Know This:

• Google Earth will use it powers for good -- to help get mines out of the ground.
• Liberal radio host Bill Press is crusading against The Star-Spangled Banner. 
• A 6-year-old sent Brandon Jacobs $3.36 to stay with the Giants.

Read This:

• How a decade-long Internet cancer hoax unraveled.
• An interview with Aaron Sorkin in advance of The Newsroom premiere.

Watch This:

• A little kid tries to encourage the Miami Heat after their loss in Game 5.
• Michelle Obama presents Letterman's Top Ten List.
• An interview fail compilation from gaming expo E3.

Look At This:

• The most gorgeous watertower in all the world.
• Remember perler beads? An '80s craft icon gets a fashionable makeover.
• Finally -- an infographic of Pulp Fiction in chronological order.

Other:

• Tea Time Twitter: #NASASummerVacation
• Tea Time Tumblr: Movie Simpsons
• Tea Time List: 20 Powerful Quotes By Ray Bradbury
• Above: brigittezieger

Quentin Tarantino's big Western Django Unchained stars Jamie Foxx as a slave-turned-bounty hunter out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner. Also starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kurt Russell, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, the film is out December 25.

[comicbookmovie]

The latest anti-gay rant to hit the web is courtesy West Virginia teen talk show host Caiden Cowger, who blames President Obama for turning kids gay, and says that homosexuality is a choice, "no matter what Lady Gaga says."

I see younger people that is turning out to be homosexuals... we've got about 30 teenagers in this county that I'm at that are homosexuals and it is sickening... I knew these teenagers when they were in elementary school... they were not homosexuals. They just decided all of a sudden -- I think I'm going to be gay. Why they are becoming homosexuals is because they are being encouraged... President Obama. It's all right, it's okay you were born that way.

Despite his poor grasp of the English language, the 14-year-old has written a book, Being A Young Conservative, which is supported by Rudy Giuliani and Glenn Beck; and interviewed Herman Cain.

Sigh.

[towleroad]

When married actor Brian Presley attempted a little adultery this morning on his cross-country flight, he had no idea he was hitting on model Melissa Stetten, whose Twitter feed -- with 13,000+ followers -- broadcast in real time his increasingly pitiful, hypocritical attempt to renege on his vows. Here's the recap in its entirety.

(Disclaimer: This could all be a hoax, but nothing yet proves it didn't happen -- Stetten dates noted prankster Anthony Cumia, of Opie and Anthony.)

[thanks, chase!]

Today on The Daily What Geek: The best Game of Thrones rap to date

Elsewhere on the Internets:

• Revealed: HuffPo has an entire site devoted to sidebewb
• Launched: An "adult" site, by PETA, for its more-risque content
• Making the rounds: Comedian Rachel Bloom's Not Safe For Work YouTube tribute to Ray Bradbury
• Rigged: The Miss USA pageant, according to Miss Pennsylvania, who quit in a huff
• Deceased: Al-Qaida's No. 2, in a Monday drone attack

Lunchtime Leisure: Hug Marine Lunchtime List: The 21 Best Graduation Speeches of 2012

[image: epicponyz]

Don't try these at home. You will fail.

[theaggregate]

In Disney's animated Wreck-It Ralph, John C. Reilly voices a video game baddie who no longer wants to be the villain, so he skips out on his 30-year gig in order to do good.

The film also features the voices of Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, and Sarah Silverman -- and don't miss the cameos by some famous video game villains. In theaters November 2.

[slashfilm]

Oh, to live in rural England, where a small but devoted contingent is focused not on the upcoming London Olympics, but the national Cotswold Shin-Kicking Championships:

The rules of shin kicking are very simple. Kick your opponent to the ground and you win. No throwing, tripping or pulling—the 'fall' must be precipitated by a kick to the shins.

[deadspin]

Andy Samberg -- SNL's last saving grace who jumped ship Saturday -- debuted a new PSA on last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! that addresses the recent spate of people-eating.

