Book Reviews @ The Temple

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - Jeez, what kind of nerd spends 28 years NOT reading Ender's Game?  Well I finally got to it, and it is fantastic, as you might expect.  Much different and darker than I expected, but great nonetheless.

Speaker For The Dead - The first sequel to Ender, also a very good book.  Nothing like Ender, I'm afraid, but a solid scifi book with a good universe and story.

No god but God by Reza Aslan - Wow.  Wowie zowie.  This book is amazing.  The most dramatic piece of non-fiction I've read in a long time.  I always feel like I know pathetically little about Islam and its history, but this book was a great help.  Moreover, his primary argument is that the current violence in that part of the world is a result of a Muslim Reformation, an internal struggle.  Christianity had one of these 15 centuries in and it was bloody and violent.  Islam is now in it's 15th century, but the weapons are bigger and the consequences (of both their actions and ours) more severe.  I say again, an amazing book, maybe the best I read all year.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Walk Hard - This was good!  I was surprised, the previews made me think not so much.  And this is a parady of the Johnny Cash movie, and parodies for me usually don't have the legs to make a full movie, the gag gets old.  But I actually kept this one and laughed quite a bit.  It's not taking any crowns, it's not Anchorman or Ricky Bobby, but it was fun.

Aliens Vs. Predator 2 - Good, I guess.  Guns and 'splosions and all that.  I guess I wasn't totally in the mood for the gore (which is ruthless choosing its victims), so I didn't feel jazzed by it.  But I felt like if I had been in the mood I would have enjoyed it quite a bit.  Like the first, you have to completely ignore any logic, especially concerning the gestation cycle of the aliens, but oh well, it's not like you expected otherwise.

Beowulf 3D - Um... ok I guess.  Considering just the movie, it was alright.  As much as I love seeing technology advance as far as the animation, the Zemeckis brand has never impressed me and mostly annoyed me, I hated Polar Express.  Some of them looked pretty good, some of the time.  John Malkovich's character looked awful all of the time.  The action stuff was cool, I guess, excepting the retarded Austin Powers obscure the sausage scene.  When it comes to the 3D, I still find this to be a technology completely an unnecessary novelty.  It offers nothing beyond fancy title screens and "omg there's a rock coming at my face" thrills.  I'm sure someday it will develop into a medium that utilizes its advantages over 2D to tell stories in completely different ways.  Though that's clearly not today, I suppose it has to start somewhere, it's that's ok for now.

Seraphim Falls - Been waiting a while for this one, finally was able to.  It didn't totally catch me, for most of it.  It's sort of a Searchers-style slow chase movie.  Parts of that were good, but the cavalcade of characters they met on the way sometimes felt forced and hokey to me.  But then the last 15 minutes came along and allasudden made it a good movie.  The ending was weird, not sure if I agree with what they did (there were only two real options), but the last sequence was so surreal and cool, I decided they knew what they were doing.

 Captivity - Meh.  If the purpose was to be scary, no.  If the purpose was to be Saw, no.  If the purpose was to ogle Eliza Cuthbert, not even that.

For Your Consideration - Ha!  This movie is insane.  I love it, but it's pretty damn annoying.  Everyone in this movie is a douche, which is sort of the point.  It's a behind the scenes, creating and releasing a movie.  I mostly liked it a lot, it's pretty funny.  But it's pretty dang over the top.  Sometimes it's bad to play obnoxious so well.  That being said, I probably like it more than any other Christopher Guest movie I've seen.

The TV Set - This is an old one, very much like For Your Consideration, except behind the scenes on writing, filming, and releasing a TV show.  Not as over the top as FYC, and as a result both not as good and not as annoying.  So what am I saying here?  I guess these people can't win with me!

My Super Exgirlfriend - Why do I even watch these movies?

Flushed Away - Kind of Wallace and Grommit animation does Ratatouille.  Cute, I guess, but I saw it yesterday and I already forgot what happened.

Sexy Korean Park Statues

Um, wow.

Traveler IQ Challenge

Totally cool game.  I got lvl 6 with 160,000 on the first try.  I gotta say, though, it's really embarassing to be off by 15 thousand miles.

Halo 3 Artist Self-Portrait

I don't usually post illusions anymore, this site has as many as you could want.  But I thought this one was particularly neat.

Duke Nukem Forever Teaser

No. Effin'. Way.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

So, I've been forgetting to do these, not sure what all the movies I've seen since the last time, but I'll try.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - This movie was incredible.  It was slower than molasses, such that it was as much painting as it was movie (though I could have done without the Gladiator-esque hands-through-the-tall-grass shots).  I can see how the pace might put people off, but if you have the patience, it is beautiful.  Brad Pitt is great, and Casey Affleck is astounding.

The Mist - This was a steaming pile of poo, basically.  There are two things this movie could have been: (1) straight up scary horror movie.  Mysterious danger, confined place, monsters, sure.  But the CG is god awful, seriously worse than a scifi movie.  And it's just not all that scary, really.  (2) examination of human nature - people who are trapped have different extreme reactions.  Unfortunatley, this movie is basically the sound-byte, armchair psychology, freshmen sociology paper version of an intelligent examination of human nautre, and I haaaaaated it.  So, right, don't see it, I'd say.

