Harmon Leon

Harmon Leon has a level of charisma that I, one day, hope to achieve. How gutsy do you have to be to apply for a job at a fast food place and then try to get fired as fast as possible? VERY. Harmon Leon is an infiltrative writer. I suppose he's the only one, since I've never heard of one of those before. He creates fake identities, then worms his way into places he's not supposed to be, then writes about it. He generated some press a few years back when he infiltrated a major Scientology center as Dieter Lietershvantz, the German frontman for Nein! Nein! Nein!, a band that has dug out a niche for itself with its gothic-syntho-industrial-rock stylings. Honestly, it's a wonder the man never gets caught, or at least loses track of his own outrageously fake stories. Anyway, you can find a listing of his articles here, but a lot of the links are broken. Here are the best ones: The Armed Farces, an exposé of the substandard hiring policies of the Marines, Army and Navy; Survivor With Apes And A Robot, where Harmon pitches three of the worst show ideas he can think of to some Hollywood studios (and actually gets one approved before he panics and quits); Get Fired In Three Hours Or Less, which is pretty self-explanatory; and my favorite, Major League Jackass, where he spends an inning as a major league mascot. If you're only gonna read one, make it that one.

Bad Scrabble Hands

Wow. Some people need to learn that the internet is not a right, it's a privilege. Until that time, we can keep laughing at people who decide to submit pictures of the worst Scrabble hands they've ever had. This one pic sums it up, so you don't need to go to the site unless you're a hardcore Scrabble fan or someone with seriously NOTHING to do.

This one's pretty bad too:

Also, holy smokes, it's my 100th post.

Troy Hurtubise

Who is Troy Hurtubise? He is the man with the plan, a smooth-as-silk operator who dazzles both admirer and contractor alike, leaving them wanting more. He is an inventor. He invented this:

This guy is the real life Iron Man. The picture above is of his Trojan suit, the armor he went bankrupt developing and eventually had to raffle off after it failed to generate interest on eBay. Somewhat better well-known, however, is his Ursus bearsuit, the subject of a 1996 documentary "Project Grizzly", which profiles his attempts at designing a suit that would be impervious to a bear attack (After being attacked by a bear in 1984, he decided to learn as much as he could about grizzlies, but found he couldn't get close enough without being in danger. Then, one day, he saw RoboCop. True story). Six prototypes later, he succeeded in creating the Mark VI. I'm not sure if it actually works bear-wise, but it sure seems sturdy to me:

I can't decide if the best part is when they throw him down an escarpment, when he gets hit by a car, or when the guy destroys a baseball bat on him. You can also find more info on the Trojan suit from this video. Other inventions include the 1313 paste, an inexpensive concoction which he spreads on Kevlar and presses in a vice to make a panel that can withstand direct assault from shotgun slugs, rifle fire and enough explosive to demolish a car. It also managed to withstand multiple direct hits from a sniper rifle, a feat that has not been duplicated by any other material currently in use by any world government. Apparently the inspiration for both the 1313 paste and the Trojan suit was his brother, who's serving in the Canadian military. Awww.

Cowboy Bebop

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I've been preoccupied as of late. I've only been watching the GREATEST TELEVISION SHOW TO GRACE THE AIRWAVES. I've never been one for Anime, but I recently found this show, Cowboy Bebop. Imagine Firefly, except with martial arts, jazz, a Welsh Corgi and a illicit drug administered through the eye that increases reflexes to the point where a dude can dodge bullets. I found the pilot episode. Check it out here.

As Per Requested

Conceptual Calligraphy

See that there? That says "Beauty is the Promise of Happiness." Pretty cool looking, huh? It's in English, too. It's a cipher, by which I mean it's a standard 26-letter Roman alphabet, but not with normal Roman characters. I'm not going to explain how to do it here, but I will tell you that I found this site last night and earlier this evening, I was writing whole sentences in this. So it's easy AND beautiful (reminiscent of Arabic or Chinese characters). Just in case you needed more evidence, here's another pic from the site (click to enlarge).

