WTF? Robo Geisha?

K..this is creepy me out big time. I know the Japanese make some pretty screwed up movies but the trailer for this one has to be for one of the weirdest. I am gonna have nightmares about the narrator's voice for week I just know it. So of course I HAVE to share. Watch at your own risk. Lets hope this never gets remade in America. And remember - "Fried Shrimp!" Thanks to Topless Robot.

Cephalopod Tea Party - WTF?

Well it had to happen. I never went looking for it but it came to me anyways. I like to think it was fate. In the 'Art of War' by Sun Tzu we are taught that if we wish to defeat our enemy we must first know our enemy. 'Cephalopod Tea Party' is one of those sites run by the human apologists who goes out of their way to praise and celebrate my most hated enemy. I don't blame them for their innocent naivete but they are like the Borg to me now - putting them out of their misery when the time comes is doing them a favour. The octopus already have 70% of the planet to do their evil in and now they have added human agents to their master plan to control the entire planet. We will still prevail because our cause is pure and just. "The line must be drawn HERE...THIS far and no further!" (thanks Picard) I paraphrase 'Dune' -"Our actions will carry death eternal for those who stand against the righteous." The Tentacle Wars have now reached a whole different level of intensity. Stay brave and stay dry my fellow holy warriors.


Oh no - not the kitties...please not the kitties.

http://cephalopodteaparty.blogspot.com/

I Can Haz Me An Award

Much thanks to Samurai Frog for sending this award on to me. Its only the second time my work has been so recognized but the first one I kinda asked for. This is the first suprise validation. Of course I am lapping it up like a monkey on a cupcake licking an ice cream cone. We know Big Daddy is all about the love. So as per the demands of this award I send it off to these seven people (I couldn't go smaller than 7) whose blogs I find to be interesting or inspiring. I chose people who not only have a unique voice but whose blogs I visit whenever they put up a new post.

Here are the rules:

It is the Uber (synonym to Super) Amazing Blog Award -
a blog award given to sites who:

Inspire you
Make you smile and laugh, or maybe give amazing information
A great read
Has an amazing design
Any other reasons you can think of that make them Uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:

Put the logo on your blog or post.
Nominate at least 6 blogs
Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.
Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

Wings at Caffienated Joe
Michael May at Michael May's Adventure Blog
Nicole at Super Blogliness
Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein at Monkey Muck
Joe at 70s Child
Book Steve at Book Steve's Libray
Ben at Dragon Dancing with the Buhdda

Art By Brittany Lee

I really like these girl and kitty drawings. They have a comfortable flow to them and remind me of the Batman characters Bruce Timm draws or the Esurance girl Erin. Check out more of her work here - http://britsketch.blogspot.com/

Happy Happy Joy Joy

My stupid computer has been acting up lately like a spoiled child. All of you know these fricken things have personalities and minds of their own. My screen was stuck with large fonts which was such a pain in the ass when you wanted to look up anything. But the final straw was my blog shutting down everything I logged into it. That was NOT acceptable. So I had to do a system restore and the last one I did I lost my bookmarks and my pictures and documents. Nothing too serious since most of my photos are on disc. The documents however were another story. They had my resume and letters from friends that broke my heart when I lost them. For some reason EVERYTHING came back when I did the restore. Imagine if you will a large polar bear of a fellow doing the Footloose dance all over the house. Much structural damage to the house and its contents but so what, I'M BACK BABY!!!!

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is a tense drama set in present day Iraq and involving a squad of bomb disposal experts of the US military. I will try to leave out any details that will take away from the viewing experience. Suffice it to say you will be saying ‘oh fuck’ a lot.

I like the use of the handheld camera to capture the frenetic nature of life in a deadly war zone. Everyone and everything seem to be charged with electricity. Anyone around the soldiers is a potential enemy. They are always a second away from the situation going wrong. The film is very effective at putting the audience right in the middle of the action. Since the actors are not well known you have a feeling that any one of them can be the next to die. You actually think you are helping the soldiers succeed in their mission by holding your breath in the most tense situations lest you set off the bomb from your seat with your breathing. That is good filmmaking.

“They (tanks) don’t do anything…any one comes along side the Humvee and we’re dead. Anyone even looks at you funny we’re dead. Basically the bottom line is if you are in Iraq you are dead. How is a fuckin tank suppose to stop that?”

