The Duck's Nest: online home of mizducky

Buddha-shaped pears (and other fun with fruit shaping)

Baby shaped pears « Cakehead Loves Evil.

Well, I guess when a pear is forced to grow in a Buddha-shaped mold, it can be kind of hard to tell whether the end result looks more like a Buddha or a baby. But it looks cutely odd. Or oddly cute. And the blog post shows many other examples of fruits and vegetables forced to do humanity's bidding (cubical watermelons? eerily anthropomorphic roots?). Aesthetic statement or just too much time one their hands--who can say. But it's definitely different. (Courtesy of a Facebook friend--thanks, Kristin!)

Yes, Virginia, there is an underground warehouse party scene in San Diego

... and I caught up with it courtesy of my friend Dale, who forwarded to me this Facebook event notice. There I found a cool environment with all the classic amenities, including retro cartoon video projections, lots of chill-perches, and an energized crowd dressed in festive attire ... plus an incredible performance by an outfit called the MarchFourth Marching Band, which comports itself like a cross between a Mardi Gras band and a mobile Cirque du Soleil.

Click on the thumbnail images to check out a couple of samples of the scene -- admittedly blurry, taken in low light on my cell, even after tweaking in Photoshop. But you'll get the idea.

 

Demented fanfic "at the top of lung!"

You don't have to be a gamer (I'm not); you don't even have to be a fanfic writer (I am, though not a slavishly fan-geeky one) to appreciate the demented goofiness of this video clip. My understanding is that some person or persons stumbled upon this fanfic set in the world of the video game Half Life 2, and found it so hysterical that they couldn't resist making an video that took all its moronic weirdnesses to their literalistic extremes. This silly thing can reduce me to helpless gibbering laughter. You have been warned.

Japanese Food - Aokubi Daikon

Japanese Food - Aokubi Daikon.

The Japanese pop culture cult of kawaii (cuteness) strikes again! Though I suppose an adorably anthropomorphized daikon radish is no stranger than our Mr. Potato Head. True confession time: I think the leafy topknots are especially cute.

New horizons on the verbing-of-nouns front

Alexander Haig may have been a little more famous for his "I'm in charge here!" verbalization, but for word-geeks like me he'll earn a special place in one of the circles of literary purgatory for declaring that "there is no noun that can't be verbed."

Well, the flood of verbed nouns has continued so unceasingly since then that it's easy to miss a few here and there. So I hope I can be forgiven for missing the fact that, somewhere in there, Facebook became a verb. Geez, it hasn't even been a noun all that long!

Mind you, I'm not only a member of Facebook, but I have this little widget (now there's an annoying little word invention right there) that posts a little notice on my Facebook page every time I post to my Typepad blog. So I don't really have a leg to stand on here.

Except for the fact that I'm becoming a curmudgeon in my old age, and curmudgeons reserve the right to be curmudgeonly at anything, at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all. How's that for the gentle art of curmudgeoning? (Hey, do I get extra points for not only verbing it, but gerunding it as well?)

Freaky Fthanksgiving: White Castle Turkey Stuffing

Just in time for your Thanksgiving menu planning:

White Castle Turkey Stuffing.

And if that isn't enough to give you The Fear, how about a nice ball of White Castle Paté?

New horizions in anime themed merchandizing: Lupin III novelty fishing lures?!?

Two Lupin the 3rd novelty lures new in boxes - eBay (item 380080922903 end time Nov-18-08 19:43:31 PST).

Yep, nothing says "Lupin" quite like a fishing lure. What it says about Lupin, though, I can't quite decypher.

Okay, the fangeek in me will admit that I've seen Lupin wielding a fishing rod at least twice in various TV episodes. In one, the item he was "fishing" for was the beach towel protecting the modesty of a buxom sunbather. So that's reassuringly typical Lupinesque behavior. But still. Fishing tackle. Really. And the company that markets these darn things also markets ones themed on The Simpsons, Popeye ... and Reservoir Dogs. Weird.