They May Take Our Planet, But They'll Never Take OUR FREEDOM!

Muckraking on a galactic scale or giant waste of time? It's good to know that, with everything going on in the world today, that so many people are focusing their energy on making sure no shady deals are being struck with powers from beyond the sun.

A multinational consortium of citizen organizations has issued a Galactic Freedom Day Declaration calling for an end to all secret government and corporate agreements concerning extraterrestrial life. The Declaration establishes 08/08/08 as "Galactic Freedom Day" and asserts that hidden agreements concerning extraterrestrial life have been secretly entered into by a range of government authorized agencies, departments and corporations. In some cases, these pacts involve representatives of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations whose existence has not been disclosed to the general public. Evidence of these secret agreements, as well as the full text of the Declaration, special Galactic Freedom Day events schedules, and an online petition are available at the official website: GalacticFreedomDay.com

Source: prweb.com

What is Galactic Freedom Day? From the website:

A world wide positive intention experiment will be conducted at 8 pm (Universal Time) 08/08/08 to put an end to secret agreements that have prevented the revolutionary technology and knowledge of extraterrestrial life entering mainstream society. A Galactic Freedom Day Declaration has been issued by cooperating citizen organizations clearly expressing humanity's intent to put an end to secret agreements concerning extraterrestrial life.

Join the 8/8/08 global celebration by forming your own prayer circle, meditation group, or 'Citizen Contact Council' to formally inaugurate Galactic Freedom Day.

I'm not sure how prayers and meditations are going to stop the star-spanning dealmakers. Unless the Force is with them.

Nah, they're no Jedi.

Silent Boom!

We are closing in on the elusive cone of silence. Cue the science!

Scientists have shown off the blueprint for an "acoustic cloak", which could make objects impervious to sound waves.

The technology, outlined in the New Journal of Physics, could be used to build sound-proof homes, advanced concert halls or stealth warships.

Is it too much to ask for a conversion of this technology into gun form? There are quite a few people I'm exposed to that I'd love to zap with some silent justice... or just silence... or both.

Say Goodbye to Bluff Creek

Image via Wikipedia

Unless you follow the bigfoot research community and its attendant blogosphere satellites, you may have missed the brouhaha over a new theory (I use the term very lightly here) concerning the famous Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot video (the bigfoot video). The theory, to put it bluntly, suggests that a bigfoot massacre took place in Bluff Creek during the trip in which the famous footage was shot (pun!).

What evidence for this theory is there? Exactly none. But it hasn't stopped the in-fighting that has, to lend the tussle some dramatic flare, shaken the community to its core. Well, if not that, then at least ripped at certain factions within the bigfoot community (the people not the cryptids... in case you weren't sure).

As someone who has purely participated passively in the community- I read the literature and theories though I am not, strictly speaking, a believer- I have found the hunt for the hairy humanoid to be a fascinating subject. However, this time, things have gotten too far. It's time for the community to do the difficult thing. Difficult, but the right thing: retire the Patterson-Gimlin film.

The relationship has turned sour, incestuous, Oedipal even. The film has done what it can. It's time to send it out to pasture. It's subject, called "Patty" to give it Care-Bear sweetness, cannot be proven beyond doubt to be genuine. Given that, there is no point to continually poring over every grainy shot, looking for some magic detail that will somehow force bigfoot acceptance into existence. No bulge, no suggestive shadow, no distinctive walk will ever, ever do it. To spend time now, after forty years, is to waste it. The battle is out there, in the deep woods, in the mist-laden mountains, in the field. Not at a computer station playing with virtual knobs and dials to squeeze things that may be or create things that never were from something that has nothing more to tell. The film is spent, let it go.

No film is ever going to convince science. Deep inside, everyone knows that. They must know that. Science demands remains: a body or, at the very least, bits of a body enough to verify identity beyond doubt. This is what makes the massacre idea so loony. If Patterson, Gimlin, or the shooter on the grassy knoll, had multiple bodies to bring home, they would have done it in a heartbeat. We may be squeemish now but, back then, that was an acceptable result. But instead we are to believe that they buried the bodies and hitched their wagons to the star of a grainy, inconclusive video when irrefutable proof was underneath their feet? C'mon now.

