A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Your dorsal ocelli are like limpid pools

Isabella Rossellini is doing a series of shorts for the Sundance Channel called Green Porno, in which she acts out the mating routines of various invertebrates. It is simultaneously one of the weirdest and coolest things I've ever seen (and I suppose it's technically NSFW):

In addition to snails and earthworms, you can enjoy simulated hanky-panky with such arthropod luminaries as the dragonfly, bee, and spider, peppered with informative commentary like, "My anus would end up on top of my head. Unfortunately."

Admittedly, I went straight for praying mantis, and was a little disappointed that the lovely Ms. Rossellini didn't play the female.

"What's your problem, Kazanski?"

I have a separate e-mail account, linked to my name on the Film Threat boards, designed to catch queries/abuse regarding my work over there. Feedback comes in many forms; constructive, pejorative, and on occasion, illuminating. To wit, this message from "Xyborg Samurai:"

Given that America and Iran look set to duel with each other for dominance of the Middle East over the next 15 years or so ~ and with the emergence of the Persian Gulf as the main theatre in which American naval aviators will conduct the bulk of their future peacetime and combat missions ~ wouldn't it be ace if an older and wiser Tom 'Maverick' Cruise and Val 'Ice Man' Kilmer took to the skies in a Top Gun sequel, only this time riding F/A-18 Super Hornets out of the USS Ronald Reagan and going up against the kamikazes of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (the only aviators left who still fly "Maverick & Goose" F-14 Tomcats left over from the Shah era)?

And after getting shot down in the Strait of Hormuz and taken captive by the IRGC, Maverick and Ice find themselves in an Iran totally unlike the fanatical Islamist state of FOX news propaganda and are eventually freed through "dialogue-among-civilizations" diplomacy after having embarked on a journey of American-Iranian rediscovery that could make this film one of the schmaltziest yet ground-breaking pieces of inter-cultural rapprochement between two mortal adversaries who desperately need to extricate themselves from what could end up being a world-ending thermonuclear dance of death?

I just. Wow. It's...ambitious, but I can't say it sounds like much of an action movie. If I didn't know better, I'd think Erik Blevins had finally gotten his GED.

In God We Tru$t

The guy in line ahead of me at the post office was wearing an interesting t-shirt.

FRONT
I am BLESSED...

BACK
I have been empowered to SUCCEED and anointed to PROSPER.

Must be one big eye on that needle.

Talk to me, Goose

Entry #2 about the Vegas trip is coming up, as soon as I resurrect my laptop from the bowels of failed power supply hell. While I'm borrowing someone else's, here's a story to put you in the mood for holiday gluttony:

For decades, a few simple slices of turkey were all it needed. But now even the traditional Christmas dinner has been supersized.

Multi-bird roasts, where different types of bird are stuffed inside a larger one, have become the thing to carve this year - and the more birds involved the better.

One of the top-sellers is the Waitrose four-bird roast: guinea fowl, duck and turkey breast stuffed inside a goose. Demand has soared 50 per cent this year - even though each roast costs an eyewatering £200.
[...]
The surge in popularity may have something to do with TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's creation of a ten-bird roast on his show two years ago.

He stuffed an 18lb turkey with a goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock - producing a remarkable Russian doll-like dish.

But now his effort, inspired by recipes dating from Tudor times, has been dwarfed by a behemoth containing no fewer than 48 birds of 12 different species.

The species in question:

1. Turkey, 2. Goose, 3. Barbary duck, 4. Guinea fowl, 5. Mallard, 6. Poussin, 7. Quail, 8. Partridge, 9. Pigeon squab, 10. Pheasant, 11. Chicken, 12. Aylesbury duck

And some specs:

This massive roast, the proud creation of Devon farmer Anne Petch, weighs almost four stone (more than most airlines' baggage allowance), costs £665, and has enough meat to serve 125 people.

It contains about 50,000 calories and takes more than eight hours to cook in an industrial duck sized oven.

The spacing on that last sentence was screwed up, so I can't tell if that means the oven is sized for something called an "industrial duck," or if a regular duck-sized oven wasn't macho enough.

In any event, we have ostrich farms in Texas, right? I think you know what needs to be done.

"In the still of the night"

"I hear the...bear...howl honey, sniffing around your door:"

Rock star David Coverdale has been confronted by a black bear at his home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Writing on his website, the Whitesnake singer said the bear broke into a guest bedroom on Wednesday morning.

Coverdale, 55, recounted how he ran at the animal with an air horn canister and scared him into the garden.

The British singer, formerly of Deep Purple, said bear attacks had become a "daily worry" and that authorities had warned he may have to move out.
[...]
"I'd like to think it was the smell of my fab cooking that seduced him," said Coverdale, "but it was only a slightly charred bagel!"

Don't be so coy, Dave. It was obviously the memory of all those sensuous pelvic microphone stand thrusts that lured your ursine suitor to your door.

"Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice"

Pull down your pants and slide on the ice (courtesy of Jax):

It's not drunken driving in New Jersey if it involves a Zamboni.

A judge ruled the four-ton ice rink-grooming machines aren't motor vehicles because they aren't useable on highways and can't carry passengers.

