The Early Years (2002-2005)

Some bits on animation, cartoons, and comics: More on the Polar Express and why the motion capture sapped the life out of the live-action (relates to the “uncanny valley” concept) Some conservative groups are challenging Spongebob Squarepants, saying that he was featured in a ‘pro-homosexual video’ that promoted a “tolerance pledge” that included tolerance of sexual identities. Only trouble is, as the New York Times notes, “the video has appeared on television networks, and nothing in it or its accompanying materials refers to sexual identity. The pledge, borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is not mentioned on the video and is available only on the group’s Web site” (cue standard animation “wawk-wawk-wawk” embarrassment-sound) The Fantastic Four movie trailer is out! I like the Fantastic Four - always wanted to be Mr Fantastic - but the trailer really does nothing for me. And the tagline is incredibly cheesy: “1 will be bad 4 will be fantastic” - I hate it when people use numbers 2 stand in 4 words. You’re excused, though, if you’re Prince. If you’re lazy, Josh reads the comics for you.

I’m intrigued by these reports of the final appearance of Elisabeth Rohm (aka ADA Southerlyn) leaving Law & Order - in her last scene, Rohm/Southerlyn just goes “is it because I’m a lesbian?” And that’s it. Bizarre. I know L&O usually stays out of its characters’ private lives and just drops in random nuggets - even in all the seasons what do we really know about ADA McCoy’s daughter? - but as a conclusion it’s really out of left field. A lesbian ex machina, so to speak.

Another thing with multiple names, in the vein of sub/submarine/hoagie/grinder: the winter knit hat (aka beanie, ski hat, toboggan, toboggan hat, toque…)

This new rel=“nofollow” link tag introduced by Google to prevent comment spam is a great idea - and not just for preventing comment spam. As Robert Scoble notes, as a blogger I now have a way to link to things without increasing their Google rank - useful when I want to cite something egregious, pathetic, or otherwise despicable. Amazing how Google got all the major blogging firms to cooperate, not just its own Blogger but also Six Apart, WordPress, MSN Spaces, and the lot. Now will the other search engines (MSN, Yahoo! etc) respect “nofollow”?

Via Majikthise, Lego P/Funk - tear the roof off the sucker!

An elegy to the vanishing local post office in the UK, and the story of Singapore Post’s attempts to move into financial services. Clearly the postal services are dealing with the need to reinvent.

A diagram of the new A380 from Scripting News, for you flight buffs out there. Hey, two of my best friends are now in the employ of Singapore Airlines and Emirates, so I gotta keep up. The fact that it has a) an air-conditioning plant; b) a restaurant and bar; and c) a lift / elevator are all ridiculous. Singapore Air’s going to be the first to get them, so I’m hoping I’ll get to board one sometime…

At the counter at Times the Bookstore today I flipped through The Wives of Bath, a chick-lit novel by Weny Holden that had the distinction of being named after my favourite of the Canterbury Tales (“Experience, though noon auctoritee…”), which was why I flipped through it in the first place. This was not, I’m sad to say, Susan Swan’s more distinguished novel of the same title, which eventually was made into a film I really liked, Lost and Delirious.

Okay, the idea that there’s a vampire stalking Birmingham is yet another urban legend… Stuart Jeffries argues in the Guardian that there’s a human “need” for such balderdash. Frankly, my memory of Brum is that its city centre is a nightmare in itself, at least in terms of architecture and urban design (admittedly there were already signs of improving) - ring roads galore!

One thing I always found strange about many old sci-fi shows is that they predicted a future of mass uniformity: the common uniforms on Star Trek, for instance. But the 21st century is here, and clearly what people want seems to be customised, personalised items. Now you can even get customised M&Ms.

Want a seriously powerful pogo stick?

Looking through my blogroll, I just realised that both Snog Blog and the Minor Fall, the Major Lift are back from their remission… yay!

I love subway systems - looking at their maps, their networks - and this is a lovely set of photos of the beautiful Moscow Metro stations.

Last week, we landed in Jakarta at about 9pm, and saw a huge crowd of agitated people around the “Hotel Reservations” room. So I wondered what was going on - did someone screw up and lose a whole tour group’s reservations? Inched closer to take a peek - turned out the whole bunch was crowding around a tiny TV showing the first leg of the Tiger Cup final, where Indonesia was losing badly.

My reviews of Kinsey and Meet the Fockers are up. A sampling… Kinsey is Bill Condon’s biopic of pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), harkening back to the bad ol’ days of the 1940s, when - to put it bluntly - nobody knew anything.

Spam that (American) Civil War soldiers would have received had the technology been available (and had Spam the canned meat been invented for which spam could be named): ENGORGE YOUR MALE ORGAN

Beware of tsunami-related e-mail scams… just a variation of the Nigerian 409 scam. I think it’s despicable that people would stoop so low as to exploit tragedy this way.

Turns out Felipe Rose, the American Indian guy in the Village People, really was an American Indian, and donated a gold single of “Y.M.C.A.” to the National Museum of the American Indian (registration required; use BugMeNot if you want). This sentence cracks me up:

According to NASA, the earthquake was powerful enough to decrease the length of each day: [Dr Richard Gross and Dr Benjamin Fong Chao] found the earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds. Physically this is like a spinning skater drawing arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin. (Jet Propulsion Lab link)

Another tale of inter-species friendships, this one of a baby hippo rescued during the tsunami who became close friends with the giant tortoise in the zoo he was put in. The two look cute together: