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Furries needs God's love too, you know
This site is dedicated to spreading the Gospel in the werewolf and furry communities. It is my hope that many trans-species people will accept Jesus as their Savior through this ministry. I will explain the etymology of this website's name. I got the idea from Werewolf Tobias' tradition of calling a werewolf stronghold a House. Well, I'm a dragon, so my ideal stronghold would be a Castle. And since this is MY website where I am MASTER, I call this my Castle.
Please do not take offense at what I have to say on my website. I know I can be quite bold and frank at times, but I need to tell you what God thinks about you. God loves you so much that He let His only Son, Jesus, die on the cross to pay the penalty for your sinful nature and create a new sincere heart in you so that you can be close to Him. If you are searching for God, you need to listen to God's messengers because that is how God is speaking to you right now. God will not speak to you through your senses. He speaks to you through His Word - the Bible.
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Hunter S. Thompson: "Richard Nixon would be my man if he ran today.
Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?
If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd.
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In Honour of Bill O'Reily's new Scandal, check out the Electric Six's Vibrator!
More Puppet Fucking!
In the wake of Team America: World Police, many viewers have come out of the theater with urges that they didn't have before the film. We're talking about the urge to see puppets fuck. Thankfully, Broadway has proved on outlit for your perverse, perverse desires. Avenue Q is the Tony award winning Broadway musical that features an all puppet cast that sings about love, drinking and internet porn. If you want to check out the lyrics of their songs (totally in the vein of South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut), check out the link.
Lynne Cheney's Sisters
"Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl."
It seems that in the wake of the last American Presidential debate, everyone has been talking about Kerry's shout out Lynne Cheney. Today, I'd like to give mad props to Cheney. Not only is the homosexual offspring of Dick Cheney, but she's also of the Western lesbian epic, Sisters. Check out more body tingling excerpts in the link.
Bizzare!Bill O'Reily's Sexual Harassment Suit
Stolen from the Smoking Gun, prepare to be literally shocked and amazed.
During the course of his perverted ravings, Defendant Bill O'Reily told Plantiff that if that they would then engage in sexual intercourse. When Plantiff Anrea Makiss again reminded Defedant O'Reily that she did not want to participate, reminding him that he was her boss, O'Reilly said "you just have to suspend that".
During the course of Defendant Bill O'Reily's sexual rant, it became clear that he was using a vibrator on himself. Plantiff was repulsed.
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Movies I Want To See: the Calamari Wrestler
The Calamari Wrestler mixes my two favourite genres of film together into a splendid sea-food dish of cinematic greatness: Japanese wrestling movies and movies about calamaris that manage to triumph over adverse conditions. Directed by Japan's self proclaimed "Ed Wood Jr. with talent", the Calamari Wrestler aims to please with romance, over the top wrestling moves, bizzare comedy and a squid with a heart of gold.
Is anyone interested in a gmail account? I can hook you up, if you're interested.
A Night At The Hip Hopera
In the wake of Dj Danger Mouse's megaton attack of copywrite law the Grey Album, it seems that everyone has been trying to create the Big New Mashup. Enter the Kleptones. Taking off where Danger Mouse left off, the Kleptones mashup mixes Queen's arena rock styles to a melange of hiphop from the last two decades. It's better than Batboy the Musical. This, I promise you.
