World

• Remember that Russian ship that went missing a few weeks ago? The plot thickens…

Science & Tech

• An HIV vaccine breakthrough.
• There is a surprising amount of water on the moon.

Pop Culture

• Re-make mania reaches  a fever pitch as David Cronenberg announces he will re-make The Fly…a movie he already directed 23 years ago, itself a remake.
• And if that weeren’t bad enough, get ready for Barbie: The Movie.
• Meet the dog with an MBA.

Canada

• Government subsidization of lobster fisheries has never been this sexy.

World

• Australia is dusty. Like 1,000-km-long-duststorm dusty.
• “Monkey Island” is pretty much as awesome as you think it is.
• Mannequins in Iran must now wear a hijab. I think God can probably tell the difference between a real person and one made of plastic with no genitals. But hell, that’s just me talking.
• The Soviets actually built a doomsday machine, a la Dr. Strangelove. It’s still working. Three cheers for forward thnking!
• Kalishnkov, makers of fine – but tragically easy to reproduce – assault rifles, is going bankrupt.

Pop Culture

• Coolest. Bookstore. Ever.
• Highlander is being rebooted. Not to put too fine a point on it, but…THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. And several sequels. I mean, Chrsit, it’s right there in the movie.
• Listen to Kurt Vonnegut read from Breakfast of Champions…three years before it was published. Better living through archival sound recordings.
• Kirk Cameron plans to distribute 50,000 copies of an “altered” version of The Origin of the Species in some bizarre attempt to subvert Darwin’s birthday. Remember when he was just a bad actor on a mediocre sitcom? Yeah, those were the days.

So, Toronto comics Rob Baker, Alastair Forbes and Alex Hatz have teamed up to create a new series of web-only shorts. You should watch it, because it’s funny as Hell.

There’s also a Part Three. I can’t find Part One online…if any of the creators are reading this, be sure to leave the link in the comments.

Ha HA! You had all given up hope, hadn’t you? You thought, “Oh, that’s it. The Fountainhead has beaten him. There’s no way he’s going to finish that book.”

Nay, friend. Nay.

My extended silence on the topic of Ayn Rand was not due to mere laziness. Rather, it was a necessity. If I stopped at any point during the last 100 pages – even to write a modest blog post – the sheer weight of Rand’s turgid prose threatened to sweep me away and bury me in a pit so deep, it would make the Mines of Moria look like a pothole.

Sidebar: that was a nerdy sentence.

Nevertheless, I have conquered The Fountainhead. The pages have been turned, the plot absorbed, the philosophical implications mulled. And that leaves us with the simple question I posed eight weeks ago: does reading Ayn Rand make you a jerk?

Read the rest of this entry »

I rather take it for granted that people know they should donate their organs. But in case there are any holdouts, I present these videos as a slick and good-natured reminder:

“Unbeatable hearts”. Gold.

World

• Where do ships go to weather the recession? My idea of heaven, as it turns out.
• The government of Brazil really, really, really wants you to pee in the shower.

Science & Tech

• Note to science: stop giving robots superpowers. See also: Terminator 1 through 4, the Matrix, and I, Robot. On second thought, don’t see I, Robot. Nobody should see that.
• The Big Bang, briefly.

Pop Culture

• FOLLOW-UP: Witness the awesome splendour of the inflatable Jabba the Hutt costume in the wild.
• 9/11 comedy only works when you use stormtroopers
• Star Tours, aka the most awesome shaky-box ride ever, is getting a revamp.
• New Muppet movie!

Media

• During these hard economic times, people are apparently turning to YouTube for solace.

Science & Tech

• World’s grossest parasite eats host’s tongue, then pretends it is the tongue. Disgusting picture alert.

Pop Culture

• Well, I just found my Halloween costume.
• Jim Carroll, RIP.
• New movie about Charles Darwin can’t find a distributor, mostly because the USA remain bedevilled by spectacular idiots.