Zamboni operator John Peragallo had been charged with drunken driving in 2005 after a fellow employee at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown told police the machine was speeding and nearly crashed into the boards.

Police said Peragallo's blood alcohol level was 0.12 percent. A level of 0.08 is considered legally drunk in New Jersey.

Peragallo appealed, and Superior Court Judge Joseph Falcone on Monday overturned his license revocation and penalties.

Zambonis are also rarely on the ice with actual human beings, unlike drunk drivers. Peragallo's still probably out of luck, as I'm sure the folks in charge of the Mennen Sports Arena won't cotton to dudes blowing a 0.12 while on the clock.

Peragallo, 64, testified at his trial that he did drink beer and vodka, but not until after he had groomed the ice. However, he told police he had a shot of Sambuca with his breakfast coffee and two Valium-pills before work.

A shot of Sambuca and two Valium? And you undersea rig welders thought you had stressful jobs.

"One thing about living in [Serbia] I never could stomach..."

All the goddamned vampires:

Serbian vampire hunters have acted to prevent the very remote possibility that former dictator Slobodan Milosevic might stage a come-back - by driving a three-foot stake through his heart.

According to Ananova, the politically-motivated Van Helsings, led by Miroslav Milosevic (no relation), gave themselves up to cops after attacking the deceased despot in his grave in the eastern town of Pozarevac. Milosevic popped his clogs back in 2006, while on trial in a UN war crimes tribunal for various unsavoury activities connected with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.

Miroslav Milosevic said "he and his fellow vampire hunters acted to stop the former dictator returning from the dead to haunt the country". His team explained that the wooden stake had been "driven into the ground and through the late president's heart".

Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia naturally condemned the desecration, while his daughter-in-law Milica Gajic said she "planned to sue the vampire hunters and accused the police of failing to protect the grave properly".

I admire any publication that freely uses the expression, "popped his clogs."

Milosevic is as good a candidate as any for undeath. I trust similar crack teams are fanning out across the globe to administer the same treatment to the likes of Pinochet and Mobutu (one assumes the heavy hitters like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would've risen by now if they were going to).

In other news, yes - I'm back from SXSW. No, I'm nowhere near caught up on my sleep or sobriety.

"Slow down, you maniac! Show some respect for a coffin full of bricks representing a young man lost at sea!"

The Wife occasionally mentions I have "anger issues." My standard response is that I have absolutely no issue with my anger. In those...exceedingly rare instances when I get pissed off, I express it openly and - on occasion - loudly. I sure as hell don't have an issue with it.

Even so, I can certainly agree that it's not in my best interests to order anything from RoadRage.com. The message cards are reversible (for reading through a rearview mirror) and feature (sort of) polite and vulgar versions. This is my personal favorite:

Living in Texas, I can't recommend the use of cards saying "I'm Following You" or those simply depicting a handgun. People here have been killed for far less. And how exactly is paging through a book of flip cards while driving any less irresponsible than driving poorly in the first place?

Whatever. I could use the "Get out of the fast lane, moron" card about ten times a day.

"And every night the monkey butlers will regale us with jungle stories."

Or, you know, stab us in the throat (via MetaFilter):

In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.

Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behaviour.

And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis).

Bushbabies are nocturnal and curl up in hollows in trees during the day. If disturbed during their slumbers - if their nest cavity is broken open, for example - they rapidly scamper away. It appears that the chimps have learnt a grisly method of slowing them down.

Was it really necessary to point out how cute the bushbabies are? Would it be more acceptable if they were killing warthogs?

Using spears, eh? Y'all know what comes next, I trust:

Take that, space banana!

Space banana?

GEOSTATIONARY BANANA OVER TEXAS is an art intervention that involves placing a gigantic banana over the Texas sky. This object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings. From the ground, the banana will be clearly recognizable and visible day & night; it will stay up for approximately one month.

Basically, the banana will be constructed like a blimp. Filled with helium, it will float between 30 and 50 km up in the sky. It will have a semi-rigid structure made of bamboo and a skin made with synthetic paper. Thanks to an extra load in gas and a valve system, it will keep its shape at all times. The final size of the piece will be 300 meters in length. The expected launching date is August 2008 from around Baja or Sonora, north-west of Mexico. The total cost of this project is roughly estimated at one million dollars.

I'd hate to see the tailpipe.

Back to phtagn

From the Nov. 19 edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram:

New Island Emerges

Crew members of a yacht sailing westward from the South Pacific island nation of Tonga toward Fiji say they witnessed the birth of a new island, which appars to have emerged from the Pacific during a volcanic eruption.

Those onboard the Maiken initially were puzzled by the vast blanket of pumice that they sailed through for several miles. But they later came across an uncharted steaming island in Tonga's Vava'u group, which was apparently created by an undersea volcano.

The crew described the new island as being one mile in diameter with four peaks and a central crater. Tongan government geologist Kelepi Mafi said he plans to visit the new chunk of rock if his country can afford to dispatch a military ship.

You might also want to bring along a mathemetician schooled in non-Euclidean geometry, and maybe a psychically-sensitive artist or two. The stars are right, after all.

Funny, she doesn't look like Lindsay Wagner

But she's still a bionic woman:

A former US Marine has become the first woman in the world to be fitted with a "bionic" arm that she can control by her thoughts alone.

