Orchestra of Bloggeral Madness

Litany of Sorrows

New Anime
So it wouldn't be fair to use the Hyper-Dramatic Anime/Videogame title scheme and have nothing about anime or videogames in this post, would it?

Hence I'll note, for my own uses, some of the spring anime premieres that Anime News Network is covering and which sound interesting.

First up is Soul Eater, the new project from Studio Bones, who did the fantastic Full Metal Alchemist and the dizzily beautiful Eureka 7. It's a dark comedic work that sounds like a cross between an action show and I Luv Halloween.

Then there's Kurenai, a low key drama with noir elements about a mysterious enforcer given the task of caring for, hiding, and ultimately protecting a privileged little girl from her powerful family.

Another one I want to see more of is Zettai Karen Children, which is apparently a Powerpuff Girls parody, intentionally or otherwise. It sounds delightfully deranged.

Also this year sees another Macross series, Macross Frontier, done by Satelite, who made the quite respectable Noein that I finished watching a couple weeks ago. They can certainly do action-drama, so I hold out hope that this won't suck.

I'm also interested in Code Geass, which is hitting its second season in Japan and I think comes out in the US soon. Apparently it's a hilarious combination of series drama, giant robots and hysterically over the top melodrama.

Finally there's Wagaya no Oinari-sama, a supernatural horror kind of show about a medieval Japanese fox deity who becomes the guardian of a dying shrine in the modern era. That definitely sounds like it has promise.

A couple of these shows, Zettai Karen Children and Kurenai, have gotten very good reviews on ANN, except for one out of the four reviewers, by the name of Casey Brienza. Quite frankly half the reason I want to watch ZKC is because this one person found it so offensive.

This Muscle Okama is presented as a gay man. He swishes, he talks in feminine language, he hits on Kouichi, he humps nude male statues. He also shoots bizarre psychic beams from his groin. At first I was amused by the ridiculousness, but it wore off quickly, and I can't remember the last time I've seen an anime series portray a minority group so offensively. No anime these days would represent even black people in so blatantly stereotypical a fashion.

Arguably worse, however, is Kaoru's apparent lesbianism and her characterization as a perverted old man. You know, I get that oogling boobs and butts can be an important part of the pleasure of these sorts of things. But showing a little girl doing it—as if that makes objectifying behavior somehow morally excusable? That's inexcusable in a way that no amount of cheerfully bobbing breasts alone will ever be.

Objectifying behavior? It's an ANIME CHARACTER. Not to mention a satirical one. How can you objectify AN OBJECT?

THe mind boggles. The Muscle Okama thing is harder to dismiss out of hand, but from the sound of it he might be a joke about bodybuilders and all the repressed homoeroticism in their industry rather than gay people in general. Talk to an actual bodybuilder about the subject sometime, it can be quite entertaining.

They also seem to be alone in disliking Kurenai. I'm beginning to wonder if they're my anti-reviewer of choice, that what they love is what I hate and vice versa.

Unfortunately, they like Macross Frontier a lot. That bodes ill for either my theory or the show.

Update: In a new addition to their review page they bash Saiyuki, a very meandering but still hilarious show.

It's official: they are the anti-me.

Source: Anime News Network (spring anime guide)

Tracking
Here's an ominous anime development for you. A tracking system for conventions was deployed to data-mine the attendees.

Anime Punch, which ran in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend, has become the first anime convention in North America to use radio-frequency identification (RFID) to capture data about attendance at events held throughout its three days. An index card with an RFID transponder was attached to the backs of badges for each of the convention's 1,337 paying attendees, as well as staffers and guests. Information about the location of each transponder, as well as the total number of transponders in certain rooms at any given time, was captured and stored on a central server. Attendees entering the convention's dealers' room had their badges scanned with a reader each time they walked into the room.

Apparently this has been done before at medical conferences and so forth.

In all seriousness it's really not ominous, but it is a bit annoying to be tracked wherever you go. Especially since it's mandatory. If I was going to a convention I knew would be doing this, I'd bring tinfoil to wrap around my card when I didn't need it. Thus I'd be 'off the grid' and all super-spooky.

Or something. I like screwing with data collection, what can I say. I filled out those 'what drugs do you take' surveys in high school with absurdly high and random amounts of drugs, at least the last one. I think I said I took a bunch of stimulants I'd never heard of 20-30 times a month.

I'm fairly sure you'd die if you did half the drugs I claimed to do.

Source: Anime News Network

Older Anime
Some older series I'm interested in to go with the new ones.

First, D.Gray Man, which is apparently about a guy with a cursed left eye that can fight demons and so forth. It's also a historical fantasy series.

