majiksznak

I'm still not sure why people call this "human Tetris". Anyway, another video of the hilarious Japanese game show where you have to squeeze through the hole of a moving wall. The last one is hysterical.

All country albums sound like these to me.

I guess if you're going to ineptly try to rob a 7-11, you'd better leave before a ninja customer comes and kicks your ass.

Some great old ads. I think I posted the one about how unhappy marriages can be fixed by douching with Lysol before.

I've yet to see a video of washing a cat that didn't make me laugh.

The 9 most typecast actors of all time. On Alec Baldwin:

Alec Baldwin is the aural equivalent of pouring three fingers of whiskey over crushed ice.

Nice.

Futurama movies are coming straight to DVD. Thanks for the link, Lizard!

I hope this doesn't mean they aren't doing a new season of Futurama for TV.

Han Shot First: even George Lucas knows it. Link from TSA's blog. Here's a link to the shirt.

Chuck Norris proves the age-old theory that pouring beer on yourself gives your motor vehicle supernatural powers.

Unicorn vs. Narwhal.

The Pope speaks out on the clash between evolution and creationism.

They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other. This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.Pope Benedict XVI

Trailer for Soylent Green. Man: trailers used to be really long.

Pictures of photographers. Great collection of amusing shots.

Could this interview be Merry Miller's last? Watch as a hilariously awkward, dim interviewer interviews Holly Hunter. Read The Superficial's synopsis...

What is it with turtles and cats? Why can't they just get along.

Ridley Scott is working on Blade Runner: The Final Cut. I am pleased.

A story on real life superheroes including:

Angle-Grinder Man

Angle-grinder Man patrols by night looking for unhappy drivers who have been clamped and then sets their cars free. An odd-job man by day, he operates in Kent during the week and in London on weekends. He decided to go "full-time vigilante" in May this year. "My obsession with wheel-clamping is actually a rebellion against a much deeper malaise," he said. "Namely, the arrogant contempt that politicians hold for the people who put them into power, and whom they claim to represent."

The next time you have 15 minutes to spare, check out this video demonstrating gameplay in Metal Gear Solid 4. Killer.

Bambi and Thumper. Awwwww!

Movie Review: Stardust

I got to see an advance screening of Stardust yesterday, and here's a mini-review.

The cast is pretty star-studded, though I've never seen the lead character before. He was charming enough, though, and pulled it off.

The movie takes place mostly in a magical fantasy world that happens to be handily accessible by walking through a gap in a 7-foot tall stone wall in the South-Eastern U.K. An ass-kicking old man guards the gap from casual travelers. The rest of the wall is unguarded. I think it takes place in the 1800s, so nobody has invented ladders yet.

Fair enough, but since the main story needs to happen in this brand new fantasy world (new if you haven't read Neil Gaiman's novel), the movie just dumps a lot of the fantasy stuff on you. The main character takes the existence of a whole other universe filled with real magic in stride. I think that this was meant to prompt the audience to do the same, but I was left behind. As a result, it took about half the movie for me to become comfortable with what was going on. For me, a scene where the enormity of discovering the whispered-about magic kingdom beyond the wall hit the main character would probably have been enough.

It was probably because of my state of skepticism at the beginning that the acting seemed "off" because after I got into the movie, I found the characters to be well portrayed.

The movie is beautifully shot, and the visual effects are unobtrusive and attractive. Michelle Pfeiffer is delightfully evil, Claire Danes makes you go, "Awwww," and Robert DeNiro is amusing. The humour sometimes seems a bit subdued and out of place, but it is never bad or stupid. I laughed heartily several times.

At any rate, there's a lot less to complain about in this movie than in many other summer blockbusters. So go see it (with a girl, probably). It's cute, and you'll probably have fun.

4/5

Awesome news for nerds! The dude who plays Sylar on Heroes will be playing young Spock in the upcoming Star Trek prequel.

Clear instructions on how to be a good wife.

A singer blesses us with his rendition of Amazing Grace, Omazing Grace.

French tribute to U.S. soldiers who helped liberate France.

"BBC English" is disappearing.

Go buy a Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz processor. They've dropped from about $600 to $300. Had this happened 14 days ago, I could have gotten $300 back on the purchase of my new machine.

BALLS!

Space Shuttle takes out stupid bird.

The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie has the best intro ever made. Just trust me on this one. NSFW lyrics.

