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30
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30
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29
Best Movie of the Year Candidate
“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” just might be the craziest fucking movie I’ve seen in years. It will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I dug it heavy. This just might be the most non-mainstream movie ever to be mainstream. The main character will have you debating for hours. Is he good? Is he bad? All I have to say is that answer is complex as shit and will leave you with a mindfuck to ponder for a long time.
I really hope Nicholas Cage gets nominated for best actor because this just might be the best role of his career. Nobody else could have played this part. If this isn’t the best movie of the year, it easily contains my favorite performance of the year. Cage just fucking owns this movie.
The trailer is below, but I honestly think the less you read about the movie or know about the movie going in, the better the experience will be. Watch at your own risk (of getting certain parts of the movie shown to you).
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29
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27
I have to be honest, I didn’t see this one coming…
“Bill Francis, a research librarian at the Baseball Hall of Fame, passed this article on to Michael Chabon, who passed it on to [Jeffery Goldberg, theatlantic.com]. It’s from the September 1, 1926 edition of The Washington Post: “
Nov
27
Well I, for one, am glad that this finally “came out…”
…I mean, now people might forget that Obama wasn’t born in America
Nov
23
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23
Nov
22
Interesting Delivery System
We all know the Japanese like crazy burgers—and even crazier vending machines—and here’s a fun mix of the two. This machine in Tokyo actually backs onto a kitchen where a cook pops them into the machine by hand.
Drop 100 Yen and you’ll get a Tateishi Hamburger in no time, but if you want another, you’ll have to walk into the restaurant and wait. It all seems a little gimmicky, but apparently the machine serves up 20-30 burgers a day. Weird.
[Japan Probe via CrunchGear via Gizmodo]
Nov
22
Tommy?
There’s a great read over at Cheap Talk about how digital pinball machines changed the industry, back when there still was an industry. They were big tables where you flick a ball around, but they were smarter than you think.
In the olden days of pinball, there wasn’t much to adjust. Free game scores were hard wired into the machine and couldn’t be changed. But with the introduction of Williams High Speed in 1986, things got more complicated.
The new machines would dynamically adjust the free play score based on an algorithm. It also introduced a method where if you had already scored a free game, it was impossible to win a random free game.
The post goes into much more detail over at Cheap Talk, but ultimately, these algorithms, exploits, and the layouts of the tables themselves got so complicated that new players couldn’t figure out how to master them. And, as we all know, pinball faded into the night. If you’re at all a fan of pinball, it’s an interesting read. Head over to check it out.
[Cheap Talk via Retro Thing via Gizmodo]
Nov
21
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17
John Mayer
Hate all you want, but I happen to be a John Mayer fan (especially of his first EP “Inside Wants Out” and, of course, “Room for Squares). His new album happens to be my favorite since “Room”, with key tracks including “Heartbreak Warfare”, “Half of My Heart”, and “War of My Life”. A real solid listen, and like all of the best Mayer, it is better suited for when your chilling as opposed to when you are about to go out. Leave this off the “Pregame” playlist.
My two favorite Mayer tracks:
“Quiet” from “Inside Wants Out”
“Back to You” from “Room For Squares”
Nov
15
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13
A Shtick With a Thousand Lives
MEL BROOKS and Carl Reiner have been cracking each other up for nearly 60 years. The two met while working on Sid Caesar’s early television series “Your Show of Shows,” when they cooked up a routine in which Mr. Reiner played an earnest, unnamed TV interviewer, and Mr. Brooks, the 2,000 Year Old Man.
In a Yiddish accent, the old guy held forth on the questionable wisdom of an absurdly long life, touching on topics including parenthood (“I have over 42,000 children — and not one comes to visit me”), Shakespeare (“He was a dreadful writer.” “Every letter was cockeyed, he had the worst penmanship I ever saw in my life!”) and the Black Plague (“Too many rats, not enough cats”). Read more »