XKCD Does it Again

I hate to say it, or rather write it, but yeah this is more accurate....

Best Barney Episode Ever!

I noticed this on Cracked. There is something so satisfying about seeing something like this after a long hard day. I just had to laugh.

Google Addresses Privacy Concerns

I feel better already...

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

He Makes Them Look Bad Too

Say what you will about our president. His extravagant dates with his wife may make the average American husband look bad but think what how they make husbands in other countries look....

The Year the Media Died

I stumbled across this video on Geek.com. Excellently done and very insightful.

Too Empathetic?

Political Twittering—The Sound Bite Goes Digital

And to think that all I ever use Twitter for is for following NASA space probes. Now Twitter has been embraced by both politicians and the "mainstream" media. I guess it was only a matter of time. TV news, particularly on the cable news, has always been dependent on sound bites. Those short pithy lines that politicians are only too happy to provide because they are easier than talking about and solving complex issues. I think that John Stewart probably has the best take on this issue:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

One of the most depressing thing about both politics and about the news people who follow it is their eagerness to constantly dumb themselves down for the masses. This is probably why politicians always complain about "pork barrel" spending and make fun of things like planetariums and volcano monitoring. These things are usually obscure projects which people don't understand and are more likely to disapprove of. So they make easy targets and it's easier to talk about them than to actually fix this country's problems. It's also more fun for journalists and pundits to talk about these things than to sincerely research and analyze complex issues. So it makes perfect sense that politicians to embrace Twitter and its 140 character limit as the next big thing for blathering on and on without saying a thing....

Trek Through Time Sequel Is Coming

About a week ago, Rick Kelvington, author of the excellent Trek Through Time mash up, e-mailed me a link to the picture you see in this post. Rick's original Star Trek/Dr. Who mash up was one of the best I've ever seen and I'm looking forward to next one....

The Tick—A Superhero Show About Nothing

I'm not sure when exactly The Tick came out on DVD but I've been watching it recently. Based on a successful comic and children's cartoon, it was an ideal, if unsuccessful (it only lasted nine episodes) vehicle, for Seinfeld's Patrick Warburton whose clueless alpha male persona is perfect for the role of an indestructible but dimwitted superhero. Despite having been a relatively short-lived sitcom, The Tick in many respects fits quite neatly into the zeitgeist of it's day with a similar feel to that of more successful 90s sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends. You rarely saw its superheros doing anything heroic, they would usually just sit around at a restaurant talking about their lives, their relationships, and their jobs. (How exactly do you fill out a report explaining that you had to stop a fifty foot cow with flaming teats by throwing a dump truck at it?)

Perhaps this is the reason why this show was so short-lived—most viewers would expect to see superheros actually performing acts of heroism. But the show also had other problems. It could be uneven at times with some episodes trying unsuccessfully to use superheroes and their sidekicks as a metaphor for something else like homosexuality or relationships. But the show ultimately worked best for me when it really explored its premise—the mundane side of being a superhero.

My favorite episode, The Tick vs Justice, did this very well. This episode follows the trial of "Destroyo," a super villain captured by The Tick and Arthur. The preternaturally dense Tick is quickly found to be in contempt by the judge and put in jail. This leaves Arthur who has no super powers beyond the ability to fly with his winged suit vulnerable to Destroyo's henchman with no one except Bat Manuel (who is really only into the superhero thing because chicks dig the suit) to protect him. Destroyo meanwhile takes advantage of attorney client privilege to brag about his crimes and tries to convince his guards to commit suicide. But Destroyo meets his match in Captain Liberty, a needy super heroine who sees his psychological manipulations as a way of scoring some free therapy for herself. But ultimately Destroyo is foiled not by the Tick's super strength or by the justice system but by Arthur who uses his past as a doughy ballet dancer to get him to confess his crimes in open court. When Destroyo is freaked out by Arthur's taunts of "dance, fat boy, dance" it makes for a hilarious climax to the episode.

Overall, The Tick is hardly a classic TV show but it was an enjoyable little comedy that was always watchable and entertaining.

Dr. Who Meets Star Trek

It's been a while since I posted a video clip because let's face it, posting other people's clips is lazy. But The Bad Astronomer links to one of the most elaborate sci-fi mash ups I've ever seen so it's monkey see, monkey do time. Forget about Star Trek vs Star Wars. Dr. Who has come to the Enterprise!

Election 2008 In Photoshop

As the election draws to a close, I thought I'd post some of the many photoshop pictures that I've collected )mostly on FARK because it's so much easier to post a bunch of silly pictures than to make cogent, logical arguments to justify your political opinions.

