Bow Before Your Dark Kitten Overlord!

A truly evil kitty...scary.

Go Ahead and Click it, You Know You Want To...

http://www.xxxhardcoreporn.tk/

Greetings from Your M.I.A. Webmaster

Hi folks, just wanted to pop in here a minute and let you know that I haven't quit blogging on you, just been having some pretty bad computer problems of late and so I've devoted the last few days to the herculean task of burning and organizing all of my extremely disorganized data. I shall return ASAP, however - give me a couple days and things should be back to normal.

If Hackers Ruled the Earth

A particularly funny Photoshop contest at Worth1000.

McCartney Trots Out Beatles Leftover

Carnival of Light, a track recorded during the Sgt. Pepper recording sessions, will be seeing the light of day for the first time since 1967, when it was played at an avante garde festival. It wasn't included on the Pepper album and by the sound of the article I expect it to be an inaccessible mishmash of LSD-fueled meanderings - it's Beatles news, though and as such I thought it important enough to mention.

Customs Lets 15 Pounds of Depleted Uranium, Sent from Turkey, No Less, Sail Right Into New York

This is just too scary - I'm watching an ABC news show earlier tonight and well, you hear a lot of talk about how tight security is these days, which makes this that much harder to swallow. ABC reporters took fifteen pounds of depleted uranium, shielded in a container resembling a pipe-bomb and packed in a crate, then shipped it from Turkey to New York. This crate and it's ultra-suspcious-looking and mildly radioactive cargo - exactly the kind of thing that should have raised eyebrows - passed right through customs without anyone batting an eye, however. In fact, throughout it's journey, nobody even so much as opened it to have a peek inside or got close enough with a geiger counter to find there was cause for alarm. In short, had it been actual fissionable uranium and the person recieving it had not been a reporter, we'd have had a terrorist happily strolling the streets of NY, carrying an ominous, hardshell suitcase with a small nuke inside.

The uranium - although depleted, shielded and more or less innocuous - was giving off the same signature geiger reaction that would have alerted officials to the possibility of there being a bomb inside, had anyone at the port authority or customs bothered to take a closer look at it - which they damn well should have, considering Turkey is right at the top of the list of places nuclear material would be smuggled from by terrorist attackers. Sleep tight, kids.

9/11 Replayed on Fark

This is the most fascinating thing I've seen in some time...Drew Curtis has posted an archived copy of his site, Fark, from Sept. 11th of last year. The hundreds of users' comments and incoming news posts as it they happened in real-time are recorded in the comments section beside each post and it was amazing to see everyone's reactions as the story was still breaking and new facts and rumors were pouring in by the ton. This is why the first thing I do when I turn on my computer each day is log onto Fark - boobies, jokes and humor aside, if there's something really big going down, you know it'll be there as soon as it happens.

I was amazed at the relative tact with which most everyone seemed to handle the situation in a place where, normally, there's so much irreverance. I was also a little taken back by looking at the previous headlines before the planes started crashing - ten minutes before our whole world-view was changed by those horrible attacks one of the biggest questions on everyone's mind was whether Jordan should or shouldn't return to the NBA.

One Year Later...Sept. 11, 2002, in a Nutshell

Well, I'm sitting here at 5:13 in the morning, it's September 11, the first anniversary of the attacks and I suppose I should say something, but I don't know exactly what. I think as it is the media is going to soak us in so much 9/11 coverage there's not much point in my echoing it.

Still though, it's definitely an important day and a day for reflection and for tributes. Meanwhile, amidst the ceremony and remembrance, there's tension in the air, as the government has put us on alert for new attacks as we commemorate the old ones. There are pleas for war and cries of "give peace a chance" and amidst all the craziness and fighting, doctors and Supermen are quietly making miracles happen.

When I think of the times we're in now I'm constantly reminded of a song Paul Simon wrote back in the 80's, called The Boy in the Bubble. Here's an excerpt of the lyrics, they're nearly two decades old now, but I think they sum up our current world as well as anything else I could think of:

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

© 1986 Paul Simon

I guess that sums up how I feel about our times. There's a lot of bad going on but a lot of wonderful and amazing things, as well. It's just a damn crying shame everyone can't put aside their hatred, step back, take a look at how incredibly far mankind has come and really put their noses to the grindstone to make even greater, bolder leaps. There's so much potential for greatness right now and too many dollars spent on crap. Crap like tanks, bombs, fighter-jets, poisons and nuclear missiles - all of which we could live without if people could appreciate the smallness of the world we live in and the immediate need for us to get it together spend less time worrying about our individual and national beefs with one another and think about all the problems we face as human beings on the whole.

