Friday Favorites #5

So another week goes by, another excuse to trot out a few of my favorite things.  But I promise not to sing songs from "The Sound of Music," though I am fond of karaoke.  I'll spare you this once.  I'm cool like that.


It's almost Halloween, so let's hop right to it with:




NINJAS - a fun little prank.  I would totally do this.  One day, I'm going to orchestrate an epic flash mob.


SPEAKING OF FLASH MOBS - This one is one of my favorites.  Japanese people do interesting things on television.


TALK ABOUT SCARY - Stars photographed without makeup!  You'll never have one of those self-image problems again.


IF PUMPKINS ARE MORE YOUR THING - definitely check these carvings out.  Art, I tell you.


REALLY BAD COSTUMES - Definitely Not Safe For Work.  Or much else.


MUCH SAFER COSTUMES - Safe for anything, and sometimes adorable!


BEST AND WORST HALLOWEEN CANDY - Oh, snap, now I'm hungry.  




MORE FOOD PORN - I love the idea of Bento Boxes.  One day I'm going to learn how to do this amazing food creativity.


WHO NEEDS ANGRY BIRDS? - Before Androids came to live at my house, this is where I unwound.  Bonus: great squish noises occasionally, and groans and squeals.  Plus, a whole world where you can create your own challenges, or test others' creations.


OH, UNCLE JAY - One of my favorite You Tubers has had to put the camera down for a while to take care of his otherwise packed schedule.  But you can still go back to his channel and watch the archives, which are invariably funny, until he picks it up again.


LIVING WITH AN ENGLISH MASTIFF - Three dogs, one mess.  Find the culprit.




For your Occupy Whatever update this week, we have some very interesting tidbits:


"NEW RECRUITS" - Well, if you call Rikers' released convicts 'recruits'.  Apparently these folks only like convicts while they're languishing in prison, not when they're camped out in the tent next to theirs.


THIS SIGN is probably the best of the written signs currently in vogue among members of the movement.


Pat Dollard has your OCCUPY STATISTIC OF THE DAY.


HOWARD STERN gets to the bottom of why the Occupy crowd is, well,... occupying.


And before my last political link, let me take a moment to institute a new policy.  I am always caught off guard by gut-bustingly funny videos that make me laugh so hard that I snort my drink out my nose, or spew soda on my video monitor.  I vow that I will give you fair warning when one of those will be posted, with a neat little tool called the Spray Factor.  It'll be a ranking between 1-10, with 10 being a deluge of potential spray.  I'll warn you so you'll have time to swallow your drink or finish that bite of cake before clicking.  You can thank me later. 


That said, check out BASEMENT BOY here. WARNING: Spray Factor of 8.




This week's installment of PEOPLE I ADORE stars JONAH GOLDBERG.  Jonah has been writing for the National Review Online for quite a while and serves as editor-at-large, and slays me with his intelligence and sense of humor.  He's also prolifically on Twitter, and has a newsletter I highly recommend signing up for.


And on the READING LIST this week is my long-awaited copy of Andrew Breitbart's RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION.  This has been a fascinating read.  Breitbart is obviously a genius at culture wars, strategy and current events, but I did not expect him to be such a compelling storyteller.  I'm savoring this book the way I savor a great dinner; chewing it slowly, appreciating the flavor, and reluctant to see it come to an end.




So, sweeties, I hope your weekend is full of joy.  Go tell someone special to you that you love them.  Tell them for no reason.  You'll be glad you did.

Friday Favorites #4

Oh, hellllllooooooo darlings!  Has a week already gone by?  Friday is here again?  Oh, well then, I'd better get right to it.  You don't have a lot of time to waste if you're going to be ready for the weekend!




JERRY DOG - Technology for animals, it's coming.


WHITE TRASH REPAIRS - I totally get this.  Admit it, you do too.  Because you never know when you'll have to inform people bout THIS, or figure out how to make one of THESE.  Which, if I skipped a few recycle pickup days, I could.  But watch out for THIS when you're hanging with the guys.  Sneaky, sneaky rednecks.


THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING - but is that a smart place to put it?

LIVE FROM DARYL'S HOUSE - I am completely smitten by the idea of this.  Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates) created his own very successful webshow.  He invites other musicians, old friends and new acquaintances, and they have jam sessions in Daryl's house in New York.  I discovered some new artists like CHROMEO and DIANNE BIRCH (but watch it on LFDH for the best version) and ELI "PAPERBOY" REED.  There are some old Hall & Oates songs redone as well for some new creations.  Don't miss this.