From the hard fought primaries:






A charismatic young leader emerges on one side:



And a grizzled veteran on the other:



And the election had begun in earnest:



Most of the 'shops were pretty geeky:





Others were tailored to the headlines and sound bites of the day:






Some of the 'shops were truly elaborate:




Not all of the funny images were photoshops, some were just unfortunate:



Going negative:




But in the end, a final winner had to emerge:

Ben Affleck Versus A Total Unknown

It's pretty common for people to say that Saturday Night Live is no longer funny. The truth is that SNL has always been wildly uneven in quality and today's SNL is about as funny and unfunny as it has ever been. But I did notice in an interesting thing in Allen Sepinwall's review of last night's show. He mentions a skit done by a guy I've never heard of which he enjoyed much more than a similar skit done by Ben Affleck last night. Both skits make fun of Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's sportcaster turned pundit turned professional Bill O'Reilly puncher. Affleck's skit builds slowly from a dull start to a funny over-the-top finish. The unknown guy's skit is much shorter but I think that it is much funnier overall. That is SNL's biggest problem in my opinion, in order to fill the show's ninety minute running time, they tend to pad out their skits causing them to run way too long. 

Here are the two skits.

First Ben Affleck's Olbermann:

And now the guy you've probably never heard of:

It's Like West Side Story For Nerds

Crunchgear brings us a violent Mac vs PC musical. Very well done. Caution: extremely violent.

Border Patrol—A Frontier Comedy

Dr. Horrible is now available on Hulu and it's not the only web show around. It's not even the only web show around that stars an actor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Border Patrol is a pseudo-reality show which stars Tom Lenk who played the wannabe supervillain Andrew (and perhaps was an inspiration for the Dr. Horrible) in Buffy's sixth and seventh seasons as one of three overzealous anti-immigration crusaders who decide to go to the border and protect it from illegal aliens. If you like Comedy Central's reality show parodies like Reno 911, check out Border Patrol as it's done in much the same style.

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Yay! Star Trek Parodies

TV Squad has a nice collection of Star Trek parodies. I was a huge fan of this show as a kid and loved watching these.

Thoughts on Dr. Horrible (Now With Spoilers)

Joss Whedon's new web series Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog is a curious and bold experiment. Inspired in part by the success of web series like The Guild, it's probably the first web show by a "name" producer that isn't an ancillary show designed to promote an existing mainstream series.

As a producer who's had mixed success with movies and television, Joss Whedon is a pretty logical choice for experimenting with the web as a content platform. His work has always had a distinctive blend of genre spanning humor, action, and tragedy. Dr. Horrible is no different. Starring TV veteran Neil Patrick Harris as Billy (AKA Dr. Horrible) is video weblog of the rise of a wannabe supervillain. Not only is it jam packed with veterans of other Whedon series (it even includes two news anchors who are played by long-time Whedon writers David Fury and Marti Noxon); it is also full of the hallmarks of Whedon's work: great dialog, a sardonic sense of humor, and tragic twists and turns.

The show opens with a video weblog of Dr. Horrible answering his emails dropping hints about his latest nefarious scheme. But he's distracted by Penny, an adorable little redhead played by The Guild's Felicia Day (who also played Vi on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) with a social conscience and a fondness for frozen yogurt. For example his attempt to hijack of a shipment of "Wonderflonium," the missing ingredient of a "Freeze Ray" which Dr. Horrible is building to stop time, is foiled by his nemesis superhero Captain Hammer when he stops to chat with Penny. I say "foiled" in a very loose sense because Dr. Horrible actually does manage to steal the Wonderflonium even as he inadvertently helps Penny and Hammer meet when Hammer "rescues" her from a runaway van by throwing her into a pile of garbage.

Even though he's a superhero, Captain Hammer is the real bad guy in this story. Played with smarmy glee by one of Whedon's favorite leading men, Nathan Fillion, Hammer is a total douchebag whose only superpower is the ability to hit things very hard. He's mostly into the superhero business because it's a convenient excuse to beat people up and hit on women. Nevertheless, Captain Hammer does do some good. He helps Penny get a new a building for the homeless shelter where she works. He also taunts Billy mercilessly when he finds out that he has a crush on Penny.

Since this is a Joss Whedon production, tragedy strikes at the least expected moment. It seems to me that there are two basic Whedon heroines, the bad girl with daddy issues who is at the front and center of the action and always triumphs in the end even in the face of multiple deaths. The other kind of Whedon heroine is the sweet girl whom usually plays second fiddle to the lead and either evolves into a bad girl or dies tragically. (One of the few reliefs of the quick end to Whedon's brilliant series Firefly is that we never got to see what Whedon had planned in store for Kaylee.) Penny is clearly the in the latter category and dies tragically when Dr. Horrible's death ray malfunctions and sends a hail of shrapnel in all directions.

