Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or informative.
This week, as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on people’s lives and the general social order, the Wednesday Walk will feature a few pandemic-related items before pivoting to diverting topics and the usual offering of fun stuff. Stay safe, wash your hands, isolate if you need to. We’ll get through this together.
- First, if you haven’t read up on warning signs and preventive measures for COVID-19, you probably should.
- To deal with the outbreak, the TSA is allowing airplane passengers to carry bottles of hand sanitizer larger than their strict regulations have allowed for the last 18 years, basically admitting that the restriction has always been useless security theater.
- There are some positive acts of solidarity to point to during times of strife, if you look hard enough. In Italy, one of the areas hit hardest by the outbreak, streets full of people on lockdown in their homes break out into song to provide a sense of togetherness.
- Please, please take all reasonable precautions for the present moment, such as preparing your full-body GWAR costume before going out in public. Don’t forget to stick a breathing mask on top of it!
- Let us all remember some of the things that will never be the same, though, such as WrestleMania, which shall now be an absurdist, dadaist masterpiece.
- Time for a deep breath, and a lengthy collection of Animals That Are Very Roumd. On with the Walk.
- If you find yourself at home with a ton of time on your hands, one option is to take advantage of the wide senection of museums that offer virtual tours on their webties. Fun Fact: When internet access first became widespread, this was the only productive use my mother could think of for it. She wanted very badly to take a virtual walk through the Louvre, and when our pathetic NetZero connection did not allow this she was confounded.
- The Museum of the Bible in Washington DC (an infamous den of evangelical nonsense slash smuggling ring run by the Christofascist president of Hobby Lobby) has until now featued an exhibit of Dead Sea Scroll fragments that were among its prize possessions. All 16 fragments in that exhibit have now been proven to be fradulent. (Just those pieces, though; the fragments collected and studied in Jerusalem remain undisputed.) Particularly revealing is one expert’s realization that he might have accidentally suggested the idea when he told people trying to sell scraps of ancient leather that the items were worthless without any writing on them.
- This Week in Commercial Art: Consider, if you will, the oft-overlooked art of the humble fruit sticker.
- Your local big-box retailer has a myriad of amazing items on sale, including summoning orbs and enchanted battleaxes. The Fantasy Costco is real!
