Monday, June 30, 2014

Even though Fox gave a 13-episode series order to ancient Egypt set adventure series Hieroglyph during pilot season this year, it has now pulled the plug and canceled the show, before any episodes had even aired (it was set to debut during midseason). 
Only the pilot had been shot

Tumblr devoted to Tinder pics of guys with tigers



New Tumblr:
Documenting the absurdly large number of dudes who have taken a picture with a tiger and are attempting to use said picture to woo women on the internet.

Brazil's starting keeper was nearly out of soccer and reduced to practicing in the park with his son...




"Júlio César, the starting goalkeeper for World Cup host Brazil, nearly ended his national team career after feeling the brunt of his team's exit from the 2010 tournament in South Africa. His move from Inter Milan to Queens Park Rangers did not go well, and his career sunk to a new low before it found new life in an unexpected place — Toronto FC and MLS."

Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Guardian:
China sends dissidents on free holidays
Activists tell of 'being travelled' – sent on lavish trips, chaperoned by police – to keep them out of the government's way
The National Corvette Museum will keep the sinkhole and display the most damaged cars in it.
"The Strain Eyeball Billboards To Be Taken Down After Complaints."


New Tumblr.
Artnet:
Kazakhstan Takes Down Statue Ridiculed as “Hobbit Selfie”

...

Meant to depict local author and educator Abai Qunanbaiuli and Russian exile Yevgeny Mikhaelis, a scientist and supporter of democracy, two 19th-century historical figures, the statue was sculpted in part by Vladimir Samoylov

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Link roundup

1. io9 posted a gallery of location concept art made for the Ron Howard Dark Tower franchise. Susannah is walking in the images.

2. "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

3. LA Times:
Orange County's transition to making its network of toll roads cashless has now resulted in more than 13,000 violations a day — a figure that has prompted the toll agency to ease first-time penalty fees through the summer. 
The Transportation Corridor Agencies closed down its tollbooths in mid-May in favor of a cashless system in which commuters would either use transponders or go online to pay tolls.

How Long Will You Survive In The Chamber?



Great quiz at The Clickhole (I survived 5 hours).

The Magicians tattoo



Link.

Discovering "beauty" around the world


Elle:
Esther Honig is a 24-year-old radio journalist in Kansas City, Missouri. But a few months ago, while working with internationally based graphic designers for her job, she came up with an idea: See how people around the globe define female beauty. 
She started by sending a self-portrait (above) to a designer in Sri Lanka. "Hi," she wrote, "my name is Esther Honig... make me look beautiful." The result was a hauntingly beautiful Photoshopped image of herself, with pink lips and tinge of green eyeshadow. She began sending her picture to Photoshoppers in more countries.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Seinfeld episode with Lawrence Tierney as Elaine's gruff author father was based on Larry David's real girlfriend's father. The incident with the jacket really happened.


Demonic Queen by Brad Rigney, who has various prints on sale here.

The lesson of Scooby-Doo

"If something evil is happening, it’s probably an old white man trying to make money."

Nike Air Max '97 JD SP 'Rio'

A visit to the ladies-only football clinic hosted by Rob Gronkowski


Lana Berry visited Gronkfest:
On top of the Gronk-tinis, the impressive open bar offers several types of wine, beer, and mixed drinks. Aren't we supposed to do football drills after this? Not important. Keep drinking. I see women polish off four or five Gronk-tinis. There is also a room with a huge spread of catered food, all of it with reasonable calorie counts (for the ladies), but most of the women appear to be sticking to the alcohol. 
... 
And then I hear the familiar sounds of "Teach Me How to Dougie," a song that had permanently etched itself into my brain and probably yours three years ago. But wait... this is not "Teach Me How to Dougie." This is some kind of Rob Gronkowski remix. This is a thing. I begin to wonder if the tackling drills gave me a concussion. This can't be actually happening. 
But it is happening. The women have started to dance. Both Gronkowski brothers have joined in. This is what we were warned about. THE DANCE OFF IS HAPPENING.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Link roundup

1. America's scariest motel is The Clown Motel. "As if it couldn't be any more horrifying, The Clown Motel shares a lot with a cemetery full of gold miners who died from a plague."