FAILBOOK - Many of us have a Facebook fixation, but this is why you need to hang out at Failbook too.  Think of it as a What Not To Do.  Because you never know when Occupy Wall Street counseling might be needed, or say, presidential trivia assistance.  


KEYNES V. HAYEK ROUND 2 - Austrian economics has never been so easily explained.  Or catchy.  Or clever.  Or stuck-in-your-head, hip-hop good.


OCCUPY WALL STREET UPDATE - What if OWS signs were actually letters to advice columns?  Lori Ziganto is freaking brilliant.  That is all.


And while we're on the subject, can we dispense with the inaccurate Venn Diagram about the difference between OWS and Tea Party?  THIS is much better at explaining it.


This week in PEOPLE I ADORE, DAVID JENNINGS of Big Jolly Politics.  DJ has been tracking politics in Texas for a few years now, and always has a take that makes you stop and think.  He's on Twitter and Facebook too, so he's easy to find.


And on the READING LIST this week, Mark Steyn's AFTER AMERICA.  This has given me so much food for thought, so much insomnia, and so much heartburn.  Schools spend hours and hours teaching our kids to search for patterns, but we often fail to do it ourselves.  I can't read this in large doses, either, or I'll quickly be looking for survivalist training.




But chin up, folks, the weekend is here, bringing more baseball, more Walking Dead, and my own appearance on The Civil Right streaming on KNTH at 1 pm Central on Saturday.  Ought to be fun!

After America by Mark Steyn

This will be on my Reading List on this week's Friday Favorites, but I have to take a moment here and underline it.

Read this book.  

Mark Steyn wrote a hide-under-your-bed scary book called America Alone about the hard truths of demographic trends around the world.  This one is buy-the-bunker scary.

But you should read it anyway.  I'm not any kind of a math whiz, but I can do the addition.  And the multiplication.  We already have full-scale models around the world for EXACTLY what Obama and the Democrats and Occupy Everywhere and the like want to do to the United States.  

We have the luxury of seeing it happen in Europe first, and recognizing that those conditions are alien to Americans.  For now.  We also have the opportunity to make the next year about educating people that they've signed up to cast their future into the fire on the hope that they might get some goodies for themselves or their constituents today.

Who will they blame when their math doesn't work?  They've already started blaming Wall Street.  You're next, because you have stuff.  Eventually, anyone with stuff will be made to give up their stuff.  Either they'll tax you to death or they'll just come take it.  

When a movement can occupy public spaces and claim "ownership" of the people (but apparently only the people who agree with them) then what will the police do when they decide to occupy YOUR space?  If the authorities won't shut them down for failing to follow the rules in public places, will they bother to come to your aid?

Read the book.  Get angry all over again, then DO SOMETHING.  There are elections in less than a month, and you should care.  Because no matter what's going on at the federal level, it's the guys who make the rules where you live that can have the most impact right now on what your life will be like over the next few years.

Friday Favorites #3

Back again, I see.  Good to see you!  How's the family?  Did that thing you were doing work out?  And what about that stuff, did you decide what to do with it?


OK, enough chit chat, you can get that anywhere.  It's Friday again, and back to Friday Favorites!




FREE STUFF - In honor of Occupy Whatever, I'm ripping a page out of The Bigun's book (that's my eldest daughter) to bring you her recent find - an article with links to freebies - free chocolate, free food, free books - and all without raising taxes or spreading wealth around.  If OWS had good coupon skills and hadn't spent more than the price of a house to get a Masters degree in __________ Studies, maybe we wouldn't see their half-naked bodies crapping on police cars or flags.


RANDALL - By now you've heard the words "honey badger" until you're sick of it.  But did you remember where that started?  Randall does voice-overs of nature videos - his way.  His You Tube channel always has something fun, but get this!  Randall recorded a commercial for Wonderful Pistachios and now has swag!

THIS IS PHOTOBOMB -  Don't know what a photobomb is?  Try this.  And this.  


WHITE WHINE - If you're tired of hearing about famine, war, disease and other problems of the Third World (because it's so, you know, boring) you can take a look at REAL problems of REAL people in the FIRST WORLD!


