A great, simple explanation on how to make your presentation slides not look like a four-year-old new to MSPaint designed them, by a non-design person.

Real-Estate Curiosities. Whoooooo wants a castle? I do!

Hahn-Bin, my new favorite classical musician (other than my little sib, natch).

Vampire Bacteria! Finally, vampires will do something more useful than glittering! (But seriously, these are totally awesome from a usefulness standpoint but also ranking pretty high on my germ-geek-o-meter).

An article reminding us that were probably don’t actually “suck” at an activity: we just haven’t really tried. Thanks for motivating me to learn to code, Lifehacker!

I love mashup culture and the clean lines of an Ikea store. So of course my new favorite design inspiration is IkeaHacks.

Not sure where you might be able to stream that movie (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Itunes, etc)? This website answers that question for you.

Flavorwire’s 10 New Reads to anticipate for November. I don’t have time read anything this month–writing writing writing writing–but I am actually super excited for the new Stephen King fix-it novel about JFK’s assassination.

In the vein of writing I am currently procrastinating, io9 put together a somewhat-helpful article on things to remember when writing your sci-fi/fantasy novel (like mine).

Necessary Star Wars French Geekery.

A good comic from TheOatmeal that I hadn’t seen before on “What we SHOULD have been learning senior year of high school.”

Off to drink some fortifying wine and dive back into the novel.

Some interesting posts on writing, a personal issue with which I am struggling right now. First, How to Write a Novel in Three Days (no one said it had to be a good novel). Then, a beautiful, funny, essay on How To Become a Writer, by Lorrie Moore.

Found a great article in the NYTimes on “Super People.” You know, those people who play 2 instruments well, played 3 sports in college, maintained 4.0s in their engineering major, and taught art to paraplegic orphan elephants in Bhutan over summer break? Yes. Them. Apparently I am only familiar with them because I was part of the 1% of college students to attend an Ivy-League-Or-Similar institution.

But this is okay, because we all kind of suck at trying to be adults, anyway.

I hate horror movies (except for An American Werewolf in London), but here’s a good guide to the Top 50 Scariest Movies.

I’d much rather get my scares from books. Which is why I am so super psyched about Haruki Murakami’s new tome, 1Q84, coming out in the states.

Quick break: Puppies vs. Babies. You will all recognize a lot of the clips, because you have emailed them to me, all the time.

Back to the deeper issues: in case you were not aware, the OccupyMaine protest had an IED thrown at their encampment in Lincoln Park.

A radio host is recommending that you steer your children away from homosexual doctors, because they might give your child “The Gay.” Just make up your mind: is being a gay a choice or a disease?

The Rum Diary (oh Hunter S) came out this weekend, so you should get out some great moments of film drunken behaviour. Quote: “The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years,” says Michael Caine.

Sob Sob Sob. The last of the Deleted Harry Potter Scenes. This franchise just can’t stop making me feel like my childhood is over, can it.

Last thing, to cheer you up: Johnny Weir, glittered-up-to-here, performing a simple routine to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”

First, going to pimp my dad’s art work, because the earring-holders-as-beautiful-found-object-sculpture are (1) AWESOME AS CHRISTMAHANNAKWANZIKA PRESENTS FOR THE DISCERNING HOLIDAY SHOPPER and (2) taking up room in my house. Here is an example:

"Adrift" Photo Credit to Abigail Kellogg

and the link to his Etsy. There are more than just those listed. Give me a holler if you want to purchase one (more college-student-friendly rates for smaller pieces).

Onto the links:

Yet another nail in the BPA coffin. Also, BPA and DES (Diethylstilbestrol) are often linked together in studies because they both appear impact estrogen-specific pathways. Awesome.

Halloween. Scary, slutty, just plain weird? If you, too, are not interested in being a “Sexy! Anime Character Riding a Wolf..With Glitter!”, try out these alternative awesome women’s costume ideas. I, for one, will be going, possibly nowhere, as a gay fairy. There is a rainbow tutu involved that I made myself!

And, if you get like me and have too many Halloween (or just, you know, Saturday afternoon) costumes, here’s a cool look inside some closets of serious style bloggers. I wish mine were that organized.

Also in the vein of Halloween ideas, here are some more mythical creatures you can go as. “What are you, again?” “Oh, you’ve probably never heard of Jorogumo, huh…” Hipster costumes, minus the irony.

If you are in a Disney Princess sort of mood (and I bet you are, now), take a look at these beautiful, if eerie, portraits of Disney Princesses as “real” people. Belle looks unimpressed with the artist, as she would. Love Belle. Anyway, back to the links.