Wondering what the Wii Fit is all about? Wonder no more.

This creepy old man can clap almost as loud as the sound of helicopter blades.

Girl dancing to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Cool!

Andy Dick being a Dick timeline. Until recent news of his latest run-in with Jon Lovitz, I didn't know he'd kicked off Phil Hartman's wife's relapse into cocaine abuse.

Canada may no longer be the cheapest place to buy an iPod... A new iPod tax is coming. Sad face!

Something Awful points out a catalog of shit products.

Here are some real gems that the article doesn't point out.

The Smoker's Bib: for people too obese to reach out and flick ashes away from their bodies and too unfit to run if they catch their clothes on fire.

Also note the Seatbelt Helper. If you are physically unable to grab the seatbelt, you probably shouldn't be driving.

If you want to be terrified by a misshapen giant Elvis face touching you every time you wake up, have they got the product for you.

We get it... You don't care about anything. Maybe that's why you live in a trailer park and have to order the XXXL shirt.

What could possibly capture the magic of Nascar? Why, staring at a ceiling fan, of course. Vrooooom!

For those of you who can't wait until the Christmas season to stare at a video of a fireplace, your prayers have been answered.

Heck, their products even tell you not to order them.

These assholes want to give rape a kinder, gentler name to discourage its victims from getting abortions...

Face-slapping fighting game. What are you waiting for? Beat her cheek!

Neocons are a riot.

"Down the line, we're not going to bail out the French again." He mimes picking up a phone and shouts into it, "I can't hear you, Jacques! What's that? The Muslims are doing what to you? I can't hear you!"

Unfortunately Placed Ads.

Article: Real Men Love the Fifth Element. This article's value really comes from the animated gif under the title, "Bruce Willis getting his shit wrecked by Ian Holm".

God Wondering Whatever Happened To That Planet Where He Made All Those Monkeys.

To TSA, a homemade iPod charger == a bomb.

U of A prof defends the word "like". Like, whatever. I, like, totally like like.

National Sarcasm Society Shirt. Thanks for the link, Mens Rhesus. Thanks a lot.

Homer vs. the Pagans. They find Homer Simpson less aesthetically pleasing than poorly drawn teenage graffiti?

The Onion comments on recent scientific evidence that: humans are hard-wired for faith.

Mildly NSFW commercials for Mac's slushies. I don't know if it's such a great idea comparing your product to jizz.

Hmm. Tons of copyrighted movie content for free in your web browser. Neat.

I accidentally made up a new Transformer.

Optimus Prim.

I'm trying to decide what he transforms into. Nail clippers? A starched shirt? A duvet cover? A manuscript of Pride and Prejudice? 9k suggests an entire canopy bed with skirt or a floor length, shapeless, floral skirt with a high-necked blouse with lace trim.

What do you think Optimus Prim transforms into?

Autobots! Transform, and look proper!

Interesting story about Diamond engagement rings.

Many women hope for a marriage in which housework, child-rearing, and breadwinning are equitably divided. The engagement ring doesn't fit into this intellectual framework. Rather, its presence on a woman's finger suggests that she needs to trap a man into "commitment" or be damaged if he leaves."

It's a big, shiny NO TRESPASSING sign, stating that the woman wearing it has been bought and paid for, while her beau is out there sign-free and all too easily trespassable, until the wedding.

Drunk tilted room sketch. So funny.

Cat in freefall. Be sure to check out the dog video someone posted as a reply...

This is what happens to bad gummy bears.

A letter from GEICO to Optimus Prime informing him of his new increased premium...

This is oddly amusing: cat spank.

Butterflies demonstrate rapid evolution.

World's tallest man meets world's shortest man. Sort of scary: the short guy looks like an action figure compared to the tall guy.

Ladies: want to get your marriage on in a jiffy? Have I got the site for you!

Awesome Japanese baseball pitch. Brilliant!

Hubba hubba!

I just massively upgraded my computer:

• Antec Nine Hundred case
• Intel Core 2 Quad processor (2.4GHz) cooled with a Scythe Ninja Plus heatsink / fan.
• 4GB RAM (DDR2, 1066MHz)
• eVGA GeForce 8800 GTX ACS³ video card (768MB Memory)
• Three 500GB Seagate SATAII hard drives in a RAID5 array
• Corsair HX 620W modular power supply

I guess it wasn't so much an upgrade as a replacement...

