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.

Mad Cow 'Conservatives'

This Republican administration standing up for the free market? One might think so, but apparently not. Al really got it right with the title of the new book; Assault on Reason indeed.

Old Dog, Old Tricks

Amazingly enough, even though they're in the majority, Democrats are still perfectly capable of rolling over for the War-Criminal-in-Chief. This cartoon pretty much nails it.

Interested in Destroying the Planet?

Not so fast! You should read this first.

Elvis in Philly

Last Saturday, we were up in Philly for the day, and stopped by the Reading Terminal Market (pretty much the same as Lexington Market in Charm City, and smaller versions in town like Cross Street and Broadway markets) and the Mütter Museum before the main reason for our visit, Elvis Costello at the Electric Factory.

Not sure whether it was because it was the last night of the tour, but the band came out with a lot of energy, and didn't take a break until they were seven or eight songs in. They even played through when the drummer broke his bass head after three songs. I caught Costello for the first time three years ago in Vegas, and this show was night-and-day different from that one, in that almost every song was loud and fast. They played one of my favorites, Beyond Belief, and it rocked considerably more than the recorded version. Elvis was as cool as ever, in a black suit, shirt and tie, and dark sunglasses (ah, to be a rock musician!), and his voice has to be one of the more underrated ones in the business - the guy can sing any style, and has a deceptively impressive range. Do I sound like a music critic yet? I hope not.

Surprise guest Allen Toussaint, a fellow HOFer and collaborator on The River in Reverse, sat in for thirty-plus minutes; the guy plays an effortless keyboard, and has a cool voice. For the last song, which capped a two-and-a-half hour show, Elvis segued from Peace, Love and Understanding into the chorus of Bring the Boys Home - a nice touch during an otherwise politically-understated show.

Monday Is Wiretap the Internet Day!

Don't worry, it's not one of those occasions upon which you need to buy something for your boss (unless you work at the FBI or in the White House, then maybe it's appropriate). Just another day in which the current administration wakes up, grabs a coffee and a bran muffin, and a little later after everything has worked its way through, wipes its collective ass with our Constitution. Just the regular AM routine, nothing special. The first Slashdot comment to this article is excellent, by the way.

Meanwhile, Alberto "Midnight Rendezvous" Gonzalez is still the AG, Dick Cheney is still allowed to carry a gun, and the Master Shrub himself still thinks we're going to 'win' in Iraq. Someone explain to me again how Clinton got impeached, while these guys are still in power? And how does even one-third of the public still support these crooks?

KSR Redux, Calling all Kinetinauts

A few weeks late, but here's a quick recap of the Kinetic Sculpture Race. It was a long and tiring day of volunteering, but Jenny and I both had a great time, and would definitely do it again next year [but for other plans, potentially - see below]. From the opening ceremonies - the Star-Spangled Banner sounds pretty good on kazoo! - to lavish and grotesque trophies at the very irreverent award ceremony, it was a blast.

There were really no surprises when it came to my tasks at the mud pit: go to pile of dirt, wet dirt, rake/shovel, repeat. We didn't snare as many sculptures as we would have liked, but we did have a very strong, vocal crowd of a few-hundred spectators, most of them rooting for the sculptures while we secretly rooted for the mud. We really are kind of the bad guys of the race, and I know that we all heartily enjoyed that role. Jenny and I also met some fantastic people amongst our fellow volunteers; in retrospect we wish we would have gotten better (read: any!) contact information for them. I feel obliged to link to one of the web sites of an artist and fellow mud-connoisseur, both because she was so friendly and because her latest project is so cool.

We'll have some photos up before too long on Jenny or my Flickr pages (or on both), but until then here are the official race photos and re-cap.

Looking forward to the 2008 KSR, which will be the tenth running of the Baltimore edition of the race, we're thinking why volunteer if we could be competing instead? Competing might be the wrong word for a "race" with the grand prize going to the team that finishes in the middle, but you know what I mean. So take a look at the race web site, read through the rules, and then let us know if you're interested in being on the team. We're going to have to start building this summer, and all we're starting with are a few solid ideas, plus our soaring dreams of artistic and kinetic adequacy. No really, we are serious about this, please let us know if you want in.

Borat as Art, Geekiest Credit Card Ever?

A Canadian artist is producing a series of Borat portraits. Cool? I think so, but what do I know. Strange? Well, he's producing 999 of them in the series, that's kinda weird.

Meanwhile, in consumerland, World of Warcraft obsessives finally have their own credit card. If I were still playing....sorry, still wouldn't sign up. I'm already enough of a geek, in my own manner, without broadcasting it to cashiers everywhere.

2007 KSR!!!

KSR, as in Kinetic Sculpture Race. One of Baltimore's more bizarre and perhaps not-so-well-known traditions, which Jenny and I have seen parts of in years past. This year we're volunteers, so we're particularly excited. I'll be helping to create the mud pit at the Patterson Park obstacle course portion of the 15 mile race, while Jenny will be at two checkpoints near the Inner Harbor, with a wooden chicken-on-a-stick and a polaroid camera. Don't ask, you just have to come and see.

This is a race where finishing in the middle garners the top prize, the Grand Mediocre Champion, where 'kinetic cops' can be bribed to avoid tickets (time penalties), and where a giant pink poodle and a massive, fuzzy, skateboarding blue wombat race alongside an igloo, a rat made of trash bags, and a metal platypus, just to name a few.

For more info, check out the handy spectator's guide, which includes descriptions of all 31 entries, the race schedule, and a map of the course.

Uncomfortable Questions

Was the destruction of the Death Star an inside job? Even so many years after the fact, many questions remain.

