Chart regarding this news story. Click to embiggen.

Patton Oswalt is a man of many faces

Mike Holmes has some awesome Patton Oswalt posters for sale.

The 7 Stages of Robot Replacement

• A robot/computer cannot possibly do what I do.

• OK, it can do a lot, but it can't do everything I do.
• OK, it can do everything I do, except it needs me when it breaks down, which is often.
• OK, it operates without failure, but I need to train it for new tasks.
• Whew, that was a job that no human was meant to do, but what about me?
• My new job is more fun and pays more now that robots/computers are doing my old job.
• I am so glad a robot cannot possibly do what I do.

--by the Technium

Drawn by Andy Pandy. Click to embiggen.

Q&A

Q: I just arrived at a costume party and discovered it's not a costume party, it's a regular party. How do I surreptitiously shed the Dracula outfit I'm wearing?

A: Keep the Dracula costume on and simply speak with a Romanian accent all night. Nobody will notice.

via fire balloons

AT-AT in Chicago, by Tony Bamber.

Can Creative Writing be Taught?

Can creative writing be taught? The world's [arguably] most eminent creative program says, "no."

The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the most renowned creative-writing program in the world. Sixteen Pulitzer Prize winners and three recent Poet Laureates are graduates of the program. But the school’s official position is that the school had nothing to do with it. “The fact that the Workshop can claim as alumni nationally and internationally prominent poets, novelists, and short story writers is, we believe, more the result of what they brought here than of what they gained from us,” the Iowa Web site explains. Iowa merely admits people who are really good at writing; it puts them up for two years; and then, like the Wizard of Oz, it gives them a diploma. “We continue to look for the most promising talent in the country,” the school says, “in our conviction that writing cannot be taught but that writers can be encouraged.”

––excerpt from an essay by Louis Menand, HERE

via Epic4Chan

Andy Rooney

An oldie but goodie.

Harry and Dumbledore, searching for the Horcrux

Drawn by Nicholas Delort, who has more cool illustrations up on his site. via Superpunch

Little Omniana Dudes

I drew a bunch of characters from everybody's favorite role-playing debate game, Omniana.

Occupy Wall Street

"Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift." Man, I know plenty of people who wish they could get on the day shift. via GOOD

Metallica + Lou Reed = WTF

Listen to their new track HERE, at the AV Club. Omfg.

Everything Explained Through Flowcharts, the movie

My book, Everything Explained Through Flowcharts, has been optioned as a film by a major Bollywood studio. If you don't know what Bollywood is, it's like Hollywood, but in Bolly.

The screenplay is in the works right now. I will admit that it's kind of difficult transforming one-color pie charts into big screen, 3-D Excite-o-Vision. Luckily I'm co-writing the film with a great Indian screenwriter I met through the AT&T customer service hotline. Here's the first page. PLEASE DO NOT LEAK THIS PAGE TO VARIETY!

EXT. POLICE PRECINCT--NIGHT

The gritty city skyline crouches in the background like a hungry animal.

GRIZZLED CAPTAIN (O.S.)

You’ve gone too far this time, Maverick!

MAVERICK (O.S.)

What can I say boss, I’m a maverick!

INT. CAPTAIN’S OFFICE--NIGHT

The Captain paces the room angrily. Maverick is sitting on a horse on top of the Captain’s desk.

GRIZZLED CAPTAIN

Reckless endangerment, destroying public property, excessive force--

MAVERICK

(gesturing to the horse)

Captain, you’re upsetting Maude.

GRIZZLED CAPTAIN

And get that damn horse off my desk!

Maverick flicks the horse’s reigns and he and Maude leap out of the captain’s closed window, shattering the glass.

GRIZZLED CAPTAIN (CONT.)

(shaking his fists)

Damn you Maverick!

drawn by B Kliban

Cicero, Lorem Ipsum

"No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"

Another rare Reagan campaign poster

via him

Putin on my shades

8 bit, 24 karat

via Urchin Associates

via this isn't happiness

Bigfoot Sighting

On the left: Six Rivers National Forest, 1967. On the right: Geekadelphia Awards, 2011.

How Americans spend their day

Charted by Nathan Yau, Flowing Data, based on data collected by the American Time Use Survey.

High School Jock Becomes a Mexican Drug Lord

Rolling Stone has a fascinating article about Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal, who was a typical middle class suburban jock in high school, but by the age of 30 had become one of Mexico's most feared drug lords.

