Tom Waits' two new albums, Alice and Blood Money, streamed in their entirety for three days each.

People joke about it, but it's real.

The World's Largest Ball Of Twine, including a description of the white-hot yearly "Twine-a-thon".

Great Flash Games

I am particularly enjoying the pointlessness of Speartoss, in which a gentleman with a horridly distended abdomen repeatedly tosses a spear for distance, solely for your amusement. He thinks of nothing else. His life is a joyless parade of sameness, whether he tosses the spear short or far, fair or foul. Abuse his fate! Set him on the course to tedium, with the throttle on full! Throw that spear!

I also like Speartoss because it reminds me of MicroSoft Decathlon, which I used to play on the ol' Apple ][e lo these many years ago. The most surreal event in that game was the Shotput, in which you had to control the angle and force of the shot putting, and in which the shotputter looked like a demented stick figure with a ridiulously long arm. Sigh. Those were the days. If only I could sit here and wail on the arrow keys of my PC like in those salad days of yore.

Also Makai Racing

I don't even think that I really like m&ms. But they're slowly permeating my consciousness.

What ghastly spell have they wrought upon me that I am unable to evade their poor-quality-chocolate crunch? One day they'll find me leaning up against the vending machine, my face pressed to the glass, leaving a cheek-spot of condensation, gazing into the abyss where once dwelled a seemingly endless supply of my m&m lifeline.

I have the same problem with Wintergreen Altoids. I used to eat them because they were gross. I'd eat one and the whole time I'd be thinking "Wow! This really isn't very good!"

But 5 minutes later, I'd be back on the Wintergreen Altoid death-ride to hell, like one of those out-of-control mine cars you see in Indiana Jones ripoffs and poorly maintained mines. I mean what's wrong with me? Next thing you know I'll be grossing people out by carrying around that strong salt licorice from Sweden or wherever the hell they make that stuff.

I think I may be insane.

Java Star Wars Colorforms (may take a while to load. Then again it may not take a while to load. Or it may take until tomorrow to load. It's all in how you look at it really. Maybe it is not the page that loads at all, but you that loads. Ever think of that, smart guy?)

Ah. Colorforms. Sometimes, in these hectic modern times, I wish I could just sit down and play with colorforms for a little while. Until they get cat hair all over them and don't stick to the background anymore. I hate that.

Oh, who am I kidding? My life's not that hectic. I could play with colorforms if I really wanted to.

Or shrinky dinks.

Cool shrinky dink art

Pee Wee Shrinky Dinks

The history of colorforms

KISS colorforms - Gene Simmons can be as big of a misogynist poo-head as he wants, because he knows he's got colorforms cred.

Ren and Stimpy colorforms

The Incredible Hulk colorforms

are you getting what I'm saying here? I'm saying there are a lot of colorforms out there. There may even be a colorform out there of you. Just think about it for a moment. Somewhere, far away, in a dark basement, there's a guy who hasn't showered in days. And he has something in his hand...for the love of god what is it? It's a colorform of you! And he's stroking it slowly, whispering softly to it that everything will be all right. Sighing, he gets up for a tunafish sandwich, and slips the colorform of you into his dirty jeans pocket.

Sorry about that. I know we all feel a little less clean now.

I've never seen the ducks and the pond together. I only know that the pond is there and the ducks are there, and that it must be peaceful to be a duck on the pond.


I just wanted to link one more time to pracowity's Eeksy Peeksy, because it's wonderful. Go read it and remember why you always wanted to write.

Oh man! It's too good!

Alice in Wonderland with kitties

And MIDI on the page! This is indeed the best of all possible worlds!

Cats in Space

With their exciting Cats in Space Theme Song:

See, we rule up in the air,
Cats in space.
In our feline starships
Eating tuna floating in the air as there's
No gravity.
Cats in space.
Every world that's been discovered
Felines are everywhere.
Into each new world
Conquering as we go.
Tails held high
In a majestic pose.
Onward we go through the night
Now we truly rule all worlds!

There's an underappreciated art form out there in the world. The Science Fiction Paperback cover. Let's have a look, shall we?

The Gods Hate Kansas - Hardly surprising. Gods like to live on Olympus, which is a mountain. They don't have a lot of mountains in Kansas, or so I've heard. The Gods also think the rice side of the Crispix Cereal is crispety-crunchier than the corn side, so this enmity is probably destined to continue forever.

The Green Girl - Probably best not to comment on this one. I believe this may have been the inspiration for some of KMFDM's album covers though.

