Ross

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 05:14:51 GMT

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:37:05 GMT

I recently impulse-bought the new Futurama movie, and last night I watched it. I agree with the consensus of reviews: very funny, but the plot kinda goes off the rails. Maybe the combination of polyamory, tentacle rape and religion was just too audacious. The portrayal of polyamory was only mildly negative, though. So yay?

Also, from Japan: When Furries Attack!

I know it's wrong, but I really really REALLY wish there were video footage of this crime. How awesome would it be to see Winnie the Pooh, a panther, and a mouse beating and robbing a couple of tourists? I mean, sure, I feel bad for the tourists, but DUDE. #1 on Youtube, easy.

I wonder if this is the next trend from Japan that will become incredibly popular with American teenagers. Will our streets be taken over by thugs dressed as cartoon animals, ready to administer harsh beatings with their fluffy fluffy paws? Will non-violent fursuit-ists condemn the gangsta fursuit-ists for ruining the movement and ignoring the roots of the art form? Will conservative pundits encourage persecution of the furries and then take it to an absurd extreme, so that even people with cartoon-character underpants are suspect?

I kinda hope so. :)

A meme so nerdy I cannot resist

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:16:44 GMT

Instructions: Go over to Wikipedia and enter the day you were born [such as "March 27"] and then pick 4 events, 3 births, 2 deaths, and 1 holiday that occurred on your birthday.

Events:

1487 - Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against ban on foreign beer.

1847 - After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City. Celebrations of this event include the Pioneer Day Utah state holiday and the Days of '47 Parade.

1948 - Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian makes his first appearance in the cartoon Haredevil Hare.

1974 - Watergate scandal: the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.

Births:

1783 - Simón Bolívar, South American liberator (d. 1830)
1897 - Amelia Earhart, American aviator (disappeared 1937)
1981 - Summer Glau, American actress

Deaths:

1862 - Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States (b. 1782)
1974 - James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)

In the United States, National Tequila Day is July 24.
It's also the Saint's day of St Christina the Astonishing who is pretty interesting in that "Look what you could get sainted for before the modern understanding of Neurology" way.

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:01:29 GMT

I will never be a Paris Hilton fan, but this is undeniably awesome:

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Just to be clear: Everybody heard the thing about how McCain compared Obama to Paris Hilton in an ad, which pissed off the Hiltons, who are big time Republican and McCain contributors, not to mention being a really weird way to go negative? This is her response.

I'm not actually surprised that Paris Hilton is more media-savvy than John Sidney McCain III, but still, this was a bitchsmack.

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:39:58 GMT

Natalie Portman clearly has a pretty interesting life.

I'm kinda vaguely worried that this video is racist, but maybe it's just postmodern and I'm being a white liberal stereotype? Either way, it's fun as hell to watch.

Holy Malapropisms, Dubya!

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:45:28 GMT

Freakin' hilarious:

Impressively weird dream

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:02:46 GMT

I was in some cobblestoned European city trying to schmooze my way into being allowed to buy a puppy. Not just any puppy, of course, but one of the new genetically engineered ones that grew up to be cars. Ugly orange hatchbacks, but very cheap and environmentally friendly because they didn't need gasoline since they were alive.

I'm pretty sure they were called Autobilsdunghunds, which just goes to show that I'm a word geek even when I'm asleep. I've never studied German, but according to the web, "bilsdung" seems not to actually mean anything. Interestingly, "bildung" apparently means education. Weird. As German-sounding nonsense, though, "bilsdung" makes the grade.

Anyway, there were certain obvious challenges involved with raising a cute little fuzzy puppy that needs a special diet and rapidly grows to be bigger than a horse, then pupates into a wheeled vehicle. Therefore, to protect them, the official law was that nobody could get an autobilsdunghund puppy unless they'd already owned and raised one. The catch-22 is fairly obvious, so I was trying to get one from the scientists.

