Real Genius Weekend

Ask me what my favorite movie is and I will tell you Real Genius without hesitating.

For those of you who weren't around in '85, or at least self-aware or with enough years to remember, the movie has become a cult comedy classic. But for me, at nine years old, it changed my life.

The story is of 15 year old prodigy Mitch Taylor, who is drafted for mid-winter term at Pacific Tech by Professor Hathaway. Mitch is assigned a dorm room with Chris Knight, a fun-loving senior with whom he will work on Hathaway's laser project, which is secretly part of a CIA weapons program. When the two of them discover Hathaway's plan, it takes their combined efforts, plus the help of hyperactive student Jordan and eccentric hermit Lazlo to set things right and avoid being detected by the professor or his lackey Kent.

The film barely spent any time letting the viewer relax from the barrage of clever dialogue and wisecracking, and it's message was simple: being smart is good. It showed that intelligence didn't have to be dry and dull, that using your mind creatively was not only possible, but preferable. The hijinx and humor in the film also echoed the real life antics of the students of Caltech, and there are plenty of references and homages throughout (see below).

Why bring all this up?

Rybot has friends at Caltech, and this weekend they're throwing a party. I don't normally get excited about a college party, but this is birthplace and inspiration for my favorite film, so going, as the film would say, is a "moral imperative".


Supercool trivia!
>A scene where Chris floats outside his classroom suspended in a lounge chair attached to several balloons appeared in the preview version but not the release version. This is a reference to a real-life 1982 incident.

>Reclusive supergenius Laslo Hollyfeld is yet another character inspired by an actual student, one who did live for an extended period in the basement beneath the South Houses.

>The coordinates for Hathaway's house are given in the film as "34D 10M 15.21S NORTH, 119D 7M ..." Assuming the longitude is in the western hemisphere, that's somewhere in an area of farmlands east of Oxnard, California. The script gave a slightly different set of coordinates: "Thirty-four degrees, ten minutes, fifteen seconds North; one hundred eighteen degrees, nine minutes, three seconds West." The building at that location is a mortuary in Pasadena, a few blocks north of Caltech.

>The recurrence of the initials "DEI" in the movie is no accident. The truck that is used to transport the popcorn to Dr. Hathaway's new house has "Drain Experts Inc." emblazoned on its side. The company Chris interviews with at the beginning (and which funds Dr. Hathaway's show "Everything") is Darlington Electronic Instruments. The initials are rumored to have been inscribed by Caltech alumni at (among other places) the summit of Everest, on the moon and on many satellites and space probes manufactured at Jet Propulsion Labs (which sits just up the hill from Caltech in Pasadena). There has long been an unofficial contest to see who could place the letters DEI into the most prominent public view.

>When Hollyfeld sends in a large number of entries to the Frito-Lay contest, he is mirroring the actions of Caltech students Steve Klein, Dave Novikoff and Barry Megdal, who, in 1974, used a similar strategy to win a McDonald's sweepstakes. Their entries came to roughly 1/5th of the total entries and won them a station wagon, $3,000 and $1,500 in food gift certificates.

>The writings on the walls in the steam tunnels ("light your way", etc) are references to the game "Wizardry" and it sequels, in which clues can be found scrawled on the walls of the dungeon. The ending credits contain: "Thank to Sir-Tech, for Wizardry". Alternatively, assuming that Real Genius is meant to represent Caltech, the writing on the walls of the steam tunnels could be representative of the real writing on the walls of the real steam tunnels at Caltech.

>The "liquid nitrogen" coins have baffled viewers for many years, and are considered by many to be a goof. However the very first draft of the script shows that it wasn't an error. The thermos contains liquid nitrogen, which in turn contains a column of super-cooled CO2 (dry ice), which is what Chris uses in the vending machine.

>At one point when Chris is accused of being a "slack", he mutters "moles and trolls". In Techer slang, a "Mole" is a resident of Blacker House, and "trolling" referred to intensive studying (since someone who trolls too much never gets the chance to see the light of day, like a real "troll"; an alternate origin is suggested by the fact that hardworking physics students would have to spend a great deal of time in the basement of the Bridge physics building, and would thus be living "under the bridge" like "trolls" do).

>The party Chris engineers is the "Tanning Invitational". A party with this name was held annually at a Caltech-owned off-campus apartment complex for students. The women at the party are students from "a nearby college", the "Wanda Trossler School of Beauty". While there is no such school near it, Tech is only a few blocks from Pasadena City College.

>In earlier versions of the script the Potassium-Cyanide laser, not the Bromide-Argon laser, used frozen fuel. This is why Chris tells the laser to "stay cool" before he goes off to take Hatheway's exam.

>The aircraft featured in the movie was a B-1B "Lancer". Today, a real-life analog exists in the United States Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL) project, a collaboration with Boeing, involving a modified 747 cargo jet carrying a megawatt Oxygen-Iodine laser, whose purpose is to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles.

>In the scene where Hollyfeld walks in with his cartons of sweepstakes entries, the book Mitch is using as a pillow during his nightmare is "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.