The underlying problem is that the bigfoot community has no self-government. There is no procedure of peer-review, controlled theoretical publications, or codes of conduct. For every scientist or genuine enthusiast, there's a business man, a huckster, and a conman. As long as the community is riven into competing motley gangs, as long as there is no control, no organization, there will be more massacres. Only it's not the beast being driven into the ground, it's the search, it's the community, it's the reputation of the cause. If this is the fruit of the Patterson-Gimlin film, it's time to say goodbye, and walk away.

Movie Monster Master Dies

Special Effects god Stan Winston passed away last night.

We’ve been hearing for a while that effects maven Stan Winston was in bad health, but this is still incredibly shocking. On June 15th, 2008, Stan Winston passed away at the age of 62.

Over his long career, Winston was responsible for more movie monsters than I can even name right now, but Predator, The Terminator, Aliens, Pumpkinhead, The Monster Squad and Jurassic Park were just a few of the film his work was featured in. In addition to visual effects, sculpting and creating unforgettable monsters, Winston was also a director, writer and producer.

He will be greatly missed by fans all over the world. Rest in Peace, good sir.

Source: dreadcentral.com

Stan Winston's name attached to a movie was as much a pull as the director or the star. His work was so... badass that I would check out certain flicks just to see what he did. He was the direct inheritor to Harryhausen and his stop-motion genius. I don't know what ultimately laid him low: 62 is not old by today's standards but I have to wonder what wonderful creations we will miss because his genius has been silenced.

His monsters will carry his legacy onward but the man himself will be dearly missed. RIP.

Who You Gonna Call?

Nothing, and I mean nothing, good can come from this:

hey, does anyone know any PROVEN methods for contacting "greys". By proven, i mean that you yourself has tried the method out and have been successful. If you havent tried it yourself, or you haven't gotten contact, DONT POST!!!! Also, let me specify what I mean by contact. I'm am looking for PHYSICAL contact, as in at an actual location. No planes of exsistence, no seeing them in your head. I'm looking for contact with my EYEs. (though i guess if you can exsist physically in another plane of life, so be it)

There's so much going on here, I don't even now where to start...

Some random thoughts:

• If someone could prove they'd been talking with the "greys", I hope they've got something better to do than troll internet forums.
• I assume that mental scars do not count as evidence.
• He needs to see the aliens? ...So I guess just arranging a call on Skype wouldn't suffice.
• Would an anal probe count as physical contact?

Look, It's a Super Earth!

Not just one, in fact, but three:

Astronomers have identified a trio of so-called "super-Earths" - rocky planets between two and 10 times the mass of Earth.

The three new planets were detected using the Harps instrument at the La Silla Observatory in central Chile.

The star they circle is slightly smaller than our Sun, and is located 42 light-years away near the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

As far as we can tell, none of these three earths was Third Earth. We're still safe from the Mumm-Ra menace.

Metal Mouth

Saturday I put in a few solid (pun!) hours into Metal Gear Solid 4. I finished Act I, took out Laughing Octopus and had good fun skipping around merrily stealth-killing various mercenary henchmen. It's been great. Really great. So why do you get the feeling I'm about to pull a Debbie Downer? The cut-scenes. Those damn cut-scenes.

There is probably a school of thought that I shouldn't even mention the cut-scenes, that the cut-scenes are as much a part of this game series as Solid Snake. They are probably right. However, let me narrow the focus of my ire. It isn't so much their existence as the preponderance of ponderous dialog that leads to bloated, overlong cut-scenes.

Every cut-scene follows a basic formula: an NPC will mention a concept to Snake. Snake then repeats the concept back to the NPC in the form of a question. The NPC, to answer the question, embarks on a five, ten, fifteen minute exposition on the concept. Rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Sometimes more than once within the same cut-scene.

The dialog, within this exposition, could easily be pared, trimmed, and cut to be lean and mean and, importantly, short. Unfortunately it's not. I do not need arms-dealer Drebin to spend fifteen minutes explaining to me what a war economy is. I get it. I can figure it out. Even if I couldn't, a couple of words would do. But what can be done with a couple of words, MGS4 accomplishes with thousands.

