I have always loved to watch the Olympic gymnastic teams do their crazy body flinging acrobatics.  I watched Kerri Strug land on that busted ankle after a near-perfect vault during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, for God’s sake!  I don’ t think they have  Bicycle Gymnastics in the Olympics, though, because I’d already have known all about this and would be practicing it in the parking lot on my Schwinn dirt bike with Janie right fucking now to prepare for Vancouver 2010.  Or whatever comes after because, you’re right, it would be a summer sport.  Fine, whatever.

If cartoon characters were real I feel pretty certain I wouldn’t watch any of them.  Or I would because there are certain things I can’t help but stare at, like a plate of donuts and grotesque faces.

Learn something new every day.  Not here on this website, no.  Certainly not.  But I’ll show you where to do it.  Because I care about you.

How to survive anything except it isn’t about how to survive anything.  I didn’t see one word about how to survive a viewing of Jesus Christ Superstar with your in-laws (tip: whiskey and crack-cocaine) or how to survive after having eaten 27 killer bees laced with rat poison.  I guess they weren’t as thorough as they thought over there at National Geographic.  Someone needs to up their quality control before pushing the publish button.  Not me, though.  No way.

This is a link to a video showing off the sounds of some of the worlds biggest cats.  I don’t mean Carson who now weights 18-1/2 pounds.  I mean tigers, cougars and servils (which are the creepiest and most awkward looking cats I’ve ever seen).  Also, did you know the lion’s roar can be heard up to five miles away?  The only sound that can be heard from farther away is my mother screaming EARTHQUAKE!  True story. [via]

I love puzzles.  Until the cats knock the pieces off the table and the Gus eats them.  Then I get a little bit of puzzle rage and the new neighbors wonder why Linsey is running around naked in the yard with a puzzle box on her head.  Maybe instead of doing regular puzzles, I’ll just put this awesome hardwood puzzle flooring in our house.  Eat that, Gus! [via]

You know, I realize that as a lady and not a man I can never realize the pain and torment of getting kicked in the balls.  I do understand enough to know that having them twisted until they come off is possibly one of the most horrifying things a guy could have happen to him.  I recoil in horror alongside you, gentlemen.  I am on your side.  This should not be allowed to happen.

I hope the guy who designed this retro PC gets enough funding so that I can buy this computer.  I realize I have a perfectly functional computer right now that is doing a great job in connecting me to the Internet and allowing me to bring you quality news and entertainment via this here quality website with all the quality and entertainment I have on here for you.  But seriously.  This computer would look so rad sitting in my office with all the other things I want to buy but don’t need.  Also, I hope it never comes in Mac because they don’t deserve it with their snooty Macbooks and Mac other things and Maciness.  Except you.  Never you. Also, yeah, I did just use the word “rad.”  I’m reliving my youth.

A few years ago I got three different waffle makers for Christmas.  Now I have a reason to use all three at once.  The Waffleizer, where the one question they aim to answer is: Will it waffle?  It’s liek someone made a special website based on my daydreams.   I’ll use one waffle maker to try the s’moreffles, one for the twice-waffled bread pudding and the last for plain waffles.  I will eat them all.

I saw this recipe for marmalade last week and I thought it might be interesting to try to make it, even if it does call for so much sugar that I’ll be in a diabetic coma when I eat it.  I was telling my mom about it and she got all excited and offered me a can of oranges.  I told her I wanted to use fresh oranges.  She kept insisting that they were fresh, she’d just poured them out of the can into a bowl.  I said No, Mom, fresh oranges! She was getting very angry that I was suggesting that her oranges were not fresh.   THESE ARE FRESH SEVILLE ORANGES!  THEY JUST CAME OUT OF THE CAN!  THEY ARE FROM SEVILLE! I said, Okay…fresh from the can, whatever.  And then she said I should just forget it.  She was very close to using the f-word and that is when you know my mom has had enough.  Side note: Seville oranges are used in place of the banned ingredient  ephedra in herbal weight-loss products.  They work as an appetite suppressant, so I guess I should have taken them to make a secret diet marmalade.  I could have made millions with my appetite suppressing fresh-canned Seville marmalade.