From Unknown Worlds - Some worlds are best left unseen, especially the ones with a lot of drunken elves and snakes coming out of eye-sockets (nudge, nudge!)

Dr. Futurity - So badass, we had to give him a goofy name just to make up for it.

Hmm. More on this exciting genre later.

This weekend was brought to you by the letter "B"

B is for Baby Shower, the couple kind, which my wife and I attended. B is also for Baby Farm, which is what this event was like. There must have been twenty of the little critters running around, I swear. Don't let babies fool you. They look sweet and innocent, but they're just waiting for an opening to jump on your head, Alien face sucker style, and it'll be all over for you, pal.

(B, incidentally, is also for Beer, which is good for whiling away the hour or two during the present opening. There is a special kind of weary, desperate silence that descends on people an hour and a half into a baby shower that results in actual "oohs" and "ahhs" for that diaper machine that turns used diapers into sealed sausage-shapes.)

After all that Babying, B was for another viewing of Blade Runner, one of our favorite movies. One of the best things about watching Blade Runner is that we get to talk about Replicants, and Roy Batty (whose last name, by the way, starts with B). We get to talk about the original release versus the director's cut edition, and why the director's cut is one thousand times better. "The voiceover?" we scoff. "Laughable!"

Then, of course, we get to talk about the "Is Deckard a Replicant?" question, so popular a discussion topic at group events across this great nation of ours. Now, sure, Ridley Scott came out and flat out said that Deckard is a Replicant, making my earlier "No he's not" position in these discussions tenuous at best, but I am still willing to defend the precarious position that it is not provable either way. This sort of bull-headedness has not won me many supporters in the irrational argument community, but there you have it. In case anyone's interested, Bryant's desk from the movie is on sale.

Anyway, here are some people who like to hear themselves theorize talking about Blade Runner.

Picturing the Human (Body and Soul): A Reading of Blade Runner

Blade Runner's Human / Replicant Debate

What it means to be humans in the Cybernetic State

Eyeballing The Simulacra

How Science Became God In Blade Runner

As if there weren't enough dorky ways to waste time, they have to go and put the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy text adventure game on the net.

Egad!

Particularly fine Too Much Coffee Man strip

More Friday zaniness!

El zaniness numero uno: Hero Builders, where you can purchase some fine George Dubya Bush Action Figures

El zaniness bueno numero dos*: Weird Wisconsin, featuring Alien Pancakes and Flying Reptile Man



*OK, I don't speak Spanish, or even fake Spanish very well.

Let's relax, suck down a cool one, and enjoy some Belt Sander Drag Racing. Yee, I believe the expression goes, Ha!

[via Judith]

In other news, this here little My Life As An American Gladiator was named Blog Of The Day for April 17th.

I'd like to thank Gil Gerard for making this possible. And Lorne Greene. And Jurgen Prochnow. And my good friends at Clamato. Without you guys, none of this would have been possible. Oh, and Marlon Perkins too. Just for influencing my life in a positive direction, and making me learn the valuable lesson that you should always have your assistant Jim fight the big poisonous snake.

It appears the owner of the LEGO Church site has redirected all traffic away from her site. I hope she didn't get too much negative attention. What she created was certainly impressive, and I hope she puts it back up because it is truly something to behold.

Or maybe she got too many hits from everyone linking to her site.

Or maybe there was a LEGO Little People uprising and she was torn limb from limb in a crazy Preskool slaughter. I don't know.

I have no words for the looniness of this LEGO Dead Cat Church Thing.

OK, I have one word: Bitchin!

Chickens! Look upon these machines, chickens, and fear!

Everyone seems very upset about Robert Urich passing away. I agree, it is sad when anyone dies, particularly of cancer, but there is one positive in this whole thing. One silver lining that Robert Urich's death will bring me: I now have a way of telling the difference between Robert Urich and Gil Gerard. This inability to distinguish between Robert Urich, star of Vegas and Spenser: For Hire; and Gil Gerard, TV's Buck Rogers has brought me nothing but trouble, from bar fights to uncomfortable celebrity book signings.

So, in the interest of not sullying the good name of Robert Urich, let's take a look at his doppelganger: Gil Gerard.

Here is a lovely, if a little obsessive site by a Polish gentleman who ponders idly: I hope that Mr. Gerard will visit Wroclaw someday. :-) My dream....

Another site about Gil Gerard, who is not the same person as Robert Urich.

Gil, lettin' it all hang out, and looking a lot like Robert Urich.