Mixture, an new mix CD
1)Flock of Seagulls-I Ran
2)Radio Birdman-Descent Into The Maelstrom
3)the Replacements-Alex Chilton
4)Veronica Tangent-Clean Shaven Pussy
5) Eels-My Beloved Monster and Me
6)United Future Organization-Upa Neguinho
7)The Smiths-This Charming Man
8)Badly Drawn Boy-The Shining (Avalanches remix)
9) Buffalo Daugther-Great Five Lakes
10)American Analog Set-Weather Report
11)Lampchop-What Else Could It Be
12)Lovage-Sex (I'm a Man)
13)Zero7-In The Waiting Line
14)the Polyphonic Spree-Section 9
15)Gary Jules-Mad World
About two years ago, around the time when I broke up with Pearl, I developed a mad facination with late 80's rock and New Wave. What can I say? I was crazy back then. That said, one of my projects during that period was to create a mix CD featuring what I considered to be some of the best rock from that decade of excess that those of us that grew up during the 90s tried to forget. The CD was going to be called "Rock Rock". Clever, né? Sadly, like most of my creative ventures, I never completed it, but a partial playlist stayed on my old computer. Flashforward to 2004, and I've dug up my old computer, complete with my 400 plus library of music. Filled with ambition, I decide to pull a Lazurus and finally burn "Rock Rock". Pulling out my files, I rediscover a lot of music that I've loved in the past, and scrap my idea of making a CD of pure rock music, and decide to make a CD of music that I won't grow sick of. Mixture is the end result. The first couple of tracks, from I Ran to Alex Chilton are pretty much all the remains of my rock CD. Tossed at the wayside was Thee Michelle Gun Elephant's Black Tambourine and the Hot Snakes' Automatic Midnight. I decided to add Veronica Tangent's Clean Shaven Pussy because I like to represent my old home of Victoria's music scene. United Future Organization and Buffalo Daughter filled my quota of Japanese music, bonus points were added since an Englishman could appreciate the music since they lacked Japanese lyrics. I put Zero7's In The Waiting Line, the Polyphonic Spree's Section 9 and Gary Jules' Mad World because they've bookended a bunch of great films that I've seen the last couple of months. Kudos to anyone that can catch the cinematic references.
Anal sex as comedy
This was going to be my first time foraging in the ass forest, and I wanted to have a reminder of my trip, a memento I could carry with me the rest of my life…so I decided to film us.
I planned this beforehand, but I was afraid she would decline, so instead of being mature and discussing this with Jaime, I just made the executive decision to get it on camera…without telling her.
That alone is pretty bad. But instead of just setting up a hidden camera…I got my friend to hide in my closet and film it.
No really--I know that I will burn in hell. At this point, I’m just hoping that my life can serve as a warning to others.
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Ain't It Cool Talkbackers provide biting political commentary
You guys thought Road Warrior was cool, right? Well, let's make it a reality! A Kerry presidency would just be politics as usual, but four more years of Bush would get us that post-apocalyptic dystopia that we all know and love. Think about it... four more years of Ashcroft could make Equilibrium a reality, which means lots of guys with biker helmets and black leather trenchcoats to rebel against, and that's ALWAYS cool! No industrial regulation means pollution which means climate change which brings about all sorts of natural disasters, so there's a possibility of some Godzilla shit going down, or at least some Perfect Storm type shit. In fact that's my real criticism of Bush, he's not evil enough. C'mon, George, drop that facade of legitimacy and start pressing red buttons; If we're gonna die (and we are gonna die,) then "let us make such an end as will be worth remembering!"
It's a weird age when the funniest political commentary comes from the infamous Ain't It Cool talk back.
Haruki Murakami's On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning
One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.
Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.
Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.
But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.
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I've been reading Murakami's work on and off for the last six months. If you haven't had a chance to pick up any of his work, I suggest that you do so. No other author can mix the mundane and the sureal and make it wonderfully compelling.
Is Bush the Anti-Christ? The Pope seems to think so
Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and his constant references to "evil doers," in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations - the anti-Christ. People close to the Pope claim that amid these concerns, the Pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament. Before he became Pope, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla said, "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel." The Pope, who grew up facing the evils of Hitler and Stalin, knows evil when he sees it. Although we can all endlessly argue over the Pope's effectiveness in curtailing abuses within his Church, his accomplishments external to Catholicism are impressive
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Micah Wright on the War in Iraq
CNN reports that the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf has fallen to Mehdi's Army, the insurgent militia directed by Moqtada al-Sadr.
So now the insurgents are fighting in the streets in Baghdad, Fallujah, Basra, Amarah, Nasiriyah and Najaf. There has also been combat between al-Sadr's forces and Ukranian troops in Kut. Reports have it that Fallujah is still under the control of insurgents (Marines are "fighting their way in") and now CNN reports that al-Sadr's forces are in control of "government, religious and security buildings" in Najaf. It's reported that "Iraqi police are negotiating to regain their stations."
The Evening Standard reports that Iraq has been plunged into "anarchy". Elements of Mehdi's Army are said to have seized control of "key bridges" on the Euphrates.
Even as Iraq slips into anarchy and insurgents take over entire cities (Fallujah and Najaf) American proconsul L. Paul Bremer continues to insist that everything is just fine. Bremer says "There is no question we have control over the country. I know if you just report on those few places, it does look chaotic. But if you travel around the country, what you find is a bustling economy, people opening businesses right and left, unemployment has dropped."
