Oh Shit

Oh Shit, Indy. Not Again.

Dancing Outlaw

Any of you heard of Jesco?

I watched Dancing Outlaw today, and am in awe. I'm seriously considering a trip to Jesscofest 2007. Myspace page for the event here.

Thisbe's Identity Crisis

It appears that Thisbe may well be a Rat Terrier instead of a Jack Russell.

Not our usual context for The Man.

Funny as hell, nonetheless - The Darwin Awards.

Christmas Specials I'd Love to See

Somehow, I've managed to miss

The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time

I most want to see:

Ayn Rand's A Selfish Christmas (1951)

In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts -- and therefore Christmas -- possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as "anti-life."

and

The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: "A Most Illogical Holiday" (1968)

Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears, is hailed as a messiah on a wintry world where elves toil for a mysterious master, revealed to be Santa just prior to the first commercial break. Santa, enraged, kills Ensign Jones and attacks the Enterprise in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa's headquarters. With the help of the comely and lonely Mrs. Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is himself a pawn to a master computer, whose initial program is based on an ancient book of children's Christmas tales. Kirk engages the master computer in a battle of wits, demanding the computer explain how it is physically possible for Santa to deliver gifts to all the children in the universe in a single night. The master computer, confronted with this computational anomaly, self-destructs; Santa, freed from mental enslavement, releases the elves and begins a new, democratic society. Back on the ship, Bones and Spock bicker about the meaning of Christmas, an argument which ends when Scotty appears on the bridge with egg nog made with Romulan Ale.

Filmed during the series' run, this episode was never shown on network television and was offered in syndication only once, in 1975. Star Trek fans hint the episode was later personally destroyed by Gene Roddenberry. Rumor suggests Harlan Ellison may have written the original script; asked about the episode at 1978's IgunaCon II science fiction convention, however, Ellison described the episode as "a quiescently glistening cherem of pus."

I'll just have to wait 'til next year, I reckon.

Reno 911 Miami Trailer - oh my.

Matt & Trey do not disappoint.

I'm always afraid to read an interview with people I like. You just know they're going to say something stupid and it'll be hard to enjoy their stuff in the future. With the South Park guys you just like them more - South Park Libertarians in Reason.

Thank Science for Dennett C. Dennett

The Santa Claus of atheism in WaPo/Newsweek -
Not yet the majority but no longer silent.

With a Grain of Salt

Speculation about Battlestar Galactica on a website for a magazine I should have heard of by now - it has some other decent articles - Geek Monthly.

Amongst the Elect

Reading Clyde's prayer made me wonder if I was backboneless & I wondered if I was doing my part. So what I decided was - I'm doing my best to create good PR for all our various burnable-at-the-stake positions amongst the elect here at the edge of civilization. - If only they'll think - "Coach Ray is cool. But they say he's atheist. And he's always saying it doesn't matter if someone's gay. And saying that we shouldn't expect the government to solve our problems. And that we have to protect against the government actually eroding our rights. And that we should keep the church & state separate. And that there is endless scientific evidence for evolution and this 6000-year thing is crap. He sure is a good teacher, I wonder he's right about this stuff."

I'll just keep doing the work of the Enlightened and avoid the hordes of angry peasants.

Don't touch the trim

Just a reminder: Squidbillies marathon tonight at 9:30.

The Devout Slug It Out

Well, it looks like the Ethiopian Christers are sticking it to the Somali Mohammedans over in Somalia, as a good-ole fashion holy war is starting to brew. I hope that they have good TV coverage, as I love me some 'splosions.

Enlightened Prayer

I found this. I love it.

A Prayer to the Faith Based

I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to offend you,
And you didn’t even ask for this but
I’m going to put in a plug for your beliefs
So that you won’t get too mad at me as I utter words
With which you or someone you know may not agree,
(No matter how utterly wrong you may happen to be)

It is good that you are religious
And I will personally defend your right to believe
Whatever it is you do in fact believe,
And I affirm that it is OK to put
Phrases regarding your beliefs on my money
And for you to assume that
I will swear to your god

when I am on jury duty
when I am drafted into the army
when I am elected to office
when I am in the witness stand
and whenever else I must affirm
that I am moral and will not lie.

i Will Capitalize Your Word for God
And the Name of Your Holy Book
And Other Entities and Documents
As You Dictate These Rules To me.