>When Mitch rides the cart into the steam tunnels, the viewer briefly sees the quotation, "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain" scrawled on the left wall. These are the original words of German poet Friedrich Schiller. Relevant to the film, Isaac Asimov named three separate stories "Against Stupidity", "The Gods Themselves" and "Contend in Vain". He later combined them into a 1972 science-fiction novel about a conspiracy by aliens who inhabit a parallel universe with different physical laws than ours, and who are trying to turn our sun into a supernova in order to collect the resulting energy for their use.

>The song which plays during the opening credits (which are overlaid over plans for various weapons systems) is "You Took Advantage Of Me", which brings to mind the statement of the Caltech Honor Code: "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community."

>During the science fair scene, Dr. Hathaway mentions a 12-year-old student who was the youngest admitted to Pacific Tech, but who "cracked under the pressure". This was inspired by an actual student at Caltech.

>The campus looks nothing like Caltech's; many exterior and interior scenes were filmed at Occidental College, near Caltech, and Pomona, one of the Claremont colleges, in the L.A. area. Some dorm scenes were shot in Pomona's Harwood dormitory. The "Tanning Invitational" was shot in Oxy's Thorne Hall; some lab scenes used a nuclear physics lab in Oxy's Fowler Hall. The "Darlington Electronics" scenes were shot at General Atomics in San Diego. Rumor has it that Caltech didn't allow filming on campus because the film's obvious allusions to SDI research made the powers-that-be at the Institute uncomfortable.

>Caltech student extras appear in some scenes, especially the new student reception scene.

>The look of the dorm interior sets was inspired by that of Dabney House at Caltech. The walls of Dabney were in fact covered with graffiti; photos were taken of the graffiti in Dabney, set painters copied it from the photos, then Caltech students added their own touches. One graffito seen in the film ("Stills from the film: Gas") is a copy of a piece in Dabney which disappeared during the 1987 renovation of the House (the wall upon which it was drawn was knocked out to expand a kitchen).

>When Mitch is first walking through the residence toward his room, he passes a mural shaped like a man, wearing a bowler hat, facing away from the viewer. Written on the man's back is "Caltech vs. MIT".

>Chris and Mitch's room has a mural of a Voyager image of Saturn on one wall. This same mural existed in Dabney House room #50 at Caltech.

>Jordan, the "hyperkinetic" mechanical engineer, is another character inspired by an actual student (whose nickname was "Tigger").

>"Smart People on Ice" is similar to a Page House practice, discontinued around 1974, called "alley surfing", where one of the corridors (cement-floored) in the house basement would be flooded with a thin layer of soapy water and residents would practice skidding down the hallway.

>Kent tells Mitch his brain will turn to "tapioca"; saying that someone's brain had turned to or would turn to "purple tapioca" was a popular figure of speech among Caltech undergrads.

>The prank where Kent's car is "parked" in his room is similar to an actual incident where a car was disassembled, then reassembled in working order inside a room in Ricketts House.

>While there is no secret elevator system leading from students' rooms to steam tunnels, Caltech does have a relatively accessible set of steam tunnels running under campus. Also, some of the student houses are constructed so as to have a space between the outer walls and room walls, called "hyperspace", which can be clambered around in.

>When Dr. Hathaway administers his exam, he reminds his class that "we believe in the honor system here". Caltech's Honor Code has been referred to above, but the amusing point is that, due to the Honor Code, only a tiny percentage of exams at Tech were actually in-class and proctored - most were take-home.

>The exam books in the exam scene look very much like the blue books used for many Caltech exams, particularly the cobra which seems to be on the back cover.

>At one point we see an event called "Decompression", where students are screaming, beating on furniture, and playing with toys. This was an actual event at Tech held right after finals.

>When Kent is being chloroformed in his room by the conspirators, they are observed by a passerby who doesn't remark on their activities at all. This wouldn't have been that unusual at Caltech, where student pranks ("RFs") on each other were not uncommon occurences. (The passerby happens to be Dave Marvit, the Techer consultant to the director.)

>When the conspirators break into Dr. Hathaway's house, Chris is seen picking the lock. This in itself isn't unusual in the context of the story, but it's worth noting that the study of lockpicking enjoyed some popularity at Tech, especially in Blacker House. Also, Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate and beloved Caltech physics professor, was an accomplished lockpicker and safecracker.

The Fashion Of Chris Knight

I Love Toxic Waste
This is first of many fine shirts worn by Chris Knight throughout Real Genius. He wears this shirt while interviewing for a job at Darlington.

Surf Nicaragua
Chris Knight wears this shirt on a couple occasions, and it gets progressively dirtier throughout the movie.

International Order For Gorillas
This is the shirt Chris Knight wears while he's taking Dr. Hathaway's final.

Summer Games 1984
This fine shirt commemorates the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Bunny Slippers
Yes, bunny slippers.

Shiny Happy (Old) People

In a recent study, a dog and a robotic version were about equally effective at relieving the loneliness of nursing home residents.

This builds on previous findings by the researchers that frequent dog visits decreased loneliness of nursing home residents. Stanford University has a team working on building a home-assistance robot but was not involved in the study, though they felt the research was very encouraging.

"If humans can feel an emotional bond with robots, even fairly simple ones, some day they could "not just be our assistants, but also our companions."

To test whether residents responded better to a trained therapy dog, or a robot dog, researchers divided 38 nursing home residents into three groups at a trio of facilities in St. Louis.

