firehose

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

#yitb

by Jia Tolentino

"On a two-week solitary meditation retreat last month, I found out what happens when the two types of ritual collide: my OCD, crafted to hold tight to a false self, and my Buddhist practice, designed to take it apart." [Aeon]

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johnbyrnedraws:

Original concept drawing of what Wolverine would have looked like under the mask by John Byrne from 1976.

When asked, John Byrne had this to say about the image.

Ah, yes — that was my original suggestion for Wolverine’s face. I sent that to Chris and he responded “You blew it! Dave has already designed Wolvie’s face."

Not sure how that constituted me “blowing it", but that seemed to be Chris’ favorite phrase at the time. (When he asked me to draw his mother into an issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP, but sent no reference, I did the best I could based on having met her once before, and his response was “You blew it!")

Later, I modified that Wolverine face considerably, and it became Sabretooth.

Dave’s design was, of course, based on Timberwolf, who he’d been drawing for a while in the Legion of Superheroes.

John redid this face years later. A link to it is here: Wolverine Unmasked 2012

brucesterling:

*How entirely terrible to be quietly circling some minor-league, well-behaved star, innocently doing a little astronomy, and then realizing that something like this was about to happen.

There's nothing good about a government shutdown. But when this one began, a number of us welcomed it.

	rachel shared this story from Universal Hub - All Boston, all the time:
	If there are fewer vegetarian/vegan options, I will be very very sad.

---

Washington Post

Pa. police chief's public hearing halted after supporter's gun falls from holster ... Washington Post GILBERTON, Pa. — A hearing for a Pennsylvania police chief who made profanity-laced Internet videos about liberals and the Second Amendment was halted suddenly Thursday night after a handgun belonging to one of his supporters slid out of its holster ... Pa. police chief faces public hearing after Internet tirades about liberals, Second ...The Republic Pa. police chief faces hearing after online rantsCt Post all 21 news articles »

anglosexual:

apostateofmind:

"a star shines on the hour of our meeting"

oh my god

lotr shade

Let’s face it: Taylor Swift is nothing if not an Overly Attached Girlfriend. So it’s only fitting that Laina Morris reenacted the pop singer’s lyrics in her Internet famous persona.

Ahead of next-gen console launches this November, GameStop is cutting the prices of its used PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware from October 11 to October 24. During the promotion, customers can pick up the original Xbox 360 for $99.99 (previously $129.99) and the Xbox 360 Slim 4 GB system for $119.99 (previously $179.99). All pre-owned PS3 hardware is marked down to $149.99 (from up to $259.99).

GameStop is also throwing in any used game priced at $19.99 or less for free with any used hardware purchase. Additionally, those with GameStop's PowerUp Rewards loyalty program card in hand can get in on the promotion a day early and also receive a 30 percent discount on used PS3 and Xbox 360 accessories. That is on top of the 10 percent discount program members receive off their used purchases.

Continue reading GameStop discounting used Xbox 360 and PS3 systems

GameStop discounting used Xbox 360 and PS3 systems originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 10 Oct 2013 03:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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45 percent of Tinder users are women — and they seem to be just as comfortable with the app’s low-commitment objectification as its male users.

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

34 might be cool

(LOL: “Many 34 year olds I know have experienced either a loving relationship OR close personal friendship” #lowbar)

Can't look at yourself naked in the mirror? You're obviously not 34 years old then, as this is the age women become most confident and comfortable with their appearance.

A new study claims that by the age of 34, women have learnt what diet and exercise routines best suit their lifestyle, and worry less about what people think.

The research carried out by Sanctuary Spa also found that 40 per cent of British women look at themselves naked every day, while 16 per cent are so self conscious they can't bear to look in the mirror.

'Many 34 year olds I know have experienced either a loving relationship or close personal friendship and these bring confidence, both inside and out,' celebrity skin expert Nichola Joss told the Telegraph.

Original Source

orientaltiger:

Chocolate Pie Chart is a candy chart made of 70% milk, 20% dark and 10% white chocolate

The Eevee Ring ⊟

The perfect gift for the one you choose. What a romantic scene it would be if you were to drop to one knee, present a small jewelry box, and say the words she’s been waiting to hear.

