I came across this video parodying Fast Times at Ridgemont High using superheroes for the students, and had to share. Props to Power Girl for finding it first. The Wonder Woman/Phoebe Cates pool scene is worth the price of admission alone. Especially since its free. Classic movie, btw. Better zip that.
Oh, and in spite of my promise to withhold linkfesting until after the new year, I've come across a few other gems to share. It turns out that when Superwife and Trin are visiting The
See how your Google contacts rank - You need to be logged into Gmail to use this. Shows you who you email most, along with other metadata.Happy New Year, Internets.
Turns out Al Gore was right all along - Discussion is heating up again about an enormous ice shelf that broke off in the Canadian Arctic last year. Guess there's something to that Global Warming after all.
PSP games being released in the coming year - There are reasons to look forward to 2007!
Poll: Top New Year's Resolutions for 2007 - It is New Year's Eve after all. Mine are to lose a few pounds, do more yoga, and try not to swear so fucking much. I have my work cut out for me.
Labels: comics, everything else
Thought I'd post some random links I'm coming across tonight, mostly of the 'year end' variety.
It could be that I'm just trying to pad my blog stats before the end of the year. Look for further posts this week on Shoe Tying, Putting on Pants, and Things I Read in the John.
The Silver Surfer in the trailer for the F4 sequel - If he looks this cool in the movie, could he redeem the franchise from the crapper it currently resides in thanks to the first film?
Shatner does the end scene from Se7en - Shatner as T.J. Hooker, Kirk, and the host of Rescue 911, all at the same time. Very funny.
Vote for the TV.com Best Shows of 2006 - How else are we going to save quality television like 'Show Me The Money'? Oops, too late.
Free ebook: 365 Days of Skywatching - I don't have the time or the ability (damn you light pollution!) to view the sky much anymore, but this might come in handy when Trin starts asking questions. Did I mention that its free?
NASA's top exploration and discovery stories of the year - Required reading for anyone who's ever wanted to do more with their towel than just dry off.
Kaleidoscopic Illusion - I like the fact that the author spelled 'rotating' with 2 a's almost as much as I enjoyed the illusion.
Paul Simon video for Call Me Al with Chevy Chase - I have always found this so funny. Can't really say why after watching it again.
History of the Very First Web Page - This is only going to be cool to online nerds. Old ones. Like me.
Finally, that car from Back to the Future is here - No, not the flying part. The part where it ran on garbage for fuel. You know what I mean.
Gmail to add a POP3 mail fetcher - This is teh coolest feature yet. I have been using forwarding to access my pop accounts for awhile, but that's nowhere near as useful.
10 myths (and 10 Truths) About Atheism - I used to think I was pretty good at speaking to the irrationality of religious faith until this guy came along and showed me how it's done.
Three cheers for Toxoplasma gondii - If things don't work out with Superwife, I am moving to Australia. I'll have a better chance of hooking up, and be smarter than the local men (until I get infected).
Raistlin gets his own comic! - For those who get the name of this blog, I was ECSTATIC to find out that there is a Dragonlance comic series being produced by Devil's Due Publishing. I'll be at my local shop tomorrow to pick up the entire series.
Labels: everything else
One of our xmas traditions around my house is to watch one of our favourite xmas movies the night before the big day. This is in lieu of other things we could be doing to kill time instead. Going to church for example.
One of the ones we invariably watch at least once over the season is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (which we watched last week). I came across a 30 second flash version of the movie and thought I'd share in the hopes that those who just don't have time to sit in front of the tv for 2 hours (because they're wasting time somewhere else, maybe in that aforementioned church) still get to have a few laughs with The Griswolds. And its done with bunnies, so you're pretty much laughing from the beginning.
Merry Xmas
Labels: atheism, everything else
So Time, paragon of reporting virtue that it is, decided to take the cheap and easy way out (like some people may have once preferred their sexual partners, ahem) and made pretty much every Web 2.0 user their Person of the Year.
Here's a snippet:
And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.I guess you could say that 2006 was the Year of the Internet Geek. I wish I'd known sooner.
So, I'd like to take this moment and bask in the adulation afforded me for using MySpace, digging, diligently posting to my flickr account, using Gmail, knowing who lonelygirl15 was, and posting on either of my blogs.
