Am I the only one who finds this kinda creepy? Microsoft: proudly paving the way towards Judgment Day! By the way, I was thinking about Skynet, and an idea occurred to me. If you wanted to ensure that the early stages of your plan to exterminate the human race proceeded without a hitch, wouldn't it make sense to send robots back in time to introduce the plan as fiction? That way, when a Sarah Connor discovered what you were up to and tried to warn people, they'd be even more inclined to regard you as crazy! Oh, Skynet, you are clever.

In tangential news -- because the show airs right after "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on Friday nights -- I've posted my reflections on "Dollhouse" on Scary-Crayon. Right after I uploaded that article, the site (as well as Wesoteric) died for several hours. Apparently speaking ill of a Joss Whedon creation makes the Internet angry. It then takes revenge.

Finally, a word of caution to all you action figure collectors: never, ever buy a loose toy on eBay unless the seller notes that it came from a smoke-free home. (That might not have mattered in this case, since the seller insists that no one in her house smokes, but still.) I got a figure on eBay last week that stinks to high hell, and not in the good way like Stinkor. It's not even like regular cigarette smoke -- it smells more like filthy pipes and burning trash and diseased lungs. I can't bring it within a foot of my face without gagging.

Nothing seems to be working to get rid of that smell, either! I tried scrubbing the toy with soap and water; fail. I left it in an airtight baggie with a few spoonfuls of baking soda for a few days, but that only left me with a stinky toy and a bag of stinky baking soda. Which kinda sucks, because I would've just eaten that baking soda if I'd known it wasn't going to work! Baking soda is delicious. Now I have the thing completely immersed in an airtight baggie filled with kitty litter. I hope it works! If it doesn't, though, stinky kitty litter won't be quite as depressing as stinky baking soda. I don't eat kitty litter.

All for now, then. Don't eat foul-smelling baking soda! Ja.

*Post title taken from this song. It is great.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290291878753

Personally, I like mine better. Mine even have articulation. And didn't cost in the neighborhood of $90 after shipping. So w00t.

"EXTERMINATE!"

BBC News: Octuplets mum wanted huge family

Shit like this makes me furious. Admittedly, I tend to look down upon the decision to have children in general -- if you really think about it, the decision is ultimately a selfish one (well, unless one is having a child to serve as a donor for a sick sibling, but that has its own share of ethical issues) -- but this is really disgusting. To put it bluntly, those children came into the world because their mother was a crazy and insecure bitch who needed to be undergoing intensive therapy instead of prenatal care. "Boo-hoo, I'm lonely and need human connection... so I guess I will acquire it by having a buncha embryos implanted and giving birth to a hugga buncha babies! YAY!"

Now, hopefully those kids will have wonderful lives and will never be prompted to dwell upon that reality... but if things don't turn out so well and they actually do end up with not only shitty lives, but also the knowledge that those shitty lives began because their mother fucked up and was fucked up (here, in the psychological sense)? I can't even begin to imagine how angry they'll feel.

Oh, wait, I totally can. Not that this makes me especially unique -- to a certain extent, I think that most people begin to pick up on this when they're teenagers, but fail to accumulate the complexity of thought and/or misfortune required to pursue that inkling in depth and detail -- but... yes.

Instead of tucking 14 children in at night, that woman should be tucked into a straitjacket and thrown into a padded cell.

Okay, not all of them -- but I've been hanging onto many of these links for quite a while and now my Firefox has 80+ open tabs. So it's time to clear the board with another exciting linkage post! You may have seen many of these by now, but hopefully you'll find something interesting in here that you haven't encountered yet.

• Hardcore Gaming 101: Athena

  I must've had this tab open for months -- ever since I started playing SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos earlier this year as part of the Capcom and SNK kick that stemmed from my purchase of the Mai Shiranui and Chun-Li action figure set. Athena's one of the two secret bosses, and she's got quite a history as a character! I tried desperately to find the Athena: Awakening from an Ordinary Life live-action drama, but I have not yet been successful in that endeavor.

• Destroy All Monsters: Rogues Gallery -- Prehistoric Isle

  At least once a year -- and probably more along the lines of thrice a year -- I go off on a dinosaur kick. I think I found this during the most recent one, which took place from October-November and resulted in me buying a handful of velociraptor figures. It looks bloody cool! It's also an SNK game, which makes two thus far.

• Beyonce: Now it's time for a black Wonder Woman

  I'm not sure how I'd feel about this. There are some characters -- many characters -- perhaps even most characters -- for whom I wouldn't at all object to a skin color change in the leap from comic to film. I thought it was fine for Kingpin in Daredevil, since Kingpin's supposed to be a big crime boss and they don't come much bigger than Michael Clarke Duncan, and while Catwoman had many flaws (or so I'm told; I still can't bring myself to watch it), I doubt that Halle Berry's skin color was among them. (Besides, in that respect, Eartha Kitt had already established a precedent for the character.) Batman, the Flash, Hawkgirl, Huntress, just about any of the X-Men... there are a ton of characters who could change their skin color and it wouldn't at all seem problematic for me.

  But Wonder Woman? Something about that just doesn't work for me. It might be because many other characters are more/less defined by their backstory, or by their costumes, or by certain physical characteristics -- for example, as with Kingpin, their size -- but Wonder Woman has an iconic look that incorporates not only her costume, but her entire physical appearance. Her backstory is kinda crap, but it also arguably demands a more "classical" appearance for her: she was fashioned out of clay by the Amazonian queen Hippolyta and brought to life by Athena. Granted, I have no idea who I'd cast in the role -- only Steel comes to mind, but she looks a bit too hard and I doubt she can act -- but WW is one character I'd probably try to match to her comic appearance as closely as possible.

  That said, if a live-action X-Men film ever touched on the Mojoverse, I think Beyonce would make an interesting casting choice for Spiral.

• Zina Saunders paints Sarah Palin

  Obviously a holdover from the election, I found this painting to be pretty darned cool.

(more...)

Repo! The Genetic Opera is looking bloody awesome.

Other links of possible interest:

The Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama. That's just... fantastic.

Banksy?s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill is also pretty amazing, what with animatronic swimming fish sticks and drinking hot dogs and glammed-up rabbits and all. It's too bad it's apparently going away at the end of the month -- this place should be a permanent attraction.

Interview Sarah Palin via the Palin parrot! Granted, Palin's most recent interviews have been a little less embarrassing (though having McCain tag along to supervise doesn't help her image), but she still has a fairly strange relationship with words. It's like sentence structure and coherence are as foreign to Sarah Palin as... well, something that you probably wouldn't find in abundance in Alaska. Gila monsters?

BBC News: New feathered dinosaur discovered -- that little guy looks like the result of a freakish genetic experiment between a peacock and a Chinese dragon! Also, dinosaurs rule.

Apparently Dawn Eden has made it into a Snopes entry. I want to be on Snopes! C'mon people, make me popular. 😛

And usually fights between CGI creatures in visual media put me to sleep -- as with Hulk's battle with the Abomination in The Incredible Hulk and that insanely long fight between Kong and the V-Rexes in King Kong -- but I found the encounter between the future predator and gorgonopsid in "Primeval" to be pretty engaging stuff. That goes for the entire series as well, though Series 2 definitely represents a step down from the first six episodes. In any case, I now require a Series 2 Helen Cutter figure to menace the members of my 5" toy collection. Helen Cutter is evil.

Oh yeah, if you're running WordPress, I definitely recommend giving the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin a try. While updating WP wasn't terribly difficult to begin with, it's undeniably simpler when the process is automated for you. 🙂