Transsexual Surprise Holds Up TV Show

reality TV game show that tricks a group of men into winning the affections of a beautiful "woman" who is actually a man -- what could go wrong?

British pay-TV company BSkyB and independent producer Brighter Pictures are facing a threatened lawsuit from six contestants on the show, "There's Something About Miriam," who are trying to prevent the program from being broadcast. The contestants are challenging the consent forms they signed before discovering that Miriam, a male pre-operative transsexual, was not all that she seemed.

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Simpsons creator says show was threatened with legal action

Simpsons creator says show was threatened with legal action

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening says Fox News threatened legal action after an episode of the cartoon poked fun at the channel.

The episode, on Fox Entertainment, featured a "Fox News Crawl" at the bottom of the screen, which parodied items featured by the news channel.

The cartoon ticker read: "Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent ... Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com ... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer ... Dow down 5000 points ... Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay ... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party ... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple ..."

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The Go Team is worth listening to

Balls of steel, man. Balls of steel.

Bush Disavows 'Mission Accomplished' Link

Six months after he spoke on an aircraft carrier deck under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," President Bush disavowed any connection with the war message. Later, the White House changed its story and said there was a link.

The "Mission Accomplished" boast has been mocked many times since Bush's carrier speech as criticism has mounted over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction and the continuing violence in Iraq.

When it was brought up again Tuesday at a news conference, Bush said, "The `Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished."

"I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff — they weren't that ingenious, by the way."

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I was wondering why it took him that long to go back on the "Mission Accomplished" thing. If the Democrats are half smart, they're going to milk it like a cow during the 2004 elections.

Russian Idol

Bright lights and toe-tapping tunes -- it could have been any song contest.

But the wardens guarding the auditorium gave it away. The performers were all prisoners from Russia's notoriously harsh jails.

More than 800 hopefuls sent in demo tapes a year ago and judges whittled the numbers down to 23 who strutted their stuff in front of a 1,000-strong audience.

Murderers and thieves belted out ballads in a Moscow concert hall, many singing as if their freedom depended on it. (Would you support such an event?)

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The World is coming to an end

It's a trap!

Why do I bother, I ask myself

"Not Without My Penis: A D20 adventure by Michael R. Barklage & Veronica Blessing

Encore finally delivers
After six months of waiting and busting balls, Encore Books has finally acquired my trade paper backs. On Thursday I plunked down 70 dollars of my hard earned money to pick up the Invisibles: Apocalypstick and Storwatch: Team Achilles. For his first forray in the world of comics, Micah Wright does pretty good for himself with interesting characters and a remarked improvement as the story goes on. SW:TA is a good book, but it's not great.

The Invisibles, on the other hand is *really* awesome. There has only been two forms of media that has managed to change my perception after injestion. The first would have to be Fight Club. I remember walking out of the screening of that film and I remember how much different the world "looked". It was like the film had turned off the switch in my brain that filters out advertisements and commercialism. Walking to my truck, all I could see was the excessive consumeristic society that Tyler Durden had fought against. I felt energized, like nothing else. The second trade paperback of the Invisibles was just like that. Filled to the gills with Mad and Beautiful Ideas, Apocalystick feels like nothing I've ever read before. Sexy, scary and cool and ten times more comprehensible than the Filth. It's something worth reading. I cannot wait to get the whole series and read it in one go.

Team China fucking rocks!
To quote the Onion, "Fun was had". The party was fun and the after party was even better. Looks like I'll be hanging with them more often.

Sony to Release videogame where you fight the evil Quebers

Canadians may soon be involved in a war to protect Toronto's subway tunnels from Quebec terrorist separatists.

But residents of the country's largest city need not panic because the frightening scenario is relegated to virtual reality. A new video game by Sony will make Quebec terrorists among a series of bad guys.

In Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, players take on the roles of new recruits in an agency that's trying to uncover a conspiracy that has unleashed the deadly Syphon Filter virus. It's the fourth in a series of games by the global video game giant.

Players can play solo or team up online to stop the deadly group from unleashing a programmable weapon of mass destruction.

In one mission, the Quebec Liberations Front has taken control of one of Toronto's underground subway tunnels. Players must use weapons to kill terrorists who have fortified a position near a stopped train.

