Monday, December 22, 2008

God will destroy the Internet!


Sorry I've been away for so long. The holidays are the suck. I'm such a Scrooge.

Anyway, click the pic above for a glorious look at business ventures of the End Times. The company You've Been Left Behind will, for a fee (of course), email up to 62 of your unrepentant heathen friends and family to notify them of your ascendance into Heaven! Because apparently, you just not being there is a bit too subtle.

If several of their key members don't log-in for a few days, the system assumes the Rapture has taken place and, barring global Internet collapse, will flood the web with spam. Good news though! According to the site:

Q:With all of the devastation after the Rapture how do you think the emails will be delivered?

A: I do believe that the Internet will be up and running. There may be some localized temporary outages. Today the entire global economic and commerce system is completely dependant on the Internet to function. They will keep it working. There is also huge redundancy and overlap in the system. A message keep trying pathways and services until it is delivered. Most of the net is buried underground. Eventually God will take it down, as he destroys the World system that has been built up by a people trying to do it all without him. That won't be until the second half of the tribulation though.


If memory serves, that means we athiests will have 3.5 years of wacko-free Internets. Whee!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Crying Girls [2]


It's Wednesday, which means... *drumroll*... more crying girls!
Above is Gwyneth Paltrow, weeping uncontrollably as she accepts the Oscar for Best Actress in Shakespeare in Love. Note her whitened knuckles possessively gripping the statue, and how her bowed head accentuates her birdlike collarbone.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Oh, those wily Somalis...


The Italians mean business. They're hunting for the Somali pirates on a destroyer equipped with modern radar, infrared, helicopter support, and a cannon with a 10 mile range! They're stalking the nefarious buccaneers alongside support warships - over a dozen - from the US, Greece, India, Russia, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, and Great Britain. And they STILL CAN'T CATCH THEM!

The pirates are whizzing around willy-nilly on fiberglass boats, for fuck's sake. A single .50-mm round would shatter one of those into painful shrapnel. They carry assault rifles, maybe a rusty old RPG. No cannons. No torpedoes. Just, as the NY Times put it (link in the pic above), "...attacking ships in beelike swarms of 20 to 30 skiffs..." I can help but yell, "FOR THE SWARM!" upon visualising two or three dozen pirate skiffs zipping around a Saudi oil tanker.

Another thing - apparently, maritime law on international waters is a fairly grey area, and the pirates have used this vagueness to their great advantage. Several times their compatriots have been captures, only to be immediately released once their captors figured out they had no idea whose jurisdiction they were in. I love this quote, also from the NYT: "Italian officers on pirate patrol seemed uncomfortable at the thought of actually capturing a real live pirate." Ha!

Suffice to say, we still live in a world where high-sea treachery is an issue, and American cruise ships in international waters are still threatened by actual pirates. I'm sort of glad for that.


(Note: Picture above is courtesy of the New York Times, on an Italian patrol in the Arabian Sea. Blue-eyed Italian girl with machine gun? I'll take two.)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Lil Bill O'Reilly



Wow. Just... wow.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Crying Girls

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - there ain't no beauty quite like a weeping woman.
The above is actress Olivia Wilde, who plays the gorgeously bisexual Dr Remy Hadley (aka, "13") on House.

I believe that "Crying Girls" will become a regular feature on this blog. Huzzah!

The Guild


Note: Only those who have played MMORPGs should probably watch this webseries, unless you have a general knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons, or are friends enough with me that you've heard me rant about my old EverQuest days. Or perhaps you play WoW and haven't told me. In which case... can I logon to your account when you're not using it?

ANYWAY, my fascination with Ms Felicia Day continues. After discovering her incredible (feigned, one would hope) naivete and shiver-inducing personality in Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, I found her online project "The Guild", a Netsitcom based on the lives of a local guild in an unnamed online roleplaying game. Their lives intersect both online and offline, including a host of colourful characters, and some truly mesmerizing comedy.

Suffice to say, I'm hooked. While the comedy may be overtly Whedonesque, I can't help but wonder if it's coincidence - if Ms Day wasn't recruited for "Dr Horrible" because she fit so goddamn well. Her comedic timing is impeccable, her mannerisms are gloriously quirky (or quirkiously glorious?) in a way that Meg Ryan could never manage. She reminds me of a less-serious Claire Danes, minus the wrinkly-face crying and plus wit.

Ahem. I should clarify that the primary reason I'm speaking primarily of Ms Day isn't because she's a secksie gamer -- it's because she's the writer, producer, and lead actress in this incredible series.

So if you have experience in MMORPGs, or have been around the Net long enough to know the lingo, or if you're sufficiently brave enough to enjoy the humour nonetheless -- click the pic above and enjoy the first season (minus Ep 1, found here), and first three episodes of the second, courtesy of MSN Video.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Dubya-Gee


Watkins Glens treats us well. This is the window of the Marina, a waterfront bar where our adventuring companion Cousin Smoker works.
The white stuff is decorative spray-on snow, and from top to bottom are the prints of Sean's ass, mine, and Chris's. On the far right is Willy's Wooshers, the prints of a 50(ish) barfly's breasts.
She is officially proof that you're never too old to press body parts against a pane of glass, 'cause that's just classic.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Cutest endangered species EVAR!


