I'm no gamer – my only experience with the Final Fantasy brand is the 2001 computer-animated film – but I very much enjoyed this 8 minute abridged version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I'm going to take a wild guess that the creator of this little piece might have tinkered with the plot and the dialogue just a tad. Unless, that is, the game actually features the lines, "You don't need to fight flying rococo furniture to impress me, Cloud." and "Does this have something to do with your todger?"

(If, on the other hand, those lines do show up in the game proper then I just might have to invest in a games console to see what I've been missing.)

[Via Chocolate and Vodka]

The New York Times reports on a vital research project: The Perfect Bacon Sandwich Decoded.

Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich's habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762).

For Britons, butties come in a variety of guises — chip butties (French fries between slices of bread), crisp butties (ditto with potato chips) or even sugar butties, which are self-explanatory. None are viewed as especially healthful.

Since when does "healthful" have anything to do with it?

"We often think that it's the taste and smell of bacon that consumers find most attractive," Dr. Clayton said in a news release. "But our research proves that texture and sound is just, if not more, important."

[...]

In the experiment, some of the tasters sampled between four and six bacon sandwiches a day for three or four days.

And so the formula evolved to establish the amount of force in the bite, expressed in newtons, and the level of noise, expressed in decibels, to make the perfect crunch.

<homer>Mmmmmm, bacon…</homer>

[Via Amygdala]

A young Stephen Fry relates the chilling story of The Letter:

[...] The letter read as follows:

"If Mr John Lawson-Particle will travel immediately to Transylvania as the honoured guest of Count Dracula, to personally advise His Excellency on a matter of great legal delicacy, Mr Lawson-Particle will be handsomely remunerated.

"He is to bring on his journey: no garlic, no crucifixes, no wooden stakes. Neither is he to look up in a dictionary the word 'vampire'."

It seemed innocent enough. [...]

Cracking stuff.

[Via Needcoffee.com]

I haven't done one of these posts in quite some time:

• Untitled #0052 by David J Nightingale.
• Blue White Divide and Bark by Andy Bell.
• Project Cookbook: Week Two by Rachel James.
• Three from Cute Overload: Yogurt Kitty, I don't care, just keep my muzzlepouche dry and And now, a tiny turtle.
• Julien Roumagnac brings us Montreal – Palais des Congrès and Quicksilver #1.
• Three from Kathleen Connally: Guinevere Hesitates, The First Green Grass of Spring and Spring Fields.
• Lorissa Shepstone likes her coooooffee.
• Trey Ratcliff found this handsome beast.

['Handsome beast' image via Betsy Devine]

Nice graffiti. Lacking a bit in scientific accuracy, mind – what was with the jump from dinosaurs to elephants? – but far better than an expanse of unadorned concrete.

[Via Pharyngula]

An Update on the Problem of Maria, by Matthew Belinkie.

FROM: The Reverend Mother
TO: The Nuns

My Sisters,

As you know, our little convent has been plagued in recent months by "the Maria problem." I must say, in all my years serving the Lord, this is the greatest challenge I have ever faced. It is like trying to hold a moonbeam in your hand.

Nuns have described Maria as "a headache," "a demon," and "capable of outpestering any pest." Yet, when I put out a box to collect anonymous Maria-related complaints, many of them seemed relatively minor:

"She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee." We are not Franciscans, but surely we can agree that a youthful heart often expresses its love of the Almighty through delight in nature. Besides, it's spring; it's like the hills are alive! [...]

Worth reading to the very end.

FlickrBlockrs: for people who really, really don't want to be photographed.

[Via Fimoculous]

This list of parallels between Futurama and Doctor Who is freaking me out:

Zap Brannigan vs. Captain Jack Harkness. Both suffer from a very sexy learning disability: Sexlexia. "Kiff, I've made it with a woman. Inform the men." vs. "Woke up in bed with both my executioners". Who wins.

[...]

Zoidberg vs. the Ood, or: "I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar." vs. "Would you like sauce with that?" Futurama wins. Woopwoopwoop!

[Via GromBlog]

There's a not-so-small part of me that cringes at the thought of doing this to a poor, innocent book; a (slightly) larger part of me that thinks that's some really beautiful work.

[Via 3quarksdaily]

25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips does exactly what it says: showcasing some of the finest comic strips ever committed to paper.

See, for example, "Scientific progress goes 'boink'?", "AIEEE!! THEY GOT FRANK!!", "KaZAM!" and "…But don't YOU go anywhere" for all the evidence anyone could require that Bill Watterson was some sort of genius. If you want to read more, go here.

[Via Scrubbles.net]

McSweeney's Pros and Cons of the Top 20 Democratic Presidential Candidates:

2. BARACK OBAMA

Pro: Articulate; resembles foxy actor Blair Underwood.

Con: L.A. Law was kind of overrated now that you think about it.

[...]

6. DICK CHENEY IN AN ELABORATE LATEX DISGUISE THAT TAKES FIVE HOURS TO APPLY

Pro: Trojan horse, my friend. Trojan fucking horse.

Con: Ruse would be so exciting that he would surely drop dead of a massive stroke about a month before Iowa.

[...]

