Friends to Go Film

Sex and the City's success may have had some influence on this. Meanwhile, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of boyfriends cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

But major questions hang over this! Where will they take the story? Are they actually going to have Ross and Rachel break up again and then get back together only to break up and get back together again....again? Are they all going to move back to the city and undo the whole point of the series' end? Maybe it will be some crazy art film where Joey wanders Manhattan and comes across a boarded up Central Perk, only to see the face of a younger, more attractive man staring back at him in a fragment of broken mirror. The film ends with Ross running for five minutes straight until he reaches the sea and turns to look at the camera with a weary look of existential angst before the fade. Fin.

I would see that.

The Scary Door

I enjoyed some of Sci Fi Channel's Twilight Zone marathon today and it reminded me of Futurama's parody:

Man Hits His Head and Wakes Up Able to Play Piano

Quite a story.

Sticking Some Science to the Candidates

Science Debate 2008 draws up fourteen questions for the presidential candidates to answer. A cursory glance reveals no mention of androids, The Q Continuum, The Matrix, underwater aliens, asteroids, The Prime Directive, telepathy, UFOs or teleportation. Count me disappointed. When will our politicians address the issues that Hollywood and its consumers face on a daily basis?

What would McCain do if an asteroid decided to take a fateful turn and hurtle towards Earth? Will Obama settle the issue of telepathy once and for all? When will we confront alien threats and who, pray tell, will you trust when the Matrix has you?

OK, sure, I'm referring to more science fiction than science, but that's what things like landing on the moon were called before they happened.

Holographic Google Earth

OK, so it's still a 2D projection, but it looks great. I can't wait to see technology ten or twenty years from now.


Holographic Google Earth from Nicolas Loeillot on Vimeo.

Slaves to the Fads

Celebrities started a lot of stupid fads. Is it weird that I actually kind of like The Rachel?

To Idaho....and Beyond!

An Oregon lawn-chair pilot returns to the skies. This time, he's sponsored! He even has his own website with some good pictures. His next flight will be July 5, 2008 across Oregon and into Idaho, hopefully Boise. He also has plans to someday cross the English Channel or Australia by lawn-chair/balloons.

Kent Couch: A Hero for Our Time.

Some Decades (Like the 90s) Are Worth Repeating

902102?

As in a spin-off to Beverly Hills, 90210.

My earliest memories of the show, like many an 8 year-old boy, are of my friend's older sister tuning in every week. By the time I reached middle school, the show was starting to get wild - people were having babies and stabbing each other or something. All because Kelly Kapowski left Saved By the Bell and became evil Valerie! Fortunately, I was able to get my required cultural education about the show from reruns of the earlier sensation-inducing seasons. I was about 13 when I first caught a few episodes of 90210 in this syndicated time capsule and what I saw opened my eyes: high school was going to be so cool.

Gangs! Jealousy! Affairs! Kelly Kapowski! The Peach Pit! Self-absorbed teenagers in their 30s! This was going to be so awesome!

And then high school was really more like middle school but with a lot of homework. Maybe this time around, 90210 won't lie to me.

Looking Under the Hood of Laughter

Humor continues to provide scientific fodder for psychologists. National humor genes? Natural selection criteria? It's all here.

I challenge this bit toward the end of the article:

"One popular field of research is the effect of humour on health, which is widely assumed to be positive. The results so far are inconclusive, and slightly disturbing for anyone who likes to laugh. Rod Martin points out that if humour is good for health, then it should be associated with longevity. Yet it appears that cheerful people live less long than their gloomier peers, perhaps because they are too jolly to worry about their aches and pains. It may be true, as the proverb says, that he who laughs last laughs longest. But it seems that he who laughs longest does not last."

But isn't there some other study out there that says laughter is good exercise? Yes! There is!

Instead of "everything causes cancer," we might be heading for an era of "laughter causes everything."

Angelina Jolie Twin Saga Continues

Angelina Jolie gives birth to twins for what appears to be the third time in the last month. You know, when she actually does give birth, no one is going to believe it. The media will be "the papers who cried twins." They're essentially sapping the story of its consumer value with every false positive.

That said, Caught on the Bound Celebrity Analysts can confirm that Jolie has given birth to twins, based on a reliable source who knows the cousin of the neighbor who lives next door to her attending nurse. We are standing by that story. Forever.

Death of a Melody: Did Art Kill the Pop Song?

Whatever happened to hummable, catchy melodies?

New Sherlock Holmes Movie

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Variety is reporting a new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Sasha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson. As some of you may know, I'm a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. This is kind of a big deal. It will apparently be a comedic take on the classic duo and their adventures. So what do I think?

Well, since you asked, I think this could actually work really well. I have nothing against Will Ferrell, but I'm a little worried about how he might portray Watson - will he be buffoonish like Nigel Bruce opposite Basil Rathbone who couldn't go near a mop bucket without putting his foot in it, or will he be the strong, intelligent Watson of David Burke opposite Jeremy Brett in the more recent British television series?

My money is on the former, since this is a comedy, but this could be a fun take-off on the characters. My ultimate dream is to see a full-length serious and entertaining Sherlock Holmes film that weaves in several of the more compelling short stories, but I think this might do quite nicely.

(Hat tip: John)

The Presidential Race is Over

(Blogging to you live from Starbucks at 31st and 7th in New York.)

Obama tops McCain as the preferred barbecue guest. You may recall that President Bush performed well in the "barbecue guest" and "have a beer with" tests of yesterelection. I'm not sure about Bill Clinton, but I'll bet he led in this crucial question as well back in 1992.

