Pen & Ink is a Tumblr blog by Rumpus managing editor Isaac Fitzgerald and artist Wendy MacNaughton that tells the stories behind tattoos with the use of beautiful illustrations and hand lettering. User submitted tattoos and stories are currently being accepted for use on the blog.

via Rachel Fershleiser

Ca$hCats is a Tumblr blog where cats are humorously photographed with money, sometimes with big stacks of it. Image submissions are accepted.

Law & Order & Food is a Tumblr blog created by Malkahdamia Coddle that features images of Law & Order characters simply eating. Coddle tweeted, “I’ll see you in FOOD COURT!”

You have the right to remain delicious

Tumblr’s new Storyboard series takes a look at the “Fuck Yeah” blog phenomenon on Tumblr, where over 100K “Fuck Yeah X” blogs have been created so far, with an average of 158 new “Fuck Yeah” blogs being created each day.

Tumblr has introduced Storyboard, an editorial feature project that will highlight curators and their content on the popular blogging site. Tumblr’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Mohney recently announced the Storyboard launch on the Tumblr staff blog:

We’re excited to announce the official launch of Storyboard, our new hub for in-depth conversations with Tumblr’s creative community. We’ll be posting regular features on creators working in and around Tumblr’s massively diverse cosmos — writers, musicians, animators, scientists, artists, archivists, chefs, comedians, or anyone else with a great story to tell. Today we’re talking about Michael Stipe, the New York Times, Afghanistan, and the design mechanics of the Tumblr Dashboard.

We want to hear your stories too. If you’re interested in submitting a story (or even a story idea) for us to publish, just post it on Tumblr tagged with #storyboard. Our editors will monitor the tag and the community’s interactions there, promoting stories that resonate. And if your story really works, we’ll ask to expand it for publication on Storyboard itself.

It is our pleasure to announce that Laughing Squid has reached a milestone today, this is our 15,000th post! It was only a little over a year ago when we hit our 10,000th post mark.

Amazingly, Laughing Squid founder and editor-in-chief Scott Beale is responsible for over 10,000 of those posts which started with this first post in 2003. To give you some perspective, I alone have written 1528 blog posts since I began in May 2011 and our Sr. Contributing Editor EDW Lynch has written 1821 posts since February 2011.

For kicks, EDW, mikl-em and I each chose a memorable post to date:

Rusty Blazenhoff, Managing Editor:
1960s Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs Identification Kit

This vintage drug kit is something in my personal collection, it’s something I look at in my house every single day and it was not found online before I posted it. When I first started blogging for Laughing Squid, I thought it might be an interesting item for the world to see and sure enough, it was.

EDW Lynch, Sr. Contributing Editor:
Grand Rapids Shows Civic Pride With World’s Largest Lip Dub Video

I loved this 2011 community art project from Grand Rapids, Michigan. After Newsweek called the city one of “America’s Dying Cities,” Rob Bliss and 5000 fellow residents created a spirited and moving lip dub music video of Don McLean’s “American Pie.”

mikl-em, Contributing Editor-at-Large:
Vintage Narragansett Beer Commercials Featuring Mike Nichols and Elaine May

As a comedy performer and social drinking enthusiast myself, plus a total geek on the history of the things that I love, I was thrilled to discover these clips on YouTube. Mike Nichols and Elaine May are absolute comic geniuses and founders of an improvising tradition that led directly to Second City, Saturday Night Live, and eventually Arrested Development, Borat, and The Office. The animations are great, very Rocky & Bullwinkle-esque, and there’s a Dr. Seuss connection which I discovered while researching it. I love writing about obscure things that deserve celebration and giving them context to hopefully be better appreciated. And plus, you know, BEER!

We would like to give a big shout out to our awesome network of guest bloggers and editors who have posted interesting content on the blog over the years. You can learn more about Laughing Squid on our “What is Laughing Squid?” page.

photo by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid art by Loid Mongoloid

xkcd predicts that the world “Tumblr” will eclipse “blog” in Google Trends search term popularity by October 12, 2012.

I haven’t looked at the Technorati Top 100 list a while, but we are now at #29 on the list. I noticed this when reading a recent Pingdom blog post about how WordPress is now completely dominating the top 100 blogs.

Back in 2006 we entered the top 1000 blogs then in 2007 we joined the top 500 blogs.

Speaking of WordPress, Laughing Squid has been happily running WordPress since we launched in 2005.

Percolate gathered several online curators for What Is Curation?, a first in a series video that explains “the shifts we’re seeing in the world of content creation.” Brooklyn-based creative company m ss ng p eces worked on the piece for Percolate, which features several online curators weighing in on their thoughts about their roles. Curators featured are Maria Popova, Joanne McNeil, Peter Hopkins, Edith Zimmerman, Anthony De Rosa, Rex Sorgatz, Piers Fawkes and Tina Roth Eisenberg.