Making soccer balls is very complicated.  I never knew!  Watch as the 2010 FIFA World Cup match balls are made, IF YOU DARE!

People are weird, generally. Occasionally you come across people who are pretty fucking weird.  Like me, sure.  Okay.  You went for it.  Good for you!  But then there are people who are fucking crazy.  People who are pretty fucking crazy do things like tear another guy’s balls off and make their own sex dolls.  Yeah, I’m looking at you.  I know what you have hiding in that closet.

One day, pretty soon, when science figures out how to rehydrate my ovaries and get the stink of sulfur out of them, we’ll have a baby.  Since that baby will be so precious because it was made of the human body’s equivalent to a raisin, it will need to be protected from things like wind, rain and aliens.  That’s why I am endorsing the gun shape baby cradle, although I may hold out for one with a built-in rocket launcher.  Just in case.  You never can be too careful when it comes to babies.  Or so I hear, from people with babies, which I don’t have on account of the inability to do that sort of thing.  Nature so so cruel!

Sometimes you need to make sure you do something, but it needs to be done in the future and remembering is so hard sometimes because of all the drinking you’ve been doing.  Sometimes you need a reminder, but writing it on your calendar isn’t always enough.  Also, maybe your family is tired of having to call you the day before to make sure you remembered that they were getting together for Christmas on, you know, Christmas.  Hey, okay!  I have the tool for you.  FutureMe allows you to send your future self an email reminder.  Go ahead!  Do it!  Remind yourself that on December 29th, I’m having a birthday and you’ll not want to forget to celebrate with cake in the conference room like you did for everyone else.  Maybe this year you won’t forget.   And maybe I won’t forget that you forgot last year.  Because I send myself a daily reminder using FutureMe to make sure that the future me never forgets that you forgot it was my birthday and neglected to buy me a delicious cake.

Here’s another thing I’m going to make.  I thought Janie would appreciate it because I can use this recipe for grenadine it to make her the delicious Shirley Temple that she loves so much.  And since I made the drink she loves using an ingredient that I made myself, maybe it’ll convince her to finally take that top off.  Maybe.  But probably not.  JANIE IS SO SELFISH! [via]

You guys, I hate to harp on a subject, as you know.  I rarely beat a topic to death around here.  Certainly I never repeatedly make jokes about Janie, her top and my inability to have babies, but I can’t help but put another link to a waffle recipe.  Liege waffles are all the rage, suddenly.  Near my work, they opened a liege waffle shop.  So far I have tried the plain, banana brulee and chocolate varieties.  Well, the lovely Seattle blogger not martha has offered up her recipe for the perfect liege waffle so we can make them ourselves!  YES!  Check it out and make me some waffles.   But not the banana one because that was gross.

And just to, you know, keep the theme going, here’s a little article on the brief history of my rotting ovaries waffles.  But hey!  At least I didn’t mention the great Eggo waffle shortage of 2009!  Oh.  Damn it.

Wasn’t there a movie starring Nicole Kidman where she worked as  UN translator, but someone was trying to kill her because she mistranslated some words or spilled her hot cup of McDonald’s coffee on the prime minister of Canada or uncovered an assassination plot?  And she played someone from Africa because, apparently, everyone in Africa speaks with an Australian accent and is grotesquely pale?   I can’t remember because I didn’t see it and really it doesn’t matter.  I just thought this article on how interpretation works at the UN was pretty neat.

Some people are adopted.  Like our kids will probably be.  Sometimes those kids go looking for their birth parents and hey find them and develop loving relationships with the people who gave birth to them.  Then, sometimes, they find out their father is Charles Manson, who raped their mother in a drug-filled orgy, and they get crazy letters from prison.

I grew up thinking that my family had a lot secret family lingo, come to find out it was actually just German.  Anyhow, here’s a radio show on the secret language of families.  Janie and I are starting a secret language of our own involving only the most horrifying of words and swears.  They all mean “I love you” all the time, no matter how or where you say it, even if you scream it after someone breaks your car.  I’m not angry!  I’m saying I love you.  A LOT.