I offer this pandering to your particular beliefs,
regardless of what they may happen to be,
despite the fact that your cultural ancestors,
the mavens and leaders of one church or another,
burned at the stake or otherwise humiliated mine,
The early scientists and freethinkers,
I affirm this because I cannot at the moment
Remember where I put my spine.

Amen.

Harassing Creationists

I'm harassing creationists full-time now. To see my posts at the TalkOrigins newsgroup, click here.

There are many better, more informed posters than me, so I only contribute when the mood strikes me.

20th century declne of the West?

Mr. Empire does it again. Form my favorite contrarian historian

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.html

The I've read the introduction of the book. Boy, is he ever pissed the British Empire is gone....

I'll offer you some

Squidbillies Marathon. Thursday. 9:30 CMT till...

Proof there is not God: it's not on Wednesday.

From one of our own

10 myths and 10 truths about atheism in the LATimes just in time for Festivus. Sam Harris is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."

One Step Closer to Flying Cars

Jet-Man - one really doesn't have to say much more - .

Cobb County Update

It's nice to know that the forces of light can occasionally beat back the darkness - Georgia Anti-Evolution Group Surrenders.
(Original Post) on this.

Trailer Park Goodness

If we have not yet inflicted Trailer Park Boys on you, we will. It is easily the greatest Canadian television show ever. Their website has several videos to get you up to speed.

Redefining "life"

Scientists in California just found some teeny, teeny, tiny microbes. And by teeny, teeny tiny, I mean the size of a large virus. That's 1/5 the size of most bacteria, making them sub-microscopic. The article is here.

Studying these Archaea will probably shed light on the genetic and biochemical "bare necessities" for cell-based replicators, and thus on how life first started chain reacting.

Stick to the original, bitch!

Advance showings don't bode well for Black Christmas. Good critics love the original. Better stick to that.

One down, one to go...

Not to rain on the great new giant squid footage, but there's still work to be done. Namely, I want to see one of these alive.

Why? Other than scientific inquiry? Yes. Colossal Squid are vicious and mean, like me. From Wikipedia:

"Unlike the various giant squid species whose tentacles are equipped with suckers lined with small teeth, the tentacles of the Colossal Squid are tipped with a fierce mixture of suckers and swiveling hooks. "

They're also bigger...not that I'm a size queen. All hail our cephalopodian overlords!

Opus

Not my favorite comic...hell, I don't really like the comics. But this one is pretty funny.

A Festivus miracle for Clyde S.

Giant squid video

Giant squid caught on video by Japanese scientists:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Its mass of reddish tentacles flailing, a giant squid fought a losing battle to evade capture in a video unveiled by Japanese scientists on Friday.

Images of the squid -- a relatively small female about 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in) long and weighing 50 kg (110 lb) -- were the ultimate prize for zoologists at the National Science Museum, who have been pursuing one of the ocean's most mysterious creatures for years.

"Nobody has ever seen a live giant squid except fishermen," team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of the museum's zoology department said in an interview on Friday. "We believe these are the first ever moving pictures of a giant squid."

Little was known until recently about the creature thought to have inspired the myth of the "kraken", a tentacled monster that was blamed by sailors for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

More than meets the eye

New Transformers Trailer.

That's not charming at all...

...it's CREEPY!!! Leave it to the heathen Japanese robot worshipers to come up with this little piece of nightmare fuel:

"Another robot awarded in the service category was "Paro," a furry seal fitted with sensors beneath its fur and whiskers that let it respond to petting by opening and closing its eyes and moving its flippers."

How is the dry crunch of diodes and chips supposed to replace the satisfying moist crunch of flesh and bone when clubbing?

Happy Winter Solstice!

Well, for those of us in the Northern Hemsiphere at least.

They forgot to show the scary Dyke

From the "making a trailer for a movie that completely, but hilariously, misrepresents that movie" files comes this Disney classic, redux.

Sluts...

Looks like a focus on abstinence is really working, as is all of the evangelical Christer rantings and ravings about "saving yourself."

I want to know how all the Christers explain this statistic? Even if it's the liberal secular humanist media polluting our kids' minds, the demon-infested popular culture waging war on the Christian church, and the anti-family libertines and homos attacking the institution of marriage and violating our preachers' anal sphincters, who's really at fault? Christers more than make up 5% of the population, so someone's singing on Sunday and moaning on Saturday. Depending on whether they're appealing to popularity or appealing to persecution (both have their uses in propaganda), Christers maintain that they make up 85% or 30% of the US population.