Claudia Mitchell lost her left arm at the shoulder in a motorbike accident.

Her new arm works by detecting movements of a chest muscle that has been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to her real arm.

The first prototype was fitted to double amputee Jesse Sullivan four years ago. However, the latest version has been significantly improved.

Using it Ms Mitchell, 26, can now fold clothes, eat a banana and do the washing up.

"Washing up?" Kind of gives a new spin to "Your clothes, give them to me."

So what if it's not quite teaming up with aliens to defeat Bigfoot after he critically injured Steve Austin ("The Return of Bigfoot" from Season 2, duh). Baby steps, people.

The ends of the nerves that once controlled the arm were removed from her shoulder and connected to nerves in the chest muscle, some of which conveyed sensation from the skin above.

Over several months the transplanted nerves grew into the muscle tissue.

Once this happened electrodes fixed to a harness worn on the shoulder were able to detect impulses emitted from the nerves into the muscle and forward them to the arm.

These impulses are processed by a computer, which is able to direct the arm to make very precise movements.

All in all, this is very cool. And I don't even begrudge her the return of my vintage Terminator nightmares.

Oh, how the shoggoth of you clings...

I didn't see anything about the "noisome stench of a thousand tombs," so I have no idea if this description of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's new scent, for R'yleh, is accurate:

The sunken city of the Great God Cthulhu. A hellishly dark aquatic scent, evocative of fathomless oceanic deeps, the mysteries of madness buried under crushing black waters, and the brooding eternal evil that lies beneath the waves.

No dice? There's always Azathoth, Y'Ha-Nthlei, and my favorite, Nyarlathotep:

Brooding, yet electric: the scent of buried secrets, roiling nightmares, the essence of the Crawling Chaos, the Father of Knives and Locusts, the Hunter in the Dark. This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone.

It's no Black Goat in the Woods With a Thousand Young, but whatever, my birthday shopping for The Wife is done.

Smack my Boll up

I cannot begin to tell you the number of people who forwarded this to me yesterday (though Michael was the first). Loath as I am to link to AICN, it's pretty worth it:

Towards the end of the filming of Postal, the five most outspoken critics will be flown into Vancouver and supplied with hotel rooms. As a guest of Uwe Boll they will be given the chance to be an extra/stand-in in Postal and have the opportunity to put on boxing gloves and enter a BOXING RING to fight Uwe Boll. Each critic will have the opportunity to bring down Uwe in a 10-bout match. There will be five matches planned over the last two days of the movie. Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie. All five fights will be televised on the Internet and will be covered by international press.

To be eligible you must be a critic who has posted on the Internet or have written in magazines/newspapers at least two extremely negative articles in the year 2005. Critics of 2006 will not be considered.

Folks between 140 and 190 pounds, send an email to info@boll.kg.de and help Uwe prove that he isn't a bad filmmaker through physical violence.

Well, he certainly isn't going to prove it through his films.

I appreciate the thoughts, guys. I really do, but there are a few problems:

1. I have yet to review an Uwe Boll movie. Alone in the Dark wasn't screened for critics (or anyone else with functioning retinas), and my procrastination with regard to BloodRayne finally paid off when Felix reviewed the DVD at Film Threat. There are a number of APCB-related blog entries, but I don't know if these count.

2. I also may be disqualified for writing an entry sort of defending the Bollinator earlier this year.

Okay, I just re-read it, and it's not a defense so much as it is an attempt at gaining some perspective.

3. I'm outside the weight parameters. Why it was set at 190 is a mystery to me, considering some of the more...Rubenesque internet personalities are well past that. The opportunity to appear in Postal isn't quite enough to get me to don the Vision Quest Hefty bags and dehydrate myself down to the requisite weight. And at 225, I'd probably have to cut off an arm as well.

4. Does Boll even understand weight class? There's a big difference between 140 and 190. Then again, the kind of people he's calling out probably don't even know how to properly throw a punch

5. And screw boxing, what about K1 or Pride fighting rules? Dangle the prospect of getting some ground and pound on Herr Boll and you'll have people coming out of the woodwork.

The hell with it, I say we get Takanori Gomi, tell everyone he's Chris Gore (they even have similar hair) and send him. The entire fight wouldn't be long enough to upload to YouTube.

"Can't sleep, clown'll eat me."

And how.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally found a picture that incorporates both my fear of clowns and my love of zombies, from the previously mentioned Miss McDonald:

If only she sold prints, I'd finally have something to offset my collection of Orange Julius memorabilia.

"Hey, kids, always recycle...to the extreme!"

Here's a little formula I came up with after seeing the freaky abomination that passed for a prize in my daughter's Happy Meal last Friday:

Lovable, yet borderline creepy Troll dolls             +            Consumerist, teen whore training doll Bratz            

=
"Trollz"

Ninja, please

"When you're staring down forty ambidextrous succubi with flaming pikes in their hands, you wanna be pretty darn certain that the naginata that you pull out wasn't forged out of PBR cans by a guy named 'Jingo' in Moose Jaw, Alaska."

From the Ask a Ninja website, a Real Ninja™ answers your questions. Question #14, about what kind of gifts to buy a ninja, is pretty good. Especially on the subject of gift cards:

"It's a gift that says, 'I don’t know you very well.' Perfect for a ninja!"

