Blinded by the light

Thanks to youtube, I can finally not be the only person who ever saw the Blinded By The Light skit on the single season of the CBC show The Vacant Lot! First though, you should probably watch this AMV of Manfred Mann's hit Blinded By The Light so you'll know what's going on. After a little bit of that (just get to the chorus) you can watch the skit itself:



This wikipedia post explains the song, but sadly The Vacant Lot remains unwikied.

Free soda is good when you are thirsty, and you want 96 of something

So if you go to Safeway this week, you can buy 4 twelve packs of Pepsi or Coke for $11... and then you'll get a receipt for an $11 mail in rebate. So for 8 twelve packs the eventual cost to you is CRV and tax: $5.48

It was hard to pick out 4 coke products I wanted, and eventually I picked Vault Zero, an "artificially flavored sugar free hybrid energy soda" according to the box, as a joke.

But if you actually like the taste of Coke or Pepsi, then in addition to being crazy, you'll have the benefit of not just getting a bunch of "free" Mango Tropical Minute Maid and Fresca. Sale ends July 5th.

"Your shows reward knowledge; we punish ignorance"



Thanks again, Vincent!

Not in the Britanicca

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations.

Let the research begin!

A Terrifying Message from Al Gore

While you are waiting for the new straight to DVD Futurama movies (possibly cancelled?) and the even newer Futurama Comedy Central episodes, why not watch this brand new Futurama short:

What you are missing, while you're at work

You probably already saw the Pickle Girl video on BoingBoing, and if you loved it, I suggest Paternity Test Guy:


Also, Cartman on Maury.

(thanks, Vincent!)

All the bases explained.

Bayer Tragix

Regular readers might remember that Bayer knowingly sold HIV-positive blood to hemophilac children; A related fun fact is that Heroin is a word coined and trademarked by Bayer to market the drug as a non-addictive Morphine replacement and as a cough syrup for children. It makes you feel heroic!

List of 50 worst video game names

There are a few I disagree with:

Jumpman - classic game, classic name

Um Jammer Lammy - the title accurately reflects the bizzare nature of the game

M.U.S.C.L.E. - It's named after a cartoon; I don't think that counts. Yu Gi Oh! video games all have retarded names because they are called Yu Gi Oh!, but what do you expect them to be called? It's not really the same thing as making a game called "Stickey Balls"

Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf - exempted because of that Simpsons joke about Lee Carvallo's Putting Challange. Although it's true, there is no fighting in Trevino's Fighting Golf. Now that would be a game!

The rest are genuinely awful though: I mean, dozens of people spent months making a game called "No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!"?

Also, see this Wikipedia list of fictional video games

Last Yag Tragix Post Evar

Blogger writes:

Hello Jason,
We apologize for the delay in responding to you regarding the re-posting of the disputed image on your blog. As no lawsuit has been commenced regarding this issue, please feel free to re-post the Yagtragix image.
Thank you for your patience and courtesy in this regard.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

So I'm glad that's over with. I was thinking of doing a restrospective timeline of all the crazy things that happened to me, but I've decided against that. Instead I'm just going to sum up the main points of this experience.

(1) Now would seem to be a good time to point out that the image in question was never removed from the internets. It has always been where it was originally: right here. What was removed by the DMCA complaint were my posts linking to/embeding that image.

(2) Maybe laws that allow people to censor your writing because of what you link to are retarded laws.

(3) The EFF thinks these laws are dumb, and I suggest you give them money.

(4) It has never been the case that showing the picture of the cover of a book on your blog is an illegal form of speech. I'm glad I didn't have to go to court to reconfirm this.

No fire cannon in space canoe! Massive decompression!



Oddball comics beats me to the punch by indexing the weirdness of Adventures of Kool-Aid Man #1

Let's Build a Totem Pole!



from Jack and Jill, November 1965

Congratulations! You're being blackmailed using the most technologically advanced extortion service in the world, Extortr.

Reese's should sponsor a golf tournament called the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Socktopi World Exclusive: Picture Story featuring TV's SPACE ANGEL



A couple months ago I picked up a big stack of 1960's "Jack and Jill" magazines from the free box of a local thrift store. J&J is a young childrens magazine like Highlights with craft ideas and short stories, illustrated with great period illustrations. The best find though was the April 1963 issue which has a 6 page Space Angel comic in black and white. I could tell the work was by a pro, but I'm not expert enough to indentify the artist by sight. Researching the show, it's a lock to say the artist was the great Alex Toth.

Toth is best known not for his comics, but as the creator of Space Ghost, Birdman, and Sealab 2020 for Hanna Barbera. Space Angel was an earlier cartoon from the makers of Clutch Cargo, and featured static images of Toth's drawings with live action human lips superimposed.

Also of note is that Scott McCloud who shares his name with the Space Angel, changed his name from McLeod.

The official Alex Toth website has a huge gallery with a less than steller interface; I suggest using this Google Image search.

Anyway, enough talk, I've scanned the 6 page Alex Toth Space Angel comic for everyone to read.

3 year old has Jim Lehrer themed birthday party. (with video!)

Don't ask...



well, if you really must know.

Thrill to CSPAN!