This statistic, combined with the higher divorce rate of Christers over atheists, just shows that their religion is not about self-improvement, love, or results. Instead, it's about beating other people over the head with stupid rules they won't even follow. No wonder Christers hate homos so much: the gays are the only ones having more premarital sex than they are.

Another Festivus Abomination

I actually have this on vinyl from back when I was a kid. I loved it then, but now...whoo boy! The story goes that R2 and C3-P0 are visiting Santa's droid toy factory, or something.


Gems include:

1. What Can You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)?
2. R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas
3. The Odds Against Christmas [ed. note: turns out it's 365:1]

You always hear Lucas trying to cover up the Christmas special. Why he doesn't try to stop this horror, I don't know, but he'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

What should be our Winter Solstice Canon?

Just walked up on this - Watch 101 Classic Christmas Videos Online - it will need further examination.
_____
I'd start with the silly but undeniable Christmas Vacation and the acid trip of Santa Claus (1959).

Fucking Libyans.....Where's Reagan When Ya Need Him?

I'm surprised that I haven't heard of this story before. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor are being accused of starting a pediatric AIDS epidemic in Libya, apparently as part of a plot to shake down the West for cash.

Wiki article here.

Remind me not to take in jobs in Libya any time soon.

Time to up my meds

This made me lose bowel control. You've been warned.

On a positive note, it's nice to see all the extras from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century found something productive to do.

Libya: the New Jersey of the Middle East

Good to know that the Libyans still don' t let pesky things like facts and evidences get in the way of their religious prejudices. I guess we do have something in common with them after all.

Revisiting Bullshit

For those of you lucky enough to have seen the Season 1 Bullshit! episode on creationism, you may recall that at the end the Cobb County, GA school board voted to place a sticker on science textbooks stating that evolution was a theory, not a fact, blah, blah, blah.

Well that school board is now making the little baby Jesus cry, as they have decided not to put stickers in the text books. Ed Brayton, libertarian but misguided University of New Jersey at Durham fan, has a good write-up here.

New Jersey: the Mississippi of the Northeast

I'm sure this is typical of a certain teacher's history class.

New episode out

http://www.newvoyages.com/

Someone had to do it... it might as well be me.

Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics lyrics

Shots of Remastered "Arena"

http://trekmovie.com/2006/10/21/arena-screenshots-and-video/#more-263


Close-up of Gorn ship (never before seen).

http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/gornship.jpg

no words

Be sure to zoom in.

And here I thought it was Jesus...

Which one is the lesser evil anymore?

We've been on this for a while and now the big guns have come out - Liberaltarians by Brink Lindsey at Cato and in The New Republic (and a column about his article at the St.PeteTimes).

Weird

You've seen those links at the top of the Gmail inbox; they're usually Reuters, CNN, ESPN or some other mainstream site. This one caught my eye this morning so I checked it out.

UncleFesterBooks.com

I'm probably on some government list, now. I blame the Google Empire.

I've got a bad feeling about this....

Japan re-starts its war machine. Story here.

Was November 2006 intelligently designed?

In case anyone wondered why the Republicans lost Congress, they up and decided to remind us.

Their outgoing Congress decided to submit an opinion accusing the Smithsonian of politicizing science. It's all the same-old, same-old anti-science, pro-ID creationism nonsense you would expect; and it centers around the Smithsonian's reaction to Stephen Meyer's "peer-reviewed" review that has been hailed universally by the scientific community as not-peer-reviewed bullshit containing no new research but lots of discredited theologic assertions.

Good job jerk-asses. I'd hate to see you people focus on anything relevant, like limited government or executive branch oversight or constitutional liberty infringements or something like that. Thankfully, there's not a mismanaged war going on, just that atheist War on Christmas.

You closet cases mind Nancy's San Franciscan decorators on the way out. You're probably going to get a hard-on when you see their trim figures, muscular buttocks, and well-manicured man-hands, but don't let that change your love for Jesus, America, and traditional family values.

Festive Festivus FSM

I fully expect all of us to start this tradition next year.

Love Me Some Michelle Malkin

This is from August, but it still resonates. Proposed recipients of fauxtographer of the year awards.