Several years ago, Janie’s parents took a month-long cruise to Antarctica and came back with some amazing photos of enormous glaciers.  I don’t have any copies to show you, but that’s okay because this website has some of the most beautiful and amazing photographic evidence that global warming is a total lie that I have ever seen.  And by lie, I mean not a lie, really.  Also, when they got their cruise materials, it said that if they fell off the boat into the frigid waters, they should just swim down as deep as they could because it would be less horrific to drown than to freeze to death.

These are the consequences of junk mail.  I think.  I don’t really know, but I like it.  I think that guy flipping his desk is screaming “PROSTITUTION WHORE!”  because after watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey, every table flip will need to include those words.

I’m a big fan of videos on how things are made, except for that one birthing video in high school health class.  Are you curious how toilets are made?  I wasn’t either, until I saw this.  Fascinating!

Next year, for Christmas, I’m going to make this caramel and fleur de Sel popcorn and bag it up all pretty, so it looks like I bought it.  Then I’m going to put price tags on them and give them out as gifts to people who will believe I paid $15.00 for two cups of Grandma’s Get it Poppin’, Bitch gourmet popcorn.

When I was in grade school, we had these yo-yo people come put on a show for us and then afterward they’d sell all of us unsuspecting kids a yo-yo or two with the expectation that we could do what they were doing.  I bought one that lit up and then I broke it pretty quickly after it yo’d straight into the wall.  Anyhow, here’s an interesting article on the world of professional yo-yoers.  The following is the best thing I’ve read all day: At last year’s World Yo-Yo Competition, one competitor was carted off on a stretcher. The injured yo-yoist, from Singapore, dislocated his knee during a freestyle competition, which often involves intense full-body choreography.

Some people write blogs because they’re looking to be noticed by publishers who will give them a book deal.  It happened to Dooce.  It happened to that woman who did the whole Julia Child’s cookbook thing.  It even happened to that crazy lady who spent a year following every piece of advice Oprah doled out on her show, inasmuch as she could afford to.  Whatever.  Fine.  I’m sure you’re a nice person but there are people who have done that that for free every day for 25 years.  Well, I am here to tell you that I feel fairly certain that no publisher will ever notice me over here in this small, quality corner of the Internet, which is why I am glad I found this website on bookbinding.  Yes.  After a few months of reading up on how to bind books in a variety of fashions, I’ll be publishing my own book of essays called: Oh.  OH.  OH NO.  DON’T DO THAT!  How to Make Love the Uncouth Heathen Way (with a hat tip to Bruce Campbell).

Well, that’s it for this edition of the link dump.  Come again!

I’m sitting at home, freezing my ass off because it’s 25 degrees outside.  That’s an estimate.  Fuck, dude, it’s chilly.  But it’s also beautiful, which is sad only because I’ve been home sick so far this week with head problems.  BOO.

I participated in the original Great Interview Experiment which was conceived by the great Neil from Citizen of the Month and now we’re on to round two.  The way it works is that you sign up and the person who signed up just before you is the one you will interview and the one just after you will conduct your interview.  I’m waiting on a final response from my interviewee, but in the meantime, I present to you the interview of uncouth heathen as conducted by Corine at Down to Earth Mama.  I’m pretty psyched that she interviewed me because she and I seem to have much in common, after clicking around her site a bit.  So when you’re done, do some further reading to get acquainted.

Down to Earth Mama interviews Linsey from uncouth heathen.

In other news:

Did any of you hear about that guy who, while diving in Australia, was stung by a tiny jellyfish no bigger than a peanut and was rushed to intensive care?  He was wearing a special wetsuit meant to keep the skin from contact with the venomous jellyfish known to be abundant during Australian summers.  The suits cover everything but the head, feet and hands.  So this dude dives into the water face-first, right into the most venemous jellyfish alive.  Seriously.  This is the stuff that would happen to me.

I have noticed a real uptick in the number of people finding supposed holy images.  Is it because we’re getting closer to Christmas and people are feeling more and more fucking crazy?  I don’t know.  Some people found an egg with a cross in it and I don’t know what the hell kind of egg that is, but there is more wrong with it than he fact that it has a cross on it.  What is it all yellow and shriveled?  They claim it is a message from God and I’m here to tell you that’s God’s message is DO NOT EAT THAT ROTTEN EGG. Then some lady found a Virgin Mary on her pancake.  I also heard someone found Jesus on her iron. Here are some other places people have claimed to see Jesus (I promise you, I did not make these up): marmite lid, a cheeto, Kit Kat, toilet seat, car window, curtain, burger grease and a dog’s ass.