One group had weekly, 30-minute one-on-one visits with the live dog; another group had similar visits with the mechanized version; a control group did not visit with either dog. Their level of loneliness — determined by residents' answers to several questions — was tested at the beginning and near the end of eight weeks of visits.

So when you abandon your family members, know that both flesh and blood companions and robot ones will both do just fine...just see which is going to fit your budget.

Super Christ

"Super Christ" doesn't appears on Smashing Pumpkin's Zeitgeist, but is instead seeing release on a CD featuring bands staffed by employees of Guitar Center. The Pumpkins chose the acts for the album, which will be available at Guitar Center outlets March 1st. Enjoy...

Hurry Up

Enrique Iglesias plans to leave the spotlight before he turns 50 — unlike his famous father, Julio, who is still crooning romantic ballads after four decades. Millions ask, "Why wait?"

"I'm not sure I want to be up on a stage when I'm 64 or 65...In my father's case, I think he's going to die onstage and I respect that very much. In my case, in 15 years I'll probably look ridiculous singing 'Bailamos' ('Let's Dance')."

Dude, it's pretty ridiculous right now.

The "singer" said dissatisfaction with his own work is what drives him to continue performing and recording. "When I listen to my music I think it can still continue to evolve," he said. "After a couple of months go by, I think I could write a better song." How about you just wait until you can, then come see us.

Iglesias said he is striving to make the perfect record — "One you listen to 10, 15, 20 years from now and say, 'Oh! I wouldn't change a thing.'" Oh, he's already done that as far as I'm concerned. I'll turn any off his records off, and I wouldn't ever change that.

Dead Alive

MSN was floating this on their front page, and it's interesting how you can get totally screwed by an idiot's clerical error. And by interesting, I mean frightening.

For a dead woman, Laura Todd is awfully articulate.

“I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to be dead when you’re not,” said Todd, who is very much alive and kicking in Nashville, Tenn., even though the federal government has said otherwise for many years.

Todd’s struggle started eight years ago with a typo in government records. The government has reassured her numerous times that it has cleared up the confusion, but the problems keep coming. Most recently, the IRS — again — rejected her electronic tax return.

“I will not be eligible for my refund. I’m not eligible for my rebate,” she said. “I mean, I can’t do anything with it.”

Laura Todd is not alone. She is one of tens of thousands of living, breathing Americans whom the federal government has wrongly declared dead — by one measure, more than 35 a day.

The problem begins at the Social Security Administration, keeper of most of the records tabulating deaths in the United States. Like other government agencies, the IRS, with whom Todd has most recently tangled, relies upon Social Security’s database, said Dan Boone, a spokesman for the IRS. When Social Security determines that an eligible current or future beneficiary has died, it closes the person’s entry in its Case Processing and Management System, or CPMS.

The system is only as good as the data it receives. Sometimes, that isn’t very good. Todd, for example, was killed when someone in Florida died and her Social Security number was accidentally typed in. Since then, her tax returns have repeatedly been rejected, and her bank closed her credit card account.

“One time when I [was] ruled dead, they canceled my health insurance because it got that far,” she said.

Toni Anderson of Muncie, Ind., expired when someone in the government pushed the wrong button, making the records declare that it was she, not her husband, John, who died Nov. 8. Social Security even sent this letter: “Dear Mr. Anderson, our condolences on the loss of Mrs. Anderson.”

Social Security concedes there’s a problem.

“The accuracy of death information is critical to SSA and its beneficiaries, as well as other federal, state and local government agencies,” it said in a 2006 report. “Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.”

Anderson, 64, lost her monthly Social Security disability check. She hasn’t been able to make house payments and faces foreclosure. Her Medicaid benefits were also suspended, creating a crushing burden as she battles breast and possibly bone cancer.

“They’ve seen me four times, so they know that I’m alive,” Anderson said. “It’s just a matter of being able to get me alive in the system.”

That isn’t as easy as showing up at the Social Security office and saying, “Hi.”

Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error. The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after “pertinent facts supporting reinstatement” are available in the system. In several audits, Social Security’s inspector general found that while documentation was required to delete a death record — “resurrecting” it, in Social Security’s language — people could be recorded as dead with much less paperwork.

For one thing, the agency said it “found that deaths were not always verified before SSI payments were stopped.” For another, “we found it was not necessary to enter a date of death in CPMS to close a case based on death,” it said. “This created the potential for open cases to be improperly classified as processed due to death in CPMS.”

Moreover, until recently, too many people had open access to death records, which are supposed to be protected by “top secret” restrictions. That door has since been closed, but the inspector general said the government can’t ensure the accuracy of records before mid-2006. In September 2006, the inspector general’s office tried to get a fix on how many people Social Security was improperly killing off by reviewing updates to the agency’s Death Master File.

In all, Social Security officials had to “resurrect” 23,366 people from January 2004 to September 2005. In other words, over a period of 21 months, Social Security was presented with irrefutable evidence that it had been “killing” more than 1,100 people a month, or more than 35 a day. Two months later, in November 2006, the inspector general looked specifically at 251 cases of people to whom the agency continued to issue checks even though Medicare records said they were dead.

“Of the 251 individuals in our population, 86 are deceased and their SSI payments should be terminated,” the audit said. “The remaining 165 beneficiaries were actually alive and their Medicare benefits—and, in some cases, their SSI payments—were incorrectly terminated.”