Pipetting for our Lord

The pro-ID creationism "think" tank, the Discovery Institute, has started/not started but is affiliated with/is in no way affiliated with a new lab in Washington State called the Biologic Institute. The new lab's goal is to do pro-ID science. The New Scientist has a great article on what all isn't going on with this "lab," and it's quite amusing.

What I personally find most amusing is the name. Doesn't Biologic Institute sound like a shady corporate lab where a comic book villain was accidentally created when biohazard trash got hit by a radioactive bolt of super energy?

Sadly, this will just give crazy-ass fundies another irrelevant piece of illogical poo to fling at science: Jesus Lab has a paper by a scientist saying that evolution is false. See, the Bible is scientific.

The Panda's Thumb has a great take:

Clearly, the Discovery Institute has established the Biologic Institute a few decades too late. The Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society have been doing research to challenge naturalism for a long time. They are so prestigious in the field that they have even created their own research journals for publishing their papers. This does not bode well for the Discovery and Biologic Institutes because they will have a hard time breaking the stranglehold that those two research centers have on the industry. For decades now, the ICR and CRS have been telling us that their research is going to revolutionize science in five years time. How can the Biologic and Discovery Institutes compete with such success?

We here at the Thumb wish the Biologic and Discovery Institutes all the luck in turning the ID public relations campaign into a working scientific program. They’ll need it.

He can make a movie - anti-semitic drunk or not.

Think I may have to see this one. Anyone?
Apocalypto reviewed in The Weekly Standard.

The impetus behind the aforementioned quotation

Jamie's School Dinners

• How Jamie and school meal fascists turn kids into junk food addicts
• The junk food smugglers
• Treasure Island Sweets- Great site with booze (including Jack Daniel's), cigarette & cigar candy. However, it's still English: Dandelion and Burdock, Coal Dust, Fried Egg jelly, & Pink Shrimp sweets.

Quote of the Day

"Too many people are worried about what other people are eating." - Our own Tobermory

Southern League Trial

The Jaxx are not long for the world.

http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061213/NEWS01/612130313/1002

Bonus: Check out pic with kids that look like they have blood on their hands.

Across the Rainbow Bridge......

http://youtube.com/watch?v=O1gxNLMrD4c

I've had this stuck in my head for 72 hours.............the epsiodes themselves are totally metal.



DOWN WITH JOHN MCCAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://news.com.com/SenatorIllegalimagesmustbereported/2100-1028_3-6142332.html?tag=nefd.lede



The Saudi's can't wait on the Eurofighter? Ummmmm, good for the Rafale I guess.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/12/rumors-of-rafale-more-2006-saudi-shopping-spree/index.php#more


This news has a certain Darkman fan I live with in stitches.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1969521,00.html

Finale Frustration

I think we are all in the club on Dexter and Battlestar Galactica, but I'm concerned that both are reaching finales - Dexter for the season & BSG for the fall. We're working through DVD's of House and Trailer Park Boys now & waiting for Rome (1/14/07) in the spring. I fear a Festivus drought - of course we're still working on Perry Mason & Alfred Hitchcock Presents. We may make it with a liberal dose of Law & Order: Creepily Intense.

My own personal book club for this week

1. Stendhal's Scarlet and Black* I got interested in Stendhal because Dario Argento's Stendhal Syndrome made me curious about Stendhal Syndrome itself.
   
2. Darkly Dreaming Dexter See GateTree's post above.
   
3. Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement Pinker, Dawkins & Dennett on (un)Intelligent Design- how could I resist?
   

Take that, Oprah.

*Bromide, you might be interested in this one, if you haven't read it already.

Worldsoynutdaily

If this article stating that eating devil soy makes you queer were true, all of Asia would be gay. Last time I checked, populations there were not declining.

You gotta love Jim's wanton blind assertions, appeals to anonymous studies, and false cause fallacies (false correlations). But what would you expect from the chairman and founder-chairman(?) of Megashift Ministries?! Of course, going to a preacher for nutritional advice would be like going to the dentist to do your taxes.

Note to Jim: you might want to lay off the soy yourself, sac wrangler. Your ministry's logo, with its rainbow rings and all-male 3-way flaming phoenix feather, looks like the logo for the Gayer Olympics.

That being said, eating tons of soy could well be very bad for you. Last time I did, I almost died of methane self-poisoning. And the guys at the check-out line at health food stores do offer some corroborating evidence...

