For Roxane – an in-depth look at the Furious 7 trailer (okay, to be honest, it’s not that in-depth. It’s mostly just “a look”).
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She really did!
Gabi really took it up a notch pic.twitter.com/uRUf4T4VKs
— shelby fero (@shelbyfero) February 1, 2015
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This sounds good! I hope very much that something will come of this.
“Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is taking personal responsibility for his platform’s chronic problems with harassment and abuse, telling employees that he is embarrassed for the company’s failures and would soon be taking stronger action to eliminate trolls. He said problems with trolls are driving away the company’s users. ‘We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” Costolo wrote in an internal memo obtained by The Verge. “It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.’”
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Did You Know Spider-Man And Sailor Moon Have A Shared Enemy?
I DID NOT
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It is quite possibly a bit dumb to feel sad about this, because 99% of my fondness for (and, honestly, awareness of) Brian Williams stems from his (DELIGHTFUL) guest appearances on 30 Rock, but this timeline of his changing story about his experience in Iraq is fairly damning. I wish very much he hadn’t done this!
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I think maybe Angel and Ireland are back together? Which, thank God if true, I was not ready to bear the emotional burden of living in that world.
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If you are (or know) a high school student in the Bay Area, consider coming to this free event tonight! If you are older than a high school student, consider [Logan’s Run joke here].
First Thursday: Toasts and Texts with Mallory OrtbergDate: 2/5/2015 7:00 PM – 9:00 PMCost: FreeLocation: Creekside Room
375 Throckmorton Ave.
Mill Valley, California 94941
Mallory Ortberg was 27 when she co-created the-toast.net. A year and a half later, the website gets over 1 million monthly visitors. Her debut book, Texts From Jane Eyre has garnered rave reviews from The Huffington Post, NPR, New York Magazine, and a plethora of other media outlets. Join us as she shares her experiences with you—the next generation of writers, bloggers, and media moguls—and talks about what it takes to create a smart and funny media empire.
For high school students only. Registration required.
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Oh man, let’s go look for this!
At about an hour after sunset on Saturday, February 7, and for the next two weeks afterward, keen sky-watchers in the Northern Hemisphere can hunt down one of the most elusive of astronomical phenomena: zodiacal light.
This pyramid-shaped beam of light is easily mistaken for the lights of a far-off city just over the dark horizon in the countryside. It has also been called the “false dawn.” But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust between the planets.
The best time to catch this ghostly sky light is about an hour after sunset, looking toward the western horizon from the dark countryside.
This celestial phenomenon is actually the reflection of billions of dust-size particles left behind in interplanetary space after the planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
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“the lucky snake crawls out of the mouth of a larger snake” oh wow it sure does
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“After a private celebration at the British Library on Monday, 1,215 lottery winners will have the chance to view the documents on Tuesday. On Wednesday, academics from across the world will descend on London to analyze the copies side by side, and on Thursday the four versions will make an appearance at the House of Lords in Westminster.”
UGH, YOU SNOOTY SNOOTS, I DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO SEE FOUR MAGNA CARTAS AT THE SAME TIME ANYHOW
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Did you know Father Guido Sarducci is the longest-running original character to appear on SNL? I bet your dad knows. I bet your dad cracks up when Guido Sarducci comes on. Mine does, and I wouldn’t change that fact for anything.
Tags: link roundup, the internet
I didn’t even remember that Angel and Ireland broke up in the first place, I repressed it so hard.
This is all news to me, the last I heard she was dating a guy named “Slater Trout.”
(I assume the improbability of a name like “Slater Trout” is why I knew about it at all)
That’s probably the only instance where I would be thrilled to be referred to as “Mrs. (Husband’s name)”.
Mrs. Ireland Trout.
I don’t know, I just don’t know.
I was thinking more like “Mr. and Mrs. Slater Trout”. Though that has kind of a ring to it, too…
Kilgore Trout’s nephew, obvs.
I tried out The System last night and well, here I am. Hello east coasters, your world is strange and new to me.
(crazy arm waving) WELCOME to the world of TOMORROW!!