The terrorist group is an apparent reference to the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ), whose kidnapping and murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte in 1970 led to the imposition of the War Measures Act.

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Jesus actor struck by lightning

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ.
The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

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It's the complete Far Side, mofo. You want it, and you want it now.

Coffee with Team China
I have spent the last two hours with Team China talking over coffee at Tim Hortons. We discussed me being with a banana and how I am an egg, how the concept of French kung fu movies is befuddling to the Chinese, whether Anson should date a white women, how one goes about with a broken heart, the concept of what a Canadian actor is (and why no on outside of Canada knows about them) and why I like girls with glasses.

I am tired.

New meme: Limbaugh's addiction is because of the Clintons
Seems like Will Durst started this one and the Onion followed suit.

Lynch's 1 billion dollar plan for peace

"There's this beautiful ocean of bliss and consciousness that is able to be reached by any human being by diving within, which is really peaceful and harmonious and can be enlivened by the group process. This group is a peace-creating group. It saturates the atmosphere. This is all about establishing peace. Right now, we gotta get peace back in the world. Peace is a real thing."

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FOX NEWS DECLARES BUSH WINNER OF 2004 ELECTION

Using exit poll data and statistical projections, Fox News Channel declared today that George W. Bush has won re-election as president of the United States in 2004.

The 24/7 news network was also the first to call the 2000 election for President Bush, more than month before its statistical model accurately predicted the U.S. Supreme Court would invalidate the Florida recount and seal the election.

"We've significantly improved our exit polling and projections since then," said John Ellis, who oversees election results for Fox News and is coincidentally a cousin of President Bush. "Now we can say with 100 percent certainty over a year out that George W. Bush is the winner of the 2004 presidential election.

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It's official: the Global Frequency will be a television series on the WB next year

I hang out with these people during the weekend.

Dream
Dream #1

Aliens arrived on Earth and myself, and a couple of others were privy to their arrival. They came down in flying saucers and were the literal little green men of days past. Asked them if they had a history book, so that I could learn more about them. They told me that they did, and handed me it. It was writen in perfect English. I asked them if we were alone in the universe. The aliens told me that it was just them and us.

Commentary
I'm pretty sure that the dream was inspired by an article I read during the day about some strange clouds or fog around Edmonton or Calgary. It was suggested that it could have possibly been a UFO.


Dream #2
My girlfriend, a frail Chinese girl is dying. I've been diligently working at some sort of farm, but nothing I can do can heal her. I'm informed that she'll die in the next couple of days. I comfort her by giving her breakfast in bed, and talking to her. She's in a deep sleep, and doesn't speak back. Some doctors appear and tell me that I can heal her, if I fuck her. With the doctor is Wil Weaton, but he's a pre-op transsexual. I try to have sex with her, but I'm unable to get it up. One of the doctor's assistance does, however, and his fucking heals her. I'm happy that she's better now, but I wish that I could have healed her.

Commentary
The girl of my dream was a mix of Audrey Tautou and Pearl. I believe that they were an amalgamation because I saw Dirty Pretty Things last night. The sickness might represent the sadness I see in the lives of people I care about that I'd like to fixm but that doesn't feel "true" to me. The bit about having someone I love being stolen from me in some fashion has been a re-occuring motif in my dreams for the last couple of weeks. Definately a question to ask a psycho-analyst. Or David's mom.

Propaganda leaflets from the Korean War

Your dear mother is filling with tears in her eyes. Your pretty and young wife is going to crazy, for she can't stand any longer. Your children are crying and asking where their daddy is now. American officers and soldiers; Do you like to leave your mother, wife and children for the cannon fodders of Truman and MacArthur? Just cease fighting and come over to our line. We guarantee you safe conduct, warm clothes, good food and medical care if you injure, and in the end you'll get home.

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North Korean propaganda music video: Fucking USA

It's almost been one year
I haven't spoken or writen to her for over two months now, but she's been on my mind all day long. I haven't thought about her in a long time. More than antying, I miss talking to her. I could tell her anything and she'd listen. Really listen. She always had time for me and my shit, no matter how insignificant it was. She'd never judge and gave me advice that had insight. I wish that I listened to her more often. I miss her intelligence and her drive. She was my best friend.