Disgusting beyond belief

¡NO PASARAN!: Who needs Goebbels when they have the BBC?

"Normally pretending to be high-minded, culturally tuned-in and generally 'gesellig' BBC Radio 4 is so desperate to kick any Jew they can find that they invited former Klansman an all-around anti-American dirtbag David Duke on the radio to discuss 'questioning' the Holocaust."

Blogger = Google = Evil Empire (in a nice way)

Mr. C. Squid - rest assured that irritation with the blogger changeover is nearly universal. One hopes that some small victory is won in that we are getting it done now rather than at the last minute - when all hell will inevitably break loose. My "Blogthis" rightclick and "Blogthis" buttons are still keyed to my 'old' blogger ID so I'm using the "new post" link at http://beta.blogger.com/home until the world cut asunder is made whole again. Man, I need a bourbon.

The Devil must have put something in the water

Another evangelical preacher in Colorado resigned because of his hooooomersexsual tendencies/lifestyle/sin.

The more they fuss over the gays, the more I wonder what they're hiding in their vestibules...

Charlie Brown must die

If you haven't seen this new improved version of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, I recommend it.

Oh, nevermind

I found a way to post. I'm not pissed off much anymore. Mostly...

Blogger in Beta Switchover

Guys - Blogger is switching over to a new system and we have to switchover as well. Tobermory will send you an e-mail reinviting you to join "I'd offer you some..." and you'll login to "Blogger in Beta" using your google/gmail account. (Just follow the link she sends you and follow the instructions to establish yourself on google accounts/blogger-in-beta). This has been going great and we don't want to mess this up, if there is a problem let me know.

Blogger Beta Test

Family Circus at its best

From DRay

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/

The best one ever.........

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=139&q=249

The hits keep on coming, nice for a randomizer.

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=86&q=199

As a tip of my hat to Clyde Squid, what I see in my nightmares. Every night. I mean it.

I think the opening of Clyde's freaky video is from:

Häxan (1922)

I found the Cartman reference - but Clyde's video is still much weirder

Just the same old crap I always see when I close my eyes

I found this, titled "Superstition and SuperDuperStition." I consider it priceless.

Stealing Color

When the mood strikes (not busy, sleepy, or watching football) I like to play around with the code for my blog. Tobermory gave me a program a while back to steal colors right off the screen - HTML Color Picker which was very useful. I've found an even more elaborate one thatI've been using lately - ColorPic. I guess that makes me a Color Pirate.

My favorite poem

Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
by Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.

Nigeria to Host 2008 Genocides

Heheheheheheh. Story, from the Onion, of course, here.

Finally, PC Contributes

Hey guys, I stumbled upon this site, which has some cool stuff, particularly the Google hacks, and the design-a-maps tool.

Hopefully I'll be of more use as time goes by.

Just a reminder...

Discovery Channel is showing the Killer Squid episode I wrote of earlier at 6 pm CMT tonight.

If you don't watch it, Jesus will give an Iraqi child anal gonorrhea. Do you really want that on your conscience?

Keep yer gawd-damn steely robo-hands off my corn liquor, cyber-queer!

I will not stand for members of the robot race stealing jobs from the hard-working therapists/pharmacists that serve mama her medicine. The only things robots should be doing is lampooning bad cinema and destroying any planet that causes a ruckus.

It's gots to be fer real, cause i done seened it on the internets

We all knew that people are fucking stupid and that stupid people are raising a whole bunch of even stupiderer cretin psychopaths. Well some UConn researchers sadly decided to scientifically investigate just how doomed we all are. Their study shows why we won't be going to the moon anytime soon: we'll be too busy saving the Pacific Northwest tree octopus.

The short version is that all 25 kids/sheep/igmos in this study totally fell for a fake website that advocated saving the endangered tree octopus from almost certain extinction. Not only that, some of these potato heads wouldn't believe the instructors when they told the shit-for-brains that it was a hoax.

So, strap on your helmets and grab your guns folks. Looks like it's going to be fun on the deck of this sinking ship after all.

