What do you get when you mash up Family Guy with The Matrix?
Fun fact: Both of these pop culture dynasties debuted in 1999.
[Wave of the phin to Dan.]
To quote Geekdad, where I first saw this: “Sheer brilliance.”
Taken is an upcoming film written by Luc Besson and starring Liam Neeson as the dad you don’t want to make mad by hurting his little girl:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t release here in the States until September. Brent, Nathan, this gets a thumbs-up from me.
The Grand Prairie AirHogs are a new minor league team in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and we have some footage from a recent press conference:
The AirHogs season begins in May, and I’m looking forward to taking in a game or two this year.
This past weekend, we spent a few days visiting my parents in the suburbs of Birmingham. (That would be Alabama, not England. Just in case it wasn’t clear.)
My dad pulled my old rocking horse, Donut, out of storage, cleaned up the parts, and assembled him in the basement, all for my son to ride while we were visiting.
I got Donut about the same age as the little phisch is now, roughly 1974. The nostalgia from watching my own child ride the same horse I did thirty-three, thirty-four years ago, was overwhelming.
Whenever I bring up Twitter, I always get asked what it is. The best description I’ve mustered to date is “It’s a microblog”, which doesn’t fully do Twitter justice. Lee LeFever of the Commoncraft Show, has a easy-to-follow explanation:
So if you’re intrigued enough to check out Twitter, look me up, and feel free to follow my updates.
Opening credits of Star Wars, Saul Bass-style:
[Wave of the phin to Laughing Squid.]
My pal Dan turned me on to this fantastic cover of U2’s “With or Without You” by Japanese pop star Hikaru Utada:
Don’t fear: she may be speaking Japanese at the beginning of the clip, but she sings the song in English. It’s really good, a great arrangement, and awesome voice.
The TSA detained and searched a five year-old boy.
Read that again. It was a case of mistaken identity; a five year-old boy has the same name as another individual who is on the no-fly list. The Consumerist adds:
When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dillinger hadn’t passed anything dangerous weapons or materials to his mother when she hugged him.
For those of you wondering, “Why the heck would they do all this?”, Bruce Schneier has the answer:
The explanation is simple: to the TSA, following procedure is more important than common sense. But unfortunately, catching the next terrorist will require more common sense than it will following proper procedure.
[Emphasis added. —R]
It’s all theater. It does nothing to protect the public; it simply pulls the wool over the eyes of those who choose to not think about it, to make those sheeple feel better. Five year-olds do not pull off terrorist acts, nor are they engaged in chatter with sleeper cells, which land them on a no-fly list. Any five year-old could figure that out. Okay, that’s not fair. Five year-olds might have a hard time figuring it out. But I know an eight year-old who’d know it was wrong…
[Wave of the phin to Lee and Tanner Lovelace.]
I make no bones about my disdain for the reality shows which litter network television. The only one I’d consider watching on a regular basis would be The Amazing Race. From the few bits and pieces I’ve seen of the various shows, it’s the only one that didn’t annoy me after thirty seconds.
One of the things that annoys me about some of the reality shows is that they’re not originals. They’re just re-hashed versions of something popular in another country, most notably the United Kingdom. Well, if we’re going to retool reality shows for the American audience, my vote is we roll with this one from Japan: