The Week: March 16, 2012

Seattle’s weather has been crazier than usual lately. In the span of an hour, I’ve seen every form of precipitation: drizzle, sleet, snow, hail, and then, for good measure, blue skies. I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but it just might be the end of the world (no one warned me that the end of days would require galoshes).

Or maybe it’s just March. Either way, I’m going to start stockpiling canned goods. You enjoy these links.

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Totally digging the comic-book and video-game-inspired art of Christopher Umiga. (Props for making the Joker look adorable, which is no small feat).

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First, turn the volume off (otherwise it will drive you crazy), then enjoy wasting your precious time playing the Kanye Zone Game (it’s low tech and addictive. Here’s the story behind it).

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In a risky and amazing feat of photography, James Appleton managed to capture the Northern Lights and the lava from the Eyjafjallajökull fissure in the same frame.

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I absolutely love Audri’s Rube Goldberg Monster Trap Machine. It will make you smile. Promise.

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If you are a Beatles fan, I suggest you check this funky little site out immediately before copyright ninjas bring it down.

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Are “please” and “thank you” becoming relics of the past? Are we becoming ruder as a population? NPR takes a look.

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Because I can’t go a week without some kind of Star Wars geekery: “Why I am leaving the Empire, By Darth Vader.”

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This creepy thread on reddit about unexplained phenomena gave me goosebumps. Still, I couldn’t stop reading it.

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My friend Deanna though she had booked a nice, quiet little cottage for her family vacation. Instead, she found the place was filled with taxidermied cats, erotic daggers, porcelain dolls, and other tchotchkes. I know. I am so jealous, I can barely type.

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This video, sent to me by the almost-always-brilliant Mike Sowden, about the markets of Britain had me laughing to the point of tears. TEARS, I tell you.

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Enjoy, and have a great (and hopefully dry) weekend.