I was once told that a broken heart is like a broken bone. It hurts like hell at first when it break. Once you get it in the cast, it's uncomfortable and still hurts. When you take off the cast, when the doctors say that it's healed, you feel aches and pains when the seasons change. My bones ache this evening.

How we score killing sprees

If you're at all like we are, you hear the occasional news reports about another killing spree somewhere-- a day trader here, an obsessed computer geek there, postal workers everywhere-- and you think, ehhh, this guy wasn't as good as that other whacko. But then you think about it some more and you find that it's so hard to decide who's really been doing the best work. What really makes for a good homicidal rampage?

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Dreams

Dream #1

I was on a reality television show called Zombies. On the show, they’d gather up 300 contestants that would represent a microcosm of the real world. The producers would then put them into a rather large mall (about the size of the West Edmonton Wall). One every week (it would always be a surprise), a group of zombies would attack the contestants and it would be a battle of survival of the fittest to see who won. The show was remarkably real, with contestants armed with shotguns and flame-throwers. The collateral damage was high and a lot of the contestants were killed. I confronted a producer with this, and I was told that they had *very effective ways of re-cloning lost body parts. They made no mention of how they’d replace lost heads. At the end of the evening of the episode that I was in, the zombies burst through a wall, each of them using vehicles. Since the traps that I had made were for zombies on foot, our defenses were pretty much useless. Seeing that defeat was at hand, I ran out and tried to find a doorway out. I managed to find a doorway, but the doorway didn’t let me out of the mall, but rather into a spaceship. As I flew away from Earth, I saw that Galactus was addressing the survivors. It seemed that the Earth was about to end at his hand.

Dream #2

It was a couple of days before September 11th 2001, but for some reason, I knew about the attacks. Watching in the van, I noticed that a large amount of aboriginals and blacks were cashing some really large Cheques. It became clear to me that they had banded together and they wanted to bring America down because of the injustices brought upon them. (This is what happens when you read David Icke before you go to sleep, kids).

Dream #3

Megan and I were on a date, sitting in my truck. I was kissing her neck with small kisses that ended up with a lick. She told me that my technique was satisfactory.

Astronaut Reveals NASA Mind Control Program Involving Children

Astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, has confirmed the existence of a mind control program administered by NASA in the 1950's and 1960's involving gifted American schoolchildren.

The astronaut's revelation was made during a July 19th interview by host Mike Siegel on the popular, late-night radio program, Coast to Coast.

During a discussion that primarily focused on Cooper's beliefs that extraterrestrial beings are visiting planet Earth and that some UFO's are alien spacecraft, Siegel asked Cooper: "Who were the space kids?"

Cooper answered that "the space kids were children with exceptional mental abilities run through a kind of MK program, like the things that are coming out now."

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Tarantino talks about his influences for Kill Bill
Lots of spoilers within, so don't read it until you see it.

Monkeys can control a robot arm as naturally as their own limbs using only brain signals, a pioneering experiment has shown. The macaque monkeys could reach and grasp with the same precision as their own hand.

"It's just as if they have a representation of a third arm," says project leader Miguel Nicolelis, at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Experts believe the experiment's success bodes well for future devices for humans that are controlled solely by thought.

Mark Millar's "Chosen"

“We've got a twelve year old boy and his small social circle coming to terms with his incredible destiny just like Ultimate Spider-Man, but the character of Jesus has, without sounding crass, really been Ultimized here in the sense that he's been stripped back to basics after 2000 years of conflicting continuity and put back in touch again with a younger audience,” Millar said. I'm only half-smiling as I say this. You'll see what I mean when you read the book.

”Chosen is a three issue series that kicks off with this premise and explores where he and his family go from here. It's Stand By Me meets the Book of Revelations as a kid finds out he's the real deal and has a terrifying destiny ahead of him. This is Harry Potter for fundamentalist Christians".

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Harry Knowles is now a producer. His first movie: Ghost Town

Bush orders officials to stop the leaks

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else.

News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately.

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Sounds like headline straight out of the Onion, doesn't it?

"I keep asking myself: 'Why are they bombing Iraqi people? What have we done to them?' I hoped that the pilot who hit our house would be burned as I am burned and my family were burned."

