Worksafe link spam has a stitch from laughing too hard

The worst things for sale

Very weird things + snark. For when your day job is getting you down and the room is sound-proofed.

begin quote [photo eliminated by JK to ensure WSity] It’s a plastic gun, shaped like a naked woman, but instead of a head she has an enormous erect penis, and it’s full of butane and you use it to light a cigarette.

I was hoping the customer reviews would say that if you flip it over, it vomits diarrhea and yells “TOUCH MY BUTT” through a little speaker, but no, it’s just two different guys who bought it and were surprised that it didn’t work. quote ends

The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things blog

Centuries of art exploring the monstrous human, respectful discussion, utter WTFery, and as kestrel says, fodder for a thousand SF stories.

begin quote In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the preserved skins of exotic animals from faraway lands were brought back to Europe by explorers. The hides would be handed over to taxidermists whose job it was to prepare them for display by stuffing the skins and giving them a life-like appearance. However, the taxidermists often just had to guess at the shape and appearance of these unfamiliar animals based on crude sketches and descriptions, resulting in grotesque physical distortions which would appear unsettling to the modern eye. (See this article on bad taxidermy on the fantastic Ravishing Beasts blog).

James Lomax’s Untitled [Me and My Friend] (2011) disturbs and captivates me in the same way that this kind of grotesque taxidermy does. Created as a haunting tribute to a close friend who passed away in tragic circumstances, the work is comprised of two latex casts of the artist’s body. The perpetually distorted figures inflate and deflate at random intervals, giving them an unpredictable life and death cycle accompanied by the menacing mechanical scream of the inflation device. Like the distorted animal skins, James’ deflated bodies are re-animated into bizarre caricatures of their former selves, reshaped into an uncomfortable state between living and dead. quote ends

I was about to research a third great link, but sasha_feather told me I don't need three so I'm posting now. (Also told me I didn't need a cut so I'm not editing to add one.) We have tons of fun on my couch when we're writing Serious Essays.

ETA: Here's that third great link because it's so good:

Frustrations of an Asian-American Whedonite by Michael Le at Racialicious. He got up at SDCC and asked Joss Whedon the question so many of us have wondered about:

begin quote One of the things I loved about Firefly was the exploration of the fusion of Asian and American cultures. Many Asian Americans go through a similar journey. I was wondering, if you were to explore that again in the future, if you would be willing to include Asian or Asian American performers? quote ends