If You Took a Zombie Movie...

....and substituted sheep for zombies, what would you get? Probably something like this New Zealand film. I must admit, I'm intrigued.

The Salon.com reviewer also had an interesting yet succinct take on Eli Roth's "films", which as I've mentioned previously, I'm not a fan of:

These days I'll cut any horror director some slack who declines to follow Eli Roth down the dead-end path of gruesomeness for its own sake. My objections are aesthetic, not essentially moral, although you could argue that somewhere down the line the two intersect.

My own objections about Roth's chosen torture porn genre (yeah, that's what a lot of critics are calling it, even the ones who like his work) tends to start with the moral aspect, with the aesthetics following, but the overall sentiment is similar. And after seeing another undeservedly NC-17 rated film recently (Requiem For a Dream), it's even more shocking to me than it was back in January that Roth can get an R rating for his movies. Go ahead and Google for an in-depth Hostel II review and convince me that it's an R movie. An NC-17 rating doesn't ban a movie anyway, so that's not what I'm advocating. Adults who are entertained by this stuff - and I seriously question the mental well-being of those people - can still seek it out.

Look what happens, I start off with an innocent link to a fun little film about crazed killer livestock, then fall into this moralizing mode - sorry 'bout that.

Nothing Is Easier Than Blaming the Manager

Sam Perlozzo is supposedly out as O's manager. Not surprising, but it certainly wasn't Sam who decided to throw all that free agent money at the most inconsistent performers in baseball, middle relievers. Peter Angelos obviously needs to sell the team, but barring that gift to Baltimore fans, Mike Flanagan and Jim Duquette need to be shown the door. Only then will a manager ever had a chance to succeed with the O's.

And if these clowns do decide to hire a high-rpofile manager, please let it be Davey Johnson and not Joe Girardi. The last thing this team needs is another Yankee coming in and telling them how Joe Torre does things up in the Bronx. Didn't work for Mazilli, won't work for Girardi either.

New Auto Technology, Russian Spirits

This neat article from Wired summarizes a few of the latest future-car concepts and engine/drivetrain technology, but to me it really drives home one of the biggest casualties of the Global Warming / Peak Oil / Energy Dependence crises - it's killing the flying car. We were supposed to have flying cars by now. Actually, I think we were supposed to get them sometime back in the 80's. But it didn't happen then, and now it's even less likely. The first few flying car prototypes are bound to be quite fossil-fuel-hungry, so how are they supposed to get off the ground by using fuel cells and electric motors? At this rate, no flying cars in my lifetime. But maybe personal hovercraft are the wave of the future, what with all the melting and expected sea level rise.

Don't worry though, all is right with the world - Russians will still drink just about anything.

UPDATE: Strange, I mention personal hovercraft in the initial entry, and look what I find a few hours later!

Olympics Logo, Regurgitated

Maybe I just don't "get" this type of artwork, but why does the 2012 London Games logo look like something that the high-paid graphic designer's kid puked up on the morning of the deadline to finish the logo?

Who knows, maybe I won't hate it so much in another five years.