It becomes clear that Mr. Bremer is either attempting to systematically mislead the American people or has lost touch with reality when he begins to talk about unemployment dropping while Iraq erupts into terrible guerilla warfare all around him. It must be the dropping unemployment that has led to the order forbidding travel of CPA officials outside the Green Zone. "Danger! Falling unemployment!"
The reality is that the cities home to 77% of Iraq's population are now engulfed in battle. Insurgents, instead of simply hitting and running, are now digging in. Government buildings are being seized. The trappings of occupation — police stations and bureacratic centers — have been seized.
Bremer will continue insisting that unemployment is down even as the angry mobs breach the Green Zone. If it comes to it he will be yelling "unemployment is down!" as the mobs set upon his headquarters and his helicopter lifts off to bring him to safety.
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Happiness Controler
Sony Computer Entertainment, along with its new fish simulating game, recently announced Koufuku Sousakan, which translates as "happiness and prosperity controller." The goal of Happiness Controller is to make 100 people that you control happy. The kinds of characters the player needs to keep happy drastically vary, from the white collar average Joe to a social recluse. Each character has their own daily cycle, enabling you to control interactions at home, in the workplace, or outside. Some of the types of people you need to make happy include:
-Happily married businessman, whose company is about to go bankrupt
-Manga artist
-Party animal with an utter disregard for everybody around her
-A child whose father is a slob, and whose mother comes home late at night drunk
-Bar club hostess, who gets paid to listen to rich Japanese businessmen talk
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The Genius of Pac-man
I believe there are only a few software games ever created having perfect and pure gameplay. Tetris and Pac Man are two examples, but Pac Man is the better example because it's a more complex game, and therefore the greater feat. Every aspect of Pac Man has gameplay repercussions and provides the player with decisions that involve trade-offs. Also, the game is extremely quick to learn, but nearly impossible to master, and has just one ultra-intuitive control, a single joystick.
Just the act of eating dots is perfectly designed, because eating them slows Pac Man down, slightly slower than the pursuing ghosts. This makes the act of eating dots a trade-off decision for the player because to eat dots – to accomplish the game's primary goal – is to put the player in greater danger. While staying in lanes where there are no dots allows the player to move slightly faster than the ghosts, but does not accomplish the game's goal. A lesser designed game would have not slowed down Pac Mac just the right amount when eating dots.
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The Accidental Game Porn Archive
As a child, Kim Pedersen dreamed of building a monorail in his backyard, but his dad wouldn't let him.
Several decades later and now a homeowner, Pedersen has gotten his wish: The 52-year-old Californian is possibly the only person in the world with a working backyard monorail.
Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere
For the purposes of our demonstration, we postulate that any TV show that shares characters with another series is in the same universe as that series. With the help of the guys at the Milestone E-group and their discovery of a wondrous TV crossover website that lists an astonishingly large list of spinoffs and crossovers, I will first reveal to you a stunning tapestry of interconnected TV shows, then prove that none of those shows' episodes actually occurred. I’ll do the last with two magic words: St. Elsewhere.
For those of you don’t know, St. Elsewhere was a slick, well written and acted drama series about the doctors, administrators and patients of the fictional Boston hospital, St. Eligius (nicknamed St. Elsewhere by the staff). After a long, award-winning run, in the very last moments of the show’s final episode, it was revealed that all of the events of the show were merely the prolonged daydream of an autistic child. None of it "really" happened. Whether you like this final twist (for what it’s worth, I didn’t), it’s a legitimate ending to a self-contained show. But if St. Elsewhere played by the rules of comics, either they wouldn’t have been allowed to do it, or they would have precipitated a crisis in TV Land far bloodier than DC Comics’ Crisis On Infinite Earths. Why? Because crossover-wise, St. Elsewhere is the Kevin Bacon of TV shows.
Stay with me now, this is complicated but kind of fun.
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The David Sim Onion interview is up
If you're fond of more behind the scenes stuff on the David Sim interview, be sure to check out the hoops that Tasha Robinson had to jump through as well as the rejected Cerebus Jeopardy bit. Nutty, nutty stuff.
I love retro-gaming. Legend of Zelda, here I come. And doesn't the new SP look great or what?