In order to secure this same spot next year, I plan to get into del.icio.us, make netvibes my home page, and maybe break into the podcasting business. Have to think of a good niche. Think there's a market for a comic/scifi/videogame/tech podcast that has absolutely no more access to new information than whatever the podcaster can find on all those Web 2.0 sites?
Here's the link to the Time article. If you're a Person of the Year too, you've already read it.
Labels: everything else
I just read a thoughtful article about the dualism of trying to teach your children logical thinking as it pertains to one thing: religion (as an atheist, that's what I'll be doing), while lying your ass off to them about a similarly made up individual, namely that fat guy in the red suit.
Superwife is completely behind me on the religion thing, though she doesn't believe that religion is as dangerous as I do. Sam Harris would call her a 'weak atheist'. I am categorically a 'strong' atheist.
But there was some deal-making that had to be done when it came to the institution of xmas, and more importantly, whether to tell Trinity about Santa Claus. I vehemently opposed the idea, primarily because I want to lie to her about as little as possible over the course of her life. And I do not think telling her to believe in a fictional character who is omnipotent, all-knowing and can do some very interesting things with time and space is such a great idea. And that was before it had occurred to me that Santa's story reads a lot like another one which I will be very firm in placing with the other myths: That one about that kid from Bethlehem.
I had thought myself ok with the arrangement that Superwife and I had come to: That we would tell Trinity about Santa, but not make a bid deal about him. Make him more of a minor superhero than anything else. That he is not the guy in the mall (he's an impostor) and that he only gives okay presents. Like clothes. The present that Trin runs around the house calling The Supercoolestbestestpresentever would be from us.
I was okay with it, but now after reading this article comparing Santa to so many people's favourite imaginary friend, I'm not so sure.
I suppose the adage 'fight the fights you can win' applies here. And considering Superwife's love of all things secularly xmas, I doubt this one falls in that category. Here's a taste of the article, and look for the link to the whole thing after the jump:
Full article here.
Superwife is completely behind me on the religion thing, though she doesn't believe that religion is as dangerous as I do. Sam Harris would call her a 'weak atheist'. I am categorically a 'strong' atheist.
But there was some deal-making that had to be done when it came to the institution of xmas, and more importantly, whether to tell Trinity about Santa Claus. I vehemently opposed the idea, primarily because I want to lie to her about as little as possible over the course of her life. And I do not think telling her to believe in a fictional character who is omnipotent, all-knowing and can do some very interesting things with time and space is such a great idea. And that was before it had occurred to me that Santa's story reads a lot like another one which I will be very firm in placing with the other myths: That one about that kid from Bethlehem.
I had thought myself ok with the arrangement that Superwife and I had come to: That we would tell Trinity about Santa, but not make a bid deal about him. Make him more of a minor superhero than anything else. That he is not the guy in the mall (he's an impostor) and that he only gives okay presents. Like clothes. The present that Trin runs around the house calling The Supercoolestbestestpresentever would be from us.
I was okay with it, but now after reading this article comparing Santa to so many people's favourite imaginary friend, I'm not so sure.
I suppose the adage 'fight the fights you can win' applies here. And considering Superwife's love of all things secularly xmas, I doubt this one falls in that category. Here's a taste of the article, and look for the link to the whole thing after the jump:
But what concerns me almost as much as the blatant dishonesty about the Santa conspiracy is the way it fosters an uncritical acceptance of magic and miracles in very much the same way religion does. Skepticism is discouraged while faithfulness—believing without seeing—is the highest virtue.Of course, I could just lighten the fuck up a bit, but that would be out of character.
Full article here.
My deep need to play Zelda: Twilight Princess notwithstanding, I want a PS3 a lot more than I want a Wii.
But this video makes a pretty convincing case for why everyone else will go with the far cheaper, much sexier, and likely a lot more fun to play offering from Nintendo.
Labels: gaming
I just came across an article on the worst superhero names across the Marvel and DC pantheons, and had to chime in with my two cents.
The article itself is tellingly short; mine would have been a lot longer. I love comics and superheroes, but lets be honest here: Over 80 years of comics has given the world some seriously bad superheroes to champion. One would think that the worst of them would be more recent, as writers run out of names, but that isn't necessarily the case.