Maybe we'll make it, somehow. Here's hoping everyone's safe and well on this day historic date and I hope everyone takes a moment out of it to think about how lucky we are to have our friends, our family and our health and to think about the people we've lost in the year that's passed since 9/11 and how we can come together to makes things better in the years ahead.

Doh! Where's Homer Gonna Live?

Barbara Howard, of Richmond, KY has won the Simpsons House in Springfield, Nevada - the story, pics and a Quicktime tour of the home can be found here.

Triumph Poops on the VMAs

God bless Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, I love that mutt. In case you missed it, he attended the Video Music Awards...here's the *ahem* scoop, as well as video clips of him hassling the celebs in attendance. The stuff of him hassling Star Wars nerds waiting in line at the opening of Episode II was some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen. Also, who could forget his mocking of Bon Jovi?

I know sooner or later they're going to do this bit to death, he's going to get his own show and a year from now we'll probably all be sick of him, but as of now, he's my favorite canine (apologies to my dog, Janis).

Only 107 Days 'Til Christmas

So why not beat the rush and snap up this tasteful mouse for the pervert brother-in-law or friend who just flat-out doesn't care if everyone knows he's just in it for the porn-surfing?

This Has Been Posted All Over, But...

If you haven't seen this Quicktime film of a little girl showing off her skills in the competitive sport of "cup stacking", it's pretty darned amazing - think The Flash stacking and restacking plastic cups in various formations. Bit of a download, but it's not a very long clip and worth it.

Fun With Numbers

Now...think of a number...

How Long Can You Hold the Button?

Another classically pointless page.

Disney's Dirt

I was reading some stuff on a website earlier tonight about Disney and some of the claims made were so strange I decided to go looking around and see if they were true. A couple checked out on Urban Legends' site...for instance: when making the Disney movie White Wilderness, released in 1958, Disney's nature photographers - who, incidentally, were filming in Alberta, Canada, which is neither a native habitat for lemmings or possesses an outlet to the sea - staged a bogus "lemmings marching to their death into the sea" sequence by placing the rodents on a snow-covered turntable for a migration sequence and then transported them to a cliff overlooking a river, where they were herded off the edge and into the water. Apparently lemmings don't actually kill themselves, this is either a myth started by or at least enforced by the movie.

Other interesting tidbits: the film Song of the South has never been released on home video in the United States, ostensibly due to the laughably wonderful depictions of slaves' lives in the movie and in a related note, the film's star, Uncle Remus - played by James Baskett, who was a black man and the very first live-action actor hired by the studio and won a special Oscar for his efforts - was unable to attend the premiere of the movie, as he was unable to find a hotel in Atlanta that would put him up.

Now all this was a long time ago, obviously and although it's kind of messed up, it's kid's stuff compared to some of the stuff alleged on the site that got me started on this little tangent. Urban Legends has always seemed pretty reputable, though and they backed up his claims about the lemming story, which was the thing that got me started on this, as I'd never heard of it before. However, I can't vouch for the rest of the claims made here, which include deaths, perverts running wild at the Magic Kingdom while management looked the other way and other mind-blowing atrocities, so I'll let you do your own investigation on the matter. I say this, of course, because I'm afraid of Disney's behometh legal dept. and don't want to be sued, unlike the site's author, who says:

This is a preface to the section accusing the entertainment company of engaging in child labor practices:If I may, I'd like to preface this little page by telling the Nice Lawyer who sent me letters threatening to "pursue legal action" if I put this up that he can kiss my lilly white ass for two reasons : 1} this is all documented in the public domain and 2} I basically own a 12 year old car, a computer and a semi-respectable collection of Plasticware from Boston Market.

Bigtime

Big Things celebrates unusually large statues of everyday things like pineapples, oranges, bulls and other odd works that dot the Australian countryside, like the gigantic trout above.

When You're Smiling...

The Official Smiley Dictionary - how to make 'em, when to use 'em, smiley cards, smiley fonts, more smileys than you can shake a stick at.

