Serious Burns

A nicely done site devoted to Monty Burns, of The Simpsons fame. More information about Springfield's richest and oldest man, with screen grabs, lines, scans of comics and other goodies.

I apologize in advance, but I have to say it: it's exxxcellllent.

"Mr. Sulu, Raise Shields!", Says Defense Dept.

Apparently they've developed an electrical "forcefield" for tanks that will vaporize enemy rockets and shells on impact.

The Golden Age of Hoaxes

Some are funny, others not-so-funny - but they're being perpetrated on a grander scale than ever before. Personally, if it's not something despicable, like the fake anthrax stuff or email scams, I love a good hoax. I've posted links to several here since I started this blog, the Cottingly Faeries, Crop Circles, The War of the Worlds, etc.

I like the fact that there are people out there who offering up the silly or unbelievable and somehow able to pull the wool over our eyes, only to point their finger and laugh as we ask ourselves, "How could I possibly have believed that bullshit?"

Elvis Statue Weeps "Miracle Tears"

Well, I'm gonna file this one under the category of "It had to happen, sooner or later". Some Elvis nut in the southern Netherlands claims his plaster bust of The King wept miraculous, salty tears on the 25th anniversary of Presley's death.

The owner of the statue is a self-professed medium who talks to Elvis regularly (big surprise there) and even more amazing, there have been hundreds of visitors to his home to bear witness to the event, which has happened several times over the past five years.

Obviously, this is a hoax - as Elvis Presley, to my knowledge, is still alive and currently undergoing treatment for arthritis under the watchful eye of a Montana doctor. If you don't believe me, just ask any British gambler.

WWWF Grudge Match

Celebs, movie stars, politicians, etc. - paired up and pitted against one another in a vicious world-wide-web battle for supremacy. The voting and final call is made by the site's visitors, the analysis and color commentary by two guys so well-versed in pop-culture trivia you'll swear they've never ventured more than ten feet from their couch or been exposed to any source of light, other than the warm, hypnotic glow of a cathode-ray tube.

Sam Malone vs. The Fonz, Forrest Gump vs. Rain Man and my personal favorite - The Bandit vs. C.H.I.P.S - they're all there, struggling for survival and living and dying by the click of the mouse. Maybe I've just watched too much television myself, but I think these guys are really funny.

Bionic Comeback

It appears that Jamie Sommers will be coming back to the small screen in an updated version of The Bionic Woman. There's no word yet whether original series star, Lindsay Wagner will appear in the show but it's assumed that the lead will be played by someone else. A companion series to The Six Million Dollar Man, the 70's show featured Wagner as Steve Austin's tennis star girlfriend, who, when injured horribly in an accident, was rebuilt with bionic parts much as he was. (Steve Austin, of course, was the original Six Million Dollar Man, not the wife-beating idiot WWF star of the same name).

I'm just curious as to what kind of price-tag the show's producers will place on the new Bionic Woman's fictional operation. If I recall the old shows correctly, Steve explained to Jamie that she cost a "little less" than he did. Sexism? Nope - "Smaller parts", Austin explained :)

Who Doesn't Love Gadgets?

If you do, the Gizmodo Gadget Blog will keep you up to date with the latest nifty, shiny things in the world of electronics - covering such categories as pcs, laptops, home entertainment systems and trendy items like the Hello Kitty USB hub pictured above. And yes, Tara - there's even a section on PDAs :)

How to Build a Time Machine

A little "Oh wow, man...dude, like, what if you..." type material to chew on from The Scientific American website.

By the way, thanks to my friends who voted me up to a 9.2 the Blog Hot or Not site this morning and to Cory from Boingboing for posting my time capsule letter on their site this today. All in all it made for a nice day to wake up to.

Elvis Fan Artist Mows the Image of The King in Field

Little bit late on this one, seeing as the anniversary of Elvis's death was a couple days ago, but it's neat so here you go - an artist in the Hudson Valley mowed this massive image of the late Mr. Presley into a 50 acre wheat field. He submitted it to the Elvis Tribute Week Art Contest in Graceland and won best of show.

Get Out There and Vote, People!

Last night I signed up for Blog Hot or Not. As of this writing it's a 6.6 with nine votes in. Toss me a bone, people, okay? I don't even have a wishlist on this thing, for gosh sakes. I'd love to login tomorrow and find a seven or even (gasp!) an eight. This link takes you directly to my voting page.

Thanks :)

Reach Out and Touch Someone - in the Year 52,002 A.D.

