Fokker? I 'ardly KNOW her!

If you've ever wanted to pretend that your motorcycle is actually a transforming fighter jet (DON'T YOU LIE TO ME), this helmet is for you:

Make-believe that you're a kid's first experience with traumatic main character death and buy this helmet at HLJ today!

Sorry it's been a while, folks...

I got a real person job!

And it's been...interesting.

But now I'm back and writing again, and since today is Halloween, I thought I'd introduce you guys to what I think is one of the scariest websites on the Internet, maybe one of the scariest things in human media. That is The SCP Foundation.

Websites like this are what make the Internet such a weird, wondrous, transcendent thing. It's essentially a Wiki that details the attempts of a fictional organization to Secure, Contain, and Protect a variety of creatures, artifacts, ideas, and locations that range from hilarious, cheeky, and fun to nightmarish, disturbing, and madness-inflicting.

We should really stop calling ourselves "America".

We wouldn't even recognize our face in the mirror nowadays.


It's been heading that way for a long time...first the Cold War turned us into basically the equal in many ways of the very "evil empire" we were purporting to fight.


Then came 9/11...and the terrorists won. How did they win?


Well, first of all, just read this article. 

News article: "Fax Spam Now Illegal"

Linked here.

The bill outlawing "wireless telegraph" spam and the amendment banning "Using the Marconi while driving your horseless carriage" are currently pending.

You don't understand...

...this is the coolest thing that's ever happened:

Steve Jobs, Schmeve Schmobs. This is fucking Iron Man technology right here.

Whenever I see just really, ridiculously awesome and wondrous stuff like this, stuff that is clearly just for the exuberant, undending love of invention, it makes me wonder what the hell some people have against science. Especially in movies. Everyone's always like, "WHY WOULD YOU GENETICALLY ENGINEER" or "YOU MADE A ROBOT, YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE PLAYED GOD" but no one's ever mad that they get a new iPad this quarter.

This Movie's Underrated: "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"

So, my roommate jokes constantly that I think every movie is underrated. This is not true. For example, I feel like the "rating" of Twilight is pretty much right on the dot, and even that might be overrated.

 Pretty much...hits the nail on the head.

But I think the miscommunication  is that when I say "underrated", that doesn't mean "great" or even "good". Indeed, an "underrated" movie may average out to "bad". But it may be more important than people realize, or have very specific redeeming qualities.

And nowhere is that more true than in the movie I've wanted to do in this column for a long time... Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

 I swear to God...Paramount hired DARPA to develop the most awkward tagline 

that human nervous systems could make.

For Teh Lols

A big bucket of lols to drag you out of the Monday slump:

Did Someone Say...

...Spider-Man post?

Ladies...

Woof. I'm not gay, but...woof. This is one chiseled, beautiful chunk of man:

There's more at CraveOnline. And these pictures settle it: those shots of him in the suit were ALL HIM. Christopher Reeves, as brilliant as he was, wasn't exactly possessed of godlike physique. And Brandon Routh was adequate. But these pictures...that is a SUPERMAN.

For Teh Lols

I can bring 'em all day, baby.

Going with the Wall Street theme...

This article. A dramatic summary, for your pleasure:

Some years ago:

Government: "Hey, here's some money for banks."

Goldman, Morgan Stanley: "WHOOOA, there partner, we're banks! Right here."

Present day:

Government: "Hey, so we're not gonna allow banks to perform proprietary training with their own capital."

Goldman, Morgan Stanley: "WE ARE...DEFINITELY not a bank, come on, HAH. No."

I gotta say, it warms my heart to see rich, complacent people scared.

So far, that's the most enjoyment I've been getting out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The problem I have with them is that they seem more like a wildfire: aimless, formless, frightening, though some good may come of it.

I think they are, like the Tea Party, primarily motivated by this nameless, formless outrage, although I personally think that their goals are far less full of derp. But the thing is, like the Tea Party, any hopes they have of achieving change will need to be met with the force and unity of spirit. The Tea Party had that, but its goals were effectively time-travel. No matter how hard they wanted to, they would not make the U.S. go back to the 18th century without serious societal change (read: apocalyptic breakdown). The Occupy movement, far from fighting the inertia of time, is fighting the inertia of entrenched power...they are fighting an enemy that is multifarious and creeping, that has made a life goal of infecting and permeating as many systems as possible.

But I believe it is an enemy that must be taken down to size, restrained. Like all bacteria, it can be good or bad, and right now, it's leaned towards "abusive". And that's why I'm posting this series of charts from the website Business Insider. It's a rather sobering and more importantly informative look at exactly what we're fighting for, and what stakes the combatants have.

Call of Duty: Raging Boners

I can practically hear war nerds poppin' em across the free world with the release of this trailer for Act of Valor:

Apparently, real Navy SEALS play the characters in this, and it all looks incredibly authentic. I predict that the shot of a SEAL in the water catching a guy to prevent his falling from making a sound will become an iconic image in the annals of cinematic war.