For Eugenius, the only person I know who actually LIKES fruitcake

Texascooking.com: Fruitcake Subculture Conspiracy:

"Somewhere in the recent past, society took a turn and a long-standing holiday tradition was transformed into a joke. So complete was this societal change that those daring to speak up for or defend fruitcake were virtually stoned by an angry mob. Fruitcake lovers were outcast, rejected and ridiculed by popular culture. So vitriolic was the anti-fruitcake feeling that those with differing views were forced to quietly seek out others who, like them, still appreciated the fruitcake. Soon, the outcasts began to find each other, and so, the fruitcake subculture was formed."

Failure Magazine: Bad Reputation: Forget the Jokes, Fruitcake is serious business-

"According to John, the fruitcake began to get a bad name when people "started getting down on drinking and driving." He claims that a wine company began taking shots at fruitcake in order to divert attention from the problem of holiday drunk driving."


Claxton Fruit Cake

Collin Street Bakery World-Famous DeLuxe Fruit Cake

Georgia Fruit Cake Company's Two Pound Vack Pack (Can) Georgia Fruit Cake

Harrods Iced Slab Cake


Recipes:

Alton Brown: Free Range Fruitcake

Emeril Lagasse: Creole Christmas Fruit Cake with Whiskey Sauce

Allrecipes.com: 80+ fruitcake recipes

What's going on here?

Looks like 1701 is moonlighting - The Little Bitty Kitty Show

Should I get another gun, it'll be the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Enfield

Now we can find out what happened

FoodNetwork Store:

"Alton Brown Feasting On Asphalt Season One DVD with FREE Viewmaster!"

My favorite candy at a great site

Chocosphere: Cote d' Or Belgian Chocolate:

"Côte d'Or Chokotoff Chocolate-Covered Caramel Pieces"

Too good to be true?

I've already got my hopes up too much on this coaching thing, I'm not sure I can bear this - NASA Plans Lunar Outpost - oh please, oh please.

Jesus Camp

I saw this last night...........kids and adults were chanting in tongues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_camp


It made me want to buy more guns.

At one point an eight-year-old girl hands out chick tracts in a bowling alley.

For Eugenius: an Alienware-a-Rama

Alienware: Compare Notebooks

NotebookForums.com: Alienware

My favorite commercial ever

Not to be left out, I decided to post my favorite commercial ever. Spike Jonze directed it for Addidas. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (currently the greatest punk band recording) provides the creepy raspy vocals.

David Blaine is just a bony vertebrate amateur

I want to see him do this.

Speaking of our future cephalopod overlords, I finally got to see the Wild Discovery episode on the Humboldt squid. It's one of the best hours of TV I've seen in a while. And while they effectively make the case that the vicious sea beasties are mostly curious and benign when not being hunted by Messkins, seeing them pissed off on IMAX convinced me that diving in the Sea of Cortez is overall a bad idea.

Best part of the show: the special forces guy who dives alone with the squid. He wears a protective armor dive suit designed by--I shit you not--Star Wars costumers.

I guess you do need a Storm Trooper suit to deal with this guy.

What's not for supper

Wow. I'd like to see Sandra Lee compete on Iron Chef America. Or perhaps not.

Food Network: Venetian Ice Cream Cake

1 quart coffee ice cream, softened
3/4 cup butterscotch caramel topping
3/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1 quart vanilla ice cream, softened
1 container (8 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed [i. e.: Cool Whip]
2 (5.5-ounce) packages chocolate caramel cookie bars (20 sticks total) [i. e.: Twix]
1 milk chocolate candy bar, shaved

Special Equipment: pastry bag (or resealable plastic bag) and a # 6 star tip

Line a (9 1/4 by 5 by 2 3/4-inch) metal loaf pan with 2 layers of plastic wrap, allowing 3 inches of plastic to hang over pan sides. Using a rubber spatula, press 1/4 of the coffee ice cream into pan. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of caramel topping over ice cream. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of pecans over caramel. Spread 1/4 of the vanilla ice cream over nuts. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of caramel topping over ice cream. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of pecans over caramel. Freeze for 20 minutes or until firm. Repeat layering of coffee ice cream, caramel, pecans, and vanilla ice cream 3 more times, freezing for 20 minutes between each layering. Fold plastic overhang atop cake to cover. Freeze for 4 hours or until frozen solid.