That's 20 variations on the word "Association." The preferred orientation of the letters is top to bottom, bringing to mind Douglas Hofstadter's font-related illustrations (BUY IT).

Changes

I may be pathetically apolitical, but I decided to watch this on a tip from a friend. For that reason, I give him mad props. Give it a whirl until at least 00:55. If you don't like it after that, you must just have horrendous taste in music.

Hipster Olympics

Just the right amount of irony. I myself claim to be a hipster simply to distance myself from this unfortunate trend, as no real hipster would actually admit to being one. Again with the IRONY. It's so delightful.

Panel One

A new webcomic today. Whoo hoo!

Ever read something that is all at once, weird, thought-provoking and funny? It's getting harder and harder to find imaginative material as the media scene becomes more and more lowbrow. I spend so much time online because movies are stupid and books are becoming more and more disappointing as my tolerance for inane literature plummets. But I digress. Panel One is a webcomic that stands alone in its format: a single panel, alone with its thoughts, presented as a caption. The meta-fictional barb comes into play when the caption proves a Socratic foil, disagreeing with everything the panel has to say. Where the panel provides a calm analysis of itself as a blank panel, the caption that the panel speaks through is a crass loudmouth. It is, however, quick to point out: "'Cursing is for the inarticulate', right? Bullshit. That's a myth perpetuated by prigs like you." After going back and forth for a while, the story's flow is somewhat interrupted by the alphabet, who drifts in to prove how important she is to the narrative...

Now, I'm not the kind of person to end a synopsis on an ellipse; it's not something I do. But there is so much point/counterpoint debate in the story I felt compelled to end on a somewhat mysterious note. Plus, I haven't read it all yet. But it totally rules. Check it out here.

The Guy Has A Mullet

I found this on my hard drive, and I cannot stop laughing. I can't find out where it's from, but I've been periodically opening it up over the past day or two whenever I need a laugh.

I also just realized I have no labels for this post. It's simply too epic.

Absurd.org

And that's all I have to say about that.

Encyclopedia Obscura

Who wants some obscure Japanese documentaries? How about some obscure Mr. T merchandise that defies all logic? Or an obscure Star Wars holiday special, or the world's gayest game (I don't mean it's stupid, it really is homosexual)?

It really is a shame that he stopped posting in 2003, because the man had a real knack for digging up the obscure. That doesn't mean that there isn't a veritable treasure trove on his site.

There's not a whole lot more to say about the site, so on to the articles: First up we have Stupid Toy Tie-Ins, where he finds the most bizarre things to make a toy out of, then talks about how stupid it is. Don't miss out on the Boba Fett cake pan. What was Lucas thinking? Next up we have Robo Vampire: The Movie. If you're only going to follow one link today, make it this one. It's better than the Something Awful movie reviews (I'll cover those some other time). And now we have Einstein's Brain, a movie about a Japanese professor looking for Einstein's brain. It's a DOCUMENTARY. Looks absolutely (unintentionally) hysterical. I'm looking for a copy online.

OK, this next one needs some setup. It has become a part of the internet's subconscious. The page I'm about to link to is the number three Google match when you search for Cho Aniki (it used to be number one). You may have seen this gif before, and all I can say is "wow" (I can't make the gif move for some reason, so go to the site). I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said about this game.

Moving right along, we find Translators Say The Darnest Things, an exploration of the beauty of movie and television subtitling.

It's a great site. Did you know that the word "Ninja" is illegal if used in advertising in the Netherlands? That it is.

Klein Bottle

A Klein bottle is an interesting thingy. It is a three-dimensional object with one surface and no edges. You say, "So what, it's just like a sphere." Wrong. A sphere has two surfaces, one on the outside and one on the inside. Therefore, a Klein bottle's surfaces run into each other. It's called a bottle because it's usually depicted all bottley, seeing as it contains itself. Naturally, it's theoretic, as such a thing would have to pass through itself, making it impossible to construct in real life (or at least our dimension). Didn't stop these guys from trying.

