Academy Announces Nominees for 78th Annual Who Gives A Care Awards.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for their 78th annual awards show as part of their plan to move further into obsolesence.

In a press conference this morning, Academy President Sid Ganis said, "I am proud to unveil this years nominees and by doing so, demonstrate the growing disconnect between the Hollywood Elites and the rest of America."

"By nominating films such as 'Brokeback Mountain', 'Good Night, and Good Luck', and 'Munich' as best picture of the year, I hope that we have demonstrated that we have completely lost touch with the average person," stated Ganis. "The nomination of these films also serves to further our leftist agenda and insure that no mainstream Christian Conservative will ever pay attention to us again."

Ganis continued by pointing out that, while there were plenty of excellent, commercially successful films made this year, such as "Cinderella Man", "Walk the Line", and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", the nomination of any of these film may actually lead people to think that there is hope for the Academy, a notion that Ganis stated they wish to eradicate.

"Particularly in the case of 'The Chronicles of Narnia', a movie very popular amongst Christians, we could not lead anyone to believe that there is any similarity between us and that group." Ganis stated that the Academy's snubbing of "The Passion of the Christ" was enough to show this to most people, but that the snubbing of "The Chronicles of Narnia" was needed to reinforce this point.

Ganis also praised the Academy's further alienation of nerds, a move started in 1978 when "Annie Hall" was awarded best picture over "Star Wars", by not even giving Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith a Best Visual Effects nomination.

Kitty Stummy Therapy

Anne Marie has introduced me to a new relaxing therapy which I have nicknamed "Kitty Stummy Therapy". Instructions are as follows:

(Note: before proceeding, remove any glasses or eyewear.)
1) Procure one (1) kitty.
2) With one hand behind kitty's neck and one hand on kitty's lower back, hold kitty belly-up.
3) Firmly embed face in kitty's tummy and rub vigorously.

Note: Kitty may have a dazed or surprised look on her face. This is normal. If you are allergic to cats, please consult a physician before using. Side effects include scratches, bite marks, bleeding, and lacerations. If symptons linger for more than two days, discontinue use and consult a doctor immediately. Your results may vary.

I've also heard this works with Tigers, but they are harder to come by and hurt more.

Why Strong Sad and I love Despair.com

I tend to be cynical and pessimistic. Most of you probably know this by now. There are a few reasons for this, one being that my hopes for the future are based on past experience, and another being that if I lower my expectations enough, I'm never disappointed.

As an example, one of my most desired items for my Birthday/Christmas was the Despair.com 2006 Wishes calendar. Of course, no one bought this for me, so I had to order it myself. Despair, Inc. is a company after my own heart. Upon completing the order, I was taken to this page. Shortly thereafter I received a confirmation e-mail which reads, in part:

"Thank you for your recent order from Despair, Inc.

I'd like to personally welcome you to our growing body of Dissatisfied Customers(tm), but to do so might evidence some actual concern for service and protocol. This might then lead to customer satisfaction, which would defeat the purpose altogether. That is why you have received this generic, form-generated email, written by some nameless lackey in our marketing department.

Having established that any pretense of consideration for *your* needs would be counter-productive to our raison d'etre at Despair Inc, let us now ponder a subject of greater interest to those among us who are worthy of both of our collective attentions - that person being me.

While you sit there wincing in disbelief at these bons mots of authentic insincerity and vexed by the intrinsic contradictions, I find I am beside myself with awe at the specimen of unparalleled angst that is our most recent Despair Catalog. Hardly a man given to superlatives, I must nevertheless assert with David-Lee-Rothian boldness that we are demonstrably without peer in the Art of Demotivation®.

And speaking of "The Art of Demotivation", my management treatise of the same name is finally available for purchase, and in three unique editions (four if you count the... oops, I've said too much already).

While I could praise the book and by extension myself without end, I will instead, in the interest of at least some pretense of humility, simply note that no less a journalist than Lucy Kellaway of the peerless Financial Times of London wrote of the book, "The Art of Demotivation is the most daring, funny and subversive management book ever written".

