Postfix Enabler. Looks like it’s time to start thinking about migrating the server to Panther.
Bic man
I Love Death is a schematically visualized, deeply cynical, perfectly realized flash movie. While it’s by no means explicit, sex and death feature prominently enough that it’s NSFW. via the good people of everlasting blort.
I believe it’s a video for the band Lodger.
Screwhead
Tiny corkscrew in brain could help stop strokes.
I actually don’t care about the article so much as the headline. Man, that is a headline.
Speaking of heads, this may help to minimize your pre-lunch cravings.
Daymented Shell Game
Daymented uses sour cream containers for storage. Sometimes it makes tracking the leftovers down a bit tricky. She’s assembled a thoughtful interactive simulation for your edification.
All ya gots ta do is find the pea, see? Look, how easy it is! C’mon, c’mon, who’s up for it. You sir! You! You look like sportin’ type!
(Disclaimer: there is no actual gambling behind this link. Rollover-state images deployed for strictly educational purposes. Void where prohibited by law. You must be over 5′ 2″ to board this ride.)
Blather's Barol Brings Blog Back
Blather, by Bill Barol, beloved by billions, bounces back. You betcha.
Win AIM now iChat AV video compatible
AOL links with Apple on video IM | CNET News.com.
Oh, what a relief! I was expecting to have to handhold my folks through some gnarly NetMeeting pain!
They’ll hate the ads, though. Hm…
That's Classified
A few help wanted ads that caught my eye this afternoon:
Organ Donor! Who wouldn’t want that gig! I wonder, if experience is required, exactly how much? I did have my tonsils removed as a child.
What are the odds of two medical establishments in the Pacific Northwest cleverly naming themselves after mythic figures of the regional Native American culture? Next, you’ll be telling me there are sports teams called, uh, the Seahawks or the Thunderbirds hereabouts!
Great Names in the News
Inmates’ Elaborate Plans to Escape From Sing Sing Are Thwarted [NYT]
Mr. Zimmerman, a rapper from Queens who recorded songs under the name Puzz Pacino, hatched the plan to escape last year with a guard he met in Sing Sing named Quangtrice Wilson, according to investigators.
Sing Sing! Puzz! Quangtrice Wilson!
Of course, my gnomic glee is tempered by the tragic loss of Cornelius Bumpus.
B^2 ongoing primary battle coverage disrupted?
Looks like Dear God Damn Diary has collected a cease-and-desist letter from one Angela Gordon, representing United Features Syndicate, for posting the execrable earworm ‘Hey Ya.’
While we at mike.whybark.com applaud the effect of this letter, which is to minimize the possibility that we’ll experience the inescapable urge to perforate our eardrums with the tiny little pencils once distributed by national magazines with appeals to subscribe (back in the seventies, when every day was like a rotting tooth in the mouth of a week-old corpse), we are sadly constrained to note that Ms. Gordon’s thuggish eviction notice was intended to protect not the innocent listener (oh, how we mourn for the pursuit of the public good in our vaunted corps of legal professionals) but rather to protect the valuable intellectual property created by the happy collaboration of Charles M. Schulz and Bill Melendez in the form of an animated television special celebrating the birth of an important religious figure as reflected in the lives of a group of children originally seen in the comics section of nationally distributed newspapers but which I do not refer to by name out of my deep concern, (undoubtedly only expressed with greater assiduity by Ms. Angela Gordon on behalf of United Features Syndicate) for the protection and maintenance of the property rights of United Features Syndicate, as the name is clearly marked in the cease-and-desist letter with the registered symbol.
It’s my sincere hope that while this deserved slap in the faces of all callous underminers of our nation’s and the world’s regime of intellectual property rights will in no wise distract B2‘s mission of providing us with informative, sober, thougtful insights into the current high-powered primary battle.
Army of Darkness: Jackson Source?
Happened across Sam Raimi’s ’93 classic Army of Darkness last night and chuckled my way through it.
In the sequence where the Deadites attack Arthur’s castle, I was struck by the similarities between it and Jackson’s Helms Deep sequence from The Two Towers. Not in scale of course; but both are night sequences, certain shots from the Raimi film appear to anticipate much larger and more polished shots in Helms Deep, and there were enough rough paralells that I began to muse on the topic.
Consider Jackson’s 1992 Dead Alive. Though much more over the top than AOD, it also takes the slapstick approach to horror as a genre. An aside: what is up with the goatse reference on that poster?
Fast forward to three years ago. Note that Raimi’s Spider-Man actually beats each one of Jackson’s LOTR films at the box office. It also entered release as Jackson was probably fine-tuning TTT.
Finally, I think it should be noted that many of the folks that worked on LOTR worked for Raimi even longer than they worked for Jackson: Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules were shot in NZ for the series’ entire run.
So I think a reasonable case can be made for the two filmmakers being aware of each others’ work. I suspect they like each others’ stuff, actually. But did Jackson insert certain sequences into Helms Deep as a tip of the helmet to Raimi?
Cursory Googling did not yield others wondering about this. A similar lack of attributed quotes by Jackson on this specific proposition or on Raimi’s work in general leads me to guess that no-one’s spent time with Jackson talking about Raimi’s work of late.
I shall add it to my list of questions for the bearded one!