Here is an amusing commercial for TNT Russia, because, I don’t know; narcissism is normal now or something. Not sure of the context but these expressions are priceless:
Movie Characters Taking Selfies
•June 22, 2014 • Leave a CommentWhat Chewing Gum Does To Your Appearance
•June 22, 2014 • Leave a CommentAccording to this video, it freaking improves it, that’s what!
Which is a good thing, if you give a shit about what complete strangers think about your looks of course. …Where’s the Juicy Fruit at?
…Hmm, really starting to question the science behind this now.
8-Bit Philosophy: Zeno of Elea — Episode 6 “Is Change An Illusion?”
•June 22, 2014 • Leave a CommentWritten & Directed by: Jared Bauer / Narrator: Nathan Lowe / Animation Producer: MB X. McClain / Music & Sound: David Krystal / Academic Consultant: Mia Wood / Producer: Jacob S. Salamon.
Tim Burton’s “Hansel and Gretel” (1982)
•June 21, 2014 • Leave a CommentUndoubtedly the rarest movie Tim Burton has ever made and probably the weirdest version of “Hansel and Gretel” ever told, was recently uploaded on YouTube (13th June) for all to see. This rendition has an obvious Burtonesque style and features an all asian cast, for some reason. At least there’s no CGI overkill.
The surreal half-hour version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale was produced in partnership with Disney who aired it only once on the Disney Channel on Halloween night in 1983.
For the 24-year-old Disney animator, it was Burton’s first experience working with live actors so it is understandable that the performances suffer a little. It remains an early glimpse at the director’s imagination and ability to bring that to life.
Apparently, the frightening subject matter was too much for the distraught Disney Channel execs to handle, that they vowed it would never see the light of day again. Unbeknownst to them however, people owned these things called VHS recorders. Hansel and Gretel has played publicly in art exhibits, but has long been one of the rarest of Burton’s films. Until now — elusive 1980s oddity, welcome to the internet:
CAST: Hansel — Andy Lee, Gretel — Alison Hong, Stepmother / Wicked Witch — Mother Yama, Father — Jim Ishida, Dan Dan the Gingerbread Man (Voice) — David Koenigsburg.
The Colour Purple: Alice Walker in conversation with Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh at the 2014 Auckland Writers Festival
•June 21, 2014 • Leave a CommentThis is my lecturer, on point in front of an audience of thousands:
2014 BNZ Literary Awards Competition
•June 21, 2014 • Leave a CommentHey keen writers, fancy a bit of productive procrastination amid your midterm readings? New Zealand’s most distinguished short story competition for both aspiring and established writers is back for its 55th year! Accepting submissions until 30 June, gives you 1 week to fire up your brains or rewrite an old gem — Preferably in your own words:
E N T R Y C A T E G O R I E S
BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award category — Enter now
The main award category – $10,000 prize money
Minimum length 1,000 words – maximum length 5,000 words
BNZ Novice Writer Award category — Enter now
For unpublished writers – $1,500 prize money
Minimum length 1,000 words – maximum length 3,000 words
BNZ Young Writer Award category — Enter now
For writers who are at secondary school – $1,500 for the student
and $2000 for the winner’s school
Minimum length 750 words – maximum length 2,000 words
BNZ Short Short Story Award category — Submit your entry via Facebook
A short story of a maximum of 150 words – $500 prize money.
Winners will be announced in September 2014
Enjoy writing and goodluck 😉
The Irony of the “Cool to Do Drugs” Pencil
•June 19, 2014 • Leave a CommentAn amusing picture of an anti-drug propaganda pencil whose message is subverted simply by sharpening it, comes with an amusing real life story too, albeit from 1998. I thought these misdirected pencils were novelty stationary items at first, but nope, this was unintentional and batches were sent out to a number of elementary schools in the United States. It was only after a child noticed the problem that a product recall was actioned. The irony being, the pencils came from the Bureau for At-Risk Youth… EEK
As a result of the discovery by Kodi Mosier, a 10-year-old student at Ticonderoga Elementary School, … the Bureau for At-Risk Youth, … recalled the pencils. … A new batch of pencils will have the message written in the opposite direction, so when they are sharpened, they will read “Too Cool To Do” and finally “Too Cool.”
