Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: I typically don’t like the “Pretty young people stranded somewhere with killers on the loose” genre, but I may have to make an exception in this case. What a hilariously wonderful idea for a movie!

:: As a guy, I thought it was the height of innovation when some restaurants stuck a cork board in their restrooms and tacked up the day’s sports page right above the urinal so we dudes had something to read. Now comes the next generation of urinal entertainment. Sometimes I tremble to realize that yes, this is the future. Somebody thought this up instead of inventing, oh, I don’t know, supralight drive or flying cars or lightsabers.

That’s about it. I can’t really top the urinal thing, anyway….

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!!!

::  Snark-filled comment on Twilight is always welcome, so here’s some, with scenes re-enacted with action figures.

::  Want to read some hilarious offensive parodies of The Family Circus? Sure you do!

::  Hmmmm… I wonder if writer John C. Wright is still bringing the crazy? Let’s go to his LiveJournal and find out….

Those of you who believe that republican government can exist on Earth without the prop and lantern of Christian faith, have a faith in mankind which neither history nor reason confirms, nor any authority worthy of our ears. The non-Christian democracies of the world have long since become bureaucratic welfare-states, nanny-states, and to watch their histories unfold is to watch the activities of a slave-market, where, generation by generation and year by year selfish and anile strumpets sell their liberty in return for ease, for favors, for false promises, or for nothing at all, until they are citizens in nothing but name, subjects in all but name, or wards, or cattle.

How to react to that…yeah, here we go.

(Yes, this was an excuse to use the video of J. Jonah Jameson giving the ‘belly laugh of haughty dismissal’. But few writers bring the Batshit Crazy like John C. “Within fifty years homosexuality will be considered a mental illness again, huzzah!” Wright.)

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!

Oddities and Awesome abound…at least I like to think they can still be found, lurking about somewhere in the darkness…out of the light, where ordinary mortals fear to tread…umm…where was I? Oh yeah:

::  Oh those whacky Japanese: Burger King Japan will be offering a burger the size of a pizza. You know, for parties. What will they think of next? (Nevermind, I don’t wanna know.)

::  Oh those whacky Japanese, take two: a font that is comprised of…nah, you gotta go look on this one. I can’t spoil it for you.

::  When earnestness meets smart-assery on Facebook. (Naughty language alert.)

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!!!

Oddities and Awesome abound! And since it’s Halloween, these are all associated with…Halloween. Huzzah!

::  First of all…well, I can’t even come up with a lead-in to do this personal ad (I assume from Craigslist) justice.

(Seen on Tumblr).

::  If you were cognizant of reality during the 1980s and early 1990s, you recall Gary Larson’s comic strip The Far Side. Which wasn’t even really a ‘strip’ per se, since it was almost always a single panel of surreal, occasionally twisted, and sporadically incomprehensible humor. Well, apparently in 1994 there was actually an animated Far Side teevee special that aired a single time, not to be seen again except on a DVD that was markedly different from the broadcast version. I had no idea that the show existed until last night, when I saw it mentioned on MeFi. Details, with links to actually download the thing, here. I haven’t watched it yet. You bet I will, though!

::  The other night on Twitter, one trending topic was “Rejected Peanuts Specials”. Here are a few that I thought were pretty funny:

You’re a horcrux, Charlie Brown

It’s the Great Depression, Charlie Brown

Republicans fired your teacher, Charlie Brown

Snoopy Didin’t Really Go To Live On A Farm, Charlie Brown

The World Is Run By Jews, Charlie Brown

And so we beat on, boats against the current borne ceaselessly back into the past, Charlie Brown

They’re Burning a Cross On Franklin’s Lawn Again, Charlie Brown

It’s an Intervention, Charlie Brown

Your Teacher’s Voice is Going to Keep Sounding Like a Muted Trumpet Until You Quit the Shrooms, Charlie Brown

The Difference in Size Between Your Enormous Head and Tiny Body Will Lead to Orthopaedic Problems, Charlie Brown

It’s A Good Thing You Never Grow Up Because Corporations Gutted Our Economy and Left Us Jobless, Charlie Brown

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Charlie Brown

It’s Chinatown, Charlie Brown

Put the Lotion in the Basket, Charlie Brown

And of course, I had to submit a few of my own….

Meet Scott Norwood, Charlie Brown!

