Stargate found at NASA facility.

Is this a picture of a wind tunnel facility at NASA Ames Research Center after some demolition? Or is it the NASA secret Stargate? See it in action here.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Fox News porn.

They can't show real pornography on Fox News (that would destroy all their credibility... wait, what?) but evidently they're trying. (This is all hearsay for me, I recoil from Fox News like a vampire from sunlight.)

They have articles about salacious subjects and while the newsreader drives out the drivelous words, behind him or her are images of women in bikinis or prostitutes or whatever you might find in a lurid Maxim article.

So one of the bastions of the Republican Party and, consequently, the Religious Right and what they call "family values" is lowering itself to pandering shots of half naked women.

Why exactly are they doing this? I suppose it's because these men who chant the party line on "family values" patronize a lot of strip clubs and magazines that objectify women. Just another example of right-wing hypocrisy.

It scares me when it smells of 1984. "We say this, but we do this, and you'll just ignore that now because we invented some new words to confuse you." It makes the Cold Lizard of Creepiness crawl up my spine.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

When paradigms collide.

In my tiny little personal zeitgeist, there are principles and opinions and guidelines and paradigms and words to live by. One of those is that Sequels and Prequels Suck.

Unfortunately, sometimes the guidelines guide right into each other, causing a collision of principles. Another one of those is that Hot Chicks Rule.

I have watched many a lame television show cause there were hot chicks involved. Birds of Prey, anyone? I say this to free up my flamingly heterosexual brothers out there. I like women and I like to watch them!

Starring in the new series The Sarah Connor Remake are Summer Glau, who we all grew to love in Firefly and Serenity, and Lena Headey, who although British, was steaming hotness in 300.

When guidelines collide, one must win. Nothing is absolute, not even this sentence. So for now, the Hot Chicks beat the Sequels and I will give this show a look.

But you're on probation, Fox. That gal on Bionic Woman was a cutie too, but that didn't last.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Chevrolet 1965.

A classic example of how TV stars used to hawk products. I loved all these shows and the cars too. (Okay, maybe not the Chevy II, but I used to drive a Nova.) SEE Robert Vaughn in a hideous double-breasted suit tell you the Corvair is sophisticated! BEHOLD Adam Cartwright driving a Stingray down a street in Virginia City!



The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Mourning TV.

A fine article by Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of Lost, about how television, as we know it, is dying.

Television has always been free. Sure, if you want all the N.F.L. games in high definition, you have to pay the piper, but the broadcast networks still offer their entire schedules for absolutely nothing. The only catch, of course, is that you have to watch commercials. Economically, it’s a fair deal. The network pays for the shows, gives them to viewers, and makes its cash back through advertising. Which regrettably brings us to the most wonderful thing TiVo does: It enables you to ignore the commercials that keep the whole system running.

Let's look at the facts:

1. Broadcast television is paid for by commercials.
2. DVRs and downloaded content from the internet let you bypass these commercials.
3. It ain't working no more.

This can't last. The whole framework of broadcast television is spiraling down the shit pot. Something new will take its place, and nobody knows what that might be.

My most fervent dream is that we extract from these catastrophes the ability to buy only the channels/shows we want to watch. I have about 300 channels available to me because of all the dumbass "tiers" I have to buy, and I have watched only a tiny fraction of them.

It's like going to a bookstore to buy a science fiction book and they tell you, "Sorry sir, to get that book you'll have to buy the Science Fiction section, and that's those hundred books over there."

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

This is getting weird.

One night, I was watching Chuck with my wife. She said that sometimes he acts like I do. I said I'd never act like him. Or even dress like him. And then I pointed out that he and I were both wearing a simple red T-shirt.

Tonight, Chuck (him not me) was going to Thanksgiving at his sister's house (hey, I have a sister too) wearing a gray sweatshirt with a little triangular thing at the neck. I'm wearing one too. And blue jeans. He has jeans on too.

This is getting weird.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Aren't they cute together?

An interview with Heroes stars Hayden Panettiere and Kristen Bell seems a bit fake to me. (Could be some spoilers here, if you're worried, destroy your computer immediately with a sledgehammer. Just to be sure.)

I used to typeset Tiger Beat magazine, and they would take interviews and install facts in awkward places, like "Madonna, who hails originally from Michigan and is 5-foot-3, released a new album..."

You start reading this thing and you think, "Oh isn't that nice. These two young actresses know each other." But then it just gets smarmy and suspiciously sweet. I dunno, but it seems unlikely to me that this kind of patter just comes out of somebody's mouth unbidden.

I know that all the guys reading this interview are thinking "Me sandwich on tiny blonde bread," but I offer it up nonetheless.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Happily ever after.

As a follow-up to the Black Friday post, we later that same day went to Target and purchased a Magnavox 42-inch 1080p plasma TV I had my eye on for weeks. It was $999, comparable to all the others we looked at except for the 50-inch Hitachi.