At KleinBottle.com, your impossible dream becomes a semi-reality. Though not true Klein bottles, they still kick ass. So buy one. I told 'em you would. Don't make me a liar.

Ultimate Luxuries

My hear-phones (as I call 'em) just broke. Again. The wire wore right through for the fourth time. The entire right side is now coated in a thick layer of superglue. But really, what can you expect from some $10 (surprisingly comfortable) earbuds? Now, if I had some money, I'd buy some $500 Shure earphones. I'm sure those wouldn't break so easily (Shuuuuure).

I found them on CNET.com's Ultimate Luxury list. They found the most outrageously expensive products to buy over the holidays.

Here are my personal picks. Dumbest thing to ever cost more than 99 cents: a $200 ring box with a tiny little LCD screen inside. It can play music or video when opened. But c'mon people, it's less than a 1-inch screen. Most insanely cool thing ever: a million dollar speaker set. BAM. They call it the Grand Enigma speaker set, it is the most expensive speaker set ever, and only one of them has ever been made. And finally, the thing that makes you fear for the future of humanity: a million dollar fishing lure. It's made with over 3 pounds of gold and platinum, and it's encrusted with 4,753 diamonds and rubies weighing about 100 carats each. Whoo-ee.

Beatallica

Tired of the time it takes to listen to both your old Beatles LPs and Metallica records? Before now, people had to play the music in two separate headphones and try to enjoy the resulting cacophony, often with headache-inducing results. But today, I offer you a chance to get both bands in one convenient serving size: Beatallica.

Featuring the talents of Jaymz Lennfield, Grg Hammetson, Kliff McBurtney, and Ringo Larz (it's funnier if you're aware of the real names), Beatallica has been rocking out since 2001 with a unique blend of heavy metal and classic rock. Their titles include such bizarre mashups as: The Thing That Should Not Let It Be ("Let It Be" & "The Thing That Should Not Be"), For Horsemen ("For No One" & "Four Horsemen"), Got To Get You Trapped Under Ice ("Got To Get You Into My Life" & "Trapped Under Ice"), and Hey Dude (just a metal cover of "Hey Jude" with some Metallica references thrown in).

As of July 2007, their first two albums, previously free on their site, became protected under their new label, "Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band" (heh heh). Not to worry, I still managed to find the CDs elsewhere online. Their first CD, A Garage Dayz Night, and their second, Beatallica. I'd recommend the songs "Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band", "For Horsemen", "Hey Dude", and "I Want To Choke Your Band". Enjoy.

Time Cube

I believe we can all agree that the internet is a revolutionary thing. It's certainly an awesome thing. But is it an efficient thing? Par example, is the information evenly distributed? No. Of course not. And that's because anyone who can afford even the slowest dial-up connection can put whatever he wants on there at any time. Take, for another example, Gene Ray, Cubic and Wisest Human, whatever the hell that means. In a now infamous website, "Dr." Gene Ray "explains" his "theory": TIME CUBE. What's Time Cube? Let the good doctor explain:

EARTH HAS 4 CORNER SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY TIME CUBE WITHIN SINGLE ROTATION. 4 CORNER DAYS PROVES 1 DAY 1 GOD IS TAUGHT EVIL. Believer is far more EVIL than a False God, for Google cut back my Site from 34,000,000 to 4,000,000 in 1 night for the above Statement. 1 Day1God exists only as Evil. I thought Google was free of such evil bias, predjudice and shenanigans that block real truth from being known. Once before, Google cut back my site from 89,000,000 to 34,000,000 in a single act for something I said, that/s Evil Google is ONENESS EVIL as I experienced and you can see.