Courtesy of Ang, whom I always assumed was too busy to sink to blogging. How wrong I was.

"Where did the air come from?"

There's a video clip floating around out there showing University of South Carolina student body president Ryan Holt losing it after discovering his office has been filled with balloons. The gag is pretty standard stuff, and you've probably seen similar things in real life (we once filled a guy's underwear drawer with hand lotion, for example). Holt's reaction is midly amusing from a "spot the pompous proto-Republican" standpoint, but that's not why I'm posting it.

What I kept wondering, being a Big 12 alum, is why the VP of the South Carolina student body is walking around wearing a Texas A&M t-shirt? Granted, it's probably not as bad as if he wore one saying "Clemson," but isn't sporting another school's gear still a bit of a a faux pas on campus these days?

Unless, of course, they're worn "ironically," as would usually be the case for Harvard, Miskatonic, or Transylvania Universities.

"Don't Let All That Blood Go To Waste"

The marketing wizards at General Motors are having a contest where people can design their own Chevy Tahoe commercials. Needless to say, it's kinda backfiring on them.

Examples here, here, and here.

Check 'em out while you can, as I doubt they're going to be left online very long.

(via Metafilter)

Conclusive proof of a higher power

Though I have yet to figure out which one:

One of the Great Old Ones, most likely. These are right up Azathoth's alley. Regardless, I shall be scanning my grocery shelves in the coming weeks for my first bag spicy fried curtain rings.

[as seen on delicate flower)

It's not an army of super zombies, but it's a start

Via The Fat Guy, I see that the Taiwanese aren't sitting idly while waiting for the Chinese to cross the Straits of Formosa. They're making glow-in-the-dark pigs:

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.

They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.

The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.

The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease.

Not to mention providing live artillery markers for the Red Army.

Leaving aside the awesome ramifications of adding one species' genetic material to another (I'm holding out for endless rows of shark teeth and a scorpion tail), let's consider the nigh endless possibilities of luminescent pigs:

+ Power outages will no longer signal the end of a Pink Floyd concert

+ For use as nocturnal guard animals against Islamic burglars

+ Randy rural youths will have to be a little more discreet with their affections

+ Late night BLTs will be a lot easier to make in the dark

+ Babe 3: The Day After

+ Police department will save a fortune on those blood/semen-detector thingies

+ Easier for Circe to round up

Okay, when I've started referencing Odysseus, it's time to quit.

And the Dr. Seuss joke is too obvious.

Going back to Calley

As an addendum to my entry about Hugh Thompson, I have to relay the story of The Wife’s association with Lt. William Calley.

Obviously, she’s too young to have actually known Calley, having been born…some time after My Lai even took place. Her parents, on the other hand, were quite aware. The Mother-in-Law was a staunch liberal, and followed Calley’s trial with interest. The Father-in-Law was in the Army at the time, and while he probably didn’t follow the case as closely, he had a deeper connection. I’m not going to post family photos (especially when they aren’t my family), but trust me when I say that in the mid-70s, the Father-in-Law was a dead ringer for the man behind the My Lai Massacre. I’m told when he was in uniform and out in public during Calley’s trial in the late ‘60s, there were actual fears for his safety.

All that really proves is how drug-addled Americans really were in the 1960s, considering Calley was being tried in Ft. Benning, Georgia, while the Father-in-Law was stationed in New York.

The best part, if you want to call that, came in 1974, when Calley was going through his appeals. He got a lot of face time on the network news, and the infant who would one day become The Wife would point to him on TV, calling him “Daddy,” much to her mother’s dismay. Luckily, her dad retired from the Army, and no permanent mental scarring took place. That I know of.

Good thing none of her extended family resembles Charles Manson.

Phil Spectorhands

Seadogs passes along this truly frightening picture of everybody's favorite (allegedly) murderous record producer with the comment, "Is it just me, or does this picture of Phil Spector remind you of Edward Scissorhands?"

It's not just you.

My theory, since you asked, is that Phil became obsessed when his ex-wife sang with Eddie Money on "Take Me Home Tonight" in 1986. Having gotten by on only 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night for most of hIs adult life, however, he became confused as to who Money actually was, and so copped the look of the only other Edward he was familiar with in order to win Ronnie back.

What? It's possible.

Ripping yarns

You know, I like to think I'm pretty "hip" and "with it" when it comes to all things zombie, but every once in a while something like this comes along that just sort of makes you sit a spell and realize, when it comes to obsession, you're in the minor leagues baby (click for larger version):

That's one of the airport zombies from 1978's Dawn of the Dead. She's got more. Much more. Go check them out.

Thanks to The Thing That Walks Like A Man for the link

OMG WTF BBQ

I FORGOT TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCKS DAY LOL BUT DONT LISTEN TO ME LOOK HERE TO BE PWNED11!!1ONE:

CAPS LOCK DAY IS A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND FOREVER SCREAMING TEXT FOR ALL ETERNITY AND LOVE

HERES WHERE I MAKE JOKE ABOUT A/S/L BUT YOU WONT LAUGH SO SUCK ON IT H8ERS ALSO GO HEAR FOR PICS LIKE THIS1:

LOL DAT IS TEH FUNAY L8Z

If bread is the staff of life

Then Shatner is life itself.

