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New: Get "Absorbed", a Whimsical and Totally Free Font by I_Lick_Lists!

Introducing "Absorbed," a new TrueType font by I_Lick_Lists that's totally rights free, for a limited time. Yes, you read correctly--totally free. You may download and use this font for any project, commercial or otherwise. 

If you use it, all I request is that you make a small donation, by clicking on the "Make a Donation" button in the column to your right, and let me know where you've used it (either in a comment or by emailing me at ilicklists@gmail.com). Of course, you need not make any donation, especially if you thank me in your Oscar acceptance speech.

Absorbed was inspired by a note, penned by an 8th grader, that I found on the ground a while back. The missive is recreated for your enjoyment, below.

Creatives of all types should will be interested in making Absorbed part of their creative font portfolio.

Download Instructions for Windows Users:

1. Click the download link and save the font file to your desktop.
2. Right click icon of font file and copy.
3. Go to Start —> Control Panel —> Fonts. This will open up the font folder for Windows.
4. Right click anywhere in the folder and select paste. Close the window - you’re done. The font “tabor handwriting” is installed and ready to use in MS Word, etc. and you can drag the file on the desktop into your Recycle Bin.

Download Instructions for Mac OS X Users:

1. Click the download link and save the font file.
2. Close all open programs [new fonts may not appear in programs that are open during installation].
3. In the Finder, open the folder or disk that contains the Tabor Handwriting font file.
4. Select the font suitcases in which you want to install the font.
5. Drag and drop the font into the Fonts folder in the Library folder.

While the Absorbed TrueType font remains freely available for a limited time, donations are appreciated. To do so, just click on the Donation box at the top of the right-hand column. Donations support the continued development of the font series, will entitle you to updates, and will help me pay off my $140,000 NYU Law education without having to return to a law firm. Enjoy!

Download Absorbed.ttf

Who are the Readers of I_Lick_Lists?

You searched for:

1. Bleach Ammonia;
2. butcher cuts wikipedia;
3. brazilian cuts of beef;
4. know your beef cuts;
5. what do I study barbri outline bar;
6. worldwide animal deaths june 2007;
7. household hazards;
8. no tell motels;
9. stop all your fussin slap on a smile;
10. butcher cuts; or
11. california bar exam blogs tips to passing;

and you got I_Lick_Lists!  This is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous portfolio of common search terms that we have ever seen.

Exceptions to "I Before E, Except After C" (Or, Basic Words Your Expensive Lawyer Cannot Spell)

Ask me to get high grades and earn an achievement award at a top 5 law school, pass the California Bar, and secure a post at a "top 3" national law firm? No problem. Ask me to spell the following words without the aid of a spell checker? Evidently, I will fall to peices, er...pieces.

Either I missed the memo on all the exceptions to the rule, or the adage "I before E, except after C" is working a cruel injustice upon millions of young children in our soceity society. I decided to consult the experts.

According to expert Bob Cunningham, "I before E, except after C" is pretty damn inaccurate, and does not apply:

• To words that are not digraphs;

1. examples: (i) diety; (ii) conscience;

•  to some words which have an "Ay" (as in Jay or May) sound;

1. examples: (i) neighborhood; (ii) weigh;

• to some words derived from non-English languages;

1. example: dreidel; and

• to plurals of words ending in "cy";

1. example: democracies.
    

Why wasn't I clued into these massive loopholes?! This epiphany caused me to review the hundreds of documents I have penned by hand, without the aid of a spell checker. And what I discovered shocked me-- rampant misspellings of words like:

• beige
• codeine
• conscience
• deify
• deity
• feign
• feisty
• foreign
• forfeit
• heifer
• heigh-ho
• height
• heinous
• heir
• heist
• leitmotiv
• neighbor
• neither
• prescient
• rein
• seismic
• seize
• sheik
• sovereign
• veil
• vein
• weird 

For a more detailed discussion of the exceptions to "I before E, except after C",  go here. I'm too busy putting a hit out on Mrs. Dupee, my good-for-nothing 3rd grade teacher.   

List Finds: (Anorexic?) Hollywood Girl's Grocery List, Ralph's Supermarket 6/7/07 -- PIC INCL.

List Finds: Grocery List of a Very Skinny Girl, 6/7/07

A fresh, recurring category at I_Lick_Lists: List Finds. The following list was left behind by a disturbingly skinny girl who was in line at the Ralph's Supermarket on Sunset Boulevard and Fuller Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90046. Her list: Hair Gel. Hairspray. Toiletet [sic] rigs [sic]. Toilette [sic] Paper. Paper Towels. Sodda [sic]. Food. Cigarettes. The only food in her basket, if it qualifies as such: "Hellman's Mustard."

See and Download 30 Amazing, FREE Graphics from an Untapped Source: Government Image Archives!

You read that headline correctly; perhaps the biggest untapped bonanza of free online images is that of the U.S. Government and the several other countries that host online archives. Free to download, reproduce, and use for your design projects or even just as wallpaper on your personal computer, these sites are (for the most part) fantastic.

