If the opening video on Pleo’s website doesn’t make you want to go hunting, I don’t know what will.

I just found out about Pleo, the robotic dino with life like qualities any kid could love. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not that I found out about Pleo from a Digg link to the guys over on the Dvice blog beating the hell out of the thing.

I’ve been pushing for a toy that can realistically feel and announce pain for years. As good as Pleo is, it still isn’t perfect. Why isn’t it bruised? I’m no biologist, but I watched Jurassic Park, so I know that dinosaurs have blood — where is it? And you’d think that Pleo would learn a few crucial words in a couple dozen languages before mingling on the street with a decidedly dinosaur wary species (how’s he get money out of the bank without causing mass hysteria? Does he have a translator? “Everyone, it’s ok! That low moan means he just wants to check on the status of his loan application.”) Is it too much to ask for him to scream”help” or “nein! Anschlag!” every so often?

Ever try to come up with a website idea with a group of your friends? Me and my friends’ conversations usally end with statements like, “….But I can’t draw.” or “No one wants to see that part of the human body” or “Yeah, but we can’t get one of those into the country.”

The creators of The Superest, Kevin Cornell and Matthew Sutter, seem to have hit on a rather great idea that actually made it past the development phase. The idea of The Superest is that a superhero is drawn by either Kevin or Sutter and then the other draws a superhero to counter. This goes on forever, which is great because that makes The Superest an archive filled with awesomeness in art and originality.

Thanks to Lore Sjöberg, one of the funniest writers working the online humor game, for posting about The Superest on his blog.

I was supposed to post about this a few days go, but what can I say — I’m unreliable.

Potluck Reading

Serving a delicious mix of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and critical essays.

Date: Wednesday Dec 5th

Time: 8 - 9:30pm

Location: F-115

Come out and read your original poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or critical essay in front of a relaxed audience of Stocktonites.

(image Flickred by *Susie*)

The site constantly amazes me by placing in front of my face all the wonderful people who continue to use every ounce of their mind in order to show us wonderful, thought-provoking portrayals of their daily lives…

“No criminal charges will be filed against people who sent cruel Internet messages to a 13-year-old girl before she committed suicide, the St. Charles County prosecutor said Monday…her suicide came minutes after she received mean messages through the social networking site MySpace…A police report said that a mother from the neighborhood and her 18-year-old employee fabricated a profile for a teenage boy online who pretended to be interested in Megan before he began bullying her. The police report indicates others gained access to the profile, and it is not clear who was sending Meier messages just before her death…he fake MySpace page was not created by the mother of one of Megan’s friends. He said the page was created by the 18-year-old employee, though the mother and her 13-year-old daughter knew about the page. He said he was unable to speak directly with the 18-year-old, whom he said has been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment” Comcast.net