Fantasist's Scroll

Today is the birthday of Kurt Cobain.

The singer-songwriter who essentially founded the “grunge” music movement, was born in Hoquiam, Washington on this day in 1967. He started from humble beginings, working a job as a school janitor, but he started playing in local rock bands. He spent most of this time living at various friends’ houses and on the street, even occasionally sleeping under a bridge. In 1989, he and his bandmates saved up six hundred dollars to record their first album, Bleach, under the name Nirvana. The boys signed to a major label in 1991 for their next album, Nevermind, and Cobain was shocked when it sold more than 10 million copies.

He became internationally famous almost overnight, but Cobain hated being famous. He developed a heroin addiction that got worse and worse, and on April 5th of 1994 he committed suicide at his home in Seattle.

I’m feeling very domestic this month.

I’m not sure if it was the four more bags of junk I threw out last night, or the six more bags I have to donate to the Salvation Army, or just moving furnature around, but I’m really enjoying home related links this month. Maybe I’m just nesting. In any case, following with the theme from last week, here are some more very strange domestic links that struck my fancy.

To start with, I’ve got two very different fireplaces. The first, called the Drop, wouldn’t work in my house at all. For one thing, it’s very modern, for another, it simply wouldn’t retrofit well with my current chimney. The other, from Hearthfalls, wouldn’t work either, because… Well, just look at them and I think you’ll see why. Frankly, it’s one of those things that looks perfect, for someone else’s house.
And, while we’re talking about water, here’s a funky lamp called, plainly enough, the Wet Lamp. It’s a lamp, in a bowl of water. Yes, electricity inside water in your house. And, it looks cool, too.
Speaking of “looking cool”, let’s contemplate the outdoors for a minute. Or, at least the garage. A European designer of unknown national origin has designed a variably transparent garage. Apparently, it’s done with LCDs, but it lets you show off your new, impossibly expensive sports car when your ridiculously wealthy friends are over, then hide it again from thieves. Sadly, I’m more likely to have a driveway edged with glow in the dark pebbles than I am the garage with disappearing walls.
Now, I am looking at new/different furnature, so I’ve got several links to that sort of thing, too.
I have a lot of friends that often find themselves in trouble with their wives and need a place to crash. Or, are going through some sort of meltdown and need a place to sit and rock while sucking their thumb and going to the “happy, quiet place”. So, this couch that opens into bunk beds struck me as useful.
And, naturally, I want to make a good impression and hide the fact that I’m as obsessed with TV as I am with books, so a reversable media center that’s combined with a bookcase seemed perfect for my living room.
Now, I’m sure none of my friends do this, but I’m told that sometimes people snoop through bathrooms when they’re in another person’s house. What better way to deal with that than a mirror that you can send SMS text messages to! So, now, when you think that nosey relative is about to snoop in your medicine cabinet, you can have the mirror tell them to mind their own business!

Now, finally, to wind things up on a more whimsical note, I have a link to a paper airplane coffee table that I just love! Yes, it’s a little strange, but you have to admit, it does look cool. And, what could go with that better than kid-sized Tetris pillows!? I can totally see those in my living room!

Well, I can tell it’s been a long week, because these Friday Fun Links just got sillier and sillier, even though they’re duplicates of the ones posted on Diary of a Network Geek. Still I hope you enjoy them and have a great Friday!

So, today, my Friday Fun Links have a theme.

I’m not sure if it was the cleaning this week or what, but I’ve been feeling very, well, um, “domestic”. So, my fun links this week pretty much all have to do with things around the house, or housing itself.
Okay, so let’s start from the outside and work our way in. First, I have a link to some interesting plans for an 11 foot by 7 foot flat in London. Apparently inspired by a janitor’s closet with a bathroom that sold for £170,000 in London’s upmarket Chelsea, the plan is really quite ingeneous.
Now, let’s talk furnishings… If you’ve just spent $335,000 on a large broom closet, you probably don’t have much left over for furnature, so it’ll be IKEA for you. No worries, though, thanks to the IKEA Hacker blog. Yes, the stuff on that blog all started life as humble IKEA flatpack that got modified into something wonderful. I especially like the breakfast nook for two.
But, you’ll need light for this tiny hovel, right? Well, thanks to Gizmodo, you can light your flat with the coolest, freakiest science-fiction lamps ever. Also, you can use the coolest, hippest, most radically arty light switches ever to turn the lights on. I thought the pool ball switch was cool for the mini-flat, since it was described as being about the size of a billards table.
But, wait! There’s more! Since this flat would be so totally strapped for space, there’d be no room for a rack of cookbooks in the kitchen, er, make that, by the tiny hotplate and microwave. So, instead, use the coo.boo Digital Cookbook that’s the size and shape of a spatula!
And, finally, in a barely related story, if you can squeeze into the fridge, get out some Ben and Jerry’s Steven Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream. No, I’m not making that up, but, also no, it’s not quite available yet. Yet.

So, there you have it, a geek getting domestic and working on too little sleep. Enjoy your links and your Friday!
And, yes, this did appear on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.