I’m a little confused by that whole Sailor Moon article tbh…like, he’s complaining that there’s no merch? But there is actually a lot of merch Stateside now? You walk into any Hot Topic, there’s a shitload of shirts and keychains and stationery and all that explicitly produced for an English-speaking audience. You can get the expensive collector-grade stuff like Figuarts and the necklaces on Amazon. Is the complaint more about how the show is being targeted? The DIC dub hasn’t been on the air in ten years, so I don’t even know why they’re bringing that up.
So all Viz can do is market the show, but like…the only place they show anime on TV anymore is Adult Swim, and this isn’t really an Adult Swim kinda property.
I think I’m overanalyzing this.
I am sincerely disappointed that the common enemy turned out to be “complicated licensing agreements.” I was really hoping to read about the time Spider-Man fought Queen Metallia or got into a snark-off with Kunzite or some shit.
I would pay good money to see Doc Ock and Professor Tomoe being bros somewhere.
That is disappointing! I was really hoping it was a little-known crossover myself.
Also I’m not sure why it would be a huge disaster if the show didn’t make Viz super rich via merchandise? I mean, if they make enough from ads and DVDs to cover the licensing fees and the translation and whatnot and also a bit of profit, why wouldn’t that be sufficient? And if Toei is making enough from merch in Japan to continue making the show, then it seems like everything should be fine.
Looking at Viz’s site, they don’t seem to have merch for anything. All they appear to be selling is books and DVDs (and digital versions of books and shows). So it seems unlikely that “sell a lot of merch” is even the business model they’re trying for.
Looking at the comments on The Mary Sue and stuff about this dude’s book, everything seems really baseless. Like, okay dude, you worked for DiC when the initial dub came out. You want it marketed towards kids, Pop Tarts and Saturday morning cartoons, and that’s just not how things work anymore. The target age demographic for Crystal at least skews much older now. The people watching are the type of people that stream media digitally, that use DVR or on-demand services for just about everything, why is that a bad model vs. what you thought worked ten, fifteen years ago?
When I was at NYCC this year, there was a HUGE Viz booth, with giant floor-to-ceiling banners advertising both the reboot series and the new DVD sets. There were displays of the Figuarts figurines, the Proplica props, things targeted to adult collectors vs. kids. I definitely agree that Viz’s model is nothing like what this guy thinks it should be and that’s probably why he’s bothered.
My dad does, indeed, crack up at the mention of Father Guido Sarducci. When I was in middle school I was in a play called Anything Goes, where I had to play a pastor who brought two racist caricatures of Chinese people onto the cruise ship, and somehow my parents convinced me to play it via Guido Sarducci impression.
I did it, even though I didn’t know what it was! No one stopped me! Middle school theater is terrible.
My childhood is dotted with impressions and one-liners that I only later learned were borrowed from pop culture. My parents had this French waiter routine that they would pull out when they wanted me to eat my peas, which turned out to be a recreation of that gross-out scene from The Meaning of Life.
Oh, man, I can still do whole sections of jokes from something called “Firesign Theater”, which was apparently really popular when my parents were in college, and to this day I only have the vaguest idea of what it actually is.
(I think it was like a radio sketch comedy show? Like radio Kids in the Hall or something? Except one time they just did a straight up detective program for an hour?)
The Firesign Theater are amazing! Yes, old-timey radio style fun shot through with hippie/pop culture, wordplay, and that sense of really sticking it to that Spiro Agnew guy. Someone taped me a few albums, then I taped over them with Hole and Nirvana albums but when the music ended there were comedy remnants left and yes, I am 200 years old.
It’s pretty weird, because this joke about “If you’re so smart, why don’t you pick up your cues faster?” “Are those my cues?” “Yes, and they must be dry by now, why don’t you get them out of the cellophane before the scorch” was just a perfectly common touchstone in my house for many years, to the point where I make those jokes reflexively in any environment where people are talking about cues, and it always takes me a second to remember that basically no one else knows what it’s a reference to.