Another important difference between Robert Urich and Gil Gerard: Gil Gerard was never without his trusted sidekick, Twiki, who is available to answer your questions.

The Covers Project

Tracing the route a song can take. Head on over there and add your esoteric cover knowledge to the database.

Female Celebrity Smoking Page

In case you want to make sure there'll be some Female Celebrity Smoking in that copy of Pete's Dragon* you picked up at the video store.



*Note to concerned parents: I don't believe there is actually any Female Celebrity Smoking in Pete's Dragon. Except for that one part after all the hot dragon sex.

I have found the geatest mascot ever: I give you Clammy Sosa!

Clammy Sosa is but one of a gaggle of really strange foam suit entertainers from Zooperstars, whose ranks also include Roger Clamens. What makes him truly special, though, is his ability to eat an entire human. OK...Mackerel Jordan can do that too.

But still, He's a Clam! How cool is that?

We went to a club last night to celebrate the birthday of a head-banging friend. Words cannot describe the experience of seeing the Iron Maidens, the all female Iron Maiden Tribute Band.

They were hilarious, and the lead guitarist was honestly pretty badass. So, how was the whole metal experience? Some observations:

- There was lots of hair there. Only at Iron Maiden tribute shows do you see so many women with Pat Benatar/Quarterflash hair.

- Air guitar was played by aging, portly Maiden fans. At one point, medics had to rush to the assistance of one aging rocker who apparently was unable to stop rockin'. He looked around, bewildered and helpless, as his fingers danced like wildfire on the neck of his non-existent axe. Eventually, the hose was turned on him and a possible air guitar crisis was averted.

- Some head-bangers really can't bang their heads in anything even marginally approaching the beat.

- People really still make that devil sign thing with their hands. Who knew?

Anyway, it was really a lot of fun. Some highlights included Eddie, the mascot, coming out on stage and basically goofing around. And this guy.

I was thwarted in my attempt to overdose on sugar and caffeine.

I secured the Dr Pepper portion, but when I went to get my M&Ms, they had changed all the packaging around, sending me reeling in a bizarre freakout usually only glimpsed in low-budget biker films of the early seventies. I panicked, pushed the wrong button and got the peanut butter kind, an unholy perversion of the true M&M, a taste treat which pales by comparison only to its superior and aloof British cousin, the Smartie.

Actually, I don't really eat candy or drink soda that much any more, now that I am a curmudgeon whose physiognomy is surely on the decline. Even one Dr Pepper and a bag of M&Ms makes my eyeballs twitch and usually results in me bouncing around and making woo! woo! noises.

Listen to me, people of Earth!

Here is the eagerly anticipated list of aliens living among us. It is 100% Extra Triple True because it was written by a person named Josh Nevada (which sounds like either a porn star or the owner of a western wear store that specializes in oversize belt buckles). This page is also published on a French site, following the Weekly World News rule of "The less plausible it is, the farther away from the United States we'll say it happened." Someone eating their own leg could be, say, Florida, but Bigfoot performing psychic surgery on unsuspecting backpackers could be as far away as Tibet.

Without further ado:

SHORT LIST OF MARTIAN CHARACTERS IN THE STAGE WORLD or BREVE LISTE DES PERSONNAGES MARTIENS SUR LA SCENE MONDIALE (Venusians, Pans, Lizards and others also included)

Some highlights:

Dick Cheney: Martian
John Glenn: Martian
A significant portion of the United States House of Representatives: Martians
Steve Ballmer. Microsoft CEO: Martian
Tony Blair: Martian
The Pope: Also a Martian

As for Hollywood:
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Antonio Banderas, Malcolm McDowell, Woody Harrelson, Jude Law, Josh Nevada is calling MARTIAN! on you. Your secret is out! Wait a minute...he says Jurgen Prochnow, friend to all children, is a Martian. Jurgen, no! And Walken?! Oh. Tom Arnold is a Martian too. It all makes sense now.

And Music:
Bjork, to no-one's surprise: a Martian
Willie Nelson and Eminem: Martians the pair of 'em.
George Michael and someone from Iron Maiden: Very much Martian.

Other:
Wayne Gretzky and Richard Hatch (Who I thought was Apollo on Battlestar Galactica but turns out to be some guy from "Survivor" [and not even the band, the TV show!]. If I was a Martian you can bet I would rather be Apollo than some schmuck in a tank top): Martians.

Venusians include Tiger Woods, Sting and Nicholas Cage.

