For next year

I just found out about this so you will all have to wait til next year to get them from me, but what a great idea - to put Hubble's pictures on Christmas cards!

Travel light ... and free!

With a little practice and effort, you can travel the world for free. Click through and read the full article for some great tips on how to do it.

It can be scary to venture into the world with nothing more than optimism and good-will, but personal freedom begins with a leap of faith.

There's cold ... and then, there's Siberia

You can't help but feel bad for these poor people in Norilsk, Russia (Siberia) who are just trying to cross the road.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now ... but never seen this!

Punch Hole Clouds may appear as a circular or oval holes in a layer of supercooled clouds; sometimes they assume a form of a perfect circle and persist for quite a long time, drifting together with the cloud layer. One explanation seems to blame the air traffic (the jet contrail intersections) combined with a thermal inversion (a circular motion of a rising warm air).

Digital Billiards

I'm not sure that this device is 'ready for primetime' just yet (a few too many, "That was close!" comments by the inventors) but it is a cool idea that, with some development, could be coming to a bar near you.

Gay scientists isolate Christian gene

Village Person Takes It Off For Playgirl

Randy, the original cowboy of the Village People is making a splash in one of the last issues of Playgirl.* Get your copy today to find out what you were missing in the 80's!

* Playgirl Calls It Quits
Established 35 years ago as a feminist response to Playboy and Penthouse (Playboy sued Playgirl in 1973 for trademark infringement but settled amicably), the magazine could never seem to quite figure out who its audience was: women or gay men, a dilemma, it seems, that followed Playgirl to its grave.
The magazine’s final editor Nicole Caldwell worked to take the magazine back to its roots, interspersing shots of naked hotties with articles on issues like abortion and equal rights. Publisher Blue Horizon Media wanted fewer articles and more naked hotties, preferably ones that would appeal more to gay men. The schizophrenic focus has resulted in the January/February 2009 issue being its last. The Playgirl website will continue, but the graphic content is geared more toward gay men. For $19.55 a month, you can have all the “100% Man Juice” you want.

Sequels & Sequins

This looks like a funny movie with lots of recognizable faces! Watch for it when it comes to a cinema near you.
Visit the website [website]
Here you can have a look at some pix from the film [TLA Video]

Hot for Barack!

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Eve's worst nightmare

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish you all a very happy Christmas. Now that I have gotten set up in my new city of Ottawa, I can relax and enjoy spending time with friends and relatives. I hope you are doing the same.

Here is a little ditty from Coldplay on the theme:

Google feature makes searches better

If you have created a Google profile for yourself, you may be interested to know that you now have more power in your mouse than you realize. This new feature in Google Search results makes customizing your info much easier.

Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you're an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it's not there at all and you'd like to add it. Or maybe you'd like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today [Nov.20 2008] you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.

Today we're launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.

Star Trek's Majel Roddenberry dies

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's widow and a fixture of nearly every incarnation of the space travel franchise, died on Thursday. She was 76.

Roddenberry, who suffered from leukemia, died at home in Bel Air, Calif., according to a spokesperson.

Before Star Trek, the Ohio-born actress worked on a range of television shows, including Bonanza and Leave it to Beaver.

She was romantically involved with Roddenberry when he launched Star Trek in the mid-1960s. Though he cast her as the USS Enterprise's unnamed first officer in his pilot, she would go on to fame as the secondary character Nurse Chapel in the original series and in subsequent films. The couple married in 1969.

Link to Roddenberry website

Politics are a Drag - for RuPaul

The 48-year-old hot tranny diva posed as both Barack and Michelle Obama as part of a holiday promotion for her new drag queen competition TV series "RuPaul's Drag Race" on Logo.

Hong Kong's Gay Revolution

For a few hours, a city that usually seems immune to surprises watched in awe as approximately 1,000 parade-goers stopped traffic, filled the streets and spread their message to "celebrate love." A rainbow-colored dragon bobbed over the heads of carefully coiffed men donning dainty dresses and dancing to "Celebrate Pride," which warbled through a loudspeaker in the center of the city. Men with fiery red-feathered tiaras chanted, "Pride parade! Pride parade! Pride parade!" in Cantonese and English while marching through Hong Kong's congested Hennessy Road waving multicolored pride flags

View from a broad abroad

LGBT travellers can offer their services as volunteers in a variety of ways.

Imagine building floats for Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, working with transwomen in Thailand, or planting trees in Katrina-devastated wetlands around New Orleans.

There are many opportunities for LGBT travellers to make a difference in the countries we visit, but we still face some unique barriers.

A new sole for Bush

During the holiday season thoughts often turn to giving away what we no longer need to those who will appreciate their significance. Now is your chance to let Geo. W. Bush know how you feel ... As a sign of your admiration, please feel free (compelled) to send your old shoes to:

George W. Bush Presidential Library
c/o SMU
6425 Boaz Lane
Dallas TX 75205

Classical Muppets

Two fantastic YouTube clips to introduce your kids to great works of classical music ... and puppetry. First, Beeker and his many clones perform Beethoven's Ode to Joy, then Gonzo the Great and his chicken orchestra cluck out The Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss.

Everything for a Cowboy/girl

Kilakitu is a swahili saying meaning "everything". And these Africanized cowboy shirts make interesting one-of-a-kind gifts.

The depths of Nairobi's [Kenya] sprawling secondhand clothing markets provide the finest and most inspiring preloved fabrics from the four corners of the world.