In short, I'm the best.

For those eager to learn more about this landmark work, pay a visit to the delightful guided tour that is offered at our exclusive book website:

http://www.demotivation.com

Those ordering Chairman editions of the Art of Demotivation are reminded that each necessarily entails a slight shipping delay. Each one of these signed and numbered objets d'art is handbound upon the receipt of your order.

At long last, after this lengthy exploitation of your attention for purely selfish marketing purposes, let us move on to yet another advertisement for our company.

Despair is ever consumed in the product development process. In fact, as we speak, the small cabal of dispirited creators have thrown themselves back into the further development of a new content series wholly unrelated to Demotivators(R), which are slated for release next year.

What this is, I can not yet say. I can allow however that members of our opt-in e-mail newsletter "The Wailing List(tm)" will receive not only a sneak-preview of this mysterious initiative when it nears release, but may also even be granted an opportunity to participate in an unprecedented way in the work itself. So join the list now- don't make us come get you.

http://www.despair.com/subscribe.html

If any of the information shown below is inaccurate, please notify us immediately using our new Troubled Ticketing system.

http://www.despair.com/troubtic.html

We will rectify your error immediately, and on some occasions, without snickering.

It is the least we can do, which, as a matter of policy, is the most we can do.

Sincerely not really writing you this email,
E.L."


Then another e-mail followed:

"Again, thanks for your recent order from Despair, Inc.

If you have received this email, it means that your credit card information proved valid and that your order has been sent. You might assume now that we have your money that you're in for better treatment. You might also assume that if you try really hard, you will succeed. But your assumptions would, in both cases, be completely wrong. And that is why you REALLY need our products.

Regardless of those sad facts, we have some good news for you. The Demotivators(R) Greatest Hits Notecard Pack is currently available for purchase at a 20% discount through the end of December. That's almost a significant enough discount to constitute something slightly less than not quite highway robbery... Why not take the chance to prove to your friends, relatives and coworkers that you cared enough to send the very worst - or that you didn't care at all - by dropping them a card!

You'll be sorry you did, but nowhere near as sorry as they will be.

As always, if you have questions, please fill out a troubled ticket on the web at:

http://www.despair.com/troubtic.html

We'll do our best to solve the problem, since, you know, we already have your money.

Automatically yours,
E.L."


Today, the package arrived. A plain black envelope with a dismal grey frowny :-( ­®. Across the pull-tab was written "These products not tested on animals. But if you've got pets, and would like to do your part for scientific inquiry..." I wonder what Isis and Bastet will think of it. We all know they just love those cardboard pull-tabs.

The enclosed packing slip proudly displays a rubber-stamped seal of approval: "Inspected by: [then in childish scribbles] Billy Thompson, i am 6". They also give their phone number to call if you have problems with the order: 866-Woe-is-Me.

Inside the calendar, in addition to the demotivational pictures are demotivating facts for many days of the year, like Jan 22: "Trail Magazine apologizes for publishing a hiking route that would've sent hikers plummeting off the edge of Britain's largest mountain. (2004)" Or this: Jan 9, "Teenage pranksters hack into Burger King drive-through speaker in order to tell prospective customers, 'You are too fat to have a Whopper. Pull ahead.' (2004)"

I feel more depressed, and therefore content, every moment. Saddy Dumpington is my personal hero, and Despair, Inc. is my depressant of choice.

What Grinds my Gears.
Why I hate the USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting

This is the first installment in what I hope will become a semi-regular occurence on FU-News, with occasional contributions from Tom Adams.

Recently, K-Mozart has taken to playing lots of commercials for limited-release movies. It seems every break one is met by a voice declaring Brokeback Mountain/Munich/Mrs. Henderson Presents/Memoirs of a Geisha/Other Movie Title Here to be the "best reviewed movie of the year." I'm always amazed that 5 or 6 movies can hold that distinction. Anyways, many of these movies are up for awards, so I can only assume that the movie companies think that a large segment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences listens to K-Mozart.