The men all seem to have a perfect understanding of the danger they are in all the time. They can’t help but develop a fatalistic attitude but at the same time they are almost addicted to the stress and danger. They take crazy risks and make what seem to be deadly decisions but it is also the ONLY way they can function at all. Some deal by quietly doing the job. Some by making jokes. Others deal by verbally venting their frustrations at the lunacy that their world has become - something that frustrates other members of the team since they can do nothing to change the circumstances they find themselves in. They would rather not be reminded of that fact especially when they seem to be working with a man who has a death wish. A man who sees each IED as a puzzle to be solved. - no protocols will stop him from being a maverick. After being told he can go and leave the bomb he still needs to see the job through to the end. Others may call him a ‘wild man’ or ‘gansta’ but he knows he is neither of those things. Guess that happens to you after you have disarmed 873 bombs. (!?). You would know you are pushing your luck and that the odds certainly are not in your favour.

The technique of showing the bombs detonating in ultra slow motion shows how time seems to freeze in the long instant it takes for someone to die. Despite all the best efforts of the soldiers people WILL die.

Each IED (Improvised Explosive Device) is different and require a different solution to disarm them and the film achieves much of its tension from those scenes.

There is very little ‘off mission’ moments so you get to experience the danger the soldiers are in day after day after day. It seems unrelenting. I can see why anyone in those circumstances would become crazy reckless or just plain crazy. No wonder PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is so common in soldiers coming back from Iraq or any war zone for that matter.

Music Mondays

I watch so much good musical performances on You Tube that I have decided to start a new feature here in the Cave of Cool - Musical Mondays. Today we present Jewel and three of my favorite songs from her. Loved her voice and look since she first started to be noticed. She is not just a pretty face. Her songs have a real soulfullness to them especially the ones on her first album. And her lyrics are not over written - they can hold their own as poetry.

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

With all the news about North Carolina's Governor Mark Sanfords and his little trip to Argentina this song has been played alot and has been running through my head all week. The story of Juan Peron and his wife Eva is the basis for the musical Evita and as much as I hate to admit this, Madonna was the ONLY person for the role of Eva. If you had any doubt just listen to her do this song - she sings it solidly from the heart and captures perfectly the grace and appeal of the historical figure she is portraying. Yes she is batshit crazy but for this brief moment all of her reinventions culminated in something magical. If any person can find that kind of magic ONCE in their lives they are lucky. Unfortunately the nature of celebrity does not allow one to simply freeze time to preserve the greatness of the moment. Just ask Michael Jackson who spent the last 15 years trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle but was let down by his own inner demons. May we all avoid the curses of fame and pride because they truly go before the fall.

Steampunk Sky Machines

I seem to be of a steampunk mind today. The future past designs of these vehicles are very interesting. Someone the other day mentioned to me that the skies would be filled with airships if the Hindenburg hadn't burned and Hitler had won the war. More than likely we would have our flying Nazi cars and Nazi jet packs. Sure they were pure evil but they had sharp uniforms and could really engineer some nice military hardware. No wonder both the Soviets and the USA kidnapped all the German scientists they could get their hands on after WWII to work on their space programs. This exchange from the movie 'The Right Stuff' occured just after the success of Sputnik.

President Lyndon Johnson - "Was it them...was it their Germans?"

Werner Von Braun - "No Senator. Our Germans are better than their Germans."

The Snaefell

"Cars have always been the preserve of those who seek safety and motorcycles have been the preserve of those who seek adventure, so if you seek both adventure and safety, why not have a car and a bike combined, seems to be opinion of Francois Knorreck who has just designed the Snaefell. The Snaefell is a motorcycle that comes with an attached car instead of an open sidecar that some motorcycles come with. He took nearly ten years and more than $20,000 to get this unique vehicular mod ready."

It would be very cool if the bike seperated from the sidecar when you needed to dump that extra weight. The car could contain all the missiles and other arms you needed to fight Cobra in the big cities and then detatch in time for you to make your escape down some narrow alleyway.

Steampunk Star Wars

From the site 'Steampunk Pictures' comes these great images from the steampunk inspired Star Wars. If anything naturally fits into the steampunk motif its George Lucas' epic space saga. The design work here is wonderfully intricate.





http://steampunkpics.blogspot.com/

Holy Crap I Feel Old

On 'Boing Boing' they posted a story about a 13 year old kid that was given a Sony Walkman in place of his MP3 player for a week and then got his impression of the device. Just goes to show how quickly technology leaves people behind if you don't keep up. I admit I don't own an MP3 player but do have a CD player in my car. I am fairly computer literate but don't know a whole heck of alot about cell phones because for some reason I have a deadly fear of the brain tumors they will give me. The same technology was used in police speed scanners for years and now the cops who rest them in their laps between clocking the effect of my lead foot (bastards!)have gotten testicular cancer. The head is just as vulnerable as the scrotum. Of course I am also totally denying the truth that I don't have a cell phone because I have no one to call. I understand, however, the frustration that older people have with their lack of tech knowledge. My own mother has trouble with the remote control on the satellite. She only this year mastered an answering machine and to her its the greatest thing ever. Now if only I could get her to make the connection between the cursor and how you move the mouse. It will be a moment akin to the transformation from oil lamps to electric lightbulbs.