Ancient Inventions

The Smith College Museum of Ancient Inventions, showcasing such unforgettable blockbusters as the catapult (above) and the humble folding chair, which hasn't really changed a lot since 2000 B.C.

Extra, Extra! Read All About It!

Today's Front Pages - view the front pages of various newspapers from around the world daily.

Welcome to My World

My friends on cable, dsl, etc...have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk a mile in my 56k shoes?

Wonder no more - just go to waitallday.com, sit back, grab a good book or knitting needles or something else to pass the time and thank God above you're not me. Be sure and watch the status bar as this loads.

Farewell to Thee, Napster - R.I.P.

For good, this time.

I have to admit...even though, for all intents and purposes, it died long ago and everyone's moved on to this p2p or that...this simple declaration of defeat on Napster's site kind of made me weepy for the "old days", when everyone was one big, happy, thieving family.

The Beaufort Scale of Domestic Squalor

Wait...you mean fungus is a bad thing? Even if it matches your drapes? Hmm...

Thou Shalt Not Quake

Get this - the Greek government has banned electronic games - all of them - outright. In an effort to abolish electronic gambling (which was already illegal), they've decided that it was too hard for officials to differentiate between gambling games and everyday, harmless game-games, so they've outlawed them all. Whether you're playing the ponies on the net or just playing a harmless game of Collapse on your computer, you're in danger of 3 months in the slammer and a 10,000 euro fine.

I'm curious as to what Microsoft has had to say about this, since Windows ships with games and obviously they and other Corporate Giants have a stake in this. Internet cafe owners are already freaking out, as this threatens to wipe out their businesses altogether - obviously.

Note from the Technical Dept.

I just noticed that my archives template was completely screwed and it only took me three days to realize it.

Anyway, they're fixed now, in a temporary Blogger-default, ultra-ugly form. On the off-chance anyone out there was trying to access them and it was keeping them up at night...your prayers have been answered - knock yourself out.

Yeee-haahhh!!!

Take the Hazzard County driver's test.

The Tornado of Fire

David Coppperfield's got a really, really cool Flash site. Wouldn't it be nice if John Edwards would just break down and admit he's a magician too? Oh wait, no...his act sucks too much for that.

Who Wouldn't Want to Slide on the Titanic?

Now you can - the kids will love recreating one of the most memorable disasters of our time on this inflatable waterslide version of the doomed ocean liner. Fun, fun, fun! Sharks, iceburg and inflatable floating corpses sold separately.

More New Sodas on the Way

Well, by now you've probably heard about Dr. Pepper's new drink, Red Fusion. Following suit behind the other cola big-boys and their recent releases of new flavors is 7up, which is getting a new, green, fruit-flavored version called dnL (7up, upside-down).

Headline Haikus

All the news in seventeen syllables:

Chicago's South Side
The problem of finding slots
in coveted schools

Burglar Tunnels into Neighbor's Home

So you're a burglar, but you're also an agoraphobic - meaning you have a fear of open spaces. What do you do? This guy solved the problem by smoking a bunch of crack and tunneling into his neighbor's house.

Desktops, Russian-style

Some stylin' wallpapers for your desktop - in various resolutions - from a site in Russia.

Awwww....

Pointless (but cute) Flash animation of a cat who purrs and swipes at your cursor.

Dear God, Won't Someone Please Make This Person Go Away?

I don't get it, hasn't Puff Dumbass blown through his money by now? Shouldn't he have already gone the way of fellow hacks like Hammer and filed for bankruptcy or something? Instead, he continues to linger, wearing out his welcome like the party guest that refuses to leave - sitting on your couch, talking about himself and raiding your fridge long after everyone else has went home.

The Smoking Gun snagged one of the invites from his latest party and it's one of the most narcissistic, self-important things I've ever seen.

Dubbed - with typical Puff modesty - "The Greatest Party of All Time", the invitation included a list of guidelines for those planning to attend. Guys, leave those scuffed shoes at home and gals - no pedicure, no dice. Also, if you weren't wearing Gucci or one of the other designers on Puff's ultra-shallow list of faves, forget about it loser. Thankfully, for those not certain of the definition of "flyness", the host graciously recommended that you you "think of me", at the CDFA awards, for instance, as one of many examples.