All Ears

On the personal front, I just returned from a slightly ridiculous doctor appointment.

Last year in April, I emerged from the shower to find one of my ears completely plugged. Waxy it seemed. Well, unlike any other time in life, I was unable to clear it. Doom. I couldn't hear out of my left ear and was feeling out of balance for several days. Finally, I went to the doctor and had my ear flushed out. Still didn't fix it. I was given some over-the-counter drops and a syringe. A few more days, still plugged. The second visit to the doctor did the trick. Instead of using the weak wussy irrigator, they were able to find the ultra atomic irrigator that had been misplaced during a recent office move. Within a few seconds, I could hear again. I learned some interesting things about ear wax, or cerumen, as the medical professionals call it. Q-Tips are generally a bad idea unless used on the very outer ear (which I knew) and there are two different kinds of ear wax. Africans and Caucasians have a brown, honey-like sticky kind while Asians and Pacific Islanders tend to have a gray, flaky kind (which I did not know).

Flash forward to last weekend. Exact same thing happens in the exact same ear. No idea why this happens. I go to the doctor today for help and find it to be an annoying process since I know exactly what needs to be done, but still have to fill out all sorts of papers, explain my family history of disease and have my height measured. The doctor was training a physician's assistant today and sent her in to look at me first. She seemed kind of puzzled by the whole thing, taking diligent notes and asking me questions like "So when did you first notice this?" or "Do you ever pour wax into your ears?" After this illuminating discussion, she decided to "take a look."

"Wax" was the verdict. She then had me stand up facing away from her and administered a hearing test by rubbing her fingers together near each of my ears and noting how far away she could move them with me still hearing them. The right ear could still hear the rubbing fingers when they were three feet away. "Wow, that's pretty good" she said. Now, the left ear. "What was taking so long? Let's go!" I thought, before realizing that she had been rubbing her fingers together an inch away from my left ear. I was completely deaf in that one. "Wow, that's not good at all" she said.

At this point, I was ready to walk over to the sink, turn on the warm water and begin priming the syringe, when suddenly the doctor walked in. "Got some wax, eh?" This guy was obviously trying to show he was a seasoned veteran when it came to cerumen impaction. Now, I thought I would be getting the smooth, pulsing efficiency of the ear-igator like I did last time, but NO! This doctor brought out what can only be described as an industrial two foot-long metallic syringe monstrosity. This was going into my ear.

It was over soon enough. The physician's assistant peered inside my ear again and proudly proclaimed, "No more wax! I'll bet you can hear now!"

It was true. I could hear things like air, tongue depressors and t-shirt vibrations.

No More Terrorist Fist Jab?

UPDATE (7/2): Bogus.

We hardly knew ye. I think Obama should keep using it, personally. It might catch on the way Kennedy set a no-hat trend for American men. Incidentally, it would be kind of cool if we still had the hat thing, but the main point I'm trying to make is that we should embrace change, know hope and fist jab to our heart's content.

Wikipedia is full of wonder on the subject (italics mine):

"Time magazine wonders if it evolved from the handshake and the high-five. They cite knuckle bumping in the 1970s with NBA player Baltimore Bullets guard Fred Carter. Others claim the Wonder Twins, minor characters in the 1970s Hanna-Barbera superhero cartoon Super Friends, who touched knuckles and cried "Wonder Twin powers, activate!" were the originators."

Skymall

Lost Beatles Interview to Air

"The British Broadcasting Corp. will air a long lost Beatles interview featuring John Lennon and Paul McCartney talking about the day they met and their songwriting partnership.

The precious film sat forgotten for 44 years in a garage in south London until film fan Richard Jeffs realized a piece of pop history was contained inside."

Why does this stuff always end up in a garage or basement or attic somewhere? Every home should have a treasure box instead. Cool stuff goes in the treasure box. How do you know if it's cool stuff?

Is it old?

If yes, do you know what it is?

If no, find out. If yes, does it involve the most influential musicians of the last century?

If yes, remove from garage/attic/basement and place in treasure box.

The people will be round to collect them once a week.

The Machine Stops

I have yet to see WALL-E, but found this post on Britannica Blog notable since it points out a "thoroughly worked-out allusion" to one of my favorite short stories, E.M. Forster's 1909 work The Machine Stops.

I've been familiar with Forster since high school when my class read A Passage to India, a novel exploring the subtleties and shades of misunderstanding and universality in the cultural mingling of British colonial India. During Notre Dame's summer London program, my English class read The Machine Stops, a nearly hundred year-old work exploring a dystopian future in which humans are lazy and disconnected, relying on machines to do most of their work. Most social interaction occurs through telescreens rather than actual physical contact (as the Britannica post notes, quite similar to Facebook and MySpace eh?) in a civilization that has long since retreated underground, leaving machines to manage the decaying surface of the Earth.

I look forward to seeing WALL-E more than ever now, especially since it seems to be the latest installment in the science fiction tradition of giving lifeless dystopian futures a pulse. And if there's one thing I love, it's lifeless dystopian futures. Um, with hope and love trying to break through. With a pulse. Or something.

Whatever.

Nerds Through the Ages

A review of Benjamin Nugent's book, American Nerd: The Story of My People. What makes a nerd a nerd? Where did they come from? Where are they going? And how did they get so ridiculously rich?

The Tunguska Event: 100 Years Later

A nice summary of the mysterious Tunguska event that flattened a good swath of Siberia on June 30, 1908.