NO HOPE

We can argue all day about whether or not the moon landing in 1969 was real (and there will never be a definitive conclusion). I like to believe that it was because I'm a huge fan of the whole space race thing and think it's a shame that it's almost non-existent now.

But a friend of mine, Dan Fletcher (maybe you've heard of him), directed me to this site that has all kinds of awesome stuff. A few of the posts are related to the moon landing and the one that I found the most fascinating was how Richard Nixon had a speech prepared in case the astronauts never made it back.

Motherboard -- If the Apollo 11 astronauts had been become stranded on the Moon, William Safire drafted a speech for President Richard Nixon to read on television to the nation.

The plans said that Mission Control was to “close down communications” with the Lunar Module. In a public ritual likened to burial at sea, clergyman would then have commended their souls to “the deepest of the deep” Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts’ wives were also planned.

The speech came from a memo from Safire to Nixon’s chief of staff H. R. Haldeman in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such an event.

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown."

VICTORY

Hey, if a German doctor says so, it MUST be true, right? Right.

The Med Guru -- Frankfurt, Germany, December 6 -- A rather bizarre study carried out by German researchers suggests that staring at women's breasts is good for men's health and increases their life expectancy.

According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years.

She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out."

A five-year research on 500 men
Researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany did an in-depth analysis of 200 healthy males over a period of five years. Half the volunteers were instructed to ogle at the breasts of women daily, while the rest were told to refrain from doing so.

At the close of the study, the researchers noted that the men who stared at the breasts of females on a regular basis exhibited lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and lesser episodes of coronary artery disease.

Sexual desire linked to better blood circulation
The researchers declared that sexual desire gives rise to better blood circulation that signifies an overall improved health.

Weatherby explained the concept stating, "Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There's no question: Gazing at breasts makes men healthy.

"Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half. We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years."

In addition, she also recommended that men over 40 should gaze at larger breasts daily for 10 minutes.

The German research is believed to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

BAD NEWS

BEFORE

...AND AFTER

Don't worry. There will be video of the beginning and the in-between very soon.

WORLDBREAKER

Once upon a time I did a podcast for my other website (the recently put on hiatus GrudgeCityActivities). Casey, Dan and I had been talking about the Guinness Book of World Records wondering if there were any that would be easy enough to break. Casey had seen the Jalapeno Record attempt a few days before on the internet and it seemed like one that would work. We had our friend Travis come in and give it a shot, filmed it and threw it up on the Internet—exactly where ridiculous stuff like this belongs.

*Edited to Add* Upon re-watching this video I noticed something. Around the 2:50 mark, a little balloon pops up saying that the world record was set with pickled jalapenos and that we were mistaken. I edited this video originally and I didn't put that in. Someone from YouTube went through, saw this video and took it upon themselves to point out a mistake, even though we pretty much came to that conclusion ourselves after Travis couldn't swallow the fresh jalapenos. In summation: Fuck off, YouTube. Let us do our thing.

34>33

Josh, aka Spidey, turned 34 last week, officially outliving his nemesis Jesus. We celebrated in style with this commemorative pinata.

GxE #2 - JULY 2011

INCEPTION

Loved every minute of it. I could care less if Christopher Nolan ever makes another Batman film as long as he keeps making movies. He's had an incredibly solid track record so far.

I'd also like to suggest that Tom Hardy be in more movies. Dude is a fantastic actor (see: Bronson)

GOD HATES NERDS

So, everyone is familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church right? They have that website called GodHatesFags.com and do a whole bunch of picketing and protesting, mostly for foolish reasons that get them attention, publicity and donations from complete idiots. Well, guess what they're protesting this week?

San Diego Comic Con.

Why? Let's find out together, shall we?

“Are you kidding?! If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here. They have turned comic book characters into idols, and worship them they do! Isaiah 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: 9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. It is time to put away the silly vanities and turn to God like you mean it. The destruction of this nation is imminent – so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.”

Completely reasonable, I guess. The protest is scheduled for Thursday for a whopping 45 minutes.

I'd probably watch it. Too bad I'm not going.

P.S. I stole that picture from a site called Nerd Bastards! Sadly, I lack the basic photoshop skills to do it myself.

THIS IS AMAZING

I really, really hope this is real. But the farther into the article I get, the more absurd it sounds. Still. Hopeful.

McDonald's Apologizes For Condoms In Happy Meals -- PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (CAP) - McDonald's executives were left with egg (McMuffin) on their face this week, when over 5,000 Happy Meals were distributed with colored condoms instead of a plastic toy from the movie The Last Airbender.

