Category: Video

The End of the Vulcan Bar Matzvah*

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Nimoy has had a varied career, actor, director, poet, photographer, and writer.
As such, it’s hard to find his best moment, but his worst moment is clearly singing this song

Leonard Nimoy has died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at 83:

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Nimoy announced that he had the disease last year, attributing it to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week.

Seriously. If you smoke, stop today.

*It’s an old family story. My mom was talking to a friend in Alaska, Danny Plotkin, and asked how he was doing. He replied to her that he was flying down to the lower 48 to go to a “Vulcan bar Mitzvah”. It turns out that Leonard Nimoy was his nephew, and Nimoy’s son was having a Bar Mitzvah

Life Imitates Megas XLR

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The Bit at 7m 10s is Very Similar to the Pizza

There is a bit in the Megas XLR episode “Space Booty” where Coop, when confronted with a food synthesizer, orders a “Philly Cheesesteak, wrapped in bacon, and deep fry it.”  (It should be queued up on the embedded video)

That was all that I could think of when I read about Little Caesars’ bacon-wrapped deep dish pizza:

Guys, I love junk food. My Salon “brand” is to judge fast food conglomerates for poisoning millions of people until they die from heart disease and stuff, and yeah, I’m still of the mind that these companies are basically evil. But also it’s nearly 4 p.m. and I want a snack so much. And that’s why I’m having trouble mustering the requisite outrage for Little Caesars’ Bacon-Wrapped Crust Deep! Deep! Dish Pizza. Double the depth of a normal Deep! dish, we’re guessing.

The afternoon snack village banquet is wrapped in three-and-a-half feet of bacon and caramelized cheese edges and will cost $12 once it goes on sale on Monday, February 23. One slice will cost you 450 calories, 23 grams of fat, 830 milligrams of sodium and 40 milligrams of cholesterol.

Much like Coop did with the Philly Cheesesteaks, you could wring this pie out and fill a crank case. (15m 25s in the vid)

In any case, watch the whole episode, or for that matter any episode of Megas XLR, it’s a great show, and is probably even funnier to someone who, unlike me actually was into giant robot anime.

BTW, unless you posses the genetic makeup that gives you a surfeit of the good (ultra-HDL) cholesterol, I would suggest that you eat the pizza and follow it with a handful of statins.

Despite the Dispute Over the Ukraine, Russia and the US can Find Common Ground

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Egypt’s worst military band covers the Russian national anthem


Carl Lewis will never medal in vocal skills


Rosanne Barr’s Infamous rendition, which I actually found hysterically funny

Specifically the pain of atrociously poor performance of our respective national anthems.

Unfortunately, I could find Robert Goulet’s infamous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the Ali-Liston fight.

Oh Well.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it, is to do this with the Starship Enterprise

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The Reliant


The Enterprise

Still, this quad-copter Millennium Falcon conversion is unbelievably cool.

Hats off to Robert C. for an inspired bit of modeling.

It helps that the Falcon is largely circular in planform.

Doing the USS Enterprise would be a lot more difficult, if just because, for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to locate the rotors to make that configuration work right now.

I might wimp out, and just go with the Reliant from Wrath of Khan, which as can clearly be seen, would be a bit more amenable to a balanced configuration with the rotors

I’m going to talk to the kids, and see if we can do this as a summer project.

Of course, if I can figure out how to configure rotors for the Constitution class cruiser, I will go with the original Enterprise, from the original series, because, if given a choice, I will always go with the original series.

I’m funny that way.

Bad Day at the Office

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In the world of “holy crap,” we have an amazing dashcam footage of the crash of TransAsia flight GE235:

At least 23 people have died after a TransAsia Airways plane crashed into the Keelung River in Taiwan earlier Wednesday.

Another 15 people were reportedly injured in the accident, and 20 are still missing.

 Drivers on the road captured the moment the plane crashed into the river. Flying on its side, the aircraft hit a taxi and clipped the bridge with its wing before crashing into the river.

The footage is amazing, but I don’t see a cause here.

It’s clear that the left wing dropped, probably from a stall. Note that the ATR-72 does not have counter-rotating props, so a wing drop is normal for a stall.

Also, it appears to be descending before the wing drops, even though it was taking off, which is would correspond to the reports that the aircraft had issued a mayday call stating that an engine had flamed out:

The final communication from the pilots to air traffic control was “Mayday, mayday, engine flame out”, according to a recording played on local media. The recording was not immediately verified by aviation officials.

I would assume that it was the left engine that had flamed out, and then the aircraft departed.

Here are some screen caps that appears to show that the left engine prop was feathered (pitch altered for minimum drag):

In any case, here is the video:

Buy a Truck, Because Your Penis is Too Small

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Advertising, Exploiting People with Insecurity About Their Manhood for more than a Century

In the conflation of automobiles and manhood that is the American car advertisement, the latest GM ad, which doesn’t even bother making the juxtaposition between one’s choice in transportation and one’s manhood, and they pretty explicitly state it.

The video attached shows hoe they bring in a “focus group” of young women who look at pictures, and they universally find the guy in front of a truck sexier than the same guy in front of a hatchback.

First, they obviously had to find a group of women dumb enough not to think, “Hey, these are the same guys?  Are you trying to imply that I am a vacuous shallow bitch?”

Seriously. Just how tiny does a potential car buyer’s penis have to be for this ad to work?

For the Love of Ghod, Make it Stop!!!

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Kind of Like Norman Rockwell ……… On Acid

Caribu Barbie has announced that she is seriously considering running for President in 2016:

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016.

 “You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid.

 Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

 “I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said Friday, as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a potential 2016 rival, looked on.