I Am Legend - on the other hand, WOW!  I mean, it's not perfect, "only okay" CG, forced climax, and it's not really the movie they advertised.  But jeez, it is really good.  Will Smith is amazing, I think my favorite thing from him ever.  The isolation was great, I left the theater feeling lonely myself.  And the thing with the dog, damn.

More Wow Ads

Remember Mr. T and Shatner?  Next up: some Van Damme and Verne Troyer action, ha!

Tree-Man

Wow, I've never seen anything like this.

Gabe & Max

Hi-larious!

Richter Scales

Very funny song.

Take wood? We smash car.

Yikes.

How We Met

Too bad this couldn't be done on a chick, or at least a dude without the body hair.  And too bad it's an ad for a camera.  But it's still cute.

WoW Ads

The Mr. T one is awesome.

T2: The T is for Typewriter

Cool.

Mario Bros MIDI Art

Awesome on a stick.

God as a DJ

Awesome short film.

Chuck Norris for Mike Huckabee

I like Huckabee, I'd never actually vote for him, but he's cool.

Tetris Marching Band

OH EM GEE!!!!!

Furry, French, and Naughty

Grossest commercial I've ever seen.

Jumper

So, basically Nightcrawler, The Movie?  WHAT?!  Okaaaaay!

Tactile Video Display

Cool!  This is exactly what should replace stupid touch screen devices.  A remote control or a cell phone that could remap itself to have buttons where you want them, that's what I want!

Clockwork Laptop

Holy crap the top of this thing is so badass.

Disposal of Sodium, 1947

Cool!

Kuksi

This guy makes the coolest craziest sculptures, I love em.

Oscar Meyer Brueghel

Coolio.

Vegetable Orchestra

Awesome?  Ridiculous?  I dunno.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

30 Days of Night - Pretty damn cool!  Couldn't have been the comic, it's too weird a comic.  So they threw in some boring story and poorly developed characters.  But the core idea is still awesome, and it's bloody as a mopho, 's great.  Y'know what's fun?  Running around an empty parking garage after seeing a vampire movie.  Doesn't matter if vampires aren't real, if you are running in a spooky place, it feels like you are being chased.

The Invisible - Been meaning to watch this forever, so it sorta had some build up in our heads.  We liked it ok, it's kinda dumb in parts, but I liked it.

1408 - This one was pretty good.  John Cusack does a pretty good job going totally nuts.  It's scary in a very different way than 30 Days, pretty psychological, but I still like it.  It felt sort of like Silent Hill 4, which was cool.  Anyway, thumbs up!

Street Fighter IV

Just a trailer, but it's super stylish and cool, so I'll take it!

No Shirts in A&F

New Improv Everywhere, hahaha.

Acoustic Location

Super cool old way to find airplanes.

Cool Case Mods

I loooove the sliding doors on the japanese-inspired one.  The rest here.

Junk Mail = Suck

So here's a couple useful things.  Sort of like the "do not call" list that happened a few years ago.  I never signed up for it, I figured it was just a list for some people to abide by, and for others to seize upon.  'sides, I don't have a landline so I never get telemarketers.  But these two are for junk mail and catalogs.  And I figure I can't possibly get any MORE of these things, so why not?

No More Catalogs, Please

Nor Junk Mail, Thank You

Ignis Solus

Brilliant machinima.  This could totally be pixar.

Leaving... on a jet plane...

Holy crap!

Blind as a bat

Holy shit, it's a for reals Daredevil!!

Texas Votin'

Wow.  Local news doing a real story, imagine that!

Coolest Book Ever

For seriously.

25 Interesting Animals

Some cute, some cool, some are freaky as crap.  The rest here.

Douchebag Tattoos

Couple cool ones in there, though.

Cadbury Ad

I don't really understand how this sells chocolate, but it's kinda funny.

Cool Music Video

Knights of Cydonia by Muse

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

The Kovac Box - Meh, thought this might be interesting, but wasn't really.  Evil mastermind has a dastardly trap and dude & chick have to get out of it, snore.

Alpha Dog - Not bad!  Nothing revolutionary, just a bunch of kids getting in trouble, drugs, mini gang war, etc.  But given that, it's pretty well done.  I guess it's based on a true story too, which I didn't know till the end.

3:10 To Yuma - Verrrry good!  I haven't seen the original yet, so I'm not sure how it compares, but this was great.  Everything is done really well, the acting, atomsphere, really good music, action, all of it.  Go see it!

Dr. Strange - !!!  Dr. Strange animated movie!  Woo!  I had no idea it existed, I just saw it on a torrent site.  I d/l'd, watched it, loved it, and bought the DVD.  If you don't like dr. strange, it's just an average actiony cartoon, I think.  Very much in the style of modern superhero cartoons, spiderman or JLA, etc.  But I, loving Dr. Strange as I do, thought it was teh awesome.

Unique Marriage Proposal

Great, now anything the rest of us come up with looks laaaame.