"My Pokemans. Let me show you them." Forever.

PREORDER Pokemon X and Y, official strategy guide, upcoming games

The group of researchers from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou conducted a series of experiments and found that hangovers are caused "not by the ethanol itself, but by ethanol’s first metabolite, acetaldehyde," Chemistry World explained. That means avoid herbal teas, because they have been found to increase the "activity of ADH, thus accelerating the metabolism of ethanol into toxic acetaldehyde, whilst also inhibiting ALDH, reducing acetaldehyde removal," according to Chemistry World. In other words, herbal teas might make your hangover worse because they speed up the creation of acetaldehyde. Sprite and soda water, on the other hand, "markedly increased ALDH activity, thus promoting the rapid break-down of acetaldehyde and could minimise the harmful effects of drinking alcohol."

ABC News

Site Urges You to Drunk Dial Congress During the Government Shutdown TIME The latest government shutdown meme, DrunkDialCongress.org, calls on disgruntled Americans, especially any furloughed workers with cabin fever who may be drinking to pass the time, to start phoning their representatives. For those who tend to slur their ... Drunk Dial Congress?FITSNews all 47 news articles »

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

The actor: Sam Elliott got his start as a contract player for 20th Century Fox at the tail end of the ’60s, doing a fair amount of television before slowly but surely shifting gears and becoming a full-fledged movie star by the ’80s, starring in such iconic films as Road House, Tombstone, and The Big Lebowski. In recent years, Elliott’s TV work has mostly been limited to Westerns, but he has been tempted to make a rare small-screen appearance, bringing his mustache and his memorable voice to Parks And Recreation to play Ron Swanson’s Eagleton doppelgänger.

Parks And Recreation (2013)—“Ron Dunn”
Sam Elliott: I’m not sure where it emanated from or where the ...

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Feast your eyes on long-unseen footage from the classic Doctor Who story, "The Web of Fear" — the first appearance of the Doctor's longtime friend Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. This story is going up for sale at iTunes in its entirety, and we're thrilled to premiere the trailer exclusively at io9.

Read more...

Part of the reason PROMETHEUS disappointed so many was due to the richness of the universe it was playing in. ALIEN is considered one of the best horror movies ever made due to its design, its atmosphere, the shudder-inducing nastiness of its titular fanged penis-monster. And PROMETHEUS just took a lot of the potential for good storytelling in that universe, and farted all over it.

Some left the theater with that scent still burning their nose, and said "Yunno what? Fuck it. There's some cool ideas in here, but they're so borked at this point, that... look, can someone call a do-over and restart the whole damn thing?"

Today, Dark Horse Comics said "Sure, we can do that":

Dark Horse has been operating under a cloudly little dilemma since last October, when Disney bought Lucasfilm, calling into question Dark Horse's future in Star Wars comics. There's still been no official word on the fate of Star Wars at Dark Horse, although it seems really hard to believe Disney would pass up the opportunity to return the series to Marvel. Either way, it seemed a good idea for Dark Horse to come up with a plan for filling that void.

Their plan: get writers Chris Roberson (Edison Rex, I, Zombie), Chris Sebela (High Crimes) Joshua Williamson (Masks and Mobsters, Ghosted) and Paul Tobin (Bandette, Colder), get 'em in a room with editor Scott Allie and artist Patric Reynolds, and figure out how to create a unified comics universe focused on Aliens and Predators.

This isn't exactly a reboot. The interview Rob Bricken posted over at io9.com makes sure to point out that none of the "canon" (again, such as it is) will be contradicted by these new books. But they're not going to go linking and winking at past movies or comics, either. For all intents and purposes, these are brand new takes on this universe, with new protagonists finding themselves having to face Xenomorphs, Predators, and even Engineers.

For more information on which writer's got which book, what they have planned, and more looks at Patric Reynolds' gorgeously horrifying concept art for the series, go read io9's quadruple-stage interview.