Were there any justice in the world, an earthquake would have swallowed up this party and all who attended - sucking them deep into the bowels of the earth, where they'd never be heard from again.

Tedi, the Martial Arts Teddy Bear

You may wanna let this one load while you're in the shower or something if you're on a 56k like yours truly, even the low-bandwidth version is over 2 megs.

How Much is My Pez Dispenser Worth?

Probably a dollar - but hey, if you happen to have a gem like the ultra-ugly Green Hornet Pez pictured above (valued at $760 U.S.) it might be worth looking into in this searchable priceguide.

Landspeeder for Sale

This driveable and totally boss-looking landspeeder (a street legal Ford beneath the window-dressing) is up for auction on eBay. Think of the looks you'll get and all the nerds drooling and have spastic fits when you pass them by in this baby.

Live, Hot Seamonster Webcam Action!

The official site of Lochness, home of the Lochness Monster, or Nessie, as she's affectionately called, has two webcams - one above and one below the water - for you amateur Nessie hunters out there to view. This guy says he may have caught screen caps of it already, you be the judge.

New Look

I'm going to be playing with the template a little tonight so if things look weird, please overlook it, okay? Hopefully I'll have all the bugs worked out of this stupid thing soon, so bear with me.

Start-up Introduces "Tractor Beam"

BioRyx 200 uses 200 lasers to move and manipulate small particles like cells and sperm.

Those Zany Aussies

Here's a good one: 70,000 Australians upset their census by listing their religion as "Jedi" on the forms. You have to give it to them, the Australians are a madcap bunch.

Case in point: last night I was watching one of those crazy Aussie nature-show guys, not Steve the Crocodile Hunter, but another one - I wish I could remember his name. It was some really gripping television, I have to say. This guy was the craziest human being I've ever seen (with all due respect to to Evel Knievel and Farrah Fawcett).

This guy's batting about a big cobra - teasing it - more or less, like he's daring it to bite him. I have to admit, I was rooting for the snake after awhile - which surprised us all and actually did bite the guy (justifiably, I might add, as he did everything but give it noogies in the course of telling the home viewers how deadly it was and what a mongoose might do if it were in his situation). Dude's no mongoose, however, ballsy though he might be and the cobra bites the assclown right on his hand. Of course, now, it's not fun and games anymore - he's all "Okay, I'm bit, the snake bit me, I'm bit over here!" They give him some antivenom and rush him to the hospital (which is forty miles away, of course) and he's laying there in a hospital bed going "No more, never again, that's it - I'm getting too old for this stuff," and I'm thinking "good move, guy - guess you have a little sense about you, at that."

Two hours later, the guy's right back in the desert, playing chicken with the same monstrous cobra and practically juggling this super-venomous Boomslang. Australians, man - they rock.

Fetch, Boy, Fetch! Goooood boy...OMG, LOOK OUT!

Help this adorable pup catch frisbees and balls in the Flash game Frisbee Dog - but watch out for grenades and spiked discs, which prove fatal for the poor pooch.

"ROTFLMAF", I've Heard - But Who Uses "ILICISCOMK"?

The first abbreviation most of you have probably seen if you've spent more than five minutes in a chatroom anywhere on the web, but the second one and many of these others I've never heard of and are as foreign as the Japanese chat exchange above to me. There are many more examples of chat/email shorthand in this large list from NetLingo - The Internet Dictionary.

BTW (by the way), "ILICISCOMK" stands for "I Laughed, I Cried, I Spat/Spilt Coffee/Crumbs/Coke On My Keyboard", apparently, and if you know that, you've been spending way too much time on the internet - go out and do some fishing or something.

X-treme Candy-making

So I'm sitting here and I'm a little hungry and in the mood for some cookies. I'm browsing around and I come upon this site, pastrywiz.com and though I haven't checked out the cookie recipes yet, I have a feeling this is probably the wrong place to look.

I was thinking along the lines of some plain, old-fashioned peanut-butter cookies - these pastry wiz folks are way harder-core than that. There's a whole section here on sugar blowing. I had no freaking idea what kind of radical things were going on in pastry kitchens these days, nor did I know what sugar blowing was...but these people are melting and shaping sugar with a full-on blowtorch and metal tube like a glassmaker and throwing together things like the sugar-swan pictured above.

