cklablog

My slow kitchen freezes every time I try to render spoon lamb.

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

. . . Clocks, yes; people, no. In fact, this is officially creepy. Just remember, kids, pretending to love humanity != loving humanity. Think about this the next time your doctor invites you into a darkened Victorian alley for a “routine procedure.”

Founders of British obstetrics ‘were callous murderers‘

They are giants of medicine, pioneers of the care that women receive during childbirth and were the founding fathers of obstetrics. The names of William Hunter and William Smellie still inspire respect among today’s doctors, more than 250 years since they made their contributions to healthcare. Such were the duo’s reputations as outstanding physicians that the clienteles of their private practices included the rich and famous of mid-18th-century London.

But were they also serial killers?

Read the rest at the Guardian »

Wired calls it like it is?

The average gamer, far from being a teen, actually is a 35-year-old man who is overweight, aggressive, introverted and … often depressed.

You know it’s funny because it’s true — overweight, aggressive and introverted. No wonder he’s depressed!  If only you could quest for endorphins. Or a +12 vest of sunlight resistance.

Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat, noted that his concern isn’t just with gaming but with social networks, as well.

“My issue is that it’s not just gaming. It’s social networking. It’s the Web in general,” said McGregor. “We’ve gained so much, but still it puts people in front of a computer screen for hours on end. It gives Americans just another reason to be fat, dumb and lazy.”

Move over TV, we have a new scapegoat for our fat, ignorant, lazy asses.

So, John Cleese got slapped with a brutal divorce settlement that netted out in him paying his ex enough to ensure that she’s richer than he is. He pissed and moaned last week in interviews how unfair it was, adding “At least I will know in future if a I go out with a lady they will not be after me for my money.”

Of course, despite his biterness, he kept his perspective.  As Monty Python famously sang, “Always look on the bright side of life.”  Cleese does. “I got off lightly,” he said.  ”Think what I’d have had to pay Alyce if she had contributed anything to the relationship.”

Oooooh,  burn.

He claimed he’d be “working until he was 80″ to afford it . . . and so guess who wins?  We do!

Never has one woman’s greed and antagonism done so much for so many. I’m dancing in my seat! Now nerds will have *brand new* catchphrases to use when playing D&D.

Of course, back when I used to watch Monty Python, life was harder than it is now.

My Wizards got their asses kicked this weekend, too. Turns out that what every Wizards fan believes is true after all — without Jimmy Conrad, we’re not going to win much.

Luckily for my general levels of bile this morning, Em and I missed this game, as we were at a party for a friend deploying this week to go fight some of the worst people in the world. Therefore, I’m giving him my man-of-the-match award for doing the real hard work.

From The Forever War, Dexter Filkins’ set of essays about his experiences as a reporter covering the War Formerly Known As GWOT:

For seven months, Fallujah had been controlled by jihadis who had held the city in a Medieval thrall. And now the Marines were taking it back, six thousand of them, on foot in the middle of a November night

Gunfire rang out, and we scrambled for the walls on the sides of the street. The insurgents knew what they were doing, they were bracketing us with their shells, dropping them to the left and the right. They were getting close now.

Four men stepped from the darkness. They were not part of Bravo Company; I hadn’t seen them before. They wore flight suits that shimmered in the night and tennis shoes and hoods that made them look like executioners. The four men wore goggles that shrouded their eyes and gave off lime-green penumbras that lightened their faces. With the shells exploding I got off the wall and rejoined the captain in the street, shaking in the knees, and I listened to him tell the executioners the location of the snipers. Up ahead, he said. One of the four men mumbled something but I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see their eyes through the green glowing but one of them was on the balls of his feet, bouncing, like a football player on the sidelines. Coach, he seemed to be saying, put me in the game.

The four men peeled off into the blackness without a sound. Moments passed and the shelling stopped. And then the sniper fire stopped. We never saw the men again.

From my new favorite website.

This kind of thing helps me understand my pie.