Shaving babies

Babies and a good razor are kind of like spaghetti and meatballs. Both awesome on their own, but they are elevated to a whole new level of awesome when they join forces. 

If you've seen my face over the past 10 years, you know that I'm not a huge fan of shaving, but I never thought a picture of a baby shaving would make me laugh as much as this did. Definitely frame-worthy and definitely awesome.

 

(Thanks Steph)

P.S. Brian: Make sure Conor uses a safety blade. Or even better let him grow a beard out. Babies & Beards > Babies & Razors.

People getting punched in the face in slow motion. And a baby.

I never really thought about it until I watched this video, but I guess getting punched in the face kind of sucks. It also looks really weird in slow motion. Really weird, but really awesome. I think I could watch people getting hurt all day if it was as fun as this. I'd also let someone punch me in the face if i could watch it back in slow motion. I wonder what my beard would do.

Here's a video of a bunch of folks from a post-production studio in Texas getting punched in the face. In badass slow motion. Maybe everyone's seen this already but it's new to me and it's pretty freaking great.

People getting punched in the face in slow motion

Seeing people get punched in the face reminds me of this 5 second clip that I have been OBSESSED with for a pretty long time now. It has over 4 million views. 3,750,000, give or take a few thousand, are me. Sometimes I feel bad about liking this video but then I watch it again and start laughing and all of the guilt melts away. Any time you're having a bad day, just think about this lady and it kind of puts things in perspective.

Best Video Ever

On a COMPLETELY UNRELATED note, my friends Brian and Mary had a baby this morning. His name is Conor and I am pretty freaking excited for them. They're great, great people and are going to make the most incredible parents.

Photo of Conor, taken by his Dad.

Welcome to the world, Conor. You just made it a whole lot more awesome. :-)

Monastery Mustard

Despite my extreme aversion to and disgust for large quantities of homogenous edible things, this story on a group of Benedictine Sisters is pretty wonderful. These ladies had a recipe for mustard and decided that it was so good that they could turn it into a business and use the proceeds to help out their community. It goes to show you that a simple idea founded on generosity and a strong work ethic can lead to wonderful, cool and inspiring things.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my ability to make a difference in people's lives and my place in the world. And there have been a lot of stories like this coming out lately about ordinary people with big hearts who focus their energy on something they're good at, market themselves well, and either give back to or promote causes that are close to them. I don't think I'm all that good at anything but if these badass Sisters can run an awesome business and help people in need, it's only a matter of time before I figure out what to do. Plus, I guess you don't need to invent something crazy or become President to make other people's lives better. You can do it with something as simple as mustard. So I guess if you've ever wanted to make big changes in the world and didn't think you could, you should watch this. Because we all can, and it made me feel a lot better too.

Monastery Mustard

On a nerdy/weird/stupid note, I never knew that you used a blowtorch to shrink wrap the plastic seals on jarred products. I was so excited to see the nun with the blow torch. If I were on the Mustard assembly line, this would be my job. And I would love it. Fire rules.

Tetris Tiles

Tetris Tiles are amazing.

If my bathroom were covered in these, I'd want to crap all day.

This is the best color scheme. I just love these so much. Life is so fun and tiles should be too.

For more awesomeness, visit www.tetris-tiles.com.

Jessica Fletcher, my hero.

When I was little we used to climb up on my parent's bed and watch Murder, She Wrote on Sunday nights. My dad was already asleep by then (which was and still is weird since it was 8:00) but my mom and I were really into it. I guess it's kind of strange that I was allowed to watch people get shot, hit in the head with wrenches, burned alive, stabbed, pushed off balconies, poisoned, and have their brakes cut when I was 5, but I think it's probably what's made me so well-rounded and mature for my age (stop thinking what you're thinking right now).

Jessica Fletcher is my hero. She embodies everything that I want to be in life. She is the eternal optimist, has an undying need to help others, and puts the needs of her friends before her own. If she was a real person, I would intern for her or something. That said, developing any kind of relationship with her is a certain invitation to be thrown into a brutal murder mystery, whether I'd be the victim or the innocent but questionable suspect with the odds stacked against me. So maybe I would have done some kind of telecommuting internship. Or we could have conference called or something. They didn't have that in 1987 but Jessica and I would have figured something out (and it would have been none of your business).

Jessica generously lends her time in an effort to get to the bottom of who victimized this woman with self-tanner.

At the beginning of every episode, Jessica is usually dealing with some kind of work-related issue, like travelling somewhere to research a new book, or fucking with her broken typewriter because she's got a deadline to submit her draft in New York City. She's a busy lady and I give her credit for choosing a slower, quieter life in Cabot Cove, as opposed to moving to Manhattan (where she actually taught for a whole season [the murders and storylines in this season, in case you were wondering, were totally sub-par]). She is modest and confident, a star in her field, and well-respected in her community, where she shops locally, gets around town on bicycle (she was green before green was popular) and singlehandedly solves more murders per year than all of the detectives in most major police departments do combined.

 

Sometimes you have to break and enter to get to the bottom of things. Jessica isn't just above the law, she IS the law.