To finish up, some jackass in prison shoved a weapon – a shiv – into his ass.  After a few weeks it started to chafe and I guess he couldn’t take it anymore so he told the guards and it had to be surgically removed.

I’m categorizing this post in WTHHI1950 (Would This Have Happened In 1950) because I want to know what you think – in 1950 would we have heard stories about finding Jesus in a toilet or some inmate concealing a shiv in his ass for three weeks?  Hit me with your thoughts on this.

Meet Hufu.  Tofu that tastes like human meat.  How do they know?  God only knows, but do we really want to take up the challenge of seeing if they’re right?  No, I don’t think so.  So for your vegan friends, especially the ones who make you watch all those PETA videos, this is the ideal gift.  (I’m just kidding.  It’s not real. Sorry vegan cannibals.)

★★★★★

Sometimes squirting ketchup and mustard onto your hot dog is so boring with those stupid glass bottles where you have to pound the shit out of it before anything comes out and then is streams out like an avalanche and before you can do anything your lunch is ruined!  RUINED!  Or maybe you’re just sick of those squeeze bottles with their self-righteous squeezy plastic and highfalutin condiment dispensing precision.  Well, if you’re sick and tired of all that and you want something totally unnecessary, then the Handgun Condiment Dispenser is the gift for you.

Sometimes you get angry and when you get angry you need to shoot a gun.  I understand that.  What better way get out your grumples and make it look like you just murdered someone in cold blood than with this people-pleaser?  No one gets hurt and the only real damage is maybe you have an extra load of laundry to do.  My god, the scores Janie and I could settle with this precious prize.  In fact, I’m going to order a baker’s dozen for my entire family!  Our disputes will end this holiday season, one way or another.

★★★★★

If you’re looking for the perfect holiday gift for that special someone in your life – and by special someone I mean alcoholic uncle -  have I got an idea for you.  Because sometimes a metal flask isn’t going to cut it.  When you’re drunk on that firewater your cousin from Tennessee gave you, it can happen that your dexterity isn’t dexteriteous enough to unscrew that tiny metal cap and you need something easier, like a Capri Sun pouch but cooler and more obvious.  Restoration Hardware to the rescue, my friends!  The good people at Wired.com have nothing but good things to say about these Disposable Hip Flasks being sold in a set of 3 for $15.00:

Apart from the price (and the decoration), I like these liquor-sacks. When you’re done, they fold flat, and their flexible form means that they could be easily secreted in the crotchal region to defeat all but the most enthusiastic of friskings. A win for secret alcoholics everywhere.

I’m on board with any product that can be referred to as a liquor-sack.  Seriously.  Confidential to Janie: Put this in my stocking.

★★★★★

Sometimes people get lonely and when they get lonely they think, hey, I know, I’ll get a cat.  They feel better for a while, but then the loneliness sets in again and that’s when they go out and get another cat.  Pretty soon you end up with a bushel of cats and no one will take them off your hands, not even if you leave them on their front porch with a note clipped to them saying “I’m all out of love.  I’m so lost without you.”  Somehow those cats just keep coming back with a new note clipped to them saying “Fuck you and stop giving me your rotten cats.”  Come on, Mom!  Rude!  Anyhow, do you know anyone who fits this description?  I do (Janie).  And that’s why I’m going to pass out the Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure.

★★★★★

One time, many years ago when I was a sad, lonely loser, back before Janie rescued me from my horrible life as a shut-in, I went camping by myself.  I drove and drove until I found a campsite with availabilities.  Since i t was Labor Day weekend and I hadn’t made reservations anywhere because I didn’t know any better on account of the fact that I am mildly retarded most times, I couldn’t afford to be picky.  I finally settled in to a little campsite about an hour and a half outside of Seattle, a lovely little weekend home perched next to a large gathering of power transformers.  All day and night there was the constant hum of power lines all around us.  It was so powerful that you could actually feel the vibrations on your face if you sat still long enough which is what you can do when you’re camping by yourself and you have nothing to do because, hey, guess what!  Camping alone is dumb unless you’re running from the fuzz.  Well, that camping trip was what I first thought of when I came across the Powermat Wireless Charger.