For those who insist on knowing what they're about to see before clicking, it's the climactic scene from Se7en, as re-enacted by William Shatner (as James T. Kirk), William Shatner (as T.J. Hooker), and...William Shatner (as the host of Rescue 911). There's a nice cameo, too.

Sure, the original had Oscar winners Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey...but this has Shatner. "Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man" indeed.

If that first link gives you problems, try here.

"Oh, they didn't shoot a real horse... just a costume with two waiters in it."

Halloween is my favorite holiday: no family obligations, no pesky insistence on propriety or behaving well, and a clear-cut mandate to let your freak flag fly. Alcohol is also encouraged, at least in adult gatherings, and the best movies are always on TV.

There's also a distinct element of tastlessness. I usually went for maximum gore in my costumes (the zombie get-up with live cockroaches and frequently expectorated black sputum was my personal favorite), but I had friends who definitely pushed the envelope of public decency, dressing as abortionists, John Wayne Bobbitt, or Mary Jo Kopechne, for example.

She Who Shall Not Be Named isn't quite old enough to appreciate the joys of getting weird, but that didn't stop us from spiking her hair and putting her in ripped jeans and a "punk baby" t-shirt last year. This year we're discussing a few options: zombie (probably not advisable to put corpse paint on a toddler), Jason Voorhees (doubtful that she'd leave the hockey mask on), and a mummy (the front runner so far). I have to admit, however, that the following costumes (seen on Len's blog) appeals to the part of my brain that still likes horrifying the neighbors:

On second thought, we should probably just stick with the mummy. I don't imagine anyone on our street is related to Rameses the Great.

Speaking of cruelty to animals

Bee Dogs (dogs in bee costumes)

Via the fancy catfish

O Superman

I could never get away with this:

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage is celebrating after his third wife Alice Kim gave birth to their first child together yesterday. The Oscar-winning actor, 41, and Kim Cage, 21, welcomed their son Kal-El Coppola Cage in a New York City hospital yesterday morning.

Granted, I'd probably go for something like "Hal Jordan Vonder Haar" or "John Constantine Vonder Haar" if I was drawing from the D.C. pantheon. Provided The Wife suddenly fell into a coma immediately after giving birth.

What are the odds he told Alice it was a family name? She just might be young enough not to know any better.

Excuse me while I go dig up those Laurie Anderson MP3s.

"Send more quarterbacks"

'stina over at Texas Law Chick has an entry about a pretty remarkable guy. His name's Bobby Martin and he plays noseguard for Colonel White High School in Dayton, OH. He also doesn't have any legs:

Most of you can see where I'm going with this.

I think what this guy has accomplished is remarkable, truly. Personally, I'd probably be well into a smack habit after losing both legs. But let me just say if I was an opposing quarterback and saw this guy coming at me, my mind would probably be filled with images of Jerome Coleman from Return of the Living Dead:

The legless dead have a rich and storied tradition in zombie cinema, from Fulci's Zombi 3, to Return, to the Dawn remake, to this year's Land of the Dead. If Bobby's teammates really wanted to exploit the advantage he gives them, they'd screen one or all of these movies for the opposing team before the game in the hopes that they would collapse into a mewling fetal ball when the guy started coming at us.

Hey, it's what I'd do.

"Big fat guy. I mean, like, orca fat."

I need to turn off these "CNN Offbeat" e-mail alerts. My idea of what is "offbeat" probably differs greatly from their usual parade of water-skiing marmots and 3 year-olds who can fly a plane, but I don't imagine Time-Warner is too keen on mass mailing stories about octopus porn just to give me a laugh.

Occasionally, however, one of them piques my interest:

Anchorage zookeepers are installing a 16,000-pound treadmill to keep an isolated elephant from getting fat during the long, cold Alaskan winters.

The 20-foot-long treadmill was designed specifically for Maggie, a 23-year-old female African elephant that has become the subject of a national debate over the proper care for captive pachyderms.
[...]
Zookeepers said Zimbabwe-born Maggie would start using the treadmill in about two months.

As a youngster, I loved the zoo. I still think it's a great place to take kids so they can see exotic animals up close and personal (though not too up close, She Who Shall Not Be Named is particularly fond of cobras, for example). However, even a well-funded zoo is basically an animal jail, and while they're to be commended for helping protect endangered species and educating the public about other forms of wildlife and their ecosystems, I fail to see why an Arctic zoo should have an African elephant.

Maybe they could trade with the Houston Zoo for our snow leopards.

Burger Wars

The Punishment Due*:

The battle between SliPKnoT and Burger King is escalating.

SliPKnoT is upset over the Burger King ad campaign featuring a mock metal band called Coq Roq dressed in horror-chicken masks.

SliPKnoT said the masks are too similar to the ones they wear.

A letter from their lawyer posted on The Smoking Gun Web site points out Coq Roq members wear a gas mask, a kabuki-style mask and a mask with dreadlocks, which members of SliPKnoT wear. The letter said SliPKnoT fans have expressed confusion and criticism over what they think is SliPKnoT endorsing Burger King.

Okay, first of all, since when did they start spelling their name like that? Is SanDeE* from L.A. Story their biggest fan?