GUILTY PLEASURE - I have a thing for the '70s.  Chicago + Earth, Wind & Fire = AWESOME.  This many guys on stage making music HAS to be good.  Nobody does music like this anymore; they're too busy being cool to have trombone solos.


GUILTY PLEASURE 2 - OK, I also have a thing for the '80s.  Hardly anyone remembers this band unless they saw the movie Vision Quest, but I played this record until I killed it.  This was before I knew they were raging socialists, but then I didn't care when they created such interesting melodies and love songs.  Besides, Brit Pop got a bad name, and these guys sort of redeem it.


STEVE JOBS REWIRED OUR BRAINS - Oh yes, he did.

SADDLE UP TEXAS STRAW POLL - Everyone knows Texas is doing better than any other state economically, but by the time Texas votes in presidential primaries, the game's usually all over.  Some of us are working to change that by hosting our own straw poll in Houston before too many states have decided and candidates start dropping out.  Check it out, spread it around, and help Texas have a voice in the presidential candidates at last!


OCCUPY WALL STREET UPDATE - You can watch the crazy live at that link.  You've likely been hearing about the demonstrations across the country against Wall Street, but you should see this.  THIS VIDEO from National Review Online really gets to the heart of the protesters' demands.  And here's your handy guide to hand signals.  You're welcome, and I'm sure you have a few of your own.


PEOPLE I ADORE - In the Unsung Heroes Department, you should get to know Jimmie Bise Jr.  He blogs on his own site and writes for others as well.  PLUS, he has his own podcasts, so you can check him out on the run.  Jimmie is one of my favorite people on Twitter, and I would bottle him up and sell him if I could!


And this week's READING LIST includes a book by presidential contender Newt Gingrich - Real Change.  I'm working my way through all the books of the candidates, but I'm taking my time with this one.  Newt's rising in the polls this week, and four years ago at this time, Rudy Giuliani was the GOP frontrunner.  Just sayin'.




So I hope you enjoy the goodies this week!  It's so nice taking a break from all the other stuff I do other places, coming back here and just being me.  All of me.  All eight of me, if you count the multiple personality thing.  (Oh, snap, did I say that out loud?) 

Friday Favorites #2

Well, hello, friends!  Back for more political analysis and insightful viewpoints?  I didn't think so.  I might try to sneak something like that in once in a while, you know, the way your mom put shredded zucchini in your spaghetti so you'd eat your veggies.  


So this week, we're jumping right in with:


ZOMBIES!!! - One of my favorite You Tube Videos, it'll get stuck in your head.  Watch it anyway.  It's one of a series by Jonathan Coulton called "Thing of the Week" where he tasked himself to churn out something interesting and creative each week.  Win.




RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES!!! - I remember CRACKED magazine as a kid, but what they do online is off the charts.  These zombie articles about How a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen and Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail Quickly just fuel my zombie obsession.  Gotta do something until Walking Dead returns.




Back to You Tube, you'll want to go watch some things on the SMARTER EVERY DAY channel.  Destin puts together videos that are probably best described as Mythbusters in your backyard.  He's explored things like microwaves, Dragon's Breath ammo, and chicken heads.  




And if you like that, you won't want to miss ROCKET CITY REDNECKS, new to National Geographic Channel.  More backyard rocket scientists, more explosions, more geek cool.




One last You Tube video, at least for this week, OKGO AND FRIENDS - "WHITE KNUCKLES".  An incredible one-shot video with the band and some furry friends.  OKGO always has great videos (these are the treadmill guys) and play around with concepts from Rube Goldberg machines to muppets.  They almost always make a "behind the scenes" video with each one, and you'll want to watch the White Knuckles one.  Trust me on this.  Oh, and they have some great music too.




MY FOOD LOOKS FUNNY - I have a thing for food pictures.  I'm all about Tweet What You Eat, but this site takes the cake.  Literally.  I especially like this pizza sign, because clever!  But be careful; this site leads to a lot of other time-sucking sites we'll visit later.  You've been warned.




NANOWRIMO - November is National Novel Writer's Month, and NANOWRIMO encourages writers to work on (and try to complete 50,000 words of) a novel in a month.  If you've ever thought about writing a novel, now's the time and this is the place.  Or you can just go read what diligent, hard-working committed people do, then go eat a snack.




It wouldn't be a blog I had anything to do with if there wasn't SOME political stuff going on in it.  so...