It’s like when I went to college and started talking about Mummers and everyone stared at me blankly until I realized that most cities don’t even HAVE a Mummers’ Day.
There was such a beautiful flowering of Weird in the late 60s.
Your parents sound awesome and I want to know them.
My parents are in fact awesome. I also think they saw child-rearing as an opportunity to troll.
This is actually my only goal as a parent. It’s going well so far; I will say, the best proof is exactly how many eye rolls and heavy sighs I can get from my teenagers. It’s tough to troll elementary-schoolers. Teens, though, are GOLD.
My dad makes references to him all the time and it took me ages to figure out what he meant by “Guido Sarducci.” Oh dads.
off-topic: “mansplain” was chosen as the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year in Australia and men are being SO MAD in comment sections and I literally just had a friend try and mansplain what mansplaining is to me when he asked me what I thought of it.
Mansplainception!
Also, never forget Strong Bad’s best Ween costume ever:
It’s the regalia of the place where the tropical breezes blow.
Gabi for president!
Gabi: Toast Editor-in-Chief, 2026
This is totally off-topic, but can we please discuss last night’s Broad City and how I am genuinely shocked and amazed that that aired on a channel that is not HBO/Showtime and that it was SO GODDAMN AMAZING???
Also, OF COURSE BOB BALABAN IS ILANA’S DAD. OF COURSE.
Ok, I was still planning to finally see Broad City, but the fact that BOB BALABAN is in it has sealed the damn deal.
At one point he says “You go girl!” and I broke out into delighted laughter. I need to go re-watch all of Christopher Guest’s movies.
This is never a bad idea.
Apparently television has reached the stage where it can address SPOILER ALERT pegging!?!? Amazing. Last week I said “That was the best episode of Broad City,” but now this week I’m all, “THAT was the best episode of Broad City!”
And Ilana’s parents having their little tiff about whether or not they were going to try it? AMAZING. Never in my life did I think i would see a serious, well-meaning discussion of pegging at a shiva. Over cheese popcorn.
Oh, now I am super excited to watch it! I have a date tomorrow and I was going to suggest that we watch it together anyway since we have bonded over it but now I think that yes definitely that’s what should happen.
My roommate who has known me for a sum total of like 5 hours felt the need to loudly analyze the particularly “Leo” aspects of my personality over parts of this episode so I am always going to hate her forever now.
I clicked on the Angel and Ireland link truly expecting to learn some new Buffy trivia.
YES. Except I can’t view Twitter from this machine, so I was left speculating as to what would possibly be exciting about the revival of that terrible, terrible accent. (I heart you, David! Please never attempt an accent again!)
laughing at the idea that Angel from Buffy was broken up with Ireland in the first place.
“I just…I just can’t keep this fake-ass accent going anymore. It’s over, I’m sorry. I’m from Mexico now.”
Perfect!
OMG yes.
SAME
I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but there is an ad for Neil Gaiman’s upcoming collection up in the top right-hand corner of The Toast for me today, with his picture in it. And now whenever I see his face, I think “leather golf hat OF THE SOUL” and cackle to myself, and I just wanted to thank everyone for that (esp. Liz Watson for the article, and rrieselavy for the comment).
Whenever I see his face I think “Yay Neil Gaiman! Sandman is so awesome!” and then “… why the hell did you marry Amanda Palmer of all people?” and get all sad.
I just think about how much I want a Good Omens sequel and how uniquely hysterical Good Omens is.
I am BEYOND THRILLED for 7Fast7Furious7. My fiancee and I are hosting six Fast and the Furious screenings leading up to April 3. The first is tonight.
That sounds like a legitimately brilliant way to spend six separate evenings.
I didn’t mean that to sound sarcastic! If it did.
I myself have braved the bearded arbiter of taste at one of the few video rental shops left to hire all the Fast movies out at once. I support your move entirely. Sorry if unclear.
oh my gosh no! I will always take at face value anyone who says they love the Fast movies, and subsequently argue with anyone who doesn’t.
Oh good! I hate that something I could say with boundless enthusiasm in real life comes out sounding snarky and bored in a comment. Go forth and Fast, etc.