15. WALTER MONDALE

Pro: Has spent last 22 years going over tape, reviewing mistakes, plotting, scheming, waiting, watching, preparing to pounce like a 79-year-old Minnesotan panther.

Con: None.

A mystery resolved:

I think almost everybody has wondered what would have happened if they had made a different choice in life, taken a different path. If you didn't think of it by yourself, seeing "It's a Wonderful Life" a few hundred times has probably driven the point home by now.

Many authors have applied this idea to big turning points, writing about alternative histories in which Hitler won World War II (Fatherland) or the South won the Civil War (Bring the Jubilee). The notion may not be pure fantasy: the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that these Worlds-of-If may really exist, although forever unreachable.

Or maybe not so unreachable. A very odd pattern of statements by prominent supporters and members of the Bush administration suggests that we may have some truly unusual visitors—literally out-of-this-world.

You see, the president and his associates keep referring to historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical events. Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former) secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn't any. You can't find it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the similarities between today's Iraq and America after the Revolutionary War, but again, I'm pretty sure that there aren't any. I don't believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of Philadelphia every morning back in 1784. And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003? Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in 1998?

[...]

We're talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth. It can't be that they're just pig-ignorant—of their own history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation. [...]

[Via Making Light (Particles)]

British Airways, the world's pettiest airline:

British Airways has removed a shot of Virgin Atlantic boss Sir Richard Branson from the in-flight version of the James Bond movie Casino Royale.

Sir Richard was seen briefly in the original film, passing through an airport security scanner, but can only be seen from behind in the new edit.

"Many films are edited in some way on board," said a BA spokesman. [...]

[Via GromBlog]

A new word for us all to learn: Decursivication is…

[di-kur-siv-fi-key-shuhn] noun. The process of losing one's penmanship, thanks to automatic billing and an increasingly electronic world. Bob attributed his chicken scratch-like note writing to the process of decursivication.

New developments in soap technology:

Reuters reports, on April 20, 2007:

Bar of soap gives caffeine kick in the shower

Inventors have created a soap infused with caffeine which helps users wake up in the morning.

The soap, called Shower Shock, supplies the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee per wash, with the stimulant absorbed naturally through the skin, manufacturers say. "Tired of waking up and having to wait for your morning (coffee) to brew?" ask the makers…

I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but I'm fairly sure that if you can't wait the time it takes to shower for your first caffeine hit of the day then you have a Problem.

If I fail to post for a few days, blame it on Plasma Pong.

PLASMA PONG is a variation of PONG that utilizes real-time fluid dynamics to drive the game environment.

Players have several new abilities that add fun twists to the classic game. In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area. All these abilities have fluid-based kinetic effects on the ball, making Plasma Pong a fast-paced and exciting game.

Not to mention "hypnotic" and "addictive."

(Coincidentally, the next item in the del.icio.us/popular list was a starscape that resembles a game of Plasma Pong being played on a much larger scale…)

[Via del.icio.us/popular]

Writer-director John Sayles likes to work as an extra from time to time:

Before I was employed as a screenwriter or movie director, somebody actually paid me to work as an actor (on stage) and over the years I have remained open to appearing in films, taking most every role I've been offered. There is a kind of mental cross-training in entering a situation, where you are usually the one supposed to know and control everything, as a spear-carrier.

[...]

I once acted in a Japanese movie in which, somehow, each of my scenes, all with some stunt or difficult technical aspect involved, was postponed throughout the day and then performed with great tension as the sun was about to depart from the sky. There was no hiding from the gaijin (foreign) actor that there was time for only one take and that me blowing it would be a disaster. The day player's job in this instance is to be gracious and understanding and nail the sucker. (My only applause as a film actor came when, playing a bionic baseball player who batted using only one arm, I hit a creditable home run on the first pitch offered.)

I can think of a few directors who take occasional acting jobs in other people's films, not in cameo appearances but proper rather playing meatier parts with several lines and multiple scenes – Sydney Pollack, Paul Mazursky and even Martin Scorsese spring to mind – but an established director working as an extra is another matter entirely.

Unless, of course, you know differently…

Worth1000's Director's Mother's Cut 2 competition inspired entrants to come up with some hilarious posters for kid-friendly versions of horror films:

• Dawn of the Ned
• 28 Days Later
• Eraserhead (Not exactly comparable to the other examples of the genre on show here, but the poster is too good to ignore.)
• The Ring: Incredible!
• Hellwaiser (Having seen Hellraiser: Bloodline on TV the other day, I can safely say I wish they'd made Hellwaiser instead. The first two films were fine, but after that it all went badly wrong.)
• The Pretty Ring
• Seesaw (My favourite of the bunch by a mile.)

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for teachers. Imagine spending your day reading essays like the following gem, quoted in a comment thread at Pajiba:

Here's one of my favourites from a student a few years ago:

"Tuborculosis is a very old disease in fact in Faro's Egypt over 5,000 years ago their are cave writings begging Jesus to cure the TB."

You can all insert the (sic)s where they should be.

Posted by: PaddyDog at April 20, 2007 10:54 AM

The cover art for Björk's new album Volta is very strange. (Which is, of course, a very good thing.)

[Via MetaFilter]