1. Ever want to be a Ninja?

Yeah, me too. That’s why you might want to check out the website The 30 Year Old Ninja and cheery Izzy in his quest. His tagline reads “If I Can Quit My Job, Move to Japan, and Try to Become a Ninja, Why Can’t You Follow Your Dream?”

I find that compelling.

2. Ze Frank used Kickstarter to fund his daily episodes of A Show

It’s roughly three and a half minutes of weekday zaniness that make this blog look like a model of anal retentiveness. Watch the clip if you’re in any kind of creative work. My favorite line:

Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.

3. While we’re on the subject of beginnings, you might have heard of a little book called the Art of  War?

Steven Pressfield, its author, recently wrote a blog post describing his typical morning:

Hovering before me as I wake up is the work I know I need to do that day. Inevitably that work is daunting and inescapably it brings up fear. Ineluctably I don’t want to do it. This fear and this avoidance combine to create the witch’s brew that boils and bubbles in the cauldron of my brain.

It’s not funny, but it’s practical and profound. Read My Head in the Morning.

4. Five minutes before I began this mash-up, I noticed a post I’d written earlier.

I’d used the possessive form of a word when I simply meant a plural. Now I’m worried I might be one of the people mentioned in this illustrated and funny post on grammar and punctuation: Alot is Better Than You at Everything.

5. Lastly,  last week I downloaded David Thorne’s The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius. 

“Evil” is right. As Thorne plays a cat-and-mouse game, which will often leave you cringing and his jousting partner dying from a thousand passive-aggressive tongue-lashings, you’ll probably cry with laughter. I know I did. On account of my two broken ribs. They grated and twinged and I almost passed out from the pain, but I read the whole dang book in one night. Then I wanted his next one.

To get a sense of Thorne’s humor, check out this correspondence between Dave and his coworker, Shannon. Her cat has gone missing. They work in a design studio. She figured she’d ask for his help in designing a “missing’ poster. All I can say is, “What nerve!”

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Ninja image from Wikimedia Commons