Two guys at Target shoehorned this thing into my Malibu back seat, but when we got home, we could not get it out. I still don't know how they got it in there. I decided to cut it out of the box, and then it was easy (the thing is only 3 inches deep, after all).

We looked at a little college football in HD (the Mag has a built-in HD converter) and it was really sweet. I'm gonna watch some NFL on it tomorrow, should be cool.

In other news, today we found (at Target again, jeez I think I'm in love) a WD "MyBook" external hard drive, and I'm using it now to back up our laptops. FireWire is speedy goodness.

So I wanted you all to know that even though Black Friday was a bust for us, we got what we were looking for. Capitalism works, and perseverence pays off. You can't always get the doorbuster you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

So long, Wolf U-Boat.

I'd like to have another widescreen TV. I want HDMI and 1080p for when I get a PlayStation 3. I love television, and I hate it when people say it's bad for you. My favorite Simpsons quote of all time is when Homer tells Bart, "C'mon son, let's go watch TV." Bart says, "What's on?" and Homer replies in that loving way he talks about donuts and pork chops, "It doesn't matter."

This year, I decided to check out the Black Friday specials to see if I could find a good deal. I subscribed to some mailing lists, and saw a couple of choice deals that were sold out before I got to them. Maybe they only had 1 or 2 at that price, or maybe they were just mirages.

I kept checking prices and found a good deal at Best Buy. I read up on how Black Friday works, and found that many "doorbuster" (I love that term) deals are "ticketed." Best Buy was straightforward about how this worked: At 3 a.m., they start handing out tickets to the line for things they have only 15 or 20 of at the store (opens at 5). As far as I could tell, the CyberShot that LWC wanted and the Hitachi 50-inch plasma TV that I wanted were not of the ticketed variety.

We've never tried to play the Black Friday Doorbuster game, so we said, what the hell, let's see how it works. We set the alarm for 4 a.m. and make our bleary-eyed way to Best Buy. I had a feeling that I usually get when I'm traveling and a couple time zones out of kilter. Your body says, "No! Wrong! More sleep!" and you say, "Shut the fuck up! I got things to do."

On the way, we notice that lots are full to bursting for Kohl's and Wal-Mart. You wonder how many people really show up at 5 a.m. to wait in line in 20-degree weather. Admittedly, the Denver folks are not daunted by weather like this, but still.

Arriving at Best Buy, we see a line of about 200 people and zero parking places. We park at a nearby recreational goods store. We're there at 20 till, and the wait doesn't seem too bad, since we're pretty much dressed for it.

Once we get inside, there are lots of handwritten signs for the real doorbuster deals. Boxed DVD sets for 50% off. A DVD player, a little LCD TV, a Canon digital camera. I pick up a 250GB external hard drive which sells for $129, pretty good price.

We wander through the departments, getting an equal amount of "Excuse me" and absolutely nothing as people barrel into us in too much of a hurry. I could tell you which people were the rudest, but that would sound like a racial slur so I won't.

We find some Best Buy employees and ask about our TV and camera. "All gone. Ticketed." Well crap, I didn't realize that. I figured we didn't have enough shopping moxie to get one of the rare ticketed items. We wander around some more, and finally decide to skip the insanely long lines for checkout and I put the hard drive on some shelf.

Then we got breakfast at Denny's. Then we went home. When I finish this post, I'm going back to bed. We didn't buy anything at Best Buy. How do I feel about this? Well, for those folks who got there at 3 a.m. to get a ticket for a Hitachi P50H401, I salute them. They are better shoppers than I, and they deserve their 50 inches of plasma delight. I found out that there is no free lunch. You either go all the way or you lose.

I am reminded of a favorite comic strip by Gahan Wilson that appeared in National Lampoon back when it was a magazine. A young boy wanted desperately to buy a "Wolf U-Boat" model kit. I don't remember the circumstances, but he never got it. The last panel shows the kid saying, "So long, Wolf U-Boat." In a thought bubble, the U-Boat is sailing away, and it says, "So long, kid."

I support the writers' strike.

When I was a journeyman member of the International Typographers' Union Local Nr. 14, we were also told that we should take a year off from pay increases because management had to pay extra cash to buy phototypesetting equipment. Any time they tell you to "take a year off" or "take this rate now to grow the business" they are fucking you in the ass with sand in it.

The 1994 pilot for 24.

Might as well watch this 24 times, since there's no 24 this season. Actually, it wasn't that good anyway.

I think Brad found this first, but he sent it to me at work with a URL like "cameltap.com" and I was scared to click until I got home. Anyway thanks, Brad.

Lucas peddles half-baked shit.

In this LA Times article, Lucas admits there's nothing good in his new TV series.

"The Skywalkers aren't in it, and it's about minor characters," Lucas said in an interview. "It has nothing to do with Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader or any of those people. It's completely different. But it's a good idea, and it's going to be a lot of fun to do."

