RIP Michael Jackson

He died in LA after going into cardiac arrest.

Who will inherit all of the Beatles songs?

Transformers 2

Ebert's first paragraph:

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

From the New York Times:

There’s a serious disconnect in the movie between the image of power that those GM brands are meant to convey and the bankrupt car industry they now signify. That disconnect only deepens with the introduction of two new Autobot characters, the illiterate, bickering twins Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson), both of which take the shape of Chevrolet concept cars. The characters have been given conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas. For what it’s worth, the script, by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, also includes a crack about Simmons, who’s coded as Jewish, and his “pubic-fro head.”

Glad I decided to stick with cartoon versions of the 'Bots after seeing the first one.

Coffee Makin' Robot

via Topless Robot

carnivore!

I don't know who to credit, but this image has been making the rounds. We're next on the rounds.

Homeless Life In Sims 3

Meet Alice and Kev, two Sims involved in a sort of simulated social experiment, what's it like to grow-up homeless in Sims 3?

Welcome to the tale of Alice and Kev.

This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

The first post on their simulated life is here.

The most, well, heartbreaking part of the story is here.

A-Z of Awesomeness

Neill Cameron, of Neill's Blog, is working his way through the alphabet:

I have been feeling the need lately to just draw some stuff that is fun, for my own amusement. And so I am going to spend the next month doing just that: drawing STUFF that is AWESOME. And the best part is - you get to tell me what.

This is - patently - inspired by Garen's A-Z of Comic Strip Characters from last year, because.. well, because that was fantastic and looked like a lot of fun to do. I'm widening the remit for my attempt, from comic strips to the wider world of pop cultural entertainment. You may suggest characters from film, animation, TV, literature... anything, really, so long as it is AWESOME.

To keep up to date check out A-Z of Awesomeness.

Here's today's picture:


Edit@3:45PM: It's Mr. Whedon's birthday, too!

PS Bacon is Life

I love the phrase soyfucker

Deceived

I feel bad for Paul Simon.

Kodak Killed Kodachrome.

Actually, I feel bad for me, also. And I feel bad for the rest of the world.
I was just about to pick up the ol' Nikon F and take it for some spins. Here's my sad face... :-(

The Return of Spinal Tap BBC Interview

A 60 minute interview of Spinal Tap, celebrating the release of their new album, Back from the Dead.