Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

... become bad things.

Now, I'm all for safety in schools, but this is just stupid... and a little scary.

A student has been arrested for writing a zombie story. He wrote it for English class, featuring a fictional high school and entirely fictional characters.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

They actually took him to jail!

Two sausages are sitting in a pan being fried.
One sausage says to the other, "Boy, it's getting hot in here."
The other sausage replies, "Wow, a talking sausage!"

--Credit to Mike C at Dean's World

Anyone got more?

If you don't already know who the Numa-Numa guy is, watch this. I've posted about him before.

His name is Gary Brolsma, and I had heard that the guy was Dutch, but apparently, he is actually from Saddlebrook, New Jersey.

Over at Dean's World, they pointed me to a New York Times article today about how he is embarrassed by his recent celebrity.

He has now sought refuge from his fame in his family's small house on a gritty street in Saddle Brook. He has stopped taking phone calls from the news media, including The New York Times. He canceled an appearance on NBC's "Today." According to his relatives, he mopes around the house.

What's worse is that no one seems to understand.

I guess I can understand, but it's a little sad that he isn't able to enjoy this. After all, I find his video funny not because I'm making fun of him, but because it's silly and genuinely entertaining, and it's exactly the sort of thing that we all do when we think nobody will see.

When I watch him doing his Numa-Numa dance, it makes me LIKE him. I don't say "Gee what a pathetic kid!" I say "Wow, what a fun and funny kid!" He's a bit of a dork, but then, so am I, and I found him really appealing. It's too bad that he's become embarrassed by it. Eventually this current fad will fade away and I hope that someday he can look back on this and enjoy it again.

F.D.A. to Create Advisory Board on Drug Safety

Gee, is that really their job?


Also,

No Big Spider Walked the Earth

[World News]: Edinburgh, Feb 16 : It was known as the biggest spider ever to have walked on earth and inspired many a fearsome model in museums the world over. But now a British scientist says the creature wasn't a spider at all!

Next,

Super-Size Me Wins Writers Award

Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock has won the Writers Guild of America's award for documentary feature writing.

Organisers said the rising popularity of documentary films led them to honour a writer for a documentary screenplay for the first time.

And,

The Hotel Rwanda: A Haven in Hell (an interview with Paul Rusesabagina, the man Don Cheadle played in Hotel Rwanda)

The truth is, says Paul, he didn't set out to be a hero. It just happened. At the time, there didn't seem to be any other choice. "One terrible thing I learned," he said, "is that a human being is even more wild than a lion. A lion eats to kill. And a human being kills for killing."
...
In order to make the movie appealing to a wide audience — and to earn it its hard-fought PG-rating in America — Irish director and screenwriter Terry George softened the scenes of Paul's life. For instance, when the militia attacked the UN convoy carrying Paul's wife and kids, they beat Tatiana so badly that her back was broken. The filmed version shows militias holding a machete to her neck threateningly, but she escapes unscathed.

Finally,

Pill Changes Women's Taste in Men

TAKING the Pill has a surprising side-effect according to research: it changes the type of face that a woman finds attractive.

British scientists have discovered that women on the Pill have different ideals of male sexual attractiveness to those who are not taking oral contraceptives.

Just a quick one for now, as I'm pretty busy today...

I was listening to NPR this morning on the way to work and a guest on Morning Edition was talking about the niche filled by news commentary shows in the overall field of journalism.

He said something like: "The thing with shows like Crossfire is that people use them like a drunk uses a lamppost: More for support than illumination."

*rim-shot*

UPDATE!!!
I've been informed that the original link I used for the Numa-numa guy (the one I got from Dave Barry's blog) is dead. It took me a while, but I found it again. It was tough going because there are a lot of inferiour versions out there. Some that were smaller, some that had much worse picture quality, some that had these stupid lame pictures added to it. But at long last I found the good one again, and I've taken the liberty of saving the file on my own site, so no worries about a dead link again. Here it is, in all its pure, super-cheesy, yet hypnotic, goofiness.

While looking, I also found a tiny version with the English translation in subtitles (click here and select Play this movie, then choose play with subtitles)

Also, I found two more fun flash cartoon videos of the song, these ones with creepy japanese cats! Look here and here.


Original Post

Okay, I can't get this thing out of my head! So, on the logic that it's like the videotape in The Ring, I figure I just need to spread it to as many people as possible. Watch it, please! Save me from the fate of endless Numanumayays and Maya-la-hees!

Dave Barry's Blog did this to me.

In my obsession to rid my mind of its insidious clinginess, I did a little research. Click here for the English translation of the lyrics.

If you want to see a flash cartoon about aliens set to a remix of the same song, click here and then click "Watch This Movie".

If you dare, you can see the music video of the original song. It transcends cheesy, becomes kind of cool, than shoots right past it, all the way around to horrifyingly cheesy again.

Jeez, I haven't had it this bad since "Move Your Feet" by JuniorSenior. Click here for tequila-shot drinking squirrels and bizarre cartoonish homoerotic symbolism. Oh, and another extremely infectious song. The other videos are almost as bizarre. In particular, Shake Your Coconuts has clips from the movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action. I have no idea if they have permission for that, but I'd be surprised if that movie was intended to be associated with a song that contained the lyric: "Shake your coconuts / Coco-boys! / Until the nut comes out!"

First up, the Mythbusters have some quizzes for you, to see how myth-savvy you are.

Next, Dave Barry's blog pointed me at two different things:

A flash puzzle game that is lots of fun. Just try to lead the little people into the little doors. How much time can you waste?

A flash movie/music video/thing that... well, just look for yourself. It's almost hypnotic.