"[Barbie] was also a gringo, a middle-class suburban jock who was born and raised in Texas. He is the only U.S. citizen known to have risen to the top of a Mexican cartel, and the only American on the State Department's list of targeted drug lords. (The U.S. government offered $2 million for information that would lead to his arrest.) For years, as drugs flowed into Acapulco from Colombia, Barbie controlled the main distribution routes out of the city, moving as much as two tons of coke – that's 2 million grams – into the U.S. every month. Most of the drugs went to Memphis and Atlanta, where Barbie is believed to have been the main supplier for several violent networks, including one run by the half brother of DJ Paul from Three 6 Mafia. Barbie cleared up to $130 million a year moving drugs in the States, but with typical boldness he made little effort to launder the money. Instead, he simply loaded the cash onto flatbed trailers and trucked it across the Mexican border."

––Vanessa Grigoriadis and Mary Cuddehe

Read the whole article here.

Roadblocks to persuasion

"Why do humans remain so steadfast to their beliefs, sometimes even in the face of overwhelming opposing evidence? The answer rests in a few psychological tendencies that when mixed together form a potent recipe for ignorance."

Confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and motivated reasoning explained HERE, via the New Shelton Wet Dry.

Drawn by Tom Gauld.

Badass

This video is just incredible. I've seen it a million times, but it always gets me. Mr. Rogers' brave speech affirms that words have the ability to sway peoples' opinions. Without using sophistry or fallacies, Rogers calmly lays out his case. You can tell the Senator thinks he's a little goofy at first, and kind of makes fun of him, but Mr. Rogers stays cool and continues to speak in his same plodding, deliberate pace. I've heard that the faster you speak, the more intelligent you seem, so I assume his slow talking is a disadvantage. I am wildly uncomfortable feeling this optimistic, unguarded, and gee wow, but I can't help myself.

via Jerkstore

via Go Build a Cabinet

I found an old school assignment from when I was in fourth grade where we were asked to describe ourselves in three words. I chose: Smart, funny, tall. I was not, and never have been, unusually tall. I am average or slightly below. What I was actually writing, although I didn't realize it, was: Smart, funny, arrogant. Which is at least one-third true.

via Julia Segal

Galactus Mighty Mugg. I love Mighty Muggs. I have a lot. Unfortunately Hasbro has stopped making them, which especially sucks because they were poised to make a GI Joe Shipwreck and Serpentor, which I feel might've filled the hole in my life. Guess I'll never know now.

There are some intense G forces in my home office.

More awesome old superhero art by Andreas Englund here.

Rare Bush campaign poster from 2004

I know we're supposed to be done talking about how horrible W's administration was. I'll stop making fun of him when we're no longer living in the mess he helped create.

by Jerrod Maruyama, via Carlovely

Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall

Whale porn. Via Yimmy's Yayo

drawn by Nathaniel Russell

Vladimir Putin action figure

"WATCH as Vladimir Putin rides a horse, drives a race car, tags a tiger, does judo, goes on archeological dives, looks at leopards, stands on a boat, arm wrestles, attempts to bend a frying pan, rides a snowmobile, flies a plane, hugs a dog, rides a motorcycle, looks at a bear, swims the butterfly, signs autographs, shoots a whale with a crossbow, plays the piano, feeds a moose, talks with a biker gang, steers a boat, walks through brush with a gun, sits in a tank, blacksmiths, plays hockey, hugs a horse, dives almost a mile in a submersible, and adjusts sunglasses."

You have to look at these photos, via Kottke.

Since the Philly Post was unable to reach beleaguered Philadelphia councilman candidate David Oh for comment on his recent campaign woes, they talked to me instead. Clearly, I'm the next closest thing.

Farewell, summer, that season which makes me smell the worst. I won't miss you. Illustration by Graham Roumeie

via this guy

Stephanie Tanner calls Kimmy Gibbler a whore

New logo for the Cheesecake Factory

drawn by the consistently awesome Kate Beaton

Super Creepy iphone case

Oh good, I need more nightmare fuel. Via CollabCubed.

Patton Oswalt, Finest Hour

Listen to a preview track from Patton's new album here: the Burroughs of Carbs

via topherchris

via slagroom

The Late Nite Cabaret

I'm hosting the Late Nite Cabaret tonight, come check it out. We'll have comedy, tragedy, and eatertainment. Also, cans of beer are free if you shotgun them.
at The Wolf Building, 
340 N. 12th St. (12th and Callowhill)
Philadelphia, PA
10:30pm-12:30am