Star Wars: Detoured

From the mind of Seth Green. That says it all.

Star Wars Meets Call Me Maybe

Another Star Wars Mashup:

How The Avengers Should Have Ended

Even Darth Vader's Got To Pay For Parking In NYC

No Jedi mind tricks here; Darth Vader tried to get a traffic cop to cut him some slack on a parking ticket claiming that he paid and put the receipt in his vehicle windshield, but the officer just didn't buy it.

How The Hunger Games Should Have Ended

Cory Booker and Chris Christie Show Off Their Comedy Chops

Every once in a while it's nice to see politicians not taking themselves too seriously and to have some fun with each other. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker put together this video as part of the NJ Press Association Dinner festivities. There's some sly references to Booker's heroic actions of saving neighbors from a fire and a few Seinfeld references as well.

Muppet Nirvana

Harry Potter: Or How It Should Have Ended

Filling in inconvenient plot holes, using MacGuffins, and adding rationality to the movies (and books)

Fantasy Football Picks, Darth Vader Style

Darth Vader isn't a good fantasy football manager, but don't disagree with him.

He doesn't like it.



Are you ready for the season?

See you in the playoffs.

How Twilight Should Have Ended

Because enough can't be said of how vapid and supremely stupid this teen romance/vampire series is; everything could have been resolved after one teeny weeny change in the first book:



This movie series has been on Showtime pretty much 20x a week and it's impossible to miss one of the broadcast times. The movies are a train wreck of suck. The acting is bad. The story is awful. The movie literally sucks the life out of the Olympic Peninsula where much of the movie takes place; I've actually driven through Forks and those vistas and backdrops are spectacular - yet they've been turned in to drab and featureless.

Oh, and there's more romance between Edward and Jacob than anything shown in the film between Bella and those two.

Rapture Saturday

Well, by now I assume you haven't been taken away in the Rapture, but that just means that you'll get to enjoy this instead:

A Bipartisan Rickroll Courtesy of the Oregon Legislature

You have been warned:

Keeping Those Elements Straight

Tom Lehrer came up with a song showing all the elements of the periodic table at the time. This video shows how they line up in the periodic table:



And apparently, Lehrer struck a chord with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) to the point where he performed the elements song on television (the Graham Norton show):



Radcliffe is now appearing on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the Norton bit shows that he's got some musical talent. Whether he's got the dancing chops remains to be seen.

Tough Times Hit Boba Fett

When last we saw Boba Fett, we thought he was a goner in the Sarlaac. However, it turns out that he was transported to the New York City subway system, where he's now a busker with an accordion.



What a sad state of affairs. Things are real tough since the Empire fell.

Video of the Day

People throughout the Middle East have been watching events in Tunisia quite closely, and Mumar Khadafi's actions seem almost too ripe for spoofing, particularly with the body count his loyalists and mercenaries are racking up.

Yet, this video seems to have struck a chord with people around the world.

Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff, said he saw Colonel Qaddafi’s televised speech last Tuesday in which the Libyan leader vowed to hunt down protesters “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway,” and immediately identified it as a “classic hit.”

“He was dressed strangely, and he raised his arms” like at a trance party, Mr. Alooshe said in a telephone interview on Sunday. Then there were Colonel Qaddafi’s words with their natural beat.

Mr. Alooshe spent a few hours at the computer, using Auto-Tune pitch corrector technology to set the speech to the music of “Hey Baby,” a 2010 electro hip-hop song by American rapper Pitbull, featuring another artist, T-Pain. He titled it “Zenga-Zenga,” echoing Col. Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa, Arabic for alleyway.

By the early hours of Wednesday morning Mr. Alooshe had uploaded the remix to YouTube, and began promoting it on Twitter and Facebook, sending the link to the pages of young Arab revolutionaries. By Sunday, the original clip had more than 400,000 hits and had gone viral.

Mr. Alooshe, who at first did not identify himself on the clip as an Israeli, started receiving enthusiastic messages from all around the Arab world. Surfers soon discovered that he was a Jewish Israeli from his Facebook profile — Mr. Alooshe plays in a band called Hovevey Zion, or the Lovers of Zion — and some of the accolades turned to curses. A few also found the video distasteful.

But the reactions have largely been positive, including a personal message Mr. Alooshe said he received from someone he assumed to be a Libyan saying that if and when the Qaddafi regime falls, the liberated Libyans would dance to Zenga-Zenga.

The original clip features mirror images of a scantily clad woman dancing along to Colonel Qaddafi’s rant. Mr. Alooshe said he got many requests from surfers who asked him to provide a version without the dancer so that they could show it to their parents, which he did. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GcUutnU2gk).

Rush Fans Meet Rush

Jason Segal and Paul Rudd, reprising their characters from I Love You, Man, meet Rush backstage (HT: Mrs. Lawhawk):

Jason Segel & Paul Rudd Meet Rush from Jason Segel

Jib Jab Says Goodbye To 2010

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Snakes and Graphs - A Mathematical Interlude

This is pretty damned cool. Like most folks, I doodled in class, but whereas I doodled people and planes, she doodled snakes and mathematical constructs. That gave her a head's up on how to draw out the Death Eaters:

When Lego and Star Wars Meets

It's a humorous take on the original films and features some loved (and one much reviled new) Star Wars characters.

