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| Entertainment News Updates |
| 08.31.04 (1:41 pm) [edit] |
Just to keep you blog-geeks in the know-how, here's a little update on what's goin' down in the entertainment biz...
* Avril Lavigne is being stalked these days
* Kilborn leaves the Late Late Show
* Kevin Smith is planning a "Clerks" sequel
...and most importantly,
* Andy Serkis, the actor behind Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films, is hanging out with gorillas in Rwanda to prep himself for his next movie with Peter Jackson, "King Kong."
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| Rocket-Powered Wheelchair |
| 08.31.04 (1:29 pm) [edit] |
Mr Cannella, the British boob, says the wheelchair he stapped a jet engine to can now do top speeds of more than 60mph.
"Originally it was a gimmick. I had a jet engine and I was going to put it on a go cart. But the missus says put it on something unusual and so I put it on the mother-in-law's wheelchair," said Mr Cannella, who is from Luton in Bedfordshire.
This has to be one of the coolest photos ever.
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| Number 5 Alive! |
| 08.31.04 (8:30 am) [edit] |
[b]T63 Artemis[/b] is capable of shining lights and emitting alarms if it spots anything untoward. On a recent Friday night in Japan, it patrolled an 80-meter shopping arcade, detecting and memorizing car license plates it found in the area.
The Japanese have finally found out how to make the rent-a-cop obsolete!
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| Seriously, Is This Cheating? |
| 08.31.04 (6:49 am) [edit] |
The Adidas JetConcept worn by Australian Ian Thorpe has grooves quite similar to those used on commercial airplane wings. These ripplets positioned on the back and gluteus maximus reduce form drag and friction drag, resulting in up to 3% improvement of swimming performance according to Adidas.
This is fine for human advancement and technology efforts, but please leave this out of competetive sports.
Unless I have the chance to win a gold...that would be awesome!
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| Dumbrella |
| 08.27.04 (8:51 am) [edit] |
Wow! An umbrella that lights up!
Why don't you just kick the crap out of me now and save me the 35 bucks it costs to buy one of these stupid contraptions....
Check out the [url=http://www.firebox.com/index....]Dumbrella[/url] here.
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| Night of the Living Wed |
| 08.27.04 (8:32 am) [edit] |
A South African man who shot his pregnant fiance dead before killing himself will be posthumously married to her at the weekend.
David Masenta shot 25-year-old Mgwanini Molomo after a quarrel, before turning the gun on himself. However, family and friends wanted to remember them as a happy couple destined for a happy life together.
[b]The revised vows:[/b]
"I promise to love you, in sickness and in health; with gunshot wounds to the face; while maggots and worms eat my rotting corpse; till death was but a distant memory."
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| Largest Ice Water Ever |
| 08.27.04 (8:25 am) [edit] |
You're looking at the finished product of Chilean-born Danish artist Marco Evaristti's "Ice Cube Project" is seen in Ilullissat, Greenland.
Evaristti used 3,000 liters (780 gallons) of dye used to highlight meat diluted with sea water, three fire hoses, two icebreakers and a 20-man crew to spray the chunk of ice for his artwork.
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| It Gives Me The Chile's |
| 08.26.04 (12:23 pm) [edit] |
Orgnizers said more than 4,000 couples participated in the kissing session sponsored by a local tooth paste brand in Chile recently.
You know what's most freaky? The guy in the top left part of the photo - he's not kissing anyone. He's starring directly at me!
Well, I won't be sleeping tonight.
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| The Good Ol' Days |
| 08.26.04 (12:03 pm) [edit] |
I wish this was still the case. The world would be a better place.
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| The Dave Crapews Band |
| 08.25.04 (12:48 pm) [edit] |
The state of Illinois has filed a lawsuit against the Dave Matthews Band for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of liquid human waste from its tour bus into the Chicago River earlier this month.
The bus rented by the usually eco-friendly group was traveling cross town to the band's hotel on Aug. 8 when it pulled up alongside a metal grating on the Kinzie Street Bridge. That's when bus driver Stefan A. Wohl emptied the contents of the vehicle's septic tank into the river. And that was bad news the passing tour boat filled with 100 people on an architecture sightseeing cruise that was doused by the falling excrement.
Illinois seeks more than $70,000 in civil penalties from the Dave Matthews Band and their driver for violating the state's water pollution and public nuisance laws.
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| Learn the Subtlety of Female Conversation |
| 08.25.04 (12:35 pm) [edit] |
...threw the crazy, fucked-up eyes of the German!
The Langenscheidt publishing group, best known for its well-respected yellow foreign language dictionaries, will launch sales of a 128-page book that will help men translate the subtext of female conversation. It will go over how to translate such baffling female banter as: "Let's just cuddle" into "No sex tonight please!"