A really fantastic overview of NeW X-MeN
What Morrison has attempted with New X-Men is an inoculation. He injected the series with all the old viruses--Magneto, Sentinels, evil twins, dystopian futures, the Phoenix, Weapon X, the Shi'ar Empire--but in altered forms that showed them for the diseases they had become. They worked in the past, but now they keep the X-Men idea from progressing--they keep the mutants locked in an endless series of battles and reworkings of past ideas. Morrison's New X-Men is one last shot of all the old tropes, a chance for the characters and the readers to build antibodies against them so they can't come back. So the X-Men can evolve out of the superhero box they were shoehorned into (given what has been revealed so far of Marvel's post-Morrison plans, there’s only a slim chance of this actually happening). And Morrison's not just talking about the old superhero saws of pacifism vs. violence and should-we-kill? vs. we-shouldn't-kill; he’s talking about the aggression at the very core of superhero comics. Superhero fights started as metaphors, but now they refer only to themselves, and the only progress made is in the level of graphic detail. The idea of the superman, New X-Men tells us, has the potential for much more than just an excuse for earth-shattering wrestling matches. We created the supermen, and there is still more we can learn from them, just as they are capable of more--even something as profound and simple as love.
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Chinese transsexual vies for Miss Universe
Chen Lili, a 24-year old fashion model from China, will become the first transgender woman allowed to compete in a Miss Universe contest, according to a report in the People's Daily, a Beijing newspaper.
Lili was granted permission this week to participate in the international event by Miss Universe-China contest officials in New York.
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I picked up the first trade paperback of the Losers off of ebay. If you want to know why I'm picking it up, I think the cover for issue #13 says it all. Jock is a kickass artist.
How can you *not* like the Darkness?
Ever wanted to know about sumo sex?
"For the bigger sumo, the hardest problem is finding his malehood because it's always buried within the rolls of fat. The first thing to do is get the fat out of the way," she says. You can't move the fat with your hands alone. And it's not like you can ask somebody else for help. What I did was sat on top and moved my butt around in a circle until I found his thing. From there it was easy. Naturally, he doesn't do much else but lie there. It's nearly always the woman on top, or a sitting position."
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Chuck Palahniuk's Guts
Inhale.
Take in as much air as you can.
This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.
A friend of mine, when he was 13 years' old he heard about "pegging". This is when a guy gets banged up the butt with a dildo. Stimulate the prostate gland hard enough, and the rumour is you can have explosive hands-free orgasms. At that age, this friend's a little sex maniac. He's always jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off. He goes out to buy a carrot and some petroleum jelly. To conduct a little private research. Then he pictures how it's going to look at the supermarket checkstand, the lonely carrot and petroleum jelly rolling down the conveyer belt toward the grocery store cashier. All the shoppers waiting in line, watching. Everyone seeing the big evening he has planned.
So, my friend, he buys milk and eggs and sugar and a carrot, all the ingredients for a carrot cake. And Vaseline.
Like he's going home to stick a carrot cake up his butt.
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Can anyone give me information on how an RSS newsfeed works and which software is best?
Man is held after bizarre day care center visits
A 53-year-old Paterson man who recently finished a jail term for molesting a young girl was arrested after visiting three day care centers in Morris and Sussex counties, dressed and behaving bizarrely, police said yesterday.
William Rhode stopped at a day care center in Hardyston late Thursday morning, next visited the Learning Christian Childcare Center in Jefferson about 1 p.m., and then surprised students, parents and staff at the child care center of the Holy Spirit School in Pequannock sometime before 3 p.m., according to police.
Each time he said he was seeking a job. But his attire, including pink women's tights with a diaper over them, and his actions, including defecating and urinating in front of children and staff in Pequannock, prompted calls to police from all three locations
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This is what happens when the Onion tries to interview Dave Sim
I reassured him that we do long-form interviews. I offered to fax him copies of the interviews I've done with Alan Moore and Scott McCloud, so he could see what kind of stuff we do. I mentioned that we look for people who have non-mainstream opinions. He said that Scott McCloud and Alan Moore ARE mainstream. I said that they've been embraced by the mainstream, but that they don't necessarily express themselves in mainstream-friendly ways; for instance, Alan Moore claims that he worships a sock puppet. Dave said something about that depending on whether it's a feminist issue. I asked how worshipping a sock puppet was a feminist issue. He said "Same pus, different zit." I said "I'm not getting you." He said "Yeah. I know
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Oscar winner Charlize Theron to star as Aeon Flux
Charlize Theron is set to earn a $10 million payday, her biggest, to star in Aeon Flux. The Lakeshore Entertainment and Paramount Pictures-financed sci-fi film is based on the futuristic MTV animated series created by Peter Chung. MTV Films and Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Productions are producing.
