Brilliant animation, beginning with the story of a boy getting the nickname "Pork Chop."

This is very fast-moving and will be especially cool if you don't know where it's going:



(Details about the video here.)

At the A-to-Z Café...

... we've got Abby and Zeus.

(Abby is a St. Bernard puppy, and Zeus is a 6-year-old Lab. They belong to different neighbors, and we were taking care of them as they got together for the first time.)

At the Robots-for-Walker Café...

... it's time for another dance.

(On the screen-within-the-screen, Glen Shulfer's immortal anthem.)

"Every swear filled breathless account of violence should indeed be prefaced by a benediction for universal love and respect."

"This is a 5+ minute local news video of a young surfer dude who is recounting his brush with some psycho dude...."

(Warning: Some bad language.)



"Mesmerizing. He speaks like how a Beckett novel reads, just with some surferisms thrown in. Ending is about as bleak as Beckett, too. Someone get that guy a wet suit and a hug if it's real, which I doubt. Still mesmerizing either way."

I thought it seemed like an extra scene from the movie "Slacker."

Welcome to Bonehouse.

(This morning.)

Water and ice — on spring-fed Lake Wingra.

This afternoon, dogless, Meade and I took a walk down to one of the other lakes.

At the Ice Dog Café...

... do you know what you're doing?

Video from the "Guns Across America" rally here in Madison, Wisconsin today.

Here's some edited video showing the crowd and the signs.



In the middle there is a prayer, and at the end is the national anthem. Once you get to the national anthem, it's all national anthem from there on. I decided not to edit that part down because you get a good view of the people who attended the rally and their attitude.

The prayer is quite interesting, including some discussion of what Jesus said to Peter after he cut off a man's ear. (Jesus didn't tell Peter to surrender his sword. He told him to "put it back in the holster." My Bible says "sheath," but Jesus wasn't speaking English.)

At 2:07, you see a sign that says "Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun. Mao," held next to a second, matching sign that says — in between 2 peace signs — "Support and Defend the Constitution."

At 2:15, I'm talking to this man about his nice-looking but hard-to-stop-and-read sign:



He asks me if I recognize the face and (despite knowing I'm wrong) I guess Michael J. Fox. He lets me know it's Ayn Rand and I say I'll read it later (knowing I've got the still). It says: "The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology."

At 2:35, I talk to a counter-protester with a sign that says "Ban High Capacity Magazine Clips" and ask "What's a magazine clip?" She knew there was some question about that term, but she'd researched it on the internet and decided that was the term she wanted to use. Perhaps saying "magazine clip" is a way to signal which side you're on. A shibboleth.

ADDED: Other stills from the rally here.

At the Meadhouse Café...

... come on in!

"We know what the future of the Internet's going to be."

"It's going to be a great, big video platform."

And here I thought it was all about the return to reading and writing.

American Girl dolls in stop-motion video.

A YouTube phenomenon.



Those American Girl dolls are expensive, but if a kid is interested in stop-motion animation, she (or he) doesn't need any particular kind of expensive doll. Here's "The Klutz Book of Animation: How to Make Your Own Stop Motion Movies." And here's "Stopmotion Explosion: Animate Anything and Make Movies - Epic Films for $20 or Less."

Where's the ball?

"Morpho Towers — Two Standing Spirals."

"[I]t's ferrofluid, which is oil laced with bits of iron oxide. When the magnets are turned on, the little bits of iron (and the oil with them) are pulled by a magnetic field into columns and shapes that produce the 'tree.'"

At the Snow-Romp Café...

... hey, there!

The pre-blizzard.

The blizzard is scheduled to arrive later this morning. This was the pre-blizzard.



I love the way the snow plow deposited a special huge snow boulder right at the end of our driveway. We — meaning Meade — need to get that out of the way before the real storm comes. The storm has a name: Draco. When did winter storms start getting names? And why Draco?

What do you think of when you read the name, "Draco?" Do you picture a dragon because you studied Latin? Or do you jump to Greece because you are an historian? Or do you turn to law because Draco was the first "lawgiver?" Or do you combine all three reasons and pop right to "Draconian?"

The weatherfolk probably had fun naming the first, named blizzard. Why did they skip the alphabetical process used for hurricanes?

"Hey, there, Zeus! Thanks for coming over."

ADDED: Serious doggy cuteness (not my video):

At the Snowfall Café...

... it's so quiet here.

At the Micro-Climate Café...

... you can have your coffee iced or extra hot, you can sit near the door or over by the fireplace, and you can be perfectly pleasant or give everyone hell.

At the Snowball Café...

... let's play! It's so exciting!

***

"Café," here at the Althouse blog, signifies an open thread in the comments. Write about what you like. And if you happen to have any shopping you need to do, entering Amazon through this link will — at no extra cost to you — send me: 1. some money, and 2. the message that you appreciate what this blog gives to you. (That link is always at the top of the page, under the blog's title: click "Shop Amazon.")

At the Is-This-Exciting Café...

... some of us can barely contain ourselves... couldn't contain ourselves in a venti cup...