2. The Guardian (which goes to speculate the owner may have kept the photographs for blackmail purposes):
CIA facial software uncovers the artist Francis Bacon – in drag
A photograph in a Guardian article about Soho photographer John Deakin has been revealed as a picture of artist Francis Bacon in drag.
3. "Kanye West revealed that his and Kim Kardashian's second wedding photo—which is the current world record holder for Most Liked Photo on Instagram—took over four days to compose"

4. Solothurn, Switzerland, is looking to hire a full-time hermit, to live in their hermitage. The job description includes, “Along with acting as caretaker and sacristan, responsibilities include interaction with the many visitors.”

Saturday, June 21, 2014

The protective baseball hat looks ludicrous







Thunderbolts-style Agent Venom custom action figure by Gabe's Customs.

Gawker's recurring restaurant series

Gawker has an ongoing series of restaurant reviews by Caity Weaver and Rich Juzwiak. From their review of the United Nations Dining Room:
Rich: I realized I had a knife in my bag on the way to the United Nations. It's a pocket knife—a nice one—and while I've never used it (I've never had to), I did not want to give it up. But I knew we'd be searched. I also worried about leaving it in the cab and having someone pick it up and kill someone with it. That knife is safer on me than not, but I'm not safe with it. 
I spent my last few minutes in the cab quietly regarding my knife and decided to place it in the trash underneath some other trash in the hope that when we were done, I could go back and retrieve my beloved knife that I've never used. 
Caity: Here is what I thought as I watched you (from across the street) root around in a trashcan: Why did Rich just walk over to that trashcan and start digging in it? Is he looking for cans to recycle for money? Is he looking for food? I bet Rich wouldn't want me to watch him do this. :(
Lox at The Jewish Museum:
The sandwich was kind of...hard. It was cute when you asked me, while picking at my plate (which, for the record, I invited you to do), "Got any more loose onions?" mostly because it reminded me of a time that a woman asked me, "Got any spare pants?" when I was in a parking lot of a North Philly mini-mart. "Got any more loose onions?" was my favorite part of my sandwich. 
Caity: The most confusing part of the sandwich for me was when you launched into that entertaining story about spare pants, which bore no evident relation to anything we were talking about or doing. I kept waiting for the detail that would make it all fall into place. Finally I just had to ask, "Why did you tell that story?" ("Because of the loose onions!" Oh, OK.)
Grand Central's Campbell Apartment:
Caity: It is an odd feeling to be completely alone in a restaurant. No other patrons, which is understandable for a bar at 2 pm on a Tuesday, but also: No employees. 100% alone. 
Rich: I could have taken off my offending pants and offended no one besides you. 
Caity: It felt like, if we ever tried to go back, all we'd find would be a burnt out, boarded-up elegant office/jail. "That place? Burned down 50 years ago this week." This would also explain our initial ghostly interaction with the silent, nodding waiter.
The Statue of Liberty's Crown Cafe:
Rich: We wolfed down our food and immediately rushed...back into a line. 
Caity: The line for the return ferry was EVEN MORE COMICALLY LONG than the line to get out there in the first place. It stretched for 9000 city blocks, culminating in a near perfect circle. 
Rich: A circle of hell.
The Armani Store:
Caity: When our team of three waiters brought out your soup, Lucio put down your bowl—empty but for a minuscule portion of asparagus—and exclaimed, "Here's the soup!" Then we all laughed (in Italian) and one of his assistants poured it in. 
He felt comfortable joking with us because he could tell we were low-class. It was like the scene in Lady and the Tramp when the restaurateur gives them a plate of spaghetti at a romantic table for two. "It is a funny joke to pretend you are people!" Lucio's eyes laughed.

The new Dazzler design is intended to be easy to cosplay



Kris Anka on his new Dazzler design:
When I was brought onto uncanny, the first thing I was asked to do was design a new “punk” dazzler that was specifically easy to cosplay

Friday, June 20, 2014

They made a Toy Story Combat Carl figure



The Disney/Pixar Toy Story of Terror Figure 3-Pack is $19.99 and eligible for free shipping at Amaozn.


Poster for Pixar's upcoming short film Lava, directed by James Ford Murphy, and to air before Inside Out next summer.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Clickhole



Clickhole.

