Random Linkage, Iteration Two

Improve Upon Yesterday's Refuse

This link is not in itself randomly chosen, but it leads to a random generator: The Eagle Fire Garfield Randomizer works exactly as advertised. Which is to say, when »Go« is pressed, the script will generate for your entertainment a random arrangement of panels from scanned Garfield strips.
There is also an educational side to this, viz. that the script succinctly demonstrates that even haphazard, non sequitur Garfield is funnier than actual, written Garfield.
Use it while it lasts; presumably is will be iced by the Davishulk as soon as it catches one of said hulk's myriad eyes.

Bonus Link! Japanese Manhole Covers.

Random link of the day

Or should that be of the week? Of the month? Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever posted a random link before.

Regardless, this is almost cool enough, content-wise, to make me forgive the completely unnecessary Flash interface. Almost.

Moving Pictures Merriment

Indie, but agreeable anyway

Perhaps some of you will find glee in perceiving Channel Frederator. I understand it is nominally one of them thar »podcasts«, but I think free cartoons sort of trump that? I don't know, make your own calls.

There was an elephant in the garden. Somebody had covered its head with a blanket, but you could still tell it was an elephant. It looked out of from beind the blanket with sad and beady little eyes, and sometimes made little elephanty noises. We fed it oranges and suflower seeds, but it didn't seem like them.

The next day we found it had stepped over the garden wall and walked away.

Things you will not find on the moon

Used and new furniture at affordable prices. Food. Two balloon animals locked in eternal struggle. A big button. Garden gnomes. A piece of string. Taxes. Houses. Understanding. Almost any kind of metal contraption, including cheese graters. Mice.

"I seem to have misplaced my yo-yo", said the hedgehog to the magpie. "Have you seen it?"
The magpie shook its head, while bouncing up and down a tree.

The Extraordinary Life And Death of Alexander Groats, part one

At the age of four, Alexander Groats (1882–1906) learned learned to speak and write perfect Greek and Latin, but when he was sent to Mrs Henderson's school for gifted children a year later he had already abandoned languages for mechanics, and for the rest of his short but glorious life he would only communicate with grunts and obscene hand gestures.

He built his first steam engine during his first term in Mrs Hendersons school and spent the second term in detention. He left the school shortly thereafter and moved into his parents’ attic, where he would spend most of the following seven years. Here. he built working scale models of steamships and locomotives, some of which featured improvements of his own invention that have only recently been discovered by the scientific community and which even now are considered significantly better than the current design. He also built steam-powered clocks and household appliances, including a prototype of the revolving umbrella stand which was recently introduced on the market by Cornelius Finch, Ltd.

We do not know when his restless mind first turned to automation, but even some of his earliest miniature trains and ships display unsettling details like ears, fingers or, in one case, a pair of fully formed breasts on the prow of a six-foot steamship. It is commonly believed that at the age of ten young Alexander had already built several mechanical statues, which could move forwards and backwards, and a small brass monkey which could eat and digest small fruits and nuts and write letters from dictation. This item is of special significance not only for its high level of detail, but also because it seems to suggest something of a return towards language, if he intended to use it himself, or towards interaction with other people if he intended it for others. This return, however, must have been of relatively short duration, because his oldest sister Catherine, who is our best source for information about this period of Alexander’s life, only mentions that he sometimes did not seem to use quite as many rude gestures as usual when she brought him his food (she confirms that from the day he left school and for the rest of his life he only ate raisins and only drank almond milk).

His parents appear to have taken no notice of their son’s activities during this period, and it is reported that his father was sometimes uncertain how many children he had. This has made some scholars suggest that Alexander had begun to build his more life-like human automatons and that they were already so well made that it was difficult to tell them apart from real children. Such a conclusion seems highly unlikely, however, seeing that his sister saved all receipts from this period and they show no purchases of silk, plaster and oil paint, the materials he would use for his early androids, nor of any of the more esoteric materials he favoured when he had all but perfected his art.

It is commonly believed that these were the happiest years of young Alexander's life, and we can only speculate about how his future — and dare we say our future? – had turned out had it not been for the intervention of fate.

Just had to post a link...

Fire that burns stuff into reptiles! Guns that only penetrate the flesh of your true love! Breakdancing giants! Cloudball!

http://www.alessonislearned.com/

Help needed!

Clockmaker has been unexpectedly kindapped by a vicious gang of badgers operating a robot replica of beat author William S. Burroughs. We are mounting a rescue expedition and we need your help! Meeting tomorrow in Casablanca at sunrise. Contact me, Kusch, for more info.

There Is A New Year, There Is A New Way

Status Updates and Mad Science

We seem to have survived into the new year, and the Badger with us. That's nice. Of course, for all of you out there at home, that may be a little too sparse in the way of information. Accordingly, I thought I'd give you a roll call of how we're all doing:

Kusch continues to enjoy retirement in the Colonel's cupboard. With the addition of a pillow and an electric bulb, his abode is now fully furnished, and so, for lack of anything else to do, Kusch has started work on the third volume of his autobiography A Lifetime Of Wearing Underpants. At last examination (the day after Boxing Day), he had gotten as far as the flying piranha chapter, which, in the book, he has chosen to call The Flying Piranha Chapter.
Questioned about supplies, he claimed to have »enough mustard to last an age of Man«.

J. Sandas continues his battle against the mongeese infesting his basement and tea-room. Having found mild flattery to be a wholly inefficient weapon, Sandas has escalated the conflict to wielding Latin puns. He would be a lot worse off if the mongeese didn't have a predilection for Earl Grey, which Sandas doesn't like anyway.
The crumpets, however, are a great loss. We hear he's thinking of buying a book of knock-knock jokes.

Insignia is, unfortunately, lost in outer space. We really don't know how she got there. Honest.

Dimfrost's bold experiments in the Amazon Jungle have been a smashing success, and no doubt every one of our readers has heard of his wondrous devices, the Automated Tap-Dancer, the Geodesic Useless Object (finest of all souvenirs), the Kriegaffe and the aptly named Venezuelator, capable of turning any man into Hugo Chavez.
It is perhaps less common knowledge that he has mustered an entire army of Kriegaffen near the mouth of the Orinoco River, and stands poised to conquer this Earth in a rain of fire and blood.

Ugglan has been turned into Hugo Chavez. This enabled him to win the recent Venezuelan elections in a landslide, and he now resides in comfort with his girlfriend in his presidential mansion in Caracas. We are given to understand that Venezuelan political relations with North Korea have flourished since the election, and farmers now output more raw cocaine than at any previous time in history.
Besides this, Ugglan has also achieved Supreme Ultimate Happiness through possession of two Totoro plushies, a condition which is unfortunately fated to pass once his cat starts chewing on their soft skulls.

Light Steps On Leaves has been determined to never have been more than a trick of said light, and we are all ashamed to some degree for having fallen for such a simple scam for so long, except Dimfrost, who is exceedingly gullible. Various pictorial evidence has been closely assessed to reach this verdict, and copies can be had by request to the Library of Congress, for file #-62-357-441-C. Request a complete archive, and send them a self-adressed envelope, stamped with postage for two kilograms, along with some juniper seeds. Mr. Krauss, Third Librarian of the microfiche wing, loves juniper seeds.

As for me, Clockmaker, I'm currently trapped in an Ouija board, laboriously spinning this message out to you through the fingers of nine-year-olds. I hope you appreciate my great sacrifice and strenuous, Bauby-like efforts to convey this message to you all. Happy New Year, dear readers! (For the love of God call the Paranormal Department, I'm getting a cramp in my back like you wouldn't believe!)