For Teh Lols

Another piping-hot tray of funny trawled up from the darkest depths of the Intersphere:

Surprise Butt Sex!

It happens.

Nothing quite warms my heart so much as a prudent and necessary moral served up in a hilarious way without condescension. Find more of these over at Comics Alliance.

Yo Dawg, I Herd You Liek Faces

This next post will take a little explaining for anyone who hasn't been on 4chan. If you've never been on 4chan, don't go on now. Seriously. Just stay away. Nothing good will come of it.

Now that you've most likely ignored my advice, you may have noticed a trend of reacting to threads or images by posting a humorous, weird, or terrifying picture of a face with the caption, "My face when" (or "MFW" for you kids out there).

Now, while I'd argue the purest form of MFW uses no captions, there are some pretty fucking funny ones all around, collected below for your enjoyment:

There are no words.

Just watch the video linked below. This story, and this kid, are simply incredible. How incredible? Shotgun blasts opened up his chest, almost tore off his arm, opened up his head, and he survived. Not only that, but he survived to finger the bastard who shot him.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=627_1317932414

Mother Theresa is dead.

Wait...correction. Steve Jobs is dead.

You would be forgiven for thinking the former were true. Now before this blog post sinks totally into mean-spirited contrarian bullshit, let me make a few things clear.

Steve Jobs did more than almost anyone else in the past 20 years to change the way that the world looks at computers and consumer electronics. The effects he had on the industries of design, engineering, manufacturing, and even film and music will not be accurately comprehended for some time.

Now, notice I said "effects". Not "improvements". Fact is, Steve Jobs was a force of nature. But every force of nature has a good side and a bad side. Wildfires leave people homeless and charred, but they clear the forest so new trees can grow. Steve Jobs revolutionized the way we compute, even the way we interact. But as this article points out, this was at the cost of being a downright awful person half the time.

He verbally and one could argue emotionally abused his employees to get results...he vehemently denied fathering his first child, lying outright and saying he was sterile. And his company, running under his instructions and abiding by his own revolutionary business practices currently holds thousands of children and other innocents in its factories in China, where they toil in conditions not much better than human bondage. This is not even touching the other things the article charges Apple with, such as having a generally ruthless and Gestapo-like legal team.

I'm not trying to shit on Steve Jobs' memory. I'm not trying to simply spit in the face of such a flood of positivity. But I am sure as hell trying to make the memory everyone remembers the memory of what actually HAPPENED, not some romantic but utterly false saintly chronicle of his life and person. And any time somebody who influenced a lot of people dies, there's always the danger of that happening.

Steve Jobs was a person. A great person, a powerful person, a force for change in this world. But whether those changes are good or bad cannot be measured from one standing so close to this time. We will need the distance of years and perspective to accurately judge and appraise Jobs' legacy.

Don't Mind Me, I...

I just have...*sniff* some dirt in my eye:

"Soldier returns home from Iraq, surprises daughter at Boca school"

For Teh Lols

I've got a shit-ton of funny pictures on my hard drive, harvested from the darkest reaches of the Internet. 4chan, the blogosphere, and all the little nooks and crannies in between. I know every blog has some kind of "Regularly Posted Funny Pictures Assembled" post. But there are some real gems out there. So as an on-going feature, I'm gonna pick some of the fucking funniest every day or so and serve 'em up piping hot to you.

Let's be honest.

If aliens come...their theme music...will probably be Daft Punk.

My face when.

"Nancy Grace--Fart Fetish Group Vying for Video Rights"

Regarding Hot Girls...

I was perusing Caveman Circus the today. It's a consistently good source for fap-worthy pictures. But today, what caught my eye was the "Girl-Of-The-Day", as it were, a blond whose only given name was "Breezie Stardust", which sounds like a flavor of Downy detergent.

Anyway, I noticed that in several pictures, she seems to be very angry at the photographer. The reason I say that is she's flipping off the camera. In pictures where she's holding the camera, this can be very awkward.

Note to attractive women: giving the middle finger does not make you "cool", "edgy", "hot", or "a rebel". It's something little kids do by accident. First of all, you already have large, round tits, and so guys will think you're whatever you want them to think you are just with a few verbal suggestions. Don't try to look spunky by flipping off photographers.

Luckily, as I said, you are attractive. When guys do it, it's even worse. I could understand if Native Americans flipped off photographers, but all, repeat ALL gentlemen have no business giving the finger in your Facebook profile pic.

"THAT'S MY SOUL YOU'RE STEALING, ASSWIPE--"

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Curmudgeon...

Every once in a while, it feels real good to find something that's diabetically trite and "romantic" and sappy and just shit all over it. Cover the bastard. Just floods of ass-gravy. And it's even better when the end result is HILARIOUS (and really, with floods of ass-gravy, how could it not be?).

With that in mind, I present these pictures. A compilation of them can be found here at Caveman Circus, but really they're all around the Internet, and especially on 4chan. The originals are trite hipster faux-philosophy bullshit, and that's why I love these..."revisions". They brighten my day far more than the original posters would have.