Link roundup

1. LAist:
A water main in Burbank [Los Angeles] burst shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday evening, creating a massive sinkhole and turning a nearby street into a temporary waterpark....Even though water was temporarily knocked out to 69 homes in the area, residents didn't seem to mind as they took advantage of the urban torrent and turned Ontario Street into a temporary waterpark of sorts. Children used inner-tubes and bodyboards to play in the water.
2. NY Times:
To Bolster Its Claims, China Plants Islands in Disputed Waters
3. A Redditor talks about the life of a young basketball prospect:
Every game is the same: You think this could either make or break your entire basketball career. Case in point, the summer heading into my senior year, I had 4 colleges recruiting me. Then, playing in a minor tournament, a had a 40-point game. All the sudden I had 25+ teams recruiting me. 
... 
Sometimes you're playing as many as 10 of these games in a weekend, and you're dead by the 4th or 5th game. The only thing that keeps you going is your heart and your dream.
You do this for 4 months during the hottest time of the year and the time that supposed to be your "off time."


The BBC posted part 1 of a radio play of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Jim Rugg's cover for Transformers vs. G.I. Joe

Nike's CMYK socks

Twitter announced its new gif support by ripping off a gif artist





Link roundup

1. "Alaska will soon become the second state to give away free pregnancy tests in bars. The program, organized by Healthy Brains For Children, is intended to reduce fetal alcohol syndrome in Alaska, which has the highest rate of the condition in the country."

2. A stuntwoman is suing SyFy for burns suffered while filming an episode of Face Off.

3. Neil Gaiman:
Chipmunks circle my writing cabin in the woods, making me feel like the bad guy in a cartoon.

Stuffed crust pizza and the McGriddle were created by the same man

Both were created by Tom Ryan, the founder of Smashburger.

Two possible reason why the USA's men's team isn't better at soccer

our youth national teams can compete with almost anyone in the world until they turn 18. 
The drop off is easy to explain. It is all because of college soccer, where the vast majority of elite players in America end up. I could write an entire book on how college soccer destroys the United State's ability to compete on the world stage, but I will boil it down to this: The NCAA only allows college soccer teams to compete for 3-4 months of the year (with spring exhibitions allowed). So from a sheer numbers perspective, while other countries make their 18 year olds pro players with salaries who play year round, we limit our elite players in the prime of their professional development to 3-4 months of high level training and games a year. 
... 
What happens as a result of this is that in their prime professional development age, American soccer players don't play by the same rules as the rest of the world. Whereas soccer at the top level is largely a players game, college soccer gives much more power to the coaches. As a result, our players don't learn how to think and read the game in real time because in college soccer, if something isn't going right, the coach can make a sub. If someone is tired, the coach can make a sub. This creates an unrealistic picture of the game at the college level which has much more to do with coaching decisions and physical exertion than it does with playing the nuances of the game. For example, the college game usually is high press, intense, and brutally physical because guys can essentially run their heads off and then get subbed off when they are tired, then come back on and do the same thing. This is completely unrealistic at the elite level when you have to conserve energy and think about what you are doing in real time. As a result, American soccer teams, even at the elite level, tend to be incredibly fit, strong, and organized, but we lose because we are very unoriginal, unintelligent (soccer wise), and technically not as good as the teams we play.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Enjoy the imperial agent storyline from Star Wars: The Old Republic

I never gave Star Wars: The Old Republic much of a chance because I hated the MMO-mechanic gameplay of the first few minutes, and screenshots like this repulsed me:



But I got Star Wars fever thanks to the recent movie news, searched Youtube, and discovered that "Marz" had uploaded a series of The Old Republic videos. Marz has largely edited out the boring bits, and focused on the various characters' storylines. For example, you can watch as a Sith warrior chafes under her master's rule and slaughters her way to primacy.

I watched the Imperial Agent's story. Appropriately, it's filled with brain washings, mind control, and implanted memories as the agent struggles to protect the Empire while navigating the moods of fickle Sith.

Not every character costume is something to be proud of:



And I prefer my companion design to be a little more subtle:





But there are plenty of narrow escapes:




And dangerous enemies:


Definitely a good cheap way to satisfy your Star Wars craving while awaiting the movie.

I also picked up the Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia. $28 for a 352-page hardcover featuring profiles of the game's classes, companions, and ships.

Monday, June 16, 2014



Angus MacLane's latest addition to his Lego couch series is an Alien tribute--Kane.

Sunday, June 15, 2014



Transformers vs. G.I. Joe #0: FCBD Special is free at Comixology.

Swerve

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition

A Slate article from 2010:
Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.

Alternate universe movie posters



Alternate universe movie posters by Peter Stults on sale here.