Sigg Jones

Super cool french animated short.

Voyager meets Frasier

This is kinda cute.  The jokes are lame, but it's still funny.

3D Display

Holy god, so cool!!

Behind the Scenes of Gmail

This is great.

Jimmy Justice

An article about a cool guy.  Basically, he films cops breaking laws.  This article discusses whether his is true journalism.  I'm sure cops are discussing how they can arrest him.  I think he's great, yay for watching the watchers!

Boxsweeper

This site is so cool!  It basically just points you to places on the net where the latest movie/show/whatever is up.  Now, I would never use such a site, of course.  But if, for example, a person were eating dinner at the dining room table, and that person did not have a TV nearby, nor any interesting things to watch on his or her computer, and that person did not have time to download a bit torrent of something to watch, then that person might flip to this site and watch something random and low quality, but good enough for the dinner table.  It might happen, eh?

Street Art

Some of these are really cool.

Smart Scaling/Cropping

This is SO god damn cool, math is awesome!

Star Wars: The Musical

Hahahaha!

PayPlay.fm

So, not sure if I've mentioned this site before, but there's this great site called PayPlay.fm.  It's like itunes, but not shitty.  All their music has no DRM.  That means you can copy, burn, or transfer it as much as you like, which is good, seeing as how you own it.  $0.88 per song too!  It doesn't have huge people, anyone on a big label isn't going to be here.  But for smaller acts, or indie types, it's great.  I got a bunch of irish and latin music here.  Plus, they've started this cool "karma" system.  For signing up (25 points) and logging in (1 point a day) and buying music (1 point per song) you get karma points, and every point earns you one free karma song!  Every other band (or so) on payplay offers one song per album as a karma track that you can get for free with your points. It's a totally slick way to try out other bands to see if you like them.

If, however, you insist on using itunes, EMI (this is old news) now has DRM-free music there.  So buy lots of EMI music to tell apple that DRM = unhappy customers = less money.  Universal is also going DRM free, but they don't really like itunes, so their stuff is on Rhapsody, a couple others, and a new service with Google called G-Box. They are doing it as a trial, so people should buy that to convince them as well.  Amazon is supposed to have a DRM-free store at some point too, but it hasn't appeared yet.

So, go buy DRM-free music! fight the man! fight the power!  viva la revolution!  I'm sure I spelled that wrong!

Rocky: Child Beater

And we're back to cool, yay!

Attack of the Giant Negroes

In the significantly less cool category...

Ice Caves

Oh em gee, so cool.

A Gentlemen's Duel

Very cute animation.

Bush's New Threat

Teehee.

Tell Tale Heart Animation

From 1953, pretty neat.

Starving in the Belly of a Whale

Funny, I didn't think I liked this, but as it went on I liked both the song and the animation more and more, until I was singing along at the end!

Louis CK Animation

Hehe, I love Louis CK.

Babes and B-52s

This art is sorta cool.  Sorta the militaristic version of chicks on dragons, and as such a little creepy, but I like the style.

Movie Reviews

Rattatoullie: Very sweet and charming and funny and everything Pixar does right.  Not the best ever, I don't think, but up there.  However, the short at the beginning is my favorite short ever.  I cannot remember the last time I giggled like an idiot for 5 minutes straight!

Little Children: Umm.... meh.  I had a weird state of mind for this movie, as I had heard from two people how genius it was, and two others how horrendous it was.  I ended up in the middle.  It was just a little boring, a little mishmashed.  The announcer was occassionally the only source of humor (wry, of course), and sometimes completely ruining the drama by narrating emotions.  People did an ok job, it just was so long and drawn out and not really about all that much.  The football scene was amazing, though.  I desperately searched for a way to connect that amazingness to the rest of the movie, but I can't think of a way!

Saw 3: Zzzzz.  You are boring, Saw!  It's not novel anymore to tear people up in interesting ways.  Inserting a lame story of redemption/forgiveness doesn't help.  Inserting a lame "twist" doesn't help.  Inserting lame backstories doesn't help.  BORing.

[typed a few days later]

Hostel 2: I take it back!  Saw 3 was great!  Jeez, at least Saw 3 pretended it was deeper than blood and guts.  It failed utterly, but it tried.  Hostel is just about torture.  It's not about anything, and no it's not interesting that people want to watch or participate in torture.  It wasn't interesting when the first one came out, it's defintely not for the lame sequel.  And even if you only want blood and guts, Saw 3 does it better.  Damn you, Hostel 2, I hate you for making me elevate Saw 3!

Shrek 3:  Y'know, I don't really know.  I fell asleep on the plane cuz the movie was boring and I was tired.  Don't really care to find out what happened either.  *shrug*

The Fountain:  Weird and silly.  Pretty, I guess, but mostly fluff.  Extraordinarily slow and boring fluff.  Newagey/buddhist ideas with fancy graphics, meh.  B said it was like an hour and a half long music video.

Sunshine:  Woooooooo!  Oh em gee I love this movie.  It was soooo great.  So beautiful and suspenseful and awesome.  The science is a little thin (restart the sun?!), but it's not The Core, trust me.  It was really great, and I don't understand people's complaints about the ending either, it was fine.  Man I wanna go see this movie again.