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MC Hammer to make film
MC Hammer's - WorldHit Films announces their PANTHER film project has finished the script stage and pre-production will begin as soon as financing, distribution, and talent deals are in place. The film is expected to be budgeted at under $30 million.
The script, written by their head of Creative Development, Lance Dow, is based on a story by MC Hammer and Dow. Hammer and Dow will also produce.
The story with elements of Batman, Spiderman, and Daredevil revolves around a wealthy and reclusive Chicago heart surgeon and comic book buff - who dons a night-time alter ego of a Panther-suited, motorcycle-riding, martial arts-using crimefighter.
The character uses specialized equipment such as firing retractable panther claws to scale buildings and take out his adversaries, specialized pistols that fire immobilizing high-tech curare injecting darts, highly-sensitive listening devices in his ears to seek out trouble and hear adversaries movements, specialized contacts that allow him to see in a variety of spectrums with super-zoom capabilities and the ability to interact with satellite imagery from his own imaging and GPS satellite. He also maintains a deep underground high-tech command center in a rusting industrial area of Chicago where he keeps tabs on Chicago as well as sharpens his fighting skills in a special room where he battles holographic opponents.
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Pixar dumps Disney
Pixar Animation Studios Inc. said Thursday it ended talks with Walt Disney Co. to extend a five-picture deal for Disney to distribute Pixar films.
Pixar, the computer animation pioneer founded by Apple Computer Inc.'s Steve Jobs, said it would begin talks with other companies to distribute its films starting in 2006.
"After ten months of trying to strike a deal with Disney, we're moving on," Pixar CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We've had a great run together -- one of the most successful in Hollywood history -- and it's a shame that Disney won't be participating in Pixar's future successes."
The move was a clear setback to Disney, which reaped a financial and critical bonanza from the partnership and has struggled with its own strategy for animation.
Disney said Pixar's final offer would have cost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars from the existing distribution deal and was not sweet enough going forward.
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Ain't it Cool reviews Miike's Zebraman and Gozi
From the Zebraman review
Yokohama, 2010. In an otherwise normal-looking city, animals are starting to behave funnily, and new, previously unheard-of species of animals such as giant crabs are sighted. Clearly something is amiss in the city, but primary-school teacher Ichikawa (Miike regular Sho Aikawa in his 100th film role) has other things on his mind. His wife is having an affair, his daughter is a teenage prostitute, his son is bullied by his classmates and he himself is a lousy teacher with no self-esteem. The only thing that keeps him going is the memory of “Zebraman”, a superhero series broadcast in the 1970s but cancelled after seven episodes because of disastrous ratings. One night, after Ichikawa has put on his home-made Zebraman suit (you’ve guessed it: black and white stripes), he hears a funny sound and goes out to investigate. Out on the street, he gets into a fight with an unsavoury individual who turns out to be an alien. And he isn’t the only one; it quickly transpires that all of Yokohama is beset by aliens, who have taken over the bodies of their human hosts with a view to taking over the whole planet. Unexpectedly, Ichikawa in his Zebraman guise turns out to be a match for the aliens, and so he begins to realise that he is not just ACTING Zebraman anymore, but through some weird process he doesn’t understand has actually BECOME Zebraman – which, among other things, means that the hair on his neck stands on end whenever he senses alien mischief in the vicinity, like a zebra’s.
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Takashi Miike's newest film is an homage to the henshin cinema. It's called Zebraman.
Police Probe 'Assault' on Scientist Stephen Hawking
British police are investigating an alleged assault on scientist Stephen Hawking, the disabled cosmologist and author of the best-selling "A Brief History of Time."
Detectives want to question Hawking about a number of minor injuries he recently suffered.
A Cambridgeshire Police spokeswoman said Monday detectives were probing allegations that the university professor had been assaulted.
"Police are investigating an allegation of assault on a 62-year-old man from Cambridge," the spokeswoman said, declining to give further details.