I could use a dark historical fantasy series, but I'm interested in this as much for it being yet another show with a character whose left eye is cursed/magical/magically cursed/missing. I wonder if Japan has a thing, some cultural mythos, about left eyes.

*shrug*

Then there's Innocent Venus, a short series about life after the Apocalypse, with a mysterious conspiracy, blah blah. It could be fun.

Finally there's Kyo kara Maoh!, a show which has been compared to Saiyuki in that it has Shoujo art and Shonen sensibilities.

I liked that with Saiyuki, so I'm willing to give it another chance. Plus there are definitely points for a series whose gateway to another world is via the toilet. At least, the first time. (It seems that they use bodies of standing water or something to travel, which is both more classically mystical and boring).


Sources: Anime News Network
D.Gray Man
Innocent Venus
Kyo kara Maoh!

Spielbergian
So Spielberg's company Dreamworks is going to make a live action version of Ghost in the Shell, the classic anime cyber-surrealist-noir movie.

Variety reports that Universal and Sony also negotiated for the rights, which the Production I.G anime studio was pitching for the manga's original publisher Kodansha. What turned the dealmaking in DreamWorks' favor was co-founder Steven Spielberg's enthusiasm for the project. The entertainment trade newspaper quotes the acclaimed director and producer: "Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks."

It doesn't say whether he will be involved, though Avi Arad who used to work with Marvel and did work on both the great Spiderman and execrable X-Men movie franchises will produce.

This could go... oh face it, it's probably going to suck ass.

Source: Anime News Network

Onion Tastic
A couple of those great Onion graphics that all right-thinking people love.

First a comic on the Elliot Spitzer scandal and the 'Real Disgrace' involved.

Then a short but pity summary of the death of Charlton Heston.

Very Odd
Some brief odd news items from around the world.

First, in Russia they're cracking down on Madam Cleo types.

Russian deputies are to consider a law that would turn up the heat on advertising by witches and healers enjoying a meteoric growth in demand, the Gazeta daily reported on Friday.

The law, which is to have its first reading in parliament's lower chamber shortly, would allow only officially registered healers to advertise in newspapers, Gazeta reported.

The paper quoted one of the bill's authors, parliamentarian Vladimir Medinsky, as casting scorn on the colourful small advertisements that brim from the pages of Russia's popular press.

The bill's introduction argues that "citizens who believe in the adverts of magicians and witches often become the victims of commonplace fraud," the paper said.

So they'll only allow officially registered frauds to trick people into thinking magic crystals and curses work?

That's an improvement? I guess it might bring in tax revenue.

Source: Raw Story

Next up is some jerk who apparently likes to kill squirrels.

An animal protection group is investigating claims made by British band The Falls Mark E. Smith that he killed two endangered red squirrels and condones the deliberate running over of seagulls, it said Thursday.

The revered but unpredictable frontman of Manchester band The Fall said that he would not hesitate setting about a squirrel with a pair of hedge-clippers.

"Squirrels mean nothing to me. I killed a couple last weekend actually. They were eating my garden fence," Smith told Uncut magazine, although it was unclear whether he had confused the animal with their more prevalent American grey cousins.

The singer, whose group has gone through 50 different members and produced 27 albums in their career, also said he "wouldn't have a problem" with people purposefully driving over seagulls in their cars

He may have just killed American grey squirrels, which are something of a pest in the UK, but still not deserving of hedge clipper death.

The worst part for me is that this idiot, if he's telling the truth, killed squrrels for nothing. They don't eat 'fences', whether he means gnawing on wood or eating a hedge. I've never seen a squirrel eat anything but seeds and such. They're hardly a big nuisance.

Also, how would he catch one to kill it? They're wily.

Source: Raw Story

Hobbit
Finally, someone thought up the perfect descriptive term for Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman, whom Chris Durang once called a "sanctimonious Hobbitt," had his ass kicked out of the Democratic party. He's a petty, bitter, nasty little man and he's backing John McCain because that represents his own personal political upside.

How apt! How true!

Thank you, Chris Durang. I shall use your epithet with gusto.

Source: Firedoglake

Ha-HAH
This is so great.

At 39 months in the doghouse, George W. Bush has surpassed Harry Truman's record as the postwar president to linger longest without majority public approval.

Bush hasn't received majority approval for his work in office in ABC News/Washington Post polls since Jan. 16, 2005 three years and three months ago. The previous record was Truman's during his last 38 months in office.

Most disliked president since they started keeping polls.

There's your legacy, W. Suck on it.