George R.R. Martin Kills the Marvel Universe — Read His Teenage Letters to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
•June 19, 2014 • Leave a CommentI guess the material Marvel was producing in 1961 was the right amount of hardcore for a then 12-year-old George R. Martin, hence his praiseworthy letter to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby about FANTASTIC FOUR #17:
However you interpret his words — as sarcastic or genuine glee, — it is just cool to know that the man responsible for the highly popular fantasy novel and television series, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE/GAME OF THRONES, had origins as a total geek, and an enthusiastic and well articulated one at that. The comic in question, FANTASTIC FOUR #17, was a classic Doctor Doom tale that’s now worth hundreds of dollars:
It didn’t stop there either; George R.R. Martin wrote into Stan Lee a second time in 1964 about AVENGERS #9:
Neato! By George! I wonder if the two have ever met?
Jessie Ware “Tough Love” [♬]
•June 17, 2014 • Leave a CommentIn a press release, Ware describes the making of “Tough Love” as “me experimenting with my voice and having fun with it.”
Jessie Ware has premiered her new single “Tough Love” on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show.
NASA’s Concept Design for a Warp Drive Ship
•June 17, 2014 • Leave a CommentIn 2012, physicist Harold White announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a hypothetical faster-than-light spaceship. He stunned the aeronautics world back then with his theoretical findings on advanced propulsion, and has done so again with the unveiling of new 3D renders of the concept ship:
What a beauty. These images were rendered by digital artist Mark Rademaker with artwork and inputs from graphic designer Mike Okuda (who are not surprisingly, STAR TREK aficionados). Sleek and awesome design with components described with such exciting terminology. Pretty neat stuff NASA, but please don’t tear open any terrestrial wormholes while generating your negative vacuum energy experiments. Real-world proof-of-concept is great but not at the expense of getting eaten alive by telekinetic aliens, thank you very much. 😛 I like how you read that and knew I was joking. I just think it’s unfortunate that many people wont see the same improbability in these awesome pictures.
Cool images and cool ideas being discussed by some of the world’s smartest minds is a wonderful thing, but the key word from any article on the topic of faster-than-light-travel should be the words ‘hypothetical’ and ‘theoretical.’ I love science fiction, but I don’t use it to sugarcoat my expectations of reality. I love ideas about the fabric of our universe for what they are, but I don’t believe anyone alive in this century will unlock the mysteries of space enough to traverse its unknown vastness; unless someone unbelievably clever develops a way to create atoms to fuel from thin air / light…
I have no idea about the mass of this ship, but being pragmatic; say a model of it weighs 500 kg and this is what we want to send through warp space, from my understanding (and I don’t understand much), the mass-energy equivalent of that 500 kg, requires 250 kg of antimatter combined with 250 kg of matter for the warp-bubble to happen, and the current cost of producing 1 gram of antimatter is close to $100 trillion! It would take the collective income of the world over 40 years to produce $2.5 quadrillion dollars worth of antimatter needed to turn this ship’s warp engine on. The word ‘feasible’ doesn’t quiet cut it. To clarify; when matter and antimatter collide, their mass is converted to kinetic energy in keeping with Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc2.
Whatever your thoughts are on interstellar travel, there is no denying that it is thanks to STAR TREK that the word “warp” is now practically synonymous with faster-than-light travel. Well played, science fiction, well played.
Second ship from the right — Matthew Jefferies’ 1960 concept of the ‘XCV-330 Enterprise’
“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979)
Cool pictures; 100%. Current, real-world probability; 1%. Sorry to be so negative. The positive side of this story however is that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration‘s findings are never for naught; and science fiction is fucking awesome!
‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 4 Finale
•June 17, 2014 • Leave a CommentAmazing season finale twists and cliffhangers with all that that implies: “I am your son. I have always been your son.” “The first men called us the children but we were born long before them.” “It’s customary to kneel when surrendering to a king.” “Valar Morghulis.”
🎭 