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette. Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured. I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm

WTF?

"At around 5:30am on June 27, an unoccupied building still under construction at Lianhuanan Road in the Minhang district of Shanghai city toppled over. One worker was killed. According to information, a 70 meter section of the flood prevention wall in nearby Dianpu River and that may have something to do with this building collapse."

Can you believe this? Thats what you get in China for ignoring western building standards. How come everything in China can either poison you or fall on you? They don't even have a giant monster problem like Japan. What would have happened if there had been a typhoon or earthquake in the area? How many of the nearby cookie cutter buildings are in danger of falling? I am most amazed that the structure fell in virtually ONE PIECE. Thanks to the 'Daily What' another of my daily go-to sights. Hard to believe that only one person died in this accident.

Steampunk War

I am ALL over this concept...'WAR OF THE WORLDS - GOLIATH' which tells the story of the second Martian War with our side using steam powered robots built with back engineered Martian tech to fight a battle with an evil cephalopod enemy. This animated feature is suppose to be ready for release next year. Check out these great production stills and try not to drool. Giant Robots, zeppelin battleships, steampunk tech - what’s not to love. Also check out the Martians - of course they would be all tentacled. For those of you who deny my warnings I have one thing to say - Who is the nutcase now? Nice to see there are some fresh ideas out there. Check out the sites below for more goodness. Thanks to Super Punch for once again finding us GOLD. Anyone who doesn't have that site bookmarked is really missing out. I get so much of my great stuff from that site and am not ashamed to admit it.




"It’s an R rated, retro-history, steam-punk epic set in 1914, fourteen years after the first failed Martian invasion. Mankind has rebuilt her cities and military by adapting a lot of the abandoned Martian technology. They’ve created an international defense force, A.R.E.S., based on the lower end of Manhattan and under the command of Theaodore Roosevelt. They’ve built a formidable force centered around giant, steam-powered battle tripods [such as the sub-titular Goliath]. Think of Band of Brothers meets Star Wars, meets World WO. It will be cool steam-powered battle tripods, doomed Cossack cavalry charges, Victorian decco, steam-punk Manhattan, 1500-foot-long armored battle zeppelins, Teddy Roosevelt, souped up tri-planes, blood on steaming metal, sex in the cockpit… the usual."

http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php/2009/06/23/meeting-heat-ray-with-heavy-metal-cannons/
http://www.metaltv.com/wotw/gallery.html
http://www.metaltv.com/wotw/

Ah Shit

From 'Sugar Frosted Goodness' comes this image that clearly shows the severe judgement of Ice Bear. Its the last thing this little Inuit guy wants to see and I love the way he is not making eye contact with the bear - like "If I ignore him he maybe will just go away". Sadly, Umiak there is about 10 seconds from a paw swat and an unwanted trip across the ice.

Sweet Texas Rose

Weta really does steampunk rayguns right. This is a beautiful peice that would look great in anyone's collection. It reminds me of those cute deringers that a river boat gambler would conceal in his sleeve. Oh that we could carry a fully functional one of these in real life.

Cool Advice

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works".

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you. The answer to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.

11. Love has nothing to do with looks, but everything to do with time, trust, and interest.

12. Sometimes when you are angry you have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give you the right to be cruel.

13. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

14. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. Both love and hate require the same amount of passion to maintain.

15. You will forget all this.

(From Lists Galore - http://listsgalore.blogspot.com/)

I Resign From Adulthood Meme

'Lists Galore' had a post about stopping to be a grown-up and going back to being a kid to avoid all the responsibilties of adulthood. However, as my life is right now, I can pretty much avoid most of those demands placed on an adult. No family, no friends, no need to work at anything more stressful than losing weight - I kinda got it made. But in a perfect world...

I wish I could spend each rainy day in a big leather chair reading the box of comic books my mother had brought home from her work in a hotel for incoming servicemen and their families.

I wish I could pack a lunch and just walk with my friends to the far off hill that we called Rudy's Mountain for all the adventure we could squeeze into 16 hours. Why Rudy's Mountain - I never figured that out because no one we knew was named Rudy.