To sum up the vague sort of disgust I have this year with all this “Sexy Ninja Turtle” this and “Sexy Assaj Ventress” nonsense, here is a great feminist discussion of why over-sexualized comic book heroines are doing no one any good, especially the women they are supposed to inspire. I wholeheartedly endorse this position.

Veering away from sad things about this here world, here is a funny new internet trend for those not in-the-know: Mocking Stock Photography.

In design drooling, this pretty much exemplifies the vibe I want a future living space to exude.

Rachel Maddow (massive crush. massive) sent Mitt Romney a message this week from her “Man-Cave” to explain to him some facts about conception, contraception, & how his comments make him sound like he’s going to make taking The Pill into a murder. Don’t worry, she’s aaaallll over this.

And finally, we need to get on this important project. Penguins need sweaters, everybody.

Also pay attention to OccupyWallSt, but you all knew that, yeah?

Anyway, links.

Have always loved Morrocan Tiles. Or maybe it’s the daubing on the walls and a design scheme that isn’t afraid of color? Maybe I just like the idea of putting my travels everywhere.

DIYs all over the place: Make an Indoor/Outdoor rug out of a tablecloth and No-Sew T-shirt Pillows.

Cheap date ideas. (The Art of Manliness is, on occasion, my bible).

Exercise you can do at work and not look like an idiot. Related, I’m getting really into planking (Thanks Details Mag!).

Interesting piece on those weird slip-ups you make when you are from a lower-class background hobnobbing it (say, at your elite liberal arts college) with the upper-class folks. For example, why is Denny’s bad, everybody?

You know you spend too much time at a computer when: this article about eyestrain greatly improved your headache frequencies.

I love visualizing data. Here’s a great twitter/flickr mashup of the USA. You can actually see road structures.

What is better than food pr0n? INTERACTIVE food pron. My dad is addicted to this (to my taste bud’s delight).

For all my friends who are wielding their hard-won shiny new teaching certificates and maybe to make me feel better about my substitute teaching gig at my old high school

Creating vanity URLs for your Google+ ID. Get on this now, because those short handles are filling up.

All my hipsters pay attention. Develop film with instant coffee and vitamin C. (You took that to CVS? I did this in my kitchen).

ANNNNDDDD…to end it all, a guide to creating a “In-Case-of-Emergency” Document.

Each Disney Princess has a sin.

Using a French Press to make frothy milk for home-made lattes.

This artist/statistician/intrepid-cartographer created heat maps of cities based on where the tourists are.

I’m a big fan of multi-purpose jewelry. This wrench necklace would have helped when I was hauling my bike out of the shed a couple weeks ago.

This is a creepy-sad Batman/X-men French Movie. A good use of your next 10 minutes.

Youtube rolled out it’s “Top 100 Music Videos” feature. You have no excuse for not knowing the lyrics to “On the Floor” now.

Netflix is great. But sometimes the variety is overwhelming. This flow-chart helps you figure out which SciFi show to watch next. I’m thinking of moving on to Doctor Who this summer.

Yay for Rural Living!

Enjoy these on your sunny sunny Thursday.

Gizmodo reviews the Top 10 Anti-Virus programs. Or, as a friend pointed out, you could just switch to Linux.

Even if you don’t switch over, here are some nice desktop backgrounds from the newest Ubuntu release, “Natty Narwhal.”

I am trying to resurrect one of those old Blueberry Imacs. You know, from 2000? It’s not going that well. But I did enjoy/need this guide to lightweight OS for old computers.

Do something good for your sense of security: work out a good backup procedure.

Changing gears, here’s a snarky little post about being Twee.

A beautiful mash-up of 25 years of Pixar.

The Motherhood Dilemma: All the arguments for or against having children in one cartoon.

“Bacteria Dirigibles” for your bio-smart-bombing of diseased cells. So many opportunities for good, so many opportunities for steampunk jokes.

So when my friend and I get around to actually starting up our cupcake truck business, we will serve them in jars, sometimes.

How do you feel about using sequins in home decorating? In the bedroom? My GF has this one pillow which sheds silver sequins everywhere. Still finding them in my messenger bag, which lessens the tough computer fixer image I’m going for.

Supposedly it’s spring. Hahahahaha yeah okay sure (she says, looking at a pile of snow). But we’re getting all geared up for our summer garden (leeks! carrots! potatoes! various sundry other tubers!) and I bought some cilantro seeds. Here are some gardening blogs for inspiration.

If I had $50k, right now, I’d by one of these & travel around for awhile. Well, first I’d pay my college loans, but then I’d buy one of these Airstreams. Priorities: I have them.

Happy Spring!