There are step-by-step instructions for any of you culinary extremists out there who'd like to give it a shot, but remember - The Ends of the Earth and it's proprietor take no responsibility for any third degree burns you may incur by way of your dangerous pastry thrill-seeking. As for myself, I'm going to wait until tomorrow and buy one of those little rolls of cookie-dough - I may not even bother to cook it.

Pocket Full of Kryptonite

This has to be the coolest Superman action figure I've ever seen - there's only one thing I find kind of troubling...

Check out the Man of Steel's "package" in the larger photo here on the site.

Geez, no need for x-ray vision - Supes is puttin' it on display for all of Metropolis to see.

You Hadda Be a Bigshot, Didya?

On board an outbound flight from Philadelphia International Airport, David Vassallo, 46, bragged to a fellow passenger that he was a federal sky marshall. Only problem was, he was actually a postal worker and the passenger he shot his mouth off to was - you guessed it - a federal sky marshall :)

Save Sheeba!

Well...looks like people have gotten wind of the fact that savekaryn.com was actually a moneymaker. The site, run by a self-described "basket-case" who has very bad spending habits, basically asks you to donate money - getting nothing in return - to help her pay off her credit card debts. Unbelievably, she's raked in enough dough so far to account for half of her original $20,221.40 - all without even getting naked, or even showing her face, for that matter.

Incidentally, here's what she looks like. I'm surprised she didn't go ahead and put her picture on, she's kind of cute and probably would have racked up the full 20 grand by now had she posted it initially...never underestimate the abundance of lonesome dorks willing to throw money at girls on the internet.

At any rate, now that the word's out on Karyn's success, you may as well brace yourself for what I'm sure are to be endless parodies and copycats - errrr...copydogs, rather.

What's Scarier: Poe, Master of the Macabre or Wacko Jacko? How About the Two Combined? Egad!

This is coming from The Star magazine, U.S. supermarket tabloid extraordinaire and the story is so utterly ridiculous as to be impossible, but I'm posting it anyways 'cause it's the funniest. According to The Star's crack reporters, none other than Marlon Brando is coaching Michael Jackson for an upcoming role in which he'll be playing the horror story master, Edgar Allen Poe.

I guess it's not that far fetched. I mean, look at the startling similiarities looks-wise, in the pictures above. They could be twins. And with that ultra-spooky homage to plastic surgery gone horribly wrong that he calls a face, Jackson is sure to bring chills galore to the audience.

Oh God, please let this be true - I smell a cult classic.

The Toast Always Lands Butter-Side Down

In other words, anything that can go wrong, will, as the math-contest winners above can attest.

The origin and history of Murphy's law, along with every permutation of it you can think of can all be found here, neatly categorized under topics like love, computers, commerce, etc.

0wnz0red

Thought I'd plug this piece of science fiction on Salon, 0wnz0red, a story about programmers who take on the ultimate hack: that of their own bodies. Why sleep or exercise when you're the sysadmin. of your body's operating system?

A really kickass bit of writing from Hugo Award winner and resident BoingBoing blogger, Cory Doctorow.

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

A brief history of hacking.

Guard Your Mind!

With MindGuard, the personal anti-psychotronic software for Amiga and Linux:

MindGuard is a program for Amiga and Linux that protects your mind by jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think.

Was the Moon Landing a Hoax?

Compelling evidence that puts the Fox special and others to shame. This is pretty funny stuff.

Gwyneth and Steve

This is a repost but I came across it again today and had to put it up again, in case anyone missed it, it's just that funny. Gotta love Steve Martin.

Fubbs

A very odd, trippy little website...I really don't know what else to say about it, just check it out for yourself.

Stark, Naked Love!

And the struggle continues...(warning: language).

News of the Day

I realized the other day that I'd been neglecting posting a lot of news stories like I used to and have been mulling over ways I could incorporate a separate section into the blog devoted just for that purpose. In the meantime, here are a few headlines for you to peruse:

Burnt Jimi Hendrix Guitar Up for Auction

Woman Who Gave Birth at Five Back in Spotlight (Yep, you read that right...5)

The Babe's Bat Found After 20 Years Under a Bed

Escaped Emu Mistaken for Naked Man

Australian Drug Dealer Allowed $118,800 Tax Write-off for Stolen Drug Money

Man Accused of Trying to Kill Friend Who Gave Him a "Wedgie" Faces Charges

Woman Has Two Sets of Identical Twins

The Schøyen Collection

An incredible collection of 12,536 manuscripts of all kinds, spanning the course of five-thousand years of human history, from Aborigine art to medieval texts and Asian antiquities, with loads of info and hi-res pictures of many items.

