Friday Links: Bunnies and Breaking Bad Edition

Posted on by thepoelog

My bosses have been out this week. By bosses, I mean my editor, who’s on vacation this week and next. And my lifestyle-coordinator-manager XFE. He’s abandoned me for a cross-country golf trip with his dad to celebrate Senior XFE’s retirement.

This means I have to single-handedly run a multimedia information empire (hey, we post videos sometimes), and attend the approximately bazillion meetings that my work boss attends (including meetings to discuss work products that cannot be worked on because of mandatory attendance at said meetings where we discuss the potential work products that can someday be worked on if one is not in meetings.)

Literally, one of my notes from a recent meeting suggests we take a Facebook poll on which filter to use on an Instagram of our forthcoming infographic, and then write an online story about the poll results, which we should then pin via our association Pinterest account and reblog on our campaign/initiative’s Tumblr. Obviously, tweeting from our various Twitter accounts along the way. It was all very META. And hopefully, a joke.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yes, not only am I booty-cheek deep in all that outlined above, BUT, I also have to care for and feed myself this week, including setting my own alarm, which I failed to do this morning. (And also, feed and care for my chubby cat. But really, that’s just a footnote.)

As a result of managing my own life in both a professional and personal sense, I am quite the tired bunny. In fact, I’m such a tired bunny, I stole this gif of a tired worker bunny from this Texan, who is a freaking hilarious genius.

 

Every time I’ve felt stressed out the last couple of days, I’ve looked at that gif. It slays me.

Here’s some other things from around the InterWebs that have helped me get through the week.

  • In honor of Shark Week, a video of a dissection of a Mako shark. Spoiler alert: his last meal was a 200-pound seal.
  • I feel like every year, just as Porktober is poking its pointy pink ears up over the horizon, there’s a story warning about bacon shortages. Here’s this year’s. And now I’m going to be obssessed about Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus. Awesome.
  • The Duggars better watch out. Deadbeat dad Orlando Shaw, who has 22 kids from 14 different women, says he’s got a reality show in the works. I dunno, if they couldn’t get All My Babies’ Mamas made, what chance does this guy have?
  • I hate WalMart and I love libraries. We need more of this.
  • Sephora is nirvana and I run around like an insane person who’s never been exposed to toiletry products every time I go in there. Which is why I try to order online instead.
  • Did you know there are an estimated 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world? That and other world enders are outlined in this terrifying infographic. Might as well hit up the casino (casino.org produced the infographic. No subtlety there.)
  • And finally, the most amazing thing in the history of ever (in just six minutes): a middle school musical version of Breaking Bad. These kids deserve an Emmy. Or, at least, a trip to Comic-Con next year.

So, It’s Shark Week.

Posted on by thepoelog

I can tell by the keyword searches that are bringing folks to thePoeLog that the worldwide Interwebs audience is breathless with anticipation to hear my thoughts on Shark Week.

The keyword searches this week have consistently been shark related (well, except for a very odd and brief divergence into Kate Gosselin territory in which someone on Monday searched for news about Kate Gosselin and visited my site for said information THIRTY-FIVE times. Wouldn’t you figure it out, oh, say, after the first five times?)

Anyway, there have been some pretty funny searches, including “sad shark,” “sharks in Australia,” “sharks killing people,” “shark riding bears,” and my personal favorite: “shark week themed appetizers.” Because, honestly, how can you have a pseudo-self-proclaimed holiday or highly marketed week of themed television programming, and NOT have the appropriate snacks to accompany it?

(I’ve actually put a lot of thought into this and have decided that “shark week themed appetizers” should definitely include lots of red food coloring and ripped off limbs of things, like chicken wings. And those Goldfish crackers. You are welcome, Martha Stewart.)

shutterstock/Iriana Shiyan

Thanks to these shark-related searches, Everybody’s a Comedian When They Get Bit By a Shark and Shark Week is Apparently EVERY Week in Australia have been my most popular and visited posts this week.

So, as you can see, my feelings on sharks are well documented and run the gamut from hated to loathed, with more than a dash of fear thrown in. Why anyone would want to watch hours and hours of sharks attacking things is completely beyond me. I find it quite alarming just how much footage there is.

Y’all know sharks are having a big ol’ laugh at our expense, right? They’ve heard about Shark Week. And they think it’s morbid that we insist on watching what basically amounts to snuff films of our own species, all right there on the so-called Discovery Channel. As this guy put it in a very good Huffington Post article on the popularity of Shark Week:

Newsweek’s Isia Jasiewicz mused more cynically, “It’s a sadistic fascination with the horrific misfortunes of cute surfer boys, friendly marine biologists, and… innocent dolphins.”

The guys at Discovery are going all out. There are a truly alarming number of so called “games” on their website, including Shark Week Bingo, Shark Week Chompdown, Shark Munch, and a feature that lets you “shark yourself.”

No wonder the incidences of shark attacks have been steadily increasing. How are you going to have a healthy dose of fear if the Discovery Channel is going to make sharks all fun and playful??

Not helping.

Then, there are the shows. “Sharkzilla,” “Air Jaws Apocalypse,” and perhaps, (OK, no, definitely) the most terrifying of all: “Adrift: 47 Days With Sharks.” Here’s the description for that gem:

During a routine search and rescue mission over the Pacific in WWII, an American plane crashed into shark-infested waters. This is the inspiring true story of two war heroes — one an Olympian, one a pastor’s son — who managed to survive a record-breaking 47 days at sea in a life raft. They subsisted on only the food they were able to catch from the ocean and the water they were able to collect from the rain, all while fighting off a gang of sharks that were their constant companions. But when they finally did reach land, it was only the beginning of their troubles. What happened to these men is one of the greatest tests of faith, will and endurance of our time.

I might have just chummed my pants. “Gangs of sharks?” No, thank you. The only gangs I roll with are one of the 1700 species of shark-killing parasitic copepods or the two pugnose eels that somehow swim their way into a shark heart and kill it (warning: that last website is pretty gross).

Maybe we can convince Discovery to start having Parasite or Eel Week. I’d watch that.

Or, combine Shark Week with the Olympics. That might be “fun.”