io9: Blowfish-Man Film

This is somewhat disturbing, and so quintessentially Japanese:
http://io9.com/5914061/watch-a-man-turn-into-a-blowfish-in-one-horrifying-short?tag=trailer-frenzy

I'll admit, I watched that trailer about five times, with what I'm sure was an expression of horrified fascination on my face. The CGI is really something; it's in that zone between extremely realistic and "you know it's impossible even though your eyes tell you otherwise." It evokes the sort of feeling that Neil Gaiman's or China Miéville's writing does; the milieu is rather Lovecraftian.

Washington Post: Is Mitt Romney a Unicorn?

Something amusing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-a-unicorn-fighting-birthers-with-their-own-ploy/2012/05/29/gJQAvNDRzU_story.html?hpid=z2

The sad thing is that people actually take the birther thing seriously. It would be poetic justice (but even sadder) if somehow the "Mitt Romney is a unicorn" meme caught on with that crowd.

The Stanford Daily: An Interview with Vienna Teng

Vienna Teng, one of my favourite musicians in the world, is performing at TEDxStanford on Saturday. I got to interview her for The Stanford Daily; the resulting article is here:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/18/vienna-teng-stanford-renaissance-woman/

She's extremely nice, and a great conversationalist to boot. I'm not sure what else to say about it (most of it's in the article, though of course, my editor and I had to cut quite a bit), but I think we had more in common that I thought we would, going into the interview.

Anyhow, I'll be seeing her perform this weekend. She said she'd sign my ukulele -- I'm excited!

xkcd: The Modern Major-General on Higher Education

Today's xkcd:

Did you sing it? All the way through?

I thought it was rather clever. There's one spot (that I noticed, at least) that didn't quite scan, but it's still a really impressive filk!

Also, I was reminded of the song "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?" from Avenue Q.