How to make a stuffed Hobbes

Instructions for making a stuffed Hobbes. Via.

Link roundup

1. "So you wake up tomorrow morning to find almost everyone on Earth missing. The Internet will continue to work for a few hours: what information could you download to ensure your survival and rebuild civilization? A few suggestions:".

2. Donate to the Red Cross and get free original art from Caldwell Tanner.

3. Another horror story about Dell.

4. "How to Find Out if Someone's Secretly Been Using Your Computer."

5. A photo gallery featuring the bright side of living in the country's cheapest zip code. Via.

Link roundup

1. How to create a digital comic for iTunes for less than $200.

2. George Martin posted a lengthy, excellent excerpt from the upcoming The Winds of Winter. It fills in some of the holes from A Dance With Dragons. Via.

3. Ann Althouse: "I feel sorry for all the journalists assigned to the 2012 campaign who've got so little to write about now and in the next few months. They need to act like something is happening, and after the Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Paul surges, it must be time for a Santorum surge."

4. Noelle Stevenson's illustrated (personal) year in review.

5. Today's Tee Fury t-shirt is a Conan O'Brien/Peanuts mashup.

6. Just a reminder, I post regularly at Tumblr.

Link roundup

1. Jason Chalker is looking for commissions.

2. Boing Boing has details and more photos of the Portal Christmas tree.

3. Serious Eats says don't buy Costco's $20 champagne. Buy $15 Domaine J. Laurens Cremant de Limoux Brut.

4. Brief summary of all 30 NBA teams.

5. I love Nike product descriptions:

Nike’s Proprietary Flywire Technology Offers Great Fit Support: the outsole of the Nike Fly Leather J Elite SHA|DO uses the leather sole, the most trusted sole among bukatsu players, and Nike’s proprietary traction system that maximizes a player’s potential at base running.

6. Dave MacDowell posted a bunch of recent paintings (NSFW).

7. How one person achieved 1 million karma points at Reddit. (Short answer: "I spend about 3-4 hours a day on Reddit.")

Link roundup

1. Lifehacker says Waze is the best turn by turn navigator for Android and iOS (and free).

2. The new media tools that allowed Martin Luther's message to spread virally. Via.

3. Tips for hacking Scrabble.

4. The beginning of a terrific, long article about a very small town pharmacist:

In the southwestern corner of Colorado, where the Uncompahgre Plateau descends through spruce forest and scrubland toward the Utah border, there is a region of more than four thousand square miles which has no hospitals, no department stores, and only one pharmacy. The pharmacist is Don Colcord, who lives in the town of Nucla. More than a century ago, Nucla was founded by idealists who hoped their community would become the “center of Socialistic government for the world.” But these days it feels like the edge of the earth. Highway 97 dead-ends at the top of Main Street; the population is around seven hundred and falling. The nearest traffic light is an hour and a half away. When old ranching couples drive their pickups into Nucla, the wives leave the passenger’s side empty and sit in the middle of the front seat, close enough to touch their husbands. It’s as if something about the landscape—those endless hills, that vacant sky—makes a person appreciate the intimacy of a Ford F-150 cab.

5. How to turn Christmas ornaments into hot air balloons.

6. I haven't watched it yet, but Mr. Plinkett reviewed Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Presumably filled with very dark humor.)

Hot air balloon ornaments

How to make hot air balloon ornaments. Via.

*Buy Hallmark Christmas Ornaments at Amazon.

Interview with Paolo Rivera

Maybe it's all standard stuff to you artists, but I find this detailed look at Paolo Rivera's tools fascinating.

*Buy sketch cards at eBay.

How the fight scenes in Real Steel were filmed

Real Steel has outstanding fight sequences with convincingly real robots. This video shows how the scenes were created. Via.

*Buy Real Steel toys at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Beer bottles are irresistibly sexy to Australian beetles. Yes, there's a picture.

2. What to order at a bad restaurant. (Although I disagree that ribs are a good bet.)

3. Carving pumpkins with cookie cutters and a mallet. Via.

Strength training for parkour

How to get in shape for parkour.