Source: Firedoglake

So Funny Can't Breathe
Alberto 'Fredo' Gonzales can't find work after his disastrous and hilarious tenure as Attorney General.

Man, it's sweet to see a jerk fall so far, so fast, so HARD.

WASHINGTON — Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.

...

The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.

Shocking. Law firms don't want to hire a man facing serious criminal investigation, who also possesses a terrible track record at work.

Hahahahahhaha.....

Source: The New York Times

Nude
So a photographer auctioned off a nude portrait he did of France's first lady back when she was a fashion model for charity. The shot was originally done for Italian Vogue and thus Carla Bruni was hardly unaware that it might be used for commercial purposes one day.

Still, the charity in Cambodia turned down the large sum of cash on 'moral' grounds.

Beat Richner, a Swiss paediatrician who runs a children's medical care group, said he had turned down an offer of $91,000 (£46,000) - the sum paid in a Christie's auction last week for the 1993 picture of the Italian ex-model, now married to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

"My decision was taken out of respect for our patients and their mothers", he told Le Matin Dimanche. "Accepting money obtained from exploitation of the female body would be perceived as an insult".

In Cambodia "use of nudity is not understood in the way it is in the West", he added.

He would not allow the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital Association "to be involved in the media exploitation of Madame Bruni".

"The idea behind this gift was to get publicity for the auction and the photographer", Mr Richner was also quoted as saying. "It was a way of using us".

Michel Comte, the Swiss photographer who took picture of the then Miss Bruniposing naked with her crossed hands acting as a fig leaf, was quoted in the Swiss press last month as saying he had thousands more images of her, some more risqué - taken over a ten-year period.

Of course he was doing it for publicity. That's often the case with charity work.

The fact of the matter us, this guy still turned down a ton of money for poor kids because he didn't like a nude photo.

I sincerely doubt the Cambodians closely follow French fashion, so the line about THE LOCALS is a bit much.

Once again, conservatism does not pay. But don't worry, the children will!

Source: The Telegraph

Tax Day Sale
Comedy Central is having a sale on Colbert and Daily Show merch. Considering that their clothing is normally obscenely pricey, this only brings it down to Sanity range, but still.

Source: Comedy Central

Mini-Entertainment Post

Mini-Entertaining

Raining McCain
Some people have been taking this as a joke, but I feel it's all to likely to be for real.

Either way, a surreal, stupefyingly bad-until-it's-hilarious Youtube campaign video for St. John McCain.

Enjoy.


Source: Matthew Yglesias

Stripper Funeral
At least I know what my brother-in-law's funeral will be like.

A MAN hired a stripper to perform at the funeral of his father - who happened to have a fondness for gentlemen's clubs, according to reports from Taiwan.
Taiwanese newspaper the United Daily News reported that Cai Jinlai had been promised a stripper for his funeral if he lived to 100.

Ted, time to rewrite your will.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

Horton Hears the Horror
The hand-puppet that you'd get if you crossed Apocalypse Now with Horton Hears a Who.

Mouthy
Ever wonder what 29k dollars worth of cursing looks like?

Look no further.

GMAC Bank is suing mortgage company HTFC for selling improperly secured loans, which lead to the hilariously blue and aggressive deposition from HTFC CEO Aron Wider. Wider dropped the f-bomb 73 times, frustrating the opposing counsel's attempts to get him to answer difficult questions like "Where are you currently employed?" Some of the more colorful and creative expletives from the testimony of Mr. Wider, who, according to his company website, serves as company Coprorate Information [sic], CEO / Senior Underwriter, and Radio Engineer, inside...
Q: My question is where are you currently employed.
A: I' m not. I just told [you] I work for free.
Q: OK. You're not employed by the HTFC Corporation?
A: Hit That Fuckin' Clown. That's what it means.
Portfolio.com notes that the classy Mr. Wider got hit by a $29, 000 sanction for his performance, despite his lawyer's claim that his abusive language was caused by an anxiety disorder.

There's more of course.

Source: The Consumerist

Music of the Washers
Tom Morris explores the world of hidden washer features.


Source: Youtube

Odd Anime
This has to be one of the strangest anime titles I've ever heard of, though it does serve to demonstrate the sheer range that Japanese animation has compared to American shows with regard to topics.

Baby and Me (Aka-chan to Boku)

Takuya would normally be an average 12-year-old kid, going to 6th grade and playing soccer with his friends, like he was only a short time ago. But tragedy struck his family a few months ago, and his mother, taking his baby brother Minoru for a walk in a stroller, was hit by a truck and killed. (Minoru wasn't hurt.)