CHICKS ON THE RIGHT - I'm enchanted with Daisy and Mockarena's take on the issues of the day.  Plus they're funny and gorgeous, so even if you're not particularly political, go anyway!  They make it easy to follow the news and not do a head desk.  Or, if you do, you can recover with their pictures.




ONE NATION UNDER GOD - A BOOK FOR LITTLE PATRIOTS - Amelia Hamilton has written a sweet little book to introduce the love of our country to children.  It's just precious, and if you know some little critters who could use a little foundation in America, order a few and support a conservative author.  Christmas is coming, so knock a few items off your list with this book.




MISFIT POLITICS - The genius outfit that brought you ATTACK WAAAAATCH is on Facebook, and getting their website ready.  Keep an eye on these guys; Glenn Beck steals from THEM.  More on them later, too.




BIG GOVERNMENT ON SOLYNDRA - If you aren't following the Solyndra scandal, you'd best get caught up.  Larry O'Connor has been hammering on this with his series there.  Check it out.  This is serious stuff.  




This week in PEOPLE I ADORE, you really, REALLY need to get to know Smart Girl Michelle Lancaster.  Check out her blog at The Jersey Texan to keep up with everything from local doings to national politics.  And you can follow her on Twitter as well, which you will not regret, ever.  In fact, you'll pay me a finder's fee.  I take Pay Pal.  And chocolate.




And the READING LIST this week - I've been reading Terri Blackstock's Cape Refuge series while I wait for Breitbart's Righteous Indignation to get here.  And I just picked up Janet Evanovich's SIZZLING SIXTEEN.  The movie based on her first Stephanie Plum book, ONE FOR THE MONEY, is coming out soon, so start there and get caught up.



Enjoy, people!  Love ya, mean it!

Friday Favorites #1

Oh, hello there!  I know, I know, I haven't blogged in forever.  But I've been, well, a little busy.  But enough about me; how have YOU been?

Seriously, though, I decided to start a new feature for Facebook, called Friday Favorites.  It'll be a collection of online (and possibly offline) places I love, people I enjoy, and stuff I find funny, informative, shocking, interesting or otherwise worthy of mention.  

It'll probably tell you more about me than I really intend to share, but hopefully it'll also give you, my friends, something to look at every week that you haven't seen before.  

And with that, I bring you:

BAD LIP READING - A You Tube channel dedicated to, um, analyzing speeches and such.  I'm not going to spoil it for you.  You have to go there.  Watch this one first, and for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT DRINK ANYTHING WHILE WATCHING.  You're welcome.

DAMN YOU AUTO CORRECT - By now, you've probably either heard of this site or contributed to it.  Based on hilarious mistakes in autocorrect features of text and messaging software, the exchanges are sometimes Not Safe For Work, but always head-smackingly hilarious.

THE PIONEER WOMAN - I've been reading this blog for several years on and off, and the author Ree just keeps making it more interesting.  The love story of her marriage is very compelling; she's such a good storyteller that she had to put it all into a book, which I also recommend.  The great thing about her is how many interests she details in her blog.  There's something for nearly everyone - homeschooling, photography, cooking.  Oh, and cooking?  What she does with photography and cooking combined qualifies as food porn.

U.S. DAILY REVIEW - This new site has a diverse group of contributors (myself included) offering news and opinion.  I include it not only to promote other places I'm writing (though you should check out my social media series there) but because I know some of the authors and they do tremendous work.  You might make this one a daily stop, like the title says.

THE STAGE RIGHT SHOW - Night owls should join me for this USTREAM/Breitbart TV show hosted by Larry O'Connor and Meredith Dake.  Larry is the editor at Breitbart TV and Meredith is now an associate editor at the "BIG" sites as well, and they take on the mainstream media, culture wars, politics, news of the day and Al Sharpton.  If you join us, which you can do at 11 pm Central, you should jump into the Hollywood Chat Pack chatroom, and join the discussion there while watching.  It cranks the whole experience up to 11.

GENGHIS GRILL - OK, this one is probably the one where you're going to say "Oh, Fish, where have you BEEN?" but I was just introduced to this franchise and I'm in love.  Walk in, get a bowl, fill it with raw food, pick a sauce, give it to a man, he cooks it, and it's delivered to your table.  Simplicity.  And Deliciousity.  If you are near one and haven't tried it, DO IT.  I'll wait. 


IF COMPUTER PROBLEMS WERE REAL - Just watch.  