The condoms were intended for the Provincetown, Mass. school system, which recently established a policy making them available for students of all ages; they were delivered to McDonald's distribution center in Barnstable, Mass. in error.

"They were so bright and colorful, they were mistaken for Happy Meal toys," explained McDonald's vice president of public relations Robin Anderson. "Unfortunately most of the workers there don't read English, and they thought 'Ribbed Latex' was a character from The Last Airbender."

"Who ever heard of The Last Airbender anyway?" added Jose Estevez, president of McDonald's Distribution Union 8801, in defense of his fellow workers.

The mistake led to an incident in a Brewster, Mass., McDonald's, where more than a dozen 8-year-olds attending a birthday party all opened their condoms at once, and immediately blew them into balloons and started batting them around the restaurant.

Shrieks of horror ensued from several other patrons, and one elderly woman fainted when a condom balloon landed in her Filet O' Fish.

"She'd apparently never seen one that size before," explained Brewster Police Chief Bradley Heffernan, who noted that there were some similar concerns when Congress instituted its "Cash For Condoms" program.

The McDonald's incident also caused problems in Provincetown, where the schools accidentally received the restaurant's shipments of Last Airbender toys, and several were released to students who went into their school's nurse's office seeking condoms.

"This was actually very successful among the younger grades, where students would much rather get a stuffed 'Momo' doll than a condom," admitted School Superintendent Beth Singer, who in recent weeks has had to defend the school district's policy of distributing condoms to any student who asks, and not notifying parents.

"But unfortunately there was an issue with Last Airbender Aang Water Cannons being distributed to high school students, resulting in several unwanted pregnancies," said Singer.

"Dude, I followed the directions and everything," said Provincetown High School sophomore 'Josh,' who convinced his girlfriend 'Jennifer' that everything would be okay if they assembled the Water Cannon correctly and used it according to the specifications on the accompanying instruction sheet. "It was fun, but no way did it keep her from getting knocked up."

Parents in Provincetown have been understandably upset at the mix-up, particularly coming off the controversy about the condom distribution.

"It was bad enough to hear my first grader could get a condom in school, but to hear they could be given that plastic McDonald's crap and the school wouldn't have to let me know, well, that's just unacceptable," said parent Sally Cooper. "At least a condom has some practical use to it."

Meanwhile, the producers of The Last Airbender have issued a formal thank you to the Post Office, McDonald's and the Provincetown School System for "doing something that might actually get somebody to notice our lame movie."

Via CAP News.

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH...

This guy...

is a way better tipper than this guy.

SMODIMATION

SModcast is the podcast that Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats) and his producer/best friend Scott Mosier do every week. For the most part, it's hilarious. It's kind of gone downhill a little since Smith started getting high during them over the past year or so, but they're still pretty god damn funny.

On their website, they have a section for SModimations, where they take a section of a past podcast and animate it. These are the best part of the entire website and the Harry Potter potter cartoon is by far the funniest.

Check it out.

ALL SIGNS OF DEATH

I've been a fan of Charlie Huston (pulpnoir.com) for quite a while now. He started a Moon Knight re-launch at Marvel a few years back and before it came out I tracked down his first novel, Caught Stealing. I read it in two days, more or less. After that, I kept tabs on just about everything he wrote. After Caught Stealing came Six Bad Things and then A Dangerous Man. About the same time the last book in that series was released, he launched a vampire detective series starring a character named Joe Pitt. Five books were in that series and I loved every single one of them.

He's written others that I own but haven't gotten around to starting yet—mostly because comics, TV on DVD and the Internet take up the majority of my free time. One that I've been looking forward to reading the most is called The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. It's about a guy that works for a crime scene clean-up crew that gets mixed up in some shady activities. Huston crafts a hell of a tale and his style is deeply rooted in the crime/noir genre that is right up my alley. Recently, he adapted that book into a script for a television pilot that's been picked up by HBO. Not only that, but it's being produced and developed by Alan Ball.

Ball wrote American Beauty, created Six Feet Under and more recently he's the man responsible for taking the Southern Vampire Mysteries book series and turning it in to True Blood. Now there's no guarantee that it's going to make it all the way to a series, but I'm excited none the less.

With both of those guys on board, I don't care who is in it. Sign me up.