Things have been rough since then. His father works hard to keep food on the table, and can't always be there for his son as he struggles to put the pieces back together. Takuya's days now consist of school, dashing off to day care to pick up Minoru, and trying to juggle caring for a toddler with homework and housekeeping. By the time night comes he's often passed out in exhaustion.

Yes, a long running animated tv series about... a kid who has to raise his kid brother.

It doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but man, compared to things over here, where it's either Disney or the latest toy promotion...

Source: Anime News Network

Ancient Anime
Two new 90 year old animated film shorts have been found in Japan, lingering in an antique shop of all places.

Yoshiro Irie, a researcher at Tokyo's National Film Center, has announced that two of the oldest Japanese animated films were discovered in an antique shop in Osaka in central Japan. In 1917, anime pioneer Junichi Kouchi released the two-minute "Nakamura Katana" silent short about a samurai's foolish purchase of a dull-edged sword. Fellow animator Seitaro Kitayama released "Urashima Taro," an adaptation of a folk tale about a fisherman traveling to an underwater world on a turtle, in 1918.

Man that's old.

Yes, that is my contribution to this discussion. "Man that's old". Get over it.

Source: Anime News Network

Bare BONES Site
See, because Bones is the name of the animation studio, and.... ok fine. At any rate, the people behind Full Metal Alchemist and Eureka Seven have a new show slated, and... judging by the art, it may be about killer molestor bugs, or... I have no clue. Honestly.

The Bones animation studio has pre-launched the official Japanese website for Bōnen no Xamdou — thus confirming the latest project from the animators of Fullmetal Alchemist and Eureka Seven. The website's underlying source indicates that Sony Music is hosting the actual website. Sony Music and Bones collaborated on Fullmetal Alchemist and Eureka Seven. The website promises that more details will be announced on April 10.

Yeah. What's worse is that the character in the art looks like the last male character lead, from Eureka Seven, only now a girl.

Which is just weird.

Sources: Anime News Network
Bonen no Xamdou

Completely Random

You Have to Have a Topic to Go Off Of It

OsamaBama
So Reuters ran an article spelling Obama's name as 'Osama'. They're trying to pass it off as a 'spelling error', and not, say, some disgruntled staffer. Riiight. Because those S and B keys are so close together.

In a little noticed flub, the Reuters news agency referred to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) several times as 'Osama' in a widely distributed news article Wednesday, an article they pulled later in the day.

Though transcripts of the original article are hard to find, RAW STORY located one this morning. Many of the corrected articles distributed to news agencies scrubbed the original mistake.

The article was titled, "Obama takes on rivals over economic woes."

The following is reproduced from the cached Reuters article on AOL.

Reuters attributed the mistake to a 'spelling error.' A rewrite distributed later said it "Corrects spelling of Obama in paragraphs 14 and 18."

A spelling error they made, then made again four paragraphs later!

Wow, what a bad typing day!

Source: Raw Story

Hmm, Whiskey
On fire, no less.

Source: Whiskey Fire

Lifestyles of the Rich and Dictatorial
An NBC report showing where dictators live, from satellite photos.

Oddly, it doesn't sound like the White House, or the House of Saud's palaces, or Musharraf's place are in there.

Funny, that.

Source: Raw Story

Avarosis == Ass
I had to stop reading Americablog back in the runup to the Lebanon-Israeli massacre, as John Avarosis posted an angry screed about how Lebanon deserved to be blown to bits because the Israeli military just had to drop cluster bombs on civilians to regain their confidence, or some such nonsense. I very rarely even read a link from that site, as the man is a colossal tool. Apparently he's kept it up over the years.

But for the life of me, I'm just not really able to understand John Aravosis' take on it at AmericaBlog:

That's because far too often the Democrats don't give a damn about anybody who isn't a minority or starving to death (both valid causes to be sure, but are they the ONLY causes out there?). If you're in the middle, you're on your own.

And don't think this is only about a stupid $300. It's about health care. It's about education. It's about every single issue you care about. The powers that be simply aren't in this to help people in the middle. The Republicans want to help the big pharmaceuticals and the big business hospitals, while the Democrats want to help uninsured poor people and kids. And while all of that's nice, what are the rest of us supposed to do when our premiums hit $2000 a month and, God forbid, something catastrophic hits us?

The Republicans ONLY want to help the rich, and the Democrats ONLY want to help the poor. Screw everybody else. I am so sick of these people.

Yeah. Democrats don't want to help the middle class at all. It's not like better education, roads, jobs and healthcare help the middle class, right?