As for the complaint, this is Slipknot (caught rocking out in the lobby of their dentist's office, apparently):

This is "Coq Roq:"

Yeah. Between this and those horrifying ads with the guy waking up in bed with the Burger King, I don't see that BK IPO happening anytime soon.

Admittedly, I found the name Coq Roq pretty amusing, but unless their target market consists solely of emotionally retarded 30-somethings who giggle uncontrollably at dick jokes, they may be in a bit of trouble.

As for Slipknot and their "complaint," cower before the majesty of GWAR, you derivative assholes:

* Apologies to Megadeth

"Picture book, pictures of your mother"

These are freaking sweet, as Peter Griffin would say:

Welcome to the realm of "Haunted Memories Changing Portraits." Featured here are some of the most unique Halloween props ever offered! Simple, yet highly effective, these morphing images are designed to transform when you change your position. When your unsuspecting guests walk past them they will see these seemingly normal "relatives" change into hideously frightening creatures or macabre apparitions!

The picture change is a pretty simple trick and - to my mind - there are too many vampires. Still, you can click most of the pictures for a video clip showing the effect, which is nifty. And the clown is appropriately hideous, though, as befits all clowns:

I know without asking that I will never get official spousal sanction to put any of these in my house (unless I ever get around to redoing the garage), but that doesn't mean you can't. Especially if you're looking to get an early start on freaking out your kids.

Thanks to APCB research assistant The Thing That Walks Like A Man.

Of all the ideas to rip off from Resident Evil

I'm not sure "zombie dogs" is the one I would've gone with:

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans. ... Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Pittsburgh? That has to be a joke. We all know what else happened in Pittsburgh, after all.

During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.

What's your baseline for that? I love dogs, but when your normal feeding patterns can include crayons, dental floss, and other - less savory - delicacies, how does one determine they haven't gotten any dumber?

If true, it sounds pretty remarkable, I think I'd wait for a little more reputable source to confirm this before stocking up on delicious brains for Sounder.

"Give us a Super Squishee, Apu."
"One that's made entirely out of syrup."

It should go without saying that I see a lot of movies. I don't have much in the way of habitual behavior when I go to the theater. I prefer an aisle seat (the better to make a hasty exit should the place catch fire, and I can avoid the center sections, where most of the talkers seem to congregate), and I occasionally like to get a drink. A medium Diet Coke is my poison, of which I'll usually consume half and then eat the ice (another reason sitting away from others is a wise move).

Most of the promo screenings are at one of the two Edwards Theaters in town. A medium drink was, until last week, $3.75 for 24 oz. When I came in for my caffeine and aspartame fix on Tuesday, however, I discovered things had changed:

Cashier: Can I interest you in one of our combos?
Pete: Christ, no. Medium Diet Coke, please.
Cashier: That'll be four dollars?
Pete: Four? When did that happen?
Cashier: Uh, last week. I think.

Okay, whatever. Summer crowds are bigger, so Regal Cinemas (Edwards' parent company) apparently felt like squeezing a little extra profit out of moviegoers.

Pete: Okay, fine. Four dollars it is.
[the cashier pours my drink and deposits a cup of ridiculous proportions on the counter. The thing is clearly a 32 oz. cup.]
Pete: I'm sorry, I ordered a medium.
Cashier: That is a medium.
Pete: ...That's a medium?
Cashier: Yes, sir.
Pete: [realizing he can barely fit both hands around the thing]. Okay. Thanks.

Jesus. I assume hope people ordering the large (44 oz.) are sharing, because there's absolutely no way one human being can consume that much fluid in a movie that runs - on average - an hour and 45 minutes and not have to void their bladder like a beer-bonging freshman. Even worse is the drink that comes with the aforementioned combo, which is 2 liters (68 ounces) of soda goodness that comes in a cup with a bore like a 120-mm howitzer shell.

And forget bladder capacity. How much goddamned sugar is in a non-diet drink that big?

Paging Captain Obvious

CNN must be using scab headline writers these days:

College towns lead in marijuana use

Stay tuned for related stories about the evils of processed foods and how rottweilers don't like it when you poke them with a stick.

The article is actually about a study on drug and alcohol use by region, none of which makes the results any more surprising:

For marijuana, 5.1 percent of people around the country reported using marijuana in the previous 30 days. In Boston, the home of Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern and several other colleges, 12.2 percent reported using marijuana in the previous 30 days.

John Auerbach, executive director of the public health commission for the city of Boston, said the survey might not reflect current marijuana use in Boston because the data came from 1999-2001 national surveys.

Yeah, I'm sure recreational drug use didn't go up at all after 9-11.

Federal officials said they highlighted the marijuana report because it's the most commonly used illicit drug. But the survey also measures 11 other categories.

For example, the survey measures binge drinking -- defined as five or more drinks in one setting.

Nationally, 20 percent of people age 12 and older reported one or more episodes of binge drinking during the previous month.

Previous month? Try previous night.

They really need to scale that "binge" definition up for those of us who don't have a problem and can quit any time we want.

Boston scored high in that category, too, with nearly 30 percent of respondents acknowledging binge drinking.

That seems a little low. Guess this was a pre-World Series poll.