Harry Potter 5:  Well, hm, it's a Harry Potter movie?  I mean, it's not bad, it's a harry potter movie.  But it's not good, it's a harry potter movie.  Much like the books, the longer they go on, the less charming and more dramatic they get.  If you care about the drama, it's interesting, if not... meh.  And even still, this movie was thin on drama, it mostly advanced the plot for the 6th and 7th.  I thought the wizard battles were cool.  B said they were like star wars, but hey, I like star wars.  Maybe 6 will be awesome.

----------------

As a side note, I saw Sunshine in Robert Redford's Sundance Theater.  One of those new fangled theaters that are supposed to reinvigorate the movie going experience.  I was excited for this, as I think it's an interesting development in movies and media.  People hate going to movies, shitty seats, crappy food, annoying people, etc etc.  And our home systems are getting so much better, the only reason some of us go out is for the blockbusters.  So this idea interested me.  Unfortunately it wasn't all that fancy.  They have a cafe and a restaurant and a lounge in front, I guess that's nice.  You have assigned seats, that's cool.  And some stooge introduces the movie on a microphone before it starts.  That all adds up to an $11.50 ticket price.  Don't get me wrong, it was a nice experience, but it wasn't really the wave of the future, as far as I'm concerned.  Maybe there are other theaters that go all out, dunno.

Book Reviews

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:  This book is SO GOOD.  Besides being a captivating story.  And besides being an interesting/horrifying exposure of a woman's place in islam.  The most important message is not for conservatives who don't care, it's for liberals who can "care" too much.  We liberals are sometimes too willing to defend a culture blindly in the name of multiculturalism.  Some cultures ARE better or worse.  We feel guilty telling all the dark skinned people that their beliefs are wrong.  But when those beliefs allow the torture, rape, murder or half their population, they are wrong, plain and simple.  This seems obvious, but I notice the inclination in myself as well.  The inclination to give a group of people a pass because we are too worried about being racist or intolerant.  Anyway, if you need another reason to read it, check out the intro:

 

 

Breakpoint by Richard A. Clarke:  Oh Richard Clarke.  I really loved his first two books.  The first one for exposing Bush bullcrap before 77% of the country was onboard with that practice, it was awesome.  The second one because it theorized in a very realistic feeling (though what do I know) sense what could happen soon in the world, I loved it.  This one is a little bit more extrapolation, and it is stretched a little thin.  He's got us with a world wide self-regulating internet, and fully integrated and interfaced (with the brain) robolimbs, and brains that go on the internet, and genegineering, and all this other stuff, in like 5 years!  This is all cool stuff to talk about, but it seems more like 30 years away, or 50 years away.  So anyway, he's not SUCH a great writer that it's worth listening no matter what he says, it was his understanding of the current and near-future political climate.  Without that understanding and relevancy of the subject matter, it's just an OK near-future scifi book.

Lion vs. Crocodile vs. Water Buffalo (x50)

I'm back from vacation, Wisconsin was coo'.  This is coo' too'.

Music Video Made With Dice

Sorta neat.

How To Cope With Death

Teehee.

Filipino Inmates do Thriller

Holy crap this is awesome.

Class Divisions through Facebook and Myspace

Through his own admission, it's all personal experience and anecdotes, but it's still crazy interesting.

Chernobyl Legacy

I've never seen anything like this, it's amazing and horrifying.

Animated Wall Painting

Way cool.

Movie Reviews

It's been a while w/ this!  Not watching as many movies, and when I do, I forget to say something!  So real quick:

The Reaping:  Dumb!  Not interesting enough to be a thriller.  Not scary enough to be a horror.  BORing.

Transformers:  Pretty awesome, pretty silly.  This sums it up well.

Fantastic Four 2:  Way better than the first.  Mostly because I was ready for the cheesiness, and they really embraced it.  They made it into a corny comic booky movie, which is just fine.  I still think Thing looks retarded, and i hate jessica alba, but the silver surface is coo'

Handicap Dance Off

Holy christ these guys are insane.

Magnetic Morpho Towers

Oh em fuckin' gee, I can't even explain how beautiful this is!

Here it is on youtube, if their site is too slow.

Microsoft Surface Parody

Hahaha.

Singing Tesla Coil

Holy god that's cool.

Star Trek Theme on a Wiimote

Ha!

Russian Animation

Crazy!

Three Legged Legs - Ricochet

Amazing CGI video.  Also a making-of.

Gay Bomb

This is the greatest thing ever.

Virtual Tour of Hell

This is slick.

Microsoft's Seadragon and PhotoSynth

Verrrry cool.

A Sperm's Journey

So funny!

Wet Cats

Ohhhhh, I don't want to laugh!

Family Guy Star Wars

Holy crap this is so funny.

Dreams of Flying

These are really cool.  Especially 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12.

Which ISPs Are Spying On You?

Very interesting, Cox doesn't sound too bad.

Google Street View

Wah!

Awesome Old Ads

(Where awesome is defined as awful).

Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy.... and Legos

Yikes.

World of Warcraft: Dancing

This is pretty funny.

Slow Motion Water Balloon

Cool!

How Not To Be Vegan

God dammit!  You assholes make the rest of us look bad!

Transformers Trailer

I've resisted the flood of 20 year old memories for months now, but it's over.  After this, I can't wait to see this movie.

First!

Hahahahahahaha, douchebags.

Giant Sewer Sinkhole

!

Color Changing Card Trick

Weird.  Simple, but it got me.

Donald Duck Needs a Condom

Woah!

Batgirl vs. Sexism

So weird!

Arizona Superhero

Whaa?

Awesomeness

What do you get when you combine Halo, Matrix, Metroid, Star Wars, and more?  Awesomeness!  And then there's a little pseudo-lesbian action and a rap video, I don't really know why.

Burial & Memorial Symbols

This is cool.  What's with the order though?  Muslim and Hindu are halfway down the list!  Atheists are on there too, didn't know we had (or needed) a symbol.

Space Stuff

Beautiful Hubble picture and an Earth-like planet.

Cool beans!

French Safe Sex Posters

Woah!

Desktop Tower Defense

Fun Game!

3D Glass Paintings

Way cool.

Praying Mantis

Holy shite!

Piracy PSA

This is pretty funny.  (Btw, two in a row, via D, thanks!)

Kite Dancing

Jeez, how much time do 79 year olds have?!  Nonetheless, pretty slick.

Donkey Kong in Post-Its

Cool!

Free Google 411

Cool!

Alanis does "My Humps"

This is the best thing Alanis has ever done!  Maybe that's not saying much, but it's awesome!

New Die Hard Trailer

Good lawd.  Yay for minimization of Justin Long!

MySpace To Hold Presidential Primary

Link!

Busted Tees

Can't imagine wearing any of these, but some of them are pretty funny!

Costume Transformers

I know this is really nerdy, but that guy put some serious work into Optimus Prime!

Tangible Table

Yay for innovative interface solutions!

High Water Bill

Cute letter and response.

300 - PG Version

THIS... IS... CAKETOWN!!

Chocolate Jesus

Oooookay....

McCain Shouldn't Steal Images

This is great!

Real Doll Bday Party

Uhhh...

Tolkien Jr.'s Lord of the Rings

Whaaaat?

Visualizing 248 Dimensions

I have no idea what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure it's awesome.

2 Year Old on Wi Sports

This is way cool!  A game so simple and fun that a 2 year old can understand and enjoy it!

Line Rider Super Mario

Crazy line rider mophos

Ultimate Home Office

Yes please!

Real Life Mario Kart

HAHAHAHA!

Book Review: We

Wow, I really set a blazing pace with books, eh?  My last review was 5 months ago!!  And it's not even cuz its a bad book, I loved it!  The book is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and it's the last (but actually the first) of the three classic dystopian novels I read.  It was really good, and much different from the other two.  1984 still wins as the most politically and socially relevant when you compare to real life.  Brave New World has its own method, and had very interesting ideas about the functioning of societies.  This one definitely had things to say on both these things, but what stood out for me was how it was written.  It's first person, a man's journal, telling his experience of loving the utopia, being corrupted away (by a woman, naturally), and coming back to it, nothing new there (although it was when he wrote it).  But for some reason, to me at least, the book reads so much more smoothly.  The writing is almost poetic, it was enjoyable to just read, almost independent of the content.  It's a translation, so that may have something bad or good to say about how it reads, but I really liked it.  Anyway, it's not long, despite my huge delay in reading it, and like I say it's nice to read, so I'd definitely recommend it.

Next up: political fiction?  political biography?  history?  science history?  or straight up nerd town fantasy?  not sure yet :)

Planetary Orbit Clock

I want one!!

Cavemen Sitcom

No. Effin'. Way.

Online Confessionals

Heard about this guy.

Tried to find him and found this guy.

Very weird.

Russian Bone Timepiece

Also wow!

All Wood Hotrod

Wow!

Santasm

Please don't go watch this.  And when you do, please don't blame me, I warned you.

Moon Eclipsing The Sun From a Million Miles Out

Holy crap is that cool.

Batman Animated Film

This is neat.

Crazy Statues

There's some weird stuff in here.

Bubble Magic

This guy is pretty cool, via D.

300

Holy god.  I just saw 300.  That is the best movie I've ever seen!!  It is everything I hoped it would be.  There were a couple silly parts that distracted that weren't in the book, and B has some unkind comments about some of the rhetoric.  But, 'sides that, it was perfect.  And the battles, jeeeeesus, that is the best fight filming I've ever seen.  I know I'm already hyperboling, but I'm serious, I've never seen better fight sequences.  I can't wait to go see it again!  You should go see it now!

Lost Speed Painting

Wow!

Kuksi Art

Woah, this guy is crazy.  Can't imagine every owning it, but it sure is fun to look at.

Animated Toccata and Fugue in D

via J, way cool!