The game is enough fun that I want to get back to the action. I want to keep my flow. I want to get back to my murderous ways. If I could be sure, absolutely sure, that a given cut-scene wouldn't contain some vital tidbit I'd need down the line I would skip them without a second thought. But I can't. How can I know what tiny nugget of gold is buried in the avalanche of verbal dross? I can't. So I sit. And I wait. And wait. And wait.

Me: You guys have a war economy when what you needed was a word economy.

Snake: Word economy?

Me: Oh shut up.

Attack of the Guerrilla Marketeers

On my way to Manhattan this afternoon for what was to become a merciless handball beat-down (thanks Angel!), I found some new graffiti work adorning the posters on display at my local G train stop. Looking more closely, I saw that the graffiti consisted of bald schills for someplace called Hotness Factory:

What is Hotness Factory? t-shirt store. A pretty good one, it looks like. And, judging from their contact number, a local one. If you can't read it from the images, their URL is HotnessFactory.com. I need some new t-shirts.

...Does that mean their dastardly deed worked? Have I fallen for their evil plot? Yes, I guess I have. Do not ask me what marketing monsters I have just let loose on an unsuspecting world. I know what I have done. Someday, you'll forgive me.

Yoinks... and Away!

I have a new hero and he is the Snickers commercial Robin Hood guy. He's the best thing I've seen on TV since the Earl of Sandwich. "The feast is mine."

Never has a daring daylight highway robbery been so fun... and delicious!

UPDATE!

Some kind soul concatenated all the Snickers commercials into one video. FEAST!!!

For the Hulkamaniacs

My immediate impression of The Incredible Hulk as the screen went to black and the credits began was that this was a great comic book movie. However, unlike the best movies based on comic books (Batman Begins, Iron Man), Hulk doesn't transcend this niche. It's a great comic book movie but not a great movie. Does that make any sense?

The movie is, through and through, for the fans. If a Hulk fan scrawled a wish-list of must-see moments on a greasy McDonald's napkin, I think he would have walked out of the theater with at least eight out of his top ten moments marked complete. There are cameos by Bill Bixby (from beyond the grave!), Lou Ferrigno (still huge), and Stan Lee (of course). There are sonic cannons, references to Shield, Tony Stark, and Super Soldier Serum. Hulk is filled to the burst point with fan service. That being said, the actual story stays firmly in the shallow end of the pool, wearing floaties and a life jacket.

There isn't much of a character arc for poor, afflicted Bruce Banner and less than that for anyone else. Unlike Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, he doesn't go through any journey of self-discovery. Unlike those other heroes, Banner's transformation is both mental and physical: a gamma powered trans-substantiation. The Hulk and Banner remain completely separated and this disconnect is heightened by the use of CGI to create the Hulk character. The movie, thus, cannot explore the emergence and divergence of the hero persona the human personae. Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, even Clark Kent, all had these moments that loom so large in their stories. It doesn't exist in the Hulk and it is missed.

I don't have much to say about the acting. The performances were good but nobody stood out for good or for ill that really grabbed my attention. The special effects were top-notch but almost ho-hum. Movies are engineering incredible effects so often and so consistently, I hardly am surprised by what shows up on the screen anymore. This is a critical point for Hulk because our not-so-jolly green giant needs to look and feel completely integrated with the rest of his world. And he does. Kudos to the team.

It is clear now why this film could inspire a rather turgid response from the NY Times and an ejaculation from Ain't It Cool News. From the view of a comic book fan, this film will rock your socks. Your distance from this point on the cultural map will determine how much less the film appeals to you. While I'm not at ground zero, I was close enough to feel good about the flick. It's not as ambitious or genre-transcending as the greatest of the great comic-based movies, but it is a gamma-powered good time. Good enough for me. Excelsior!

---

A few notes:

• This might have been the best audience I've ever watched a film with. They were so in tune and into the movie, boisterous at all the right moments but never out of control, intruding in the wrong spots. It was a crowd full of fans and they were awesome.
• My vote for most misplaced ill-fitting movie trailer of all-time goes to the Mama Mia! trailer that preceded Hulk. Not only must this have been the director's cut, extended edition of the trailer (it went on just short of forever), it was oozing estrogen in a room full of testosterone. Who the hell thought Hulk represented the target audience for this abomination? When the trailer ended (finally!), the crowd spontaneously erupted into a LOUD chorus of boos. I told you they were awesome.
• Just about everyone stayed through the entire credits hoping for an Iron-Man-esque postscript. It didn't come. More booing (lightheartedly). I've never seen so many people stay past the credits.