Source: Shakesville

Armory
A game I've never heard of gets armor designed by the guy who did Ghost in the Shell for a special event.

Why couldn't Galaxies have done this when I played it? They had more money than god, and never came up with any nifty promotions.

Source: Codemasters (Warning: TONS of images)

Funny News (Also, Entertaining)

Because We All Need A Laugh

Tokyo Frogs
So there's been a bit of a kerfluffle in Japan, where the nationalist governor made some.. humorous?... remarks about French that weren't taken too well.

Tokyo's outspoken governor, who was taken to court for a jibe against the French language, insists that he in fact loves France -- and even once had a French girlfriend.

Governor Shintaro Ishihara, known for his nationalist views, said in 2004 that French was disqualified as an international language as it was impossible to count in it.

Twenty-one scholars, teachers and translators, including seven French people who live in Japan, sued Ishihara for damages, saying they were defamed and their careers hurt. A judge threw out the suit.

Ishihara, 75, an acclaimed novelist who majored in French in university, stood by his remarks in an interview with AFP.

"Even the French ambassador told me he couldn't count in French," he said with a laugh.

But he added: "I love France. I was really good at French back in the day."

The man's really not kidding; he *is* good at French, and even worked as a translator for bringing French works into Japanese at one point.

Ishihara said he was friends with French writer Andre Malraux and philosopher Raymond Aron. He was also the first to translate into Japanese some of the "Contes Cruels," or "Cruel Tales," by 19th-century author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Meanwhile, it seems that the French system for counting really is pretty retarded.

The French numbers 0 through 19 are easy enough, right?

For 20 through 69, counting is almost just like in English: the tens word (vingt, trente, quarante, etc.) followed by the ones word (un, deux, trois). The only difference is that for 21, 31, etc., the word et is introduced between the tens word and one: vingt-et-un, trente-et-un, quarante-et-un, etc.

70 to 79 is trickier. In French, 70 is soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten." 71 is soixante et onze (sixty and eleven), 72 is soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), and so on, up to 79.

80 is quatre-vingts, literally four-twenties (think "four-score"). 81 is quatre-vingt-un (four-twenty-one), 82 is quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenty-two), and so on, all the way up to ninety. 90 is quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten), 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), etc.

100 to 999 work just like in English, except that when you have cent at the end of the number, it takes an s, but when cent is followed by another number, the s is dropped. Also, note that you cannot pause after the word cent.
200 = deux cents
500 = cinq cents
350 = trois cent cinquante
872 = huit cent soixante-douze

1,000+ are similar to English, except that the separator is a period or space, rather than a comma (learn more). When reciting a number, you can pause to take a breath at the separator (after mille, million, or milliard). Note that mille never takes an s.

So French has at least sex separate ways to organize their numbers, including four under 100.

I have to say, I'm with the Governor on this one.

Sources: Raw Story
About.com

HULK SING
SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

HULK TURN INTO BANNER

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY MAKE BANNER ANGRY

BANNER TURN INTO HULK

HULK SING

SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

ERROR: RECURSION DETECTED

Source: Progressive Ruin

Schlussel Part Two
So, I tore Debbie Schlussel up a bit in the last post. Something about her being a colossal retard, I dunno. Just to be fair to the, ahem, lady, let's take a bit of a biographical look at her work, shall we?

Debbie Schlussel, 37 years old, supports her pundit habit by practicing commercial law in suburban Detroit. She is among the most proactive B-list pundits. Almost daily, she emails her appearance schedule, availability or sharp-elbowed conservative commentaries to 5,000 people in media and politics.

In the wake of North Korea's recent nuclear test, a hawkish Ms. Schlussel hit the radio circuit, saying U.S. officials responded too mildly in calling the test "a provocative act." "A Paris Hilton video is a provocative act," she said. "What North Korea did was an act of war." To get noticed, Ms. Schlussel says, "I've become the master of the confrontational sound bite."

...

Ask her to survey the punditry landscape, from the A-list on down, and she gets contemplative. "Who is good who does what I do?" she says out loud as she thinks. Soon enough, the answer comes to her. "Me!"

Ahh I see. She's a useless fame whore.

That explains a lot really.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (how's THAT for making my blog 'fair and balanced'?)

Half-Baked Reasoning
Sometimes you can make the right legal decision for the completely wrong reason.

Case in point, a Canadian court considering a traffic stop and drug search.

A Saskatchewan appeal's court upheld a decision that the smell of burnt marijuana is not evidence of illegal drug possession since by definition the proof has gone up in smoke, it said Wednesday.