"Each themed chapter offers men behavioral tips and exposes hidden messages transmitted by women in everyday situations, such as on holiday or during shopping trips," said Silke Exius, chief editor at Langenscheidt.
Other examples in the "German-Woman/Woman-Germa n" edition due out in October include explaining why a woman asks a man to take interest in the pair of shoes she may be trying on.
German conversion: She wants him to look because he's about to pay for them.
My question: Only 128 pages?
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| Cream, Sugar, or Peanut Butter? |
| 08.25.04 (10:32 am) [edit] |
Only in West Virginia!
And maybe in Third World countries...
Mary Rickard shows a can of Maxwell House coffee after discovering it was full of creamy peanut butter when she opened the factory seal.
Officials of both Jif and Kraft, which owns the Maxwell House brand, are investigating.
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| Vietnam Hippy |
| 08.25.04 (10:28 am) [edit] |
Tran Van Hay, 67, from Chau Thanh district of Vietnam poses for a photo showing his over 20-feet long hair that hasn't been cut for 31 years.
[i]Gross.[/i] That is the word that comes to mind.
[i]Cool.[/i] Another word that flashes across my brain as well, but not so much as gross....
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| Bubba Baba Challenge |
| 08.25.04 (10:25 am) [edit] |
The second Bubble Baba Challenge (in Russian, baba stands for “woman,” only unlike the other word for woman, zhenschina, conveys not a shred of respect) was held on the Vuoksa river that runs in northwestern Russia.
126 Russians used inflatable sex dolls as flotation devices to raft down rapids in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. Dmitry Bulawinov, the mastermind and organizer behind the unusual sporting event, says the idea of floating down the river in the embraces of a rubber woman was conceived as a joke at a party where the men got drunk and the women didn’t show up. While considering the possible uses for a rubber woman on a camping trip, someone voiced the thought that a sex doll would make a handy flotation device.
[url=http://www.mosnews.com/featur...]Read more[/url] about this crazy event here if you really want to...i don't want to, but I thought the story was pretty interesting.
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| My Return |
| 08.24.04 (8:54 am) [edit] |
Well, I'm back from Sweden...
And I thought there'd be no better way to begin my blog again then start with a quickie regarding the Summer Olympics. This is how they do it in Europe...well, Italy anyway.
[i]The Italians showing us their ability to "love" just about anything.[/i]
For all of you skeptics wondering if this is photoshopped or not, here's the [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]Yahoo! News link.[/url]
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| Sweden and Evil Science |
| 08.13.04 (12:37 pm) [edit] |
Yes, I know...another blog about Sweden.
But this time it involves the Doctor, himself.
I'll be leaving tomorrow for Gothenburg and be gone for a week. No blogs until then. Sorry.
So get back to work and be ready when I return.
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| Metal Rubber |
| 08.13.04 (9:35 am) [edit] |
Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives. After the torment, it snaps like rubber back to its original shape, all the while conducting electricity like solid metal.
It was crafted by chemists at NanoSonic in Blacksburg, Virginia. To learn more, read up on it by clicking on the photo.
Here's a link to learn more:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/articl e/0" title="http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/articl e/0" target="_blank"http://www.popsci.com/popsci/...,12543,676853,00.html
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| Pinky the Cat |
| 08.13.04 (9:26 am) [edit] |
It's been a while since I posted a video, but the time is now. This is a home video taken by an Animal Adoption Center explaining who Pinky is, how loving she is, and why you should adopt her.
But then something goes wrong. Terribly wrong...
[url=http://homepage.mac.com/whysh...]Watch the Pinky the Cat video[/url] here and don't forget to wait until the very end - that's the best part!
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| All Choked Up... |
| 08.13.04 (9:21 am) [edit] |
A man died while strangling himself for sexual gratification didn't mean to take his life in his own hands, a federal appeals court ruled.
In a 2-1 decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found David Critchlow's mother is entitled to death benefits because her son didn't mean to injure himself while engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation. The ruling is believed to be the first of its kind.
Critchlow, 32, died after placing a noose around his neck to restrict the amount of oxygen flowing to his brain in order to enhance his sexual pleasure.
"He retired to his locked bedroom in his parents' empty house, disrobed completely and attached an intricate, homemade harness consisting of ropes, weights and counterweights leading to a noose around his neck," the judges' earlier decision found.
Insurance company First Unum had denied Critchlow's mother Shirley's request for benefits, finding his death was the result of an intentional "self-inflicted injury."