This project not only reuses, remixes and renews these materials to create one-of-a-kind garments, it also provides work to local tailors and provides a portion of the proceeds to a lunch feeding program for school children.

Timeless comedy

An hilarious 1954 clip of Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray as their domestic squabble is set to the rhythm of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

A-ha! A new take on Take On Me

Many of you, my contemporaries in the '80s, will remember this song from the Norwegian group A-ha [Wikipedia link] and likely the video too. Here it is again only with the lyrics changed to a literal description of what's going on in the video ... it even makes a bit more sense than the original!

Justice is Served

Making decisions about crime and punishment is, it turns out, as complicated as a legal brief. For the first time, scientists have peered into the brains of people who are deciding whether a crime deserves punishment and how severe the penalty should be.

Those decisions involve parts of the brain associated with rational thought, but emotion-processing regions weigh in too, a team of law and neuroscience researchers from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., show in a new study in the Dec. 11 Neuron. The findings suggest that brain areas active in deciding a harsh punishment for a crime deliberately committed are different than those active when giving the accused some benefit of the doubt.

Canada ties for last among developed countries for child services: UNICEF

Canada fails to meet nine of out 10 proposed standards aimed at ensuring children get the best start in life through education and support programs, putting the country in a tie for last place among affluent nations, an analysis released Wednesday by UNICEF concludes.

The UNICEF benchmarks are crucial for children in their formative years, the United Nations organization says.

The New Face of business in America

In light of the recent changes in economic perspective, a few clever artists have come up with versions of famous logos with much more "truthiness"!

TV Censors in Italy gut Brokeback Mountain

IMHO: Removing the two scenes described below would make it completely impossible for a viewer to either understand or feel the emotion of this film.

Gay rights groups and free speech advocates have taken Italian state broadcaster RAI TV to task for cutting two sex scenes from Brokeback Mountain when it aired the Oscar-winning movie late Monday evening.

The expurgated version of the 2005 cowboy romance did not include the scene in which the two main characters, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger, make love in a tent, and a later scene showing the two men kissing.

Cool new 5-Euro commemorative coin with theme ‘Netherlands and Architecture’

A new 5 euro commemorative coin pays tribute to the history of Dutch architecture.

Designer’s inspiration
The Architecture five-euro coin was designed by artist Stani Michiels (b. 1973). The design on the obverse of the coin pays tribute to the history of Dutch architecture, with the portrait of Queen Beatrix being distinctively constructed using the names of important architects from Dutch history. The artist used the internet as a popularity-meter to determine the names’ order of appearance.

The reverse of the Architecture five-euro coin draws attention to the striking fact that many Dutch architects have also included publishing books on architecture in their professional activities. To illustrate this phenomenon, recent books on architecture rise up from the sides of the coin like buildings. Through their careful placement they combine to outline the Netherlands, while birds’ silhouettes suggest the capitals of all the provinces.

Link to the Dutch Mint webpage

Pin-up icon Bettie Page dies at 8

American glamour model and pin-up girl Bettie Page has died at the age of 85.

Raven-haired pin-up icon Bettie Page, whose provocative magazine photo spreads helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday at 85.

"She was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who featured Page as his then-fledgling magazine's January 1955 centrefold.

Mission Accomplished ... mas o menos

Glad to be back to blogging!

The move is over and I am now finding my way through a new city, but I am up for it.

I will hopefully be able to start publishing this blog on a regular basis again, but for now it may be in fits and starts. So, please forgive me for now.

It will however, show you some of the things that I thought were cool, funny, conceptual, ironic, well-designed, inspiring, satirical, heart-warming and/or life-changing along the way.

If you get why I put it here, please let me know as a Comment - it will inspire me to share more.

Douglas

Put your mouse where your mouth is ... Eyeball it !!

This is a very cool and surprisingly fun visual challenge that you must try. WARNING: It may show you whether ... or not ... you have ACTUALLY been right all these years!

THIS IMAGE | Featurepics.com

Some people are bothered by pictures on the wall hanging slightly crooked. Others may not even be aware that something may be amiss.

If you are somebody who is into woodworking or construction, its good to be one of the people who notice when things are crooked. But I suspect the ability to notice that things might be just a little off square, off centre, or not quite straight, varies greatly. I thought it would be fun for people to try to test their abilities to see if things are straight or crooked in a little game.

And thanks to LCD monitors, its possible to display geometry with absolute accuracy on a computer now. So what better way to try this game concept than to put it on the web!

How the game works
The best way to figure out how the game works is to simply play it.

Support companies that support LGBT equality

More than 300,000 people have used The Human Rights Campaign's Buying for Equality Guide to make informed choices about their purchases. This year, you can do your part to support fair-minded businesses by requesting or downloading Buying for Equality 2009.

Next time you are buying groceries, planning a trip, or making investment decisions check out who supports the advancement of LGBT rights and who doesn't.

TTC barns finally become artists' colony

A community initiative has transformed a set of 95-year-old streetcar maintenance barns into an artists' colony and community centre in mid-town Toronto.

The Wychwood Barns Project (Christie + St. Clair, Toronto) opens Thursday after a $21.2-million redevelopment of former Toronto Transit Commission barns unused for more than 25 years.

The barns, built between 1913 and 1921, were converted into:

• 26 units of housing for artists and their families.
• 15 affordable studio spaces.
• 13 offices for non-profit arts and environmental groups.
• Two theatre spaces and an art gallery.
• A community space that will be home to a farmers market.
• A year-round greenhouse.
• Parkland and playgrounds.