Just when you thought it was safe to drive into the water

After this similar story from last year, I think it's time to give the Cubans their own art car parade (via Fark):

No wonder the Coast Guard is pissed: "75 bucks? But we're all going to the same place!"

The saga continues

After publicly breaking up with her for her stingy tipping practices, I'd done my best to wash my hands of Rachael Ray. Over at Something Awful, however, An Evening with Rachael Ray is making me reconsider my decision:

She has Petrov's neck laid open like a cut of salmon and he's gurgling and kicking on the floor. I take a step back from the pooling blood. Giggles flails feebly at the blade, slicing his fingers and hands to ribbons in the process. Giggles never has a chance. Rachael buries the knife in his chest and only after he stops moving does she pull it out and backtrack to work on Pretrov's eyes.

"Corneas," she looks over her shoulder at me and there's that smile again.

You've probably read this sort of thing before. This one's...inspired.

I've cried while eating many times

But usually only after putting too much chili sauce on my vermicelli bowl at Mo Mong, or eating the Atomic Wings at Quaker Steak and Lube.

The subjects at Crying While Eating, however, appear to have actual problems. Or are faking it quite well.

Thanks to HWRNMNBSOL.

Time is not on my side

One of the unintended results of the all-day softball tournament in which I played on Saturday (which wasn't really supposed to be "all-day" except that our team kept inexplicably coming from behind and winning), was that I spent all of Sunday getting caught up on crap I'd meant to do the day before. Another side effect is the just-now subsiding limp in my mechanically reconstructed ankle, but that's not important right now. Bills had to be paid, closets cleaned, and The Wife doted on for Mother's Day (said doting consisting mostly of keeping the kid out of her hair while she read a book).

Unfortunately, other things fell through the cracks. Doing any sort of meaningful blogging (an oxymoron for this site if ever there was one) being the most obvious example. This is all my lame way of saying I missed the boat on blogging about Monday's Time Traveler Convention at MIT.

The convention was a mixed success. Unfortunately, we had no confirmed time travelers visit us, yet many time travelers could have attended incognito to avoid endless questions about the future. We had a great series of lectures, awesome bands, and even a DeLorean. We regret having had to turn away visitors, but there were capacity restrictions governing Morss Hall.

I imagine the time travelers in attendance were waiting for someone to be the first to approach the dais, as it were. If they have any regrets, they can always fire up the old flux capacitor and check it out again.

The event sounded like a lot of fun, and even though there was no way I could possibly have made it (in this century, at least), I want to apologize to Emily for not getting something up here sooner like I said I would.

You'll make great pets

Daphne Merkin had an excellent article (registration required) last Sunday in the New York Times Magazine about the obscene lengths some people go to in order to pamper their pets:

At the risk of drawing ire, I would like to suggest that there is something profoundly awry about the way our culture treats pets. To wit: We spend more money annually on pet-related supplies and services (an estimated $35 billion last year) than we do on toys for children. To wit: The New York Dog Magazine, which features un-tongue-in-cheek articles on whether or not to buy health insurance for Fido (5 percent of pet owners have insurance) and how to keep your canine in a custody battle ("Start a diary showing that you are the primary caretaker," advises Raoul Felder, divorce lawyer to the stars. "Note how many times you walk the dog"), is but the latest entry in a crowded field that includes Dog Fancy, Modern Dog and The Bark. To wit: If you're looking for a place to board your dog while you're on vacation, you could do worse than Canine Cove in Sausalito, Calif., a cageless facility offering a quiet area to watch TV as well as an outside lounge area.

How has it come to pass that outfitting a dog with a $1,380 Hermes crocodile-and-calfskin leash-and-collar set doesn't seem too absurd -- too shameful? How is it that our sense of humanity has been transferred to members of the animal kingdom -- the domesticated and overbred as well as the wild and exotic -- so that we lavish affection, money and moral outrage on them while we gripe about the homeless instead of empathizing with their plight and ignore our elderly altogether?

Merkin raises some fine points, especially regarding the animal rights movement's apparent greater concern for the welfare of lab rats and monkeys over those who might benefit from testing to find cures to diseases. She sets her position opposite the likes of Peter Singer, who want to equate human emotion with animals, and while I find myself siding with her in the respect that I'm more concerned about my sister than I am about her dogs, I suspect I'm coming at the argument from an entirely different philosophical standpoint.

Where Merkin chooses to castigate the pet pamperers for their apparent disregard for human suffering (she opines that the lavishing of material affection on our pets somehow eradicates some of the class guilt we feel for not being able or willing to genuinely help those of our fellow men who are in need) I choose to rudely remind everyone that we're talking about dumb animals here.

Reading about people who drop a grand for a dog collar fills me with the kind of rage I imagine that Zack de la Rocha kid feels when he sees a Christmas special. They're animals, for crying out loud. I love dogs, but if you tried to convince me the only way to keep my pooch happy was to spend $1300 for a Hermes collar, I'd laugh in your face while Fido whizzed on your Cole Haans.

The problem here is not that people are stupid (which may be the case), but that we're talking about heaping luxuries upon domesticated beasts. These are creatures content to eat their own feces and lick their own scrotums while spending three hours fascinated by a rubber mouse on a string.

