Random July

This one got a bit delayed as the week got completely away from me. The fact that these things just keep getting bigger and bigger added to the delay, but here it is.

From Roger Ebert's tweets, an absolutely beautiful short movie about a mirror and a small town in the Italian Alps, an illustration of how a sewing machine works, which was fascinating - I've used the things, I've seen them work all my life, but I had no idea about the how of it - and another short movie of an atheist explaining his spirituality.

In a comment on Monday's post, Marie mentioned sniglets, calling my fuzzy moment destinesia and I'd completely forgotten about this most beautiful invention. I love sniglets (warning, you will lose hours)! The language of marriage, a post pondering whether English is in danger and vaguely related (because of the English thing), it appears that Arthur's round table has been found and is not exactly what we thought it was. Staying within the language theme, there is a Japanese pop duo that's crazy about Denmark and the Danes and here's a video with them singing Reseppten, the song for the 1986 World Cup. For comparison purposes, here's the original. And staying within Denmark, the best restaurant in the world has been crowned and it happens to be Danish, naturally awakening my national pride. And hunger.

The genome quilt design, which is the perfect mix of crafty and geeky (I want a quilt like that) and as the weather has been a bit of a conversation starter lately, what with us finally having a rather excellent summer, the seven best weather bloopers and weather tips from the hottest spots on earth.

Moving into politics, the Vatican's new list of "exceptionally serious crimes" includes pedophilia committed by a priest (about time) and in the very next breath, ordination of women. Wha??? Musings on the role of social media and student reporters in the aftermath of the G20 debacle in Toronto and John le Carre on the recent spy swap. A great piece about why conservatives should think twice about holding forth with the one about the "growing number of scientists refuting climate change" thing, one of the best reasons to recycle ever - think ocean and so much plastic you can't even comprehend it - and photos to and help you visualize the consequences of all that plastic. And while we are on oceans and tragedies, if you want an idea of how big the BP oil spill is, you can superimpose it on where you live.

Still within the natural world, but in a much happier way, a very happy orangutan, beautiful pictures of animals doing what they do, scientists have discovered whether the chicken or the egg came first, fascinating images of a python digesting a rat and prepare yourself for much cooing and your voice going up several octaves: baby sloths.

Lucia sent me a hysterical link to a bilingual cat. Over at Sally Jo’s, I found I Write Like, which spread like wildfire. According to that esteemed website, the first paragraph I submitted was like Dan Brown. When I recoiled in horror – dude may be a good storyteller, but not really a good writer - I tried another paragraph (from the same piece of writing) and got Vladimir Nabokov. Well, then. On the one hand, I like it because the man writes like a dream, on the other hand, he wrote Lolita and you know how I feel about that.

Janet contributed the Chemical Party that taught me something while making me laugh. She also reminded me why I hate dating, sent a spoof of the Old Spice Guy (who I adore - dude got a film deal!) and yet another interesting interpretation of a ramp. Trevor told me that Toronto is the new capital of cool, a weather forecast asking for cool and while we’re on cool, an MRI of food. Awesome. Also awesome, but in a very disturbing way, a new breakfast food and staying within the food area, albeit more in terms of the consequences of eating too much of that particular type of breakfast foods, a hypnotic gastric band. Moving into the animal kingdom, Trevor shared a video about why you shouldn't argue with an ibex that's so surreal and nonsensical that I laughed until I started hiccuping. Another video starring a turtle who wants a friend, a graphic illustration of the stories you'll tell your grandchildren about how you used the Internet and one of the loveliest animal stories I've seen in a long time: a cat with bionic feet.

David's contribution this month started out with several moments of squee and moved on to an illustration of Maslow's hierarchy of Internet needs, both illustrating the stories we'll tell our grandchildren about how we used the Internet. Within the natural world, pictures of when a whale goes people watching and an interesting story about whale penises. Trust me, you'll want to read that one. A story about how a magazine took away a disabled person's prize that happen to be a date, which I've tried to write a post about, but it makes me so infuriated that I can't, so here it is. Also the story of Mountweazels, which led me to adopt the use of 'esquivalience' in word and deed as much as possible and a new kind of way to find Waldo. Lastly, some videos - how they made the Old Spice videos, Jewel goes undercover and lastly - and most awesomely – Tofu the vegetarian zombie.

Enjoy the long weekend. Even if it's not a long weekend where you're at.