[heavy]

This 2006 letter from the late Ray Bradbury to the assistant director of Fayetteville Public Library goes behind the scenes of the writing of Fahrenheit 451:

Dear Shawna Thorup: I'm glad to hear that you good people will be celebrating my book, "Fahrenheit 451." I thought you might want to hear how the first version of it, 25,000 words and which appeared in a magazine, got done. I needed an office and had no money for one. Then one day I was wandering around U.C.L.A. and I heard typing down below in the basement of the library. I discovered there was a typing room where you could rent a typewriter for ten cents a half hour. I moved into the typing room along with a bunch of students and my bag of dimes, which totaled $9.80, which I spent and created the 25,000 word version of "The Fireman" in nine days. How could I have written so many words so quickly? It was because of the library. All of my friends, all of my loved ones, were on the shelves above and shouted, yelled and shrieked at me to be creative. So I ran up and down the stairs, finding books and quotes to put in my "Fireman" novella. You can imagine how exciting it was to do a book about book burning in the very presence of the hundreds of my beloveds on the shelves. It was the perfect way to be creative; that's what the library does. I hope you enjoy reading my passionate output, which became larger a few years later and became popular, thank God, with a lot of people. I send you all my good wishes, (Signed)

[lettersofnote]

My Little Pony voice actress Tara Strong was scheduled to appear at the upcoming Knoxville Comic and Anime Show, and 15-year-old mentally disabled brony Dragon and his mom, Rebecca Andrews, were looking forward to meeting her.

Then Strong canceled.

Andrews knew her son would be devastated, and she said as much on the convention's Facebook page: "Thanks for posting. Just wish she'd cancelled before I paid for the vip pass. Now I have to figure out how to tell my disabled son he won't be meeting Twilight. :("

But Strong saw the post, called Andrews, and set up a phone call with Dragon.

Tara: Is this Dragon? Dragon: ...yes. Tara: Do you know who this is? Dragon: Yes, it's Twilight Sparkle. Dragon: Tara, you are so talented with all those voices you do. Tara: Yes, yes I am, aren't I? Tara: (in Twilight's voice) I love you, Dragon. Dragon: (stunned, muttering) ...love you, too, Twilight.

After the call, Andrews snapped a pic of Dragon's expression and posted it to Facebook.

"She talked to him for about 20 minutes in all," Andrews wrote. "[She] did every voice he asked her to do, talked a little to him about how to deal with bullies at school, and assured him that there is going to be a season 3 of My Little Pony." 

Dragon starts high school in the fall. He recently was switched to special needs classes so he won't be subjected to bullying for liking My Little Pony.

"It's still rather hard to believe this actually happened," Andrews said, "even with Dragon piping up every once in a while, 'Twilight Sparkle said she loved me.'"

[dailydot]

Scholastic recently issued a challenge -- could a first-grader write a complete story?

Six-year-old Scotty put pen to paper, and his outstanding entry, The Knight's Quest, (Nit's Qast), was animated into this short cartoon -- complete with the young author's original spelling.

Adorbz.

[vvv]

Spider-Man saves his girlfriend from a bunch of would-be attackers, then pops the question.

So nerdy, yet so charming.

[dailypicks]

A real-life Garfield who tips the scales at 40 pounds has laid claim to the title of world's fattest cat. After last week's winning weigh-in, he was promptly put on a prescription cat food diet, and he is undergoing range-of-motion therapy while waiting for adoption by a family who "will be very committed to his weight-loss goals."

[telegraph]

Ray Bradbury, literary genius and acclaimed sci-fi and fantasy author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, died late Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

His grandson, Danny Karapetian, shared the news:

If I had to make any statement, it would be how much I love and miss him, and I look forward to hearing everyone's memories about him. He influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories. Your stories. His legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him. He was the biggest kid I know.

Bradbury had suffered a stroke in recent years that left him confined to a wheelchair. But he continued to write novels, plays, screenplays, and a volume of poetry late in life.

"What I have always been is a hybrid author," Bradbury said. "I am completely in love with movies, and I am completely in love with theater, and I am completely in love with libraries."

In fact, Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 at the UCLA library, on typewriters that he rented for 10 cents per half hour. He carried a sack full of dimes to the library and completed the book in nine days, at a cost of $9.80.

"I never went to college, so I went to the library," he said. "The great thing about my life is that everything I've done is a result of what I was when I was 12 or 13."

[io9]

When Amanda returned from Afghanistan, Daisy could barely contain her excitement:

I filmed this when my wife came back from a 6 month deployment last fall. Our beagle was still a puppy when she left, and was full grown dog by the time she came back.

[whb]