Category: goo brain

Anxious Noises

I’ve been wanting to write this relatively quick post since last Friday, so here goes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB8fCm1dTOs]

If you’ve been near a television in the last few weeks, you’ve seen an ad for Inception. Despite the overplay of the commercials, I’m quite excited to see it – partially because it seems to have a great Movie Noise, which you can hear above.

(I poked around for a better version, I know I’ve heard it at the end of at least one of the spots, but there are a million ads to check, and my internet is still limping.)

As far as Movie Noises go, it’s pretty fantastic, probably better than the Silent Hill Siren:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uomMX66AKFM]

– although not quite as good as the Jason-noise:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBkdtEkAZhM]

Still, for my money, there’s no single more terrifying or superior Movie Noise than the slamming from The Entity.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZZJVpRU-A#t=0m47s]

(Starts at 55 seconds.)

Piratania

Where did we pick up The Pirate Accent from, as if Piracy were a nation?

Wikipedia has this to say on the topic:

Stereotypical pirate accents tend to resemble accents either from Cornwall or Bristol in South West England, though they can also be based on Elizabethan era English or other parts of the world. Pirates in film, television and theatre are generally depicted as speaking English in a particular accent and speech pattern that sounds like a cross between a West country accent and an old English accent, patterned on that of Robert Newton’s performance as Long John Silver in 1950 film Treasure Island.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVX5ZfTcGNU]

I ask as I’ve recently been piratically spoiled, by a true master of the pirate tongue, Captain Ignatius Pigheart:

Gaargh, as I sit here with a pot o’ crude coral rum and me peg leg restin’ on the table behind me, I’m minded to recall a day most dear to me black and twisted heart. – more

About Last Night

Last night, this happened:

Dog demanded a trip outside – we both got locked in life or death struggle with an adventurous frog. Everyone survived. Back to bed.Wed Jul 14 05:24:49 via TwitterrificJRD Skinner
JRDSkinner


I got a few comments in the morning wondering about the details – I love my dog, but I think this small chart I whipped up does a lot of the explaining:
Dog Brain
Once I’d waved Mina off the frog – who, for some reason, had decided the pond was too full, and had relocated into our porch instead – the tiny amphibian attempted to make his escape.

With a mighty leap, it found a perfect hiding place to wedge itself into: between the door and the jamb.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” I asked

“Erp,” it replied, staring at me with its stupid amphibian eyes.

It took my still half-asleep brain a few moments to summon my “No, seriously.” voice to send the dog away – a few moments that mostly consisted of me trying to balance keeping the door open and keeping the dog back, all while being dive bombed by Mothra’s cousins.

German Beer

It’s tough to get a decent German beer here in North America, and there’s a good reason for that.

The beer industry in Germany, (or so I’ve read,) is very localized – each region has a preferred brew that they specialize in. This only deepens the kind of inter-area rivalries that develop everywhere in the world, and prevents any one beer from becoming the Miller/Molson/Bud of Germany.

It’s also the reason German beer is so horribly delicious: no one wants to come from the place with shoddy ale.

(I’m looking at you, Leipzig.)

To help keep things that way, there’s a special dictate, The Reinheitsgebot:

The Reinheitsgebot (literally “purity order”), sometimes called the “German Beer Purity Law” or the “Bavarian Purity Law” in English, is a regulation concerning the production of beer in Germany. In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. After its discovery, yeast became the fourth legal ingredient. For top-fermenting beers the use of sugar is also permitted. – wikipedia

Not only does this mean that brewers are required to be reasonably pure in their brewing, it also means the extra garbage that gets thrown into North American wobbly pops prevents them from being sold in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland – without cheap Coors to crowd it off the market, Dunkler Bock has room to flourish.

Drinking Scene From Inglourious Basterds

Crying Over Spillane'd Milk

I don’t usually quote large portions of articles, but it was tough to know where to stop with this one:

Son of NYC mobster Mickey Spillane falls to death

NEW YORK – The son of murdered Irish mobster Mickey Spillane tumbled out the window of his sixth-floor apartment in a fatal fall Saturday, police and his uncle said.

Robert “Bobby” Spillane, an actor who had roles on television’s “Rescue Me” and “Law & Order,” fell from his Midtown Manhattan apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood near Times Square where his father, not to be confused with the pulp fiction writer of the same name, had run rackets back in the 1960s and 1970s.

No criminality was suspected in Bobby Spillane’s death.

Jim McManus, Spillane’s uncle and a longtime neighborhood power broker, called Spillane’s death a “terribly sad accident.”

“He was the nicest kid in the world,” said McManus, who is a district leader of the McManus Midtown Democratic Association, a political club. “He helped everyone.”

Butting out his cigar, he added: “Nice newspaper you’re running there, be a shame if something happened to it.”

Is “he was leaning against the window screen” the gangster equivalent of “she walked into a door”?

Also, “criminality”? Are we lookin’ at the criminality of this friggin’ mook or what? Let’s stick with “police have no reason to suspect foul play”, or even “the death was an accident.”

Bunny Killers

Listen, I know Night Of The Lepus, the “Giant Bunnies Attack a Town” 1970s horror movie, isn’t exactly known for its realism or tight plotting – still, I caught part of it on cable last night, and recalled something that I actually do find creepy every time I see it.

Night Of The Lepus Hug

(I apologize for the quality of the pictures, I took them with my iPhone, straight from the picture-box.)

I understand the value of the parent-child bonding that “Take Your Child To Work”-day can provide, but I’m not sure that it has the intended effect when you’re bringing your daughter to an animal testing lab full of angry rabbits in tiny metal cages.

This scene actually goes on to poke one of the rabbits with a large needle full of chemicals, while the two staff members tersely discuss their lack of any idea about what might happen as a result, all as the little girl watches on from the rear of the room.
Night Of The Lepus Lock up
Worse still, she needs to be there for the plot: she’s the MacGuffin that moves the infected rabbit out of observation and into another unmarked cage as “it’s her favourite”.

I realize she’s just a standard ’70s mop-headed child actor in a poorly plotted movie, but I choose to believe she was a pro-bunny sympathizer who fully understood her actions.

Whatever the case, ten minutes later it’s all giant rabbits and Deforest “Bones” Kelly shouting about how he’s a doctor, not a veterinarian.
Night Of The Lepus Poster

Crime Never Bids

Hardy, a friend of mine who has a spider-sense for odd Canadiana, sent me this gubmint auction link.

I’ve seen my share of government auctions – I was expecting seized Honda Civics and grow-op houses – but no, this is actually general surplus, so it’s not JUST the former possessions of the incarcerated. (Although, yeah, there’s plenty of that too.)

Stretcher

One stretcher, slightly used? Yikes.

20,000 Straws

I don’t know where these came from – but I love the understated nature of the picture. At first I couldn’t figure out why the government was wasting my tax money trying to sell straws and plastic lids, but then I realized it’s actually 20,000 of each. That’s a lot of straw wrappers to blow at people.

Diamond Chips

I know what I said about seized assets, but wouldn’t you want to play International Super Spy with a bag full of real diamond chips?

Just pretend they weren’t actually wrenched out of old ladies’ ring-settings by a meth-head B&E specialist using a pair of rusty needle nose pliers.

My Hovercraft Is Full Of EeeeelsI actually WANT to believe this is a seized asset – that somewhere there’s a crime lord that once shouted: “Oh no, the cops! Quick boys, to the hovercraft!”