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Archive → September, 2008

Sometimes installing Windows XP is hard

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters was a children’s television series that ran from 1973 to 1975. The show was a Sid and Marty Krofft production and was shown on Saturday mornings. There were 29 episodes spanning two seasons.

Its basic premise was that Sigmund (Billy Barty), a friendly (if somewhat cowardly) sea monster who runs away from his comically dysfunctional undersea family, is discovered and befriended by brothers Johnny (Johnny Whitaker) and Scott Stuart (Scott Kolden), who let Sigmund stay in their hideout.

Plotlines were very simple and straightforward, usually some variation on the idea of Sigmund doing something silly to arouse attention and the boys working to prevent him from being found by Sigmund’s brothers, Blurp (Bill Germaine, Larry Larsen) and Slurp (Fred Spencer, Paul Gale). The brothers also worked feverishly to hide Sigmund from their overbearing housekeeper Zelda (Mary Wickes), elderly neighbor Mrs. Eldels (Margaret Hamilton) and Sheriff Chuck Bevans (Joe Higgins).

In Season Two, Rip Taylor joined the cast as a magical ‘Sea Genie’ named Sheldon who lives inside a sea shell. He’s shown in the end credits of this episode:

How fun is that theme?? There were two different themes to the show, both of which were sung by Whittaker. The first season’s theme was called “Friends”, but was replaced the second season version shown here, featuring a song more pertinent to the story line.

REM & Muppets – Furry happy monsters

Ice climbing choices

These people made the right choice on which side to climb…

After some time we finally found a waterfall, directly by the sea on a bay in the middle of a steep cliff. It was a strange formation—about 100 meters high of weird formed ice with icicles growing in every direction. We were highly motivated to do the first ascent of this spectacular waterfall.

For climbing we knew that we had to be on the left side of the waterfall always. To the right the ice did not look so good anymore. After we chose our line to climb, we were so psyched for the climbing that we abseiled down despite knowing that there was quite strong sunlight at the exit of the waterfall. The temps where ok, around -2°C, but we underestimated the strong sun.

But after some meters of climbing, a rumbling shocked us—the giant threw a monstrous load of ice against us. An ice roof fell down and crashed to the right of us into thousands of boulders. It was on the very right side at the exit of the waterfall where this huge ice roof broke off.

Text art: Marylin Monroe in Word


Twilight Series Cheat Sheet

Impress some girl with your vast knowledge of Twilight Vampire-love book series by pretending you read every one of them and thoroughly enjoyed every page when really you just skimmed over these cribbed notes with this awesome 1 paragraph summary of each book in the Twilight series. Woot!

Don’t be fooled by this trailer that actually makes the movie version look cool:

The Smoggies

The Smoggies or Stop the Smoggies (US title, cuz American kids are too dumb to understand that the Smoggies are bad so you shouldn’t love them just cuz the show is named after them) was an animated children’s television show by Cinar that started airing in 1988. It is originally from Canada but the show aired in the United States under the name ‘Stop the Smoggies’ in 1994 as well as in France as ‘SOS Polluards.’

The show revolved around a group of island-dwelling people called Suntots who spent the majority of their time defending their island paradise from the filthy, treasure seeking Smoggies who pollute the water around the island and who try to destroy their home for their own benefits. Almost every episode had the Suntots outsmart the Smoggies in their latest scheme, after which the Smoggies would invariably hatch another scheme to steal the island’s ‘magic coral’ (which the Smoggies believe will grant eternal youth) or to harvest the rare Echo-Tree, a species of plant that is similar to magic coral in its youth-giving properties. It also explains the importance of protecting the environment. The show often implied that neither of these things actually existed, however, and were just manifestations of the Smoggie’s greed and vanity.

Watch some episodes whydontcha?:

The main title theme was written by the man who wrote themes for Sesame Street, Shining Time Station, Three’s Company and The Electric Company Joe Raposo and composed by the woman who wrote themes for Arthur, Mona the Vampire, The Busy World of Richard Scarry and Wimzie’s House Judy Henderson.

Smoggies, Smoggies,
Smoky, oily, greasy…

Have you met the Smoggies?
We love the soot and grime,
We make the whole world dirty,
And we have a real good time.

We love to make things messy,
Just as dirty as can be,
And you can bet we’ll mess you up
ecologically.

