George Lucas Frozen in Carbonite

For the collective crimes of Episode I, II, and III.

The Cake is a [Delicious] Lie

A few weeks ago, Sam and I beat Valve software's delightful "Portal." The game is a first-person puzzler with a surprisingly clever sense of humor. It's hands down the most interesting and original IP I've played in the last few years. I highly recommend it.

Xmen Origins: Wolverine

Just in case you aren't already fed up with the deluge of comic-to-film properties flooding the marketplace, you might be interested in watching this leaked trailer for X-men Origins: Wolverine.

And yes, Gambit is heavily featured in the second half of the trailer.

Sexy Optical Illusion

The mind is always trying to stay one step ahead, sometimes to the detriment of our own perception of reality.

The Great Desecration

So whatever you may think of Dr. PZ "Big Balls" Myers, the deed is done. The Eucharist has been desecrated, along with a few pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion.

Read the full story here.

Chris Abani: Shared Humanity

Generally, I try to post the best of ted.com as I see it. I think Chris Abani's talk just might qualify. Abani is something of a Steinbeck foil, interested most in the small acts of compassion that accumulate, but not afraid to acknowledge mankind's dark side. And mankind can be disgustingly dark, a fact to which Abani attests. You should watch.

"It's 'ubuntu;' the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me."

"There's no one more rabid than a Catholic convert."

"The Ebo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community and they would express a wish, and their wish would then be brought to a priest who would find a ritual object and the appropriate sacrifices would be made and a shrine would be built for the god. But if a god became unruly and began to ask for human sacrifice, the Ebos would destroy the god. They would knock down the shrine and they would stop saying the god's name. This is how they came to reclaim their humanity. Every day, all of us here, we're building gods that have gone rampant. It's time we started knocking them down. And forgetting their names."

Best New Cartoon: Flapjack

Even though The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack has "stolen" a lot of my cartoon ideas, I'm pretty sure the creators have done more with the concepts, particularly comically, than I could. I nominate the show as the best new cartoon currently running on television. (That's right "Chowder;" you may have "stolen" some of my ideas as well, but your execution has been comparatively disappointing.)

Depth Deception Explained

Depth Deception, understood as a trope

The Origin of the Joker -- "The Man Who Laughs"

The design of Batman's arch nemesis the Joker was actually based off a character from the 1928 silent film, "The Man Who Laughs." You can find the entire film on youtube beginning here.

In the meantime, you might be interested in this famous scene. Gwynplaine, the man whose mouth was mutilated into a fixed grin as a child, returns home after being tempted by the Duchess Josiana to leave Dea, the woman he loves. Waking to find him home, Dea, who is blind, feels Gwynplaine's smile for the first time.

Darwin's Bulldog PWNS Wilberforce

Creationists Believe...

I found this summation of creationism in a comment on digg amusing:

Creationists believe in a Jewish Zombie who was his own father and can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

I think Catholic creationists believe they are not symbolically but rather literally eating the flesh of Christ, so this quote is not entirely accurate...

Darwin Hated His Teachers Too

When I was in grade school, I made a Mortal Kombat styled paper animation of my most hated teachers fighting each other. When Charles Darwin was in grade school, he wrote letters to his sister that are decidedly more classy. But I think the sentiment is the same.

Edinburgh.

Jan. 6th. | 1826—

My dear Caroline,

Many thanks for your very entertaining letter, which was a great relief after hearing a long stupid lecture from Duncan on Materia Medica— But as you know nothing either of the Lecture or Lecturers, I will give you a short account of them.— Dr. Duncan is so very learned that his wisdom has left no room for his sense, & he lectures, as I have already said, on the Materia Medica, which cannot be translated into any word expressive enough of its stupidity.

Darwin Letter Friday

Darwin Correspondence Project

Featured Doodle -- Quantum Kid Meets Wall-E

Drawn during my downtime at the theatre.

doodle

DO WANT - India's Air Car

"Compressed-Air Powered cars could take you over 800 miles on a single fill-up, at speeds of up to 96 mph. They should refuel in less than 3 minutes, and at speeds over 35 mph emit about half the CO2 of a Toyota Prius. Best part? You could see them in the US at the end of next year."