For ease of reading, and fear of skewing his teachings, I elected not to edit his words in any way. Mind you, this is the first thing you see on the site. I think it provides an eloquent summary of the rest of his site. Because I'm a good person, I read the whole site, so you wouldn't have to. Sweet Jesus. I'll quote the best laugh out loud moments below:

You are educated stupid - an evil ANDROID, your opposite brain destroyed by Evil ONE. ONE - DOES NOT CREATE, NOT EVEN A GOD.

If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic corner days rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Earth, proving 4 Days, Not 1Day,1Self,1Earth or 1God that exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- antipodes. Add +0- as One = nothing.

(I do love that his simple existing math proofs involve a squared equator.)

You have a god like brain - parallel opposite & analytical, wasted if you believe in ONE.

(Gene Ray has problems with ONE.)

Leg mobility. This guy knows what's going on.

Hey - got a death threat from Temporal Phoenix last night, saying that the big ole boys that make the world go round, are going to wipe me off the Earth. They can't allow the Time Cube Principle to continue.

(Temporal Phoenix is never mentioned again.)

DOG BRAIN STUDENTS

(This is just kinda like a title floating around without any follow up.)

-1 x -1= +1 is WRONG, it is academic stupidity and is evil.

That's really enough. You can't get the full impact here. Check out the main site. Trust me, the changes in font size and color really make the page just pop. At least it's not Geocities.

Would you entrust your mind to this guy? I would. This guy... He just rules.

The Oracle of Bacon

As delicious as that may sound, the Oracle of Bacon is a computer program designed by some dude (I suspect) at the University of Virgina's Computer Science Department. No doubt you're familiar with the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Gameplay example: I name an actor and you try to find a movie with him in it. The catch is, the movie also has to have another actor who either acted in a movie with Kevin Bacon, or acted in a movie with someone who acted with Kevin Bacon in a third movie. OK, so Arnold Schwarzenegger was in "Twins" with Maury Chaykin, who was in "Where the Truth Lies" with Kevin Bacon. So, Arnie has a "Bacon Number" of 2. Obviously, you have to have extensive movie knowledge or just be some kind of genius to play the game well. Not Anymore! The Oracle of Bacon uses IMDb data to match any actor to Kevin Bacon in as few movies as possible. Elvis Presley? Bacon Number of 2.

Elvis Presley was in Harum Scarum (1965) with Suzanne Covington who was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Charlie Chaplin? Bacon Number of 3.

Charlie Chaplin was in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Sophia Loren who was in Between Strangers (2002) with Kathryn Winslow who was in Where the Truth Lies (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Chuck Norris? Bacon Number of 2.

Chuck Norris was in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) with Cayden Boyd who was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon

Wicked cool. But the fun doesn't end there. You can find the degrees of separation for any actor from any other actor you want (under Advanced Search). Bruce Lee has an Elvis Presley Number of 2, by the way.

Bruce Lee (I) was in Marlowe (1969) with Nicole Jaffe who was in The Trouble with Girls (1969) with Elvis Presley

Ooh. Check it out here.

Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea

Far be it from me to pass judgment on a fellow human being, I believe that Eric has self esteem problems, because Steampunk Star Wars is a SPECTACULAR idea.

You may remember that last year (hee hee) I posted about the Steampunk phenom (for lack of a better word). Well, on my never-ending search for crap online, I stumbled upon Eric Poulton's website. I haven't seen a lot else of it, but the steampunk pages touch on a pretty great idea, best summed up in this picture:

(That picture is my current desktop) Whoa. Seen here is Lord Vader. "He is a master with the traditional weapon of Force champions, the Phlogisticated Aether Torch, more commonly referred to as the phlogisabre." WHOA. You can read up on some of his other ideas here.

See if you can guess who those two scruffy nerfherders are.

