Neil Young and his electric band blasted sublime astral rock to a joyfully non-heckling Berlin crowd last week. This was a rockin good show!

Rating: 11 out of 10.

Here’s a set list and review…

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The photographer calls this type of photography Lunagraph, although it looks like its taken in the daytime its actually taken at night with the help of the full moon and a long exposure, in this case for 20 minutes. This gives an amazing feel to the photo with a calm ocean -which is usually battering the rocks-, streaking stars in the sky from the rotation of the earth and bright rocks which can be seen due to the reflected light off the moon. He has even managed to include the south pole star where you can see there is little or no movement from the stars on the top right. Kudos to the photographer who has done more shots of the same caliber, his website is here.

Thanks to Dave for bringing this to my attention

Friend and cohort Jordan alerted me to the Annual White House Correspondants’ dinner, a strange event where everyone sits around looking very uncomfortable, while White House officials (including Bush) sit on an elevated platform, watched by all the reporters who have written stories about them, laughing nervosly and pretending everything’s cool. The tension isn’t helped by TV host and comedian Craig Ferguson deciding to take pot shots at pretty much everyone in the room, and even the city of Glasgow. Is it me, or is he acting like a drunk uncle at a wedding?

Add to that George W  being so self depricating it makes you slightly ill.     

Jeez louise! This is hilarious, until you think about what they MAY have put those dogs through. Then It’s hilarious again. Then it’s sad. Then it’s funny….

 We all knew about google earth… but why did no one tell me that there was a  moon and a mars version? And for the lazy astronomer there is Google sky,   showing all the wonders of the night sky in all their majestic arrogance. “Look  at me, I’m a beautiful galaxy billions of light years away, aren’t I great?” Neener neener neener.    

With all this googling who needs friends? 

EDIT: check out the ‘Historical’ tab in Google sky. Cool much? I’d say so.

Newgrounds is a great place to find some of the best (and worst) Flash animations done by (mostly) average Joe’s/Joe-ess-es. Random example: Egoraptor made this awesome absurdity:

It makes me laugh alot. Which is a good thing.

Exciting news is that you will be able to book a room for a hotel in space for 2012! An amazing opportunity for a long weekend all for the price of $4 million, pretty cheap in space terms. 

On your stay you will travel around the world 54 times and if you get bored watching the earth there is a chance to watch the sun rise 45 times.

Instead of having artificial gravity the team have opted for the super high nanotechnology velcro to get about the space ship. The guest will be wearing a velcro suit with the will pull themselves along the walls of the hotel which will also be lined with velcro. 

Finally the pièce de résistance is the spa. Thats right, there will be a spa for guests to float about in bubbles of water, but it also acts as the shower so Im predicting a few awkward moments floating into people without the velcro.

Found at space.com.

EDIT - For a quick comparison Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic ride which lasts 2 hours costs $200,000. 

I warn you now that a goat does die -dont worry its not too visual- but the eagle does choose an ingenious method of attacking its prey. And there is a scream added for dramatic effect.

If you thought that was interesting go here to see the eagle carry a goat away in its claws. I for one never want to walk anywhere near those flying fortresses!

After looking about on the internets I stumbled across Naomi Wolf. She is an author and advisor to politicians -among other things- who wrote a book about the possible end of the United States of America as we know it. It explains how the big dawgs in America are following the exact blueprint that Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini used to get into power and be successful. From wikipedia the brief explanation is given.

In The End of America Wolf takes a historical look at the rise of fascism, outlining the 10 steps necessary for a state to take control of individuals’ lives:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens’ groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Treat all political dissents as traitors.
10. Suspend the rule of law.

The book explains how this pattern was followed in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy as well as elsewhere, and compares it to the current state of affairs in American Political power since September 11, 2001.

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Fox cancelled Family guy twice. They cancelled futurama. They even cancelled Firefly. How come they still exist? This is a company that seems to have absolutely NO interest in the product that they produce. Now they want to stop the up and coming Watchmen film from Warner because they have sat on the option for ten years. These people do not care about anything but money. So try not to give them any. Give it to someone who needs it. That’s not Fox. 
Feck you Fox and everyone who makes the choices in your organisation.
And Time Warner: get the your act together.

(Also their News sucks)

(edit: this is great. check out what Fox news terms a ‘terrorist-fist-jab’, Frakking twangers.)

So the recent bunch of dweebs who claimed to have a bigfoot in their fridge/freezer that Craig posted about was a hoax (I’m as surprised as anyone). It does remind me of a theory I had when I was younger though. I actually believed that they had found a Bigfoot, and covered up the truth by making it star in a film and a TV series, so everyone would assume it was an actor in a suit.  I’m not joking, I genuinely believed that. The actor and the suit are just so good. Part of me still believes.

Like most things, it seems to be funnier in German…

Picture the scene: The brave pilots of the Rebellion prepare for their attack. Their target – an armoured space station with enough fire power to destroy an entire planet! In close formation they speed towards the vast structure. At first only a spec, it looms closer into view and we view its mighty form and its… its…

A giant lightsaber! Floating in space! It’s name – get this – is The Darksaber and it’s being piloted not by the GALACTIC EMPIRE but by Jabba The Hutt’s wayward nephew.

If this sounds like derivative rubbish that’s because it is. It would be embarrassing if suggested by a teenage nerd at a role playing party – the lad in question getting hit with several non-mint condition action figures - but it’s not. It forms an officially licensed story in Lucas Film’s Expanded Universe line of books. Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson is one of literally hundreds of books set in the gaps before, between and after the six Star Wars films. And most of them are crap.

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Hippos are very strange creatures. They seem to have some kind of relationship with death.

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4 out of 5 cheesits

No I didn’t make this up, this is a real film. I had to keep telling myself that. I would class ostriches as monster birds, but alas the titular ‘bird’ is more like a pterosaur, which isn’t very bird-like. Anywaaaay….this film is a Japanese monster film which isn’t made by Toho and is actually alot of fun. Come on guys the title is fun enough…

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