I have long had a deep love of abandoned and crumbling places. I know I'm not alone in this. Ruins are fascinating, a little sad, a little creepy. Of course, the beauty in ruins is made more complicated when the beautiful, crumbling structures are in the midst of modern American cities. It is easy to equate urban decay with beauty when you aren't trying to live in the middle of it...when it isn't your city that is falling apart.

The photos of 100 Abandoned Houses were shot in Detroit, which certainly has more than its fair share of urban decay. When we look at these, are we rubbernecking? Are we vultures? Do we pause and think, there but for the grace of god and the vagaries of economics goes my city? My home?

Whatever the case may be, they are beautiful, though hard to look at. They make me want to say a prayer and buy American.

Whale Fall is a beautiful, cut-paper animation illustrating what happens to the body of a whale when it dies. Sound morbid? It's not.

Whale Fall (after life of a whale) from Sharon Shattuck on Vimeo.

5:46 am is a hauntingly lovely imagination of an empty, flooded Paris.

5:46 am from ArtefactoryLab on Vimeo.

Courtesy of the New York Times Magazine, excellent pre- and post-makeup shots of runway models, with a Flash-based slider to transition between them. The effect is really nifty.

Rion Sabean put together this excellent series of men doing some of the typical "pin-up girl" cheesecake poses. The guy with the shovel is probably my favorite.

The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects

(My favorite it the alphabet soup.)

The Colors of Good vs. Evil: Comic Book Color Palettes [infographic] By COLOURlover

"Blue: the ultimate hero. Bright Red: Also used by the ultimate hero," as a Brewers and Badge fan, I can get behind that.

Creepy woman candle is creepy.