Friday fiction frolic: The School by Donald Barthelme. A short, short story --dark, but funny, one of his best. Or if you're a music fan, another one: The King of Jazz which has the best lyrical description of music i've ever read.

It's been fun, Doc. Doctor Fun, aka David Farley, set out in 1993 to post 10 years' worth of daily comics. He completed that task earlier this week (it took 13 years). Arguably the longest running web-only comic ever produced, there won't be any more new ones. Fortunately (especially if you like jokes about heads in jars) there's an archive. more inside

Girls like pron too.

Thanks. No. At last a solution to the usual friendship-ending requests to stop sending me the fucking badgerbadgerbadgerbadger song.

Screech from Saved By the Bell needs your money to save his home from foreclosure. Or you could, you know, help a starving orphan. Or get yourself a non-fat decaf latte with extra foam.

Think (About Paying Your Workers) Differently. Claudia Joseph's article from the UK's Mail has forced Apple to "look into" allegations of wretched worker conditions. Last year Apple achieved a record billion-dollar profit.... "We have to work too hard and I am always tired. It's like being in the army. They make us stand still for hours. If we move, we are punished by being made to stand still for longer." ... Labor costs in the Chinese factories we traced are ... Pounds 4.20 ($7.74) per iPod.... In Britain they sell for between Pounds 109 ($201) and Pounds 179 ($331). more inside

Hope is Emo. Chapter One: "The Words are Dying". Hope talks about the importance of words and how unfair it is for Marna to go to Senior Prom. [Brought to you by the fine folks at Ask a Ninja]

Tales by H. Beam Piper are now available online. more inside

Jesus Christ Superman: So, yeah, there's this new Superman movie coming out, and in line with the Chronicles of Narnia, the plot seems to be heavily christianized (or gay, as some see it). What gives? And whose idea was it to make another Superman movie without Richard Prior in it?

Happy Mornings You can sleep when you are dead. YouTube video. via

High School Pranking Season well underway.

Sexed Robots. When boy meets girl, you just know there's gonna be some hot robot lovin'. There's even a video! (QT 11.2mb) - They sing! They mate! They, er, fall asleep! Not to be confused with

Minke filter Japan has gained the support of three more small countries to give its position a definite majority in the International Whaling Commission. This marks the climax of a 10-year campaign of using substantial foreign aid packages to persuade small countries - often with no whaling tradition, or even a coastline - to join the IWC and vote on the Japanese side.

Facing the Past [In] The language of the Aymara, who live in the Andes highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Chile, . . "Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world – from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on – have not only characterized time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front of ego and the past in back. The Aymara case is the first documented to depart from the standard model," via, darnit more inside

These people give us pleasure. Children simply in delight! Some of the most amazing balloon creations I've ever seen.

Happy birthday, James Clerk Maxwell, who some believe rates with Einstein and Newton.

Float copper. Float. Copper. Giant chunks of....of....of copper. Just....out there. ... Gosh. more inside

JacksonPollock.org

Deportation rocks an island community: People on a small Scottish island are protesting the UK Government's deportation of a young man of Thai-origin. more inside

Curious Weight-loss George: Have you had any experience with the Leptin Diet? more inside