We are spending $275,000,000 every day in Iraq.

Imagine everything else we could be doing with $275000000 a day.

Black Hole

I like how Charles Burns evokes this cover for Horrific #5 from 1951 with his more recent cover to Black Hole #5:


Burns spent the last 10 years working on Black Hole and it was worth it: I consider it one of the finest Graphic Novels EVAR. The hardcover collection just came out this year and is only selling for $7 used on Amazon. My only complaint is that it doesn't include the fantastic covers he drew for the series.

Roq la Rue is selling the original art to cover #5 for $1500. It's one of the only pieces still available from Burns' show there.

Clark Kent takes Lois on a date to a new Superman movie, and then has to distract her every time the movie is about to reveal his secret identity! Wha-?!

We're not on the moon yet



This is only one of many classic DC covers with a fat-theme. Dial B For Blog #72 has a more complete run down.

Borat Movie Trailer



Due out this Fall.

Watch an entire episode of the original BBC series here.

Check your ability to hear noises of different frequencies; I can hear 15,000 but not 16,000Hz. My monitor kind of buzzes though so maybe it just blends in.

Poison for your Mind

What does it say about human culture that our longest Wikipedia article is probably this List of Ethnic Slurs?

I didn't read them all, but these are worth looking up:

al Ferengi
Butter stinker
Frankenjackson
Goofy Newfie
Luo bo tou
Nigloo
Mohawk and Navajo and Eskimo and Sioux (all of which are exonyms, not the names the tribes call themselves, but rather the name given them by rival tribes meaning roughly, "Cannibals" "Thieves" "Cannibals" and "Little Snakes" respectively)

Also, there was a Dr. Spearchucker Jones? on M*A*S*H? Wow.

And lastly, this entry for Ching Chong has several interesting points, including the lyrics to a ragtime song and this exchange between Shaq and Yao Ming:

Shaq: "You tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'"
Yao Ming: "Chinese is a hard language to learn."

"'Foolish Heroics!' That's what Pop said as he spanked me after my latest adventure."

This is certainly the strangest Archie story I've ever encountered, although technically it's a Little Archie tale. Little Archie is a spin-off that was published from 1956 until 1983 with the cast of Archie as 6 year olds instead of teenagers, not unlike, say, The Flintstones Kids. Really though, the likely influence is the success of Peanuts (which began in 1950).

All of the Little Archie comics I've read have been in the style of the Dan DeCarlo Archie books, but this story is very very very different. I don't know if other 1950's Little Archies were like this, or if this one is just weird. I can't precisely date when this was first published because I have a reprint of it from Little Archie Digest #33 from 1988.

It begins with Archie's father berating his Mother's driving; she keeps flooding and stalling the car. Then Archie says he has to return "three of Dinky Dolan's favorite snakes" on his bike but his mother makes him clean his room. Later that night, Archie hears the creaky hinges on the garage doors and sees someone stealing their car! "I'll bet that hot car ring from Culver city is behind this!" Little Archie exclaims, getting dressed. He runs outside and gets on his bike when:




Archie saves himself by kicking the bike basket unleashing the snakes "Yii! Snakes! I can't stand snakes!" screams the perp. Then the car rolls down an embankment into a creek. Archie says, "Dad's gonna be upset when I tell him about his car - I flooded it!" And dad was mad, as Little Archie gets a spanking for his "foolish heroics." That'll teach him not to fight to the death with car thieves!

Oh dear god I've wasted my life

This weekend I bought a High Risers 6X6 Crunch Canyon playset in box at the flea market for $4. But when I tried to find info about this toyline online I came up short. There was only 1 item on eBay, and various combinations of Google search terms yield, at most, 7 trivial results. Well, actually 6 trivial hits plus this original commercial for my exact toy:



Go youtube!

What? Too soon?

While searching around for Pixies videos I found this hillarious 22 second clip.



Well, I sincerely thought it was hillarious anyway. But reading the comments, it's clear that some people have no sense of humor.

I was swimming in Atlantic Caribbean

I watched a documentary last night called Gouge about the Pixies. In it, Thom Yorke described attending a 1988 concert, (paraphrasing), "it was the first great gig I ever went to and afterwords we were like 'we have to buy tickets for tomorrow and go again!' Everyone, when they see the Pixies, wants to be in a band that sounds like the Pixies." While David Bowie said, "There's a cliche about the Velvet Underground that they didn't sell many records, but everyone that bought their record started a band, and I think the same thing could be said about the Pixies."
Check out this early performance. They make it look so easy.

There are also these London performances from 1988. Love the rock star clothes, guys.

After breaking up in 1993, the Pixies reunited in 2004, playing to slightly larger audiences than when they were first together. Here they are in Scottland two years ago:


They aren't planning any new albums though.

I guess Bowie and Moby "want to be in a band that sounds like the Pixies", because here they are together covering the Pixies' Cactus. Around 1993, inbetween techno-pop albums, Moby released Animal Rights, a "grunge" album or more acurately, the "Pixies Band" he started after hearing the Pixies. Unfortunately the video for the single from that album "That's When I reached for My Revolver" isn't online.