That’s 65 percent, which the audit said “can cause undue hardship for the individual[s] and create public relations problems.” Furthermore, it said, erroneous death terminations “also create additional workloads for Agency staff, who must take action to correct the benefit records and resume payments. According to SSA, these cases are ‘... very time sensitive and require immediate action.’”

But one thing Social Security doesn’t do well is immediacy. The agency processed more than a half-million requests for hearings in fiscal year 2006— of all types, not just those involving wrongful death terminations — the inspector general reported in yet another audit last May. The average processing time for a Social Security hearing in general: 483 days. If a ruling goes to an appeal, tack on another 203 days.

Apart from the horror stories that sometimes pop up in the media, the inspector general’s office offered some of its own. It said, for example, that in November 2005, an 81-year old woman contacted Social Security to report that her Medicare claims were being denied. After the woman made several more attempts to prove she was alive, the agency finally reinstated her benefits in July 2006, eight months after the error was discovered.

Even if you do finally convince the government that you are not dead, your problems aren’t over. Social Security, it turns out, publishes its death records. The Social Security Death Index is constantly updated and is available to anyone willing to pay for it. Its records show up in any number of places, from public document collections to Web sites for genealogy enthusiasts.

“I thought: ‘That’s just horrible. It’s never going to be over for me,’” said Todd, details of whose “death” can be found on numerous Web sites devoted to genealogy and public records.

Early on, Todd said, she tried to laugh off the mix-up. But not any longer.

“I’m tired. I’ve been fighting this for [many] years, and it never ends,” she said. “I’m very much alive and would like to live out my life in peace without having this problem.”

Love Thy Brother

Twin brothers who have appeared in hardcore gay-porn online videos are charged with burglary and are suspected in dozens of similar crimes in at least three states, authorities said.

That's a piece of news you didn't see coming, did ya?

Keyontyli and Taleon Goffney (both 25 - duh!), were arrested after authorities said they watched the twins break into a South Philadelphia beauty shop through the roof. What, can't a man make himself pretty?

Over the last 18 months, dozens of burglaries occurred throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where intruders gained entry by hacking through the rooftops of businesses.

The brothers face charges of burglary, trespassing, theft and related counts. Taleon has a lengthy criminal history, including charges for similar rooftop burglaries in Alabama and Florida, and previous arrests in Philadelphia as well as Camden and Salem counties in New Jersey. There are no records of any felony convictions for Keyontyli in Philadelphia or his native New Jersey, but they're twins - maybe he was mistaken for his brother in some of those arrests.

For those of you who are curious, the brothers have appeared in online gay porn videos under the names Teyon and Keyon. Keyontyli has appeared in gay porn since at least 2002 and worked as a fashion model, while Taleon got involved in porn more recently.

Taleon, who police believe is a trained gymnast and karate expert, has used his athleticism to make several daring escapes from police. He was handcuffed in the back of a moving police cruiser after a 2006 drug arrest, when he broke out the glass with his head and jumped into a lake while still handcuffed - taunting the officers, saying, 'You'll never catch me." Taleon turned himself in a week later. In January 2007, Taleon jumped 30 feet from the roof of a liquor store and swam across the frigid Cooper River before he was caught.

Impressive, but I don't think that makes him a gymnast or karate master. Given his work experience, I guessing he's not really a pizza delivery man or a pool boy.

Step Away

Disney will proceed with a third installment of its dance franchise "Step Up," tentatively titled "Step Up 3-D." It's going to be bad, no mater what D it's in.

"Step Up 2 the Streets" somehow earned $28.7 million over the five-day President's Day weekend, and only cost $20 million to make. That, kids, is business. And now you realize business is bad.

Google Bomb

Google bombing involves manipulating search engines' contextual search methodologies to cause a certain search phrase to point to an unexpected page, usually for comedic or satirical purposes. The best and most recent example happened in January 2008, when the search phrase "dangerous cult" returned the Chuch of Scientology home page as the top search result.

And rightly so.

A classic bomb -- also known by the more generic term "link bombing" -- works with any search engine using a relevancy algorithm similar to Google's. For example, run a search for "miserable failure" in Yahoo Search - you'll see prominent links to President George W. Bush's biography at whitehouse.gov at or near the top of the list.

The heart of the system is Google's PageRank algorithm, as well as equivalent competing technologies. The PageRank system assigns a numeric score of 0-10 for each page on the web. Google derives a page's ranking from the PageRank scores of all other pages that link to it. The key to Google bombing is to generate outgoing links to your target from highly-ranked sites. Get enough highly-ranked sites pointing to your target using the same phrase, and you'll push the target site to the top of the list of search results one sees when entering that mischievous phrase.

Cool, huh? Wanna know how to do it?

Step 1: Plan Your Assault
You'll need a lot of friends who can be convinced to cooperate. The number of links you need depends on a number of factors, including the PageRank of the sites the phrase is posted on as well as the precise phraseology. Alternatively, you can do all the linking yourself, but you would need at least a few hundred links on separate domains to get the desired result, and that would cut into your pron and Warcraft time.