She also just delivered a speech at Steve King’s wingnut extravaganza “Freedom Forum”.

It appears that her teleprompter froze, and she had to “wing it”.

The speech was so remarkable that the DNC communications director issued the following two wrod press release:

DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee issued the following statement in response to Palin: “Thank you!” pic.twitter.com/aBYSZA2oQ7
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 24, 2015

While I am sure that Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert and Larry Wilmore are rejoicing, but the rest of us are in for some very “interesting” times. (as in the Chinese curse)

F%$# Me! I Agree With a Fox News Doctor!

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He’s right, you know

Fox Doc Marc Siegel has condemned the anti-vaxxer movement over the Measels outbreak in Disney Land:

Fox News medical correspondent Marc Siegel lashed out on Thursday at parents who refused to give their kids vaccines for putting everyone else at risk.

Reports this week said that at least 70 cases of measles had been confirmed at Disney theme parks, with 62 of those cases occurring where the anti-vaccination movement is thriving in Orange Country, California.

During his Thursday appearance on Fox News, Siegel, who is an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, wasted no time in blaming anti-vaxxers for the outbreak.

“Let me be clear on this, I see no debate whatsoever. Period,” Siegel said. “This is the greatest vaccine that has ever been created in the history of vaccines.”

The doctor pointed out that “measles is the most contagious virus known to man.”

Your mouth to God’s ear, Doctor Siegel.

I cannot believe that I am posting a Fox News clip with approval.

I Haz a Sad

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Arguably his finest moment

I just watched the last episode of the Colbert Report, and I am going to miss him.

He will, of course, be taking over for Letterman, but that will be Stephen Colbert the person, and not the Bill O’Reilly inspired character that he has played on his show.

I’ll miss the character.

Win

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This is epic. Brad and Dallas Woodhouse are brothers and pundits. One is a Democrat, and the other is a Republican, and while they were on CSPAN, their mom called in to berate them for fighting at family gatherings:

Everybody knows that the best part about CSPAN is the unpredictable nature of the show’s call-in segments, where regular hosts and guests do an admirable job of fielding unusual questions with no advance warning. But brothers Brad and Dallas Woodhouse are now the champions of awkward CSPAN calls, after the politically divided brothers ended up taking a call from their mom.

“Oh God, it’s mom,” Dallas Woodhouse said as soon as “Joy” from North Carolina started to speak.

“You’re right, I’m from down south,” she said. “And I’m your MOTHER.”

She’d called to take issue with something her kids said on air: That the brothers’ political bickering — you see, one is liberal, and the other is conservative — is typical of most families. “I don’t know many families that are fighting at Thanksgiving,” she said. “I’m hoping you’ll have some of this out of your system when you come here for Christmas. I would really like a peaceful Christmas.”


Epic

Quote of the Day

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Good Point

It’s funny, I just made this movie about a guy who triumphs over the inhuman conditions in his imprisonment in an authoritarian country, and I don’t think they did half that sh%$ to him.

— Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart is rightly appalled.

He just did a movie about torture, and the elements of the state security apparatus in Iran were more humane, and less brutal, than those of the United States.

Our torture, and the support for it, both tacit and explicit, exhibited by both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, are going to bear bitter fruit for the us for decades.

This is the 2nd 911 Joke that I’ve Heard

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And I made the first one a few years back, and it wasn’t that good.

Well, Chris Rock hits it out of the park:

On the eve of the New York City Marathon, “Saturday Night Live” host Chris Rock opened his monologue with jokes about last year’s Boston Marathon bombings. Too soon? Well, the joke was pretty tame, all things considered. But that was just the warm-up for Rock’s main riff on the Freedom Tower, the new One World Trade Center building that’s now America’s tallest skyscraper. He went there — to the 9/11 joke.

“What were they thinking?” Rock demanded with trademark incredulity. “What kind of arrogant Floyd Mayweather crap is this?” then “Who’s the corporate sponsor, Target?

It’s really funny.

Not the Onion

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You can get a slightly translation in the subtitles

A motorcycle gang from the Netherlands is going to Syria to fight ISIS:

Already battling air strikes from the US and its allies, including the UK, terrorist organisation Isis (Islamic State) now have a new threat to look out for – a motorbike gang from the Netherlands.

The Dutch bikers, who go by the name No Surrender, reportedly journeyed to Iraq to fight alongside Kurdish troops against IS militants last week.

Charged with commenting on the legality of that move, the Dutch public prosecutor said that the bikers are not necessarily committing any crime.

Prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin told AFP: “Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it’s no longer forbidden.”

“You just can’t join a fight against the Netherlands.”

If it weren’t for the likelihood, that they are going to end up on the next ISIS beheading videos, the skills associated with being a bad-ass biker are not necessarily the same as those required for urban or desert warfare against a dedicated foe who is not constrained by the requirements of law enforcement in a western society.

This is not going to end well.

The AIG Lawsuit: Snark too Good not to Share

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First is Chris Arnade says that, “Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of AIG, has that kind of fart-in-the-elevator audacity:

The senior managing director – a top-ranking banker – walked onto the crowded elevator, focus fixed on her Blackberry, pressed the elevator button and farted loudly. As the smell filled the elevator, as others nervously coughed, some covering up giggles, her focus stayed on the Blackberry. Four floors later she left, commenting to a colleague, “The elevators are vile. The janitors are always on some break.”

 Another MD turned to me: “That’s why she earns the big bucks.”

 “Being able to fart?” I asked.

 “No, you idiot. Audacity. Audacity so great that you can fart on the elevator and blame it on someone else.”

And then, of course, there is John Stewart commenting on the AIG Lawsuit:

I wish that I could write like either of them.