The Communists have re-taken their place as the rightful heirs of space

Weird spam of the day
Got this in the mail today, and I'm not sure what to think. Take a gander

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Mother Teresa: the musical

A clapping chorus line of swaying nuns and a rock-and-roll Mother Teresa took Rome by storm this week in a musical to coincide with her beatification, the last step before sainthood.

The arrival of "Mother Teresa the Musical" is one of a series of events being held ahead of her beatification by Pope John Paul on October 19, six years after she died.

"I dream, I hope, I pray for you," the sprightly Teresa character sings to dancing members of the chorus representing the sick and destitute in the upbeat production.

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Warren Ellis' new project: Get Swing!

I have today completed my next epic screenplay, a Ken Russellesque period take on the Southern England farm labourers' riots of 1830 as fomented by the mythical "Captain Swing." My friend Patrick Stewart stars as Swing, a part which he performs entirely naked for the whole three-hour running time. The soundtrack for GET SWING! is to be created by The Flaming Lips, by arrangement with their manager Scott Booker. There is a glorious moment near the end where the band burst into "Do You Realise" as Patrick kills Augusto Pinochet by screwing a sharpened wine glass into his chest, coring out his heart, and a flock of angels rise out of the ring of burning threshing machines surrounding them, take out long slim feathered penises, and piss blood all over his body.

The CGI will be done in China. Apparently the popular Aaron Kwok, beloved all over the Pearl River Delta for his pop singing and acting, inadvertantly had his penis digitally scanned in by an ambitious and technologically able Thai knockout-hooker who sedated him with tranquilliser-smeared nipples and then applied an imaging device stored somewhere terrible. So it's his penis we're using for the angels. I mean, can you imagine what it'd cost if we used Industrial Light And Magic and Richard Gere's penis? Or James Woods'?

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Happy Birthday, Erin

My Friend Stephen, the Pornomancer

Why I liked Kill Bill
-Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari
-revenge-o-vision with revenge-o-sound
-HYPER-VIOLENCE!
-cinematic references up the wazoo (I got the Suzuki, Lee, Fukasaku ones, among others)
-the five fingers of death
-the utterly brilliant opening

Books that I'm reading
I've started reading, on David's recommendation, Al Franken's Rush Limbah is a Big Fat Idiot. It's on and off funny, so far, and I really enjoyed Franken's account of a game of presidential football. Comic gold.

I just received King Rat in the mail as an interlibrary loan. I haven't begun yet, but if it's as good as Perdido Street Station or the Scar, it should be good reading.

And for Jess' edification, I read the Wasp Factory during the summer. It reminded me alot of earlier Palinichuck, but with a harder edge to it. I believe David read it too, but he never told me what he thought. Thanks for the recommendation, though. What was the other book that you recommended? The one about witches? The wicked witch of the west, or something?

Tim Burton's Big Fish Trailer is up

My Friday plans are fucked!
Not only is Kill Bill not playing, but my date has decided that her midterm exams are more important than having an evening off and enjoying herself. Bah. So much for my uber asskicking Friday.

Tokyo's legendary punkabilly trio Guitar Wolf believe that red-blooded rock and roll can save the planet. In Wild Zero, their camp horror movie released in 2000, wannabe rocker Ace rescues the band from a backstage brawl. Afterward they help him save Tokyo from a pack of voracious undead souls (zombified by who? Puffy Amiyumi?).

Guitar Wolf's current UFO Romantics could be Ed Wood's bondage fantasy: black leather and guitar solos greased like the group's hairdos. "Fire Ball Red" starts it up, with Seiji (a/k/a Guitarwolf)'s instrument signaling like an emergency alarm, while his bandmates Toru (Drumwolf) and Billy (Basswolf) ride the chorus like a stolen vehicle. Then "After School Thunder" 's group chorus cracks the concrete. Toru's bass drum navigates "Grion Midnite" with flashlight accuracy, while Seiji and Billy fall all over one another in the dark. "UFO Romantics" is clearly the troupe's rallying call: three ringing power chords channeling space invaders, sounding like "Baba O'Riley" with subtitles.