Every episode of Murder, She Wrote presents a challenge for Jessica. Sometimes, a friend she hasn't heard from in a long time is murdered. Then there are cases where her second cousin gets accused of murder, or there's a witch at the Cabot Cove church who pushes someone off the steeple.  These things happen, people. This is real life. Jessica speaks my language and I can relate to her hardships. 

Her true heroism comes at the end of every episode where, despite all of these terrible things happening around her, she triumphs. Jessica uses her stealthy investigation skills to get to the bottom of the mystery and figure out who the real culprit is, stumping the criminal and stymieing the village Sheriff, Mort, who I have no respect for whatsoever. Your hard-earned taxpayer dollars are paying for this guy to fumble around town like a douche all day and take backseat to a retired 60-something mystery writer who has no business being on a crime scene. At least Jessica represents the people of Cabot Cove in the House of Representatives, and can do something about this.

The woman in the background knows she's going to die in 5 minutes and does NOT look happy about it.

Jessica ends each episode with a smile, putting the brutality and injustice of the last 45 minutes behind her, while embracing her inner-strength, steadfast resolve for righting wrongs, and sometimes Tom Selleck.

I don't know why Jessica and Magnum teamed up on this episode. It was terrible. You can tell from this picture that Jessica is so over it.

There are few people in my life that I would give a kidney for. If I ever get slashed, killed in a ritual voodoo ceremony, blown up on a boat, or electrocuted with a hairdryer in a bathtub, I hope that you barge onto the scene uninvited and show those good-for-nothing Bumblefuck PD officers who's boss. You may be fictional, but you are real to me, now and forever.

I raise my glass this evening to you, Jessica Fletcher, my hero.

 

Jessica raising her glass back at me. Jealous, much?

I love the internet.

Fried Chicken Head found in McDonald's order.

Bright orange rectangular prisms rule.

In a world that is scary and unpredictable, one thing remains constant: my love for this refrigerator. Behold, the orange Smeg:

These cost more than my life but I can dream. I guess I could just paint my refrigerator orange. I don't think that would be that awesome though. I can't paint worth a lick (not just artsy painting, I cannot paint a wall a solid color without it looking like a streaky clusterfuck) and it still wouldn't have those sexy rounded corners.

Also, look at that badass door handle. It's like a vintage car that holds your food. Cars, food and the color orange. Sounds pretty freaking great to me.

Purifying Water (in a more awesome way)

This is pretty cool. It's a big piece of coal that you can put inside of a bottle of water. The coal filters out the chlorine, and adds other minerals to it in the process. You don't have to stick something on your faucet or have a huge (ugly) pitcher sitting in your fridge. 

I suppose some people would find having a huge piece of tubular coal in their water bottle offensive. These people are irrelevant and have gotten off the Awesome Train many stops ago. Choo Choo.

I also like the idea of using coal to make our lives better. I think coal's gotten a bad rep lately (and rightfully so, as when it's burned it causes quite a mess and doesn't help our global situation much). Here's a positive way of using it that utilizes cheap materials to facilitate a necessity of human survival (clean water). Now, the link below is selling this for 60-something dollars. Am I going to buy this for 60 dollars? Fuck no. I'm fine with tap. However, maybe someone could figure out a way of putting a piece of coal into a nalgene-like bottle, producing them en masse, and distributing them in countries and locales that have difficulty purifying water. Small investment, huge impact. 

I believe that something of this nature has been suggested and perhaps implemented in a limited capacity (and alternatives to this idea have certainly been proposed) but let's face it, we really need to address a lot of the problems happening domestically and globally in a more aggressive way. I hope the innovation from this novelty will trickle down and help the people who need it. There's a long history of this "novelty to practicality" transition and perhaps this will be yet another example.

http://shop.sortofcoal.com/products/bottle_kishu_binchotan

Baked Potato Bar Luncheon

I don't know why, but I am obsessed with the Baked Potato Bar Luncheon that I am invited to every year. The invitations always feature the highest quality clip art and it always pushes the envelope with it's edgy and contemporary design.

I have never been to the Baked Potato Bar luncheon but I think someone needs to go through the archives of the invitations and flyers made regarding this spectacular event and publish some kind of book, because it would be awesome and I would be first in line to buy one.

Food that looks like marbles

So I actually hate Dippin' Dots but I really like the idea of experiencing something in pellet or spherical form. Small things are way more fun than big things. And experiencing something 1,000 times over on a small scale is way better than experiencing something once on a large scale.

Here are examples of things that are awesome that also consume things in tiny circley form:

Look at how cute this bloodhound is. He eats kibble. Maybe we would all be cuter if we ate human food in small spheres.

 

This guinea pig eats food in pellets. Couldn't you just eat him up? Well maybe you could do that after you wake up, smell the coffee, and eat some food shaped like orbs.

 

 

Pacman ate those little yellow dots. God knows what they were made of, but Pacman is fucking awesome, so if it works for him, it works for me. 

In conclusion, all foods should be made into small spheres and eaten from bowls. Imagine your typical salad looking like a big bowl of Trix, and your corn on the cob looking like a big bowl of Kix. Trix and Kix, people. You loved them when you were little, and now you can love your corn and salad the same way. Total no-brainer.