This week I collected a bunch of stuff but largely failed to remember to note where I got it. That blogroll over there on the right holds everything I read every day. It probably came from one of those places.

• The only way to become great at something
• Via AoSQH, Dude ROCKS IT OUT on The Price is Right. Watch the whole thing, please. You will smile and laugh the whole time.
• From Honu Girl, Do you understand my first grade child’s math homework? The easier they try to make math, the harder it gets. Or so I observe.
• Videos of dogs welcoming home soliders
• Do you think these college students would be able to figure out your child’s first grade math homework?
• Wired’s Arachnid Hall of Fame!
• A really polarizing editorial (jeremiad?) from Dr. Laura on the Evolution of Feminism:
  

  The young women of today automatically think of themselves as feminists because they’ve been brainwashed by their mothers and much of society. Problematically, these women, many of whom write to me or call my radio program, don’t understand much about the male mind. They are convinced that men should be just like women in their thoughts and reactions and are frustrated when that mentality doesn’t work.

• An animal rescuer’s answering machine message. Laugh so that you don’t cry.
• Vipers, Pansies, and Fatcats:
  

  In other words, we cannot expect the new cruelism to burn itself out. It’s more likely to burn us out. At the stake, while vipers in lawn chairs roast hotdogs and marshmallows as they critique the sincerity and intensity of our screams.

• Pardon-Moi cards, wake up calls with humor and tact. I wonder about this item in relation to the previous article, even though the two are not related. But I wonder if it’s not a slippery slope. I wonder if letting slide a few basic courtesies here and there eventually leads to the dissolution of civilization. Not that failing to say gesundheit after someone sneezes will bring the barbarians over the walls or anything, but maybe being constantly subjected to people’s rudeness, and hesitant to do anything about it because we know that two rudes don’t make a proper, might make us less able to determine what the limits of public behavior and discourse are.

  Also, do you think these are too twee? Do you think they’re cowardly? Are they really effective? What do you think would be more effective: those little cards, or tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, you’re speaking very loudly about personal subjects you probably don’t want the rest of us to hear.”?

• Related: When the rudes get ruder, the scolds get scoldier.
• An awesome Star Wars Tauntaun costume
• From Nicki, Pirate! Metal!
• The 10 Weirdest Physics Facts
• From Apollo, Where Should I Eat Flowchart: Fast Food Edition. All my roads lead to Sonic or Chick-fil-A.
• There is no God but Gaia and Al Gore is her Prophet:
  

  It seems the United Nations would prefer to hide the truth and cut off all further scientific research instead of facing the embarrassment of having to retract its ridiculous assertion that Himalayan glaciers may disappear in the next 25 years. Perhaps the United Nations really believes nonscientists and staffers from alarmist environmental organizations are better qualified to report on Himalayan glaciers than actual scientists who have been studying the glaciers for decades.

• From Wade’s tweetstream: Cats for Gold! Some days I wish this worked the other way around.
• Junk food = heroin?

Three sickly sweet doses of bacon a day instead of smack. But it’s never enough.*

• Acorn squash stuffed with bacon and a bunch of other stuff that isn’t bacon
• Fall pear salad is such a prosaic way to describe a meal featuring both bacon and luscious stinky cheese!
• Brussels Sprouts are the New BLT
  1. with onions and porny peppered bacon shots
  2. with bacon and melted gorgonzola
  3. with some extremely fancy olive oil
  4. with beets
  5. with figs and balsamic vinegar
• Exceptionally rich and fancy potato gratin that covers potatoes in everything good in life: bacon, cheese, garlic, cream. There’s other stuff in there,too.
• Clam and bacon foccacia. This sounds far out. But the post really makes me want to try it!
• Cajun shrimp BLT. Is this the last of the BLTs? We live and hope!
• Eggs Benedict with bacon instead of “canadian” bacon, whatever the hell that is.
• Bacon chutney and relationship advice
• This post does not at first appear to be about bacon, only donuts. But then there is the Flying Pig donut. Oh yes.
• Mac and cheese with bacon and chard
• Bacon peanut brittle
• The Pig Out! Bacon chocolate sampler

*Apologies to Irvine Welsh, none of them overly sincere.

Hugantic today! No time for love, Dr. Jones!

