Screwcybersquatters.com: "The Simpsons Movie" Name Returns to Fox

A cybersquatter has been kicked to the curb when he tried to charge FOX $50,000 for the domain name "thesimpsonsmovie.com." In case you're not familiar with it, a cybersquatter is someone who buys up domain names in the hopes of getting someone who wants the name to pay them for it. In case you can't tell, I hate cybersquatters with a passion. It's a scourge that hasn't been adequately dealt with, in my opinion. You can type in any word in the dictionary and odds are that you'll find a placeholder page advertising some search engine or web hosting service, wasting space that some people who might have put that site to good use can no longer have. Worse yet, some cybersquatters will buy up other people's names or movie URLs to basically hold them for ransom. That's the case in this one. The cybersquatter even used the URL to promote his podcast and advertise a pornographic Simpsons website. Thankfully, the EU has ordered him to give up the site. Here's hoping this will go a long way towards convincing these losers that nobody's gonna pay them for their crappy URLs.

Top 10 Alien Myths

Space.com has a countdown of the Top 10 Alien Myths and the explanations for them. Some of them are obvious like the Alien Autopsy video, others are surprising like the explanation for flying saucers. All are fun. Except they never explain the little aliens that live in my sock drawer and demand a nightly sacrifice of Hostess Apple Fruit Pies. Some mysteries can never be explained.

The Lady Drowns: M. Night Shyamalan

I used to be a diehard M. Night Shyamalan fan until I saw The Village. That could've been a good movie...if it hadn't been for that lame twist ending. I didn't see Lady in the Water because it looked even worse. Turns out I wasn't alone. Lady in the Water was a disaster, so much so that he couldn't get a US studio to fully finance his next film and had to go to India to help finance his next project. Talk about a one-hit wonder.

News Nuggets

NEWS - Dr Jack Kevorkian, noted for helping terminally-ill patient commit suicide, was released after serving an eight-year prison sentence. At the press conference, he celebrated by killing everyone in the room.

SPORTS - The San Antonio Spurs beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to become the 2007 NBA champions. Nobody cared.

SCIENCE - Hundreds of people waited in line for the release of Apple's new iPhone. And in a related story, hundreds of people have no lives and are mindless sheep desperate to fill their empty lives with the latest gadgets to serve as useless status symbols.

ENTERTAINMENT - Paris Hilton was seen partying and smoking marijuana just days after being released from jail and claiming that she never overdrank or used illegal drugs. This came as a surprise to absolutely no one.

MISC - An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch. We were going to make a joke about that, but don't think you can.

See you next Tuesday.

How To Keep Me From Reading Your Blog: Lesson 7

If you don't see what's wrong with this or this is what your blog looks like, then you are the problem.

I know it's been over an hour since my last update. Sorry! I know my regular readers depend on me and risk commiting suicide if I don't update at least twenty times a day because this blog is the center of their lives, as well it should be. I promise this blog will be updated more recently from now on! I have big surprises in store, including the simple and effort-less method to becoming a millionare, the key to peace in the Middle East, and the cure to all known diseases. I'll have all that tomorrow!

Last updated March 14, 1997

Related:
Lesson 6
Lesson 5
Lesson 4
Lesson 3
Lesson 2
Lesson 1

Stuntman: Death of Captain America

Well, Captain America is dead and the media is all over it. They actually reported on his funeral at Arlington Cemetary. I'm surprised the media is buying into this. Anyone who knows comic books knows this is a hoax for two reasons. One, no one is truly dead in comic books. They bring characters back from the dead all the time. Heck, Captain America was already frozen in ice for forty years. Second, is Marvel really stupid enough to kill off one of its most popular characters during the height of his popularity? I say no. And in such a lame way as getting shot by some nobody lone gunman? Doesn't Captain America wear body armor? I would only even slightly believe it if the Red Skull did the deed. That's like Batman facing the Joker, the Penguin, Bane, and the Riddler, and then getting killed by a carjacker trying to steal the Batmobile.

James Bond's Pocket Change: Canadian "Spy" Coins

In January, the U.S. government announced a new security threat to its contractors - Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden in secret compartments inside. There was a big uproar over who might have planted the highly advanced devices and why. Was it the Iraqis? The Russians? The Canadians? And how could these devices track individuals? It had to be highly advanced nanotechnology.

But the mystery has been solved, supposedly. The Defense Department concluded there were no tiny transmitters in the coins after all. In fact, they were just regular Canadian coins with a protective coating. Security experts at the time said they doubted the validity of the claims since no transmitters that small could transmit that far, and even if they could, a coin would be a lousy thing to track someone with since the target could easily spend it or leave it somewhere. So the whole thing turned out to be a false alarm.

Or was it? Yes, it was. Or was it? Yes, it was.

Related:
James Bond's PDA

Flashback Friday: The Black Hole

The Black Hole was a movie back in the late 70's about an evil scientist with a plot to send himself and his crew into a black hole. I only remember a few things about the movie - like the theme song, which was awesome. Another is the evil robot Maximilian. He rocked. I remember my horror at seeing the robot advance on a man with spinning propellers for hands and the man's body jerking as Maximilian chopped him up. Fortunately, they didn't show it. But how cool would that be to have a robot that would hack people up at your command? I even named one of my cats after him.

The ending of this movie is what I remember most and baffled me. After the ship enters the black hole, I vividly remember the villain floating up to the body of his robot Maximilian and the camera zooming out as he is somehow inside the robot as it stands on a rock ledge in a flaming pit. I remembered thinking, even as a child, where all those flames came from. Later, when I learned about oxygen, I wondered how there could be fire in outer space.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that that ending was supposed to imply that the spaceship had passed into the spirit realm and the heroes had gone into Heaven while the villain ended up in Hell. Hardly a fitting ending for a science-fiction movie.

Trivia

* The Black Hole is considered a colossal failure, both critically and commercially.
* It was Disney's first attempt to create a PG movie production.

* The movie was supposed to be an adaptation of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I don't know how they got this story out of it.
* The robot name "V.I.N.CENT" is supposed to be an acronym of "Vital Information Necessary CENTralized". B.O.B.'s name stands for "BiO-sanitation Battalion," while S.T.A.R.'s is an acronym for "Special Troops/Arms Regiment."
* V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B. were lame attempts at R2D2 clones.
* Neither the novelization or the comic adaptation used the Heaven/Hell ending.

Links
Disney's Unofficial The Black Hole page
Wikipedia: The Black Hole
Ultimate Disney: The Black Hole
Space.com review: Does 'The Black Hole' Still Suck?
Toy Archive.com: Blackhole

Youtube: That's What She Said

Ah, "that's what she said," the game that entertains men throughout the nation. Youtube has a lot to say on it. Here's that's what she said according to the Office. And that's what she said according to Star Wars.