The Week: December 14, 2012

I HAVE HOLIDAY SHOPPING TO DO.

Please excuse me while I go freak out. Christmas is in 11 days. Hanukkah is basically over. To everyone in my life: let’s just pretend that my love is gift enough, okay? It’s like an Amazon gift card for your heart or something like that.

On with the links!

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Not sure if this is brilliance, or sacriledge. It might be both. Famous photos reimagined as cellphone self-portraits.

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A list of The New York Times 50 Most Challenging Words. (Fun fact: Rand and I often fight about the pronunciation of “verisimilitude”. Because we are total dorks.)

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A map of where your tap water comes from. Note: no one let Bane see this (Did I mention that I finally saw the new Batman movie on a plane? I did.)

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Photographer Lalage Snow took portraits of British soldiers before, during, and after their deployments in Afghanistan. The results are haunting.

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Positively swooning over artist Evan Roberts’ literary posters. (Please, please, please do a Dorothy Parker quote next. I will buy it immediately.)

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I realize I link to a different xkcd comic every week, but you know what? THEY ARE AWESOME. Like this chart of the depths of different lakes and oceans.

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This is nothing short of brilliant: infants’ and toddlers’ Facebook posts about their parents.

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Sometimes the Onion hits waaay too close to home: Business Man Goes Home For The Holidays to Network With Family.

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A glimpse at what space data looked like in 1962.

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For the millions of people who can’t make it to a real beach, a fake one is just a good. Photographer Reiner Riedler takes a look at the stranger world of fake vacation spots (it’s just as odd and interesting as it sounds).

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Michael Caine talks about life, acting, and the art of being Michael Caine. I swoon.

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Must go stimulate the economy now.