This Movie's Underrated: "Outland"

Every once in a while, I have to look at America's movie-going public and shake my head, muttering, "This is why we can't have nice movies." It happens when I see them overwhelmingly supporting a movie that may well have been picked out of Satan's buttcrack (lookin' at you, Smurfs). But it also happens when an amazing, inventive, cool, or just plain unique movie comes along and it fades into obscurity because nobody sees or supports it.

Outland, directed by Peter Hyams, is one of those movies. It was released right around when Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner were ushering in a more naturalistic, gritty, grimy, used-future take on science fiction. Aesthetically, it's got the griminess and claustrophobia of Alien. But thematically is where Outland really builds on Blade Runner and Alien.

DO YOU NOT BELIEVE A MAN CAN FLY?!?

Ohhhh, Russell Crowe. First of all, totally forgot he was supposed to play Superman's father, Jor-El, in the upcoming Man of Steel.

Secondly, here are the first pictures of his costume! I actually really dig the whole "armor" look to it, and the textures and colors look pretty awesome while tying it into Superman's costume:

You Gotta Be "Putin" Me On!

AHhhhhhhHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH....oh...oh God. Someone kill me.

Puns aside, this article makes me simultaneously giddy, intrigued, and terrified. And it's hilarious. Basically, Vladimir Putin, for all intents and purposes the badass ex-KGB de facto king of Russia, wants to unite ex-Soviet states into a big "Eurasian Union".

Totally...totally not like that other Union you're thinking of. Totally not. Don't even say it.

Actually, it seems like so far he just wants to build an EU-style confederation between states that removes barriers to trade and handles economic and currency policy. Okay, so far so good. But Putin so far has not been the kind of guy to stop at halfway...or to let things like "the Russian Constitution" or "democratic ideals" tell him what to do.

I'm just hoping that if he does keep consolidating power into a massive union to oppose the West, we end up throwing down in an awesome way, like the Space Race, not in some stupid way, like over nuclear weapons. And I hope it doesn't give the GOP more opportunity to erroneously call things socialist.

Space Day!

That's right, folks. Today, the blog's gonna be all about space travel, and those who do it.

There's a couple reasons why I love space travel, both in real life and as depicted in science-fiction. I suppose the first reason is that it's just so damned COOL. Space travel is basically about telling gravity not only to go fuck itself, but to work for us while it's at it. How do we do that? By strapping as many fucking rockets as we can to the biggest fuel tanks in the world and putting a tin can full of guys at the top. The lightest fucking can you can build, because otherwise, your guys will crash back down with enough speed and force to give planet earth a hickey.

Space is just so awesome...it's the one environment with which humans absolutely, positively were not built to interact. But that's what I love about humanity: did we take the hint? Fuck no. We narrowed our eyes and nodded slightly: "Game on, universe..."

And that's why I love this article, too. On the one hand, it's been depressing watching the dreams of a generation die as the sinking economy, domestic crises, and science haters in Congress have worked to scuttle our government's space program.

On the other hand, it brings me unending joy to see private companies stepping up to the plate and picking up the slack. Not only is it the one place where I can see the sort of adventurous corporate pioneering spirit that is sorely lacking these days, but it's just so damn cool, like something out of a sci-fi novel. I'm reminded of the quote allegedly from Thomas Watson, former chairman of IBM in 1943: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

And when the Space Race started, no one could have imagined that scarcely 50 years later, private companies were working to send humanity there en masse, and to reach even beyond our orbit. We're heading into a new era where we don't need governments to do the big things anymore. Where we can strike out on our own power and spirit, setting the rules as we go for better or for worse.

Either way it turns out...whether it'll end up like Star Trek or more like Alien, it's a terribly exciting contemplation.

"To be dominated by me...is not as bad for human pride...as to be dominated by others of your species."

I fuckin' hate my computer. Not my current one, but the one I used to have. I got it freshman year. It was top of the line...to the extent that it was hot-rod red and had a shit-ton of RAM. But eventually... and by that, I mean "by sophomore year"...I came to hate it. And hate everything it stood for.

Speaking of computers...there's one movie and idea that have been preoccupying my thoughts the past couple of days. I'm sure very few of you have seen the 1960's movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project. A brief synopsis, before I get to the meat of this post: Colossus was adapted from a novel, written at the height of the Cold War. It's about a scientist who creates a fantastically advanced computer. The U.S. are desperate to avoid nuclear war, and so entrust this computer, named "Colossus", with preventing it, and they give Colossus control of the U.S.' nuclear arsenal. Problem is, Colossus detects an analogous computer called "Guardian" on the Russian side. Colossus, following its programming, determines that the best course to take in avoiding The Big One is to allow Guardian to link up and merge with it, thereby ensuring cooperation. Eventually, the new, amalgamated computer decides that the best course of action is to remove humans from all control for the future course of history.