In "Curious George: Help my bored puppy get smart"

Daisy will probably appreciate a Buster Cube. Put her food in it (kibble), set it on either the easy or hard setting, and it'll give her some time pushing the cube around while she gets mental and physical exercise and, eventually, her dinner. My 6-year-old Sheltie (who picks up anything we want to teach her within about 10 minutes, except "no bark," and "leave the food," which are lifelong struggles so far) loves it, though it doesn't keep her occupied for quite as long as it's supposed to. Border Collies are one of the few smarter breeds, so it might entertain Daisy for a while.

In "Charley Harper- an illustrated life"

You can also find some of his stuff on Flickr, if you look around -- that was where I first encountered it with a name attached to it. But I want to buy this book! :) thanks!

In "Jedi Master beaten up by drunken Darth Vader during TV interview."

The fact that he was wearing a garbage bag instead of a cape was what sent it over the edge into funny-no-matter-who-got-hurt-land. IAWTC. I mean, I know just yesterday I was pretty pleased that Sophie Lancaster's killers were convicted of murder. That makes me worry that this is a contradictory feeling. But I just can't help being amused. I'd add that what makes even funnier than that is that it happened while the Jedi guy was being interviewed for a documentary. Avoid publicity you must, if caught by Lord Vader you wish not to be! Also, it calls to mind: "His Vader costume was just rubbish." *ducks*

In "Bead Me Up, Scotty"

Heh -- no acronym, it's Artist Looking For A Niche. (It's not like she was necessarily doing it for fun: you do what interests you that you think will sell or stir up attention for your other work. The people who *aren't* professional artists who do this stuff are the ones who might have TMTOTH.) Wait, I guess that's ALFAN. Never mind. ;)

In "Cities sans signage"

What I think we are discussing here is not really a removal of advertising per se (as we understand commercial advertising) -- it's a removal of all markers of location or destination. And I think that's what creates the surreal/creepy effect.

In "Curious George: Uphill Both Ways?"

Noooo! No, we KEEPS her! We keeps TUM. (I mean, I accepted years ago that I'm not funny.)

In "Mix-tape For Water Boarding-"

NTHD. *cries*

In "The entire contents of Design Magazine (1965-1974) "

stop being so awesome, darn it. ;)

In "Sweden's Ice Hotel"

A former online friend (I've lost touch with her, sadly) is Swedish and posted a bunch of pics when her mom took her and her brother there, circa... 2000-2002, sometime. The photos were lovely, and K. gave a pretty good idea of what a night there was actually like, which I don't find that the documentaries necessarily do.

In "Pee+Vegetable Oil"

I love how this thread has 10x more comments than any other, lately (I'm 155! I think.) -- BUT they're all one-liners. I guess I would use it for tires that never pop, but I'M NOT FUNNY.

In "Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent"

What we're dealing with here is me being creeped the heck out. A tip o' the hat to Hank!

In "Capt. Sensible"

O Captain, my Captain! (You all know the requisite response.)

In "Curious Ugly Toy George"

Oh! Yeah, you know... while they have plenty of legit stuff, too, my first stop in an Ugly Toy Hunt would be a closeout retailer like Big Lots or (in Ohio, at least) Marc's. They get some very strange things, not all necessarily toys, along with some genuine budget scores.

PS - I have a girlier version of one of these monster dolls from Friend or Foe. They're a little bit quirkier than UglyDolls, which are also cute. If you have a Borders bookstore in your area, or a Paperchase shop, there's a whole line of Paperchase paper goods with UglyDoll-esque monsters (called Monstarz) on them. They're really from a year or two ago, so there may not be that much from the line left floating around in stores. (Borders owns Paperchase but doesn't, TMK, operate any stand-alone Paperchase stores in the US.)

Aww, I like the Treeson! He's cute. I don't think he's meant for kids... looks like "designer vinyl" to me. Ditto the stuff at StrangeCo. I will also step up to defend Kitty-chan's honor. At that last link, this is pretty darn cute (and therefore off-topic, but I want one).

In "Curious George: I need a new Domain Registrar"

Parsons did retract his support for torture, IIRC, but that doesn't stop the ads from being annoying. I used to use Dreamhost for both registration and hosting, and I was happy with them except for some mildly confusing billing stuff that wasn't anything near a dealbreaker, but I think that's not what you're looking for.

