Facebook ads are really weird sometimes:

It’s that time of year once again. Posting Nina Paley’s excellent sticker (h/t to lulutsg!) sent me scurrying to the far corners of the web, and I found this little Christmas tidbit courtesy of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities:

in 1659, a law was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony requiring a five-shilling fine from anyone caught “observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” Christmas Day was deemed by the Puritans to be a time of seasonal excess with no Biblical authority. The law was repealed in 1681 along with several other laws, under pressure from the government in London. It was not until 1856 that Christmas Day became a state holiday in Massachusetts. For two centuries preceding that date, the observance of Christmas — or lack thereof — represented a cultural tug of war between Puritan ideals and British tradition.

The law makes for strange bedfellows. In this case… I expect I’ll be waking up next to the younger Reverend Mather. And, perhaps, I’ll finally learn why they called him “Increase!”

No, that’s not a green grocer chanting… that’s friend of the blog MK, in an earlier incarnation as high school TV production teacher. This photo’s for him:

(For the record, that’s a billboard takeover in the UK by mob ster.)

Yeah, I saw it on The Daily What. Didn’t you?

“Expresso, Excetera!”

Burned into my brain forever:

(language and content NSFW)

“Joester5” shares his method of eliminating Google’s sidebar ads in your emails. Just include a few “catastrophic” words like “9/11” or “suicide” and the ad space will remain blank.

Of course I am already blocking all Gmail ads (at least in Firefox) using WebMail Ad Blocker, but this method allows you to explore your darker side.

via BoingBoing