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My brother bought a couple of Guitar Wolf CD's a couple of years ago. On the CD, there was a sticker that said "This is the loudest CD ever recorded. If you play this at regular volume your speakers will be damaged". They weren't kidding. Guitar Wolf is loud badass punk.

George W Bush's poem to his wife

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I've missed you

Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy

The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier

Taken from CNN.

Mormon leader asks members to resist evils in entertainment and the Internet

The president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sunday told members of the faith that they must "hold back the world" by resisting the everyday evil embodied in popular entertainment and the Internet.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, speaking during the church's 173rd semiannual General Conference, said that while many not of the faith would support their values, "we cannot be arrogant. We cannot be self-righteous."

The church's leader also noted he was pleased that the church-owned NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City had refused to air a program of a "salacious nature," apparently referring to the network's new sitcom, "Coupling," a remake of a BBC show focusing on the sex lives of a group of friends.

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Elegant Gothic Lolita

An elegant Gothic Lolita, EGL or Gothic Lolita for short, is a Japanese teen or young adult who dresses in amazingly elaborate Gothic looking babydoll costumes. On the weekends these women walk the streets of Tokyo and Osaka and fill Yoyogi Park and Harajuku neighborhood where they pose for tourist’s pictures and sit around looking pretty. They are beautiful, glamorous, doll-like manifestations of their favorite Visual Rock stars.

This subculture’s physical look began around the fall of 1999 as a sort of French Maid meets Alice in Wonderland style and has expanded gradually to encompass many nuances in a Victorian Gothic look. Make no mistake – these women want nothing to do with our Western Gothic ways.

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I was looking for the cover Marvel comic's John Paul the Pope comic. I found this instead.

Adi Tantimedh on Star Trek as political allegory

Let's start with the original STAR TREK series, which unconsciously represented the Kennedy Cold War era, with its interesting and occasionally contradictory combination of Liberalism and Interventionism, along with the Klingons and Romulans obviously standing in for the Russians and Chinese (using all at the same time, with their vaguely oriental make-up).
The political landscape of NEXT GENERATION evolved during the three Presidential eras it ran under. It's initial first few years (which featured dreadful scripts), which ran under a Republican era, were waffly, wobbly, and in some cases oddly, but mildly, racist. When showrunner Michael Piller came onboard with the newer writers (all of them avowed Liberals and Democrats), the show took on a very group-therapy-let's-talk-things-through-before-a-misunderstanding-leads-to-war era that coincided with the Clinton era coming in (Piller also heralded in a period of better writing, which is when the show began to actually become good). The latter years of NEXT GEN began to get a bit darker, with the Federation showing fissures with the #### rebelling and breaking away, not to mention the need to bend the rules and even engage in covert operations to maintain the peace.

DEEP SPACE NINE can be read as an allegory for American International Diplomacy and Peacekeeping Abroad, since the Federation has always represented America, and here was the Federation trying to keep the peace in a deeply Balkanised regime (you yourself pointed the Bosnian War metaphor), and the main characters having to operate within grey areas and having to change and adapt their moral structures accordingly.

VOYAGER can be read as an allegory for the actual Clinton Administration itself: essentially well-meaning, somewhat arrogant, not always likeable people, not always getting along, having to put up with a lot of bastards snapping at their heels as they try their best to succeed in the task at hand, and having to repeat themselves over and over again because they were beginning to run out of fresh ideas.

ENTERPRISE, to me, reflects the current era very strongly. A dishonest aw-shucks vibe, the characters feeling their constantly under siege, but that it's never really their fault. No real ideas and a general alienating mediocrity.

What's fascinating is that all of this is strictly unconscious, but the shows managed to capture the mood of their times anyway. And let's face it, the presidential administration tends to be the figurehead of the country's mood.

There's more in link and it's all worth reading. Thoughts on this, anyone?

Dreams
In my dream, Pearl and I had just broken up, and yet it was the present day. She and I hadn’t been talking for a long time, but my friend Mike was still in contact with her. Pearl confided with Mike that she had found another man and that she found me boring and unsatisfactory. When I discovered this, I was very angry for two reasons. The first being that I thought that I was giving her all the love that I could, and the second one was that she was willing to talk to one of my friends about her problems and not I.