Charge three devices all at once without plugging them in.  Just rest them on the mat and viola! they’ll be charged up in no time on account of something sciency sounding having to do with magnetic fields.  Also, I’m not sure, but I bet you could radiate a brain tumor if you hold it up to your face.

★★★★★

Sometimes Janie does things that make me so mad!  And when I get mad I usually clean the house.  Seriously.  That’ll show her!  This god dammn sink will be so clean she’ll be apologizing for weeks! That’s just the kind of crazy we’re living with here.  So, if you’re living with someone like me, the perfect gift to give them is the Apology Notepad.  Actually, I just gave this to my sister after she had a bad day.  Because she’s my sister and we both inherited the crazy from a long, long line of people who are just not right.

Mostly what I would do is pre-check the boxes that say things like, I’m sorry I’m crazy or I’m sorry I did whatever I did just now because it was probably inappropriate and embarrassing to you.  Then I’ll just leave them on Janie’s pillow every night before we go to bed because that is how things go around here.

★★★★★

From time to time, tragedy strikes.  If you know someone who has had a family member crushed to death by falling objects, what better way to keep their memory alive than these beautifully crafted Falling Books Bookends.

Choose from frantically running away to avoid being crushed to death or accepting your fate but doing you best to soften the blow by holding your hands in the air because maybe you’re stronger than you think and you can hold up that cement wall like Superman.  A beautiful gesture that will be cherished by all.

★★★★★

It’s so inconvenient to have a dog because what really makes them different from cats is that they don’t have the good sense to shit in the box you keep in your office closet.  Instead they go outside and crap on that grass you planted this summer that is already dead, again, for the second God damn year in a row.  And then you have to find a plastic baggie or a leaf or something to pick it up and throw it away so that some unsuspecting person, such as a certain someone I know who shall remain nameless, doesn’t mistake it for a leaf and try to pick it up and OOPS!  I have dog shit on my fingers! That is why I love the PooTrap.

No Poops!  No oops!  Just strap this ridiculous and humiliating harness on your dog and let them shit in a bag before your very eyes.  I bet they’ll be the envy of the dog park with all that gear.  If nothing else, you could strap this on when you’re out with your friend who has the colostomy bag, you know, for solidarity.

★★★★★

Most people are pet lovers and those who aren’t are probably murderers or bus drivers.  Sometimes people love their pets so much they need to take them wherever they go.  When Gus was younger and small enough to fit into my coat, I’d take him to the store with me.  If I had known about the following products I probably would have taken him to work.  Choose from five patented Wearable Pet Carriers.

It’s handy ergonomic straps make it easy to carry your best friend wherever you go.  If you’re concerned that your dog might be a bit too large to spend some quality time attached to your bosom in this cage and not snap your spine in half, never fear (I’m talking to my sister, specifically).  Just try the calf carrier.  You’ll be hauling your black lab around town like it’s second nature.

★★★★★

I know a lot of people who are having babies lately and I’m slowly learning to work through my bitterness and anger at those who are fortunate enough to birth a baby and then dangle it in front of my devastated infertile face.  So if you have a pregnant friend who is excited about giving birth, what better gift to give than a hand-made childbirth education doll, complete with troublingly large breasts, a functioning birth canal and an anatomically correct baby with a dangling red afterbirth.  If the $150.00 price has got you down, never fear!  You can knit that shit yourself for just under $15.00.  The website warns that is is not a project for the beginner, but I don’t know if that means knitting or birthing.

Is it wrong to feel sad that  even a woman made out of yarn can have a baby and I still can’t?  The science of infertility needs to do some research here because I’m a childless woman with rotting ovaries on the edge of a breakdown here!  I could raise that yarn baby so nice.

★★★★★

Well, that’s it for the First Annual Holiday Gift Guide. Come back again next year for more amazing ideas!