1. This Map of Great British TV Shows – Created by Tim Ritz, fans of British television will love this map. It also has a cute backstory:
From Tim Ritz’s website:
One day my wife asked me to make a little sketch of the UK so she could envision where some of the cities depicted in our favorite shows are located. Then she said “You should do a really good version of this”, so that’s what I set out to do.
Then it got picked up by the Daily Mail, The Atlantic, Radio Times, The Evening Standard, and generally around the internet.
Click on the map below to go to a high-res (larger) version of the map that you can actually read.
2. This Art Therapy Practice, Zentangle – A friend of mine introduced me to this a few weeks ago and I’m a little obsessed. The purpose is primarily to both inspire creativity and allow for relaxation.
I’m not so sure I find it relaxing… yet.
Here’s the first one I tried (I’m doing kid’s level projects right now – as a person who was a children’s librarian for about 12 years I’ve found the best starting place is always kid’s level.)
And here’s my first attempt.
3. These New Series – Afterparty & Murderville – If you are in a funk because ‘Only Murders in the Building’ is on hiatus then check out these two new shows.
Afterparty (AppleTV) is probably my favorite of the two. The show starts out with someone having been murdered and then each episode is a replay of the evening told from the point-of-view of the different guests at an after party that was held following a high school reunion. At first you think you really hate all the characters or that they are just weird as hell but after they have their episode, if you’re like me, you will find yourself rooting for all of them and hoping that none of them are the murderer.
Murderville (Netflix) – this series is unique. Here’s the premise – a grizzled detective named Terry Seattle (played by Will Arnett) lost his partner years ago. Since then he has gone through a string of new partners, the latest being celebrities, namely Conan O’Brian, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Sharon Stone, Ken Jeong, and Annie Murphy – all playing themselves. The new “partners” each have to solve a crime (they really don’t know who’s done it!) The celebrities also don’t have scripts.
It’s very funny. I’m amazed at how the suspects are able to keep straight faces. And Arnett does some fabulous ad-libbing. I hope they do more episodes. I binged all six in a few hours.
4. This 8-WEEK OLD Baby Girl Telling Her Parents “I Love You” – And if you think this is a trick or they are really good actors, nope. Here’s an article in the Greenville News and Anderson Cooper covered it on CNN’s The Goods. AMAZING! I’ve watched it about a dozen times… so far.
5. These Results for a Contest Held by the Minnesota DOT – People can be SO CLEVER!!! I think we can all agree on which one is the best name.
The results are in and Minnesota has eight newly named snowplows.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation announced the results of its second annual “Name a Snowplow” contest, which attracted hundreds of pun-tastic submissions.
Here are the winners, and the districts in which they’ll be operating:
Betty Whiteout – District 8 (SW Minnesota)
Ctrl Salt Delete – District 7 (SW Minnesota)
The Big Leplowski – District 4 (West-Central Minnesota)
Plowasaurus Rex – Metro District
Scoop Dogg – District 3 (Central Minnesota)
Blizzard of Oz – District 2 (NW Minnesota)
No More Mr. Ice Guy – District 1 (NE Minnesota)
Edward Blizzardhands – District 6 (SE Minnesota)
6. These Unexpected Heroes in the Fight Against Censorship – I think my first introduction to Furries was on an episode of NCIS. And of course, as with everything that people don’t understand, it was made out to be silly and kinky.
Skipping to a different topic, have you heard about this batshit crazy mayor in Mississippi who decided (unilaterally I might add) that he was going to withhold the public library’s funds ($110,000) unless the director removed all the LGBTQ books???
One would think that sanity would prevail – that when the rest of the board found out they would say, no, we can’t do that. Or when the municipal attorney counseled them he/she would say – um, that is against the ordinances/statutes but sadly that is not what happened. In fact, after the board met the entire board not only backed up the batshit crazy mayor but the attorney said that it was kosher.
What’s a library director to do? Well, she said up a GoFundMe (or at least the library version of one.) And that’s where I get back to the Furries. One Furry saw what had happened and was outraged (for good reason) and shared the fund-raiser and it got shared and shared and shared until….
The library is almost to $99,000 on it’s Library Fundraising page!!! Consider making a donation. I did! (Click on the photo below for the full story.)
7. This Video Called ‘Epic Time with Alan Rickman’ – I haven’t thought about this in a while but a friend of mine (Hi Stasie) posted something on FB that made me think of it so I thought I’d put in in my blog this week. Damn, I miss Alan Rickman.
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