Apparently (assuming this isn't a hoax, I haven't researched it but it sounds legit) some French folks are going to send up a time capsule - in a satellite that will orbit the earth for ages and finally plummet from the sky roughly 50,000 years from now. Here's the cool part: they're letting anyone who feels the urge to attach their own email messages (up to 6,000 characters) for posterity and, ostensibly, their future descendants.

I'm currently an unmarried, socially-inept computer nerd, so it's beginning to look as though the genetic buck may stop here for me. However, I couldn't resist leaving a message for the society of the future. The following is the shoutout I plan to bestow upon the giant-headed, galaxy-travelling, silver-spandex wearing, futuristic peepz:

Dear Futurefolk,

I sincerely hope that this message is being read by a human, as opposed to a dirty, horseback-riding, talking ape. That said, I'd like to tell you that I'm utterly amazed anyone managed to make it out of the 21st century. What with the wars, plagues, global warming and all the scary implications of the genetic and technological innovations of recent years, for anyone to have made it past the year 2020 was quite a trick and I applaud you on your hardiness. You're a very resourceful crew, indeed.

I suppose someone either managed to rally the earth's people and bring about some social epiphany, ushering in a new era of peace and enlightenment for mankind or - more likely - you're a world of ultra-badass motorcycling mutants with mohawks and shotguns who've managed to shrewdly survive by hoarding gas, killing those weaker than yourselves and drinking your own urine for sustenence. Hey, either way - good for you!

By the way, how are the cockroaches?

Yours truly,

Jimmy Olsen - Your Simple, Barbaric Ancestor

Star Wars Is My Best Movie

Chewbacca is stronger than my Dad. He would kick his ass. One comment from my pop about "walking carpet" and --=Kabaam!!=--. Chewie would knock his ass through the floor.

May The Force Be With You.

David Lee Roth, Spambuster!

I'm hesitant to link to anything on Geocities, due to their utter crappiness, but this was just too funny and I had to post it. "Jason", of the Scam Joke Page got one of those emails from a so-called Nigerian businessman claiming to make him a zillionaire and kept up a very long and funny correspondence with him under the guise of David Lee Roth - American business tycoon. The subsequent exchange of emails is hilarious - at one point Jason even emails the guy a picture of himself (or rather, of David Lee Roth, former frontman of Van Halen, in all his 80's bleached-blonde glory) and has the clueless scam-artist referring to him as "Diamond Dave" in his letters.

I'm really curious how many people have fell for these emails and wound up in Nigeria with their money gone, beaten up and left for dead or without a passport. I'm sure at some point someone has, though - which is surprising, as the perpetrators don't seem to be the sharpest crayons in the box themselves, judging by these missives.

Syd Allan: Frequently Asked Questions About Women

Syd knows women - listen and learn at the feet of the master.

Is my Blog HOT
or NOT?

Rollercoaster

A cute java game in which you control a rollercoaster and it's passengers on their wild and wooly ride, "k" key speeds it up, "s" key slows it down and "b" stops the game.

We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

A pointless little time-killer - pilot around a yellow submarine beneath the sea. Who knows? Perhaps you'll find that Octopus's Garden of your dreams.

Funniest Thing Ever - Spock Sings The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

I don't know if this can ever be topped for sheer surreal lunacy - Spock (a.k.a. Leonard Nimoy) - on some 60's or 70's television show, singing some ridiculously cheesy song about Bilbo Baggins of Tolkien fame. Complete with a funky day-glo set and swinging hepcat teens surrounding him and listening happily as though it's the greatest thing on earth.

In their defense, they were probably really, really stoned - that goes for Nimoy, too.

Cool Idea

An artist in Antwerp constructed this ferris wheel - for cars. Here's a link to the story, with a bigger picture.

Act Now, This Will Sell Fast!

Someone's selling a bag of dog hair on eBay.

Wow...I Repeat, Wow.

Well, the mad-scientists types just keep on blowing my mind, everyday, like clockwork. This time it's brain implants that have full-on given a blind man his sight back.

Yup, no joke, they've hooked a man up with real-life Star Trek, TNG - style eyesight. You can read about the details and see pics in this eye-opening five-page article from Wired - and yes, that was a very, very lame pun on my part. Look, it's late. You want professional writing, go pick up a New Yorker or something - it's not like I'm getting paid for this crap :)

Mr. Roboto

Check out this Quicktime footage of a cool new robot from Sony that was posted on Boingboing, I guess it's some new Aibo-type thing. Sure looks cool, though. I'm still waiting on the robot that will bring me a beer and tidy up around the house like Rosie from The Jetsons...sigh. Guess that'll be awhile.

Meantime, here's some more info about this singing, dancing robot, the SDR-4X, which can recognize up to ten human faces and can even recognize emotions from facial features. There are still some issues the engineers are going to have to work on, but it looks like it may be time to take the old Aibo to the robotic dog pound to be put to sleep.

Messenger Madness

Bigblueball.com is your one-stop-shopping site for instant messenger information - all the major messengers are covered and there are forums, help pages and chat. I found out there today that there was a new beta version of Yahoo!'s messenger that has - yes! - a grand total of thirty new smileys and something called "Super Webcam", which allows you to see larger webcam images with better frame rates (as long as the person you're chatting with has it as well).

Pachyderm Painters

Elephants like to paint - apparently you can give them a brush and pallete and they're happy as can be. Artbyelephants.com is devoted to showing off their work, which has been compared to that of several twentieth century abstract luminaries.

One of my favorite stories involves the famous abstract painter Willem de Kooning. As a joke, someone decided to show him a painting done by an elephant and upon looking at it, the artist was quite impressed. After commenting on the exquisite color and beautiful curves of the lines, his friend revealed that the painting was, in fact, done by an elephant. Not missing a beat, de Kooning responded with line, "That's a damn talented elephant you have there."

A Toast to the King

25 years after his death, The King continues to dominate. He was on this week's TV Guide, he recently beat out The Beatles for the honor of most #1 singles in the U.K. and yet another album is about to be released, consisting of his said #1 singles. A New Zealand supermarket owner has immortalized him in a toast portrait (shown above - click here for a larger version and the Yahoo! story or here for his site, which includes other toast portraits) and Forbes magazine has named him the "top-earning dead celebrity".

Amidst all this hoopla, Lisa Marie has secretly wed Nicolas Cage. Hope for her sake this one's not a complete sham like the Wacko Jacko fiasco...*shudder*.

Doubleplusgood

The Memory Hole - which takes it's name from the tubes in which news articles were tossed into and destroyed when the govt. changed their spin on things in Orwell's 1984 - tells you about all those nasty news little items that tend to get supressed or overlooked by the media.

Fruit Box Art

Paperstuff.com has a large selection of fruit box art - like on those big crates of oranges you get - that go back for years and have some pretty interesting illustrations.

Playing Dice With the Web

Mangle lets you grab one of Google's 2 billion web pages at random and has links to other random page generators as well. I particularly liked the Yahoo! version - since they have real people checking their sites for content, the urls that come up tend to be more interesting.

Horror Cards

A big collection of 1961 non-sport trading cards - Frankenstein, The Amazing Colossal Man, etc. Cards even scarrrrier than the cardboard-stiff pink gum they came with.

Just a Quick Post to Let Everyone Know I'm Not Dead

Sorry folks, wasn't around much over the weekend and now I'm too dead tired to do a lot of posting, I've bookmarked some sites for tomorrow, though, never fear - I shall soon return to our regularly scheduled load of links and miscellaneous crap asap. Till then, why not go to Fark? I steal half the junk on here from there anyways. Thank you for your patronage :)

Are You Canadian?

Even if you're not, you can take this test and see how well you do. For my Canuk buddies out there...I got a 6 out of 10 score - can we still be friends?

NRA for Kiddies

From the folks at Chickenhead.com, it's the NRA Kookie Kid's Korner!

Groovy, Baby!

If you didn't get enough shagadelic Sixties vibes from the Austin Powers Goldmember movie and are still clamoring for more peace and love, get thee to The Groovy Times.

I Want to Believe...

Earthfiles is a source of info for all that stuff you can only file under X, like crop circles, ufos and other weird anomolies. There's also a radio show you can listen in on.

Does it Seem Crowded in Here to You?

Watch the world's population inflate before your eyes.

And the Award for Most Surreal Headline Ever Goes to...

Man Charged with Assaulting Goat Mayor.

Yep, that's right. A man assaulted the mayor of Lajitas, TX, who is - in fact - a goat. Apparently he was upset because the mayor (again, I repeat - a goat) was being allowed to drink beer on Sunday, in defiance of the town's local blue laws. Did I mention he also castrated the beer-swilling goat-mayor?

Well, Folks, We've Hit a New Low...