I wish I could pick chesnuts that had fallen from the centuries old trees we would climb. Then I would string a shoelace through them so we could smash them against each other to see which one was stronger.

I wish I could play baseball on a team three times a week. Wearing those uniforms and smelling the leather of the glove DEFINED summer for me back in the day.

I wish I could escape my yard at night and sneak around the base hoping to get the military police to chase me and my friends because we were in violation of curfew. Being fast on your bike and knowing which trails to speed down led to real cat and mouse games.

I wish I could go off to Cadet Camp. Sure is was intense at time but you never had a better bonding experience with kids your age from around the country. Where else could you canoe or sail one day, shoot rifles the next and be in the Calgary Stampede parade each summer?

I wish I could attend the movies at the triple drive-in my hometown used to have. Ten bucks a carload was made more fun when you could convince somone or several someones to hide in the trunk of the car so that they could get in for free.

I wish my parents would take me and my sister to foreign lands and immerse us into the culture by taking us to museums, cultural festivals and historic sites. Those times spend with my dad teaching me about the past was some of the best in my life.

http://listsgalore.blogspot.com/

Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Analytic Update

Well I am of a mixed mind about Google Analytic. Yesterday I had my lowest visit number of 147 and this saddens me because my posts are GOLD baby...GOLD! 271 is the highest day total I have had so far so WHERE have all the flowers gone? At the same time, I am continueing my slow advance on the Dark Continet by adding TUNISIA to my African country total which now stand at 5 (Ghana, South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco). Soon I will be ready to run for third world dictator and honestly, who wouldn't want to get in on some of that UN development money. However, I would need my fiefdom to be near the sea so I can have a nice staging area for my missions in the tentacle wars. Land locked Alberta is hardly convenient for that purpose. I hardly even hear from my brothers or sisters in other places beyond North America so if you are out there and like what you have been seeing, give me a HELLO and let me know how you found me. That is all.

Miss Martian - MEOW

Like Reis over at 'Geek Orthodox' I have a thing for green girl characters. She Hulk, the new She Hulk, any green girl on Star Trek and especially Miss Martian from Teen Titans. Sure she totally is a martian shapeshifter but I cannot fault the look she chose to blend in with the rest of us humans. Usually I am distrustful of the alien agenda but if they all looked like her I would totally let them enslave us and make us all their pets - if only to get that basket bed and supper bowl with my name on it. Much thanks are deserving to Lisa Mynx who seperated this image of Miss Martian from the page in 'Teen Titans' 72 so I could display her without all the side distractions. Another great costume for the Tickle Trunk.

Nazi Spiders

I HATE those guys. (I know I found this picture on someone's blog. If it was you please let me know so I can properly credit you. Forgot where it came from.)

Steampunk Submarine

From Super Punch comes this great image of a steampunk submarine by Astro Larsens. I can see the 'Big Daddy' character from 'Bio Shock' riding in this to a battle with our octopus enemy. Everything is coming together now. I like his steampunky deep sea battle armour look.

Billy Mays Dead

If this is true then how will I get my MIGHTY PUTTY or KABOOM? I love that stuff with Pepsi. Well at least we know that Hell now has all the frantic informercials they will ever need to fill those late night hours. Anything that ruined the late night/early morning movie landscape on television has to be from the Devil himself. I have a special hate for infomercials that show how crappy your black and white life is (or was) until this new magical product came into your life. The magic pancake maker is my most/least favorite especially when they provide you with a heart shape mold so that your family can really know that you love them because NOTHING say love like heart shaped cooked batter. With Vince the SHAMWOW guy beating up hookers, who will step forward to fill the infomercial pitchman void? Let me know if you find out so I can put my voodoo death curse on him as well.

Metropolis

The greatest film of the silent era is without a doubt the German expressionist sci/fi drama METROPOLIS by director Fritz Lang. Its a bitting endictment of the industrial age and the way that machines dehumanize us all. Most people are familiar with the robot Maria who is an iconic movie image. Her transformation from robot to human is an amazing special effect in a movie filled with effects - some which would not be equaled for decades after the film's release. If not for the coming of WWII I am convinced that the Germans would be leading the world in film production. Many of the earliest experimental and truly groundbreaking films came out of that European country in the years before sound. These are some cool posters for the movie. If you have an interest in the history of film you have to check it out on 'You Tube' or various other sites. A modern techno score was added to the restored version of the movie in the 80s and its that print that I myself own and enjoy the most.