Collider.com -- If you’re HBO, and Alan Ball comes to you and says “I want to adapt this series of books into a series,” you say yes. True Blood — Ball’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries novels — has been an immense success for the pay network, even landing an Outstanding Drama Emmy nomination yesterday.

So naturally, HBO has ordered a pilot based on the 2009 Charlie Huston crime novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, which Ball will produce and direct. Huston scripted the adaptation himself, which centers on “an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale, and the loose ends of his own past.”

Though the novel deals with very noirish themes, Ball will shy away from the traditional visual style of the genre:

“All Signs has a hard noir feel but it’s also ironic; it’s graphic and gritty but human and very moving at the same time — it is able to capture all those elements in a very distinctive tone… We’re going to try to go against the grain, away from the overlit, stylized noir for a more frantic, contemporary, naturalistic style.”

Read the rest

"THESE AREN'T THE DROIDS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR"

This is probably old news too (it's like I've been away from the Internet for weeks and am just now getting around to posting about things—you mean 3D is making a comeback! Wow!) but did you know that every time anyone buys one of those Droid phones from Verizon Wireless a little bit of the money goes to George Lucas?

I'm not sure how much money, but Lucasfilm owns the rights to the name Droid and you better believe that he's going to get paid for every single thing he can. He's already given up any semblance of artistic integrity he once had by licensing Star Wars out to any piece of shit Sci-Fi author and handing the keys to the Indiana Jones franchise to Shia LaBeouf, so why not shake down Verizon for a few bucks, too?

THE KING...?

Yes, I realize that I'm something like 5 days late on this and it's old news now but I have to throw my two cents in or I wouldn't be a proper blogger.

As a Jazz fan, I really have no horse in this race that's not directly related to them (side note - good riddance to Boozer, indifferent about Korver and sad to see Matthews go) but I still love watching LeBron play.

That said, these past couple of years we've seen a part of this kid that a whole lot of people (me included) don't like. There was him storming off like a poor sport after losing to Orlando last year, his weird elbow "injury" this year and now all this free agency stuff.

Look, I'm fine with him leaving Cleveland. They expected him to do way too much with little or no help until it was almost too late. So yes, leaving the Cavs is fine but the way he did it was just... it was just a dick move.

The more I watch LeBron lately the only thing it reminds me of is when I used to watch professional wrestling when I was little. It's been like watching your favorite wrestler slowly turn from the fan favorite good guy to the universally hated heel. That's the only way I can describe it and apparently I'm not the only one.

And next year (after the Jazz have a great season but get bounced from the playoffs early) if it comes down to Miami and Los Angeles (whom I hate more than any sports team save for the Red Sox) in the Finals, I might have to root for LA.

Because I'm a hater and I want to see this blow up in everyones face.

PERU - MAY, 2010 - PT. 1.5

I totally forgot to keep writing the trip recap that I started well over a month ago (part 1 here). But since then I was able to upload all the footage from my video camera (not a lot of great stuff) and Adam's camera (flashes of greatness). I'm still holding out hope that there will be some useful stuff from Casey's 8 hours of footage, but that may be pushing it. He spent a lot of time holding the camera sideways, filming Peruvian families watching TV in their living room through the window and some shots of water running through the gutter.

Now there's a slight possibility that we may be able to compile all Casey's footage into some avant garde bullshit, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Until I can actually see what we've got to work with, this will have to do.

Enjoy.

DAMN.

As it gets closer, I'm getting more and more bummed that I'm not going to San Diego for Comic Con this year. It's always a good time, but this year everyone had other things they wanted to do and no one really had the money to spend. That, and 4-day passes sold out months ago, far before any of us had a chance to get them.

Oh well, Peru was a great time and I've hopefully got a couple more trips coming before the end of the year. Still though, I could use a trip to the nice weather of Southern California and San Diego.

Plus, it's always fun to nerd out for a few days. And I always come back with some awesome material for videos. Like the ones below. Check them out. It'll shorten your work day by about 20 minutes. And everyone wants to shave a few minutes off their work schedule, right?

2009


2008

San Diego Comic Con from Grudge City Activities on Vimeo.

KIND OF A BIG DEAL

It's official. I'm going to start handing these out to everyone. It doesn't matter whether or not they want them. I've got a whole stack of them just waiting to be thrown away.

MAD MAN

Mad Men is a fantastic show and I'm a huge fan. So when I found a site where you could make yourself into a character on the show, I took full advantage. Granted, it looks nothing like me, but it was fun to do.

Try it out. Mad Men Yourself.