So allegedly, these movies are well-reviewed and up for awards, which raises the question: are these movies actually any good? From my limited knowledge (limited mainly because I choose not to find out), my guess is a resounding "no". Somehow, I doubt a love story about gay cowboys will meet my high-criteria for quality cinema (namely, stuff blows up). But before I jump to judgement, I figured I might as well get someone else's opinion on the matter. Not trusting 2-time Idiot award-winner Scott Holleran of Box Office Mojo any farther than I can throw his hosting server, I went looking for a more reliable source for info. Now, it's very difficult to find a reviewer whose take on morality of movies I agree with. Sure Michael Medved's good in that manner, but I don't remember the last time I agreed with him on the enjoyability of a movie (it does happen from time to time, though). So I figured, I might as well try that mixed bag known as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting.

Now, we've had a love/hate relationship, me and the USCCBOFB (mostly hate). I still hold that they owe me ten bucks for getting me written up for watching "Last Action Hero" in the common room at Steubie. But I'm always ready to give them a second try, as they seem to be the only ones that will review a movie from a Catholic perspective.

So I browse their reviews of limited release movies. Of Brokeback Mountain, aside from liking it because it is "well-crafted" and "superbly acted", they say: "It treats the subject matter -- which a Catholic audience will find contrary to its moral principles -- with discretion." In the end, they give it an O - Morally Offensive. Phew. I thought I'd lost them for a moment.

So I browse down the list a bit more and find Mrs. Henderson Presents: "Patriotic true-life story of a wealthy widow (Judi Dench) who refurbishes London's dilapidated Windmill Theatre, and with the help of an artistic manager (Bob Hoskins), decides to produce topless musical revues -- with the showgirls remaining stationary by order of the Lord Chancellor (Christopher Guest) -- to entertain the troops during the blitz. Despite the seeming raciness of the theme, and several artfully posed tableaux of bare-breasted showgirls, Stephen Frears' well-made film, with a script by playwright Martin Sherman, is as decorous as a "Masterpiece Theatre" production, and features predictably fine performances by the leads. Partial female nudity throughout, and a fleeting scene of full-frontal male and female nudity, a premarital affair with tragic results, some innuendo, a smattering of profanity and rough language. A-III -- adults."

Say what?

Ok, now I haven't seen this movie, so I suppose that I shouldn't jump to conclusions, but a movie that accepts showgirl nudity as "artful" and whose protaganist is a woman who brings an occasion of sin to the soldiers? How is this not morally offensive? And how is pornography (as I consider any work designed to provoke a sexual reaction, yes, even romance novels) "artful"?

This reminded me of the trend that Tom and I long ago noticed in USCCB movie reviews: violence = bad, sex = good, violence with sex = best. To make our point, Tom and I came up with at least a dozen examples of action movies that had gotten O ratings and movies which I would not watch for fear of my immortal soul had received A-III.

To hammer home the point:

The Matrix. Good action movie. Rated O.
The Matrix: Reloaded. Same stylized action as the first, but this time with sex. Rated A-IV.

Rush Hour. Typical Jackie Chan fight movie. Rated O. (Note the review mentions the movies portrays the violence as having no consequences.)
Rush Hour 2. Typical Jackie Chan fight movie, this time with tons of sexual innuendo. Rated A-III. (Note the same reference to consequence-free violence. As if the sex made the violence not as bad.)

Interesting, no?

Now, let's seperate the two categories (movies that allegedly glamorize violence and movies that undoubtedly glamorize sex outside of marriage and pornography).

Fun action movies I like and am not at all worried about losing my soul over, as they have a noticable absence of sex:

Terminator 2. (Note the review mentions "overblown scenes of callous butchery" when the point of the movie is that senseless violence is wrong, which in itself is a bit of an irony.)
Die Hard. (Note, the review appears to be missing from the USCCBOFB site, but I know that it's rated O; take my word for it.)
Doom.

