Reb sez, "The Water Quality Forum in my hometown, Knoxville, TN has an annual contest/auction for custom designed rain barrels. This one really caught my eye!"

“R2D2” by Curtis Glover (Thanks, Reb!)

REUTERS: Romney speaks at a campaign event in Wilmington, DE.

In the Washington Post, testimonials by prep school classmates of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paint the former Governor of Massachusetts as a homophobic bully. So, basically— he hasn't changed much. Snip:

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

With help from other bullies, the story goes, Romney then tackled Lauber, pinned him to the ground, and while the young man was weeping, cut off his hair with scissors.

Read the rest

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Models present lingerie maker Triumph's new concept bra, the "Super Cool Bra", during its unveiling in Tokyo on May 9, 2012. The bra, modeled after a miniature fishbowl, contains a gel material designed to draw excess heat out of the body in its cups. It was created to help women "feel refreshed" during summer by wearing it, the lingerie maker said. Japan is headed for a power shortage this summer following the shutdown of all nuclear power reactors. I don't really get what's up with the pipe.

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Law enforcement in Dekalb County, Georgia, is not finished with you today, citizen. Greg Bluestein with the AP:

Three DeKalb County police officers were charged Thursday with beating four handcuffed teenagers, three of whom were juveniles at the time, in an investigation that prosecutors say could be part of a broader pattern of abuse.

You think? The charges come days after prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into another Dekalb County officer who kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach, pushed a woman into a cruiser by her face, and shot a chained-up dog.

Bob Self says:

Baby Tattoo Books is thrilled to be co-presenting a first of its kind art convention built around the Spectrum Fantastic Art community. For nearly two decades, the Spectrum juried competition and resulting art annual have promoted and elevated fantasy, science fiction and other genre art to new levels of respectability in the commercial and fine art worlds. Fantastic art is not only visually stunning, it is as professionally viable and significant as any other art form. Spectrum Fantastic Art Live will be a physical, geographically centered gathering of creators and fans of amazing creativity.

From the event web site:

'Featuring 200 art exhibitors, panel discussions, lectures, live painting demonstrations, and portfolio reviews by renowned art directors from the world's leading creative companies, this is the art event for everyone - artists, students, collectors, and fans - who love fantastic art in all its incarnations. Join us in celebrating the people responsible for adding color to our sense of wonder!

'It’s time for the creators of fantastic art to have an event they can call their own. It’s time to step away from the periphery of the comics, SF and media-focused “pop-culture”, conventions; it’s time to reinforce the excitement, influence, and value of fantastic art to the public via a first-class venue; it’s time to gather for educational opportunities, for networking opportunities, for social opportunities, and for sales opportunities in a centrally situated, cost-effective location. It’s time we try to grow the market, not shrink it. It’s time for a fantastic art convergence.'

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live

Saipancakes, who normally makes astounding pancakes like the ones above, had a rather spectacular pancakefail (right), prompting him to inaugurate an ugly pancake contest: "Rules: 1. It must be mostly pancake batter, and cooked like a pancake; 2. You (or someone) must eat it. You have until Saturday, May 19, to send me a photo of your creation. Winner will be chosen by my 4-year-old son. Honorable mentions will also be included on the site. Send your photo(s), title, and explanation to..."

Ugly Pancake Contest

Mental Floss's Rob Lammle has researched an admirably thorough history of The Animaniacs, one of my all-time favorite cartoons.

Of the Warners, the voice of Wakko was the most difficult to cast. During auditions, the producers said they were looking for “wacky,” so all the actors delivered a voice that was over-the-top crazy, but none were the right fit. On the last day of auditions, Ruegger brought his 1990 Almanac to the office, hoping to find some inspiration that might shake things up. Many wacky Wakko’s later, they still didn’t have the right voice. So during their last appointment of the morning, with voice actor Jess Harnell, Ruegger opened the almanac to a list of celebrities and asked Harnell to do his best impression of Elvis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, and other notable names. When the Beatles came up, Harnell proceeded to do every one of the Fab Four so well you could actually tell which individual band member he was mimicking at the moment. However, it was Harnell’s Ringo that struck a chord with the producers, so after a few tweaks, that became the voice of Wakko.

To promote Animaniacs before the show’s premiere, a giant balloon in the shape of Yakko was placed on top of the water tower on the Warner Bros. lot. Unfortunately, no one told Bob Daley, who ran the studio. When he pulled into work that morning, he thought someone had put a bad Mickey Mouse balloon on the tower and ordered it removed. The inflatable Yakko was in place for less than 12 hours, and then popped shortly after he came down. Writer Paul Rugg was able to snap a photo to prove it happened.