Ze Frank :(

Ze Frank is ending!  I'm really sad!  He's the guy been doing the daily vidcast for the past year, and his "internship" is almost over.  It super sucks, he's the one part of the internet besides email and KATG that I insist on every day!  Anyway, yesterday he got Jonathan Coulton to do all the songs he's written over the past year - it's cool!

Satan Eclipse

Cool!

300 Seconds of 300

I'm gonna pee my pants.  I'm gonna pee my pants.  I'm gonna pee my pants.

Communist Mario

This is awesome!

Ryan vs. Dorkman 2

Remember Ryan vs. Dorkman?  Well, here's part 2!  These guys are badass.  The music is only ok, the grunty punchy sounds are weak.  But the light saber sounds are perfect and their choreography is just awesome. 

Star Wars Kid Matrix

Haha, this is way old but I never saw it before.

Video Games Don't Kill

So everyone knows I'm pretty vehement about the video-games-are-the-root-of-evil crowd.  And I don't need to repeat the standard arguments of the comicbooks/D&D/ rockmusic/rapmusic cycle, or the stats not supporting their claims, or etc etc.  But here's a new one.  She's basically pointing out that when a black kid kills someone, he's a monster, a product of his black environment.  But when the white suburban kid kills someone, he's an innocent kid corrupted by video games.  It gives an excuse to the white kid for turning out bad.  That's a very interesting argument that never even occurred to me!

HornyManatee.com

Aaaaaaaa!

John Edwards' Second Life HQ "Vandalized"

Shipdits!

Remote Wrangler

Never lose a remote again.  AWESOME!

The real cost of bottled water

Yikes.

Serenity comic book

Ooo!

Kites Are Deadly

Let's be fair, kites don't kill people, turns out guns still do though.

Olbermann

So, I still watch Olbermann most days.  I've given up on having a great deal of respect for him.  He's so snide and smirky and I'll never have a great deal of respect for anyone who spends more than 2 seconds on Britney Spears news.  However, somewhat softening this is this interview.  He is, certainly, aware of his tone.  It's not that he can't control it or that he thinks no one notices.  He wants to be snarky, as he puts it, and take it all only-so-seriously.  So at least he's aware, that's important.

I do think there's a crazy amount of bubble going on, though, watching these shows.  Seeing the same 5 reporters or guests over and over w/ the same views, you think the whole world agrees with you and them.  But that's not really any better than believing the world according to Rush or O'Reilly.  Gotta branch out!

Anyway, that's the story!

Guliani Acts Dumb

This guy has no chance, soon as people remember old NY, soon as republics remember his progressive stances, soon as he lets his dumb mouth open, he's toast!

Podcasts I'm not interested in

but some of you might be:

Knitting - Cast On

 

Quilting - Bonnie McCaffery or Alex Anderson or Annie's Quilting Stash

 

Young Adult Novels - With Class

 

Writing - I Should Be Writing

I Love George Takei!

This is badass!

Astro Pic

Pretty pretty, eh?

Flute Beatboxing

Via The Mongoose, I was ready to be disdainful of this silliness, but I'll admit that's pretty hard to do and is cooler than it deserves to be! :)

Half Hour News Hour

So the Anti-Daily Show has premiered.  So sad when you are only funny because you are so awful, and when the only people laughing are recorded and dead.

O.O.T. S.S.O.E.R.A.A.A.P.

Via mstenner, the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.  Pretty funny :)

Bathsheba Sculpture

I want these!  So cool!

Gates Vs. Jobs

This is mostly funny, over does its gags, but it's good if yer bored!

Holy Batman, Batman

Oh good, I wasn't ashamed to be an Arizonan lately!

No Kids? Marriage Annulled!

Haha, saw this on Colbert, pretty funny.  Basically, there's a gay-sponsored Washington ballot measure that requires married couples to have kids in 3 years or their marriage gets annulled.  Clever, clever gays!

Multi-Touch 2

I'm not sure if I've put this up before, but I loves me some alternate forms of interaction.

The Legend of Chuck Norris

Awesome!

Creepy Valentines

As advertised.

Hiroshima Aftermath

Bomb 'em all, right?  Jesus christ.

Crazy Slinky Folding Chair

Gimme now!

Frozen Tidal Wave

Fake?  I dunno, but effin' cool.

Celtic Music News

This is a great podcast for finding new Celtic type bands.  At least they are new to me!  I'm only 15 episodes in, but I'm liking a lot of it.  Tartan Podcast is also another popular one I haven't listened to at all yet.

Aqua Teen Suspects

I love these guys.  The story, if you didn't hear, is they put up these basically-lite-brite advertisements for the Aqua Teen movie in Boston.  And people wigged out and thought they were bombs (cuz, y'know, bombs blink and have aliens on them), so these guys were arrested.  In the post-jail press conference they treat the press like the assholes they are and it's awesome :)

TMNT Girl

Uh....

Hubble News

Firstly, this is sad, Hubble is broke'd.  Secondly, the reason we need to fix it, is this is amazing!

Homo Sex Is...

Teehee

Supersize Me Diet = Not So Bad

Not all things we wish were true are true.

