just to try and keep you entertained a little:

• the best dating/asking out vm ever. oh douchebags, will you ever get unfunny?
• in my weekly "something new to stop me from sleeping" section, the north pole will completely melt this summer, for the first time ever. there are plenty of firsts that i am excited by (see: not being a virgin anymore), but this isn't one of them.
• because you wondered, here is the imdb listing for troy mcclure.
• and because you loved 2 girls, 1 cup, here is a video "re-enactment" of the moments before the movie was made.

rock out this weekend, kids.

I've had all these tabs open for days and days. Training kept me too busy/tired to post. But here are some things to help make Tuesday morning more interesting:

• Five poetic phrases culled from Joe McConnell’s Bay Area radio traffic report, from 5ives. this is funny because we always hear the traffic report by Joe McConnell on the way to the CalTrain station every morning. Oh, NPR.
• how many sequels? Given my self-proclaimed expertise in bad horror, I did shockingly poorly on this. 4/10. ouch.
• A series of photos capturing, for the first time clearly, an egg ovulating. Did you think I wouldn't post this?
• A follow-up on the bees. Short answer? They are still disappearing. And no one knows why still. Terrifying.
• Finally, an interview with Douglas Hofstadter, after the publication of "I am a Strange Loop". He wrote GEB and edited The Mind's I, which might be one of the best books I have ever read. I've been cranking on it for a year, haven't finished and love it more than I can admit.

Why even give you an introduction, talking about how busy I am, how little time I have for finding time anymore? Why not just give you a bunch of links and hope that the 12 hours they sat in my browser didn't make them too stale?

• a teenager isolates a micro-organism that can break down plastic bags
• that sexy, lollipop licking girl from gta 4? yeah, turns out she's a freak mutant with 6 fingers. little less hot now, eh?
• a brief history of the kama sutra
• 'the black freighter' to be released on dvd the week after watchmen opens.
• gas might hit 6 or 7 a gallon soon.
• and finally, 25 ways to help a human being.

This man has robot girlfriends.

Where to begin?

1. I need to set him up with this girl.
2. Eric and I have been texting for weeks about him being a pleasurebot. Don't ask. But yes, more robot sex.
3. Someone, perhaps my boss several months ago, and I were discussing teledildonics. Which might be one of the most fun words to say. Seriously. Try it. Anyway, this article discusses it with a straight face. Sweet!
   

   It has a chatbot which controls the speech. It also has a teledildonic device. Teledildonic devices were invented in the '90s so that people could have sex through an internet connection. If you plug that into a lifesize doll it makes the doll able to feel what is going on. In this way you have the first sex doll that can consent in English to what you are doing to it.

(via fimoculous)

Update: mightygodking posts about dilton doiley (a minor Archie comics character) having a sex doll. It's on the brain today, clearly.

The "trash island" in the Pacific is 500 miles wide now and growing quickly.

The article says that its about twice the size of the continental US now and that 90% of the rubbish in the oceans is made of plastic. Hey, at least you can see it from space now!

• a list of what big companies own what organic brands. i found this depressing, though roxy disagreed.
• short people get more jealous than tall people.
• oh yes, can we stop discussing the iraq / al qaeda link now? because the government has finally admitted there was no link when we invaded.
• and finally, the oddest crime i've heard about in a while:
  

I hate to depress you right before a 3 day weekend, but this is some serious shit. mightgodking has been following it and I have been reading it all and I am scared shitless from it all. This is all related and all truly and completely awful.

A primeval tide of toxins

Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says

Killer jellyfish population explosion warning