Ladies and gentlemen, I present the axolotl, otherwise known as the Mexican Walking Fish. Sadly, this adorable, Pokémon-like critter is endangered.
Now, I'm not normally the tree-hugging type, but I make an exception for threatened species that are sufficiently badass (like the giant water bug - dude, fucker eats piranhas), bizarre (for instance, the coconut crab - no, this pic isn't Photoshopped), or ADORABLE.
I want one.
Apparently, although they're endangered, this cute lil' face can be kept in a slightly salty aquarium.
I may not be a tree-hugger, but in this case, I might be a fish-hugger.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Steam Wars


One of my favourite blogs is Brass Goggles, dedicated to the Steampunk subculture. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, Steampunk is (arguably) an offshoot of Cyberpunk, the postapocalyptic dystopian motif involving decayed cities, lots of leather and buckles, sci-fi in the vein of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson.
Steampunk, however, takes a decidedly Victorian, Jules Verne-esque approach to the theme. Imagine if 19th century English manners, dress, and customs were combined with futuristic technology. What would it look like? There's a definite aesthetic goal here; in a world where computers come in beige plastic boxes and technology all has a vaguely aloof, snobbish feel, Steampunk imagines a hands-on, DIY approach. Technology becomes approachable in the way that brass cogs, gears, leather fittings, and coal-powered engineering were back in the 1800's. Once upon a time, it was possible for the average layman to know everything there was to know about the technology of his day. Now, how many people could, in their basement, using found objects and everyday techniques, build a silicon microchip? How about even a microwave oven?

The above is a brief introduction to the subculture, which I include simply to show you this: A gentleman calling himself Sillof (pronounced SY-loff) has created these lovely Star Wars-themed action figures in the manner of Steampunk. Imagining a universe populated by Jedi warriors who looked like European knights crossed with industrial-ready aviators, and steam-powered droids, Sillof has depicted an alternate version of a galaxy far, far away. While I'm not a huge Star Wars fan (though my friends Cowboy and FTB certainly are), I drool over the concept of having these figures lined up on a mahogany & brass shelf somewhere.

Click the riveted, furnace-like R2D2 picture above to see all Sillof's work.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Alms


To those who know me, it's no secret I'm an idolater of Anthony Bourdain and his show, No Reservations. I caught an episode tonight I hadn't seen before - Laos. A rarely visited Southeast Asian paradise, tucked between Thailand and Vietnam, Laos is unindustrialised, unWesternised, and practically untouched.
Young Lao boys often enter the monastery, where they may stay only a few months, or their entire lifetime. The local, communal tradition of giving alms involves a daily earning of "merit," a Buddhist custom to build ones karma and feed the holy men.
The monks' only meal comes from the early morning alms, handfuls of rice given by locals, family members, and now more frequently, tourists.

Tony made an interesting point in this episode, regarding the nature of travel television. Of course, the idea is encourage travel to foreign locales, and preferably those closest to the hearts of the host. But perhaps, the introduction of hordes of camera bearing, Hawaiian shirted Westerners could serve only to hasten the decline of local tradition and customary ways of life. Thankfully, there are no McDonalds or KFCs in Laos... yet.

But one has to wonder, for a group of dedicated and revered young men - at what point do they start to feel like goats in a petting zoo, handed pellets of food purchased for a quarter by gawking visitors? Do they care, as long as they're nourished? Are the digital camera-snapping interlopers in any way less meritorious than those who rise, every day just after dawn, to share what little rice they have?

In a way, it seems like reverse communion, the giving of sustenance instead of transubstantiation, and I for one wouldn't feel comfortable partaking in either ceremony unless my heart was in the right place. Perhaps I'd be more willing to hand over a fistful of sticky rice than accept a bland wafer and sour wine, if I thought it would be any benefit to my soul.


If you're interested to learn more, here's a link to a travel blog from a foreign participant in the giving of alms.

Dr Horrible


I was reading my daily webcomics the other day (xkcd, Bunny, Dinosaur Comics, & Questionable Content), when I remembered I hadn't visited Penny Arcade in awhile. PA is a gamer-geek comic, and there was a reference to one certain Felicia Day. Not knowing who she was, I immediately Googled "felicia day nude", just in case. (Kidding.)
But her Google results brought up the above Joss Whedon (of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly/Serenity) web project which is, and I kid you not, the BEST FUCKING THING EVER. A musical blog about an evil genius, played by Neil Patrick Harris? The girl of his dreams who he met in the laundromat? An obnoxious nemesis called Captain Hammer? THE EVIL LEAGUE OF EVIL?!?!

Click the pic for the Hulu link. You will not regret it.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Everything will probably be late at night.


I would like to build an airship, with the help of my friends, a lumbering beast of fabric, wood, & steel - brass lanterns, a shipwheel, polished decks, quarters & quixotic turbines - and become a skygypsy. A wanderer of the aether. Land where I wish, when I wish, if I wish. Survive in the clouds, like a lusty pirate of yore whose realm is not the bordered sea but the endless oceanic atmosphere.

I would like to pack a bag, create a sword, dress as I like, and fuck brushing my teeth. I'll tell your fortune. I'll tinker, weld, sing, juggle, cook, or psychoanalyse. I'm observant & ambidextrous. I'm covered in ink. I have a marvelous moustache.

I see no reason why this can't work, save the improbability of building the damnable thing.

If she ever comes into existence, I shall call her the Queen Mab.