The internets can't be perfect, I guess.

mbottrell shares his greatest athletic achievement ever.

HPV "Cancer Vaccine" gets FDA approval, thank god.

Every woman on the planet should be given this vaccine if she wants it. 270,000 women died of HPV related cervical cancer in 2002, mostly in the third world where Pap Smears are not commonly available.

Only a few of the strains cause cancer. I had HPV and you probably have or will too. 75% percent of women will be infected with a strain of HPV during their lifetime. This is a victory both in the war on cancer and against the forces in our culture that would rather see a woman die than have sex.

Kottke points to Zarqawi Portrait Sets Record Price For Photography.

Smart-Ass Letters to The Economist - Part 2

We have a winner!

SIR - Please do not ever mention George Bush. And Winston Churchill in the same sentence again, even if you must break all the rules of grammer to do so.

STEVE PETTIT
California

Pippi Longstocking
Scroll down to the image.

"Confidence Problem?"

This person created an experiment to see what Google Adwords would be triggered by Kurt Cobain's wonderful suicide note.

Did you go read it? This is important, I'll wait. In the meantime, here's a picture from Teen Titans #6 from 1966:



Now did you read it? Great. Now go read it again as though it were not a suicide note but rather a letter to his fans that Nirvana was breaking up. It's interesting how it reads both ways, and this is actually a key allegation of Kurt Cobain murder conspiracy theories. Such theorists claim that the suicidal postscript was added to the letter by the real murderers(!).

Unlike all those other conspiracies though, this one probably really is just people searching for meaning in a traumatic, but ultimately chaotic, event. Fun to consider, anyway.

Read about The Tree That Owns Itself and other notable trees on Wikipedia's List of Famous Trees.

Titans! We need you to go to Vietnam and kill some Gooks!



Where to begin with this panel of Teen Titans #7 from January 1967 where the Titans are asked to serve their country? Aside from the creepy jingoism, Wonder Girl and Aqualad aren't even from America. They are both royalty from foreign principalities. But when told by the government official that "right now, it's your Uncle Sam who needs help!" the Titans about face and salute a photograph of Dead Glorious Leader.

And just what pressing matter demands the Titans' attention? What must they do to answer the call of our departed president? The Titans are asked to accompany a rock singer to England because he is suspected of smuggling diamonds, but Uncle Sam can't figure out how.

I'll let you in on a secret: It's the Mad Mod, who's sum of Super-Villany is as a Carnaby Street designer who weeves precious jewels into flashy outfits in order to smuggle them without detection.

Next month, the Titans answer America's call of duty once more, when they fight the evil JayWalker in another action packed issue of Teen Titans!

Happy 6/6/06!

You really ought to read Piratbyrån's talk on The Grey Commons. English is their second language and yet they have such an advanced understanding of the way in which language is used. It was actually kind of enlightening. I'd like to announce my canidacy for Congress in 2008 running as a member of The (American) Piracy Bureau Party.

Hilarious


Reading the new Teen Titans Showcase isn't quite this joyously funny, but it has it's moments. The book reprints the first 20 Teen Titans stories from the 1960s as a black and white phonebook. This is a fantastic format, collecting 500 pages of comics for about $8, used. I enjoyed the Green Lantern Showcase more, but the Titans collection does deliver.

What I found most interesting is how quickly the angle on the Titans changes from issue to issue. The series jumps all over the map looking for a gimmick. In the first issue from January 1966 (but actually their 4th comic book appearance) the Titans join the Peace Corps. Like most Peace Corps volunteers they end up in South America fighting a giant Conquistador Robot programed by an eccentric landowner. We even get the Scooby Doo ending:



But this is the first and last time we ever hear about the Titans belonging to the Corps. By issue 6 the titans are off to stop the Japanese Olympics from being undermined by a secret Get Smart! type of evil organization:



"Dedicated to hate and distrust"!! Sounds like fun. And I especially liked this panel:



Ha, ha, ha. Robin, you fucking racist.

Anyway, by the time issue 15 from 1968 rolls around, the whole country has gone to shit and the Titans are undercover as hippies:



And that's the best explanation I can give for that panel. Having read the whole issue it's from, I feel confident saying that there is no amount of context on Earth that would properly explain it. Everything about it and the time it's from is just weird.

Simply put, other than the Mad Mod, there is very little in these stories that will be familiar to fans of Teen Titans GO!; but if these panels are your thing like they are my thing, you might want to check out this collection. Worst case scenario is, you are out $8.

I was at the Paymers aimlessly clicking Wikipedia's "random page" button when I came to this quite long and somewhat funny entry for Hill Valley, the fictional town of Back to the Future. At first I thought it said Hill Valley was 12 miles east of San Francisco, but I misread and they actually mean it's out in Nevada County. I like "Note: The chronology of the Back to the Future Universe is non-linear. See Back to the Future timeline" and also that "Interestingly, in 1995 a lightning bolt struck the (set) and it burned down." But mostly I like that Hill Valley has a page at all, and the obssesive detail it goes into.

Also, Let's get rich and buy this $55,000 1:1 scale Delorean Time Machine replica with "working" flux capicitors. Check out the picture slideshow.