Sorry, Says the Body Thief

Being that it's Friday the 13th and all, I was disappointed that news of the macabre was not clotting and clogging my reading this morning. Until now.

A New Jersey dentist behind a scheme to steal body parts from corpses, including that of British journalist Alistair Cooke, faced relatives of the dead in court on Thursday and apologized for the anguish he caused.

Michael Mastromarino, 44, in March admitted to leading a $4.6 million operation that stole body parts from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The ring dismembered more than 1,000 cadavers in unsanitary conditions, and sold parts to doctors who transplanted them into patients.

Source: reuters.com

No disrespect to Alistair Cooke (ok, maybe a little disrespect), but as great a guy as he was, he was older than Methuselah. Whoever paid to have his 95 year old parts sewn on to him better have gotten a good bargain. That stuff was way past its warranty. Something tells me Mastromarino didn't check the expiration dates.

Note: Ok, that was a very bad joke. But it's Friday the 13th, dammit! If I can't use that joke here, when can I use it? You tell me. Or don't.

The Adequate Hulk?

That's the bottom line of the NY Times review of the new Hulk film. Here then is the flip-side of the AICN gush-fest from last week:

...let’s not get carried away: “The Adequate Hulk” would have been a more suitable title. There are some big, thumping fights and a few bright shards of pop-cultural wit, but for the most part this movie seems content to aim for the generic mean. If you really need a superhero to tide you over until Hellboy and Batman resurface next month — and honestly, do you? really? why? — I guess this big green dude will do.

I would guess that the smart money puts the film in between the polar extremes of this sentiment and the pant-spoiling excitement of the earlier review. Wherever on the spectrum the Hulk lands, I'll be there to see it tonight. I gotta have faith.

Athlete's Foot of the Sea

Dr. Scholl's might have the cure to the ocean's red, itchy, inflammations.

Two agents used to treat athlete's foot may also help battle harmful algal blooms, which can be toxic to fish and shellfish, and potentially lethal to humans.

Source: dsc.discovery.com

Coming soon, gel inserts for the seven seas. They'll be gelling like Magellan.

Afternoon in the Sun

It was a beautiful day this afternoon. Rather than ride the subway all the way home, I decided to walk home from Hoyt-Schermerhorn via DeKalb and Fort Greene Park and then down Willoughby to home. Pictures were taken, of course. Of course.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Today's Tin Foil Report

Tin Foil Hatter
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I found some good stuff this morning. Be warned though, reading these posts may cause some slight insanity. And irritable bowels. But such is the price of science.

First, the so-called most frightening thread ever: possible attacks of time-traveling stone "aliens". This guys got the goods and some strange color-coded images to prove it.

A poster in the thread of fear bottom-lines the theory much better than I can:

SO I think what you are saying is that the ancients knew better than to make images of anything of stone because these creatures could survive inside the stone carvings and then take control of any native creature taht fit intot eh same family or desription?
And that only you are aware of this?

Yes. That's pretty much it. As for the odd color coded images, they're just wacky. If someone figures out exactly what they're supposed to mean, please let me know. They are somewhat psychedelic and a bit scary. Maybe they're just for effect.

In the What Do Angels Need With a Starship department is this gem, entitled ELOHIM ORBS & SHIPS & TECHNOLOGY ON VIDEO, UP CLOSE!!. You read that correctly. This one comes with a nifty YouTube video:

See the blurry flying objects! Read the informative title cards (my favorite: "Manna Orbs Ship Essence"). I would be more intrigued by the video if it didn't seem a bit too staged. Though the falling cotton fluff- err... manna was a nice touch. Oddly enough, no one has responded to his story. I guess watching angelic power made manifest can have that effect.

... I should get back to work.

Stay Classy

Clinton Hill house and church
Originally uploaded by threecee

Another day, another foray through my news feeds. Today: a nice article at The Real Fort Greene about the fear of a neighborhood losing its coolness via excess gentrification, mallification, and other evilications.