I can see dropping $5 on a chew toy at Petco, but most dogs, for example, don't require much financial investment beyond sticking a tennis ball down a gym sock and supplying them with a bowl of Alpo a day. If you find yourself buying fur-lined sweaters and jeweled collars for Bit Bit, well, you're a horribly misguided individual who need to die so that your heirs might better distribute your wealth.

Just sayin'.

"Dying would be a stone groove, man."

Lotta death in the news lately, although the upside is that it's unlikely the next Pope will be in place for 25 years, necessitating 10 days of solid media coverage and more ink devoted to his funeral than to anything he did while alive.

In the spirit of the cruel fate that awaits us all, I've decided to share some of my favorite (real and fictional) obituaries and eulogies with you. You're welcome. And don't fear the reaper.

William Jennings Bryan by H.L. Mencken:

This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P.T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition--the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine.

Aunt Edna by Clark W. Griswald:

O God, ease our suffering in this, our moment of great despair. Yea, admit this kind and decent woman into thy arms of thine heavenly area, up there. And Moab, he lay us upon the band of the Canaanites, and yea, though the Hindus speak of karma, I implore you: give her a break.

Archie Bennitz by Archie Bennitz:

Archie was an avid fan of watching hockey. He asked that Mr. Bettman and Goodenow know that they are "skunks" for denying him the pleasure of watching the NHL on TV this year. he also asked that Mr. Bettman steps aside and gives Wayne Gretzky the job that rightfully belongs to him.

Hand Job by the Marines of 1st Platoon:

T.H.E. Rock: You're going home now.
Crazy Earl: Semper fi.
Donlon: We're mean Marines, sir.
Eightball: Go easy, bro.
Rafterman: At least he died for a good cause.
Animal Mother: What cause was that?
Rafterman: Freedom?
Animal Mother: Flush out your headgear, new guy. You think we waste gooks for freedom? This is a slaughter. If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is poontang.
Cowboy: Tough break for Hand Job. He was all set to get shipped out on a medical.
Joker: What was the matter with him?
Cowboy: He was jerkin' off ten times a day.
Eightball: No shit. At least ten times a day.
Cowboy: Last week he was sent down to Da Nang to see the Navy head shrinker, and the crazy fucker starts jerking off in the waiting room. Instant Section Eight. He was just waiting for his papers to clear division.

Jim Varney by The Thing that Walks Like A Man:

What was the nature of the phantasmagorical Vern? Perhaps He was a manifestation of Ernest's own fears and uncertainties made flesh in this manic, soul-crushing world, or the fevered imaginings of a tormented psyche resulting from the production of such films as "Ernest in the Army," "Ernest Goes to Africa" (aka "Ernest vs the Voodo King") and "Slam Dunk Ernest." On a more spiritual note, perhaps Vernon was a mere allegory for the faceless horde that has become humanity as we know it. After all, who actually sees--really sees--their neighbors in this terrifying age of barren spirituality and rampant technology? Aren't we all just invisible shades to our fellow man?

Edgar Allen Poe by Rufus Griswold:

Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy--his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere--had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious--bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers.

Kurt Kelly

Mr. Kelly: My son's a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son.
J.D.: Wonder how he'd react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse.

Richard Nixon by Hunter S. Thompson:

Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.

America

Heck yeah.

Via Metafilter

That's a bald statement

Busy day today, meaning I had the choice of either resurrecting something from my archives (which nobody wants) or presenting you with this little exchange I overheard at last Tuesday's Millions screening.

I'm sitting on the end of the aisle and the lights have just dimmed for the previews when a woman and her five or six year-old son come up the stairs next to me:

Son: But how will we find Daddy?
Mom: Look for the shiny head.

Laughed my ass off.

"Ted, you know, if I die, you can have my Megadeth collection."

Does your significant other give you grief for those comic book longboxes, or that sheld of Animaniacs figures? Point them to this guy's web page. Things could always be worse (via Metafilter):

Being an expert in pre-judging people, I can make the following assumptions about this gentleman:

+ He has no kids
+ Or cats
+ He does not live near any active fault lines, volcanos, or elephants
+ Dusting takes an entire day
+ He keeps his "special" collections in the basement

Sometimes I give myself the creeps

And sometimes Miss McDonald does it for me (via Metafilter).

Clowns are evil. Even if they appear in the guise of a perky Filipina.

Speaking of disturbing toys

Warning: Parental topics to follow. Those not interested should go off and amuse themselves by making fun of "breeders" and sleeping in until 10 on weekends.

When The Wife and I first found out we were having a baby, one of the ways in which I tried to mentally prepare myself for the ordeal miracle of child rearing was to familiarize myself with as many of the terrifying characters that make up the children's television entertainment pantheon as possible. Like most of us, I knew about most of the heavy hitters like Barney and the Wiggles already. And while I personally find them as annoying (and intellectually challenging) as an Ann Coulter editorial, I am also enough of an alleged adult to realize a big magenta dinosaur and a quartet of Australian closet cases aren't meant for me. Kids like 'em, and if mine ever succumb to their siren call, so be it.

But the Wiggles are pretty well known. Like Rugrats or SpongeBob, even the childless have heard of those guys. Therefore the next level of preparation involved seeking out TV shows and entertainers who would probably slip under the radar of those poor unfortunates lacking c