This involved buying lots and lots of beers for spiky-haired young German eco-geneticists while having conversations about things like how to encourage a glossy coat, power-to-weight ratios, and peak oil. Then I would drunkenly stumble home, past the orange hatchbacks that had to be tied to their parking meters with a leash and barked at each other in the night.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:06:28 GMT

A kick-ass blog article:
The Harm Reduction Model of Life, by Greta Christina

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:11:41 GMT

1) That gorilla rape joke is some fucked up shit.
2) Is that what Rachel Maddow looks like now? Awww. I mean, don't get me wrong, she looks fine, but she was so hot when she was butch.

Nerds notice things like this

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:52:58 GMT

Nestor Carbonell is in the new Batman movie (no, I haven't seen it yet, argh) playing the Mayor. This is funny because he used to play Batmanuel, the Batman parody by way of Zorro and a bad 70's "Latin Lover" stereotype, in the short-lived live-action television version of The Tick:

I have no idea if it was intentional or just one of those coincidences, but I think it's pretty great.

EDIT: A quick Google search proves that other nerds noticed this long before I did, and Mr. Carbonell has even talked about it in an interview. So, I'm late to the party, but I still think it's awesome.

I really should have taken a picture...

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:49:20 GMT

Most people, people not in the know, will talk about last night and focus on the storm, the winds, the lightning, the huge number of branches and even trees blown down in my neighborhood, and the 10-hour blackout.

These are all noteworthy, of course, but historians will look back on that night as the first time I combined the fuzzy bathrobe and the headlamp and shook the world of fashion to its core. Expect to see models in nothing but bathrobes and headlamps on the catwalks of Paris this fall, lit only by the bobbing beams springing forth from their cohorts' foreheads. Bliss may overcome you completely. Try not to weep on anyone's headlamp.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:39:31 GMT

So everybody's watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, right? This is the week it comes out and is free on the website, but only until Sunday night. I might have missed it if it weren't for geeky friends to remind me, so now I'm being the geeky friend for anyone who might be reading this.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the new Joss Whedon project, made during the writer's strike, about a lovable evil geeky mad scientist, with songs. Yeah, it's awesome.

Why am I covered in baby spiders?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:25:49 GMT

Weird. I just went to the bathroom and I had not one but two teeny tiny spiders on my head. WTF?

I apologize in advance for any nightmares this news causes. Since I'm not squicked by spiders I just find it highly perplexing.

A few observations

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:40:46 GMT

It must be summer. Hadley smells like pigshit.

Also, I noticed this morning that I shaved my beard asymmetrically. Argh.

Everything good in pop culture lately seems to be coming out of Australia. What are they doing down there? For example, Tim Minchin:

How can you not love this guy?

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:48:20 GMT

So I'm a couple days late with this, but it's awesome, so:

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:21:43 GMT

RIP George Carlin. He was my very favorite irascible old coot.

From the ridiculous to the sublime

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:59:31 GMT

Okay, I offer you a choice in tonight's abuse of my livejournal to link to random crap:

Do you want to push a button and laugh? If so, try Garkov, an especially geeky combination of old Garfield strips and a Markov chain-based text generator. It produces some oddly wonderful random little gems. This is my favorite from a few minutes of clicking.

If, on the other hand, you're in the mood to learn something and listen to some pretty decent classical music (Beethoven, right? Yes, I'm a philistine), then try this video about one hypothesis of a possible origin of life:

Maybe too nerdy for general consumption, and certainly not the final word on the subject, but still just outstanding.

Oh, the stuff at the beginning about evolution is just because of the state of the internet these days, and particularly the fundie Christians who are very active on youtube and love to argue about evolution/creationism etc.

Bwahaha... so true

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:24:17 GMT

From www.punditkitchen.com:

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:59:37 GMT

This is pretty awesome. It's NSFW (sorta) and on a Myspace (ick!) but if neither of those discourage you, then you should check it out. They arrange naked people so that the big black oldschool censor-bars make interesting shapes and patterns. It's very meta. Also, the music's catchy in the way that only a David Byrne/Dizzee Rascal mashup could be. :)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:54:16 GMT

Ech. Too hot. 3 cold showers today. Maybe this summer I'll suck it up and buy an air conditioner for my room. :(

My panties are officially in a knot.