• Via David Thompson, an awesome interactive web page showing cell size and scale. Zoom in! INCREDIBLE!!
• How to Make a Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator
• 5 Things to Ignore When Designing Web Sites
• From the Ministry of This Has Been Obvious to Non-Feminists for Millenia, family life is better when mom respects dad and lets him be himself around his kids. New research shows that men and women are different. And that those differences are important to creating more men and women. Can you believe it?! And having one of each around is also important! Girls benefit from fathers! Boys benefit from fathers! Moms themselves benefit from having a Dad all up in the place. Fathers are not superfluous beginning immediately after ejaculation! BOGGLES THE MIND!
• Apollo lets us know that when Courage Wolf is just too positive and motivating, we can turn to Foul Bachelor Frog.
• Opposite of that, it’s The Pretty Project, one woman’s 365 day experiment in beautification:
  

  I drove my car like a warrior back to the office after getting another stunningly painful wax and scoring a trendy dragon pendant necklace for only ten bones. Suddenly and without warning a man pulled up next to me, rolled down his window, and began yelling at me. This is it, I am getting mugged and I didn’t even get a chance to wear my new necklace. Maybe he knows about the necklace and wants it for his own.

  She’s becoming part of my daily reading.

• The 10 Most Disturbing Books of All Time
• A List of Cats with Fraudulent Diplomas
• Several “gay Chicagoans” cured of Bush Derangement Syndrome:
  

  We will never look at the Bushes, the Bush presidencies, or their legacies the same again…and someday when his presidential library is built, we will be so proud to visit there and tell anyone will listen about November 10th, 2009, the day we finally appreciated former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura.

  Thank you for your service, Mr. President. We’re sorry we didn’t appreciate you while you were in office, but we thank Heaven we’ve wised up and can see the good you are out there doing, under the radar, today.

• What do you think of the Good Mommy Paradox?
• Another Apollo joint: How to Survive a Stephen King novel
• Via AoSHQ, Conical Bras are back and better than ever! I really may have to get one.
• Science: What Music Will My Cats Like?
• The Advent Conspiracy is almost upon us.
• From Chez, How to Cope with Self Doubt:
  

  I can do that. With a clear head I know that everyone who has wild success is someone who had to eat a box of Oreos. Everyone has her moments of huge self-doubt, often in the face of someone else’s grand success. But there is not finite success in the world. There is just a finite amount of people who can stomach the pain of wanting success so much.

• Also from Chez, My-my-my heart like a kick drum!
  
• Geek Laws that Should Exist but Don’t
• When you listen to “Community Property” by Steel Panther, remember that technically Apollo inflicted it on you, not me.
• Political correctness kills another Southern tradition. What do you all think of this? On the one hand, there’s some degree of Heritage-Not-Hate, which never went particularly far. On the other, where’s the line? Is there a line? I would venture to say every human institution that’s ever existed has subjugated and enslaved some other human institution. Slavery is happening right now, all over the world, to people of all colors. Will axing this fight song make a difference to those people? Will it make a difference to anybody at all, except maybe some wealthy alumni who decide they can give their money to some other institution from now on?
• Here’s a recipe for All-Natural Homemade NyQuil. On the one hand, good to know. On the other, read the recipe and see if you could make that when ill. Yeah, me either.

Fortune and glory, kid. And Bacon

• Fully Loaded Quiche contains both bacon and brie.
• Ultimate Bacon Showdown Round 2: Candy Making: Mo’s Bacon Bar Peanut Butter Cups. Y’all, let’s go look at Round 1. Maybe there’ll be a Round 3!
• Bacon Agedashi Tofu seems a little silly to me. Tofu is for non-bacon eaters, right? Or is there an abiding bacon/tofu intersection that I’ve been oblivious to all this time?
• From Poptart, a bacon manicure!
• Succotash-Bacon salad
• The Carbonara Chronicles
  • Perfection Version (blogger’s claim, not mine)
  • A “Healthier” Version
  • “Bloody Good” Penne version
• Bacon vs. Korean Bacon and the lessons they teach us
• I Put Pork on Your Pork So You Could Bacon While You Bacon
  • Bacon-wrapped Pork Medallions with Apple Cider Sauce
  • Bacon-wrapped Pork Roast with Apple Chutney
• Cornbread with bacon in it cooked in bacon grease and photographed like Pac Man
• Cheesy potato soup with fancy bacon
• Baconsaur!
• Sweet potato gnocchi with bacon and cream sauce
• Chocolate-Peanut Butter-Toffee-Bacon Cupcakes
• Bacon-braised Brussels sprouts with cream
• Lard caramels
• Mega-cheese mashed potatoes with bacon
• Wild Boar bacon and lemon thyme popcorn