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I'm lovin' it: MacDonald's related erotica
Everyone fancied Louise. I don’t think just the guys. I think everyone either fancied her or loved her. It isn’t because she was stunningly beautiful, not like a model or anything. I mean she was lovely, she was beautiful. But she was beautiful because she was just so cute, so giggly, friendly, she was adorable. She wasn’t blonde, she wasn’t rake thin and she was little. And there was something almost boyish about her, maybe it was just her shortish brown hair or perhaps because she was so quick to have a laugh with the lads. Certainly her body wasn’t boyish, she had these wonderful firm breasts and I used to have to fight so hard not to stare at them. And I’ve got to mention her bum. Everyone else’s McDonald’s trousers sagged around their arse, her’s just showed it beautifully, guys used to try and find excuses for her to have to pick stuff up, she knew what was going on and would just laugh and flirt with us, she was incredibly sexual, every where she went she brought this undercurrent of sex, she didn’t seem to try she just emanated sexuality. And she flirted constantly, which was lovely, but it did mean you always wondered, does she like me or is she just fooling around? I’m sure everyone wondered and everyone knew everyone else was wondering, so no one ever really asked her out or anything like that.
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I'm currently reading Haruki Murakami's Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the world.
Here's a summary to wheat your appetite.
In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami has created a reality that readers will find hard to escape from. In fact, hes created two realities where readers are drawn in by the sirens call of Murakamis use of characterization and narrative prose. Each character is unique and likeable in some respect (even the thugs), and, interestingly, by the climax/fusing of these two stories, no true antagonist is brought into the picture.
One reality is that of a number-crunching "Calcutec" who, through hypnosis, is able to process various data through his mind, encrypt it, and write it back out without any memory of the process. Unfortunately, his kind is dying out from an unexplained shutdown of the brain. Other Calcutecs who received the same operation to facilitate their careers are simply dying in their sleep from no traceable medical problems. At the center of this dilemma are an eccentric old scientist and his chubby granddaughter, the only two that can answer the data processors questions. In fact, it seems that the professor is at the root of the problem, since he first created this complex operation. Chased by INKlings (grotesque, underworld creatures) and thugs, the protagonist must venture through Tokyos underground tunnels to figure out the source of a unicorn skull and the purpose of his most recent data processing session.
In the other, parallel reality, the protagonist resides in a high-walled medieval town, inhabited by spiritless people and golden, one-horned beasts. Stripped of his shadow, he must regain his mind and his memories, and escape back to "reality." He and his shadow conspire to map out the town and find the Walls weakness, but they are kept apart by the Gatekeeper, who controls the beasts and the impenetrable Gate. His daily task is to read the "old dreams" contained in the skulls of beasts that have frozen throughout the winter.
Both realities are inseparable. Both stories draw to an unexpected conclusion.
This book will leave you wanting to read more of Murakamis work. Like the American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, Murakami will stretch your imagination by presenting stories that will leave you saying "hmm" long after you finish reading them.
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Fuck yeah. Wanna draw me up some dinosaurs fighting people, Mike?
Putin is Samurai Sword by Hattori Hanzo
The story of Tarantino's film heroes looks very much like the history of Russia
It is for about a month already that Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 is demonstrated in Russian cinemas. The place of the modern cinematography king has been vacant for six years. Now, Tarantino is back and has regained the position. No matter if Tarantino did it on purpose or not, but he has once again made a film for Russians. Nikolay Berdyayev, the famous Russian thinker, could characterize the film with the following phrase: "It's a film about beauty and the inevitability of revenge, a film about the eternal female essence of the Russian soul."
Everything is quite clear about the cinematographic perfection of the new film by Tarantino. Universally known filmmakers have been once again demonstrated Tarantino's genius. The film has given much food for reflection to some of modern Russian producers. The audience has finally got a good film so radically differing from second-rate films.
In this particular case we speak about the Russian audience. As follows from comments of the US audience, the only thing Americans have seen in the film was horrible violence. Americans do dislike violence but still go to cinemas and watch such films. In a word, this film is repeating the fate of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which is not a surprise at all. In spite of the fact that the film is permeated with American popular culture, the talent and the degree of artistic freedom characterize Quentin Tarantino as a purely Russian filmmaker. This means that Tarantino's basic audience is in Russia and his films are meant for the Russian audience
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The New Comic Book of life
the notion that humanity is nearing an end to its long held social, political and economic hierarchies is no longer a fear-instilled speculation in this troubled and stormy age. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the cries of war have deafened our calls for peace - and that the suffering has taken its toll on the souls of this once noble civilization.
