Wouldn’t you know it, I scheduled some time off today and then got sick. A little backwards, I know. It’s some sinus and throat thing that I think I caught from the people in the cube next to me at work. Anyway, I don’t really feel like leaving the house right now, so I flipped through the on-demand movies on our DVR and discovered, much to my delight, that they were showing the movie Hackers. It’s actually a terrible movie, but it puts together two of my absolutely favorite things: computer geekery and Angelina Jolie. Yes, you read that right: Angelina Jolie as a hacker.

I saw this movie in theaters when I was 14. Even at 14, I knew that all of the actual hacking in the movie was complete bullshit, and I didn’t even think the movie was all that good. Here’s a sample clip that pretty much sets the tone for the entire movie:

The plot is basically that an evil corporate hacker has created a virus and infected his own company with it. The virus holds the power to capsize oil tankers and spill their oil all over the ocean. (I can’t make this stuff up.) The virus is actually a cover-up for a worm that he created that skims a few cents off of each transaction his company (a bank) makes and puts it into an off-shores account in the Bahamas. He needs the virus, apparently, so some other hacker can take the fall for it. This is a Captain Planet level of cheesy evilness. (Remember when that Captain Planet villain went back in time to sell a nuke to Hitler? That’s what I’m talking about.)

But there were two things I pulled away from this movie:

• The preferred mode of transportation for hackers is rollerblades. Hackers rollerblade all over the place, including subway stations and high school. Unfortunately, every time I put on skates of any kind, I end up with a bloody face. Status: fail!
• Hackers are destined to fall in love with Angelina Jolie. Status: check!

Just for the record, I should point out that I’ve never done any real hacking. I broke into the display computers at Wal-Mart a few times, but really, who hasn’t?

I’m a big fan of recycling—I recycle cans, cardboard, old computers, postal stamps, and mouthwash—but when it comes to recycling my childhood memories, that’s where I draw the line!

If you don’t know, Disney re-used a lot of their animated sequences in a lot of their earlier movies. I don’t just mean that they re-used the same ideas or storyboards. They re-used the same animations and painted over the old characters. If you haven’t seen these before, they will blow your mind. So, prepare yourself… for recycled Disney animation!

(more…)

Thanks to Missy for this link.

Well, those folks in Japan have done it again! They’ve created a robotic replacement for cats! See this informative video:

Buy one today!

Scientology: endorsed by Tyler Durden.

Here’s a rather brilliant theory on Star Wars episode IV (if you’re into that sort of thing).

I hadn’t thought about any of this, but I have to admit, it all makes sense. I’d be interested to think some more along these lines. I’ll dig around and see if this guy has written anything else.

The trailer is out for Wes Anderson’s latest, The Fantastic Mr. Fox:

This looks pretty awesome. Due out in November. I’m looking forward to it.

So, on my recent comic strip kick, I was talking about them with some friends last night, and Alan brought up a week of Garfield comics back in the 80s that took a turn for the deathly serious. I was able to track them down online. These ran in 1989, and they are indeed real.

Existential Garfield

In response to Janelle’s recent blog posts, I’ve come up with some wedding advice of my own.

Disclaimer: This is all crap.

Who to Marry

Marry someone you won’t fight with. This is actually impossible, but I’d feel bad if I didn’t tell you that first. Make sure you’ve had at least one serious, relationship-rocking fight before you make the decision to get married. (That’s probably the only solid piece of advice in this whole post, actually.) It’s also a good idea to invest in a Playstation and maintain separate living rooms.

Marry someone who can cook. Unless you can cook. Then, marry someone can’t cook, so they will appreciate the fact that you cook. If you don’t cook and you can’t find someone who cooks, marry someone who manages a restaurant. Unless you manage a restaurant. You can probably figure out the rest.

How to Marry

In deciding what kind of wedding to have (or whether to elope), you must ask yourself one important question, and that is, “Is this person going to plan a wedding that will embarass me?” If you both have similar tastes, plan a wedding. If you produce indie films and your partner works at the Build-a-Bear Workshop, go to Vegas.

Never, under any circumstances, do a cat wedding (for people) (or for cats).

Vows

Refer to the above section.

Traditions

Two of the most persistent traditions at weddings are the bouquet toss and the garter toss. These are not fun. They can be made palatable by altering the outcome—for instance, throwing the garter directly at the guy who just needs to hurry the hell up and ask his girlfriend to marry him. Better throw the bouquet at him too. Make sure to seat him near the front for easy access.

All speeches should be written in iambic pentameter. This ensures that only people who know how to write well will give longer speeches. Also, the rhyming couplet at the end signals that the speech is, in fact, over, eliminating that awkward is-it-over-or-is-this-just-awkward moment in the audience.

Unity candle. Seriously, what the hell?

Throwing rice constitutes a food fight, and when you throw food at me, it means war. I have direct access to both the cake and the caterer. Don’t throw rice at me, because I will not hesitate to lodge a dinner roll in your throat.

In ancient Rome, the wedding cake was actually more like bread, made from wheat or barley, and was broken over the the bride’s head as a symbol of her fertility. More traditional weddings today will have the bride and groom smash the cake into each other’s faces as a symbol of their joint fertility. If you don’t want to have kids for a while, don’t even touch the cake. Best not to take any chances.

String quartets add a nice antiquated feel to a wedding and are highly recommended for anyone born in the 18th century.

When to Marry

6:30

Warning: Lost geekery.

Wondering what those mysterious reoccurring numbers in Lost mean? Here’s the word from Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the series:

Here’s the story with numbers. The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn’t wipe it itself out.

The numbers are the variables in that equation. Seeing them everywhere just reinforces that these seem to be hard-wired into our society.

This is not the first time this information has been released. It came out in bits and pieces throughout promo clips and games outside of the show throughout the years. This is just the first time it’s all been said together.

That helps re-contextualize this video, shown at Comic-Con 2008:

They later declared that that video is not canon, so we can’t use it as evidence that Daniel will come back to run the camera. (Word on the street is that Daniel was supposed to stay on the island and try to change the future, but there was some complication with the actor, which is why they shipped him off and killed him off quite suddenly.)

But it’s quite obvious that someone did pick up Dharma’s work in the meantime. The Cuban missle crisis ended in 1962. The Dharma Initiative was founded in the late 60s or early 70s. Even if Dharma was founded in 1974, when Sawyer and company “landed” there, that would put the destruction of the earth in 2001 at the latest. So either the numbers were off, or the variables really were changed. Let’s not even talk about time loop theories at this point.

And now, I bring you Ninja Turtles from around the world.