My wife hates when I go off-topic and ramble in these posts, but a quick thought before the cuteness: sometimes, sticking to a pretty consistent blog schedule sucks—not everything I find interesting/funny/awesome fits the mold.

I know the last few months have seen a few holes pop up each week with nonexistent posts on various days, but Mystery Monday, Top Ten/Title This Tuesday, WTF Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday and Fuzzy Friday helps me focus on stuff that 1) interests me, 2) interests you (hopefully), 3) is (relatively) easily digested and quick to find and/or report on, and 4) provides the illusion of consistency when I’m out there in the wild trying to grow Ex-Boyfriend and am too busy to post every single day, or am out there in the wild trying to recover and recharge from doing exactly that.

The unofficial fifth benefit of the schedule is that when scary, tragic, horrible shit happens, it prevents me from going nuts and saying rash things on the internet (aka Eternity’s Big Book of Evidence and Embarrassment).

This is me taking a very long time to say I’m glad that what happened in Zanesville, Ohio earlier this week didn’t happen last night, or this post would probably be text-only, with “F@#K HUMANS!” in super-huge type. Jurassic Park was fun, guys, but a cloned tiger born and bred in a lab is not the same as one from the jungle—not even Science is that smart.

Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

(Photo courtesy of Marwell Wildlife Park and ZooBorns.com)

Leave it to the Germans to engineer a more efficient way to snuggle: Remove other humans from equation entirely.

Creepy sociopathic designer Stefan Ulrich has created amorphous pillow-blobs out of “electro-active polymers” that react to touch and temperature as a proxy for those of us too emotionally crippled to form bonds with other humans. Think a Tempur-Pedic matress, but shaped like Gloop and Gleep from The Herculoids.

Actually, I shouldn’t be coming down too hard on Stefan. This probably is a great idea—I just think Ulrich’s sales pitch could use some work. I think something like this could be genuinely useful to individuals with Asperger’s or social anxiety as a therapeutic device. But he’s essentially marketing it as a less-pervy version of a Real Doll, a la Jason Lee’s character in Mumford or Ryan Gosling’s in Lars and the Real Girl.  Stefan says “People already bury themselves in possessions and shield themselves from real life with technology. So if robots and objects can fulfill all their emotional needs as well, why do they need other humans?”

That said, I’m fortunate enough to have already duped tricked won the heart of my wife, and on the frequent occasions that I find myself in the doghouse, I at least have my cats around for snuggling. Maybe I’m just not the target demographic.

(Via Fork Party)

Related T-Shirts:

This is the most poignant photo of a bear reassuring a woman on a bed I have ever seen:

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P.S. Take a look around the rest of the site; we’ve added a bunch of cool new features, included a (hopefully) more user-friendly layout on the product pages, as well as new left nav options and a search box. Web 2.0 all up in this place!

P.P.S. I still wanna see your smiling face. Or your sneering face. Whatever suits you. Send me a picture of you in your Ex-Boyfriend tee or hoodie. Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you a thank you.

(Via pictureisunrelated.com)