"The smell of burnt marijuana does not reasonably support the inference that additional marijuana is present," the three-judge panel said in newly-released court filings.

Ok, ok, that sounds logical. We don't want a world where any cop can search any person on the basis of 'odors' that could be entirely in their minds, or better yet, fictitious.

Surely that's the logical reason that the Court used to reject this search, right? That the 'cause' for the search was a completely subjective 'I think it smelled like pot' excuse from a cop?

Wrong.

Archibald's lawyer Ronald Piche successfully argued the warrantless search and seizure were "unreasonable" because the aroma of burnt marijuana -- as opposed to raw marijuana -- infers that the drug has dissipated.

"How can you say you're in possession of something that doesn't exist," Piche told the daily Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

Interesting perspective. If you test positive for cocaine in a blood test after a traffic accident, can you then argue that the cocaine no longer exists, as it's been assimilated into your blood?

Probably not. Marijuana smoke is still marijuana, pointdexter.

Except in Canada.

Source: Raw Story

They Were 11
They Were 11 sounds good. A psychodrama about 10 people who are supposed to spend 50something days alone on a survival expedition in space as a final exam for school entry... only 11 people show up on the ship, and then things start to go terribly wrong.

Duh duh DUH

Ok, this isn't so much funny. It's more entertaining.

Source: Anime News Network

Completely Random Notes

Of Little Interest to Others

Magic the Gathering Card

Rhys the Exiled would be a totally awesome card in the Elf Warrior theme deck I want to build.

Not a bad picture either.

So That's Who Sean Young Is
I never really got the joke in the episode of The Critic until now. She really would make a great dancing beer bottle.

Though the whole thing is sad, really.

Source: The Register

Near Dark Poster
Not bad, really.

Source: Poster Site of Some Kind

I'm Sorry I Missed This
Forgot to order it in time. Got to remember to get one next year, if they offer it.

Source: HP Lovecraft Historical Society

Anime I Want to Watch For No Good Reason
It's called Tales of Agriculture and it's about a boy who can talk to bacteria and other microbes.

Nevermind that they'd have nothing interesting to say, or that there'd be trillions of them around at a time. Still a neat idea.

Source: Anime News Network

More Enternews

Lots of Movies

New Bond Title
Ye gods this is too stupid for words.

IVER HEATH, England (AP) -- "Quantum of Solace" is the title of the new James Bond film, the 22nd Bond adventure.

The title was revealed to reporters Thursday at Pinewood Studios outside of London, where the movie is being filmed.

Quantum... of... Solace.

Bond, shark, waterskis.

Source: CNN.com

Cloverfield Sucks
So Cloverfield is making people sick.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- "Cloverfield" is the first adrenaline-pumping monster hit of the year, bringing in more than $40 million dollars on its opening weekend. The thriller is told from the point of view of five young New Yorkers using their handheld camera. But for some viewers, being "part" of the movie is making them sick -- literally.

Theaters showing "Cloverfield" are posting warnings of possible motion sickness.

One blogger on the popular movie database IMDB.com said, "I had to get up and leave the theater for nearly 20 minutes just to keep from hurling." Other moviegoers have reported being nauseated and dizzy.

If I paid full-price for a rubber-suit monster movie I'd be sick too, though for an entirely different reason.

Source: CNN.com

Adding to that a hilarious Lolcat.

The Ledger Effect
So Heath Ledger's death is ripping through the movie industry.

(CNN) -- Before he died, Heath Ledger had two films in production: "The Dark Knight," the latest chapter in the Batman saga, and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," the latest film from director Terry Gilliam.

Ledger's death has affected both of them in different ways.

The actor, who died Tuesday of unknown causes at age 28, had finished filming "The Dark Knight" late last year. It's due to be released in July. But marketing of the film, currently in post-production, has been thrown into turmoil, the trade paper Variety notes.

The early push for the film has focused on Ledger's villainous Joker character, including a poster with a shrouded Joker scrawling "Why So Serious?" in blood on misty glass.

The film's studio, Warner Bros., recently restructured its marketing department, Variety reports, after the departure of the executive who helped create the "Dark Knight" campaign. (Warner Bros., like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner.)

The trade paper speculates that the marketing campaign will be changed abruptly.

...

Gilliam has had challenges before. During the making of his film "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," the Monty Python troupe member coped with filming near a NATO shooting range, a flash flood and a star with a herniated disc, a final indignity that prompted financiers to pull the plug.

But nothing approaches Ledger's death. Indeed, part of the reason Gilliam was able to obtain the film's relatively paltry $30 million financing was because of Ledger's agreement to star, according to Variety.