Today is William S. Burroughs‘ birthday.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri on this day in 1914, he is best known for having written Naked Lunch, which was later turned into a movie that starred Peter Weller. He started writing while attending Harvard, but when a piece of his was rejected by Esquire magazine, he was so disappointed that he didn’t write again for six years. He tried to enlist in the military, but he was turned down by the Navy,and when he got into the Army infantry, his mother arranged for him to be given a psychiatric discharge.
So, at 30 years old, he moved to New York City and got involved in a bohemian scene. It was there that he was introduced to two younger men, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He also got addicted to heroin, and wrote his first book about it, a memoir called Junky. It came out in 1953.
Burroughs is also famous for having accidentally shot his wife at a party while recreating the infamous “William Tell scene.”

Okay, these are all crazy links that almost have a theme.

Well, if you count that I found them all amusing, I guess that could be a theme.
Hey, at least they’re funny!
First, there’s chicks noodling. Now, if you aren’t familiar with noodling, that’d be bare-handed catfish fishing. No rod or reel, just you and the catfish, mano-a-mano. Er, mano-a-fino. Anyway, when I saw this on Delenda Est Carthago, I just had to share the CatfishGabblin’ video series. (Pretty safe for work, so no worries.)
Next, in a totally different vein, there’s the Hello Kitty Tarot deck. Yes, it’s the occult made cute with the Hello Kitty Tarot deck. Not much I can add to that.
But, I think the Cell Phone Micro Garden might just top it. Yes, these are actual plants in actual tiny jars that you hang from your cell phone. I guess it’s for the Greenies that want to start small.
And, for those of you with kids, I have the Revolver Cookie Cutter and “Gelli Baff“. While I think the cookie cutter is self explanitory, Gelli Baff might take a bit of description. It’s a powder that you add to water to make, well, colored goo that your kids can play with. To get rid of the good, you just add a neutralizer and more water to rinse it away. I wish we had these when I was a kid!

And, finally, there’s a story on Information Week about two kids passing notes in the comments section of someone’s blog. Apparently, all other communication was banned and locked out, but these two girls managed to find a new way to pass notes in class on the same blog that reported the story. So, watch your blog comments, folks, you never know what you might find!

So, enjoy your Friday Fun Links and I promise, I’ll write something real on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek, this weekend.

Okay, there is no theme to this at all.

Well, I guess, links I saw this week that made me scratch my head could be a theme, but, whatever…
First, as many of us are thinking about our taxes and how to pay less of them to the government, this story from MSN about the 9 wierdest tax write-offs made me laugh. I especially liked the one about the pimped out Amish buggy.
Then, there was this story about RFID tattoos. My first thought was that it would be an interesting way to track your kids, but, apparently, they’re using it to track livestock. Which makes sense, since meat is the most shoplifted item in the stores. I mean, meat isn’t cheap, so it wouldn’t surprise me to find out how much gets stolen on the hoof, too. And, I’m sure it’d be easier for other kinds of record keeping, too.
The last wacky link is to a story about the iPod index. Well, to be more specific, an index to track currency values based on the cost of an iPod. Apparently, an Australian bank is using the iPod as a commodity on which to place relative values of world currency. I wonder if it’s occurred to them that shipping and manufacturing costs in various parts of the world might skew that index? Well, anyway, iPod fanataics already know ours are like gold.

So, now, I’ve hopefully given you something to read that ends your week with a chuckle.
Enjoy your Friday Fun links!
(And, yes, this also appeared on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.)

It’s the birthday of the man who brought us Conan the Barbarian, science fiction author Robert E. Howard, who was born in Peaster, Texas on this day in 1906. If you’re from Texas, or just passing through, you can find out more about him at the Crossplains Robert E. Howard Museum. If you can’t make that, you can read more about him at the Wikipedia.

Okay, so, once again, my thoughts are scattered, and my links are, too.

First, there’s a link to an article on Australian IT that makes me glad I don’t live in Singapre when I was teaching my parents about bandwidth theft. Apparently, a nosy neighbor turned a kid in and now, he’s been sentenced for stealing another neighbor’s wifi bandwidth. Kind of harsh, but, then it is Singapore, so he’s probably lucky he didn’t get caned!

Here’s two that are sort of related. At least, they both rot your brain.
First there’s the gross one. Did you all hear about the “brain worms” found in South Texas? Apparently, these nasty, little buggers, if you’ll pardon the pun, get into your brain via improperly stored and prepared food, then, they eat their way out.
The other brain-rot story was one that surprised even this jaded cynic: pot-laced snack products. Yeah, no joke. They’re illegal as all hell, but some guy was apparently selling these cannibis-infused “look-alike” snacks. Crazy stuff.

And, finally, since I finished paying the bills right before I typed this in, from the Get-Rich Slowly blog, Money Making Hobbies (from 1938). The dream is always to get that hobby that not only pays for itself, but makes a little extra, too. Sadly, based on the suggestions from this book, the only way to make money with a “hobby” is to write and sell this kind of book!

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got in me this week. It’s been another long, busy one, so, enjoy your Friday Fun Links!
(And, yes, I’m back to reposting the stuff from my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.  It was a really long week!)