Friday, April 30, 2004

Modern Booty Technology: Beyonce's Wax Double

The Tussauds wax museum is working on a wax statue of Beyonce Knowles, and in keeping with their recent "interactive" features (the blushing J-Lo, the squeezeable Brad Pitt butt), the statue will feature...wait for it...a mechanical wiggling booty. Ah, the wonders of modern technology.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Alias: 4/25/04

Well, that was an amazing episode, but also very confusing. Maybe because I was busy doing other things while the show was going on, but I didn't understand the ending. I'll get to that.

First of all, the thing with Vaughn being kidnapped and tortured was brutal, but also powerful. I don't understand why they thought he knew where the Passenger was. Did I miss something? As for his wife, when it turned out that she was only pretending to release him and said, "You're not as stupid as I thought," that was wild. But what happened to him? I didn't see him again after that. Did I miss something?

As for the Passenger, why in the world would Rimbaldi identify her by brainwaves? Couldn't the machine have just drawn a picture of her? And what a coincedence that they just happened to have a system to track people by brainwaves. She was pretty neat, though, and her reunion with Sloane was powerful. Which is why I didn't understand the end where he was injecting her. First of all, I don't understand how she was supposed to "contact" Rimbaldi. I also thought Sloane said he was protecting her from the Covenant who would give her too much of the elixir. So why was it such a big deal at the end with her giving her the elixir? Is it going to kill her?

Still a cool show, although you're right, it's getting way too complicated again. They'll have to do another reboot soon. They need to start coming up with simpler storylines.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Heather

I told you about this story on This American Life, but I finally found the link to the story about Heather, the mysterious man who anybody could call, always answers the phone, answers all your questions, and solves all your problems. I have yet to hear a creepier, spookier, more tender story that was completely real. It's in Act Two, six minutes into the program.

Urban Chillers

I have an idea for a movie to make...there's a website called Urban Chillers, where they dramatize urban legends as short films, and they take submissions. I personally love urban legends, so I think it would write itself. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Friday, April 23, 2004

SD-5: Alias Dossier

Real quick, check out this fan-made "dossier," an encyclopedia for "Alias." It's not totally complete, but it's a start. Would you believe Gina Torres was on Alias in the first season as Sydney's Russian nemesis? She's in the game, but it's a terrible model...I didn't even known Anna was supposed to be black until I saw the real photos. I've got to rent the first season now. There's a cool interview with Gina from 2003 where she discusses the outcome of her character and possible return.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse Teaser

There's a teaser trailer out for Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It's not much on the new movie, except for footage from the last movie, but it continues in the fake commercial tradition like "I, Robot." Very well done.

While I was at the Sony site, I checked out the trailer for "White Chicks," which looks like a new low for the Wayans brothers. It asks the question, what if we combined two stupid disguise comedy cliches into one movie?

Thursday, April 22, 2004

We Talkin' 'Bout Practice...: Allen Iverson

I've been trying to find a sound file of this. Allen Iverson, NBA star for the Sixers, was benched in May 2002 because he skipped practice. Afterwards, he ranted about it at a press conference and this is what he said:

"I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game...not a game...not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last but we're talking about practice, man. How silly is that? Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that and I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice."

Jim Rome plays this clip all the time. He said it's the essence of what's wrong with sports today. Translation, "I know practice is important but I'm a big star and I'm not going and you can't make me." I agree. I'll try to find the sound clip for the full effect. It's priceless.

Japan vs America: The Kidnapped Tourists

Japan is a different place...exhibit A, while in this country people felt sympathy for the Japanese citizens kidnapped in Iraq, in Japan the prisoners were held up for abuse by its highest leaders. Why? Because they shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place. Turns out crime victims don't get much sympathy there in general. Check out this article for your daily dose of culture shock...
Categories: news

Terrorism for Dollars: The Mission Game Show

This is the state of Palestine...they even have game shows for terrorists, like "The Mission" where Arabs answer trivia about famous suicide bombers and advance on a board to get to Jerusalem. Things like this make it hard to root for those guys.
Categories: news

Games of Peace: Orisinal

Speaking of unconventional games, check out Orisinal, a collection of Shockwave games that are truly calming and beautiful. Bubble Bees is one I tried which manages to be challenging without being frustrating.
Categories: random-lynx

Kneel Before Stick!

