TARDIS and Browncoat Jerseys - Last Day to Order

It's hard to think about hockey when it's 4,000 degrees outside, and inside you haven't moved from the couch since Friday.  Also, you can suddenly speak with great authority about the nuances of a full twisting layout Tsukahara.  But!  Today is the last day to order one of these cunning jerseys from designer Dave Delisle.

You can customize the number.  9 is my Doctor

To me this is a form of cosplay, as many people opt to put a character’s name on their back. In my opinion this is sort of a fandom, where every design I post is usually for something I really love. I don’t see these as products but large personal billboards for things we like, be itGame of Thrones or Voltron or Zelda or what have you. I hope large companies see these as fan expressions, not infringing. 

I don’t have big aspirations of turning this into a mega-business, I rather like the small scale we are currently at. I do hope geeky hockey jerseys become more commonplace eventually. 

If anyone had jerseys like these available I wouldn’t be going through all this effort. Maybe Reebok will take notice.

Check out Dave's site for more great designs.  Fandom jerseys from Dave's Geeky Hockey.  Tip o'the hat to Bruce!

Large Hadron Quilts

I'd like to imagine that when the scientists and engineers at CERN go to sleep at night, they tuck themselves up under one of these:

Inner Eye February 2010 Size: 120 cm square. Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Inner Eye February 2010
Size: 120 cm square.
Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Teacher and artist Kate Findlay was inspired by the recurring circle-in-square motif of the Large Hadron Collider and spent four years translating those forms into fabric.

Findlay used traditional patchwork for her three earliest pieces, “Breakthrough,” “Inner Eye,” and “Does the Dark Matter?” Because of the way fabric moves, this technique makes creating circles a fiendish feat. After six to eight weeks of sewing, and down to the final piece, she says, “My heart was absolutely in my mouth.” Until she finished, she had no idea whether everything would line up and lie flat.

Quilts by Kate Findlay via Symmetry magazine - February 2012.  Tip o'the hat to Bethanew.

Astonishing, Awesome, Beautiful, Seductive

And the ship's not bad either.

Each year at San Diego Comic Con there's a Starship Smackdown panel held to determine which spaceship is best.  Prior to watching this video, if asked, I would have naturally thrown my vote to the Millenium Falcon.

But Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes a very persuasive argument for the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701.

 

What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked like to others at the time that they prevailed.  There is only one spaceship [in the bracket] that's earlier than [USS Enterprise] and that's the flying saucer from The Day The Earth Stood Still ... So, what matters here is what did that spaceship [points to USS Enterprise] look like at the time it came out?  Compared with anything that had been imagined before.  And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing, awesome, beautiful, seductive machine that has ever graced the screen. 

And everything else is derivative.

In other news, when the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA undertakes an album intended to convey the grandeur, energy, and chaos of the universe itself, who does he turn to?

Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

Watch out, guys.  We've got an actual badass over here.

Starship Smackdown via

GZA on 'Dark Matter' album: WSJ

Sasquatch!

My husband has taken to watching Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot. It's ridiculous. Despite never having found the remains of a Sasquatch, the droppings of a Sasquatch, or actually – irrefutably – caught one on camera, this dedicated team goes all Blair Witch in the Pacific Northwest with their Sasquatch "calls" and proof that bigfoots "whistle", "can't understand words", and "sleep on hemlock" in the open forest.
As this show really only prompts more questions than it answers, we've taken to googling and wiki-ing Sasquatch for random fun facts. Here's the one my husband found:
"'Sasquatch' is a slang term for 'hairy vagina'."
I'm not sure how much I can express the rage I felt when I heard that. Because, seriously? The vagina is an internal organ. What you're talking about is the labia. There is no such thing as a 'hairy vagina'. (While we're at it, there's also no vagina dentata.) Second? The labia is supposed to be hairy. Just like armpits, upper lips, bellies, legs, arms, and ears. Just like dudes are hairy.
You don't need to be a doctor to know this but if you are a heterosexual male with any hope of having consensual sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex the least you can do is learn what things are called and where they are. Damn, y'all.

Also, yay for Those Pesky Dames, who take to YouTube to rant about body hair and other feminist topics. I was introduced to them on Cherry Healey's latest series, How to Get a Life, which is a hell of a lot more interesting than Finding Bigfoot.

Higgs Boson Explained

I find that most everything in life can be explained by how-to videos. I'm looking at you Higgs Boson.

Start with this video which compares Higgsy to a tray of sugar. Raw muscavado sugar it looks like, because this guy is from the Guardian and the British are like that about their sugar.

Then move on to this more in-depth look from PHD comics. This one's gonna take a bit longer, so you might want to smoke a clove cigarette while you're watching to take the edge off.

And don't let this new fangangled addition fool you.  Higgsy isn't the last particle to complete the standard model.  We are still looking for gravitons, people. 

You're welcome.

Rosemary Rain

So I was flipping through the online pages of I Love Cat Party again, because of its hypnotic sweetness and mooncalf sexiness is just so soothing.

They've turned me on to Rosemary Rain, an etsy store of (literally) cheeky watercolors and digital art. The theme here seems to be maryjane and nude babes in a soft, sweet, I love Californian sort of way. Bizarre? Check. Adorable? Check.

I mean come on. Naked. Lady. Riding. Dinosaur.

I just want to purchase of collection of them, frame them and stick them up in my guest bathroom. It would be, I don't know, a really good time.

Sailor Moon Returns in Summer 2013

Sailor Moon is getting a new anime series in summer 2013 according to the anime news network.

There is only one way to express my excitement, which is by a squee. So I will do so so now.

(Squeeeeeee!)

Kodansha editor Fumio Osano has only confirmed that the new project will be a serial not a film and it will be produced by Toei animation, which also animated the original series, for worldwide distributed. Mashable speculates that this new serial may be a reboot geared to both younger and older fans. And the Mary Sue hopes they won't remake Haruka and Michiru’s relationship when the series hits the States.

I only only hope that Naoko Takeuchi will read my letter re-translating Moonlight Desnetsu into American English before Momoiro Clover Z re-records it for the new series. (sigh).

To tide us over until more releases hit the interwebs, check out Corey Lewis'recent fan art Sailor Bat (via reyyy.com) and Ann Marcellino's Sailor Avengers (via How to Carve Roast Unicorn).

PS Did you know CandyBuffet has a twitterfeed? Even more sciencey unicorn magic can be imbibed here.

Texts From Jane Eyre

Mallory Ortberg wrote Texts from Jane for the Hairpin.

A snippet:

JANE I BOUGHT YOU A DRESS MADE OF TEN THOUSAND PEARLS AS A BRIDAL PRESENT where on earth would I wear that YOU COULD WEAR IT ON THE MOON that seems impractical how would i even breathe on the moon? I WOULD BREATHE FOR YOU MY JANE

Read it because it is funny. Read it because, I could read a whole blog just about texts from characters in classic novels. Really, I could read the whole of Jane Eyre re-wtritten as texts. Are you listening Mallory Ortberg?

Like it? Try Texts from Scarlett O'Hara.