Okay, the flipside of the coin: movies that have an open and accepting take on premarital sex which I have to avoid or during which I look away from the screen.

Austin Powers. (Note, I'm not sayin' that parts aren't funny.)
Titanic. (Maybe they should dock it for potraying "consequence-free sex"?)
Casanova. (L, the new A-IV. I have heard little about this one, but in addition to being about a womanizer, this includes attacks on the Catholic Church. Note the USCCBOFB claims that this one has a "moral" ending, but considering some of the director's previous works (The Cider House Rules and Chocolat), I doubt the message is "sex is immoral outside of marriage". Click here for BOM's interview with the director. His ideas about "new Puritanism" should give you an idea about his views of pornography.)

I find this trend both interesting and disturbing. Let's compare the two: glamorized violence vs. glamorized sex. Yes, young children should not be watching excessively violent movies or movies that seem to portray violence as acceptable (that's why these movies are usually rated PG-13 or R). But is there anything morally wrong about watching a good action sequence? Am I endangering my soul? I hope not cuz, dang, I loves me a good Jackie Chan fight. And you know what else? Those movies that are "excessively violent" rarely portray violence against the innocent as acceptable, and I'll bet you that none of the makers believe it's okay to run around shooting innocent people and are not trying to push that message in their movies.

But what about the sex? Not only is it inappropriate for children, provocative images are innapropriate for any audience. We know that we shouldn't be exposing ourselves to obscene images, as this in itself is a sin. Also, I'll bet that the makers of the movies that openly portray pre-marital sex share that belief and use their movies as a vehicle to promote that belief.

So this brings us back to the USCCBOFB. For implicit acceptance of anti-Catholic beliefs and a non-chalant attitude towards specifically immoral images, FU-News rates the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting O - Morally Offensive.

An Open Letter to All Hollywood Movie Studios.

To Whom it may concern:

If the internet has taught us anything, it is that 1) there are a lot of nerds, and 2) nerds like crossovers between their favorite geeky universes.

Keeping that in mind, I think there is a lot of money that could be made off of a movie crossover. Think "Aliens vs. Predator" but on a much larger scale. Much, much larger. Think of the largest scale you can think of, then multiply that by a hundred, and you're not even getting close.

To these ends, I present to you, for your consideration, the story for the Most Ultimate Crossover Film Evar. I would like to point out that this idea is so cool, I crapped my pants no fewer than five times while writing it.

So without further adieu, I present:

Star Trek vs. Star Wars vs. Aliens vs. Predator vs. Indiana Jones vs. Lord of the Rings vs. He-Man vs. Terminator vs. Neo vs. Back to the Future vs. Batman vs. Transformers vs. Godzilla vs. X-Files vs. X-Men vs. GI Joe vs. Serenity vs. Jurassic Park

Opens with the Enterprise-E monitoring a Romulan Warbird. Romulans are testing new quantum time-flux weapon. It malfunctions and interferes with Enterprise's deflector dish to create space/time distortion. This opens up a wormhole.

The other end of the wormhole opens up right in front of the Shuttle Tyderium, as Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and 30 Rebel Commandos approach the Death Star II. In the initial instability, Tyderium is sucked to a random place in space/time.

The wormhole stabilizes, allowing the Empire's fleet of Star Destroyers, and the operational Death Star II to cross into the Star Trek universe. The Empire declares war on the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Massive battles and action sequences ensue.

Cut To:

Shuttle Tyderium has crashed on an alien world. Using what functioning equipment they have, the crew detects a nearby space/time portal that they can use to return to their universe. But this planet is actually a breeding ground for Aliens, and prime hunting ground for Predators. Action sequences ensue. The Rebels finally reach the portal to find it guarded by the Alien Queen. In a massive final showdown, the Rebels make it through, and the Queen is caught in a temporal flux wave that sends her to another universe.