And last, but not least, you may have heard that the Titan probe used their instruments to record sounds of the wind on Titan! Click here for a page where you can download mp3's of the sounds! Take a look and geek away! Thanks to Dean's World for pointing me to the link.

Whoops, left off a couple of things I wanted on my last post, but since it is so long already and these three are all mp3-themed, I'll put them here.

First of all, my good friend Mike has helpfully put mp3's of all the Oscar Nominated Best Original Songs up on his blog. Since it's often hard to really pay attention to the song when watching the movie, a resource like this is extra handy in helping you choose your favorite!

Next, Microscopica has got a fun little prose-poem type thing about "random" playlists.

Finally, has this happened to any of you? One of my mp3's, which I have listened to dozens of times, suddenly has no vocals on it! The music sounds exactly the same except that the vocals are missing! It isn't a different version. It's the same file I've always used. Yes, I'm sure the vocals were there before! All my other files seem to be fine. But now, for some reason, whether I play it in Windows Media Player or Winamp, there is the music, but the vocal track is just gone. It's creepy.

The song, by the way, is track one from the Kill Bill Volume 1 soundtrack, the Nancy Sinatra song "Bang, Bang". I've put the file online here. Does anyone else hear vocals on it? Please, tell me I'm not going insane!

A whole lot of stuff today. Taken individually, each is ultimately trivial and irrelevant, like a grain of sand. But added all together, they are like sand through an hourglass... So are the The Days of My Lives!

Um, *ahem*

I mean, "life"... of course... not that I've ever seen that show... Stop looking at me!

Reality Check

Anyway, to get us started, did everyone watch the finale of "The Amazing Race"? It's a pretty good show, but I have to say I still like Survivor better, if only for the strategic element (read: Backstabbing). WARNING SPOILER Still, I thought that Aaron proposing to Hayden after they were eliminated was really the highlight of the show, because truth be told, I couldn't even hardly tell the difference between the two non-Adam-and-Rebecca teams that finished first and second. I guess one pair was dating models and the other was long-distance dating models. Eh. SPOILER END

There are two non-finale bits of news from The Amazing Race, however. First, Dr. Phil is going to do a "Romance Rescue" for Jonathan and Victoria, who I've blogged about before.

*sigh*

The three of them deserve each other.

On more interesting news, the next season starts in three weeks and one of the teams will be Boston Rob and Amber from Survivor: All Stars! I don't quite know what to make of that. On the one hand, I didn't like them very much and I was annoyed that they won on Survivor. Though I do have to respect that they played the game pretty well. Since they've already won a million bucks, however, their casting on The Amazing Race is clearly a stunt. However, it might be an entertaining stunt. Watch this space, because I'm sure I'll have more to say about this.

Just to close the Reality TV subject, I once again want to direct everyone to the Survivor 10: Pulau website. The new season starts one week from tomorrow, and Survivor is the most fun when you start to get to know the people there. Well, on the website, you can get a head start with bio's, profiles, and short video introductions to all the new castaways. Also, they'll soon be putting up the Survivor Fantasy League page, where you select your own mini-tribe of four castaways and then you get points based on how well each of them performs on the show! The person who wins at the end of the season wins a car! Just another demonstration that nearly everything can be improved with gambling.


Want to name a monkey?

The New Scientist is reporting that a new species of monkey has been discovered, and in order to raise money to protect its habitat, the right to name the monkey is going up for auction.

The creature in question is a fruit-eating titi monkey little more than 30 centimetres tall. It was found by Robert Wallace of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York. "It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to discover a large mammal species, and an extreme honour to name it," Wallace says. "But it's far more important that the species habitat remains protected." Money raised by the auction, starting on 24 February at www.charityfolks.com/monkey, will go to the Bolivian park service so it can protect the monkeys' home in the Madidi National Park.

You can also find the story with a picture of the monkeys here. Now, I won't be bidding because I've already used up my 'auction-to-name-a-new-monkey' budget for this month, but if I were, I would suggest: "Puffball Monkeys", but that's just off the top of my head. Anyone else have a suggestion?

Weird, but Yummy

Green-Apple Brie Burgers
I tried this recipe because it was just too intriguing to resist. You should try it too, because they're DELICIOUS! Thanks to JeremyT for pointing me in their direction.

The HIV Myth?

The HIV=AIDS debate that I've posted about before is still raging over at Dean's World. He's moved beyond skepticism over to the firm belief that HIV does not cause AIDS. I can't say I'm willing to follow him that far, but darn if he doesn't have raise some interesting questions.

"Con" you tell me the way to Glasgow?

And last but not least, I've decided to go to this year's Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, Scotland! Still making all the arrangements and such, but it should be lots of fun. Seeing Scotland. Drinking. Attending the convention. Meeting people. Drinking some more.

Related to that, I've decided that I will have something published by the time I go. To be sure, this is not entirely within my control, but basically, if I do not succeed in this attempt, it won't be for lack of trying. So I've already sent out submissions and will continue to do so until something is published!

Actually, if something is published, it's not like I'll stop sending stuff out, but, well, you get the point.

Are you a miserable ovoid creature? Well, if so, you might be interested in this commercial for "Proloxil". The link is a little complicated... Click here, then scroll down to the "Flash" section on the left side of the screen, then click "Miserable Ovoid Creature".

Next, this link has a commercial explaining all the reasons for gamers to switch to macs. Click here, then click RvB_Switch.mov.

This last one is actually real, but it's bizarre. Gene Kelly, singing and dancing in the rain, only... Well, you'll just have to see for yourself right here.