Now that the McCain campaign has declared war on Dungeons and Dragons, Dennis has struck back with this tee. It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd (Thanks, Dennis!) See also: McCain staffer slams Dungeons and Dragons players...

Little Sammy Sneeze was the initial comic strip by surrealist comics pioneer Winsor McCay, best known for his masterwork "Little Nemo in Slumberland." McKay's strips were gigantic watercolors, taking up huge swathes of space in the newspapers of the 1900s and 1910s (Nemo ran full pages, while Sammy was a half-page). If you've seen these seminal comics reproduced in little comics histories, you haven't seen them at all -- it's not until you get a chance to browse them at their full size that you really understand what made these such classics of the field. That's just what you get with Sunday Press Books's Little Sammy Sneeze: Complete Color Sunday Comics 1904-1905, a gigantic (11"x16") book with a lay-flat binding that reproduces all the Sammy Sneeze strips at full size, interleaved with McCay's other experimental early works, like The Woozlebeasts (Dr Seuss-esque poetry captions for drawings of fantastical beasties) and Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo (comics whose illustrations can be read upside-down or right side up, so that eight panels become sixteen). But the main attraction are the full color Sammy Sneezes, which all follow the same format: for the first six panels, supercilious grownups conduct a ridiculous or dull conversation or activity while Sammy, a little well-dressed boy, looks on, making pre-sneeze sound-effects ("Um, Eee, Aaa, Aah, Awww, Kah"). In the seventh panel, Sammy sneezes, blowing everything to hell and back. And in the concluding panel, someone kicks Sammy in the pants and shoves him out of the frame. The strips have the elegant formality of a sonnet, and within each one, there's a little morality play or lesson about the world, and an obsessively elaborated scene of sneezular carnage for comic relief. They're as addictive as popcorn and far more anarchic than Sammy's descendants from Dennis the Menace to Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. Like the Little Nemo book, the Sammy Sneeze book is a work of art -- beautifully made, and with a little bonus in the form of a Sammy Sneeze kleenex-box cover for proud display. Little Sammy Sneeze See also: Gigantic Little Nemo book does justice to the loveliest comic ever...

Bjoern sez, "'Amazing but True Cat Stories' is a collection of stories about feline antics, illustrated in vivid 8-bit color by true mspaint artists. Stolen pants, pooped-on veterinarians, fur on fire, foretold seizures, and much more! This book was entirely written by the anonymous crowd. All stories and illustrations were submitted by workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. I selected, edited and laid out the stories in a short but sweet coffee table book. The idea for this book was born in Terminal A at Washington Dulles, where I was stranded for some hours in late July. To spend my time, I posted the following two tasks on MTurk: 1) Write at least one paragraph about a funny, unbelievable or otherwise memorable incident involving your cat. 2) Sketch a cat. With or without an environment and toys. Before I got out of that terminal, it was already clear that the submissions were too good to keep to myself." When we first received our cat, my father brought her home in his car. She was only a kitten and was running around his car like crazy. To keep her from getting lost he put her into the glove compartment. After about fifteen minutes he began to hear meowing from behind the dashboard. He reopened the glove compartment to find the cat had chewed through the plastic. He later had to remove the radio in order to get her out. The look on his face was priceless after the event. This was an omen of times to come with our new kitten. Amazing but True Cat Stories (Thanks, Bjoern!)...

Every idea implies its opposite, and there's no clearer proof of this than the amazing Internet practice of "scambaiting," well-documented in Eve Edelson's Scamorama: Turning the Tables on Email Scammers. You know those ridiculous fraud emails you get from deposed princes, corrupt bankers, desperate widows (and so on), with weird capitalization and punctuation, asking you to advance them some money so that they can liberate a giant, multibillion-dollar sum and give you ten percent for your trouble? These "419" letters originate from all over the world, but Nigeria's perfect storm of connectivity, corruption, lawlessness and poverty meant that the "Lads" of Lagos have elevated ripoff letters to a high art. And for every Lad, there's a scambaiter. Scambaiting is a vibrant internet sport that involves turning the tables on 419 scammers, getting them to undertake ridiculous rituals, expend money and energy, humiliate and debase themselves as they seek to ruin their "victims'" lives through fraud. Scamorama is a popular website for scambaiting, and its creator, Eve Edelson, has put a lot of thought into the nature of the 419 con and those who seek to disrupt it. In Scamorama (the book), Edelson traces the history of scamming back to the middle ages and forward to the present day, giving practical advice on not getting taken in and scam-proofing your friends and family. But where Scamorama really gets going in as a HOWTO manual for scambaiting, with long, hilarious email exchanges between baiters and scammers, and good tips for running your own reverse con. As hobbies go, scambaiting sounds like a pretty fun one -- and it has redeeming social characteristics, since the 419 con artist who is busily whittling you a Commodore 64, sojourning to Amsterdam to meet an "eccentric clergyman" who will front him $20,000, or re-enacting the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch is a con artist who is not ruining the life of some more trusting soul. Scamorama on Amazon, Scamorama.com See also: * 419 scammers tricked into re-creating Dead Parrot Sketch * 419 victim shoots Nigerian diplomat * NPR "Xeni Tech": Scambaiters and Monty Python, 419-style * Laura Bush's 419 letter * Dick Cheney's 419 letter * Dutch court locks up 419 scammers * Busting a 419 scammer spammer * Nigerian Letter scammer convinced to carve replica Commodore 64 * Man loses money trying to double it by marinating * Nigerian letters fuel Lagos's Internet Cafe boom * Nigerian legit email hard to distinguish from 419s...

After an inexcusably long absence from YouTube, the farting preacher is back. (Thanks, Coop!)...

CrazyPC's latest 5.25" drive-bay gizmo is a toaster for your PC. No more suffering with the indignity of raw bread, nor the insufferable pain of going to the kitchen. Um, might wanna be sure your heatsink is below it, and that your fan is up to snuff. Or invest in water-cooling. CrazyPC 5.25 Inch Bay Toaster...

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: mutated animals. I love the adorable cryptozoological critters! Link...

Today on Boing Boing tv, we are proud to share the sneak-preview of a television pilot, the AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW!, a live-action and animation program featuring the popular superhero ska band, The Aquabats (MySpace). Jon Berrett of Yo Gabba Gabba explains: This spring the Aquabats completed a pilot for a new television show based on the misadventures of rock and roll's greatest super dude men. The Aquabats have been a band for over a decade, have toured the world, and put out 5 full length studio albums. The AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW! TELEVISION PILOT will have a special screening at the San Diego House of Blues show on July 25th, 2008 [during Comic-Con]. If you already have tickets, you are STOKED! The excerpt we are world-premiering on BBtv today is an animated portion of the show's first episode, and includes angry mushrooms, vengeful unicorn princesses, and a subterranean paradise with lakes of hot pink lava. The AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW! also includes live performance and real-world hijinks. We think it's pretty awesome. Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and how to subscribe to the BBtv video podcast. (Huge thanks from all of us at Boing Boing to Jon Berrett and the crew at Yo Gabba Gabba, and to The Aquabats for allowing Boing Boing to share this first with the non-subterranean world!)...

The Onion nails the future of videogaming in this clip on World of World of Warcraft, a new videogame that allows you to play at being someone playing World of Warcraft. Link (via Wonderland)...

Rstevens, creator of the wonderful webcomic Diesel Sweeties, sez, "I finally got off my ass and finished my 10 volme set of CC-ebooks. Opted out of Wowio or any of those stinky services that are ad-supported because not all countries can sign up. Just some weekend reading for the blogosphere!" Ten volumes of Diesel Sweeties! w00t! Link (Thanks, R!)...