This event is essentially the origin story for Dr. Horrible. While he existed before it happened, he was basically a joke. He was The Trio from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer -- a big nerd who wanted to be a supervillain because he felt alienated. But just as Warren, the leader of The Trio, turns becomes truly evil once he kills his ex-girlfriend Dr. Horrible similarly becomes truly evil when he kills Penny. This exploration of the origins of good and evil is the most interesting hallmark of Joss Whedon's work and Dr. Horrible pulls it off quite with a lot of panache.

Overall, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog does a tremendous of blending comedy and tragedy in an appealing musical format.

More Fictional Characters Running for President

With Laura Roslin throwing her hat in the ring. That makes two characters from Battlestar Galactica running for president. Of course if we're talking about desperate times. Settling for a lesser evil might be a mistake. Thus, it might be time to turn to some alternative candidates.

And Yet Another Candidate Joins the Fray

I was on Scienceblogs when I noticed that a new candidate has thrown his hat into the ring. Personally, I'm excited. This is probably as close as we are going to get to having Bill Gates as president.

The Jedi Gym

I found this on Neatorama, hilarious:

The Middleman - Like Men In Black Meets Venture Brothers

After two episodes, I'm really enjoying The Middleman, ABC Family's new sci-fi series. Like Men In Black which takes the conceit that tabloid stories about aliens living on Earth are true, The Middleman takes the conceit that our world really does work like comic books—it's full of super villains which must be stopped by The Middleman. And like Venture Brothers, The Middleman takes a satirical look at the superhero world.

The story of The Middleman starts with his future sidekick, Wendy Watson working as a temp in a genetics laboratory. This being a sci-fi adventure, one of the genetic freaks (which looks like it wandered off from the set of Men in Black) in the lab escapes, trashing the lab, and nearly killing Wendy before The Middleman puts it down. This is where the MiB similarities end as The Middleman instead of zapping Wendy so she'll forget her experience instead threatens her and frames her so she gets fired and can't get another job until he chooses to recruit her as his sidekick. While it seems like a pretty "dickish" thing to do, as The Middleman is so straight-laced that he talks like teenager from the 1950s and never shows signs of anger.

The second episode alludes to a possible reason why this might be the case. The Middleman tells of being an offensive limeman on his high school football team. During one game, he was so anxious for it to be over so he could be with his girlfriend that he let his opposing lineman get past him and sack his quarterback. This caused the young quarterback to suffer a career-ending injury which haunts him to this day. In other words The Middleman is essentially a G-rated version of Brock Sampson, the Swedish killing machine from Venture Brothers. Like The Middleman, Brock is haunted by something he did while playing football—he killed a quarterback during practice by snapping his spine, the school takes away his scholarship and Brock joins the army. And again like Brock Sampson, The Middleman served in the military—in the pilot, he recalls a story of decking his superior officer who ordered him to leave his men. Brock Sampson has similar problems with authority which manifest themselves in a much more adult way on Venture Brothers.

And like Brock Sampson, The Middleman likes the ladies as he flirts shamelessly with Wendy's roommate—of course Brock does a whole lot more than flirt with women....So in my mind it's impossible to look at The Middleman without thinking about Brock Sampson. Each of these men is like the other's evil twin. Brock is the id unleashed, always acting on his impulses, killing, maiming, and bedding every woman meets. The Middleman on the other hand, is the id firmly suppressed by the super ego, he never swears, he never hurts anyone who isn't "evil," and he never gets past the playful flirting stage with a woman. Both characters are products tailored to the audience that they're aimed at on their respective channels—The Middleman for kids on ABC Family and Brock Sampson for adults on Adult Swim. It's rather ironic and says a lot about the diversity of today's entertainment when I can sit here comparing a cartoon to a live action show and it's the cartoon which is the violent, sexually explicit show which caters to adult audiences and the live action show is the kid friendly fun adventure.

There is also one big difference in tone. Venture Brothers skewers the Saturday morning cartoons that it spoofs, for example turning a beloved character like Johnny Quest into a pill-popping psychopath. The Middleman by contrast is practically a love letter to the comic books and television sci-fi which it lampoons. Filled with loving homages to sources as diverse as The Avengers and every big gorilla movie ever made, The Middleman is a gentle, fun adventure that can be enjoyed by all but the grumpiest members of the whole family can enjoy.