The Alien Queen arrives in the space inhabited by Species 8472. They cross-breed to produce an uber-race of aliens. Several hundred years later, when USS Voyager stumbles across the Borg, they are locked in fierce battle with the 8472-Alien hybrid. Action sequences ensue. During the fight, Janeway and crew discover the Borg have located an ancient Time Crystal and are planning on using it to go back in time to assimilate the Aliens before they merge with 8472. Action ensues as Voyager's crew, the Borg, and 8472-Alien hybrids fight for the crystal.

Meanwhile, Dr. Indiana Jones is fighting legions of Nazis in the fabled lost city of Atlantis, where Hitler's minions are trying to get to an artifact of unspeakable power. Action sequences ensue. The lead Nazi archaeologist, Dr. Jethro van Goeterhoffeschen finds the artifact (a time crystal) and activates it. This links to the Borg's Time Crystal and sucks the Borg and Voyager's crew through a portal.

They arrive on Earth in 1935, in the lost city of Atlantis, and the Borg immediately begin assimilating the Nazis. Indiana Jones and the Voyager crew must fight seemingly unstoppable waves of sinister Borg-Nazis. Actions sequences ensue. The Borg-Nazis gain control of the Time Crystal and begin bringing more Borg through. Indy and the Voyager crew agree that the only way to stop the Borg-Nazis is to destroy the Time Crystal. Action sequences ensue. During the fight, the Time Crystal starts malfunctioning and opening random portals. One such Portal sucks in the Borg-Nazis, who are replaced by Saruman's army of Uruk-Hai as they assault Helm's Deep. The Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep are replaced by Skeletor and his minions. And Skeletor and his minions are replaced by the Borg-Nazis. A massive battle ensues as He-Man battles Borg-Nazis, Indy and Voyager crew battle Uruk-Hai, and Aragorn, Theoden, Legolas, and Gimli battle Skeletor.

Finally, Indy and Voyager crew destroy the Time Crystal, but as they do so, a temporal portal sucks Indy through, and he ends up with John Connors, fighting legions of Terminator robots. Actions sequences ensue. The Terminator robots are rounding up people to put into their prototype Matrix, to use humans as power cells. John Connors is captured and assimilated into the Matrix, where he becoms the first The One. He looks exactly like Keanu Reeves while in the Matrix. Action sequences ensue. While battling the machines, he learns of a plot to send a Terminator back in time to kill Indiana Jones. When Indy rescues him from the Matrix, he sends one of his own men back in time with the Terminator, but a malfuncion causes them to go back to Hill Valley, 1955.

At precisely that moment, Doc Brown and Marty McFly are conducting time experiments to try and send Marty back to 1985. Their experiment is interupted by the appearance of a Terminator that starts destroying Hill Valley. Action sequences ensue. Marty and Doc Brown realize that although they missed the lightning bolt that would provide the necessary 1.21 gigawatts to power the time machine, they can modify the Terminator's power cell. During the Terminator's rampage, a metal pole falls across a searchlight, projecting an image that looks like a bat into the clouds. Batman, thinking he is needed, comes to the aid of Hill Valley and using a can of Terminator Repelant, chases off the Terminator Robot. Marty and Doc Brown explain to Batman that they need the Terminator's power source, so Batman helps them track it to Japan.

In Tokyo, the Terminator hides itself to repair the damage caused by the Terminator Repelant. Espying it from affar, Optimus Prime thinks the Terminator is another transformer, and moves to meet it. However, he is only being lured into Megatron's sight, who orders the Decepticons to attack. Just as Marty, Doc Brown, and Batman arrive in Tokyo, an all out war starts amongst the warring factions of Transformers. Action sequences ensue. The commotion of battle awakens the sleeping Godzilla, who comes out of the water and joins the battle.