Step 2: Generate a Whole Lotta Links
The more highly-ranked links search engines detect, the greater rank the chosen site will receive. Typical links include the URL of the target site, with the key phrase comprising the anchor text of the link. A link's anchor text is the words that appear between the and the closing tag in a link. The more obscure the linked phrase, the better. If the phrase you choose is a popular one, you may need more links than an obscure phrase.

The total number of links depends on a lot of factors, but think in terms of hundreds or thousands, not millions. For example, the hacker radio show Off The Hook successfully Google bombed themselves with the search term "blank expressions." They peaked as the 6th-ranked site for that phrase with a total of about 350 links. Uh, why? But, hey, they did it.

Step 3: Tell Everyone
What's the use of link bombing if no one notices? After the bomb takes hold, publicize it so other people learn all about your move. Besides, what are the chances you'll get reported to the authorities?

In January 2007, it was announced that Google would be taking steps to limit the effectiveness of Google bombing. It's subsequent algorithm tweak rendered most bombs ineffective. Rather than eliminate them altogether, Google directed search queries to discussion pages describing the bomb and Google's reasons for defusing them. Furthermore, Google is known for manually altering PageRank scores for various reasons, including succumbing to political pressure. Many Google bombs have been suppressed for public relations reasons.

Yahoo, AltaVista and other search engines have not announced any similar measures, so many older bombs that no longer work with Google still work with these other engines. Also, it is possible to Google bomb for commercial or self-promotional purposes. Commercial link bombing, also known as "spamdexing," involves driving traffic to sites by the massive creation of links via bots, usually targeting the comment fields of blog posts. But you wouldn't do that, would you?

Garfield Minus Garfield

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?"

Garfield Minus Garfield is genius.

Another Reason To Not Watch Television

Rosie O’Donnell wants to return to television in a sitcom she's developing about three best friends that would co-star “The Nanny’s” Fran Drescher.

I don't need to know who the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse is to fear this idea. And people wonder why ratings are down.

Afghanistan Just Got Harry

Prince Harry has been serving on the front line in Afghanistan with the British Army, calling in airstrikes on Taliban positions and going out on foot patrols. Not a bad way to get out of the house.

Officials said the prince, a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals regiment, was still deployed in the country. Harry is third in line to the throne and has been in Afghanistan since December.

The planned deployment had been disclosed to reporters, with no specific date, and was not reported previously under a pool agreement between the Ministry of Defense and all major news organizations operating in Britain. The news blackout was intended to reduce the risk to the prince and his regiment. The news embargo was broken, however, after reports of the prince's deployment were leaked by an Australian magazine and a German newspaper, and then reported on a U.S. Web site, the Drudge Report.

Harry, 23, has been deployed in the restive Helmand province for 10 weeks, where most of the 7,800 British troops in Afghanistan are based, according to the military's statement. In a recorded interview, Harry said he was happy to be standing shoulder-to- shoulder with his colleagues.

"It's nice just to be here with all the guys and just mucking in as one of the lads," said Harry, who had expressed bitter disappointment when he was banned from going to Iraq with his battalion last year. Army chiefs said publicity surrounding his deployment could put him and his unit at risk. Harry graduated from Sandhurst military academy in 2006 and trained as a tank commander. After the decision not to send him to Iraq, he retrained as a battlefield air controller, the job he has been filling in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: Adios, Harry. Guess the royal family didn't like that news leak. Enjoy your return to civilian life.

Filthy Chutes

India's rail system is shitty...literally.

And in related news, a newborn baby girl survived an ignoble birth after slipping down the toilet bowl of a moving Indian train onto the tracks when a pregnant woman unexpectedly gave birth while relieving herself. Um, I think you were straining too hard if you pinched a baby loaf.

As described by the AP, most toilets on Indian trains are filthy chutes emptying directly onto the tracks. Coincidentally, the same has been said of their birth canals.

"My delivery was so sudden," said the Bhuri Kalbi, the mother of the infant, born two months prematurely. "I did not even realize that my child had slipped from the hole in the toilet." Give me a break! You don't know the difference between taking a shit and passing a small melon through your crotch? Tell me again why we're outsourcing our business there?

The 33 year old fainted on the toilet seat after the birth for a few minutes before waking up and alerting her family. Railway staff at a nearby station were alerted and soon found the newborn girl lying on pebbles by the track. She is now in intensive care because of her premature birth, and clearly not from falling out of a moving train onto the tracks from a toilet.

Juno No

Juno, this year's indie film darling, died in labor for me.

The comedy should have been a slam dunk given it's pedigree, but even less than last year's dark horse Little Miss Sunshine, I found I couldn't not line up with the adoring masses.

The film suffers from two major problems. The first is the finished product, which just doesn't play well. Let's start with the talent. Don't get me wrong, they're all fine actors, but rather than playing characters in the film, they're just cast as rehashed composites, and it doesn't work. Michael Cera has already played the shy, awkward type. Jennifer Garner has perfected the look of puckered consternation. Jason Bateman proved he has everyman coolness. Put everything together and it doesn't flow. It's like an all star team - having the top players doesn't mean they will perform well with that combination.

