September 30, 2005
This is why I hate movie trailers
I don't want to come across as one of those perpetually unimpressed cultural snoots, but I have always hated movie trailers. Many people I love and respect, FLOGette included, love to eat up trailers like popcorn. But I have always hated them.
To me, they are capable of making even the best films look like shit.
Alternatively, they are capable of making even the worst films look great, if you are susceptible to the manipulation. (I am. Especially with the sci-fi and the scary stuff.)
The trouble is that they boil everything down to a few key shots, cue up some mood-manipulating music, and read over it a back-cover teaser written by some hack who hasn't actually seen the thing. Many recent critiques of current trailers complain that they give away too much compared to those mossy old "good ol' days." Not so. The trouble is that they tell a completely different story than the actual movie.
Anyway, all of this is pointless preamble to the clip that proves all of my points for me.
Judging from comments
I have three, maybe four discrete readers at this point. I totally used to have twelve.
Tell your friends, guys: FLOG is back and pointlesser than ever.
Stupefying things I cannot unsee . . . REVEALED!
Some guesses are in so I suppose it's time to reveal what these are.
Video #1
Guesses included: a burrowing clam, reverse quicksand, and mud.
WWB is the lucky winner of nothing. Yes, it is quicksand. And by "reverse" I think you're getting at the direction of flow. Of course, most quicksand doesn't flow; it's just suspended in nonmoving water. This stuff, however, was positively pressurized by a small artesian spring that bubbled out of the sand alongside the Yachats River. WHEN YA CHATS, YA CHATS!
The Oregon coast features a lot of flood basalt (hot lava, hot lava!) overlying older, softer mudstone. If water flows downhill through mudstone under a basalt cap, and finds a crack in the lava, it'll shoot out of the ground, in this case really doing a number on the sand above, as this handy diagram shows:
Video #2
Guesses included: a burrowing muskrat, a new volcano, and el chupacabra.
Well, it's none of those. It's the same damn thing as Video #1. Zuma's quite the geologist. He lost a rock down the hole, and was quite anxious to get it back. But geology vexed him! Ironical!
Video #3
Guesses included: a snot mine, a snot mine, and a, er, SnotMoss mine.
Sounds good to me. Photographed in a tunnel in the German Alps, these drooling rocks have me stumped. The water trickling through the rock is obviously loaded down with something to the point that it's a disgusting viscous goo. And until a scientician comes along to give me a better answer, I'm gonna conclude that the "something" is snot, from Snotium deposits deep in the earth. This diagram should help demonstrate the process:
Thanks for joining me again in The Terrifying World of Science.
A new category:
In which I think up two random words and search for them, and share with you the best textual and visual results. (Yep, I done been brainstorming techniques for generating content with minimal effort.)
Today's search terms: "rabbit" "tossing".
Which lead us to:
Text: planetdan: Cats are bastards. It's a good read. Excerpt:
[I]t didn't clear the bush, and so it just landed on top, dangling from the branches.You need context. I think I'm putting this guy in the links. After all, he's ahead of me on this stuff.
Visual: Toss-up between this and this. Yeah, they're both lame. But how interesting to see the rabbits turn the tables like that -- the tossed becomes the tosser.
My hope is that this concept will improve over time. Remember "otter sex"?
Changes made
I made some changes to the linkfest on the right . . . expansion and consolidation. All changes were made with the best intentions for reasons I hope should be apparent. If not, lay on the hate mail.
September 29, 2005
A post for today . . .
. . . Just under the wire. See, it is FLOG's new goal to post at least one thing every day, or at least every day I'm near a computer. We'll see how it goes, but to make it easy on me I'm allowing myself to post little more than a pointless photo if that's all I got.
So here's today's pointless photo post. It's taken from the Thames just upriver from Parliament, where a whole lot of very bizarre new condos are going up. They're bizarre enough to lead me to suspect that New New York is actually taking shape in London right now.
CLICK!
September 28, 2005
Stupefying things I cannot unsee
WHAT . . .
in the hell is this?
Click it . . . if you dare!
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WHAT . . .
could whip a sensible dog into a frenzy of scientific consternation?
Click it . . . if you must!
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WHAT . . .
exactly are we looking at here?
Click it . . . if you really want to know!
September 27, 2005
Rhyme time, people!
While I haven't gone poet per se, I have been speaking in rhyme more lately. It's kind of driving FLOGette nuts, but I realized that with Johnny Cochran dead there's room out there for a rhyming attorney. Unfortunately, these days I'm dealing with arcane issues of administrative procedural law -- not necessarily rhyme-ready. What rhymes with "interrogatory?" Besides "derogatory."
The rhyming all started during a Saturday night "Cocaine" karaoke performance featuring some freestyling during the instrumental break:
When you're lacking in hairI'm tempted to start collecting these. "Cocaine" has a monster 28-measure rest; you risk losing the audience. (I don't know how Pete does it.) Submissions in comments will be added to this post.
You wanna be debonair
Rogaine!When you're looking to eat
Taste the meat not the heat
Propane!
UPDATE: I have these:
When you're singing a songI've also got some good tasteless ones based on Cobain and Tulane, but I want to try and keep this crowd friendly. (We'll see.)
And the verse is all gone
Refrain!When you've got some particles
To separate from the real article
Membrane!
Who will tell the people?
This marvelous individual has left the vicinity.
Now how will I know when to go the bar?
I am lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I am empty and aching and I know exactly why
Counting the scotches I drank after midnight
We are all gone, to look for an aspirin
All gone, to look for an aspirin
UPDATE: Lest anyone decide I've gone poet, the foregoing is based on this.
The single greatest six seconds on television
The single greatest six seconds on television either:
1. Are going on right now, between 1:22 AM and 1:23 AM on KEVU Eugene, featuring an informercial put on by midget real estate magnates, or
2. Transpired this evening at about 8:15 on PBS, when an aged Bob Dylan, reminiscing about the girls he dated in high school, said "those two girls really brought out the poet in me," and then stared hard and blank at the camera, silent, for a fully awkward five seconds.
All in all, though, Dylan was surprisingly articulate. I was expecting a lotta "hrrmn hoo, went downta makka souh, people really er mal rouh, talkin oo, talkin wiffle, sometime, really kinda make a floom!" But no. There was the one chink in the armor when he was talking about the Woodie Guthrie autobio Bound for Glory. It went something like:
So Dave Van Ronk gave me the Woodie Guthrie book, Bound for Glory. And I really liked Bound for Glory book.Always inspiring when a lyrical genius talks like a cave man. I've decided to adopt this style myself. "I just got back from down the street walk after law class. After food dinner, I think I might kick back and watch Blind Date television before I do bed sleep. Unless you want to watch Bullitt movie. In the morning, though, I do have book meeting. Cake food? Sure, I'd love some."
What I need is what you need
FLOG really wants to come back to you. There are things I need to get off my chest. But I can only do so if someone can help me to edit video on my computer without having to buy anything. I just have three .mov files in need of work. Bootlegs and serial #s welcome.
Then I will rock your world. Honest.
ANNOUNCEMENT!!
Somebody told me I oughtta get myself a plot on myspace. So I done. That is here:
FLOGette, also:
This post is properly punctuated. I ended up with surplus if you need it: ..
ANNOUNCEMENT!
A while back I got me some set up on the flickr.
That lives here:
Not much there now but it'll grow, given enough light, water, and poop.