Link roundup

1. The winners of the Neil Gaiman-inspired short story competition.



2. Weekly Standard reporter in Libya:
I helped call in my first NATO strike yesterday. We were being shelled.
Via.



3. Apparently Ron Artest is going to be on Dancing With the Stars.
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Link roundup

1. Win a Kindle (if you're 6 to 14):
Can you write a thrilling, gripping story in just 247 words? We've teamed up with top author Neil Gaiman to set the writing challenge of the summer!



Take the title 'The Guardian', and let your imagination run wild. Tell your story in 247 words exactly, send it to us and the best story will win a Kindle pre-loaded with Neil Gaiman's amazing books published by Bloomsbury (including The Graveyard Book and Coraline). Five runners-up will each received a signed copy of The Graveyard Book.
Details and Neil's story here.



2. Google bought Motorola.



3. "Two construction workers were stuck in an elevator that was filling with water, Captain Melvin explained, with a hint of amazement in his voice. By the time firefighters arrived, the water level had risen as high as the two trapped men’s necks."
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Link roundup

1. You can read Neil Gaiman's excellent short story, The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains.

2. Halekulani Coconut Cake recipe. (My second favorite hotel on Oahu.)

3. Laker Andrew Bynum was photographed parking across two disabled parking spots in a largely empty lot.
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Neil Gaiman's non-offensive panda



I mentioned last month that Neil Gaiman was obsessed with creating a picture book that wouldn't offend censors in China, and had settled on a book about a sneezing panda. Adam Rex is apparently the illustrator and posted a sketch of the panda. Adam has various goods on sale at Zazzle.
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Link roundup

1. Smuggling in Mongolia.

2. Once upon a time Bo Derek was attached to play Dazzler in a movie.

3. Cool interface for this telling of Neil Gaiman's The Day the Saucers Came.
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Link roundup

1. From an interesting interview with Neil Gaiman:
The last time I was in China, I was very puzzled because none of my children’s picture books are in print in Mainland China. They’re in print in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, in complex Chinese characters, but they are not in print in Mainland China. I asked my producer, “Why aren’t any of my children’s picture books in print in Mainland China?,” and they said, “It’s because of their disrespect for authority.” I said, “Really?!” And they said, “Yeah, look at them. The Wolves in the Walls is about this little girl who tells her parents that there are wolves in the walls, but they do not believe her. There really are wolves in the walls, and thus her parents are proved wrong. And, in The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, these kids swap their dad. If that happened, society would crumble.”


So, suddenly, it became a goal of mine that was almost a little obsession to write a children’s picture book that would be published in Mainland China, that they could not help but publish, but still could have all of the things that are in my children’s picture books, and I did it. I wrote this book and it’s being painted right now by this wonderful artist, and it’s called Chu’s Day, and it is about a baby panda who sneezes. There is no way that anyone can resist a baby panda who sneezes. This is the single cutest book I’ve ever written. It is written for two-year-olds and is designed in such a way that I’ve tried it on kids and it actually works that when you get to the end, they just look at you and they say, “Read it again!” The only words on page one are, “When Chu sneezed, bad things happened.”
2. Shark.

3. IMDB on The Shining:
Because Danny Lloyd was so young and since it was his first acting job, Stanley Kubrick was highly protective of the child. During the shooting of the movie, Lloyd was under the impression that the film he was making was a drama, not a horror movie. He only realized the truth seven years later, when, aged 13, he was shown a heavily edited version of the film. He didn't see the uncut version of the film until he was 17 - eleven years after he'd made it.
Via.
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Link roundup

1. io9 interviewed Neil Gaiman about American Gods (only interesting if you've read the book, or are currently rereading it, like me). He's going to be interviewed in about one hour and it's going to be livestreamed.

2. New, cheaper than normal Navy ships have serious design flaw.

3. More negative comments on the new resin "Finecast" miniatures from Games Workshop. Via.

*Learn how to paint miniatures with these tutorials at Toycutter.
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Poster for Neil Gaiman's upcoming American Gods tour



The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck is the official provider of ice cream for Neil Gaiman's upcoming American Gods tour. Molly Crabapple created a poster for the occasion that's on sale at Etsy. The tenth anniversary edition of the book is 38% off at Amazon (and comes out on Tuesday).
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Link roundup

1. The LA Weekly's list of the best LA-related websites.

2. Space Paranoids arcade machine paper toy.

3. I'm rereading American Gods for the first time since it came out. I'm really enjoying it and can't imagine what I didn't like the first time. But anyway, this caught my attention:
"I read some book about brains," she said. "My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything it was the voice of some god telling them what to do."
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American Gods




American Gods by Nicholas Delort, who has various illustrations on sale here. (Probably the Gaiman book I liked least. I think I've forgotten enough to give it another try.)
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Neil Gaiman vs. Matt Dean, the comic



Just the first two panels in this comic about Neil Gaiman and Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean. Via.
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Link roundup

1. FYI, you have to pay $150 to $495 to be nominated for a Webby award.

2. If you missed it, Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean said he "hated" Neil Gaiman and called him a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota." Neil Gaiman responds here. His response includes a link to Dean's contact page and encourages you to share your thoughts with Mr. Dean.

3. Here's an explanation for why eating asparagus makes your urine smell. Via.
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