Sounds good to me. Sign me up!

link

Work Work Work

I'm working a morning shift at Blockbuster and then a night shift at the Movie Theatre tomorrow. It's going to be a long day.

Nintendo Back to Old Tricks

Nintendo has announced the add-on Wii Motion Plus, a small dongle that attaches to the end of the Wii remote and promises to deliver a true 1:1 motion gaming experience.


The timing of the announcement is curious. Rumor has it that Microsoft will soon be releasing a motion sensing controller for the Xbox360. If the gaming message boards are any indication, it looks like Nintendo just stole a lot of the wind from Microsoft's sails (or should I say "sales"?).

I'm certainly looking forward to Nintendo's press conference tomorrow.

You Are Not Your Mom's Favorite

via digg

Going Home

So concludes a lovely little vacation.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

I'm Off to Atlanta

Do I have the cajones to go hang out with biologist PZ Myers? Nah, I don't think so...

Oh How Easy Violent Fundamentalism Can Be Stirred

lol. Just when you think people can't get any more ridiculous...

It seems that most devout Catholics believe smuggling an uneaten cracker is as bad if not worse than a hate crime. (blame Faux News for the poor grammar that follows:)

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

Catholics worldwide became furious.

We don't know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was," said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. "However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it."

"It is hurtful," said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. "Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."

For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage--regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance--is beyond hate speech.

Webster Cook, the student who stole the wafer of bread, has received death threats and now fears for his life. Do you hear the same eerie echoes of the Muhammad Danish cartoon scandal that I do?

PZ Myers has a nice write-up. Check it out.

Insomnia

Looks like I'm in for another sleepless night. Yippee. On the plus side, I just finished watching this moving story of an "Amerasian" named Natasha and the photographer who changed her life.

Move Over Mankind, Here Come the Elephants

Are you kidding me? Is this for real? Of course, the cynic in me immediately thinks, "Well, obviously this elephant has been trained by its masters." But then I think, "Yes, and what exactly is the difference between an elephant trained by a master and an art student trained by a master?" Certainly, there's some difference, but nevertheless...

It seems art may no longer be an exclusively human activity.

Painting of an elephant by an elephant.

Happy Fourth of July

Hitchens Gets Tortured

As the atheist author of "God is Not Great," outspoken supporter of the Bush Iraq War, and chief antagonist to Mother Teresa's sainthood, Christopher Hitchens is pretty well hated by folks on either side of the political spectrum. Personally, I think he's a pretty funny pain-in-the-ass. And now no one seems to dispute that this guy has some pretty big cajones.

Hitchens recently underwent water boarding to personally resolve the question of whether or not the procedure is torture. To all you haters out there, feel free to put on your masochism hats and enjoy your sick selves as Christopher Hitchens is tortured:

Afterwards, Hitchens had this to say:

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Well, then, if water boarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

UPDATE: Probably would be nice if I linked the Vanity Fair article.

The Unbelievable She-Hulk

By blogging about this, I believe I am breaking my personal code of ethics because simply acknowledging the humor of the event dehumanizes a very real person who has no doubt suffered social injustice for a harmless taboo. That said, every once and awhile, the Universe sees fit to conjure up a little cosmic irony worthy of acknowledgment.

Two days ago, someone came into the theater to buy a ticket. At first glance, I saw that it was a large woman, complete with a short skirt and trimmed blond hair, and averted my eyes while I rang her up. Once the ticket was printed, I tore along the perforated edge, handed the stub over and made eye contact.

Oh my. What I saw was a hulking man with broad shoulders and large muscles wearing a blond wig and pink blouse. "THANK YOU" he spoke in a guttural baritone. Now, there are some transvestites and transgender people in this world who are close, if not indistinguishable, from the other sex. But he was not even close.

And the juiciest bit of irony? He bought a ticket to see the Incredible Hulk.