Camera Obscura

Full-room camera (very old method).  Soooooo cool.

Verizon Turned Down iPhone

Doh!  I don't want an iphone, but a few million people do, and I'm sure they'd switch to Cingular/AT&T to get it.  Plus, Verizon just changed their text messaging plan, which means they broke the contract, which means any verizon customer can get out of their contract (until March 1st).  Oops.

Frilled Shark

Creepy effin' zombie shark!!

Royksopp's 'Remind Me'

Cool video.

Word Art

Really cool.

First Person in the History of the World to Dance

I don't know why I laughed so hard at this.  It's really obvious, it's a one joke skit, but I was dyin'.  NBC is bringing the videos down right quick, had to find it on myspace, get it fast!

China + Missiles + Satellites = Wuh-oh

Ahhh shit.  Buy your bomb shelters now, folks!

Colbert & O'Reilly

I saw the first half on Colbert last night, it was pretty funny.  But Colbert on O'Reilly is awesome!

Girl in Slingshot

Me next!!!

Immigrant Superheroes

So this is interesting.  Guy did an exhibit of immigrants dressed up as superheroes in their every day jobs, listing what they do and how much money they send back to Mexico.  Yeah, it's not exactly subtle.  But still, for every bullshit anecdote of a guy who crosses and steals something because it's easier than being a grown up, there is a bullshit anecdote of a guy living here working as hard as possible to send money to his family.  So who wins?  Straying from the details, and only as a general guiding principle, I'm gonna choose people over laws, accepting that that let's some bad people slide.

Rabbit vs. Snake

Wth?  This snake is scared as crap of the rabbit!  haha!

NES in a Controller

Three kinds of cool!!

Belief-o-Matic

This test is awful.  Bad, bad, biased test.  It asks you lost of questions (god, death, souls, etc), all of which were "I don't believe in that" for me.  Then it askes a bunch of social questions - abortion, gays, environment, etc.  And my result?  Unitarian Universalism - 100% match!  What the hell?!  UUs are great, amongst religious groups they are tops.  But nontheist got ranked fifth for me, 76% match!  Which basically means all my atheistic beliefs all earned me 76%, but my socially liberal beliefs lost me the last 24% because atheists are godless heartless monsters.  I call bullshit! Secular Humanism (also cool), Liberal quakers, and "mainline to liberal christian protestants" were all ranked higher!  I'm probably taking it way too seriously, but gosh dangit anti-atheist bias is hard to overcome in this world.

Petition Against The Escalation

Normally I don't really like these crap political acts that have no real impact and are just so we can feel good about ourselves.  But this one will be tied up with John Edwards' run for office, and even if it only gets him support, I'm for it.  If it has the tiniest bit of impact on congress, that can't hurt.  Go here to sign.

Burkini

Gee, why advanced your culture, your society, and the rights of your people.  Instead, invent new clothing to adapt to your 1st millenium views!  Score!

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

The Black Dahlia - Y'know, I'm not sure.  There's something about any movie in America before 1960 that wants to be interesting just by context.  But this movie didn't really hook me.  Came off too cheesily dramatic or too convoluted or something.  I can't really point out anything that was especially bad, yet I wouldn't call the movie good.  *shrug*  Dunno.  Also, I have a question for Scarlett Johannson: Is this all you can do?

Night at the Museum - Aw it's cute.  It's exactly what you'd expect, and as long as that's all you want - silly goofy cheesy comedy that makes you giggle - then you'll be happy.

Black Christmas - Jesus.  Not that anyone expects it to be good.  But I can enjoy crap horror movies, and still I fastforwarded through this piece of crap.

Rocky Balboa - Yer not gonna believe this, but this movie is good!  I mean, it's not good.  But it's good!  It's mostly what you would expect, yes he drinks eggs, yes he runs up the steps.  Nonetheless, I was impressed, it seemed to have a bit more of the classic Rocky heart than the last movies.  Sure, it's not wonderful writing, no actors are winning an oscar, but Rocky knows how to play Rocky, and you are absolutely on his side again.

 The Illusionist - Meh, this movie not so good.  I feel like it had some promise, like it coulda been good, but somehow it failed.  I hated the way it was filmed.  The whole movie had this weird soft on the edges, 1980s soap opera dream sequence thing going on.  And a weird, not sepia, but somehow still glowey orange-brown tone to it.  The acting wasn't necessarily bad, but Norton's accent annoyed me.  The tricks were cool, but the drama was not exciting.  I dunno, just not so good.

Children of Men -  On the other hand, WAY GOOD!  I wasn't sure about this at first.  For the first 30 min maybe, I was unconvinced.  But the longer it went the more I was wrapped up in it.  As predictable as many parts, including the end, were, I was impressed.  Besides, the only thing better than an apocalyptic setting is a dystopian setting, and this pulls that off wonderfully.  It's dirty and grimy and hopeless and oppressive and complete and hopeful.  Yes I know I said opposites!  It was good!

Helmsdeep In Candy

Wow....

Best Martial Arts Moments

By Maxim.  Clearly, Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, and Jet Li are badasses.  But look at #3!  Dooder #1 has NO ARMS and dooder #2 has NO LEGS!