I also had a dream that the government had created a team to explorers whose mission would be to go to hell. They were Hellonauts, or something. The reason that they were going there was to acquire a demon. The demon, they believed, had a pituarty gland that would help enable mind control.

I dreamt about Michelle (a girl at the college, not Mike’s girlfriend). I saw her on the street and wanted to talk to her. She was with her friend (identity unknown) and was heading off to Subway to work (in real life, Michelle works at Wendy’s). Then I woke up.

The new issues of the Avengers will be a Mature Readers comic. This is why

Thank God for Andrea at Encore Books
Thanks to her, I shall be getting the second trade paperback of the Invisibles and the first trade paperback of StormWatch: Team Achilles in November. I'm still waiting for my Battle Royale novel.

I'm part of the headmap:blogosphere
You can find me at Latitude: 56.14, Longitude: -120.44. Add yourself and tell me where you are.

Dude, you can watch the Bacardi and Cola commercials on-line!

Why bees are our enemies
Don't forget about this attack as well.

More frighening stuff that will chill you to the core
Earlier, when commenting on how Canadians were fakers when it comes to sex, I commented that there was a woman at the college who uses the computer labs for cyber sex. Erin said that I shouldn’t be looking at other people’s conversations. Fair enough.

Today, I printed off one of my lab reports in the computer lab at the college. The printer, for those who haven’t been there, is close to one of the computers. The Woman Who Cyber Sexes was using that computer. I glance at her computer for a second and I regret what I see. Everyone knows about the new MSN, right? The one where you can have a small picture of something in the upper right hand corner? Well, in this woman’s upper right hand cover was the image of some guy stroking his dick. I quickly glance away, my little mind shattered and quickly leave the lab. Why can’t this women do that at home, I ask? For the love of God, why?

Sequential Swap
Remember when you were a kid and you had a juice box in your lunch that you didn’t particularly like? Remember that kid who hate the cookies that his mom made? Remember when you traded that juice box for those cookies? Remember how cool it was when you could trade something that you didn’t like for something that was ten times better? Well, that’s what Sequential Swap is all about.

Sequential Swap is a website dedicated to trading off your old trade paperbacks and graphic novels. If you have a couple of books that you’re not interested in anymore, like say, the first trade of Transmetropolitan, put it online and wait for some offers to trade it off. Well worth it if you’re wanting to get rid of books that you never read and want to expand your collection with something new and exciting.

Tim Rogers on the Top 11 Best Videogame Endings of All Time

What Super Mario Bros. embodies is the spirit of a game winding down. Much as I consider Super Mario Bros. 3 the greatest game of all time, I would have to point to Super Mario Bros. as the Official Videogame of Judgment Day. When it all comes down to the end, all that will be left is Super Mario Bros.


I consider the entire eighth world -- and the skill it takes to beat it, and beat it skillfully -- part of this game's ending, its winding-down phase. It is the end of one game, and the beginning of videogames. Forget anything that came before it: Super Mario Bros.'s eighth world, with the increasingly genre-busting nature of its stages -- a broken staircase at the end of 8-1, 8-3's castles in the background, 8-4's inclusion of a water pit stage in a maze of stone and lava -- is The Videogame. At the end of the day, this is what it all comes back to: colored sprites against a black background; white bricks; man versus dragon; princess.

More in link. Having never beaten Super Mario Brothers, I say that Roger's description of the 8th world is incredibly spot on. No other platformer emphisizes skill and determination quite like Super Mario Brothers.

Sometimes I write fiction
Every woman knew Wallace, he signed their panties. His face bronzed like a pulp hero and his eyes the green of a television commercial cat, he was the poster child for the bad boy world of extreme plastic surgery. Children born with pig’s tails, horns and fangs flocked to his practice. Tumours, growing out of arms like trees were removed and mounted like dead dogs. He was a star, and the world ate him up.

Cosmopolitan interviewed him, wanting to know what his secret was. How did he turn lepers into Hollywood starlets? He asked the interviewer to turn off the lights. His hands glowed with a white that was so incredibly bright that her vision was compromised for years. They did a three page fold of spread of them. He announced that his hands were blessed, a gift from God. The Almighty gave him perfection when he fisted an angel.