As far as youth sports go, anyways. We've all seen the stories about parents freaking out and assaulting one another at Little League games and about parents assaulting refs and coaches, as well. I don't think I've heard of a coach assaulting a player, though - that's what happened to a 12-year-old girl recently at an elementary-league soccer game. Apparently she was on her way to a hat trick when the opposing coach freaked out and attacked her.

Alas, it's come to this, my friends - we are a Nation of Barbarians. It's official, I guess.

Homer in the Land of the Rising Sun

At Japander.com you can find quicktime downloads of american celebs like Mel Gibson and Madonna doing the shameless advertising and media-whoring they're adverse to doing here in the States. Be sure and check out the Simpsons CC Lemon spots.

Behold, the Instruments of the Devil!

Here's one of a million reasons I'm hoping diehard Muslims never take over the planet - a page detailing the etiquette involved in the everyday process of taking a whiz. For starters, urinals (above) are most definitely out - though, as stated in the article, "Even Imaams of Musaajid are exposing themselves shamelessly and filthily in public view by using these bestial kuffaar contraptions."

There's also a laundry list of other chores you must perform before answering the call of nature, such as reciting prayers to Allah on entering and upon exiting - " O Allah I seek Your pardon. All praises are due to Allah who has taken away from me discomfort and granted me relief." - for instance, as well as informing you of which foot to step into the bathroom with first, etc. From what I can tell, it seems to be an all-day process and I'm surprised anyone gets anything done over there because it sounds like by the time you've done your business in the proper fashion, it's time to do it again already.

Next On Fox: When Platypuses Attack!

Platypuses, those freaky egg-laying mammals that just don't seem to fit in...we all know they're funny-looking freaks, but who knew they were violent, fearsome creatures and a force to be reckoned with? From what they're saying here, these duckbilled abberations of nature aren't to be messed with.

Linky, Linky, Linky

Added a new link today, the little "BlogTree" icon on the bottom right of the page. BlogTree is a sort of blog geneology project - you add your blog and then list the blog/blogs it was inspired by. Clicking on someone's info shows their site was "born", their parent blogs and their sibling blogs - blogs which bear the same inspirational lineage as theirs.

War, Poverty, Disease - Problem Solved!

Has the Evil Empire of Tax Masters and Interest Masters been getting you down lately? Are you tired of the Evil Anti-Christ Government and does the stench of your Average American Firetrap, Mouse-infested Cockroach Den leave you scratching your head and wondering why you persist in being a Tax Slave?

Well, never fear - this bearded, robe-and-sandal wearing hippie has it all figured out and is willing to share with you his Master Plan for Worldwide Law, Order, Obedience, Peace and True Prosperity. I feel better already - have to admit, though, the rock house is kind of cool.

Struck By Lightning

It seems that on television, you're always hearing stories about people who were struck by lightning and lived. Not this guy. Remember guys, lightning is dangerous and we're not all made of the same stuff as that park ranger guy from the Guiness Book. That guy can't even walk outside to get his morning paper without being struck by a bolt of lightning.

Ways Spiderman Can Use His Powers Later In Life...

Yet Another Bizarre Japanese Flash Movie

Wow...what are they smoking over there in Japan, huh? (via the Everlasting Blort)

Fun Pet or Horrible Monster?

Both, apparently. Here's some info on the recently vilified Snakehead fish that's been making news lately. Found in a Maryland pond a couple months ago, the asian fish - which eats everything in a pond, then walks on land to the next one - it's spread to several states now and is easily the most hated species of fish in the U.S. It's only defense is that it's supposedly a mighty tasty meal. Mmmm...snakehead.

I Wonder How It Sits?

The mousepad couch.

Attack of the Souped-Up Ataris

In a truly inspiring fit of nerdy-inventiveness, the folks at Retrosystem have taken the case-modification craze and jacked it up to the next level.

For a fee, their geek-chic production team will outfit an old Atari, NES or Amiga computer with miniature, up-to-date components like good-sized hard drives, speedy ram and even dvd drives to make for a system as powerful as many recent desktops. Linux and Windows operating systems are included and yes - you can still play that crummy irritating version of Pac-Man on it.

Any Dad Can Build a Tree House

But how many would build their kids a giant Mechwarrior in their backyard? This thing's been posted everywhere but what the hell, let's jump on the bandwagon. It is pretty neat...bet the kids' popularity shot through the roof after dad got done putting this puppy together.

The Evil of Pippi Longstocking

In a classic example of "who on earth would go to this much trouble for a joke", someone's made a webpage that explains - in exacting detail - the hundreds of reasons pointing to movie moppet Pippi Longstocking being the Antichrist.

