Today I was at Book Buyers in Mountain View with a friend, and I noticed that their 2016 wall calendars had started to come in. I grabbed my usual mindfulness calendar to hang by my desk and then went looking for one for the kitchen. (Yes, they're like 15 feet apart. I actually use them both. Don't judge.) Then I stumbled on this one and my head exploded. "Oh my god, this is so aggressively girly that I have to have it," I told my friend. Seriously, look at those photos, it's ridiculous. I love it. So next year I get to look at all these heteronormative gender-normative versions of romantic imagery, and I'm going to enjoy the shit out of it. The mindfulness calendar can hang out by the phone table, it's all good.

And ha! They were 40 percent off.

p.s. Support your local independent bookstore, yo.

p.p.s. (O HAI STUPID BRAIN TRICKS, VERY FUNNY, I've been misusing heteronormative for like freaking ever because I obviously misremembered the proper definition. Yay?)

Well, okay, not an actual Viking; he was not so much with the pillaging and slaying. But a young man in a Viking helmet, yes. Actually I caught sight of him in the waiting area when I first got to the platform, and I noted on FB that there was a dude in a Viking helmet nearby. "I'm tempted to ask him if he likes Spam," I wrote, but didn't.

And then I met him on the train. Clearly it was fate.

"But do you like Spam?" I asked him.

"Whaaat?" he said, clearly wondering what the weird lady was on about.

"Do you like SPAM?" I repeated.

"...No?"

"Ohmygod, you've never seen the Monty Python Spam sketch?!"

"No, but I love Monty Python."

"YOU MUST YOUTUBE IT. Monty Python. Spam."

And we went our separate ways, happy.

Fin.

So today they released the trailer for Prometheus, the Alien prequel, so cleolinda posted it because that's what she does, and there followed this Twitter conversation of win:

@Annaleen: Prometheus trailer has me filled with awe and glee. Reminds me of Russian SF movie Solaris for some reason.

@cleolinda: Mine's the USS Everyone Gets Home Safe. RT @scottEweinberg: Prometheus. Icarus. Daedalus. Parsimonious. #badnamesforspaceships

@cleolinda: The No Aliens Allowed. The Nobody Dies. The Sunshine Unicorn. The Punch and Pie. #myscifispaceship

@AnnLarimer: The Cantexplode #myscifispaceship

@millibeau: The Huge Shiny Not Compensating For Anything. #myscifispaceship

@annejumps: The She's Fast Enough For You Old Man #myscifispaceship

@Salome: The "SHE'S A Rebel," AKA The Hated By Fangirls And Fanboys AKA the USS Misogyny Bait #myscifispaceship

@Eviey: The I Swear To Whatever Omnipotent Deity You Believe In If You Give Me Any Lip I Will Turn This Ship Around #myscifispaceship

@cleolinda: The Nobody Goes Outside. The No You Can't Come Back In With Alien On Your Face. The Going Home Right Now. #myscifispaceship

@alliancesjr: The USS Keep It On Lockdown And Tow It Into The Authorities Like We Planned

@alliancesjr: Although on a serious note, I do like how HALO's ship names are poetic. "In Amber Clad" "Pillar of Autumn" "Forward Unto Dawn"

@alliancesjr: Nobody really knows what a pillar of autumn IS, but it's damned poetic nonetheless.

@cleolinda: At least none of them are deeply foreshadowed mythological figures, you know?

@alliancesjr: Agreed. I prefer naming them after prominent historical figures. Like the USS Patrick Henry. #amidoingthisright

@cleolinda: The USS Benedict Arnold. The USS Richard Nixon. The USS Evel Knievel. #amidoingthisright

@alliancesjr: If I get a ship, I'm naming it the "Second Star To The Right."

@alliancesjr: And the next ship in my fleet will be the "No Your Other Right"

If Hardi and I ever get spaceships of our very own, we are totally using those last two.
 

My favorite is definitely "Gay bridal registry." ♥
 

"I've been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody help me out? No!" --Craig T. Nelson




Because of course welfare and food stamps are not help. Nope.
 

Well, I don't need to see the movie now, because I have seen the COMIC.

I think I love this girl.
 

So the fourth Twilight book came out, amidst much fanfare. And within one day, someone started Don't Burn It, Return It. Because... it apparently blew just that hard.

I am amused. It's not nice, but I don't care. It's actually rather loltastic. Not working at a bookstore or a library, unlike others I could name (HI FLIST), I am largely insulated from the frothing sparkly maniacs who make up the majority of the Twilight fan community, but thanks to cleolinda, I'm rather well informed on the whole thing, and well--

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*snerk*
HAHAHAHAHAHa

Yeah. You have to have a special kind of talent to write three books that the fans can't get enough of and then to write a fourth that has them so pissed off that they return the book. Some of them are even burning it, apparently.

...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OH JOHN RINGO STEPHENIE MEYER NO.
 

This one is work safe, just not nonbadtastehuman safe.

MY EYES

 

Comment seen on a hilarious post from Dispatches from the Culture Wars called "How to Avoid Advancing the Gay Agenda":

It's not just weapons. The religious extremists can't use satellites including GPS and communications satellites either. Note to zealots: can you please stop using "pro-gay" satellites to broadcast the 700 club and your other propaganda? You're being hypocritical.
Posted by: Salad Is Slaughter | September 18, 2007 10:29 AM

And then it gets EVEN BETTER:

They also can't send e-mail. The bulk of which is managed by "sendmail" which is written by Eric Allman who has been happily partnered for over 20 years.
"There is some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that it's basically impossible to send a piece of hate mail through the Internet without its being touched by a gay program. That's kind of funny." --Eric Allman
Posted by: yoshi | September 18, 2007 10:41 AM

Ow, quit it.

(I've borrowed all the prevous ones from the library, or bought them in used paperback because I came to the franchise around POA.)