For Cougars, It's All About The Stripes

As someone staring down the double-barreled shotgun of her mid-forties I chortle regularly at The Cougar Den, featuring one of Kristin Wiig's chameleon-like comic personas. While the actresses pull off their hormone-and-botox ridden characters with great aplomb (and a sultrified version of the white man's overbite), the unsung heroes of the sketches are SNL's makeup artists — who have clearly made Lauren Hutton's "pooch and nose" techniques, as well as Charla Krupp's contribution to the 21st century literary oeuvre, items of dedicated study.

Here Be Kid-Friendly, Good Gender Role-Modeling Dragons

I've been living under a parental rock apparently; have only just discovered Jane and the Dragon.

Jane and the Dragon statue from WETA by popculturegeek.com

Fantastic character voicing, dramatic (but not too scary) story lines, machinima-esque animation (motion capture, turns out), a girl training to be a knight, and one big, quirk-filled dragon. It doesn't look like the show's still in production, but it's on DVD and the books look fun too.

More info, games, etc.

• Jane and the Dragon Royal Archives
• Jane and the Dragon
• a Weta workshop creation
• on qubo.com

Lawyers striving to be Googley

Slides for my talk tomorrow to the IADC:

how to be a google master, by denise howell

View more presentations from Denise Howell. (tags: realtimeweb 2wayweb)

Growing Up Discovery Channel

Monsters under the bed are so passé.

Comet by Steve Jurvetson (jurvetson)

Today's kid fears are far more sophisticated. Just try to sell that one of these will do the trick, I double-dog dare ya.

Input for my next American Lawyer column: work life balance in a dismal economy

A Lawyer's Work is Never Done
Originally uploaded by chrisafer

If greed was good in the '80's, the overriding mood of early '09 seems to be quavering panic, at least in the legal profession. Above the Law's posts are dominated by layoffs (209 entries and counting), slashed salaries, withheld bonuses, bounced checks, and the incredible shrinking perk. Gordon Gecko's obnoxious wardrobe choices — and one can only assume accompanying attitudes — are making a comeback. Law students are scared to death to blog, and billable hours are eating work life balance for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — at their desk, of course.

It seems to me that going fetal in a down economy is "a bad choice" (as I would say to my son), and that innovating and distinguishing one's business methods and philosophies — fishing in a storm — are key to both short- and long-term survival.

Abandoning work life balance and career flexibility considerations in hard times strikes me as unwise and shortsighted. What do you think, and what do you see happening now and in the future?

[Update:] Further discussion spaces in Facebook at Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession and Women Lawyers — Back on Track.