Director Jason Reitman hardly inspires them as he did his actors in Thank You for Smoking, but then again the material was far superior. And for that you can thank Diablo Cody, aka Brook Busey-Hunt. No matter what you call yourself, you're just an ex-stripper who lapdanced your script into the right hands. And to top it all off, the film has an utterly unlistenable, obnoxious soundtrack by The Moldy Peaches, y'know, for indie cred. If you don't hate them for their folk-pop, this picture should do the trick.

The other, bigger issue for Juno is that it tries too hard to be hip and is completely unrealistic. It's like living in an Urban Outfitters sponsored universe, where the cool is manufactured and marketed for the audience to blindly buy and not question. Hamburger phone? Striped shirt? Vintage hoodies? Sorry, we noticed your coolness was unnaturally perfect in it's composition.

And how about teenage Juno, who talks like 35 year old New Yorker from the East Village, which strangely shocks no one. She wanks about a music scene a decade before she was born and asks for hard liquor with disgusting cockiness - and not a single person ever reacts to the contrary. In real life, somebody would have bitch slapped her silly for acting like a pretentious twat. And where exactly in reality do Juno's parents live, where they barely flinch when she decides keep her baby - yes, another unlikely situation. Plus the quaint charmingness Juno's crush on a married man is played with takes all the real life intensity and depth out of it. But hey, Juno can do no wrong, so why think there's anything odd about it?

All that just adds up to one unlikable movie. Heathers was able to pull off dark and edgy, but Juno, you're not even close.

Turban Warfare

The photo of Barack Obama in African garb has caused quite a fuss in the public eye. But why has no one freaked out about his kinky 'fro when he used to go by Barry?

Uber-Unicycle

Motorcycles are not as cool as they used to be.

The EMBRIO Advanced Concept is a one-wheeled recreational / commuting vehicle, designed by Bombardier Recreational Products. Although the riding position is similar to that of a motorcycle, the vehicle uses sensors and gyroscopes to balance up to two passengers on a large single wheel whilst driving.

Specs are:
MODEL NAME: EMBRIO Advanced Concept
DEVELOPED BY:Bombardier Recreational Products
DRIVE SYSTEM: Fuel cell electric
FUEL: Hydrogen
LENGTH: 1,240 mm (48.8 in)
WIDTH: 700 mm (27.5 in)
HEIGHT: 1,200 mm (47.5 in)
WEIGHT: 164 kg (360 lbs)
SEATING CAPACITY: 2
Although the vehicle will remain stable when motionless, two small front wheels deploy at speeds below 12.5 mph. To move forward, the rider activates a trigger on the left handlebar. To turn the rider leans to the left or right. The brake is activated by a trigger on the right handlebar. Fuel cells running on hydrogen provide electricity for the electric motor which drives the single wheel.

Seth Charles Grushkin

Mush had this terriffic news to report :

"Sarice and I are extremely happy to announce the birth of Seth Charles Grushkin. The little guy was officially born at 11:39 am on February 27, 2008, weighing in at 6 pounds 3 ounces, and measuring 18 inches. Everyone is doing great!"

Congrats my friend!

In lieu of pictures (for the time being), this is "Birth Ritual", by Soundgarden (from Singles).

Tasteless Tastemaker

What's funnier than a Hello Kitty shower cap wearing, fur coat draped, fat homosexual blogger? A Hello Kitty shower cap wearing, fur coat draped, fat homosexual blogger with a record label.

Perez Hilton, aka Mario Lavandeira, is dealing with Warner Bros. Records to form his own imprint label. Hilton would receive $100,000 a year as an advance on any profits generated by artists he discovers and releases through Warners.

Hilton's "Listen to This" column, which hypes his favorite artists, is attractive to the label because his blog readership hovers around 3 million a month. But as you can tell by his style choices, clearly he has it going on. On what I don't know.

Mooner

NASA is so good at blowing up space shuttles and crash landing spacecraft their next mission seemed like a no-brainer.

Scientists are priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice. Or a really cool explosion. The Earth-on-moon violence may raise eyebrows, but NASA's history shows that such missions can yield extremely useful scientific observations. Like the Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo mission disasters.

NASA's previous Lunar Prospector mission detected large amounts of hydrogen at the moon's poles before crashing itself into a crater at the lunar South Pole. Now the much larger Lunar Crater and Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, set for a February 2009 moon crash, will take aim and discover whether some of that hydrogen is locked away in the form of frozen water.

LCROSS will piggyback on an October mission, but will take three months to reach proper moon smashing position. A smaller spacecraft will guide the vehicle towards its target crater, before dropping back to watch - and later fly through - the plume of moon dust and debris kicked up by it's impact. The shepherding vehicle is packed with a light photometer, a visible light camera and four infrared cameras to study the lunar plume before it turns itself into a second impactor and strikes a different crater about four minutes later.

Figuring out the final destinations for the $79 million LCROSS mission is "like trying to drive to San Francisco and not knowing where it is on the map," NASA officials said. Not only is that an expensive trip, but a hell of a rental car to total. Scientists want the impactor spacecraft to hit smooth, flat areas away from large rocks, which would ideally allow the impact plume to rise up out of the crater shadows into sunlight. That in turn lets LRO and Earth-based telescopes see the results.

LCROSS researchers anticipate a more than a 90% chance that the impactors will find some form of hydrogen at the poles. The off-chance exists that the impactors will hit a newer crater that lacks water - yet scientists can learn about the distribution of hydrogen either way. Good cover for just wanting to crash really expensive shit.