Here's the original article, and here are some of the ones I would have went with:
Mr. Fantastic (Marvel) Yes I know that he's from the Fantastic Four, but that does not exempt him one bit. I've always thought this to be the least awe-inspiring superhero name going, and add that to his lame-as-hell stretching powers, and you've got the top of my list.
UltraMan (Marvel) No points for originality here either. Other ways they could have gone and made the same bland impact: GreatMan and SpectacularMan.
Toxic Avenger (Marvel) Proof that terrible character begets equally terrible movie adaptation.
Giant-Size Man-Thing (Marvel) Too. Much. Double. Entendre. Must... Move.... On.
Matter-Eater Lad (DC) Just try not devolving into juvenile giggles with this one.
Ferro Lad (DC) Ferro Lad? Apparently this guy had the power to transform into living metal, I guess a la the X-Men's Colossus. But Colossus is a cool name and Ferro Lad sounds like some wannabe that works at a travelling carnival. Ergo he makes the list.
Captain Victory (Pacific) With names like this, its easy to see why you've never heard of this publisher before
Hourman (DC) Combine a superhero popping vitamins and using a catchphrase of "His power grows by the hour", and this might just be the lamest one going.
Labels: comics
Stephen King has long been one of my guilty pleasures. Yes I know that the so-called 'academic elite' calls him a hack. And maybe he is. But if being the best-selling novelist in the world, and the most financially successful horror writer in history means some people call you a hack, I'd say smile and tell the whole world to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.
Which is pretty much what King does.
One of my favourite books of all time is King's collaborative work with Peter Straub, The Talisman
. Its an epic story about a young kid on a journey to save the life of his dying mother, as he travels back and forth between our world and a parallel world full of mirror versions of us that are more different than they are the same.
Awesome book. 2nd only in my list of favourite King books to The Stand, actually.
Why the praise for this particular book? Because I just read that it will finally be getting released as a TV movie in the summer of 2008, and I for one, can't wait to see it.
Here's the link to the press release.
I wonder what my twinner would be like?
Which is pretty much what King does.
One of my favourite books of all time is King's collaborative work with Peter Straub, The Talisman
. Its an epic story about a young kid on a journey to save the life of his dying mother, as he travels back and forth between our world and a parallel world full of mirror versions of us that are more different than they are the same. Awesome book. 2nd only in my list of favourite King books to The Stand, actually.
Why the praise for this particular book? Because I just read that it will finally be getting released as a TV movie in the summer of 2008, and I for one, can't wait to see it.
Here's the link to the press release.
I wonder what my twinner would be like?
Labels: books
I was sifting through the profuse number of blogs I currently subscribe to a few minutes ago (it really is a ridiculous amount), and I was delighted to see that one of my favs was linking back to me in response to one of my posts about The Flying Spaghetti Monster, that protein-rich deity that all of us pirates love to worship in favour of that lame-ass christian one that has always sounded more like Santa Claus than a believable deity.
Jen over at Spaghetti Harvest built her website around the ideology of this not-any-sillier-than-any-other-religious-idea and has been laughing about her inside joke seemingly ever since. And aside from laughing myself every time I go to her site, she keeps a blog that is very thoughtful, incisive and incredibly honest, with posts about her life, her business, and her ruminations on in-laws and what she would secretly like to do to them, if only she could get away with it.
Think Dooce with balls, and without all of that Mormon rhetoric.
But why did I enjoy her most recent post more than normal you ask?
Well, aside from the little thrill of seeing a peer taking an interest in something I wrote, she posted the as yet undiscovered by me 8 commandments of Pastafarianism. They are hilarious.
My favourite:
Jen over at Spaghetti Harvest built her website around the ideology of this not-any-sillier-than-any-other-religious-idea and has been laughing about her inside joke seemingly ever since. And aside from laughing myself every time I go to her site, she keeps a blog that is very thoughtful, incisive and incredibly honest, with posts about her life, her business, and her ruminations on in-laws and what she would secretly like to do to them, if only she could get away with it.
Think Dooce with balls, and without all of that Mormon rhetoric.
But why did I enjoy her most recent post more than normal you ask?