Percolate’s co-founder Noah Brier describes the project to PSFK:

Obviously it’s been a big subject of discussion over the last week, but we think there’s something bigger and more important about curation. It’s a way to create content in a very lightweight way and start to hone a voice and understand what works and what doesn’t. In hearing from these folks you get the real sense that most of them started doing what they do to satisfy their own curiosity. For most of them that curiosity transformed into full-fledged publishing as their simple act of sharing morphed into a hybrid publishing model: Combining third party content with their own original thinking to create something bigger.

Tech writer, author and entrepreneur Sarah Lacy has launched PandoDaily, a daily tech news blog that strives “to be the site-of-record for that startup root-system and everything that springs up from it, cycle-after-cycle”.

Lacy, formerly a senior editor for TechCrunch, has over fifteen years reporting on Silicon Valley businesses. Interestingly, Michael Arrington, MG Siegler and Paul Carr, all formerly of TechCrunch as well, will all be writing for PandoDaily.

Kara Swisher of All Things Digital recently interviewed Lacy about PandoDaily and why she left TechCrunch:

KoPoint Wire is a new opinion and content-aggregating blog focusing on media, politics, sports, and technology. KoPoint founder Dan Patterson is starting off by hitting the road to cover the Republican presidential primaries.

Director Peter Jackson has been video blogging (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) the production of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, his new upcoming film which is a prequel to The Lord of The Rings trilogy. We recently posted the trailer for the film which is being shot in New Zealand.

Brian Lam, former editor of Gizmodo, has just launched The Wirecutter on The Awl. It is a “new website designed to do one thing: to tell you what the best particular product in a category is at any given moment.” Here’s Brian’s explanation of what it is and how to use it.

via The Awl

This is my 10,000th post on Laughing Squid. Back in April we hit 10,000 total blog posts (we are now at 12,225).

My first post on Laughing Squid, which launched the blog, was on February 27th, 2003 for a benefit that Survival Research Labs was organizing for our friend Tim North at SOMArts in San Francisco.

Thanks for all the support through the years, we never would have made this far without awesome readers like you!

Creative agency Mother New York created Marina, a fashionable Italian 25-foot tall puppet-like doll, for client Target, to launch their new collection, Missoni for Target. Marina not only wears custom-made Italian-designed Missoni clothes but she blogs, tweets, texts and recently attended New York Fashion Week. She’ll be traveling across the United States in the next few weeks and has been “hired” by Target and Missoni “to cover their new collection”.

Keep up with Marina at her own blog, all the way up here and through her Twitter feed, @marinawithstyle.

“Marina’s absolutely must read, incredibly fashionable style blog.” I am going to comment on the world of style, the world I love and dream about. Bags, shoes, belts, dresses, skirts, skorts, pants, shirts, sweaters, leggings, accessories galore. You name it, I’m going to expand our fashionable horizons. And trust me, I have plenty of time to dream. I’m a tall, porcelain doll. Joints, hinges and all. And I’ve decided it’s time for this doll to think beyond the shelf.

via Styleite

image via Styleite and all the way up here

It’s so great having her on board the squid ship.

And now, I turn you over to Rusty…

– Scott Beale

Howdy Squid-lovin’ readers,

For the time I have been contributing posts to Laughing Squid thus far, I have to say, it’s been a tremendous amount of fun. As requested and to give you some background on how I arrived here, I present this short personal history.

As the former Communications Specialist for the now defunct Bigrig Industries, a satirical organization that issued paper zines, I have long embraced the activities of the San Francisco Bay Area underground events scene. A true prankster at heart, I was also a proud member of the San Francisco Cacophony Society for many years and around that same time I was a graphic designer for Burning Man.

At this amazing moment in time, I own and operate Rusty’s Real Deal, an estate liquidation company serving California’s East Bay area. My life-long passion for all things mysterious and thrifty has led me to pursue this natural calling, and – along with the Real Deal’s sister endeavor, Moxie Deluxe – I continue to dedicate my life to showcasing and celebrating all things beautiful and absurd.

It is truly an honor to post right along side some of the most beautiful and absurd people that I know. My tentacle ‘guns’ are a-blazing and I am really looking forward to showing off the skills I learned in Laughing Squid Blogging Boot Camp.

xo,

Rusty.

photos by Lane Hartwell, Scott Beale and Bigrig Industries

archival scans by Ken Dashner

sage advice and writing assistance by DaisyPup and Veek Toastia

Doghouse shares a guaranteed way to getting more comments on your blog.

See Previously: How To Get More Comments On Your Blog

via Geeks are Sexy

WordPress 3.2 “Gershwin” (named in honor of jazz musician George Gershwin) has been released. It’s a faster and lighter version of WordPress featuring a refreshed dashboard design.

The focus for this release was making WordPress faster and lighter. The first thing you’ll notice when you log in to 3.2 is a refreshed dashboard design that tightens the typography, design, and code behind the admin. (Rhapsody in Grey?) If you’re starting a new blog, you’ll also appreciate the fully HTML5 new Twenty Eleven theme, fulfilling our plan to replace the default theme every year. Start writing your first post in our redesigned post editor and venture to the full-screen button in the editing toolbar to enter the new distraction-free writing or zen mode, my personal favorite feature of the release. All of the widgets, menus, buttons, and interface elements fade away to allow you to compose and edit your thoughts in a completely clean environment conducive to writing, but when your mouse strays to the top of the screen your most-used shortcuts are right there where you need them.

