She Said “YES” reads like the finale of a really bad Hollywood romantic comedy. Even so, you can’t help but admire the guy for making his proposal so memorable.
(The downside is that the lovely Sean has just raised the bar that little bit higher for anyone reading his story who was thinking of proposing in the next few weeks or months.)
[Via web-goddess]
In the wake of a discussion on soc.history.what-if about the consequences of beavers being inadvertently released into the wild in South America and spreading across the continent, Raymond Speer came up with a wickedly funny excerpt from the script for an alternate timeline version of Charlton Heston’s 1954 ‘classic’ The Naked Jungle:
THE RIVERFRONT- DAY-OPTICAL
Charlton Heston’s point of view. The innummerable beavers cover ground and land next to the choked off river, and their dam is roughly like the Hoover Dam, but made of wood.
REVERSE - HESTON- CLOSE
HESTON: “Stop nibbling on my property, you damn dirty beavers!”
[…]
It goes on from there, and gets much dafter - not to mention less filmable.
Go read…
The American Museum of Natural History has a fine online exhibit called Frogs: A Chorus of Colours.
The information about the various species, their habitats, mating habits and so on is nice, but it’s the array of images of so many colourful species that really makes the site.
[Via Exclamation Mark]
Another week, another selection:
This glowing review of the DVD release of Bubba Ho-tep at PopMatters makes me keener than ever to see the damn film for myself some day.
Quite apart from the film itself’s obvious merits, how can I possibly resist the lure of a commentary track by Elvis Presley Bruce Campbell?
Wendy M Grossman is looking forward to getting a look at the BBC’s archive online, once a few minor legal and technical issues have been addressed:
Wednesday evening, the Oxford folks who are working on porting the Creative Commons licence to the UK convened a meeting to hear what’s likely to happen with the BBC’s plans now. The good news, according to the project’s director, is that the BBC is still committed to the scheme and the plans are going ahead.
The bad news, so to speak, is that what’s going to be released first is what someone has waggishly dubbed “shagging marmots”. Or, to be more precise, wildlife documentaries. See, it’s not just that the BBC owns those films and they don’t have to worry about paying royalties to scriptwriters or producers. It’s that there aren’t any actors to demand residuals. At least, until the marmots get a good manager and form a union.
I think it’s fair to say that the legal barriers are going to be a lot trickier to surmount than the technological ones.
Idly browsing the IMDB’s cast list for Deep Impact I noticed that actor Charles Martin Smith (who only survives for about five minutes in Deep Impact, but has played a host of supporting roles in films like Starman and The Untouchables) directed Welcome to the Hellmouth, the debut episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I can’t imagine how I missed that interesting factoid considering how often I’ve watched the episode.
As with any number of bad blockbusters before it, at least we can console ourselves that Van Helsing has inspired some nicely snarky humour:
[…]
One year later in Paris…
Van Hughsing: This wanted poster isn’t even a good likeness of me!
Random Frenchwoman: *dies*
Van Hughsing: Hmmm. A cigar. That means the killer must be…
Mr. Hyde: Hi. Please ignore my resemblance to Shrek. Wanna see my buttcrack?
Van Hughsing: SNIKT! WHIRRR!
Mr. Hyde: *dies*
French People: Murderer!
Van Hughsing: I am tormented and misunderstood. Thus, I brood.
Van Hughsing’s Horse: *gallops to Vatican*
~*~
At the Vatican…
Cardinal Exposition: Van Helsing, we found you on the steps of the Vatican, barely alive, and with no memory of your past.
Van Hughsing: I think I’ve played this guy before…
Cardinal Exposition: It’s a common misconception that the Church is a compassionate and caring entity. In reality, it’s a lot like the Weapon X progam, only with way more Latin and singing.
[…]
[Via Marcus L Rowland, posting to rec.arts.sf.fandom]
The trailer for Pixar’s The Incredibles looks … well … incredible. This could be very good indeed.
Bruce Sterling has a problem: his annual Open House Party during the South by Southwest festival is growing in an alarmingly out-of-control manner, with dozens - hundreds, even - of total strangers turning up and showing no inclination to depart. A bit like the internet, come to think of it.
Sterling, speaking to a crowd at the Microsoft Campus, thought aloud about the problem:
[…]
So, I’m now going to read to you, some of the suggested technical solutions…<pulls paper from pocket and opens it>…for what is really a microcosm of the organizational problems with the global internet, ok? Because this is my personal incarnation of what is really a much larger problem, a problem that scales up. What is the problem here? The benefit is that I’m bringing in strangers. It’s like I’m reaching out and touching someone but the downside is that I’m bringing in strangers and they can reach out and touch me. The benefit is that I’m breaking the boundaries of my narrow circle of acquaintances but the downside is that I’m breaking the boundaries of my narrow of acquaintances. The plus side is: this is a really popular party but the downside is that this is a really popular party! I’m now hovering at the edge of a potential dystopian development where I can get one guy that shows up in order to wreak mischief and can hurt a lot of people in some sort of cascading effect. I don’t have any…Well, let’s just talk about possible solutions.
[…]
Amazingly enough, some of the solutions sound familiar:
7. Another possibility, Total Party Awareness.
I think it would be possible to install video cameras and monitoring equipment throughout the home. I think it would be good to have people sign a disclaimer when they arrive at my party consenting to be video taped and to have their remarks at the party recorded. Now, I think that this would have a very calming effect on the party. In fact, I’m not sure that that gathering would even be classifiable as a party but I could probably pack a lot of people into an area like that.
Now that’s how you kill a party stone dead…
Sterling has posted suggestions he received by email following his lecture-cum-rant at Beyond the Beyond.
[Via Anita’s LOL]
If you’re going to build a scale model aircraft, you might as well do it properly. Make it a B-52. Make it big - a 23′ wingspan should do it. Give it 8 turbine engines. Make it fly.
Wow. Just wow…
[Amended to add a link to this image of the B-52 - borrowed from here - now that the original site has taken down the images and movies because of the number of sites linking to them. jr 30 March 2004]
[Via Boing Boing]
I can’t quite make my mind up whether the PlusDeck audio cassette drive for the PC is a silly gadget or a deeply cool piece of retro techology.
I can see the utility of an all-in-one solution to the problems of copying your audio tapes to MP3, but I don’t see many people with CDs to convert to tape needing to use their PC to do the job when most of us will have access to a CD player with a tape deck attached.
[Via #!/usr/bin/girl]
Charles Miller has been seduced:
I was asked for advice today from someone who was apprehensive about buying a new Mac, and wanted to know my opinion. This, of course, is sort of like going up to Dick Cheney and saying “You know, I’m not sure about that Iraq thing. What do you think?”
[…]
And what’s more, Linux is your psychotic ex… (Alternatively, Linux is the operating system equivalent of Mil Millington’s girlfriend Margret.)
[Via bump]
You know something, I have a sneaking feeling that the Trixie Tracker might just be the next big thing in web publishing.
Just watch: eighteen months from now every weblogger/parent will have a TrixieTelemetry box in their sidebar, right next to their blogroll, and Ben and Jenn, the couple who started the whole phenomenon when they created The Trixie Update, will be the new Ben ‘n’ Mena.