Hey, Where's the Fire?

Check out this wicked-bad jet-powered ride...the 1940 Ford fire engine, powered by two Rolls/Royce 601 Viper engines w/afterburners, is the world's fastest truck.

Nanopop History

Nanopops has a lot of hilarious little flash movies starring little stick-figure-type characters of the same name. I especially liked their take on the history of the Beach Boys and other bands like Nirvana in the History of Pop section.

Subversive Stickers

Someone's selling stickers with a message, they're for people to put on random gas pumps when they travel. The yellow, warning-label-type appliques remind you to stop your engine before pumping, not to smoke and proclaim "thank you for supporting global terrorism". They seem to be selling well and I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing these pop-up at service stations across the country.

Oh, What a Joyful Web We Weave

The Hawaiian Happy Happyface Spider, or Theridion grallator , has to be one of the oddest arachnids I've ever seen, there are several kinds on the islands, all bearing a variation on the famous smiley-face icon. This was on the Honeyguide Weblog, a fascinating little blog about nature and animals.

Been a Long Time Since I Saw One of These

In fact, I'd forgotten they even existed. I remember playing with these as a kid - I doubt this would entertain a little kid today for long, though, there's no rocket launchers or batteries and it doesn't even morph into any kind of robot or spaceship. Actually it's pretty lame, we were easily entertained then, though. There are some other neat little toys you can build, like mousetrap cars and a sardine-can jetboat on the homepage, Mechanical Toys.

Sexiest Cartoon Babes of All Time

Retrocrush, apparently with time on their hands, compiled this list of their picks for the top 50 sexiest cartoon babes ever. Of course I have no opinion on this utterly silly topic, but I suppose if I just had to pick one I'd go with their "Jean Gray, of the X-Men" selection.

Life Imitating Popcorn Entertainment

I had this movie laying around the house for awhile I hadn't watched, a 1996 Kurt Russell action flick called Executive Decision. I finally got around to watching it tonight and for the most part, it was your typical shoot-'em-up action fare. It was the kind of movie you saw all the time in recent years and thought nothing of: Islamic Terrorist Villian with machine guns vs. Clever, American, Blue-eyed Hero with machine guns. Your run-of-the-mill two hours of shooting, daring-do and miraculous escapes. A year ago, this film would have had roughly the emotional impact on me as a Weezer video, if that.

Lots of things have changed since then, though. As the movie played out I found myself completely taken aback by the plot. You see, these particular movie bad guys had hijacked a civilian airliner, a 747 - and were demanding that a fellow terrorist be released from U.S. custody, along with some gold, safe passage, etc. In actuality, though, their plan was to use the plane (which was filled with a nerve gas bomb) as an instrument of attack against Washington D.C. Their leader had planned it all as a suicide mission. Incidentally, his underlings, mostly, seemed to be in the dark about his intent as well...it was just plain spooky to watch after the events of last September.

I won't go into the entire plot, as it's mostly irrelevant - suffice it to say that Kurt and his crack team of commando buddies miraculously save the passengers and the city at the last possible second, as is par for the course for this type of movie, but it's amazing how differently this plays now than it must have when it was made. I realize I'm hardly the first person to point this out, in fact I seem to recall them talking about this on television back when the news of 9/11 was fresh and everyone was looking at it from every possible angle, trying to make sense of what had happened, but I'd never seen the film and it took me by surprise. Scenes that wouldn't have really affected me before (the terrorists shooting hostages, their leader kneeling on a prayer rug in anticipation of the fruition of his plan, the president trying to decide whether to shoot down the plane) suddenly took on a whole new meaning and I felt like I had an emotional investment in the picture. Even the ending felt weird and surreal, with Kurt driving off with the beautiful but brave heroine, everyone safe and sound. I've gone on enough about it, I guess, I would like to add one more thing, though.

Aside from all the cans-of-worms this movie opened up from an intellectual standpoint, there was one thing about it that was absolutely wonderful, pre- or post 9/11: Steven Segal gets killed off in the first twenty minutes. If only all his films were like that.