Seanbaby strikes again - 6 Words Advertisers Love (That Don't Mean A Damn Thing)

You had me at "witch toilets, " Seanbaby ^_^

Art Student Owl - For all your Art Student Owl Meme related needs :)

Catching up on Axe Cop. You read Axe Cop, right? Because it's awesome.

While talking with the Owlvark about our new equipment I pulled up the wikipedia page on E-tools to have a look at what the current standard tool is, and, after the required link-hopping, saw that there is a very quiet debate about the use of the word "shovel" versus "spade, " specifically between those who want the two words clearly separated, and those who agree that natural language doesn't always follow dictionary definitions.

It starts on the E-tool page, with "The United States Army folding spade, or entrenching tool, has evolved from a single fold spade (inaccurately referred to as a "shovel" by military quartermasters)" On the shovel page, under "Spade, " we have "Some usage prescriptions prescribe that the words "spade" and "shovel" should be held in contradistinction (piercing and digging [spade] versus scooping and moving [shovel]). Natural language does not widely follow these prescriptions; it more often treats "spade" and "scoop" as contradistinguished subsets under "shovel." Further down the page we find "Square Shovel - A general category of shovel that includes many types with a generally square outline (rather than being pointed like many spades are). But there is no rigorous, always-enforced distinction between square shovels and spades."

So much specificity for such a small thing- and I thought I was pedantic :)

Birthdays came early this year, since we're at the advent of fishing and camping season, and we got some very, very awesome gear indeed! I now have hip waders, and Sportsmans' Guide actually had womens' waders so I didn't have to dork around trying to figure out which guys' size I needed and then have them be too wide anyway (which is not so much a big deal with my engineer boots, but a little problematic with rubber ones that you're expecting to hike several miles in.) We got an antique Swiss Army E-Tool, which is heavy-duty enough that despite already having seen five decades of use will more than likely outlast us, our kids, our grandkids, and even great-grandchildren. Seriously, you could run over this thing with a tank and not make a dent in it. The Swiss apparently do not mess around. We also got a pack of drysacks, which come in handy for rainy trips (a dry set of socks and a place to store the camera safely in downpours is hard to beat!) There's also a set of folding saws, and some cool portable hydration belt-based thingies. Yeah, I know that last one's really descriptive #grins# At any rate, our camping kit is now even better, and it wasn't shabby before. Now, to wait until the parks start to open...

David Malki! of Wondermark discusses retouching in early photography.

Fascinating stuff. The arguments for and against it are the same basic arguments for and against Photoshopping, just a hundred years earlier.

Nerd-In

So we had the perfect Nerd Day In today; a long sleep in, a couple of hours playing video games, then I made popcorn and chocolate chip cookies and we snuggled up on the couch and watched the extended version of The Return of the King. During the intermission I made soup and biscuits for dinner, he had a beer and I had milk, we had tea and cookies later on towards the last battle, and really, it was just all kinds of fun.

Life is awesome.

Two-Sentence Movie Reviews

The Brave Archer

It's a Shaw Brothers film, and if you know what that means I don't need to tell you that it's an incredibly entertaining treat- but in case you're not familiar with Shaw Brothers productions, well, it's an incredibly entertaining treat for any fan of kung-fu films (but don't expect any archers, because there aren't any). And just for the record, I now want my official title to be "Hell Gate Dragon King."

Two-Sentence Movie Reviews

Terminator Salvation

When you're ripping off scenes from the first film in your series in what is apparently supposed to be the dramatic climax of a film, it's a bad sign- although pretty much everything in this film is a bad sign, including the lack of interesting or engaging action scenes in what is ostensibly an action film (and for being the hero, John Connor doesn't do very much except plant the world's most volatile C-4 in a building). Also, it utterly disregarded everything about the second film- to whit, Connor knows there is a possibility of re-programming Terminators to be good because he met one that protected him as a teen, and there is no reason on Earth why he shouldn't be willing to give Marcus a chance to prove himself because of this, other than to make the movie another achingly dull fifteen minutes longer and provide some faux tension.

Cracked - The Fifteen Most Unintentionally Hilarious Bootleg Toys

It may be best not to read them all in one sitting; by the time I got to the end I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't breathe.