It’s a beautiful morning, the Wells Bells are ringing, and here’s a few more links that I’ve found in my adventures across the Internet.
Cheezburger Time – Cute Cat Tails
A plethora of funny macros about cats and their tails. My personal favorite (and you have no idea how hard it was not to write ‘purrrrrsonal’ right there) is this one:
Did you know that you can eat cattails? You can take the starch from the stems and make a flour. You can also roast the 'tail' part and eat it like corn! - Cool fact from Wikipedia
When the Chocolate Cookie Went Rolling with the Peanut Butter…
The pages I tend to be introduced to the most on that most noble of time wasters — StumbleUpon — are recipes. I have no idea how that happens; maybe it just knows that when I’m ‘taking a five minute break’ in the middle of the night while trying to write the next page of my thesis, I’m going to get hungry. It’s very bizarre. I’ve marked more than just ‘Food’ in my interests on the site, and yet that’s all I seem to get. So, after a while, I get sick of seeing all of these recipes. Except for these.
Chocolate and peanut butter morsels of heaven.
Aren’t they gorgeous? If the person who invented the combination of chocolate and peanut butter ran for president, I would vote for them. If you’re as interested in these as I am, take a look at the link I’ve posted above. I haven’t gotten a chance to make them yet but I can tell just by looking at them that they will be perfect. (Note: If they don’t actually turn out to be perfect, I take no responsibility. Don’t send me your receipts asking for reimbursement, don’t spam my inbox with nasty letters, and please, please tell me how they turn out!)
Now, after seeing this idea, I’m struck with ideas for other such combinations. Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter? Chocolate Chip and Sugar cookie? Pecan sandy and Snickerdoodle? The possibilities are endless!
The 12 Settings of GMails Tea House theme
Unless you’re obsessively check your email every hour on the hour for an entire day, you’ve probably never seen each image of the Firefox’s tea house. I’d never seen them all, at least, so I was grateful to find this link which showed each step of the Firefox’s relaxing day. The background information on the meaning of each hour is especially interesting:
In ancient China there used to be the concept of 时辰 (Shi Chen), each lasting 2 hours long, to make up the day. They name these “bi-hours” using the 12 zodiac animals.
My favorite is the Hour of the Cow – the ghost Foxes are adorable! Which one is your favorite?
Why All Records Do Sound the Same
As a music student in a world that grows with new media every day, I’ve been paying attention to the popular music scene with a slightly more trained ear than the average listener, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized exactly what this article points out. They provide a much more easier to read and detailed description of the process, so I’ll just leave you with their words on the actual process instead of my own. It’s amazing to see just how far the music industry and the creation of a record has come, but at the same time the music of today feels like something is missing. Is it imperfection? Is it heart? I’m inclined to think it’s a combination of a lot of different factors, because in my mind nothing is completely black and white, but I think my suggestions are a great deal of the problem. When all of the imperfections are mixed out of a recording, it looses so much of the feeling and uniqueness that recordings originally had.
The final point of a record is to make money, but shouldn’t our music have some artistic integrity left in them? Do you want to be remembered for hit after unmemorable hit, or do you want to be remembered for your musical talent and ingenuity? I’ll use a now famous example: Lady Gaga. Her records today sell millions, and yet her songs all sound the same, the same dance beats, the same fun pop ambiance. Each song is just as unremarkable as the next pop song. But if you go back to her very early performances, like this one, she’s got a hell of a voice. I can’t say she’s wasting it on what she’s doing now, because she’s obviously the most successful pop star out there right now. I just feel like a lot of the popular music out there right now is soulless, and if you combine that with the bad economy and the ease with which you can find music for free online, it’s no surprise the record companies are hurting when compared to previous eras.
As always, I’d love to hear your opinions on what I’ve posted today! Also, if you have any interesting links you think I would like, either post it in a comment here, or send it to me at econlon42@gmail.com, and I’ll be sure to look at it next week!
Fannish Potpourri 