Then, Josh Nevada gets a little vague with the "From Other Planets of Our Solar System" Category. Samuel Jackson and Laurence Fishburne, sure. I'll give you those. But "Apoc" from The Matrix? He's only in the movie for about 45 seconds and you've got to go and say he's from Neptune? That's just not cricket, Mr. Nevada.

I'd go on, but it's just too painful. Suffice to say that Frederico Fellini and Carl Jung are locked in an epic struggle of wills with Mick Jagger and Nina Hagen about something or other. I think.

More patently crazy Martian stuff for you and yours.

So you want to stalk William Shatner?

I arrived back from my road trip on Saturday. Trip-meter: 1026 miles.

That was Orange County to San Francisco to San Jose to San Francisco to Sacramento to Orange County in just about 2 days.

And what did I learn?

- There is no better place to be than Opening Day at Pac Bell Park. My wonderful and long-suffering wife procured tickets for us, for which she is assured a place in The Happy Hunting Grounds for all eternity.

- If you have been missing out on your favorite movies, just drive up the 5 Freeway at night. Families secure in the insular behemoth of their Excursion or Planet-Eater or whatever the heck they're calling SUVs now (I think Ford is planning the Sinistar soon) will oblige you by not only playing movies in their SUVs, but also thoughtfully driving 65 mph in the fast lane so you have plenty of time to watch on-screen antics as you swerve around them, hurling obscenities at their oblivious wheel-well. I swear to you, there was a stretch of about 5 lumbering behemoths, all of which had back seat TV screens going.

- I miss Bindlestick Billy. He lives too far away from me for a best friend.

- My nephew is still quite unreasonably cute, and now is heavier than my cat. The little guy has that strange perfect-Buddhist baby look where he looks about 6 months (which is what he is) and then in the next moment looks about 12. Then, just for a minute, he looked like he was 37 and had a full beard.

Also, courtesy of Skallas, here are some ghost pictures to give you the willies. If anyone asks where you got your willies, tell them from Skallas. I'm just the middleman, and subsequently blameless.

I have been awake since the ungodly hour of 5AM. Why, you ask?

I'll tell you: I hope to leave on my hundreds-of-miles road trip in time to avoid rush hour in LA. Of course, this will not happen, and I will be stuck in a huge block of cars with an urge to pee that will grow inexorably towards tragedy and a Lord Of The Dance type jig outside a Chevron bathroom somewhere that shall remain nameless.

So I have been pumping myself full of caffeine in the interest of not drifting off into the land of Nod here at my Cube O' Joy. I also took some Tylenol this morning, as I woke with a headache. At this very moment, Acetaminophen (played by hippy-esque zen combat guy Willem Dafoe) and caffeine (scarred and grizzled death-machine Tom Berenger) are fighting it out Platoon-style for control of my immortal soul. My coworkers have begun to comment that they grow weary of hearing the dramatic strains of Pachelbel's Canon emanating from the darkest depths of my soul.

Hey, it's metaphysics! What can you do?

Wait just a damn minute here. Why wasn't I told about this? With all these features?

There will be hell to pay!

I suppose I should pay better attention to the sometimes cryptic wongkarwai.net.

I love Criterion Edition DVDs. They warm the cockles of my heart.

I have now been at my godforsaken job for two years. Besides making me drop my head into my hands and weep openly, this means I have a new special ability: I now accrue sick time at 1.5 times the rate of your garden variety less-than-two years employee.

This is now my Special Move, like a Jet Li Flying Shadowless Kick or the kind of thing you get when you press all the buttons at the same time in Mortal Kombat 2 or something. If I was a comic book superhero, a panel would show me sitting at my desk, quietly despairing, and one of those Batman or Liechtenstein-like action balloons that say things like "Zokk!" and "Biff!" would appear over my head and say "Accrue Sick Time!"

Or, you know, like if I was a 25th level fighter/magic-user and I finally reached the "+1d6 on all sick time accrual rolls" level. Not that I would know about stuff like that or anything. Because I wouldn't. You can't prove anything!

Soon I will reach the level of accruing sick time faster than I can use it. Once this legendary accrual has occurred, I will begin to get progressively healthier until I am unstoppable force of good health, and people will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am lying when I call in sick.

Ancient link of the day: Einstuerzende Neubauten's 2000 Anniversary Show, streamed at the Open Video Archive.

Also, new Tom Waits MP3s from the upcoming May 7th releases, Alice and Blood Money.

Thank you Russell for posting these links, just so some unscrupulous Raindog such as myself could saunter by and abscond with them, looting-style.