Gabi has no chill whatsoever.
“And we have this just into us: Ritchie and Liz spotted in tree. Eyewitnesses report K-I-S-S-I-N-G. For more, let’s go to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.”
“Hey CNBC – Nightly News rules!”
“GO BREAK A STORY, WILLIAMS!”
I feel such fondness for Gabi, because I was exactly the type of weird, pensive, sensitive bookish 9-year-old who would’ve written something like this and thought it brilliant enough to share with the world.
Such a perfect response, I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it.
I imagine lots of Toasties can relate! If I hadn’t gone down the ‘I will be the first 10-year-old author of a high fantasy best seller (suspiciously similar to the one I’m reading but with a girl who looks just like me as the protagonist)’ route, I would have been this child instead.
Although when I first saw the picture I thought the caption would be about Skylar’s:
“Parakeets are loud. On Friday, I take
them out. They are so pretty.”
As I immediately assumed she had ‘taken them out’ as in killed them. I was a bit sad when I realised that probably wasn’t what was meant.
my mom recently gave me a binder with all of the poems and stories i’d written as a kid.
her: there’s some really… heavy stuff in here. you were… are… a smart and strange child.
me: … thank you???
Mine were mostly about waterfalls.
Just emailed my super cool, Bay Area-teacher-family member about the event, Mallory! Hope it goes great/one time, in high school, I had to go to a night-time lit mag reading for class credit, and I got really high first, obviously, and I got lost in my own high school/I hope no one gets lost in the library/have fun!
Truth. My dad not only loved Guido Sarducci he clearly took his fashion cues from him
(Yes that’s me in 1987. What’s in the cup? No idea. Judging by expression gin or coffee)
(Also we are not Italian. We are Scottish/Welsh Presbyterians.)
Your dad’s sidepart/bangs situation is something that I am trying and failing to recreate. I am very jealous of his shiny curtain of hair.
Sometimes I think I Dad pretty well. Then I see this hair/sunglasses/mustache combo and realize I am just a try-hard. I bow before a master.
Oh those are tinted regular glasses. Pre-transitions-lenses I guess. That way you can be mysterious and Magnum PI-ish at all times of day.
TASTE THE SADNESS
“Your tears are delicious” – Gabi, probably
“All shall love me and despair!”
“Tastes just like happy.”
On prominent male feminists using their position within the feminist community to find opportunities for rape and sexual assault.
Also introduces the unfortunate word “macktivism.”
Just looked at the snake article. *nonstop screaming*
Hm. Should I post this with the Kristen Stewart piece instead, and call it, If Gillian Anderson were your Girlfriend, you’d be an unstoppable force for feminism?
https://twitter.com/HisFeministMama/status/563395… <3 <3 <3
“No, I don’t feel sorry for men” is beyond fantastic. So calmly delivered. Such a shut down. <3’s indeed!
Curse you, light pollution! I really want to see zodiacal light!
THAT must be how you harvest snake oil, you just toss a small snake into a bigger snake and wait for it to come wriggling out, oil in hand.
Also, Dick Mulder, pleasant Dutch national, named his cat Demon. DEMON THE CAT. Of course that cat caused this snake horror. Of course.
People who name their cats apt but slightly worrisome names fascinate me. My favorite remains Fiasco, the cat who lives in the apartment above mine, but Demon may be a close second.
I don’t know much about Allison Williams, but she seems to be a treasure and I hope her dad’s dopey prevaricating doesn’t hurt her career.
Meanwhile Richard Engel be like:
Can someone please interpret the snake omen?
A cat killed a snake eating a snake…
Bastet is a goddess of love, ouroboros represents cyclical nature…
Smaller snake survived…
An act of love will end a cycle of harm leaving us injured but in a place to finally make progress?
Beautiful! I want to believe.
END OF DAYS.
A cat killed a snake eating a snake…
Bastet is a goddess of love, ouroboros represents cyclical nature…
Smaller snake survived…
An act of love will end a cycle of harm leaving us injured but in a place to finally make progress?