Blood Spatter and GSR at the Van Pelts’ — CSI: Charlie Brown

Here’s Your Red Shirt, Ensign Brown! A Peanuts/Star Trek Crossover

I like the CSI: Charlie Brown notion, personally…I can totally see David Caruso in that.

“Quite the murder scene, Horatio.”

“Yes, Frank. Six victims. All children with enormous heads. One of them, a girl, holding a football.”

“Hey, H!”

“Yes, Eric?”

“Look at these little footprints all over. Almost like a little bird was flitting around the crime scene.”

“Could be, Eric. And the bodies seem to have been riddled with…ammunition from a World War I biplane. Hey Calleigh? Take this green blanket down to the lab. There might be DNA on that.”

“Sure, Horatio. I can’t believe this crime scene. Do you think the killer is somewhere nearby?”

“I do, and when we find him, he’s gonna say, [puts on sunglasses] ‘Good Grief’.”

[Smash cut to ROGER DALTREY SCREAM and opening credits]

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: You know what they say about guys with big feet…they wear big shoes!

::  Scrap metal thieves annoy me, but I can’t help but on some level admire two guys who made a pretty penny by stealing a frakkin’ BRIDGE and selling it for scrap. Wow.

::  I can’t help but link this: a lovely young woman consumes a cheeseburger in one bite. The fact that she’s also wearing overalls is just a bonus.

No, I will not be making any attempt to replicate this feat. A man’s got to know his limitations.

::  Roger e-mailed this to me (leading me to wonder if I am becoming to bib overalls what John Scalzi is to bacon, but hey, somebody’s gotta do it)…I saw this years ago, when The Daughter actually watched Sesame Street on a regular basis, but I’d forgotten about it. I always loved the “Random celebrity shows up and sings a song with the Muppets” bits on Sesame Street; in fact, WNED (Buffalo’s public teevee station) used to run those clips in the two-or-three minute breaks between shows. Of course, this one’s appealing because it’s got Gloria Estefan — one of the most captivating women in the world, for my money — in overalls!

Estefan did another one, probably from the same episode, but I couldn’t find it on YouTube, so here it is. And just because, here are some other “celebrities with the Muppets” clips that I particularly like.

Nathan Lane:

Diana Krall:

Garth Brooks:

Norah Jones:

No singing, but here’s Patrick Stewart:

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

::  I’m not a fan of the movie, but Alien is definitely a triumph of production design. The main model of the ship, Nostromo, ended up sitting outside, covered with tarps, for twenty years until someone bought and it started restoration work. Check it out!

::  Wait, what?

(Seen on Tumblr.)

::  An Australian golf course has sharks living in the water traps. Big whoop…call me back when the sharks have LASERS on their heads! (via)

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

::  The Twelve Coolest Libraries in the World.

::  The Top Ten Books Lost to Time.

::  This has been making the rounds of Tumblr and Facebook for a few weeks now. It’s something that employees of one of the nation’s recently-closed Borders stores put up to get some stuff off their chests:

I’m really not unsympathetic to some of this kind of thing. Everybody who works in any kind of position where customer service is involved will have equivalent stories, and we all often yearn to let loose and say some of these things. Some of us actually do slip up on occasion, which then earns us an invitation to a manager’s office for a conversation that can go in many directions, depending on the severity of what was said.

But still…I dunno. It’s funny, but there is zero chance that any customer whose behavior would get them on this list will ever see it, and if they did, there is zero further chance that they’ll recognize their own behavior as listed here. Ultimately this seems a bit petty to me.

More next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!

::  This may be the best news story I will ever read. Seriously. How can it not be, with a lede like this?

In all his years in Brazilian law enforcement, police chief Marconi Almino de Lima had never faced a case like this: a sordid tale of love, jealousy, a contract killer and kitchen condiments.

Seriously, that is just awesome. This story screams out to be used on an episode of CSI Miami. I can even hear the dialog:

“Horatio…is this…ketchup?”

“Yes it is, Frank. And we [puts on sunglasses] are gonna bring the mustard.”

[SMASH CUT with ROGER DALTREY SCREAM to OPENING CREDITS]

::  Ever wonder what the concert posters might have looked like for the Muppets’ Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem? Well, wonder no more! These are terrific. (Thanks to SamuraiFrog for pointing these out.)

::  I love Buffalo, but there’s now way Buffalo is cool enough to have installed these on the Metro Rail cars.

More next week!

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