As a new resident in the area (though technically in Clinton Hill), I am, in a real sense, one of those people. I moved in to escape rent insanity rampant on the other side of the river. What appealed to me are the very qualities that people fear being destroyed. I moved here to get away from it not aid and abet it's Saharan encroachment.

Some things cannot be stopped: the gentrification is going to keep on keeping on. There are too many pressures on the housing market. According to Rentometer, the median rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in my zipcode (11205) is $1,950. That ain't a bargain. And it isn't the end of it. And it isn't going to stop.

What we can do is try to prevent the malling, the homogenizing, the giant-super-storizing processes that ride the migratory beast like fleas. As Winston Zedimore said, "We've got the tools, we've got the talent!" We can fight this. The question is: do we have the will to do it?

Do we?

Feeling Patriotic

I picked up my copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I played about two hours give or take before putting it down to fix some dinner and watch The Cutting Edge (yes, watch The Cutting Edge, I'm weak like that.)

First things first, mainly because you have no choice: there's an eight minute install during which Snake smokes a cigarette and the game doles out some dollops of wisdom.

Once that's done, the game is a bit slow to hit its stride. Shifting back and forth between short moments of user control and cut-scenes, the flow is off. I would have rather they just let me play or given me a cutscene. Continually going back and forth did nothing but frustrate me. Soon enough, though, Snake is finally given over to my total control.

There aren't too many surprises at this point, mostly because all the videos I've watched in anticipation for the game have been culled from these first few hours of play. The bad? Nothing yet I didn't really expect. The good? Nothing has been spoiled from deeper into the game. A good trade off, I'd say.

During my all too brief foray into the Metal Gear Online beta, I never really got a good handle on the shooting controls. I've got a better grasp of them now, though I still end up hitting the wrong buttons to either ready my weapon or fire it. My struggles haven't resulted in fatalities (yet) so I'll file that away under "No Harm No Foul".

I know that the internet has whispered about some seriously long cutscenes. So far, I've only run into one sorta long cutscene. It wasn't uninteresting, as things go, but it was a bit long, for my taste. I didn't time it though. No, it wasn't forty minutes.

Obviously, I've only gotten my first mouthful of the game. I'll be back for more. But not until after the pamchenko. Toe pick!

Shifting Into (Metal) Gear

Metal Gear Solid 4 screenshot
Originally uploaded by gamesweasel

Happy day, happy day. I just got the call from my local independent game retailer of choice and the copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 I pre-ordered awhile back is in store and waiting for me.

I haven't yet read any of the reviews yet and the Konami secrecy protocol hasn't inspired me to read the reviews already extant. Basically, I'm going in blind. I liked the past Metal Gear games (ok, 2 almost killed my will to live) so I've almost convinced myself that I know I will like it. And knowing is half the battle.

Hulk Not Fat, Just More Hulk to Love

The movie's not even out yet but there's already a longer, more gamma-irradiated, cut of the film being planned for the inevitable blu-ray release:

During an interview with director Louis Leterrier, he mentioned that the upcoming Blu-ray release of 'The Incredible Hulk', which is set to be released this Friday, will contain 70 minutes of cut footage. Apparently, during the editing process, some much-loved scenes got cut (including one which is in the trailer, but won't be in the final cut of the film), and the Blu-ray will showcase them all.

Source: blu-ray.com

This seems less a director's cut than a kitchen sink cut. 70 minutes is an awful lot more Hulk. Hopefully, it's not just awful.

Papa Smurf's Got a Brand New Bag

Gargamel chases a smurf
Originally uploaded by smurfun

Gargamel, it's time to put your big-boy pants on.

The Smurfs, those blue-skinned cartoon gnomes with short tails and white hats, are celebrating their 50th anniversary with a Hollywood movie deal announced on Tuesday by Columbia Pictures.

Source: news.yahoo.com.

I don't know how smurfy (yes, smurfy) this movie's going to be, given how successful and yet dreadful Alvin & the Chipmunks was. Still, I would hold on for a very smurfy Smurf movie. Plus, we've got Smurfette to look forward to. I'm going to go ahead and call my shot and pick Jessica Alba. Smurfy.