A very talented kite enthusiast at the Huntington Beach Pier had some fun playing tag with a kid. Read the rest

James Somers thinks you should switch to the Websters 1913 dictionary, and he cites John McPhee's composition method of looking up synonyms for problematic words as the key to his peerless prose style. Somers makes a great case for the romance of historical dictionaries, but for my money (literally -- I spent a fortune on this one), the hands-down best reference for synonyms and historical language reference is the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, whose magnificence cannot be overstated. Read the rest

Tsarina's tshark shocks resemble sharks that are gnawing off the wearer's feet. They come with knit, velcro-attachable remoras! The comments are full of people begging to buy a pair of these, but there's no indication at this point that they are for sale, either as patterns or finished articles.

The shark theme has been done, of course; this, however, is the Tshark theme…

… and as such it is intended to go farther over the top, and deeper under the bottom, than your average sea-going pedator. (Check out my shiny new neologism that I just this minute made up! “Pedator” - a predator that is worn on the foot, geddit?)

Just When You Thought It Was Safe….

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Read the rest

A wonderful photo contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by Ben Lepley, who explains that this is his cat Yoshimi Minski, "sleeping in the semi-mummy position." Read the rest

A herd of Holstein cows, just released from the winter barn. [YouTube via Metafilter] Previously. Read the rest

This week's installment of San Francisco's brilliant science fiction reading series, SF in SF, features Tad Williams & Deborah Beale. It's this Saturday, Aug 13, and as always, doors open at 6 at The Variety Preview Room Theatre right in the middle of town. Free, but with a $5-10 suggested donation for Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California. Read the rest