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| Military's New CopterBox |
| 08.13.04 (5:57 am) [edit] |
The CopterBox can deliver up to 100 pounds of emergency supplies from a wide variety of aircraft with drop speeds of up to 130 knots.
The corrugated paper box employs three rotor blades that use the principle of autorotative lift to slow it and its payload to a gradual descent prior to ground contact.
 
The Army's newest project was making "medical missiles" for shooting supplies to wounded soldiers in hot zones. This is a safer way to do that. I don't think shooting missles to HELP our soldiers is exactly on the trolley.
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| Best Photo of the Year |
| 08.12.04 (1:38 pm) [edit] |
In Taiwan, Police on motorscooters attempted to pull over an ostrich who escaped from a children's petting zoo. The ostrich eluded capture.
This is my favorite photo of this year...besided the "free cat" one we all know and love.
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| A Real Goat-tee! |
| 08.12.04 (1:36 pm) [edit] |
Shrek, the 9 year-old merino wether was found in the hilltops of New Zealand wobbling around. His fleece is believed to be 6 years old.
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| Great Movie Moments |
| 08.12.04 (10:39 am) [edit] |
[b]The Goonies, 1985[/b]
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| Sydney Truly Has A Small-town Feel |
| 08.12.04 (9:17 am) [edit] |
Swinburne University of Technology's center for micro-photonics have constructed a model of the Sydney Opera House, see photo above, that is about half the diameter of a human hair. It is more than a million times smaller than the real Sydney structure.
The model was built from a hybrid material of glass and polymer by firing intense laser light into the matter in a liquid state to create what to the human eye appears as an almost imperceptible dot, but under an electron microscope it contains the detail and the beauty of the iconic Sydney harbour side structure.
Now this is shows what humans are capable of!
(besides making really, really big sandwiches)
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| Aliens: It's Not Worth It! |
| 08.12.04 (7:12 am) [edit] |
A reminder to all intergalactic species that this planet is doomed and we're not worth invading.
Mexico City got into the Guinness Book of World Records recently for something other than "Most Populated City", "Poorest City", or "Most Polluted City".
The cheese, ham, mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich which measures 11.5 x 11.5 feet is largest known to man.
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| Planet of the Monkeys |
| 08.12.04 (7:08 am) [edit] |
"Me walk. Now I take over human race! Arrghh!!!"
Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque walks at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv. The young monkey began recently walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her.
This one is a couple weeks old, but I never commented on it. Darth Leigh, this is what most girls look like without their makeup (it's actually a photo of girl doing the "walk of shame").
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| LED Lights Balloons! |
| 08.11.04 (10:32 am) [edit] |
New to the world (you can thank the Japanese again) are LED lights. They are a lamp which is made with a balloon and LED. The LED has no generation off power like other lights, such as incandescent lamps. And it has high illumination, long lifetime and is energy-saving. And it is also possible to use it continuously over 100 hours by using the lithium-coin battery.
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| Your Name Makes You Hot or Ugly |
| 08.11.04 (10:21 am) [edit] |
You might want to think about changing your name...
Linguist Amy Perfors, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, posted photos of men and women on the web site "[b][url=www.hotornot.com]Hot or Not[/url] ", [/b]which lets viewers rate pictures according to how attractive they find them.
When she posted the same pictures with different names, she found that the attractiveness scores went up and down depending on the vowels.
Men with "front vowels" in their names - sounds formed at the front of the mouth like the "a" in Matt - were considered sexier than men with "back vowel" sounds like the "au" in Paul.
The opposite held for women, who were sexier with back vowels than front ones.
Perfors said front vowels are often perceived as "smaller" than back vowels, so the difference could be a sign that women are seeking men that are sensitive or gentle, traits usually perceived as feminine.
But men who might be thinking of taking more feminine names to become sexier should be careful not to go too far: men with women's names were rated least sexy of all.
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| Rapist Wins Lottery On Weekend Out of Jail |
| 08.11.04 (9:54 am) [edit] |
Convicted rapist, Iorworth Hoare, serving a lengthy jail sentence has won $13 million on Britain's national lottery. He was on weekend release from a low-security prison when he bought his winning ticket for last Saturday's Lotto Extra draw.
Hoare was nearing the end of a life sentence after being jailed in 1989 for attempted rape. He had previously served sentences for rape, attempted rape, and indecent assault. It's up to the judge to view when his life sentence will officially be up.
Hoare's celebrations were cut short though when he when he was moved to another a higher-security prison for his own safety. I tell ya what - obviously this guy had trouble finding a girlfriend (hence all the rapings), but now he can buy prostitutes with his cash and never need to rape again.
Lucky guy.