How do we begin the long journey back to the remembrance that we've all come from one source? How do we begin our journey back to peace through unity?
Within the myriad of communications and education systems, divided and scattered upon the face of world cultures, one small beleaguered industry remains faithful to the message of hope and salvation. An industry and an art form that have fermented the greatest creative minds and the strongest and brightest hope
for saving a dying world.
Comic book writers, artists, editors and publishers will soon emerge as the real superheroes on the sociopolitical stage of world events.
To this end, we the comic book creators - and you, the precious citizens of the world - must join hands together on this journey in order to teach and thus remember what it takes to nourish the budding rose of hope from beneath the mudslides of futility
which humanity has sunken into.
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Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, says ex-treasury secretary
The Bush administration started making detailed plans for the invasion of Iraq within days of coming to office, with the President himself anxious to find a pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein, a high-ranking former cabinet member said yesterday.
The revelation is the latest in a string of potential embarrassments for the White House offered by the former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, who has gone on the record for a new book looking at his bumpy two years at the centre of US power, The Price of Loyalty.
Mr O'Neill said invading Iraq was "topic A" at the very first meeting of President George Bush's National Security Council, 10 days after his inauguration on 20 January 2001, and continued to be an abiding theme in follow-up meetings.
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," said Mr O'Neill, who was a participant in all the meetings and provided voluminous minutes and other documents to the book's author, Ron Suskind. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying 'Go find me a way to do this'
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Columbine Paintball
We painstakingly recreated the Columbine High school layout for you to live the action as closely as possible. Become a powerless teacher, an fearful student, a latecomer SWAT operative or an all-mighty Trench Coat Mafia gang member on a rampage, and kill without mercy in a bullet-free environment.
The only legal way to enjoy this event to the fullest is by paintball and we have it all. Come and shoot your friends and family members in remembrance at the original Columbine Paintball facility
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Woman charged of raping man
A 22-year-old woman was charged with interfering with a man in his thirties. The incident was allegedly caught on film.
The woman, the offended and a friend were allegedly in the apartment of the friend where the incident took place Saturday night. The man explained to the police that he was laying on the sofa sleeping when he suddenly woke up as the woman was handling him
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The New York Post on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
HERE'S the game's basic bit: You're a cocaine dealer, see, and you get ripped off in a drug deal that goes bad. So your mission is to get your drugs and your money back - by committing as many violent, homicidal crimes as you can possibly think up.
You can pursue your goal by killing Haitians, of course, but you can also kill anyone (or everyone) else. You can machine-gun them, beat them with baseball bats, chop them up with machetes or run them over with stolen cars.
And when you do, everything will look incredibly and shockingly real, with blood spewing everywhere.
You can kill a cop, steal his gun, and then use it to shoot someone else. Or you can pick up a prostitute and have sex with her in the back of your stolen car, then beat her to death - or shoot her, bludgeon her, whatever you want.
In fact, "whatever you want" is what the game is all about. Thanks to its artful and complex programming and its incredibly realistic graphics, the game creates the impression of being inside a totally unscripted, live-action drama in which you can manufacture your mayhem as you go along.
People, this is insane. This is 10,000 times worse than the worst thing anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy (emphasis mine) - or than any lie the feds think Martha Stewart ever told them, or any line in any song that Bruce Springsteen ever sang that rankled a cop in the Meadowlands.
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I want this.
The Official Shotgun Rules
The term Shotgun refers to the front passenger seat of an automobile. Calling "Shotgun" is the act of claiming the position of Shotgun for one's self. As this position is the most coveted of all positions when riding in a car, the following list of rules has been created to ensure that Shotgun can be acquired in a fair and equitable manner by any passenger of an automobile.
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More Suzuki goodness! Awesome cover for the box. Nice to see the Tarintino is homaging Suzuki with more than one reference to his work in Kill Bill.
I want *this* for my birthday
Suzuki's best in post modern yakuza cinema with the brilliance of Akira Kurosawa. I *must* have this boxed set.
"Bush will win next election": God
Pat Robertson said Friday that God told him President Bush will be re-elected in a landslide.
"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," the religious broadcaster said on his "700 Club" program on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.
"I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way," Robertson said.
"The Lord has just blessed him," Robertson said of Bush. "I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."
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Guess who's going to China for a month this summer?