Grindhouse!

If you don't mind a little gratuitous violence and blood, go see Grindhouse. As soon as possible. Seriously. Yes, I'd pay $8 to see it again in the theater, in case you're interested. Don't wait for the DVD - see this on as large a screen as possible, and with a big crowd. We caught it at the Senator, Baltimore's biggest screen, on Friday night, it was packed (700+, easily, in the 900 seat theater) with quite the enthusiastic crowd. It's the most fun I've had at the movies in years, no exaggeration. Better, in terms of sheer entertainment value (not story or acting, mind you) than Kill Bill.

Both of the films are excellent, but also take very different approaches; Rodriguez' Planet Terror is almost non-stop, blood-soaked, campy action from beginning to end, while Tarantino's Death Proof has a slow build-up, and is a masterful piece of emotional manipulation with a cool payoff. And then there are the trailers, 3 out of 4 which are hilarious, each in its own way.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have already seen the movie(s), here's a clip that puts some of Death Proof into context. [recommendation: Don't visit this link before seeing the film!]

Also, if you've seen Grindhouse and didn't like it, please don't bother leaving a comment to that effect- it will be removed.

Iraq Funding

The majority of commentators - online, on TV, wherever - seem to think that it's a foregone conclusion that the Democrat-controlled Congress will roll over on Iraq funding, and eventually strip withdrawal deadlines out of their funding bills. Why? Pelosi and Reid can hammer away at Bush's upcoming vetoes as the real obstacle to funding, just as easily as he can hammer them. And if the majority of Americans want us out of Iraq, why would cutting off funding be so terrible? It's not like the troops are getting all the armor and equipment they need anyway. So much of that money is going to contractors, that the most serious damage a funding cut-off can do is cut into the profit margins of companies like Blackwater. And are the soldiers who are over in Iraq getting shot and bombed really rooting for more funding to come through, so they can stay in the war zone longer? I know it's about politics more than anything, and I know I'm simplifying this a great deal, but I just don't see the downside for the Democrats or the troops if the funding is cut off.

Rock Hall

We caught a bit of this year's induction ceremony for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks ago, and this past weekend Jenny and I were perusing the list of inductees and speculating about who else should be in, both now and in the future (recording artists are first eligible 25 years after release of their first recording).

For performers who were definitely influences on rock, but who could probably make it in as performers also, I have to bring up electronic pioneers Kraftwerk (for the second post in a row!), and also surf guitar legend Dick Dale. I'm actually surprised that Dale hasn't already been inducted, and the electronic sound is such a part of rock/pop these days, I'm not sure how you can leave Kraftwerk out. Miles Davis was inducted in 2006, and I would argue that his relationship to rock is relatively tenuous, so I think a case could definitely be made for these two acts. Also, New York Dolls, maybe?

Performers who are already eligible (first record released in...um, let's call it 1981 or earlier), who should be inducted soon? We thought those should definitely include The Cure, and we thought a good case could also be made for both The Cars and Duran Duran. I just thought of another one this morning - Rush. One of my favorite bands growing up, Def Leppard, will probably miss the cut - yeah, they sold a lot of albums, but how influential was their sound? I think it's telling that KISS isn't an inductee, despite being eligible for a number of years. Am I missing anyone? Check the inductee list first; who is and isn't already in can be surprising.

Eligible within the next few years, that are "locks" to get in? Madonna and Metallica come to mind immediately. As for more modern acts, that's a longer list; maybe I'll save that for another post.

Awesome Al Gore Global Warming Quote

To Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton yesterday:

If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action.

Revelations in Music and Fashion

I'm reading this book of Jenny's on the train this week about the history of the DJ, and it mentions Ben Sherman, a clothing designer that I dig, as having been the label of choice in the working class "northern soul" clubs of Northern England back in the sixties. I can see that, although they've come a long way since then, with $90 shirts and the like.

And on the train this morning, I'm listening to Kraftwerk (also a Jenny musical selection - yes, books on DJs, early elctronic music, she's much cooler than me), and I hear a familiar melody while listening to Computerlove. Turns out that it's the melody that Coldplay uses in Talk. Who knew? Not a great song though, IMO, even with the catchy melody.

Seven Wonders

This Post article marks the first I've heard of this, but there is currently Internet voting for a new Seven Wonders of the World. The 21 eligible wonders are decent, but in this modern age, aren't they missing a few obvious ones, like the Internet itself, or George W. Bush? (a two-term president that's as dumb as he is a modern wonder, in a terrible sort of way).

Seriously though, what about the canals of Venice (too crumbly?), the Vegas Strip (too capitalist?), the Panama Canal (too utilitarian?), or the Sistine Chapel (too arty?). Don't get me wrong, their list is fine, I'm just thinking a few of the choices aren't too stellar. The Statue of Liberty - they chose that to give the US an entry, right? The Alhambra - maybe I'm not cultured enough, but I've barely even heard of it. And the minarets of Timbuktu either look like they've seen better days, or weren't all that fantastic to begin with.

Apparently Terps Are Owned...

...by Miami? Yeah, it sure seems that way. That's four losses in the last five against the Hurricanes. Is the ibis a natural predator of turtles, by any chance?

I'm predicting a #5 seed on Sunday night- anything higher is a gift, anything lower is bad luck. Is this a terrible loss? No way - the way they were out-rebounded, maybe the players had been reading their own good press, and thought they could just show up. Now they should know that they're not good enough to do that (maybe nobody in college basketball is, this season).

Anyone think they've got this CBB season figured out? I thought I picked a lot of upsets last year, but managed to win some office pools. This year, more of the same seems like the prudent course.