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| Modest Mouse |
| 08.10.04 (12:20 pm) [edit] |
I suggest you purchase every [url=http://www.modestmouse.com/]Modest Mouse [/url] album that you can. I'll go as far as to say I haven't heard a lyricist (Isaac Brock) this good in a long time.
The newest album, [i]Good News For People Who Love Bad News[/i] is probably the best way to jump in and hear them.
I've also heard:
[i]Making Nothing Out Of Something[/i]
and
[i]The Moon and Antartica[/i]
Also, he has a side (solo act) project with a band called Ugly Casanova, if you ever get to hear let me know about it... I haven't heard it yet.
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| 100 First Dates |
| 08.09.04 (10:11 am) [edit] |
Peak time: Friday nights at 8pm.
When you go on your blind date, don't go alone! Set up a timer from your cell phone provider who then call you at the time requested with a fake excuse to get you out of your date if need be.
Cingular's Escape-A-Date and Virgin Mobile's Rescue Ring service seem to be the only 2 on the market at this time.
When the cell rings, one of Cingular's eight "emergency" messages says: "Hey, this is your Escape-A-Date call. If you're looking for an excuse, I got it. Just repeat after me, and you'll be on your way! 'Not again! Why does that always happen to you? ... All right, I'll be right there.' Now tell 'em that your roommate got locked out, and you have to go let them in. Good luck!"
The rescue-call service is part of a Cingular package that costs $4.99 a month. Virgin Mobile offers its Rescue Ring at 25 cents per use, plus the price of the call.
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| Red Badger of Courage |
| 08.09.04 (10:05 am) [edit] |
Determined digging by badgers living near Stonehenge's 5,000-year old circle of megaliths is damaging ancient archaeological artefacts and human remains.
The danger posed by the badgers' homebuilding has become so serious that the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which owns much of the land in the area, is trying to coax them away to less historically sensitive places.
The characteristic chalk and soft earth of the area is easy work for badgers, who are proficient diggers.
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| Great Movie Moments |
| 08.09.04 (7:05 am) [edit] |
[b]Office Space, 1999[/b]
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| Micrendo |
| 08.04.04 (1:17 pm) [edit] |
What if Microsoft bought out Nintendo? Well, it's not a crazy thought after all...would they actually call the joint venture, Micrendo? Doubtful. It's the best I could do.
Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates said he would immediately make an offer if Nintendo's majority shareholder, billionaire Hiroshi Yamauchi, were ready to sell.
Imagine that?! Being able to play Mario Bros or Zelda on the XBox would be a dream come true.
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| Court Jester Wanted |
| 08.04.04 (12:49 pm) [edit] |
Britain, is advertising for someone to be the nation's first court jester since 1649. An ad appearing in Thursday's editions of The Times laid out the qualifications: "Must be mirthful and prepared to work summer weekends in 2005. Must have own outfit (with bells). Bladder on stick provided if required."
The court jester's position died along with King Charles I, who was executed by Oliver Cromwell's supporters in 1649. The monarchy was restored 11 years later, but the position of jester did not return.
Anyone? Comments?
I think my brain is on Joke Overload at the moment...
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| For the Old Schoolers |
| 08.04.04 (12:24 pm) [edit] |
"Remember the good old days of gaming? When controllers didn't have a myriad of buttons, levers, and joysticks, but rather a simple handle and a red button? If not, then I must be getting old. Either way, Jakks Pacific / Jakks TV Games has been hard at work developing simple ways to get your retro game on."
Basically you have the component with the built-in controller and red button. You plug the RCA cable into the TV and turn it on. That's it.
At your fingertips you have 5 old school games ready to bring you back to the early 80's, baby! The games included are Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Xevious, Mappy, and Pole Position. Why Ms. Pac-Man over regular Pac-Man, I do not know...but I do remember back in the day that people enjoyed the Ms' version more.
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| Hotel Keycards Through Your Eye |
| 08.04.04 (11:59 am) [edit] |
The Nine Zero hotel in Boston just installed a new system which uses iris scans to unlock room doors. Something out of Minority Report, this technology is pretty freakin' sweet. However, now this hotel will have your iris scanned into their database. Kinda shady...
I would hope the technology of scanning at the Nine Zero is a little more advanced than this photo... I think that's Robin Z!
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| Traditional Beer is on a Comeback! |
| 08.04.04 (6:51 am) [edit] |
It might seem that the low carb, tasteless beers are taking over the beer market. Well, they are in a sense - disappearing fast are the hairy, heavy-bellied beer-swillers of yesteryear, their place being taken by young urban professional men and women more normally associated with wine and working out. However, there has been a slow but steady rise in people more interested in traditional beer brewing.