So obsessed were we with the totally copyright-free photographs, illustrations, video, clip art and web graphics we found that we burned the midnight oil and pulled an all-nighter just to list the best of them for you today.

Before you skip the rest of my words and go right for the goodies, please read this list of guidelines, which is a good set of rules to follow whenever you're looking at websites which purport to offer "free" graphics. (At the risk of sounding like Star Jones: I prepared this list myself, and I was an intellectual property attorney before blogging turned me to the streets, so pay attention to me, dammit.)

5 Free-Ware Rules

1) Read all user agreements or terms of use before even looking at the bling; if a graphics site plasters the word "free" next to a bunch of ads for emoticons or smileys, you should read the terms of use all the way through, three times, and understand what the contract--yes, contract--says. Do not pass go. Do not collect clip art before doing so; if you plan to use graphics commercially, you better understand that agreement like a good attorney, and you better contact the webmaster to confirm, unless expressly told otherwise;

2) If you have to fill out surveys, abort (read: spyware);

3) A proclamation of "free", like my own above, does not actually mean free; if there are recognizable people, trademarks, etc. in the photos, regardless of whether the pic's copyright is void or expired or otherwise, you must obtain a model release or obstruct the subject (read: you can be sued for invasion of privacy, yuck);

4) Avoid a design faux-pas: please don't ever assume you're the only one with a freeware pic; we designers hate seeing a photo we know is stock used in a prominent way on your website. If you can use it legally, then concentrate on using it wisely;

5) I_Lick_Lists makes absolutely no representations or warranties regarding the rights of any photos listed below, the sites to which it links, or the photos listed there. See 1-3, above.

Without further fanfare, here are the most amazing of the thousands of photos we looked at last evening.

Photo: NOAA (WWII)

Photo: NOAA (Caribbean; amaaazing irony)

Photo: NLA (1970's business, Australia)

 

Photo: NOAA (WWII comic strip)

 

Photo: NOAA (Circa. 1850 book jacket)

Awesome, right? They're from two amazing photo resources, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Library of Australia, which have great collections of public-domain photos and illustrations in their libraries.

But, that's NOTHING!...After the jump, we're getting serious--posting over 30 more free photos representing the best of the archives, for you to pilfer off this site (after reading terms at source, natch)!

Hard Copy List: Vintage List of Whale Species

Illustration: courtesy NOAA

Manscape Mix-Up; Most Women Say: "You Forgot to Trim Your ____"

Manscape (ing) (ed) (s) (man-SCAPE), (1) v.: to expertly groom a man's body hair such that one grooming area seamlessly flows into another ("He manscaped with his trimmer in my bathroom for over an hour, and didn't sweep it up; but, girl, he looks good, so whatev."); (2) n.: on such beautifully trimmed vista ("Howard, look at that manscape! Nah, that was totally an inside job, definitely got his girlfriend to do it.").

Now that men have finally caught onto the whole personal grooming thing, we thought it was finally time to get critical. We don't care that you have ADHD and already snorted your last Ritalin last night at Akbar! We don't give a flying fuck that your trimmer ran out of batteries! There are certain little things that you just don't do, as a matter of public decency, and leaving the arm hair on your elbows despite an expert wrist job is certainly one of them! Look: if the little patch you neglected to groom can see us, we can see it!

Yes, viewing the perfect manscape is nearly as difficult as it is to catch a digital picture of a sunset landscape that doesn't look like it was taken from a no-tell-motel in Cancun.

Why is this? 

We've conducted some extensive research here at I_Lick_Lists. We've been sitting in a coffee shop all day and bothered both the employees (by refusing to order anything more than two coffees) and every girl who has entered the coffee shop. Yes, so far, we've polled almost 100 girls.

Our question was this: "If you had to pick one area of a man's body that is the most neglected when he manscapes (besides the back, that's too obvious), what would it be?"

Compiling our results has been laborious and time consuming, in part because we've landed in a gay coffee shop, and we're really not interested in tapping into the whole "gay advice for the straight guy" crap.  Of course, it's also taken some time because not many people are familiar with "manscape", and we had a lot of explaining to do. 

To make the results a little more interactive, and frankly, to keep you on our site longer, here are the results of our informal poll, in game form.

    

Manscape Mix-Up TM

Directions: Order the list of 5 five answers from most popular to least popular. The first person to post a comment with the correct answer will win this brand new Norelco Professional trimmer, a $29.99 value, sent directly to you from CVS.com. (So girls and gay guys, if you're bf is a culprit, you're encouraged to post on his behalf and send this little present as a subtle hint.) Winner, if any, announced, at midnight tonight.

"If you had to pick one area of a man's body that is the most neglected (besides the back, that's too obvious) when he manscapes, what would it be?" The top 5 unordered results follow, with runners-up appearing after the jump.

1. Entire Legs
2. Butt Crack      
3. Belly Button
4. Balls
5. Nose hair