An Open Letter to Stephen Fry, by the adorable Molly Lewis. I think Molly sings for many a smart woman out there.

The Japanese unlocked the secret to cat placement technology! Kawaaaaaaiiiii!

I’m pretty sure television executives in Japan are all toddlers. It’s awesome.

Google has put the first half of the entire run of Spy Magazine online for free on Google Books. The second half will be released later in the year.

I don’t know how my Mom discovered Spy, but she did some time in the late 80s and she and I both devoured every issue that came in the mail. I was probably the only 14-year old this side of the country who was conversant with frequent Spy targets Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and of course Si Newhouse and Conde Nast.

Even the ads, which looked strange at the time and even more out of place now, spoke of some weird urban jungle, this island of Manhattan where everyone looked fabulous and boys kissed and anything could happen. It was pretty exotic to a girl growing up in a small fishing town.

Plus, you know, all the witty writing and fascinating exposes and clever page design. My reading list for the next month or so just got very full!

Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus! Okay, so this site was created as part of a weird experiment to test how much people believe nonsense they read on the internet, but that did not stop me from ordering one of these amazing posters.

I spent most of January in a terrible slump of a mood, the likes of which I haven’t seen in years. It was pretty dismal. I’m not good at inner validation at the best of times, but this was death by 1000 papercuts to the ego (stingy!). Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to, everything I did was just another sign that I’m no good. I stopped talking to people so much, and basically spent a month sitting at home looking out the window waiting for grass to grow on me.

The interesting thing for me about this particular depressive fugue was that unlike when I was younger, this time I knew what was going on. I knew that my brain was sending me the wrong signals and there was nothing to be despondant or anxious or paranoid about. On the other hand, awareness is massively outgunned by brain chemicals.

It actually kind of reminded me of one of the few times I tried LSD. (Oh, youth.) Right now, for example, without looking I know I’m sitting in my office chair. I know that the rest of my desk is behind me and roughly how far away it is. When I was, as the kids say, trippin’ balls, I lost comprehension of any part of my environment that I couldn’t see. Instead of knowing that I’m sitting in my office chair I could be sitting on an elephant or a stack of pillows or a throne of skulls. I could look down and confirm that I was sitting on a chair, but looking away would make me unsure again.

In this recent depression I was unable to trust the things in my environment that I usually took for granted. If I thought about it and examined the situation I could understand that I was in fact the same perfectly adequate human I always was with good attributes and bad habits and people who love her. But the minute I stopped actively examining it I would become unsure. Maybe I’m the most boring, unlikeable person in the world. Maybe I’m worthless. Maybe people are just pretending to like me so they can dump a bucket of pig’s blood on my head later. Maybe I’m riding an elephant right now.

Anyway, I was kind of at the point where I didn’t think I could feel much worse about things, and then.. I don’t know what happened. It got better. I spent Saturday night drinking Chilean plonk from the bottle, watching YouTube video guides on cosmetics and slathering my face in creams and colors. I think at one point I also tried to give the cat a fauxhawk. I woke up the next morning on the couch with half a dozen clogged pores and a slightly better outlook on life. It gets a little better every day.

I feel like I should wrap this up with some statement on what it all means, but your guess is as good as mine and mostly I just felt good writing about it. Sorry it wasn’t very funny. I suppose if nothing else we can always rely on the Princess Bride for some final wisdom: “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

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Health Month is this neat new site that tries to take health and wellness goals and incorportate them into social media (oh, I like social media!) and gaming techniques (oh, I like games!). I actually already had the idea of setting a few reasonable wellness goals for February, but this way I get ACHIVEMENT POINTS for them and as we all know gamers are morons for achievement points.

Z-Type is the best typing game ever. No, really, finally someone made a great game that you just happen to control by typing words. The first time one of the big carrier ships released smaller word bombers at me, I knew this was something special.