Terrance Stamp returns! He'll be playing Stick in the new Jennifer Garner (nyugh nyugh nyugh!) movie, "Elektra." Wasn't Stick Daredevil's trainer? I didn't know he taught both of them.
Categories: entertainment

Make your Own MST3K: Prelinger Archives

Earthlink sent me this link in their latest newsletter, and it is truly worthwhile. It's the Prelinger Archives, an archive of early commercials and educational films from the 50's et al. Yes, you too can own "Duck and Cover" and "Boys Beware." Hours of fun for the broadband-inclined. The possibilities are endless. I think I'll try to make a MST3K-style soundtrack to one of them.
Categories: random-lynx

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Name's Spears...Britney Spears

Britney Spears has some juevos on. The latest buzz is that she has made approaches to be the next Bond girl. Rather than spew a fountain of venom at the concept (and I could), I think this article in the Houston Chronicle says it best.

It really does seem like Britney is on her way out, albeit slowly. For a while, her name was floated as playing Daisy Duke in the new "Dukes of Hazzard" movie. But now Jessica Simpson is being considered for the role. I personally think Jessica would be better, because she still has the innocent, "I don't know I'm sexy" quality that the original Daisy had, and Britney "Madonna-Kisser" Spears can't pull off anymore.

Amazing. They actually found someone more vapid and whitebread than Britney.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Plastic Circuits

Imagine watching music videos on the side of a Coke can or printing out a new motherboard from your printer or a monitor with the thickness of paper. Amazingly, this isn't too far off. There's an article in CNET about two companies who have created transistors out of plastic, allowing them to literally spray out circuitry. And you thought paper CDs were cool.
Categories: science

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Photoshop Hoaxes from Iraq

Someone sent me a photo of a camel spider on Monday that freaked me out. Those things are huge! Turns out they're also fake. It seems like the war in Iraq has sent people scurrying to their Photoshop programs, because one photo has actually caused a military investigation. This forum seemed to boil the whole controversy down. My conclusion? Both the original and the "real" version are fake. Neither makes much sense. Then again, that yawning boy was real.
Categories: misc

Randomlynx: One Thousand Laughs

Stumbled across this great website called Worth 1000 that hosts Photoshop contests. I only peeked at a few, like the Rejected Transformers, but I'm hooked. Personally, I think General Surgeon should have won.
Categories: random-lynx

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Patented Out-of-this-World Moon Waffles

In the spirit of Skittlebrau, I asked myself this question: Has anyone tried to make Homer Simpson's patented out-of-this-world Moon Waffles? The recipe was clearly described in "Homer the Heretic" (who could forget the liquid smoke and the stick of butter). I found some sites with the recipe, but not anyone's opinion of the taste. Maybe I didn't look in the wrong place. I did find a collection of recipes from the show (scroll to the end), but I don't think it's serious. Who would actually try Vaseline on Toast?
Categories: food

Harry Shearer's CPR: You're Fired

Here's Harry Shearer's take on Bob Edwards getting fired from NPR. He makes my BOR project look cheap...

Categories: entertainment

Choose Your Savior: The Many Faces of Jesus

This may be blasphemous, but I think it's also true. Slate published an article about how people pick and choose different versions of Jesus Christ. It's pretty funny.
Categories: misc

Friday, April 02, 2004

Randomlynx: Molvania

There's a brand-new website for the guidebook to the European nation of Molvania. Check it out, it looks nice. Pleasant, cheap, bad dentistry. I might go there some time in December.
Categories: random-lynx

Does he at least get a tote bag?: Bob Edwards Fired

It seems that NPR has gotten even more political than usual. It recently caused a storm of controversy when it announced that it's firing Bob Edwards, the host of "Morning Edition" since its inception almost 25 years ago.
Categories: news

Wikipedia Wiki-Rocks

Okay, let's revisit Wikipedia, because I think the full impact of its presence has not been appreciated. This afternoon, I logged on and checked out Condoleeza Rice's biography. I found it a bit bland, mainly a series of facts. I think it only existed to include the final paragraphy about her testimony, which I thought was given too much weight. So I set out to fix that.

I spent a couple hours researching her biographies and profiles on the Internet. Along the way, I discovered her primary influence was a professor named Josef Korbel. But when I tried to link to him, he didn't have an entry. So I made one for him. And in that way, I've made my small contribution to history.

And in case you're still not impressed, answer this...how many regular encyclopedias would have entries for both the DC comics mini-series "Crisis on Infinite Earths", and the Carthaginians in the same site?
Categories: misc

P2P vs RIAA: Round Four

Some new data about the war between peer-to-peer filesharing networks and the music industry is increasingly making the RIAA's whining and heavy-handed tactics look more ridiculous. For instance, how about a new study that shows conclusively that P2P is not to blame for the decline in record sales? Or better yet, how about the fact that the music industry uses tracking info from P2P networks to gauge the popularity of their artists' songs and market their albums?
Categories: science