Geez, Gilliam has just awful luck with behind the scenes film work. He might want to look into another profession with less risk, like chainsaw juggling.

Source: CNN.com

Terrifying Picture
Check out the art sample for this manga series.

Scary.

Source: Anime News Network

Humanoid
This on the other hand looks intriguing, in a hilarious bad 80s movie way.

Good thing it's a bad 80s movie.

Source: Anime News Network

Pretty Women News

Blowing out the candles.....


I Should Really Work On This Myself
So China is working on their geometrically increasing use of plastic bags, and are considering regulating or banning the ultra thin ones that get used in copious amounts in their (and our) grocery stores, in order to reduce the waste that piles up, unburied, around Chinese cities.

Probably a good idea, though honestly they might want to worry about their industrial sources first. I mean, the air in Beijing is almost completely unbreathable, and that's with the draconian crackdown on cars; I can't imagine how the Olympics are going to go anything but poorly there.

*shrug*

Still, maybe after they deal with the bags, they can deal with the people putting lead on childrens' toys and hormones in fish and such.

Also, the idea of creating massive trash burning power plants is hilarious.

Many of China's cities are in the middle of building huge "waste-to-energy" plants that will convert the vast bulk of their rubbish into electricity, but plans to build such a plant in Beijing last year led to protests amid fears it could fire lethal dioxins into the atmosphere as a consequence of burning plastics.

Who'd have guessed giant TRASH FIRES would pose an air quality problem, lolz.

Plus, imagine the perverse incentive; if your power is generated by trash burning, then you can't very well work too hard to cut back on trash, or you'll just run out of juice. It's setting you up on a course to environmental suicide; either you run out of trash, breathable air, or both.

Source: Guardian Unlimited

Boy Scouts Actually Do Things In Other Countries?
Here they just kick out gay kids and atheists, but in the Maldives a Boy Scout stopped an assassination attempt.

Before you get too worked up with enthusiasm, it should be noted the attempt was against an unelected dictator who has ruled the country for thirty years. So not as black and white as the Press might indicate.

Source: AZcentral.com

Super Soaker Science
Did you know the creator of the Super Soaker was a nuclear engineer who used to work for NASA (including on the Galileo mission, of which I am a huge fan)? How about that he's taken the millions he earned from the water gun industry and rolled it into research into battery technology? No?

Well, now, already holding 100 patents to his name, he's come up with a novel heat engine that can, theoretically, harvest heat into electricity with 60% efficiency; his idea is to use it in combination with solar plants that concentrate light to boil water to increase their electricity generation (they are currently about 30% efficient, so that'd double their capacity).

This is all apparently for real and above the board stuff, so it's quite exciting; plus the technology isn't limited to solar energy, so it might one day be used to make electricity from all sorts of waste heat, including cars, and even people.

Oh no... THE MATRIX! THIS IS HOW IT STARTS!

Source: Popular Mechanics

Ok, I Have to Ask
How do you 'gleam' a cube? What does that even mean?

Source: Wikipedia

Free to Eat Ramen
So there's a new anime miniseries out that is apparently very interesting. Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame does the character and mechanical designs, so you know it has a pedigree; apparently the animation is top notch, the show is film quality, and the story is novel and interesting.

It's getting a somewhat sporadic DVD release in the US on some very pricey HD-hybrid discs, and so far there's no word on whether the last episodes will come out. That's too bad.

Here's the weird part though: this big budget, arty, cerebral space-drama... is actually an ad campaign. For instant noodles.

And for those wondering about the prominent “Cup Noodles” product placements throughout the series? The series is actually a promotion project for Nissin Cup Noodles' 35th anniversary, so expect to see more of them in the future.

I've been going over this in my head, and I can't decide whether this is a horrible abomination, or an interesting way to harnass the foul wickedness of advertising for a positive purpose.

Source: Anime News Network

Random Neat Stuff

Interweb coolness without any particular point.

Aqua Regia and Alchemy
I had always been under the impression that Gold was more or less impervious to acid; this is apparently not completely incorrect. However, thanks to the work of medieval Islamic alchemy, we have a acidic blend that will dissolve gold, platinum, and so forth with ease. It goes by the charming name Aqua Regia, latin for Royal Water (as it was devised to dissolve the so-called 'noble' metals in the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone).

Nifty. Though in reality it's an incredibly dangerous mix of nitric and hydrochloric acids that is mad science approved (red or yellow and fuming).

One further cool fact: aqua regia was used to screw over the Nazis.

When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck into aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from stealing them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation presented new medals to Laue and Franck.[3]

Take that, you goosestepping sons of bitches.

