Here's a nice little heartwarmer to send you off in to the weekend.

Earlier in the week, Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing posted a plea for help. Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus! trilogy, was in a bad way, unable to pay his rent, very ill and with only a few months to live. Cash needed to be raised just to pay for his care until his passing, which is not too far away. I remembered reading some of Wilson's work when I was in college, and dug into my paypal account to help out, not merely because I was a fan, but because no-one who's work has touched so many people should end their days destitute.

It seems a lot of people felt the same way, because today Mark announced that over $68,000 poured in. Nice! If you want to make your own contribution, BoingBoing has all the details.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is one of the best books I've read recently. It has a clever premise, in which the author travels around a zombie ravaged world in the years following an outbreak and chronicles the stories of the men and women who survived it.

Over on the book's website, there's a risk calculator that can tell you just what your own chances will be once there's no more room in hell and the dead walk the earth.

There's also audio of different interviews from the book, done in character by name actors. So if you've ever had the urge to hear Rob Reiner talking about his personal experiences with the undead, now's your chance.

Today on the Veg...great sports movie moments

(Not ALL of them, not even the ten best, just a few great sports moments that I happen to like...got it?)

The Celebrity Ranker ranks just how popular and sexy people are, according to the Internet. The site analyzes the web pages in Google's database to find out what the Internet thinks about any celebrity. I ranked as the 6812th most popular, and the 7,453rd sexiest of the 30,000 or so celebrities in their database. That ranks me higher on sexiness than either Scaramouch or Jellio, although Scaramouch edged me slightly in popularity. Randy Rhoads ranked a little bit ahead of all three. But who wants to be a celebrity anyway? People just make fun of you, like I’m doing today at Miss Cellania.

Is this Nike video more about the Cosplay thing, the Otaku Hunting thing, or a little of both?

Have you heard of machinima?
Have you heard of the Green Screen Challenge?
Have you heard of Randi Rhoades?

See almost all those things come together in...Battle for Truth: The Birth of Stephen EagleMan.

- Watch as an F-4 jet disappears into a pile of dust? No word on whether or not Randi Rhoades survived.
- The Daily Show on the definition of the President's job. My job...is to do my job? It boggles the mind.
- Have you noticed robots are getting hotter and hotter? Soon all Congressional pages will be obsolete.
- Hidden rooms have become a growing trend? Naturally. Where else would you put the mask and cape.
- And via Gothamist, on Oct 14th, MILFs all across NYC will come together in a celebration of MILFness.