PEOPLE I ADORE - Every week I want to say thank you to someone for being so awesome.  This week it's Lee Doren.  If you watched the Fox/Google GOP debate last week, you saw him ask this.  He's also responsible for some great work on his You Tube channel How The World Works, and he's recently written an e-book exposing liberal bias in higher education.  Lee is funny, whip-smart, and breaks complex things down for folks like me.  

And finally  THE READING LIST - what I'm reading this week.  Right now it's two fiction books by Perri O'Shaughnessy - Keeper of the Keys and Dreams of the Dead.  Two sisters write the books under that pen name, and their mysteries are always engaging and hard to put down.  The latter book is part of their Nina Reilly series, so start at the beginning with Motion to Suppress if you want to follow along.

That's it for this Friday - Now I'll be accountable for a weekly feature, so feedback is appreciated.  It helps to know someone actually read this stuff, and found something new to enjoy.  Love ya, mean it!

The Crunchy Crusade

I've combed the internet for pictures of the One Nation rally, the event billed as hundreds of organizations working together "to demand the changes we voted for."

This one seems the typical, though there are some great ones HERE and HERE and HERE, and don't miss this comparison with the 8/28 rally HERE and HERE.

Today on Twitter, the blogosphere and elsewhere, the story is going out that One Nation dwarfed the Beck rally. As if. Even C-SPAN had to "borrow" photos from the Beck rally to cover the One Nation rally, seen HERE.

But the numbers aren't the important thing. Look at the picture again. Look long and hard. Think about what the trashing of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the sacred ground of the WWII Memorial says about those who infested Washington D.C. this weekend.

Of course they're proud socialists. But even that isn't the main thing. The main thing is whether one's actions match one's words.

Here you have a group of groups, in essence, that form the coalition that supported President Obama's election in 2008. Nothing inherently wrong with that. BUT the different constituencies that made for an electoral victory have a code and a worldview that they nearly all support vigorously, whether they come from pro-choice groups, pro-illegal-immigration groups, union groups, green groups, Communist groups or gay-marriage groups, or some other Coalition-of-the-Bilking partner that I blocked out.

The code says that when one group is involved in a fight, all the others must rally to their side with position papers, public statements and the like. The worldview says that the Evil Center-Right Common Sense Extreme Right Wing must be defeated at all costs. It also says that the end result of whatever you advocate doesn't matter, as long as you hold the right "values."

So if, say, you're a green, environmentalist tree-hugging nutjob, and you attend the rally in Washington D.C. Saturday and see all the trash left over, it's ok to walk right by it and head over to Chinatown for some stir-fried tofu. This is because it's not your PERSONAL responsibility to save the planet; instead it's your personal responsibility to petition the government to raise taxes to get someone else to take care of yet another pressing problem. After all, you were THERE, you WITNESSED the terrible state of the nation's capital and BY GOD, SOMEONE needs to do something about it.

It never occurs to these crunchies that they could take ten minutes and leave the place better than they found it. And we know this is not an isolated incident, as this Inaugural record shows. Same crunchies, same modus operandi. (UPDATED with video from the events HERE)

Now, not to toot our own horn, but I've been "First On, Last Off" the grounds at a few rallies over the past months, and never, not ONCE have I seen grounds left worse off than when we arrived. But that's not really the point; the point is that the Left doesn't just DO things inconsistent with what they say they believe; it's that they don't even acknowledge that the two things go together.

Contrast this with the conservative resurgence in the past two years. Have we had our share of nutjobs and slick operators? Oh, absolutely. But when did we ever embrace them? When did we ever take the position that supporting someone really awful was better than letting the folks on the other end of the spectrum attack them unchallenged? Look it up; when tea party or the conservative movement finds some ally acting a fool, you'll frequently see Twitter and Facebook unleash The Full Force of Doom on them from the right. Contrast that with the Left's dogged support of Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi or Chris Dodd, or, (yeah, I'm gonna say it,) any random Kennedy. We know this; we purge those who don't walk the talk. The Left does not.

Nothing is new about these revelations, but consider this: Nowhere online today can you see evidence of remorse at the state in which the Crunchy Crusade left the capital. The disconnect is amazing, and striking in this way...

Those are the people who will be motivated to return to the voting booths this fall and in 2012 to solidify their worldview further into the government of These United States, the worldview that takes all firm foundation away and rejects even the most basic of truths; that what you do is exactly what you are.