Eventually, the Terminator is destroyed during the battle, allowing Marty and Doc Brown to use its power supply. But unfortunately, the Delorian was destroyed during the battle, forcing Doc Brown to jury-rig a new Flux Capcitor on Bumblebee, the Transformer. In the middle of the pitched battle between Autobots, Decepticons, and Godzilla, Marty and Bumblebee manage to jump to the future.

However, a fault in the jury-rigged time circuit causes them to arrive in 1984, where Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, and U'hura have just arrived in a Bird-of-Prey to capture two humpback whales. Meanwhile, special agents Mulder and Scully of the FBI have been dispatched to San Francisco to investigate paranormal activites. They uncover a plot formed by the combined forces of Magneto and Cobra Commander to use Humpback Whales to take over the world. Dr. Charles Xavier, along with his team of X-Men and the help of the crew of the Enterprise, Marty McFly, Bumblebee, and Mulder & Scully engage in a pitched battle with Cobra and Magneto's men. Action sequences ensue. Eventually, the crew of the Enterprise is able to get the two humpbacks and return to the future.

However, Spock, who received a blow to the head during the fight, miscalculates their trajectory and they miss their time and end up in the universe of Serenity and her crew. Action sequences ensue, as the crew of Serenity ends up opening a time portal and getting sucked through.

They crash on Geonosis during the Clone Wars, and meet up with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Action sequences ensue as they fight legions of Battle Droids along side Legions of Clone Troopers. Eventually, Yoda learns of a sinister Sith plot to use the Force to open a time portal. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the crew of Serenity must hunt down the Sith responsible, and in a dramatic battle, close the time portal.

During the battle, Anakin and Obi-Wan are sucked through to Prehistoric Earth, where they are surrounded by Velociraptors and T-Rexes. Anakin feels a near-by disturbance in the Force, so he and Obi-Wan fight through endless waves of Raptor. Action sequences ensue. When they arrive at the location of the disturbance, they discover a massive time portal, fed by thousand of time crystals. Realizing this must be the cause of the space/time portals, the decide they must destroy it, while coming under a massive attack from Tyrannosaurs in F-14s and Raptors with rocket launchers strapped to their backs.

When they finally do destroy it, it destabilizes the entire space/time continuum and they, along with everyone else mentioned so far, are sucked through a time portal and deposited in the middle of a pitched battle between the Empire, Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Borg, and Dominion that is taking place at the Deep Space 9 Wormhole. Phenominally massive, awesome, crap-your-pants action sequences ensue. Data helps John Connors jack into the Borg's collective, as it is similar to the Matrix. Raptors are unleashed on DS9, forcing Worf to kill them all with his Bat'leth. Gandalf the White has a show-down with Darth Vader aboard the Death Star, while Indiana Jones and Han Solo team up to destroy a Jem-Hadar ship. Meanwhile, Chewbacca, Luke, Anakin, and Kirk face down a pack of hunting Predators, all while being stalked by Aliens.

During the battle, the Death Star fires its Super-laser at the Enterprise, but a sub-space distortion caused by the deflector dish's interference with a quantum torpedo, fired from a Klingon Battle Cruiser combine to open a rift in the middle of a Borg Cube, sucking the Serenity into it, which in turn causes the Cube's power core to go nova, creating a super-massive graviton flux, which diverts the Death Star's Super-laser, which detonates a charge fired from the experimental Romulan time-flux weapon inside the Wormhole, creating a massive rift in space time, such that every moment of time in every universe exists all at the same instant, destroying the Wormhole Aliens and causing a temporal paradox that destroys all time portals, and causes none to ever have opened in the first place, resetting all universes to their original setting.

Time is reset and the Warbird's time-flux weapon never activates.


And so there you have it. If you are a Hollywood movie producer, and have not been sent into a coma by the monumental coolness of this idea, I think you are thinking right now that it is your right, nay, your moral responsibility to turn the proposed idea into a movie, for the good of society, the world, and nerds everywhere.