If Harry Potter Did Facebook Updates, Part I

Ah, the joys of blogging and facebooking your status.

Here's a quick and dirty recap of Harry's postings to date:

Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone:
Harry: I'm home. I don't know why I'm here, or what that scar is though.
Harry: I hate my aunt and uncle, and especially my cousin.
Harry: Owls? You mean magicians haven't heard of phones? Or twitter?
Harry: Invited to Hogwarts. Gotta catch a train. And get books.
Harry: Friended Hagrid. Big dude. Kinda odd though.
Harry: Just found out I've got a huge bank account. I'm loaded.
Harry: Loaded up on school supplies, and got a wand.
Harry: Just friended Ron and Hermoine.
Harry: Joined Gryffindor. Brilliant.
Harry: I hate potions. And Snape.
Harry: I'm gonna have to watch out for Draco. Oh, and I just got a cool broom.
Harry: Just made Gryffindor Quidditch team as seeker. After just a few minutes on a broom no less. Brilliant.
Harry: Who's Voldemort, and why does he want to kill me?
Harry: What's a Sorcerer's Stone? Let me use this new invisibility cloak to figure this out.
Harry: Hermoine sure knows how to use spells and charms.
Harry: They play a mean game of chess here. Hope Ron's okay.
Harry: Damnit, I thought I liked DADA teacher Quirrel.
Harry: Wish that Dumbledore would be more careful with those spells and charms. Oh, and a heads up about Voldemort would be nice.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
Harry: Back at Hogwarts after another miserable experience with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. Oh, and I can speak in tongues.
Harry: What the heck are muggles and why is someone so angry at them for being here?
Harry: New school year, new DADA teacher, same old Snape. Snape really hates me. What'd I ever do to him?
Harry: Wow. Is the school safe? All these people are getting petrified, and no one seems to know how to stop it.
Harry: Now Hermoine is petrified. Great. I need her help.
Harry: Just found a diary, but its pages are blank. Maybe this will help.
Harry: Who is Tom Riddle?
Harry: So, there I thought Hagrid was a nice guy and this book says otherwise. Wonderful.
Harry: Sat down with Hagrid before he's hauled off to Azkaban. He says check out his friend, a spider in the forest.
Harry: Wow. Lucky to be back. Just talked with the spider. Gave me plenty to chew on, before he sent his offspring to chew on Ron and me. Perfect timing for Ron's car to show up and save the day though.
Harry: What's this? Hermoine left a note saying to look for a basilisk. Wonderful. It's a snake.
Harry: Great. Now, Ron's sister Ginny is missing (and she's kinda cute too).
Harry: Now off with Ron and DADA teacher Lockhart.
Harry: Lockhart's useless.
Harry: Nice to know that speaking in tongues can open (trap doors). So that's where the Chamber of Secrets is.
Harry: Lockhart tries to throw a spell on us, but using Ron's wand is a bad idea.
Harry: Dumbledore's pet Fawkes is here. So is Tom Riddle. Brilliant. Now, I just have to kill the basilisk before Ginny dies.
Harry: The basilisk is dead, thanks to the Sword of Gryffindor. Guess I picked wisely with the Sorting Hat.
Harry: So, now Dumbledore sits down to explain things? A heads up would be nice. I almost died but for Fawkes' tears. They should bottle those tears - they could make a fortune.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
Harry: Who is Sirius Black? He's escaped from Azkaban and someone put a bee in his bonnet.
Harry: I've got to get out of this house, so let me catch the night bus.
Harry: Diagon Alley never looked so nice.
Harry: Whew. Finally made it to Hogwarts. What a ride though on the Hogwarts Express. Passed out when something tried to suck my soul dry.
Harry: Good thing that Lupin was around. He's the new DADA teacher. Maybe he'll stick around. Seems like a nice guy.
Harry: Snape's still here, and he still can't stand me. Feelings are mutual.
Harry: Security is tighter, but why do I not feel a whole lot safer?
Harry: Why is everyone trying to get me? Can't even play a Quidditch match without those dementors trying to kill me. Glad that Dumbledore managed to save my life, but my broom is toast. I really liked it.
Harry: Lupin's teaching me some new tricks. It's hard though. I got a map.
Harry: Ah, so Sirius Black is the guy who gave up my parents to Voldemort who then killed him. I'm gonna kill him.
Harry: Ron's lost his rat. He blames Hermoine's cat though. What is it with those two. They act like a married couple.
Harry: Wow. Didn't see that coming. Ron's rat is missing a thumb. The only evidence they ever found of Peter P. was a thumb. Hmmmm.
Harry: Lupin stops me from killing Sirius, but that's because the real traitor was Peter. Damnit, now I'm going to have to find a new DADA because Lupin's turned into a werewolf. Oh, and Sirius is an animagus? WTF?
Harry: Wish I had more time to fix things. Oh wait, I do - with Hermoine's help.
Harry: Glad I made friends with Buckbeak, because he just saved my bacon.
Harry: Sirius is my godfather? Cool. Now if I can clear his name.
Harry: Just saved Buckbeak and Sirius in one shot. Brilliant.