The Graduate Mafia Brotherhood of Princeton University

There's a mouthful of organization for you. As long-winded as their title is, the GMBOP have dedicated a fair portion of their school career (and a fair bit of their post-grad career) to mastering a game of elegance and chance: Mafia. For those unaware of the game, it is played something like this:

From a group of about ten people, one person is chosen to be a Narrator and two or three are selected randomly to be the Mafia (usually chosen by playing cards). The game begins when everybody closes their eyes but the Narrator and the Mafia, who then agree on a target to kill. When everyone opens their eyes again, the Narrator announces who was killed. Then everyone (Mafia included, since their identities are secret) discusses amongst themselves who they think the Mafia are. When everyone is in agreement, another person (hopefully Mafia) is killed. Then the game repeats itself from the "everyone closes their eyes" section.

What will eventually transpire is either both Mafioso are killed (where everyone else wins) or all the other players are killed (where the Mafia wins). Seems simple enough until you start to add characters. The more commonly played game also includes the character of the Angel, who opens her eyes after the Mafia closes theirs, but before everyone opens their eyes together. It's her job to choose one person she wants to know about. The Narrator tells the Angel whether or not the person she indicated is Mafia or not. Puts a little twist on it, huh?

It starts to get even more complex when other characters are added, like the Miller who is not Mafia but appears to be so while being inspected by the Angel. Tricky.

Find rules better than the ones I wrote above and literally dozens of variant roles at the GMBOP website here.

Twenty Questions

As tacky as it may seem, 20 Questions online is an amazingly addictive site. Just like you remember from your childhood, except it doesn't lie about the answers it gives and then tattles to Mom. It uses the results of others playing the game all over the world to narrow down your choice. It can guess whatever you're thinking to a surprisingly accurate degree. It just guessed "playing card" in 17 guesses. And go easy on it, guys. It's not a genius. It's just a computer. Check it out here.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

So begins Paul Clifford, by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, largely regarded to be the single worst opening line in literature. In honor of this, the first legitimate use of the phrase: "it was a dark and stormy night;" is the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a battle for the worst first line of a story.

Since 1983, writers all over have vied for the title. It is people like them who are responsible for this:

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.

Or this:

The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life.

Or even this:

Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee.

Glorious. They also do genres. For example, the sci-fi runner-up:

Racing through space at unimaginable speeds, Capt. Dimwell could only imagine how fast his spaceship was going.

Classic. Check it out here.

Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Video Games of All Time

Have you ever played Superman 64? I have. Let me tell you, words cannot do this game justice. It sucked so bad that it... it just... Forget it; this guy is a professional writer, let him tell you.

Seanbaby.com is a site dedicated to remembering all the little tidbits of video game history that do not deserve to be remembered. The Street Fighter movie, featuring Jean Claude Van Damme; anyone ever see that? No? Too bad. Looks hysterical. But one of the funniest articles on the site is his exposé of the 20 worst video games of all time. Check it out here. This guy writes for Electronic Gaming Monthly, apparently a pretty famous gaming magazine. This article was in there, but online, he is free to say what he really feels about the games without fear of censoring. Because of this, it might be unsafe for work, just because of the language. Just a heads-up.

Calloway's Hep Dictionary

Here's a little blip for all you hep cats and mellow chicks. A real hummer. Cab Calloway came on like a test pilot in the Thirties, singing and leading a band. His name now adorns an online dictionary where any old gate or queen can get their boots on regarding the jive language of the solid jazzmen of yore (Yore isn't one of the words). Enjoy, Jack. I gotta collar me some cups.

Fiction Liberation Front

The Fiction Liberation Front is a spectacular idea. It's a way to provide short fiction online free of charge to readers. According to its creator, Lewis Shiner, the internet has toppled the world's short story market. Short story magazines are going the way of the dodo. The FLF has a sizable collection of short stories and articles by Lewis Shiner. They are all pretty great, but my favorites are: Stuff of Dreams, The Circle (one of the most original horror stories I've read in a while) and Fractal Geometry.

On a related note, I'd like to see a compendium of online short fiction for ANY author, wiki-style. Unfortunately, there's no way to do that unless you want a bunch of terribly punctuated bland stories and, God forbid, fanfic. Alas, I believe it will be a while until I find a solution for that one. If you have any idea about somefink like that, post about it in the comments.