To unmold, wrap hot damp towels around pan to loosen ice cream cake from pan. Fold back plastic from atop ice cream cake. Invert a large plate or serving platter atop the ice cream cake. Holding plate and pan together, invert cake onto plate. Remove pan from cake; peel off plastic wrap. Spoon whipped topping into pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe stripes or fluted lines atop cake. Freeze for 1 hour or until whipped topping is frozen solid. Let cake stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving. Meanwhile, slice caramel cookie bars in half and arrange, cut side down, around perimeter of cake. Sprinkle chocolate shavings over cake. Cut cake crosswise into slices; transfer cake slices to serving plates.

[Then throw away & serve under-sweetened grape Kool-Aid & Hydrox cookies like you had in VBS- your guests will thank you.]

And yes, they did it for the children

RIP, Das Booth

TUSKmag.com: Last call:

"Saturday [ November 25] marks the end of an era for students, alums and Tide fans alike. On that fateful day, The Booth – an institution as synonymous with the University of Alabama as houndstooth and hospitality – will close its doors on The Strip for the very last time.
....
'I’ve got a 9-year-old son, so I can’t disagree entirely with what they’re doing,' Hammock said. 'They’re looking for a place where kids won’t be walking by and looking in.'"

The Crimson White: Last Call

The Booth's official site

See, Eugenius, I didn't hallucinate that Pepto-Bismol commercial

You really can find anything @ Wikipedia, or what's that song in that commercial?

Wikipedia: Remind Me:

"'Remind Me'/'So Easy' is the first single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's debut album Melody A.M.. The single version is substantially different from the album version (it is more upbeat). The song was used for a time on British television adverts for T-Mobile. The vocals are sung by Erlend Øye.

The song was also used in a September 2006 commercial for GEICO where a 'caveman' is walking on a travelator in an airport (which appears to be JFK airport, judging by the ATC tower in the background) and is shocked to see a billboard advertisement for GEICO featuring an actor in a bad caveman costume quoted as saying: 'So easy, a caveman can do it'. The song is a reference to past commercials where the caveman was offended by GEICO commercials featuring the 'So easy, a caveman can do it' phrase; obviously considered demeaning and 'racist' by cavemen everywhere."

I really like this song, as it puts me in mind of the aesthetics of movies like Rollerball & 2001, & of the best parts of Bauhaus architecture.

What's for supper

Food Network: Tyler Florence's Thick Pork Chops with Spiced Apples and Raisins:

Delicious & so easy even I couldn't mess this one up. However, I did leave out the raisins as I don't really care for them hot.

I rate this recipe 10 T-Bone Steaks* out of 10.

*As the T-Bone steak is my favorite foodstuff, I thought it only appropriate to use it as the marker on my rating scale.

I [heart] Sony

I just got my new cell phone from Cingular, the Sony Ericsson w810i. It rules. Not only is my reception here 50x better than with Verizon, but the phone is just way too hot. Plus, it's not one of those puss-ass Federation flip phones. It's a bar phone, the way our Lord Jesus and his Romulan hosts intended phones to be.

Included was a free 1Gb chip, instead of the 128kb standard. So I can get roughly 150-250 songs on there depending on how much space is left after downloading porn. Since I currently lack an iThing, this works out nicely.

Coolest feature you only ever need to win bets: you can link into the Sony/Cingular website, hold the phone up in the air, and it will tell you the song and the artist of what's playing. I tried it at lunch, and yes it was Elvis's Blue Christmas.

I got limited text messages, but unlimited internet time to keep up with my gmail on the go. I'm not a fan of text messages: either leave the table and go make the phonecall or save it for later. Plus I like English too much to butcher it via 12-button textese.

1701

Very nice - The U.N. "Dangerous Chemicals" number for xylyl bromide - used in WWI, as Opie would say, for "Tear Gas!"

The MoMAstore rules....

MoMAstore - Washing Up Bowl

VDH's new blog @ Pajamas Media

Works and Days: Wars, then and now...:

"So don’t expect the world’s liberal conscious to weigh in much on the latest poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko—done to a UK subject in London and in such a manner to top off the earlier medieval “oranging” of Ukraine’s Viktor Yushchenko. Russia, after all, not only has and sells nukes, uses energy blackmail against eastern Europe and the millions of the former Soviet Union, but, like the Iranians and the Syrians it arms, has a propensity to murder in grotesque fashion critics of its plutocracy in their own homelands. So it is much easier for a European or Middle East journalist to concentrate on the purported misdemeanors of a Donald Rumsfeld than the known felonies of a Vladimir Putin. "