So why not update my blog? Here goes:

Under “Cool Art Things,” an artist combined hundreds of tourist photos of major monuments to create haunting re-interpretations of well-known architectural silhouettes.

I’m a big fan of Cracked.com’s more creepy posts, so the guy over at oobject is pretty cool.

A look at how former bombing/war sites have been re-appropriated into agricultural centers.

The Criterion Collection is coming to HuluPlus! While that would not make me switch over, it’s kinda cool if you (like the parents I’m currently living with) already have a subscription.

Create your memory palace. I tried doing this once, only with a mental motif straight out of The Magician’s Nephew. It ended up being more a nightly meditation exercise/Occulmency practice.

Speaking of things to memorize…in case anyone forgot their hankycode. [NSFW, if you work in a lame place]

Last January I took a class from MIT’s OpenCourseWave called “Gender and Technology.” I read about these awesome math/Rosie-the-Riveter/computer women.

I may or may not have been carrying a crush on Amelia Earhart since I was 3. (Dear past self: note this passion for female aviators & maybe your coming-out won’t be so fraught with self-doubt). ANYWAY, the mystery is still unsolved, but people are going to try to solve her disappearance (or at least discredit rumor-mongers) using the DNA in her spit from letters.

Fantasy creatures? Check. Medical Illustrations? Check.

So earlier this week, someone coerced James Earl Jones into reading lyrics from Bieber’s “Baby.” Not finding that hilarious enough, someone put that audio to StarWars footage, creating the ultimate Sith weapon.

Using GoogleMaps to find streetart.

My GF is in need of a new, heavy-duty laptop carrier…in purple. Or leopard-print. Glitter? Something not-a-messenger-bag. (We don’t really see eye-to-eye sartorially). Here you go!

FINALLY! Multi-touch config file for Linux.

Gizmodo reviews: the Best Lego Sets of 2011.

Yay! Have a not-as-sucky-day!

So here’s a selection of those starred items, only done today because I was supposed to be substitute teaching but instead got a snow day. (Note: puts a whole new perspective on the situation when snow day means I’m out $70 worth of work).

Starting it off light: a Letter to Our Parents, dealing with the perplexing questions like “I’d never think of having a kid in my 20s! What were you thinking?” and “Why do you feel that you are poor when you own a car?”

So I’ve been making some $$ by teaching technologically-challenged people about E-readers, even if they are one of Several Soon-to-be-Extinct Tech Gadgets. If you DID get a Kindle (poor thing), here’s how to Strip the DRM off your Amazon Ebooks for happy (illegal) sharing to other devices. Also, how to Send Web Articles to your Kindle with Instapaper to read later.

If you are like me and chose the New Years Resolution of “Get Rid of Your Crap, No Srsly,”you may run into old tech, which is awkward to get rid of. Here’s how.

While you are cleaning (oh yeah Imma set up a narrative here), you might break for some awesome hot-cocoa. My father and I have discovered that it is further improved by adding Bailey’s, but that is your prerogative.

Let’s say you spill some cocoa on the kitchen floor in the process. That’s okay! I’m sure you can just active your DIY Brush Robot from Heaven. Or you can be like this guy I once dated who re-programmed his Roomba to hunt cats. #nerdwhisperer

Then, having divested yourself of transient belongings (BuddistHulk! FTW), you realize you have a lot of old Monster Energy cans lying around. You could recycle them…or you could upcycle them! Into adorable little boxes! Guided by a British man who pronounces “aluminium” SEVERAL TIMES.

[Giving up on the Narrative thing now.]

OMG her name is Katie and she loves Star Wars and they love her BAAAACK! Related: my fave xmas gift:

I LOVE the Fibonacci Sequence/Golden-Ratio. It’s one of the few things I’ve considered as a tattoo (nerdalert). So applying the Fibonacci boxes (oh hey new Twitter design) to photography was a pile of pure-genius.

IDK about this “Ten Things Every Father Should Teach His Daughter,” mostly because my MOM taught me most of those things. My dad, on the other hand, taught me how differentiate between Monet and Manet and why Rothko is like the haiku of painting. Also how to make a stew out of the left-overs in the fridge. He and I are currently working on #10 “How to Drink.” It’s been a fun educational experience.

Always equivocal about The Pill. Awesome because it puts the control over pregnancy in the hands of women? Awful because it normalizes a very personal bodily function? Awesome because it apparently doesn’t make you fat? Awful because of how it was originally tested for efficacy/safety? I have many thoughts.

A method of multiplication of large numbers from Japan. Wicked.

Also, I’ve gotten really into AFI recently. IKNOWIKNOW I’m waaay late to this baby-goth party. But whatever. Here’s my current fave song.