After the balloon incident, Daley worked to ensure no one else would mistake the Warners for Mickey. Daley decided that Yakko and Wakko were too smooth and rounded. So while he watched, he had Ruegger add side whiskers to the drawings, which he felt would prevent confusion – and potential legal action. Ruegger and Warner Bros. Animation president Jean MacCurdy had to rush back to the animation studio with the changes, because the cartoon was already being drawn, with some segments in the can. You can see the Before Whiskers and After Whiskers comparison below:

Way More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Animaniacs

A waitress poses inside an egg-shaped dining booth at an A380 theme restaurant during a media event before its official opening in Chongqing municipality, April 25, 2012. Special Class, the name of the restaurant, is about 600 square metres in size, including the six private rooms, and can serve up to 110 customers, local media reported. The restaurant officially started business on May 1, 2012. (REUTERS)

A beautiful note from Joss Whedon to the world, his admirers, and his past self, explaining what it feels like to have directed a movie that broke all box-office records for opening weekend:

What doesn't change is anything that matters. What doesn't change is that I've had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of -- I'm not even gonna say fans. I'm going with "peeps" -- that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I've had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y'all. A lot of stories have come out about my "dark years", and how I'm "unrecognized"... I love these stories, because they make me seem super-important, but I have never felt the darkness (and I'm ALL about my darkness) that they described. Because I have so much. I have people, in my life, on this site, in places I've yet to discover, that always made me feel the truth of success: an artist and an audience communicating. Communicating to the point of collaborating. I've thought, "maybe I'm over; maybe I've said my piece". But never with fear. Never with rancor. Because of y'all. Because you knew me when. If you think topping a box office record compares with someone telling you your work helped them through a rough time, you're probably new here. (For the record, and despite my inhuman distance from the joy-joy of it: topping a box office record is super-dope. I'm an alien, not a robot.) So this is me, saying thank you. All of you. You've taken as much guff for loving my work as I have for over-writing it, and you deserve, in this our time of streaming into the main, to crow. To glow. To crow and go "I told you so", to those Joe Blows not in the know. (LAST time I hire Dr. Seuss to punch my posts up. Yeesh!) Point being, you deserve some honor, AND you deserves some FAQs answered. So please welcome my old friend and certainly not-on-my-payroll reporter/flunky, Rutherford D. Actualperson!

The Purple. (via Making Light)

(Image: Joss Whedon, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from 35266893@N08's photostream)

Jeff Vandermeer sez, "As part of our celebration of weird fiction, centered around the release this week of The Weird -- 800,000 words of weird fiction from the past century--we've posted weird writer Stephen Graham Jones's flowchart showing the differences between weird fiction, horror, surrealism, and more...we're soliciting opinions. Did Jones nail it?"

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (Thanks, Jeff!)

[Video Link] The FreedomSleeve is an iPhone sleeve that connects a 3G iPhone to a "free" 4G network. It can be used as a wifi hotspot, and has a built-in battery to extend the iPhone's internal battery an additional 6 hours. It cost $99 and you get "up to 1GB of free data every month." According to GigaOM, each additional megabyte will cost a penny. Service is expected to start this summer. I hope the service is international. Freedom Pop iPhone Sleeve

Tomorrow would have been the 94th birthday of one of the most influential physicists in American history.

Tonight: We play the bongos.

Video Link

The Tattoine Traders store at the Disney Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World will soon have a build-your-own-droid option, along with a cardback box so that you can package it up to look like one of the original Star Wars figs. This is one of the rare times when the official Star Wars product is as interesting as the incredible, imaginative array of fannish creations.

[T]he Droid Factory has 71 different pieces to create the 3 ¾-inch figures! To get started, guests chose a dome, a body and legs offered in a variety of colors and styles (Cody said that availability of various parts and colors may change). There are optional third legs and novelty hats that can be added.

“We wanted lots of options for [the Droid Factory],” continued Cody. “There are literally thousands of combinations making each droid unique. Guests can also name their droids with sticker sheets provided at checkout.”

Three domes – R6, R8 and R9 – were created exclusively for this experience at Disney Parks. Cody also told me the multi-colored ear hats were inspired by Jedi Mickey’s Astromech droid, R2-MK. Four additional hats arrive later this summer including a Goofy hat, a pirate hat, a fedora and a Yoda cap.

Build Your Droid at the Droid Factory Coming to Tatooine Traders at Disney’s Hollywood Studios