In "On-line Board Gaming:"

I just got Settlers of Catan for Christmas, after wanting it for years... but of course, nobody I live with actually likes board games. Best friend does, so we played about a month ago with her family. After playing, the two things that seem like they'd be the most helpful are the lucite board frames sold on eBay (which come in interlocking pieces for easy storage, and help you keep your little hex-shapes together, a big Catan problem), and the decks of cards that replace the dice (there's too much going on all over the board to want to roll dice onto it). The former is an unofficial product, the latter official. With regard to the former, it's helpful to know how much you plan to expand your game, because there's a larger and more expensive frame set to use with expansions... no point in buying the cheaper one if you're just going to go buy "Cities and Knights" a few months later. We all just played Talisman this weekend. I also got that for Christmas, and the one I have (the new 4th) is much nicer than the 2nd edition, but we played someone's 2nd. It was groovy because they had the City expansion. Talisman expansions are interesting because they tend to replace places on the game board: you set the corner or edge of the board on that space. Timescape is a notable (and unpopular) exception, an attempt to bring the Warhammer 40K universe into the game. It was also available to us the other night, but we skipped it. (Probably a good thing: we aren't as young as we used to be, and all threw in the towel after about four hours or so of gaming.) I've been semi-aware of Catan and Risk online but I haven't got around to playing them. I think there's also a newer console version of Catan that came out in the past year. Re what TUM said, my cousins' step-grandparents (no relation to me at all, but nice people) had a ton of old board games in their basement rec room. I was close to my cousins and tended to visit these step-grandparents with them on holidays when I was around 7-10 years old... we always played their old copies of Don't Break The Ice, Sorry, Parcheesi, games like that. Mostly from the 1960s. Our shared grandparents never really had kid-friendly games... they had a lot of kids and had been poor when their kids were young, so all the games around the house were mysterious, un-fun-seeming things like Tripoly and Rummikub, and cards were played a lot. But if we brought a game with us, it was always played. This is practically an update to my comment on the last board game thread! (sometime last year?)

In "Is "Canadian" the new racial slur in the American South?"

The US is not a "melting pot" except in a clichéd bit of lingo; the US is also full of enclaves. I would also disagree with jb's estimation of the Southern US, after living in FL for many years and traveling around now and then. There are plenty of places where average casual restaurant food isn't amazingly cheap. 16% is standardish and 20% isn't uncommon, but it isn't uncommon in the northern US either, except around unrepentant cheapskates who think 10% is OK and will short or dock the tip for any reason, even stuff well beyond the waitstaff's control. Also, Orlando is in the interior of FL and obviously soaks up the tourist dollars; there are plenty of places on the coast that don't. It just depends on what else has been plunked there and what major roads are nearby and where they run from. If you happen to live somewhere where there's a major resort or a cruise-ship dock, tourist money will flow through the area in spite of the general lousiness of your facilities (Merritt Square Mall, destination of many Port Canaveral cruise-ship stopovers, I'm looking at you). It's a complex topic affected by numerous factors.

In "Cloverfield in 15 minutes."

I did not like Blair Witch (it's only scary in implication in the last few shots because of something that happened five minutes into the movie). I haven't been remotely interested in Cloverfield for a stack of reasons, one of them being the shakycam fauxité (I'm now coining that as a term for fake-verité, but I may not be the first). Cleo's movie parodies are always funny, though. She has a book on sale in the UK. Man vs Environment monster movie = Korea's The Host. Well-made and upsetting. Not many buildings knocked down, though. The actress playing the near-champion in archery also starred in a really popular Korean TV drama that's aired in the US in the last few months, Someday. (Trailer for Someday on YouTube.)

In "I Refuse to Acknowledge the Passing of Halloween! "

Among us, my fiance and I have a number of things featured on the Mr Fink page, or similar items. Neither of us has a collection focused on horror, but I have some Bali wood items, some Dia de los Muertos stuff (like the Catrin & Catrina), etc, and he has the Wacky Packs uncut page, a "flying skeleton" from Bali similar to the Mexican carved skeleton shown there, and tons of art. The bathroom is pretty much his dream bathroom, and I think it's cool enough, but not for a bathroom. Better for a hallway or something. (I prefer bathrooms to look very clean and hospital-like.) We still have conflict because, while I don't have any problem with weird and wacky stuff, I like to keep the mood of my house either light and sweet or historical. We don't currently live together, so it's not a big deal. But it could be after we move in together. The other thing is that I object to incorporating superheroes in my decor in any way. (That's OK, he objects to my "girly" stuff.) There are tons of 18th century gown patterns available now, though those are both good (I prefer the one Pallas Athena bought, but it also looks more difficult to make). You can always check the Great Pattern Review for ideas... Simplicity 4092 is discussed there....

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