Wickerman Clips

I heard this movie was awful, and I believe it, but these clips are awesome!  OH GOD!! THEIR IN MY EYES!!!

Mic'd Hockey Fight

This is hilarious. They have audio from before a hockey fight.

Daily Lit

Do you like books but hate holding things?  Do you like reading but hate paper and ink?  Do you prefer to enjoy a story over a period of 8 million years?  Then this site is for you!!

Right, so it's a site that emails you a few paragraphs from a book you choose every day.  The idea being that you spend more time at email than w/ a book, so you'll get it read bit by bit each day.  Seems sorta silly to me, but whatever floats yer biscuit.

Box in a Box

Okay, I'm behind on this one, I actually saw it on Olbermann before I saw it online *gasp*  Still, it's hilarious.  'member I pointed to the SNL skit Dick in a Box?  Well there's a million parodies, of course, but this is the funniest I've seen is Box in a Box!  Ha!

Holy Behemothic Bunny, Batman!

Look at 'im!  Supposedly he's real.

Great Big Sea Redux

Okay, I don't think I could possibly love this band anymore.  I've been listening constantly for the past couple months and everytime I wear out a favorite song I find 2 more.  I just bought a couple albums, one is a live one (not road rage) w/ a DVD of them.  The performance is awesome, of course.  But more than that, they put their crazy videos on the DVD, including karaoke versions of ordinary day, goin' up, and MARI-MAC!  ha!   how cool are they?!  Closest they are getting anytime soon is wisconsin, I wish I had an excuse to fly there in march :)

Child's Play Update

So that charity I like, Child's Play, started by the webcomic guys, broke one million dollars!  That's crazy!  Small compared to most charities, of course, but still, game players and companies raised one miiiiiillion dollars.  That's awesome!  And I was uhh... 0.01% of that! :)

Fun With Signing Statements

And by fun, I mean constitutional rape.  GOD DAMMIT!

Hastert Demoted

Now look at you .. all back-of-the-bus 'n shit.

Killer Fungi

Jesus Fuck that's gross

Politically Incorrect Alphabet

A is for Abortion?  with a picture of a hangar?  holllly crap.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Apocalypto - Hollllly shit.  I can't say this movie had much of a chance, I went in expecting it to be pretty bad, but still.  Yikes.  There is some good action and all that, but the rest, jeez.  There's lots of details that could be used as examples, but I found myself wondering something else: which of these categories is sadder?

1) The movie makers are sorta racist and stupid - i.e. the white people are clean, the brown people are dirty and savage, etc.

2) The movie makers expect us to be sorta racist and stupid - i.e. really colloquial dialogue, a whole opening scene that I would absolutely believe was copied out of a sitcom script.

3) That we actually ARE racist and stupid - i.e. the people in the audience laughing just because a brown person w/ crazy tattoos and piercings made a face.  That's not a joke!  That's just different than you!  Jesus!  And, no, I don't give the guy who said "woah, that was badass, man" the credit of thinking he was laughing at the filmmakers.

Anyway, it's worth seeing just to know how crazy it is.  But I sorta wish I hadn't given Mr. Gibson 10 bucks.

----------

World Trade Center - Who's the fuck idea was it for me to watch this while I was feeling crappy?  Dumb!  Anyway, it was what I expected and good for that.  You have to expect it to be a microcosm, it's not about the whole thing (except that it, of course, is).  It was done well enough, hard to judge, emotional movie, emotional state of mind, not the best perspective to analyze film making skill, I suppose.

 -----------

 Monster House - Eh, I guess.  It was cute and funny.  Not as much as people seemed to say though.

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Blood Spell - Off the beaten path, here.  This is a machinima, filmed in Neverwinter Nights.  It's not all that well acted, written, or filmed.  But still, it's a huge effort for a new art form and for that reason alone I wanted to watch it.  In 5 years when some amazing movie is filmed entirely in a video game, we'll have seen its roots :)

--------------

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Wow, strange strange movie.  Very good, but very strange.  The first 30 minutes are pretty amazing.  I dunno how you make smell into sight, but it's dirty & visceral and does the job.  Then it gets into sort of a normal (albeit twisted) murder story.  Then it goes batshit insane.  But it's really quite good.

Ding! by Seed

A furry's wet dream? catchy song though.

I/O Brush

That is three kinds of cool, go MIT.

Pink Pwnies

Awesome!

NRA Handbook

Granted, the contents are awful (animal rights people are terrorists, brown people are gang members, liberals are evil, etc).  But, y'know, the art in this thing is sorta cool!

Zune Ad

Do you enjoy penises?  Then.... buy a zune?

Trailers

Fantastic Four - (I think everyone already saw this, but oh well)  Wow, the silver surfer looks pretty damn slick.  How can the same people who made the Thing look like a lump of papier mache dog crap also make SS look cool?  Oh, right, computers, but still!

Smokin' Aces - Just now saw this.  I like gang movies, hope this will be good!

Grindhouse - Wth?  Is this going to be awful or awesome?  Both I guess?