One-third of the 45,000 real ale enthusiasts expected to attend this year's annual Great British Beer Festival at London's Olympia run by the beer purists Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are likely to be women.
CAMRA is often seen as sandals, beer-bellies and beards. But that is not true today," the organization's chief executive Mike Benner told Reuters on the opening night. "The truth has changed. The image, unfortunately, has not."
That does not mean they will hold back. Over the five days of the event, people will sink some 200,000 pints of beer. And it is not just in Britain, that sees itself as the guardian of traditional brewing, that real ales are making a comeback against mass-produced lagers.
I guess the demand is mainly from young professionals and it is the micro brewers that are driving the change," he added.
Even the rest of Europe, the United States, Australia, and even parts of Asia have all been gaining more interest in traditional beer brewing
"Our membership is growing -- mainly among people in their early 20s," EBCU representative Richard Larkin said. "But these are not binge drinkers. These are people who know what they want -- and that is good food and drink."
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| Doctor Zaius Tribute |
| 08.03.04 (11:59 am) [edit] |
Well, after I found that shot below from Planet of the Apes, I decided to do a tribute to one of the coolest bad guys in movie history, Doctor Zaius.
He's so cool that I named my Fantasy Football Team, Damned Dirty Apes, coached by none other than the man himself.
I found these 2 images on the web - funny stuff.
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| Traffic and the Future |
| 08.03.04 (11:32 am) [edit] |
[url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...]Read Sharon Begely's article [/url] from the Wall Street Journal about computer-controlled cars.
More and more luxury cars these days are coming with adaptive cruise control -- which is mainly considered a safety feature. The idea is that if you're getting too close to the car in front of you, your car automatically begins to slow down, avoiding the possibility of an accident.
However, one of the nice "unintended benefits" of such systems is they may create much more efficient traffic flow. Apparently, if just 20% of the cars on the road had such systems on a normal highway, most traffic jams would simply go away.
The article goes into details on how this works, but the basic summary is that most drivers are either idiots or err on the side of caution by braking too hard when someone in front of them brakes, leading to a chain reaction that causes the slow down. With a computer braking more appropriately, the chain reaction has a much smaller impact, allowing traffic flow to continue smoothly. Yet another situation where a technology designed for one purpose, actually has a very useful alternative benefit.
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| Great Movie Moments |
| 08.03.04 (11:21 am) [edit] |
[b]Planet of the Apes, 1968[/b]
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| Christmas Cancelled For South Africaners? |
| 08.03.04 (6:04 am) [edit] |
South Africa has denied a media report that it plans to cancel Christmas. The Sunday Times newspaper ran a banner headline "Christmas may be canceled" with a story underneath it relating to plans of having Santa "sleep with the fishes."
Last year the Advertising Standards Authority banned a Post Office advertisement asking children to write to Santa Claus, saying it was "profiting from the natural credulity of children" and perpetuating "a falsehood that could break the fragile spirits of the already disillusioned youth of South Africa."
South African officials have denied any attempt to cancel the wonderful holiday of Christmas.
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| Open Water |
| 08.03.04 (5:39 am) [edit] |
I briefly mentioned this film a while back, not knowing more than it being on par with JAWS, in its ability to make sure you never go near the ocean again.
But now I have some more fun facts for you all. It's based on true events (leaving behind scuba divers has occurred in Haiti, California, and Australia). This story is probably a nice mixture of all of those events.
Also, there are no special effects whatsoever in this film! That means that the sharks you see circling them are real. Supposedly the crew threw chum into the surrounding waters to attract the sharks and get real-life footage. The actors wore chainlink armor to defend against any bites, but they were actually swimming in shark-infested waters.
It must've been easy for the two actors not to break character - I'd be scared shitless!
(a real shark)
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| Drug-Sniffing Dog O.D.s |
| 08.02.04 (1:12 pm) [edit] |
Todd, a 7-year-old Springer spaniel, had been looking for drugs in a field and car in Preston, northern England, when his handler noticed he was looking unwell.
He was taken to a vet and then rushed to an animal intensive care unit at Liverpool University, displaying symptoms of ingesting amphetamines.
He died shortly afterwards.
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| From the highway to the railway! |
| 08.02.04 (1:09 pm) [edit] |
The Blade Runner Dualmode is a concept vehicle from UK firm Silvertip Design that aims to take out the middleman between tractor-trailers and conventional freight trains.
The Blade Runner can operate on normal highways, then easily switch to running on standard train rails, using a fifth-wheel to stay on the tracks but continuing to use the rubber tires on the rails for acceleration and braking. The concept as designed could haul over 105 passengers or 115 cubic meters of freight.
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