaimed short stories so I was like SHIT I BETTER READ THAT RIGHT NOW. And I did. And it was bomb. Also, it was apparently later adapted into a full-length novel.....so it must be awesome, right? Right. And you can read it online right here.

The next story is called The Sentinel, written by Arthur C. Clarke, and it apparently formed the basis for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's kind of creepy, lol! And it makes me want to watch that movie...I will have to put it on my movies-to-watch list. A link to a pdf of the story can be found near the bottom of this page. (P.S. If you want to find more cool sci-fi stories, you should browse around this site - that's how I found this one!)

Exhalation, by Ted Chiang, is a really creative and rather profound story. It may or may not have made me sit around for a while just staring off into space and being like "WHOAAAA." This story is included in a sci-fi anthology called Eclipse Two, which I will probably have to order and read now. Anywhoo, this story was brought to my attention through an acquaintances blog, which you should probably go check out because he is a super cool dude who likes super interesting stuff and is also super hilarious. Super super! As for the story, the direct link for you to go read it is here.

Okay, one more, just one more! This one, entitled Starborn and written by Juhana Leinonen, is really interesting because it is a cross between a story and a game. Also found on that sweet blog from the previous paragraph, he (the guy who writes the blog) describes it as a short interactive story and he enjoyed + recommended it so it was sure to be way cool. And it was! Just follow the instructions and type in any of the capitalized words to move to a new scene. When I played it, I was very meticulous about making sure I typed in every single command so I wouldn't miss ANYTHING. Lol. It was really interesting how at first I was just going around reading about all this neat stuff but not having any idea what the heck I was doing or what I should enter next, but then things started to fall together and then it clicked and I knew what I needed to do next. It only took me about 5-10 minutes and was really fun and unique. Check it out here!

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Hmmm that ended up being more story recommendations than I had originally intended to do. Oh well, the more nerdy stories, the merrier! Right?! Right.

How fast can you type, homies?

Go here to find out! --> http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php

It actually has you type quotes from books, therefore forcing you to use all kinds of punctuation and capitalize words and do terrible, time-consuming things like that. Aka, things you have to use when you actually type things in real life. Lol.

I average around 75-80 wpm, increasing to over 80 wpm when I happen to get a passage that is mostly straight simple sentences without weird punctuations, proper nouns, etc. So, in other words, I am pretty much a badass.

What's your typing speed? :)




EDIT: Awwww yeahhhh, what now, sucka T?!

I AM THE LORD OF TYPING.

Foooooood (blogs).

I like to read food review blogs. Food product review blogs, to be more precise - especially about candy/snacks. Is that weird? Maybe. But it is also totally awesome. Here are a couple that I particularly enjoy.

Candy Blog is full of reviews of, predictably, candy. Metric shit tons of candy. This blogger sure loves her candy! She also has very impressive specific/nuanced taste discerning abilities. Like, she'll do an entry on, say, Skittles and be talking about the bitter citrus oil tastes and floral berry tastes and all this crazy stuff and I'm like "whaaat is happening" but I am nevertheless super into it, lol. It's also pretty useful because she reviews tons of domestic candies, so you can figure out which treats to avoid or to search for when you go to the store. :) She also does some foreign candy reviews, which I find the most intriguing just because they're out of the ordinary (often very much so).

Japanese Snack Reviews also has a very straightforward name, as the author does reviews of Japanese snack foods of all kinds: chips, candies, beverages, pre-packaged foods, cookies, other baked goods, ice cream, yogurt, and so forth. I find this blog particularly interesting for many reasons, including a) I freaking heart Japanese snacks and I like to imagine how delicious (or...gross) they must be, b) I enjoy seeing what kinds of awesome/nasty/weird-ass snacks there are in Japan these days and c) the author is a good writer whose review posts often have humor, cultural observations, interesting anecdotes, etc. thrown in.

Jen Ken's Kit Kat Blog does not randomly have the word "Kit Kat" in it just for funsies; the inclusion of that word is SRS BSNS. And by that I mean she does, indeed, review Kit Kats. Only Kit Kats. "How is that possible?" you might say. If so, you do not know of the crazy wonder that is Japanese Kit Kats. In Japan, Kit Kats are quite popular and are released in tons of flavors each year. There are regional flavors, seasonal flavors, store-exclusive flavors, holiday flavors, you name it! And lots of them are hella weird. Examples include corn, wasabi, soy sauce, and rose. It's really interesting seeing all the flavors of Kit Kat that exist and how widely they vary in their...deliciousness level (?). Sooooo many Kit Kats~~~!

I check these blogs regularly. As in...pretty much every day. You probably should, too. If you are a weirdo like me who likes reading reviews of snack foods, that is.

Photo credits for all banners go to the respective blogs. :)

Hark! A Vagrant is bomb.

I really like Hark! A Vagrant. What the hell is that, you might say. Well, it is a comic by the brilliant Kate Beaton on a range of topics: most notably, history and literature, but also occasionally American comics, pop culture, and Canada, among others. (P.S. Beaton is Canadian...which is why some comics are about Canada. It all makes sense now) Basically, her comic is hilarious and awesome and you should go read it right now.

One thing that is very interesting about her comics, and which make them much more entertaining and rewarding to read, is that they are oftentimes like little inside jokes. You have to be familiar with the background and characters/figures involved, whether literary, historical, or otherwise, in order to really, fully appreciate the hilarity of the comics. Also, because of the background knowledge needed to get the full comic experience, the comics seem....I don't know, more intelligent? Which is nice. The jokes are still ridiculous though. All in all, I'd say it's a good mix of highbrow and lowbrow. Oh, also! While her art is stylized for a comic genre, Beaton is clearly very skilled, as evidenced by the really accurate drawings of famous people/characters/historical figures.

Anywhoo, here are some of my favorite comics - with links back to the original post which may or may not contain more comics on the same topic! There are a ton because I like Hark! A Vagrant so much that it's hard to pick just a few. I also tried to include comics on an array of topics, as well as not include ones that were too obscure (because some of the history ones can be pretty obscure, though still awesome). OH AND ALSO making the comics big enough to read as is messed up the formatting, so BE SUUURE to click on them to enlarge. Enjoy!

Macbeth

The Tudors

Book by its cover

Facebook

Sherlock Holmes

X-Men

Les Miserables

Batman

The Great Gatsby

Miscellaneous

More miscellaneous

So go! Go read them all! Especially if you are a history and/or lit nerd!!