Octopodial Chrome

The Virtual Ranger has a great comparison of National Geographic and BBC nature specials. The National Geographic version is staged, hyper-active, short-attention-span-oriented, not terribly interesting and only marginally educational. The BBC version is thought-provoking and designed to encourage the viewer to think in a methodical fashion.

We need less of the former and more of the latter.

Here’s a nice takedown of the BOSE Acoustimass system. The short version: save your money and spend less on a better product from a reputable company.

Desmond Warzel applies the Wikipedian ethos to time travel. Hilarious if you’ve ever worked with Wikipedia much; I suspect it’s utterly unintelligible otherwise.

Here’s a cute little webcomic with a deeper message. If you’re gonna go down anyway, you might as well go down fighting…

I was watching Song of the Thing Man and found this great little bit of dialogue:

Nick

Darling, let’s go home.

Nora

Why, what’s at home?

Nick

You, my pipe, my slippers…

Nora

Nicky, I think you’re slipping!

Nick

Give me my pipe, my slippers and a beautiful woman…and you can have my pipe and slippers!

Heh heh.

Cluster ballooning is tying oneself to large numbers of helium balloons and flying therewith. This looks so fun.

From the Joy of Tech, Christmas past and present.

Well, I finally got around to seeing 2004’s Meet the Fockers, a sequel to the amusing Meet the Parents. My verdict? Absolutely atrocious.

What’s right with this film? Certainly not the Mr. & Doctor Focker played by Hoffman & Streisand: they are abominable people. Not Stiller’s Gaylord Focker: he’s a brainless twit, a simpleton along for the ride. Not Teri Polo’s nonentity of a fiancée (so forgettable I cannot remember her character’s name). There’s something wrong when De Niro’s paranoid, controlling CIA retiree is the most fully-realised and sympathetic character in the movie.

I think that we’re meant to like the Fockers—but they’re unlikable. Bernie Focker is a moron who has a shrine consisting of his son’s ninth- and tenth-place ribbons; he’s the sort of annoying putz who desperately needs to be punched in the face for at least half an hour. Roz Focker is, frankly, a disaster. She, along with her husband, has no concept of appropriateness, nor of boundaries, nor of discretion, nor of decorum, nor indeed of anything befitting civilisation whatsoever. They live in the present, ignoring the past and pretending there’s no future. The two of them have no wit, no learning; indeed, the only thing separating them from voiceless beasts is their incessant speaking. My world would have been a better place had I never been introduced to them.

Indeed, I would have been a happier man had I never seen this film. If it were possible to induce amnesia, I would. I am poorer and dumber for having seen it. May God have mercy upon my soul.

Mil Millington (of the profoundly popular Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About) has released his forty-fourth web vignette. Reading his stuff makes me rather glad to be single—and when you read it, you’ll see why. The green? They don’t sell them in green.

…or have one hell of a personality.

Traveller 5 is almost out, and a CD-ROM is now available with rulebooks and data. Looks to be pretty cool.

Raymond Ibrahim tears apart the new anti-Christian Beowulf film. I’ve no desire to see this latest mishandling of the classic.

Unsurprisingly, Star Drek is guilty of almost every single one. Roddenberry set sci-fi entertainment back a century.

Wil Wheaton reviews Start Trek: The Next Generation episodes. What makes this notable is that Wheaton was a regular actor on Star Trek. He’s not afraid to point out how absurd the writing could be, but is also willing to give the show what (little, IMHO) credit it deserves in places. Really cool stuff.

The first trailer for Prince Caspian has been released. My only quibbles are that Caspian has a goofy accent and looks too old for the part, and that I am getting sick and tired of mask helmets. People, you want a helmet to deflect blows, not grab them.

The Onion staff have apparently met me. Except that I kinda like New Mexico’s flag. But I hate hazelnut coffee and I believe that I’ve actually said that the only decent [state flag] is Maryland.

The Straight Dope has a great bit on the original versions of fairy tales. Snow White is…altogether unexpected.

Cracked.com have hit it out of the park with their list of inspirational 80s songs. It’s amazing how those songs can make anything seem powerful and profound; I was eating an apple when I started listening to Europe’s The Final Countdown, and now I’ve rescued by mentor from a North Korean prison, Mia Sara’s wearing my letter jacket and my dad just bought me a Corvette. Cool dude!

A bit off-colour, but absolutely hilarious.

As someone who went to college, I can appreciate these.

1. Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later how to use it.
2. Just because you can drive on snow and ice does not mean we can. Just stay home the two days of the year it snows.
3. If you do run your car into a ditch, don’t panic. Four men in the cab of a four wheel drive with a 12-pack of beer and a tow chain will be along shortly. Don’t try to help them. Just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
4. Don’t be surprised to find movie rentals & bait in the same store.
5. Remember: Y’all is singular. All y’all is plural. All y’all’s is plural possessive.
6. Get used to hearing, You ain’t from around here, are you?
7. If you are yelling at the person driving 15 mph in a 55 mph zone, directly in the middle of the road, remember, many folks learned to drive on a model of vehicle known as John Deere, and this is the proper speed and lane position for that vehicle.
8. If you hear a redneck exclaim, Hey, y’all, watch this! Stay out of his way. These are likely the last words he will ever say.
9. Get used to the phrase It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. And the collateral phrase You call this hot? Wait’ll August.
10. There are no delis. Don’t ask.
11. In conversation, never put your hand on a man’s shoulder when making a point, especially in a bar.
12. Chili does NOT have beans in it.
13. Brisket is not ’cooked’ in an oven
14. Don’t tell us how you did it up there. Nobody cares.
15. If you think it’s too hot, don’t worry. It’ll cool down—in December.
16. We do too have 4 Seasons: December, January, February, and Summer!
17. A Mercedes-Benz is not a status symbol. A Ford F-150 is.
18. If someone tells you Don’t worry, those peppers aren’t hot you can be certain they are.
19. If you fail to heed my warning in #18 above, be sure to have a bowl of guacamole handy. Water won’t do it.
20. Rocky Mountain oysters are not oysters. Don’t ask.
21. If someone says they’re fixin’ to do something, that doesn’t mean anything’s broken.
22. Don’t even think of ordering a strawberry daiquiri. What you really mean to say is Margarita.
23. If you don’t understand our passion for college and high school football just keep your mouth shut.
24. The value of a parking space is not determined by the distance to the door, but the availability of shade.
25. If you see a slower moving vehicle on a two lane road pull onto the shoulder that is called courtesy.
26. BBQ is a food group. It does not mean grilling burgers and hot dogs outdoors.
27. No matter what you’ve seen on TV, line dancing is not a popular weekend pastime.
28. Tea means Iced Tea. There is no other kind.
29. Everything goes better with Ranch dressing.

Found at http://downhereintexas.com/text/AdviceTX.txt.

Just finished watching the hilarious Hot Fuzz. It’s an excellent parody buddy-cop films. The first bit’s kinda slow, but really it’s a prolonged setup for the final half hour actionfest. The trailer promises that the guys who made it watched every action film ever; I don’t know about that, but they sure managed to fit in just about every action movie trope: the jump-from-a-great-height; the hero-henchman fight; the hero-villain fight; the sword-fight; the vengeance vendetta; the exploding building; the spring-loaded sleeve-pistols; the massive, monumental, absolutely incredible expenditure of ammunition (I’m pretty certain more shots were fired making Hot Fuzz than in the Second World War).

It rocked.

Every guy’s thought of it at one point or another. Wouldn’t it be great to have a urinal in your home?

This evening I watched It Happened One Night, a Frank Capra film featuring Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert. The plotline is fairly simple: girl (involved with a fellow) falls in with a guy while headed to New York to meet her fellow; they hate each other; they have transportation trouble; zany adventures ensue; they fall in love. I was thinking how cool it’d be to remake it in a modern vein, and was amusing myself with how to update it when I realised something: I’ve already seen it remade. Three times in fact. Forces of Nature: guy (engaged) falls in with a gal while headed to his wedding; they hate each other; they have transportation trouble; zany adventures ensue; they fall in love. The Sure Thing: girl (with a boyfriend) falls in with a guy while headed to visit the boyfriend (and the guy’s sure thing); they hate each other; they have transportation trouble; zany adventures ensue; they fall in love. Planes, Trains & Automobiles: guy falls in with another guy while headed to his family; guys hate each other; they have transportation trouble; zany adventures ensue; they become friends. Heck, one could even argue that 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon play with the same sort of ideas.

I don’t know that It Happened One Night originated such plots—perhaps Aristophanes played with ’em—but it was very cool to watch the inspiration for so much latter cinema. It’s not a terribly great film in itself (despite sweeping the Academy Awards for 1934), but it’s highly enjoyable fluff.

Do you have feelings of inadequacy? Do you suffer from shyness? Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive? If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about tequila.

Hilarious video…

Last night I went with John & his girlfriend Gen to see Dolores O’Riordan (former lead singer for The Cranberries). It was an incredible show!

The opener was singer/songwriter Jessie Baylin. Unfortunately, we missed much of her set, but what I heard was just amazing. Her voice is beautiful, and she’s not too hard on the eyes either:

Keep an eye out for great things to come from her in the future. I got her five-song EP part of You (appropriately titled, since the songs are part of her forthcoming album You!…), and every song is wonderful. Quirky & fun, with just enough sexiness to tie everything together.

O’Riordan’s set was great. She alternated old favourites like Linger and Zombie with stuff from her solo album, and all was worth hearing. Her new stuff is much rockier than the earlier, poppier Cranberries work—but it was all quite enjoyable. Listening to the older songs made me feel as though I were back in college again, always a fine feeling.

Hopefully I’ll be able to catch both these talented singers passing through Denver again.