At any rate, the thing smokes. It handles F.E.A.R. and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion flawlessly. Older, but nice looking games like Half-Life 2 are, of course, perfect. All at 1920x1080 with all graphics options cranked to their maximum settings.

I hadn't been in the PC gaming loop for a long time, squeaking by with an Athlon XP 1800+ with a Radeon 9800 Pro video card, but I am back in a big way. I should be able to handle the game I'm most excited about: Crysis.

This computer will also let me run DOSBox well, so theoretically I'll be able to play the classic games of yesteryear, like Syndicate, Flashback, XCom: UFO Defense, and so on.

Plus, it's quieter than my old machine!

10 Politically Incorrect Truths about Human Nature is an interesting article.

Criminals: now there's a new way to get tasered... with a shotgun! Whee!

Another Hitler music video: Born to be Alive.

Being savvy Internet denizens, you've no doubt heard of "Real Dolls" (expensive, mostly realistic sex dolls). Here is a documentary on 4 guys who have them. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, it's supposed to be 46 minutes long.

Transformers Movie Review

I saw the Transformers movie yesterday. I'll be seeing it again, which may confuse you based on my mini-review:

Parts of the new Transformers movie made me want to kill myself. Michael Bay should feel intense shame for some of the shit he put into this movie, and pride that he managed to stuff enough awesomeness in to make up for aforementioned shit.

First off, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure I needed to be offended by Anthony Anderson's buffoonish antics.

Also, I'm going to tone this down a bit for the kids, but anyone who laughed at Bumblebee "peeing" on a bad guy needs to be pulled out into the street and shot in the back of the head. I was very close to walking out of the theatre when I saw that.

That being said, Bay managed to follow up the vomitously bad moments with rewarding bits. The transformations were cool, and the action was great. The fight sequences suffered a bit due to editing and close-in camera angles that left you wondering just what was going on. In terms of plot holes, the movie looks like a road sign in Alabama, but the basic premise of the movie was solid and interesting enough.

I wished more time had been devoted to developing the Transformers as characters. Mike pointed out that this was most apparent for the Decepticons, and he's right. Megatron didn't feel dangerous (though the voice acting and processing was satisfyingly menacing) because the movie didn't give you a reason to fear him.

Now that it's been a few paragraphs since I complained about the awful attempts at humour, I can now bring up that I genuinely laughed quite a few times. There were a lot of bits that were funny without being stupid. On a related note, there was one catchphrase from the original series that made its way into the movie (completely out of context)... Look for it when the audience lets out a collective groan.

IMDB gives the film 8.1 right now (down from 8.5 on the day of release). It's hard to give Transformers a single rating: There were bits I really enjoyed and bits that made me want to buy this shirt. For that reason I give the movie two ratings:

The Good Bits: 8.5/10
The Bad Bits: 0/10

I think the good bits are worth it.

Spinal Tap plays "Big Bottom" with an army of famous bass players. Wicked!

Disney animation reuse.

Pathetic kid can't stop playing World of Warcraft.

CTRL+SHIFT+ESC brings up the task manager in Windows. Thank you, Lifehacker!

Woman plans to buy all the iPhones in a store. Fails. Thanks, Sheky.

I saw the headline a while ago but didn't watch the video. It was funnier than I expected.

David Letterman points out Inaccuracies in Larry King's Paris Hilton interview.

Dude changed his name to Jason Megatron Burrows. Awesome!

Bill Maher discusses conservatives who dismiss the French. It's true: they really are embarrassing themselves.

"I found the son of a bitch who invented Comic Sans!"

Pure gold.

Star Wars Origami. I'm not sure if it's still origami if it's wadded up, but damn those are good.

Rock Band preview. This game is going to kick lots of ass! Dibs on drums.

Nick: check out the frets on the controller...

Hateful stereotypes behind 5 childrens' cereal mascots.

Blip was a mechanical Pong-like game.

Kylie Minogue will be on the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special. I've been digging the new Doctor Who.

Learn to use Vi.

This hamster is very much engrossed with his popcorn. Very much engrossed!

Ryan vs. Dorkman II. Remember the nerdy guys with their amazing lightsabre battle? They're back. This one is pretty effed up!

Yet another "keep the X traveling to the right" game: Ram de Hamster This one's quite good and involves you a bit more than most.