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I try — honestly, in good faith — to understand the Republican party and its leaders.

Perhaps someone can help me. Here’s one of my big questions: why doesn’t the Republican party do the traditional thing, which is to declare victory when it gets its way?

Winning, after all, looks good, and tends to be rewarded at the polls. But, more importantly, winning is winning. If you got your way, you got your way. And it makes it easier to keep getting your way.

Obvious example

The Affordable Care Act is a Republican health care plan. It preserves private medical insurance and ensures personal responsibility. It could be called the “no more freeloaders” plan.

It’s an evolution of plans by the Heritage Foundation and Bob Dole; it’s very similar to the plan that Republican Mitt Romney implemented in Massachusetts.

Were I a Republican in Congress, I would have been yelling from the hills. “Guess who figured out how to insure all Americans. Republicans! Guess who made it so even people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance. Republicans! Guess who figured out how to slow the rising cost of health care. Republicans!”

I would have voted for it and made sure everyone knew that this was a historic Republican victory. I would have made sure everyone knew that Republicans have great ideas that make life better for every single American, not just rich people.

And then, with the wind at my back, and a Democratic Congress and administration apparently keen to pass and implement Republican ideas, I would have gone on to the next one. (Perhaps regarding immigration or tax reform.)

I still don’t understand why it didn’t happen this way. It seemed like such a slam-dunk.

More recent example

Democrats in Congress reluctantly agreed to pass a CR that kept spending at sequester levels. Democrats would like to spend more money; Republicans don’t want to. Democrats caved on this completely.

Why not declare victory? “We got the Democrats to agree to our preferred level of spending, and we agreed to continue to fund the government. We won, because Republican ideas on spending are good for America and even Democrats recognized that.”

Done, right?

And then — again, with the wind at my back, with me looking like a winner and Democrats so willing to make deals — I would have taken up entitlement reform.

But that’s not how it happens

Clearly I’m naive. There is something, or many somethings, I don’t get.

The aroma of a spirit can be a real fooler. Take the new Jack Daniel’s Winter Jack Tennessee Cider, for example. Nosing a just-poured sample, I could have sworn it was simply a delicate apple cider that would quietly touch my palate and quickly dissipate.

Wrong.

Go to Dowd's Tasting Notes for my take on this new product.

Meanwhile, here's the latest on the flavored whiskey front. Beam Inc. has released a Red Stag Hardcore Cider. It is infused with natural flavors of apple cider and vanilla to target, says the company, “those who haven’t considered bourbon before.”

Other recent flavored spirits releases include Knob Creek Smoked Maple Bourbon, Paddy Irish Whiskey BeeSting and Devil’s Apple, and Smirnoff Wild Honey and Cinna-Sugar Twist.

The new Hardcore Cider joins the Beam portfolio that includes Red Stag Black Cherry, Spiced Cinnamon and Honey Tea.

 “Since its history-making introduction in 2009, Red Stag has helped fuel rapid growth of flavor innovation in the category,” said Chris Bauder, general manager of whiskies at Beam Inc. ” … [T]he Red Stag line … has seen double-digit growth every year.”

 It is bottled at 80 proof (40% abv) and sells for a suggested retail price of $17.99 for the 750ml bottle.

There are plenty of teams that could use Gonzalez. Kansas City would be the best story, but what about Seattle

Kuwaiti officials said that the country will use medical tests that they claim can “detect” homosexuality when assessing expatriates attempting to enter their borders, with those who test positive for homosexuality being barred from entry.

You can use this to top off your TARDIS cosplay. Get it? Top off? I'm very funny. This headband by Her Universe is available at Hot Topic. Her Universe also has a TARDIS tank dress and will be selling a whole bunch of other geek apparel at NYCC this weekend. Previously in Doctor Who

Before I saw this, I thought that I had made some pretty good cookies in my life. But since I've never made cookies with see through bits I must now recind that opinion. I have a new hill to climb, ladies and gentlemen. And it involves Jolly Ranchers. You can check out pictures of the process behind these cookies at An Inadequate Tumble. Previously in Cookies