Well, aside from the little thrill of seeing a peer taking an interest in something I wrote, she posted the as yet undiscovered by me 8 commandments of Pastafarianism. They are hilarious.
My favourite:
4. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Indulge In Conduct That Offends Yourself, Or Your Willing, Consenting Partner Of Legal Age AND Mental Maturity. As For Anyone Who Might Object, I Think The Expression Is Go Fuck Yourself, Unless They Find That Offensive In Which Case They Can Turn Off the TV For Once And Go For A Walk For A Change.Have a look at them yourself here. Even if you are a fundie, (or maybe especially if), you should check it out, as they are very funny.
Labels: atheism
Dear Trinity,
Another month, another long period of absence from you that I had to suffer through. You and your Mom and I went up north to help out with your Grandpa, who is/has been recovering from major surgery. Alas, I had to come back home to work, so I ended up missing out on another week of the fun that is hanging out with you.
You learned a whole host of words again this month. You learned the hard 'K' sound and have been delighting in saying words like 'Book' and 'Milk'. You have begun to string words together in 2 word 'sentences', and some of those begin or end with the newly understood 'Please'.
You continue to be so much fun to be around. When I'm not with you and your Mom, you're pretty much all I think about. I love that you repeat Daddy over and over every time I walk into a room. Even rooms I just left seconds earlier. I will never get tired of that.
You are facing your first 'real' christmas this year. And by real, I mean a season that you are actually aware of. I don't know how aware you are going to be of the whole gift giving and unwrapping thing, but you can be certain that you know about the ridiculous amount of presents in our closet and that they are for you. You have been regularly pulling one of them out and playing with it if that door is left open for longer than a millisecond.
Now I wouldn't want you to think that everything is a party with you all the time. That wouldn't be fair to paint a picture of your childhood that omits the bumps that came up along the way. I'm sure you want an accurate picture of things right? The funny part though, is that even when it isn't a party, its still lots of fun.
The other day you decided that you were going to test your Dad by seeing how long I would let you get away with playing your newly invented game of 'Smash Something As Hard As You Can Against The TV'. While it was funny to watch you smashing first a book, then a DVD cover, then a picture frame against the TV screen, all the while knowing I was not going to let you continue with each object, it was also interesting to notice how you were purposely doing it not at all because you wanted to play that particular game, but because you wanted to push my buttons while doing it.
That game was probably a very telling foreshadowing of things to come.
I love you,
Daddy
Another month, another long period of absence from you that I had to suffer through. You and your Mom and I went up north to help out with your Grandpa, who is/has been recovering from major surgery. Alas, I had to come back home to work, so I ended up missing out on another week of the fun that is hanging out with you.
You learned a whole host of words again this month. You learned the hard 'K' sound and have been delighting in saying words like 'Book' and 'Milk'. You have begun to string words together in 2 word 'sentences', and some of those begin or end with the newly understood 'Please'.
You continue to be so much fun to be around. When I'm not with you and your Mom, you're pretty much all I think about. I love that you repeat Daddy over and over every time I walk into a room. Even rooms I just left seconds earlier. I will never get tired of that.
You are facing your first 'real' christmas this year. And by real, I mean a season that you are actually aware of. I don't know how aware you are going to be of the whole gift giving and unwrapping thing, but you can be certain that you know about the ridiculous amount of presents in our closet and that they are for you. You have been regularly pulling one of them out and playing with it if that door is left open for longer than a millisecond.
Now I wouldn't want you to think that everything is a party with you all the time. That wouldn't be fair to paint a picture of your childhood that omits the bumps that came up along the way. I'm sure you want an accurate picture of things right? The funny part though, is that even when it isn't a party, its still lots of fun.
The other day you decided that you were going to test your Dad by seeing how long I would let you get away with playing your newly invented game of 'Smash Something As Hard As You Can Against The TV'. While it was funny to watch you smashing first a book, then a DVD cover, then a picture frame against the TV screen, all the while knowing I was not going to let you continue with each object, it was also interesting to notice how you were purposely doing it not at all because you wanted to play that particular game, but because you wanted to push my buttons while doing it.
That game was probably a very telling foreshadowing of things to come.
I love you,
Daddy
Labels: trinity