I’ve just relaunched my personal website scottbeale.org as photoblog on Tumblr running the awesome new High Res Theme designed by Justin Ouellette.

Tumblr has just launched their new Spotlight section, showcasing interesting blogs on Tumblr. Laughing Squid’s Tumblr blog is being featured in the Culture section of Spotlight.

We’re always amazed by the breadth and creativity we find on Tumblr, and we’re always looking for better ways for you to showcase your talents and other interesting blogs. With the new Spotlight, we’ve set aside a special place to highlight a few of these blogs that truly inspire us.

The blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats (named after a Charles Mingus song) is “An Ongoing Series of Cultural and Personal Observations” which is edited collaboratively by 5 people and consists of images (usually historical photographs) that fit into an ever-growing list of idiosyncratic themes.

Amongst their dozens of themes are “Adventures in American Filmmaking” (with 144 entries), “The Frame Within the Frame” (with 35 entries), “I Like the Christian Life!” (with 18 entries), and “The Cool Hall of Fame” (with 206 entries).

Artists and Animals (currently at 76 entries and counting) is probably my favorite. Bringing together cute animals and the stars of Hollywood gone-by is a pretty potent combination. Starting above with the singular Harpo Marx upstaging an unwitting, anonymous monkey, these are a few of my favorites from that series.

Audrey Hepburn and a wee donkey

Zsa Zsa Gabor poses with her pink poodle

Salvador Dali takes his anteater for a stroll.

Others in the series include Claudia Cardinale and a Siamese kitten, Billie Holiday with her dog Mister, and Louise Brooks cuddling a koala. And there are many more on the site.

Charlotte’s Weblog by David SchwenDa

Today Tumblr launched their new “Share on Tumblr” button for publishers. We’ve added it to individual pages on the Laughing Squid blog, so now it is super easy to share our posts on Tumblr.

Hopefully WordPress will be added it to Jetpack as well, which would make it really easy for bloggers to implement.

UPDATE: Josh Cagan points out that the “Share on Tumblr” button might not always work as anticipated.

We’re excited to announce that Laughing Squid has won the People’s Voice Award for the best Cultural Blog in the 15th Annual Webby Awards. Thanks to everyone for your support, without you this would not have been possible!

We would like to give a special shout out to our fellow nominees whose awesome blogs that you should check out.

Here is a list of all the winners. Look for us on stage making our 5 word acceptance speech at The Webby Awards ceremony on June 13th in New York City, which will be streamed live online.

What follows is some background on EDW Lynch in his own words.

– Scott Beale

photo by Zachary Lara

Hi Internet,

Shortly after moving to San Francisco from the East Coast in 2003, I started noticing curious and wonderful things going on: costumed pranksters in the streets, odd public events, art cars…and when I started asking around to find out what was what, everyone pointed me here, to Laughing Squid. Scott’s blog introduced me to the Bay Area art community (in which I became an active participant) as well as a wider world of pranksters, geeks, artists and their creations.

I was giddy when Scott first wrote about one of my events (precious, precious eFame™!) And now, here I am, sporting the suction cups of an official Laughing Squid Tentacle. I’m honored to serve, and currently coated with a clear viscous fluid I can only assume is part of my transformation.

If you’re like me, you love Scott’s curation of art, culture & technology. I hope you also enjoy my writing and that of our awesome guest bloggers. Do tweet at me and let me know how I’m doing.

I’ve been writing and creating absurd public events ever since settling in San Francisco. If you’d like to know more about my other works, read on. Or, you can scroll down a bit, and let the tentacles of Laughing Squid drag you deeper into the depths of art, culture, technology & cetera. — EDW Lynch

In 2003 I came out as a corporate-man hybrid, the EDW Lynch Corporate Manglomerate. More recently I began holding press conferences, mainly in regards to my romantic operations, which culminated in the selection of a Chief Snuggle Officer (aka girlfriend.)

photo by Ed Hunsinger

Since 2005, I have orchestrated Santa’s vast security apparatus for his visits to San Francisco, in the guise of Santa’s Little Secret Service. In 2009, we provided an elaborate security motorcade for Santa’s friend, the Easter Bunny.

In the same “selfless humanitarian” vein, I also established a UN Commission concerned with abnormal cultural events such as flash mobs and Burning Man: The United Nations Unconventional Culture Commission. UNUCC is probably best known for its ill-fated mission in 2009 to stop the San Francisco Pillow Fight.

And last year I helped stage an absurdist nonsense protest of First Amendment beta testers the Westboro Baptist Church.

I sometimes moonlight unofficially for the BBC (without their knowledge or, presumably, approval.) Here’s a report on San Francisco’s Mission Neighborhood I did with fellow reporter David Cairns.

Alright, that’s enough from me. Tentacles, away!