The Week: June 16, 2014

Last week I felt kinda … “off.” I arrived late to appointments, I forgot random letters and words in emails and blog posts (if you read anything coherent from me, that was thanks to Rand’s editing), and in the end, I didn’t even get my weekly round-up posted.

I know it’s Monday, and that it isn’t really a day for slacking off, but I figured that a lot of these were too good not to share. So better late than never, here are the links, along with the promise that this week, I’ll be on my game a little more. Maybe.

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Buzzfeed checks out the Delia’s catalog from 1997. Baggy pants, ringer t-shirts, puffy vests? Yup. I pretty much wore all of this stuff. Thank god there were no digital cameras back then.

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I know it’s nowhere near April, but this is delightful: A professor at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, forced students to answer calls on speakerphone whenever their cell phones went off during class. This created the perfect set-up for a brilliant April Fool’s prank.

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A few months ago, I posted about how very few of the eponymous airports were named after women, and mentioned a few of my favorite female aviation pioneers. A reader sent me this link about another notable flying woman. She may not have her own airport, but she’s got a nifty statue and (hey, cool!) we share a first name.

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A list of 10 (hopefully) helpful tips from bloggers on how to overcome writer’s block (and yes, one of the tips is from you-know-who.)

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Father’s Day was yesterday (I gave my dad a call, and had a remarkably delightful and somewhat hilarious conversation with him. I think he was half-asleep – it was late in Germany). In honor of the holiday, one writer interviews his father about “foodie” culture. The results are amazing (via my friend @gastrognome)

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If you live in the U.S., you’ve probably been inundated with news stories about people barging into schools/movie theaters / restaurants / Wal-Marts and indiscriminately shooting down victims. The NRA’s response has always been “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” One gun-owner explains why it’s not as simple as that.

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The good minds at Mashable have put together a map of all the mass shootings in America since Sandy Hook. There have been about six dozen of them.

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My brilliant friend Pam gives some tips on how we Americans can explain our history of mass shootings to our foreign friends and family. She’s taken a lot of abuse for this post, which is unfortunate, because it is brilliant, justifiably angry, and (sadly) very, very true.

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Last weekend was graduation day at my alma mater here in Seattle. This little comic rather brilliantly sums up the whole concept of commencement speakers.

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European cab drivers are protesting Uber and clogging the streets with empty cabs. The result? A lot more people are signing up for Uber.

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Don’t go anywhere – I’ve got more posts to come this week!