Suntots, Suntots,
Earth and wind and sea and,
Make way for the Suntots,
A neat and tidy crew,
We’ll stay young forever,
And we want the same for you.

If we get your magic coral,
Then forever young we’ll be,
Do you think you’ll find it somewhere
In our clear blue sea?

We use the water, wind and sun,
To make our homes and gadgets run,
Where else can you have such fun,
Environmentally?

Come and see our island,
And smell the sweet, sweet breeze,
Where we’ll live for ever,
Just as happy as can be.

With the Suntots and the Smoggies,
Choose the way the world could be,
A messy mess or shiny clear,
Ecologically.

Suntots, Suntots,
Earth and wind and sea, and
Smoggies, Smoggies,
Smoky, oily, greasy…

The Large Hadron

Sad news: “Black Hole Death Machine” Claims First Victim, as Teen Commits Suicide Due to Fears of the End of the Universe. Sort of a point here: “Her father… said that his daughter, Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programs.” — Yeah, if I believed half of the crap the media tells me, I’d have been dangling from the garage roof years ago. Dick in hand, of course. When I go, I’m going “Hutchens style.” Live by the sword, die by the sword.

But what exactly IS the Large Hadron? besides some gigantic science fair project that I keep reading as “large hard on” every time I see it, its also an experiment to find out the secrets of the universe. woot!

PS: don’t kill yourself over it.

Damon (political scholar/acteuur), fears competancy of Palin (hockey mom/possible VP)

matt damon, team america world police, quote on sarah palin

The quote in the picture is real: Matt Damon says the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for vice president in the United States could end up “like a really bad Disney movie” if John McCain wins the November presidential election.

We missed the sub-par Disney movie about the hockey mom that saves the day (I think it was the Lion King), but what of Damon’s larger concern about the VP choice?

Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin, retorted “It’s not surprising that the Barack Obama and his celebrity supporters continue to tear down Gov. Palin with little more than blatant name-calling,” she said. “It’s clear they’re threatened by a candidate who actually has a record of achieving reform and change, while Barack Obama just talks about it.” Oh no u di-int gurlfrennnnd! lolz!

Our favorite part of the Damon-as-pundit hilarity is that apparently he was totally duped by an obvious satire blog post he read about Palin and totally thought was realz. Watch the video and you’ll see him extol his fear about a person possibly being Vic President who might think dinosaurs roamed the land 4,000 years ago (clearly one of the hot policy conflicts facing our nation today. your priorities ROCK Matt!).

HotAir asks, could a Harvard grad be so stupid as to have read this and taken it at face value?

On oil exploration and drilling in the ANWR:
God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.

That comes from this. A viral e-mail supposedly containing “real quotes” from an Anchorage newspaper. For Damons sake, we will ask you to ignore the title of this post– “FAKE Sarah Palin Quote” — and the disclaimer at the end — “She didn’t really say these things — I made them up. But thanks for all the visits.”

CNN mentions the book burning thing was a viral el fibo as well…

Ace comments:

Not Only Is this Obviously a Joke… But it’s a variation on an old joke. Some years back, Jimmy Fallon, on SNL’s Weekend Update, cracked a joke that a state would allow teaching evolution, but only if the curriculum called dinosaurs “Jesus horses.”

Hilarious. I’ve quoted that before.

This blogger did a variation of that joke (no offense — it’s not theft if you change it up, and kudos to that blogger for having the taste to recognize a great joke when he or she heard it).

The point is, it’s a fucking joke. It’s a goof. It’s obviously a goof. The line comes directly from an SNL punchline (well, slightly retrofitted and with the factory serial number filed off).

But this genius, Matt Damon, who spends his off hours splitting atoms… with his mind, couldn’t recognize an obvious (and old) joke for what it was.

For him, it wasn’t a joke.

It was an Important Action Alert and Pretty Vicious Rant.

Celebrities are paid to entertain us, and it’s hard to say that this doesn’t so…mission accomplished? Aside from the inevitable question you then have to ask: Are They This Stupid? You think they’d have learned the simple proposition that one should check uncited claims made in internet emails before parroting them. Do they not remember Barbra Streisand’s quote of “Shakespeare” warning us all not to vote for Bush?

Sorry Matty! For astute political analysis and biting condemnation on political positions, WE know who to turn to…

Bottled Water