Tax Dollars In Action!

The Northern Illinois University building where a gunman killed five students in an auditorium lecture hall before committing suicide, will be demolished and replaced...on the taxpayer's dime!

Cole Hall — a huge classroom building at the center of the 25,000-student campus — will be replaced with a state-of-the-art general classroom building and be named Memorial Hall. Gov. Rod Blagojevich had an afternoon news conference to announce state funding for the project. Students on campus seemed torn about the announcement, but no one seems to be concerned that THE STATE IS GOING TO DEMOLISH A PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL BUILDING AND REBUILD IT.

"Some people can't stand to look at it, and others see it as a memorial as it is," 19-year-old freshman Cassie Dodd said. "Personally, I think it should stay. It's a part of us now." Junior Jessica Burnside disagreed. "It's a trophy of a tragic, destructive event. Nobody wants to be reminded of it." And they shouldn't be, if the suckers who pay taxes can get fleeced and fund an unnecessary reconstruction.

Demolition of the 40 year old Cole Hall could begin this spring, with construction expected to begin next summer, and the new facility ready for use as early as December 2010. The school has established a memorial scholarship fund in honor of the students who died, which is also a fine way to deal with the event, and not spend millions putting a new face on it. Or facade. Or foyer. Or fiscally irresponsibly funded building.

The Road To Fame

Diablo Cody must be proud of her Oscar for Juno, but even more so for her wonderful pictures from when she was just a young, desperate stripper.

Note to self - don't be a trashy stripper before becoming famous. Oops...too late.

Eating Crowe

Maxim magazine has apologized for publishing a negative review of the Black Crowes' new album by a writer who hadn't listened to the whole CD, missing their new, prog metal direction entirely. Not.

The review in Maxim's March issue gives the Crowes' "Warpaint" a rating of two-and-a-half stars out of five. The band posted an exasperated statement on its Web site last week saying the Maxim writer hadn't heard the entire album because advance copies weren't available. The Crowes' manager, said the magazine explained that its review was an "educated guess." Well, if you don't provide albums to review to promote your band, that's what'll happen. But again, this is the Black Crowes. They and Lenny Kravitz are locked in a battle to mine the most psychedelic rock and recycle it endlessly. You could write a review to their last album and only need to change the names of the songs, and it would be spot on.

"It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers." Where's the apology to the listeners who'll listen to the album curiously to see if the review was merited?

A spokeswoman for the magazine declined to say whether the writer would face disciplinary action. Like having to listen to the whole album.

Transfurniture

The Casulo is a modular, compact transformable furniture solution. But don't get interested just because of my description - check out their rhetoric!

Considering that our society is becoming more and more mobile as a result of a fluctuating job market one must ask what the necessities are for people on the move and how their furniture should be designed. Flexibility and mobility have become key concepts of today’s working world and yet we continue to create our own barriers to our success and mobility. We take on obligations and responsibilities and obtain house goods far beyond what we really need. When it comes time to move we are aware of the burden of our increasing accumulations. We must overcome our fundamental ideas of consuming so that we can move and change. A change from our accustomed style of life to a more mobile one will mean overcoming our desire to accumulate goods and possessions.

At first glance the new mobility may seem restrictive and over economical yet the future generation will take the new style of life for granted and appreciate even more the increase in mobility, freedom and flexibility. Moving house is always a strain, a burden of time and expense. Even with several helpers the timing and planning, the transport and reassembly of the furniture is a strong man act.

The concept of the Casulo employs the preexisting transportation system and is ideal for short term, spontaneous changes of residence. Casulo does away with the problem of temporary furniture rentals and offers a winning solution to all the problems moving involves. We are facing an enormous challenge, for in the working-world of the future we will have to adapt to a more mobile style of life. The Casulo concept offers a inventive and achievable opportunity to face the demands of mobile living.

Maybe a demonstration would be better. That was really confusing.

New Lice Treatment

Famous M Transformation Agenda Communication #8

Starbucks is shutting its doors for three hours tonight, the latest drastic step in what is being called a companywide bid to improve its sagging fortunes. Hmmm...close your business for three hours and increase your fortunes? Brilliant!

The shutdown is one of several big moves spearheaded by Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz, who recently took back the reins of the company amid concerns that it was losing its edge and facing increased competition from the likes of McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Those $4 McLattes really cut into business, I guess.

Schultz has said the shutdown, which begins at 5:30 p.m., is a way to energize its 135,000 employees and provide some barista re-education in the "art of espresso" at its 7,100 U.S. locations. It's also known as staff training during work hours.

In a memo to employees and the public, Schultz said the goal of the closure was to improve the so-called "Starbucks Experience" — the company's shorthand for its mixture of service, ambience and coffee that spurred its explosive growth and success in recent years. "We are passionate about our coffee. And we will revisit our standards of quality that are the foundation for the trust that our customers have in our coffee and in all of us," Schultz wrote in a memo titled "Howard Schultz Transformation Agenda Communication #8." Fuck, that's pompous.

