It seems to me there’s been a lot of commercial time dedicated to the new Fox Human Target series.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7Yv3aWc8w]
I’ll be frank, it looks quite a bit like a standard contemporary spy-thriller TV show.
You know what was way better? Human Target (1992).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b7JrOj6HAc]
He had a flying wing!
He had a machine that could give him any face!
He was Rick “Jessie’s Girl” Springfield!
Cuvier, Georges (1769-1832) – French comparative anatomist who is considered the founder of functional anatomy, which maintains that the knowledge of structure acquires meaning only when the purpose is known. His study of comparative anatomy allowed him to draw conclusions about one part of an organism from investigating other parts. A famous story tells how his students dressed up in a devil’s costume and woke up Cuvier in the middle of the night, chanting “Cuvier, Cuvier, I have come to eat you.” Reportedly, Cuvier opened his eyes, remarked “All creatures with horns and hooves are herbivores. You can’t eat me,” and went back to sleep. – more
I need to get me a nifty legend.
This image of an early English playing-card shows the king of hearts wielding an axe. Due to poor copying by blockmakers the axe lost its head over the years and the shaft was turned into a sword which appears to be driven into his head, hence the nickname “Suicide King”. – IPCS
Interesting, and as a side note, I love the swagger the artist gave him – it’s certainly better than a simple mirroring of the top half of the card.
Some other card names I rather liked (nicked from here):
Queen of Spades: Black Maria (from the game of the same name)
Nine of Diamonds: Curse of Scotland
Seven of Diamonds: The Drinking Card
Jack of Clubs: pam (from the card game ‘pam’, in which this card is high trump)
Four of Clubs: Devil’s Bedposts
Which left me with questions, so I found more info on snopes, which has an extensive card article:
The Curse of Scotland: The nine of diamonds was supposedly christened thus after being used by John Dalrymple, Secretary of State and Master of Stair, to pass on instructions for the infamous Glen Coe Massacre of 1692. Whether or not he did write “Kill them all” on this pasteboard, the arrangement of the nine diamonds on its face bears some resemblance to the Dalrymple crest of arms, which can also account for the association of this card with that man
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsaFDZfz8Lc]
I’m just starting to realize how much Hilarious House of Frightenstein, and the work of Billy Van specifically, shaped my childhood.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0UsMPjyWk]
Frightenstein.com lists Billy Van as Count Frightenstein, Bwana Clyde, Gorilla, Grizelda, Librarian, Maharishi, Oracle, Pet Vet, Singing Soldier, and the Wolfman – and yet he sells each one. The site also mentions that he was the child of a vaudeville family, which certainly comes through in the gags – the non sequitur jokes, the two man setups, the character work. Was Hilarious House of Frightenstein the last gasp of the classic vaudeville formula [for children, in a low budget broadcast, on an educational station]?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjpS878VatI]
Someone should go over and hassle Jessica May – I’ve distinctly heard her strumming unknown songs around the house, and now that she’s done congealing life in her tummy she needs to get back to her real duties: playing music and blogging. Har.
Warren Ellis has posted up some notes on how he tends his notebooks that I found rather interesting – although I admit I’m a bit of a creative process voyeur.
I’ve also moved back to doing the majority of my brain thrushing with pencil on paper, despite my trusty tablet laptop. My notebook travels snuggly, provides an immediately accessible interface for both text and diagrams, and allows for weird spatial change ups that a word doc can’t carry off.
The truth is though, in the end I need to have everything digitized and skimmable, (most of the actual construction work still happens at the keys after all,) so I tag most of my entries: Scrap, Journal, Blog, Idea, Fodder, etc. My handwriting is tremendously unreadable, but by making a little effort in keeping the tags legible I can use my scanner and some OCR software to translate things into a relatively easy-to-search interface.
Anyhow, his post also reminded me that I’d meant to point towards Lovecraft’s Idea Notebook, which is another enlightening stroll through someone else’s noggin.
Raccoons can purr!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K3u6TxQkxg]
Just a quick note I’ve been meaning to post regarding the imeem situation from a while ago.
Sean from imeem was intensely helpful in getting my account business sorted out; once I was back in, I recalled that I’d originally signed up while on a drive to find a service like Pandora (an internet radio/music discovery system) that would work without my having to fake an American citizenship. Imeem definitely meets that standard.
I haven’t spent hundreds of hours listening, yet, but I’m pretty pleased with the band/song selection and the recommendation mechanism.
I am, however, getting a little tired of re-selecting bands I enjoy (I’m looking at you yahoo! music/facebook/etc) – if I had the time I’d buy out personal.info and create a system that does nothing but cross-manage service profiles.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk]
I stole this video from Dave Kellet‘s twitter feed. The dribbling and phone throw are oddly beautiful, and terrifying.