He's saying, "It's Star Wars, you fucking losers, you'll buy it and you don't care if it's good or not. Remember the prequels?" To further decode this missive, "a lot of fun to do" means "I'll have a lot of fun counting the money I make from you rubes."

I'll say it again: I don't want to watch anything made from backstory. Yes, I'm looking at you, Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The good news is that Lucas has nary a clue as to how television works and so far nobody wants to buy this thing. Who would have though that it was television excecutives that taught him a lesson about making good stuff?

Dollhouse!

Joss is God, Joss is Boss, and Joss is Back! As scooped by Dr. Heimlich, Joss Whedon is working on a new TV show for the hellish Fox network called
Dollhouse.

Reportedly he was enticed to do so by the lovely Eliza Dushku, who will star. Every great writer needs a muse, right?

I am excited! The bandwagon starts here! Tell all your friends!

Hoopleheads.

Much has been made about the language used on the HBO series Deadwood. Most talk about the use of profanity. Many of you would say that when you think of Deadwood, you think of the word "cocksucker."

However, much of the dialog on the show is like poetry, and there are many unusual words. Characters use the word "poor" or "poorly" instead of "sick," for example.

One word stands out among many for me as the unique word of the series: Hooplehead. David Milch admits he pretty much grabbed it out of the air. The indefatigible Michael Quinion assays that it might derive from a comic strip, but there's not even a Wikipedia entry for it.

Used most often by Albert Swearingen, its always used in third person, never as a direct accusation. It's obviously derogatory, and doesn't appear to be a racial slur. As words go, it's a fine word to describe those who have done foolish things.

Gibson on Deadwood.

William Gibson is terrific. One of my five favorite writers, amongst whom I can assign no ranking. Some cool quotes from this article in the Washington Post:

Gibson puts a premium on making his details rich. He's always wanted his world to be "naturalistic -- where people used toilets. And dry cleaners. And things got rusty and things broke." He recently caught up with the HBO series "Deadwood," which, among its many achievements, once portrayed possibly the most convincing case of kidney stone suffering ever captured on film. Gibson thinks it's the greatest television America has ever produced. "This is like what I wanted to do" in his work, he says, "but they were doing it with westerns."

[Regarding "the death of the book"] "It's the oldest and the first mass medium. And it's the one that requires the most training to access. Novels, particularly, require serious cultural training. But it's still the same thing -- I make black marks on a white surface and someone else in another location looks at them and interprets them and sees a spaceship or whatever. It's magic. It's a magical thing. It's very old magic, but it's very thorough. The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out."

I don't think I mentioned this in the blogosphere, but we've finally gotten around to watching Deadwood on DVD and it's absolutely wonderful. Terrific television.

Not much guidance to be had.

I took this photograph of my television, as an illustration of what Comcast calls my "cable guide." You will note that this so-called "guide" shows a total of four channels at a time.

Four channels at a time.

Like every cable user, I have about 200 channels that I don't want. (There are several more I'd like to have, but the next "tier" provides another hundred or so.) Several hundred more that I don't pay for access to reside in this cable guide, as what I suppose is a marketing scheme: Look! You can't watch this! Don't you want to?

Four channels at a time.

The only tool I am provided with to navigate this endless sea of shit I don't have or don't want is the poorly-named "guide" that shows me only FOUR FUCKING CHANNELS AT A FUCKING TIME.

Like many things in this modern age, a tool originally intended to help me operate a device has turned into a marketing bitch whoring itself out and in the process becoming totally useless.

Hoopleheads are in control.

Which Hero are you?

This test is bogus. Guess who I am?

Plasma > LCD.

Our new condo has a large living room, and we're thinking about a new TV. I need to get a 1080p with HDMI anyway, for when I get a PS3 in July. My friends are telling me that the new LCD TVs are much better, and I should get one of those. I absolutely love my plasma, so I had to be convinced.

We spent some time at Best Buy and compared about a dozen or more flatscreen TVs, and I still think the blacks and contrast on plasma are far superior to LCD. So we're still looking, but now I'm fixed on plasma. I measured the distance between the windows, and we've got room for a 60-incher. Woot!

The Lone Gunmen pilot.

This might be old news to you. The first episode of the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen, from March 2001, concerned a plot to fly a plane into the World Trade Center.

Supposedly, this kind of plan was around for a while, even in a Tom Clancy novel. So I guess it's not an original invention of the writers here. Of course, there's an anti-government spin in the storyline which is particularly tasty. No, I don't think the terrorists "got the idea" from this episode.

Watching it now is chilling. (So is the horrendous acting.)

Ren + Stimpy = ?

Do you see any kind of subtext in this Ren & Stimpy clip?



Here's the link. Thanks to UniqueVids for the hookup.

Oh yeah, and talk like a Pirate today. Arr and stuff like that.