Month: November 2003

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Senator Palpatine (Naboo) could be related.

Sandia Labs has a pretty cool-looking simulation of the impact of an asteroid off the New York coast, available as GIF images as well as several movie formats.

Cooter’s Place in Sperryville, Virginia is closing this weekend! It wasn’t too long ago that I reported on the 25th anniversary celebration of The Dukes Of Hazzard they were holding, but apparently “Alma and [Ben Jones] are simply not able at this point in [their] lives to give ‘Cooter’s’ the time, the attention and the energy that it requires and deserves.” I really would like to go down and visit before they close down, even if there will still be another location in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Anyone for a road trip?

The Toque addresses a very important issue in these times of uncertainty:

No one knows when the Internet will fail. It could happen at any time, leaving you bereft of your e-mail, your sports scores, and your Blogs. Therefore, it’s important that you and your family have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. If your connection to Cyberspace were to ever get severed, you should at least be prepared. We have included a few key points that should assist you if that were to happen.

I strongly advise you to read their article entitled “What Should I Do If The Internet Goes Down?” and take appropriate precautions. I myself may need to further research this archaic device known as a mo-dem… :-p

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, Berkeley Breathed is back. His new Sunday-only comic strip, Opus, debuted yesterday. I’m very happy to see him back, although with only one strip to go on I don’t have an idea of what it’s going to be like just yet. Keep an eye out (I know that the Washington Post carried it yesterday), and in the meantime take a look at the Slashdot thread for some other reactions…

Fundrace 2004 has a great Money Map that allows you to see where presidential candidates are spending their money. You can graphically display information for each candidate or party by county, 3 digit ZIP code, and state. Very cool…

Kurt Wenner is an accomplished artist known mainly as a “master street painter” whose

anamorphic paintings…create a special pictorial geometry that corrects the distortion caused by viewing his monumental images on the pavement from an oblique angle.

His website has a lot of interesting biographical info as well as a gallery of some of his work. I came upon this site from J-Walk Blog and thought his work was very cool. However, I totally forgot that I had already seen his artwork somewhere: Absolut commissioned him to make an ad in 1996 which I now distinctly remember; it can be seen to the right.

It’s going to be hard to top my “Hold The Button!” post, but I’m going to try. :-p Choose from dozens of headache-inducing backgrounds if you’re just dying for a headache!

CNN reports that “Michael Kamen, the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated composer who fused hard-rock riffs with classical styling in albums for Pink Floyd and provided music for the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard movies, has died at age 55” of a heart attack. I particularly enjoyed his work in Mr. Holland’s Opus, Band Of Brothers, and From The Earth To The Moon, although taking a look at his IMDB profile I didn’t realize how prolific a soundtrack composer he was. He will definitely be missed…

Because of brisk DVD sales of The Family Guy (the first season sold almost 1 million copies and the second has sold over 500,000), Fox is apparently considering reviving the cancelled series. According to USA Today, “as many as 35 new episodes could return in January 2005, marking the first time that a canceled series has been revived based on strong DVD demand and ratings in syndication.”

I was very happy at the possibility of a direct-to-DVD project that was apparently in development, but this is just great news. Let’s hope that it actually happens, and if it does maybe some other shows that were prematurely cancelled will get their due (Freaks and Geeks and Andy Richter Controls The Universe come immediately to mind).