The move comes about a year after a memo was made public in which Schultz openly fretted about whether the Starbucks brand was being watered down by changes including adding automated espresso machines and using pre-ground, pre-packaged coffee in stores. Both moves have robbed the stores of some of their aroma and romance but have allowed customers to get their caffeine fix more quickly. I don't know if there were any references to shilling over-the-hill musical artists relentlessly, but that may have taken the sparkle away too.

Schultz, Starbucks' longtime chairman, has made several changes aimed at reviving Starbucks' growth since taking on the chief executive role in January. The kind of growth that can only come after cutting 600 positions, like it did last week. More forward thinking: Starbucks also recently announced that it was droppping its hot breakfast sandwiches, which customers liked but which many baristas said were smelly. Good. Eliminate a customer favorite because the employees find it "smelly". At this rate and with such aplomb, expect the 4,394 Starbucks on your street to be closed in two weeks.

Electron's Portrait

Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time, using a new technique that will allow researchers to study the tiny particle's movements directly. Try and guess which 'tron it is.

Previously, it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness, so scientists had to rely on more indirect methods. Like getting it high on good weed. Or making it do long division.

Those methods were worthless, and others could only measure the effect of an electron's movement, the newest technique can capture the entire event. Since extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion, short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, get the job done. It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom - an attosecond is 10-18 seconds long.

Using another laser, scientists can guide the motion of the electron to capture a collision between an electron and an atom on film. The length of the film corresponds to a single oscillation of a wave of light . The speed of the event has been slowed down for human eyes. The technique could also be used to study what happens in an atom when an electron leaves its shell.

The Fall

Uh...wow.

Monk's Blade

A Buddhist monk from Japan was killed after slipping and falling under the blades of his runaway tractor lawnmower, an inquest into his death has found. Guess they're not invincible warriors of God.

The Reverend Seiji Handa was cutting the grass around his peace pagoda when the accident occurred. Last August. What? Six months to determine that?

The coroner's office recorded it an accidental death. He got out of the tractor to inspect something but the vehicle, which was pulling a multi-bladed grass cutting machine, slipped its handbrake.

Handa came to Britain in 1978, when he began building a pagoda to promote peace. He had tended the pagoda with the help of nuns ever since. His main job was to trim the 12 acres of lawns around the monument. Little did he know he would become fertilizer.

Dead Air

Fly the deadly skies! Not a good weekend for the air travel industry...

GB Airways (a British airline) was forced to divert to Turkey after the co-pilot died in mid-flight. God took over from there.

The flight was carrying 156 passengers from Manchester to Paphos in Cyprus, but landed in Istanbul after "a medical emergency on the flight deck" occured. The co-pilot was pronounced dead once the plane had landed. Natural causes were claimed, but at 43, that's a little young to die naturally. The airline said passengers were never in danger.

Meanwhile, Carine Desir was pronounced dead on a nearly full Haiti-to-New York flight by a pediatrician who said he tried to use the plane's defibrillator on her as she faded, but her pulse was already too weak for it to work.

American Airlines defended its staff as professional and its equipment as sound, despite her family's claims that the crew ignored her pleas until it was too late. The doctor, Joel Shulkin, was one of several medical professionals who stepped in after flight attendants asked if any were on board. Shulkin said through his attorney, Justin Nadeau, that two emergency medical technicians performed CPR on Desir, a diabetic.

Desir had complained of not feeling well and being very thirsty after she ate a meal on the flight. A flight attendant brought water to her, but a few minutes later, Desir (herself a nurse) said she was having trouble breathing and asked for oxygen.

"Don't let me die," she said, but a flight attendant twice refused her request.

The airline spokesman said Desir's cousin flagged down a flight attendant and said Desir had diabetes and needed oxygen. "The flight attendant responded, 'OK, but we usually don't need to treat diabetes with oxygen, but let me check anyway and get back to you.'" Yes, that is correct...insulin is a way better choice. The employee spoke with another flight attendant, and both went to Desir within three minutes, but by that time the situation was worsening, and they immediately began administering oxygen. There were 12 oxygen tanks on the plane and the crew checked them before the flight took off to make sure they were working. At least two were used on Desir.

"Her last words were, 'I cannot breathe.'" You got that right.

MAGNA at Cannibal Flower

2008 will be known for many things, and even though there are still 10 more months to go, the CD release of Echo Location and performance by MAGNA at Cannibal Flower will be high atop the list.

Many special thanks to our boys who made the visual realm come to life Dave K. - master of lighting, and Jeremy L. - lord of video mixing and projectorism. The show would not have been half the success it was without them. Also, nothing but love for the CF family, especially LC and Michelle, for having MAGNA in their house again. For all the peoples who surprised us and came, and those who we counted on and were there, you were appreciated.

Uncharacteristic of a typical rock show, the band played completely obscured by the 25' tryptic screen, behind a mixture of ever-changing visuals and their silhouetted forms. Heeding reports from out in the crowd, the sizable audience surrounded the screen and watched the imagery, as MAGNA played the appropriate soundtrack.

The bass guitar mounted camera and two corner tripod fixtures transmitted to the video mixing console to be fed into the projector, as well as get recorded for archival purposes, and the band was miked for recoring. Sadly, the tech on the audio end coundn't keep up with the butchness and the audio tracks were not recovered to sync with the video, but the crash had no bearing on the performance.

You saw a whole lot more if you were there, but this is a little peek behind the curtain.