Note that the final action sequence should be no shorter than three hours.

I'd pay to see it.

Ultimate Showdown

Reminds me of a certain PVP Comic series (from August 4 - August 23, 2003)

ph34r me, or at least my stick.

--Warning: This is going to be another WoW post. Those uninterested in WoW can just skip this one.--

One of my other commonly played WoW character is the level 51 Tauren Shaman named Longhorn (so named after the Freakazoid villain who planned to hold Nashville for ransom unless they gave him a recording contract). The Shaman is an interesting and powerful class. Many other players complain about the Shaman's über l337 skills, but that is because they fear that which they do not understand.

Anyways, much of the Shaman's über power comes from his ability to use totems, which are essentially just sticks that the Shaman places in the ground. Oh, but these aren't any ordinary sticks. These are special, magical sticks. They do magic things, like explode, shoot fire, make enemies run slowly, make the Shaman even tougher.... Many players (and normally I refer to these players as "whining Paladins") don't understand this concept of sticks in the ground. "How," they ask, "does shoving a stick in the ground suddenly make you invincible?" They of course fear us, because they do not understand. These are magic sticks.

Now, one stick, er, totem of particular note is the Stoneclaw Totem. The tooltip for this totem reads "Summons a Stoneclaw Totem at the feet of the caster that taunts creatures to attack it." It does this by drawing "Aggro". Aggro, or threat, is essentially a measure of how much things hate you. Apparently, this can actually be quantified. Monsters in the game will attack whatever they hate most, i.e., whatever holds the most Aggro. The Stoneclaw Totem attracts monsters to attack it by generating threat.

Now, let's take a look at this totem:


Nothing terribly impressive about it, but man, those creatures just hate that thing. You can be in the middle of some pitched battle, and when a Shaman whips this thing out, the MOBs (Mobile Unit/Mass Of Bacon) will just have at it.

Which brings me to my point (Yes! There is one!). So, alledgedly, this totem generates a lot of "threat". More so than, say, a ten-foot tall Bull with an axe:


Now, I don't know about you, but I, personally, would feel a lot more threatened by that bull. I mean, c'mon! He looks seriously peeved! I think if I were fighting some Bison on Steroids, that was easily twice my height, and he whipped out some glowy-green three-foot tall stick, I'd totally be like "WTF, Dude, a stick? You expect me to attack that?" But those monsters in the game, they seriously hate the stick. They're all like "OMFG! A stick! This is the single greatest threat to my existence! I must destroy it." And meanwhile, there's a ten-foot tall Buffalo wailing away at their back with an Über Axe of Ultimate Destruction, and another stick that's all shooting fireballs at them, but no, they have to kill that stick! I don't know what's going on there. Maybe the stick, like, insults their mother or something like that. It's all "Hey, yeah, you Blisterpaw Hyena, your mom, like, totally wears Scarlet Crusade boots." And the Hyena, who was about to deal a critical strike to the Juiced-up Bison is like, "OMGWTFBBQ did you just say? You n00b, I'm going to pwn you, you suXX0r."

Yeah, so in conclusion, Hustle and Bustle are like my right and left arms.

Math Majors, Click Here. Everyone Else, Keep Looking.

Mo. Researchers Find Largest Prime Number - Yahoo! News
Because, y'know, there are no more after that one.

Didn't someone's senior thesis involve Mersenne Primes?

Funny Blonde Joke
I swear its not obscene

http://presurfer.meepzorp.com/archive/2006_01_01_archive.html#113619855520637691

Actually, she'd probably be a better judge if she did.

Rain Dampens Everything but Spirit - Los Angeles Times: "[Rose Parade Grand Marshal Justice Sandra Day O'Connor] told parade officials she was looking forward to doing the ritual coin toss to start the Rose Bowl game, joking that she would sometimes like to use the same technique on the bench."

If she used that technique, then statistically, about half of her decisions would be the right ones, which would actually improve her record.