Source: Wikipedia Article

I've Been Meaning to Store This Link Somewhere Forever
An anime series, god I forget how long ago I followed a link to it or why, called Brave Story. I like the concept, and I hope they bring it over on dvd sooner rather than later, to probably crush my dreams.

Plot Summary: When 11 year old Wataru's father leaves home and his mother is taken ill to hospital, he decides to change his fate by travelling through the door shown to him by his friend Mitsuru. In a land of magic and monsters, Wataru must summon all his courage and embark on a journey with several comrades to meet the Goddess of Destiny and change this "mistaken fate".

Apparently in the original manga it was a bit darker; his mother is in the hospital for a suicide attempt, and that is the event he's trying to undo.

I like oracles and the darker heroic quest narratives. It sort of appeals to an innate sense of justice I have, I suppose; it just feels right, dramatically speaking, that you should be able to do *something* outside the bounds of normal causality to change the world, though the price would always have to be absurdly high. In the real world, sadly, we don't have access to such things as oracles or Goddesses of Destiny.

Not effective ones, at least.

Source: Anime News Network

Something to Read my Uncle Brad the Next Time He Rabbits on About Jesus
This particular page of the Epic of Gilgamesh, left up no doubt by the roommate, seems eerily familiar to something I read as a child...hmm...

O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu:
Tear down the house and build a boat!
Abandon wealth and seek living beings!
Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings!
Make all living beings go up into the boat.
The boat which you are to build,
its dimensions must measure equal to each other:
its length must correspond to its width.

Build a boat.. collect living things... no, not sure what it was yet... let's see if there's anything else that sounds familiar.

Six days and seven nights
came the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land.
When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding,
the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman
writhing (in labor).
The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up.
I looked around all day long--quiet had set in
and all the human beings had turned to clay!
The terrain was as flat as a roof.
I opened a vent and fresh air (daylight!) fell upon the side of
my nose.
I fell to my knees and sat weeping,
tears streaming down the side of my nose.
I looked around for coastlines in the expanse of the sea,
and at twelve leagues there emerged a region (of land).
On Mt. Nimush the boat lodged firm,
Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
One day and a second Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
A third day, a fourth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
A fifth day, a sixth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
When a seventh day arrived
I sent forth a dove and released it.
The dove went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a swallow and released it.
The swallow went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a raven and released it.
The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back.
It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me.

A giant flood... a boat stranded on a mountain... a series of avian scouts to find land... hmmm... definitely rings a bell.

Oh right! Noah's Ark! It's a bible ripoff.

Such blatant plagiarism, why, Christians should be really mad at those ancient Sumerians...When did they steal this anyway?

The earliest Sumerian versions of the epic date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (2150-2000 BCE) (Dalley 1989: 41-42). The earliest Akkadian versions are dated to the early second millennium (Dalley 1989: 45). The "standard" Akkadian version, consisting of twelve tablets, was edited by Sin-liqe-unninni sometime between 1300 and 1000 BCE and was found in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.

Oh. So, err, they wrote this.. at least 4,000 years ago.

But the Bible's really old, right?

According to recent theories, linguistic as well as archaeological, the global structure of the texts in the Hebrew Bible were compiled during the reign of King Josiah in the 7th century BC. Even though the components are derived from more ancient writings, the final form of the books is believed to have been set somewhere between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD.

Oh. So, err, the Bible comes from 1300 years later.

Yeah. Umm. Hi?

(Yes I know, this was very snarky and unnecessary. I'm aware that the Bible is actually largely sourced from Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, and that many of its big Gotcha stories are blatant ripoffs of earlier mythology. This is hardly surprising, unless you are a biblical fundamentalist. Like my Uncle Brad)

Sources: Wikipedia on Bible (subsection on Historical Research)
Wikipedia on Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh (English version, Flood Section)

Being Royal Seems To Mean Really Big Houses
So I saw this linked from the front of Wikipedia the other day and took a look. Geebus, Portuguese royalty loved their gingerbread mansions.

Some parts of this are really pretty, but others seem either monstrously impractical or just ugly.

Take a look at the King and Queen's rooms, for example. This place is MASSIVE, but the royal family have tiny living quarters. I think my roommate has a bigger bedroom than the King. We definitely have nicer bedding.

I wonder if there was some historical reason they didn't use larger personal spaces, or if it was just a design issue. Me, I need a nice spacious place to make my personal cave, but the rest of the palace is just unnecessary extravangance. Imagine all the dusting and mopping you'd have to have done just to keep it up!

Source: Wikipedia Article on Queluz National Palace