Heroes

Sorry for the recent lack of updates, I'll try and get some stuff on here tomorrow...till then, here's a funny flash film featuring Marvel Comics characters in a spoof of "Clerks".

Whoa...Dude...I Totally Forgot Pot Was Illegal...

A stoner reports his indoor pot-growing equipment and stash are stolen to the police.

Hunkin's Experiments

Lots of goofy tricks and experiments, most of it's stuff you see when you're a kid, building potato batteries and the like.

Team Sandtastic!

Okay, they have a very goofy name, but these dudes make some unbelievable sand and snow sculptures.

Yatta!

Here at The Ends of the Earth it's a long-standing tradition that I only post things after every man, woman and child on the internet has already seen them and they've been run into the ground. Today's example is the Flash movie Irrational Exuberance. My only excuse is that, although I've seen this posted in numerous places the last few months or so, it took so long to load I never bothered to watch it. Turns out it was pretty cool. So, if you have some time to kill or are on a cable modem and haven't seen this five thousand times already and aren't sick of it, here you go - enjoy.

Texas Serial Killer May Go Free in 2006

Thanks to a few glitches in the court system, a man known to have committed 13 murders and possibly as many as eighty may be released in four years.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet...

I was on Metafilter today and saw this link to a site with a complete scan of Action Comics #1 on it. It's the comic most historians believe to be the beginning of the Golden Age of comics, lusted after by serious comic collectors world over - there are only 75 or so known copies and only fifteen of those are in what would be considered near mint condition - and one of those is currently stolen.

I've read a lot of old comic book reprints but I've never seen this seminal comic of the gods in it's entirety. One thing I found interesting was that Superman's logo has hardly changed at all since 1939. The costume's a bit different, there are no supervillians to be found (those came later) and the artwork is hardly what comic fans are accustomed to today. Basically, though, the recipe for the modern superhero is all there. The extraordinary powers, the secret identity, the love interest he can't tell - everything. It's amazing to think that in a superhero-less world, something like this sprung full-blown and totally realized from the heads of two young guys (Siegel and Shuster) who were just knocking out funny books for kiddies and surely had no idea what they'd created or that it would last for generations and remain popular and in the forefront of the world's culture.

It seems that superheroes are more popular than ever these days and I wonder if it has anything to do with all the military conflict going on. For comics, the Golden Age was WWII. During the second World War, comics sold in the millions, many more than are sold now. They were everywhere. My dad used to tell me stories about hauling off big piles of them (some of which would be priceless now, I'm sure) on a little cart for recycling as part of the war effort.

I think in wartime superheroes take on a different and more powerful meaning, which may account for the incredible popularity of Superman and his hordes of imitators in the 40's and the current infatuation with Spiderman and the other upcoming superhero movies. Who wouldn't want some Superman to come along and save the day in times like these - someone better than us, more powerful, more enlightened - someone honest and just. Then there's the escapist aspect of it - you can open the pages of a comic book and be taken away to a place where there are troubles, menacing villians, doomsday devices...menacing and yet existing in a realm of fantasy in which you know that in the end, truth, justice and (no offense to my friends from other countries) the American Way will prevail. I think the first of the superheroes, Superman, sums all these qualities up as well as anyone, still. Here's a few Super-links:

Riding high on the wave of Spider-mania, we can look forward to not one, but two (?) Superman movies in the near to semi-near future. There's a Superman vs. Batman team-up and a straight-up George Reeves.

The old-timey Superman radio show's first sixteen episodes in Quicktime format.

If that's not enough for you, here's a page with massive amounts of Superman lore and linkage. Great Scott!

Dumbass of the Week: Steve Earle

Frankly I was never a huge Steve Earle fan, Copperhead Road was okay for ten minutes back in the late eighties or whenever it was, but he's not someone I'd bother to go see or buy an album from.

This week, though, he's managed to go from critically-acclaimed lukewarm album-seller to making himself the most hated man in country music, it seems. Probably he should have seen this coming...something tells me a song that pretty much glorifies "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, with muslim prayer chants in the background and comparisons between Lindh and Jesus Christ won't go over well with the rebel-flag waving throngs of country fans out there.

Smile!

I was at this site the other night, Best Smileys - they have tons of cool little smiley gifs and emoticons, so if you like that sort of thing be sure and check them out.

I couldn't sleep that night and made this pointless little bit of psychedelia out of some of them - Enjoy.