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:54:07 GMT

A brief video of outrageous sexist statements in the media (mostly Fox news and other pundits):

Just as an aside, I really can't stand Chris Matthews. Why does he have a television show? He can't actually talk. He's so socially inept, how did he make it in the entertainment business? Why does he think shouting and incongruous grins are appropriate tools for communication? Also, he's clearly an asshole, but that's not so surprising in a professional pundit. The complete lack of charisma or social skills is more puzzling.

P.S.

Fri, 30 May 2008 23:10:24 GMT

Oh, almost forgot one more thing from the movie today. I hereby nominate this trailer and the movie it represents for Worst Thing in Pop Culture Ever. It has some steep competition, I know, but I think it's got what it takes.

Nerdy hippie movie review #eleventy-bunch

Fri, 30 May 2008 19:59:01 GMT

So I overcame my misgivings and went and saw Prince Caspian. I'm glad I did. If I had just read a list of all the changes they made compared to the book, I would have assumed I'd hate it, but you know what? It worked. It was pretty great, in fact. Two thumbs up!

Reasons why this movie was full of win:

1. Eddie Izzard steals the entire fucking movie as Reepicheep. Well, the voice of, technically. He wasn't onscreen nearly enough, but they got him exactly right. Courtly, pompous, selflessly brave, swashbuckling and also tiny and cute. So fucking great. I've been a fan of Reep' since the books, but seriously, they nailed it. He should get a spinoff TV show or something.

2. Anna Popplewell as Susan. First of all, how cute a name is that? Second, she's all grown up since the last movie from "kinda cute" to "holy shnikies, she's hot!" But that's not why she's on the list. Somebody (I assume the director) made sure she got lots of time on-screen being an action hero just like the boys. Seriously, she kicks righteous ass Legolas-style on several different occasions. She also had a bit of character development in the form of a not-quite-romance with the hunky twenty-something Prince Caspian (yeah, that's one of those changes I mentioned above) and I didn't hate it. I tensed up in dread when they started down that road, but they used such a light touch that by the end of the movie I was on board. It ended up just being another aspect of the "Fantasy Kingdom" motif: magic and talking animals for Lucy; excitement, adventure and respect for the boys; and a real live Prince Charming for Susan to put in her spank bank when she goes back to boring old England. Okay, yeah, I'm being crass, but seriously, it works.

3. The song at the ending was by Regina Spektor. Now, it's no secret that I want to have Regina's sardonic Russian-Jewish redheaded babies, but even my pathetic fanboyism aside, it's a great song. Somebody has good taste.

4. Fantasy Violence is serious business. They really made the violence unpleasantly realistic, for all that it involved centaurs and whatnot. True to the book, it wasn't a children's story so much as a coming-of-age story, and the emotional impact of violence and death was a big part of that. I gather that this is one of the things pissing off parents who want another Harry Potter, but not treating a war with the gravity it deserves would have been unfair to the source material, and the point of the story.

5. Eye candy. I know we've all gotten jaded by the state of the art of special effects -- seamlessly mixing cgi and real elements in the same shot and computer-animated characters that have souls of their own aren't exciting any more, but these people know their business, and the movie was a beautiful visual composition from start to finish.

Okay, all done. I mean, we could have a discussion about the changes from the book, or the disturbing subtext that important decisions should be made on faith rather than best available knowledge, but I think that's enough for now.

If you've seen it, what did you think?

About Friggin' Time...

Fri, 30 May 2008 15:30:49 GMT

So, the article is a little... let's be charitable and call it "vague"... but it seems as though a scientist in the UK is seeking governmental permission to explore techniques to make sperm out of stem cells from human (female?) bone marrow:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-511391/Death-father-British-scientists-discover-turn-womens-bone-marrow-sperm.html

The fact that the article is titled "Death of the Father" and written by someone who doesn't apparently understand the science too well is kinda annoying, and the authorial/editorial decision to set the article up as "Maverick scientists vs Traditional Values" is just offensive, but let's focus on the positive: one step closer to removing biological sex as a barrier to reproducing with the partner of your choice. Kewl!

An article about the previous success of the technique in mice is here.

Writer's Block: The Only True Question:

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:45:41 GMT

If you could go back and fix your most regrettable decision, what would it be, and what would you do differently?

Or:

Pirates or Ninjas?

View other answers

Definitely pirates. I mean c'mon.