But! because that is kinda depressing, here are two cats playing pattycake. With amusing voice-over. Or CuteBoysWithCats, my lilbro’s fave Tumblr. Maybe you prefer CuteGirlsWithCats? Whatever blows your skirt up, honey.

Have a great weekend!

Anyway, links.

If you must: The Cool New Shit from Apple. But remember Why Not To Buy A Mac.

People paint roofs white in NYC to help with heat-island issue.

I haven’t posted anything Star Wars in awhile. Anyway, here’s an awesome R2D2 swimsuit.

New Lego sets for the autumn. Were your parents the type who didn’t buy “sets” but rather those 1500 piece buckets so you could be creative and shit? Yeah…I really wanted a Millenium Falcon or a pirate ship like my friend had. But instead I  had to make a dystopian third-world village and periodically have a plague sweep through. Much better play for your child. I think the people in my fake village worshiped goats, too. :/

Photo contest results: Rorschach Blots.

Switching from Cable to Net-streaming your fave shows: A comprehensive, show-by-show chart. As we’re moving over to Roku in my house as soon as I get around to talking to our local DSL provider, this is rather pertinent.

I love Meghan McCain. I dislike Christine McDonnell (she of not understanding the 1st amendment fame). Ergo, when the former calls the latter on her shit, I am pleased. Go.

In the same vein, why the Tea Partiers get the whole “worship of the constitution” thing wrong.

And it’s probably better for you that your mom worked when you were a kid, 50 years of research shows.

Army uniforms finally come in a more flattering cut for women. This doesn’t mean I’ll join up, but is good for recruitment (?).

Why are people even surprised anymore when we find out that giving women (at any stage of life) more estrogen/progesterone than their body produces to “normalize their estrogen flow” causes serious problems?  (aka don’t take post-menopause stuff cause it causes deadly breast cancer.) Also, what the hell is a normal estrogen flow anyway? Hint: something made up by men in the 1940s. Related: I wrote a wicked long paper about this. Ask me about it sometime.

Awww, and all I got for my graduation was some pearls instead of this “abstract representation of semen” silver necklace.

If you’ve checked textsfromlastnight or a few other sites, you’ve seen American Apparel’s ideas for Halloween costumes. Here are some rejects.

And finally: decorating with animals. Like Moose Heads and Owls.

Slainte!

Passive-aggressive tweeting ahoy! Manchester England police are tweeting every incident report for 24 hours. The only thing I know about Manchester I learned from reading Harry Potter, so I presume all the incidents are related to Pettigrew befouling the water supplies with his rat dropping and small children crying from that time they tried to ask Snape to support their local school charity.

More british things: I want this scooter. It is pimped out to go >69mph.

Even more British things (hold onto your crumpets): Heathrow employees (fine, upstanding people who offered me tea before forcibly escorting me in a paddy-wagon off the premises) pranked the announcers.

On the other side of the pond, Americans take shit from nobody. Not even God, as seen here.

Why college made you fat, other than that pizza take-out. You weren’t getting a lot of sleep! Annals of Internal Medicine found some kickass results when people slept.

To counter this point, here’s a menu for low-income (ie college) students.

Airlines are starting to have “cuddle bookings,” with seats that relax you and your significant other into a pile of obnoxious that everyone else in your section hates. I think we need to queer this up, add to the excitement.

I love old barns. I love old farmhouses. I love power tools and (theoretically) love carpentry. This photo-diary of an old-barn restoration therefore makes my day.

Cupcakes filled with pumpkin pie seem finicky, yet awesome.

OMG. Cross-dressing (inasmuch as skirts are an appropriate item of femininity…blegh) child is still loved by parents, accepted at school. Will wonders never cease?

A reminder of the “Bechdel Test” for women in movies.

GROSSS! Indulge your squick and read these awful stories/pics of gross things that have happened to Jezebel readers.

There’s a whole gender-dialog behind these pics of women dressing/posing in traditionally men’s poses. Or you could just like looking at pics of women dressed like men, as I do.

Right-Wing Radio Donald Duck. It’s creepy when you mix 50 Donald episodes with excerpts from Glen Beck.

I love feminist (ahem, sorry, egalitarian) men.

The US military, in the wake of the possible repeal of DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), may be offering optional housing for straight service members who feel uncomfortable sharing air with their GLBTQ counterparts. Because that option doesn’t lead to “separate but equal AT ALL.”

To make you feel better, here is Feist, counting to 4 on Sesame Street. Here is why that is amusing/touching.

Quote of the day: “To get back to my youth I would do anything, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” –Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray. His birthday was yesterday.