Hi Ho, Hi Ho

Workers at Disney's Florida and California theme parks will be allowed to grow beards and goatees for the first time ever starting next month. Great news...but I hope they're only talking about the men.

Facial hair was prohibited on theme park workers when founder Walt Disney opened Disneyland in California in the mid-1950s, though Walt himself had quite the lip-tickler. The company revised its policy in 2000 to allow mustaches - provided they were grown on vacation and not at work, and as of February 3rd, beards and other facial growth under 1/4 inch will be allowed. 

Disney has long had a reputation as having one of the strictest dress codes in the corporate world.  Until 2010, women were required to wear pantyhose with skirts and couldn't wear sleeveless tops, and even now the straps have to be at least 3 inches wide. Employee grooming rules still forbid visible tattoos, body piercings (other than the ears for women), "extreme" hairstyles or colors.  And in case you were wondering, shaved heads are okay for men, but not for the ladies.

Fisto Also Has The Power

I don't know why they never made a Masters Of The Universe figure for this character...

Super Sniffers

The fanboy in me is super-excited about the upcoming Avengers film, but not so much about the merchandise that's being tied into it.

Just like the attempt to take any spare change for gamers while deodorizing them for the public, so is the move to bilk comic readers in a similar manner.   You may not be a superhero, but you can smell like what merchants (who also make Star Trek and Star Wars themed fragrances) think they do:

• Infinity Formula Cologne

Colonel Nicholas "Nick" Fury. Paratrooper, Ranger, Weapons and Demolitions Expert, Aircraft Specialistand Pilot, Green Beret. Veteran of every US War and Military Conflict since WWII. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. "The single most powerful, most important organization on the planet Earth." And the only human strong enough to bring together a group of remarkable people who would fight the battles no one else could.

• Patriot Cologne

A cologne that pays homage to the confident, stand-up-to-bullies, hard working average Joe in every man. PATRIOT Cologne is both reserved and sexy; like a symbol on a shield or a moniker ona motorcycle helmet. Fresh notes of green lime and white pepper are the first to hit with dry oak wood, sandalwood and tequila accords finishing the adventure. Perfect for any time or place, PATRIOT Cologne puts the Novus Mundus in your strong, sensuous hands for you to embrace and discover.

• Mark VII Cologne

A resolutely sophisticated cologne forged from the sea, the sun, the earth, and a touch of devil-may-care whimsy. Transparent, aromatic, and modern in nature, Mark VII combines mandarin, neroli, nasturtium and jasmine layered with light patchouli to create a contemporary expression of "I don't play well with others" confidence; leaving you always ready for whatever a genius, billionaire, playboy-philanthropist might encounter along the way.

• SMASH!

Very unusual and rare materials have been brought together to create a woody aquatic cologne evoking both a serene sense of timeless freedom and a single-minded, unbridled passion for life. Yuzu, bergamot and tarragon create clean, clear top notes along with unexpected accords of water lily and nutmeg. SMASH! then carries an intense woody drydown enriched with Indian sandalwood, vetiver, musk and sharp cedar. Complimentary to a full range of emotions, it wears well no matter where-at work, the lab or an evening out on the town.

• Worthy Cologne

This woody citrus cologne is a unique, meaningful combination of bergamot, frozen ginger and wheatgrass blended with a hint of fresh natural grapefruit and layered deeply with aromatic cypress. Basenotes are possessed with sensual, seductive tones of dark amber and cedarwood, protecting and enhancing a deep, dry masculine (dare we say almost God-like?) musk.

• Mischief

Possessed of Superhuman strength, Genius-level intelligence, Mystical powers, Telepathy, Flight, Clairvoyance, Therianthropy, and Teleportation... who could blame you for becoming the greatest trickster of them all? So wear your crown of baleful maleficence with pride; let mirth and mayhem stand ready at your side, anticipating your every command. Test their mettle knowing you have nothing to fear; you are Mischief and you were made to rule.

If they really wanted to make some money, they should sell panties that smell like the Black Widow.

Spanish Christmas In January

A flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man during a festival in eastern Spain over the weekend.  You mean, I don't have to wait for the annual culling of the stupid in Pamplona?

The mayor of Navajas said emergency services were unable to save the life of the 45-year-old man who tripped just as the bull was released. My hero The bull, who had large balls of flaming wax affixed it's head, charged the victim, gored him and then stamped on his head, causing "irreversible injuries".  I'll say! 

Unlike other fun runs involving bulls, for the The Feast of Saint Anton, the animals aren't killed in the end. Taking out a stupid human and not being slaughtered in the end?  That's a win-win.

A Through S



Have It Your Way (Without Going Out Of Your Way)

The number three fast food chain wants to see America make plenty of number two in the comfort of their own home.

Burger King may be behind Wendy's and McDonald's, but they've got the jump on them when it comes to getting consumers at their most vulnerable...and lazy.  In select Washington, D.C. locations, the King will come to you. They don't do fountain drinks, coffee, breakfast foods, or milkshakes; delivery costs $2 an order; and you must live within a 10-minute drive of a participating store. But Burger King not only guarantees 30-minute delivery, but their "proprietary thermal packaging technology" will keep your fries crisp and burger "hot and fresh".

French fried potatoes for couch potatoes, from a business perspective, is a slam dunk - as long as they can keep those happy meals from turning into crappy ones.  I wish I still ate the fast food and lived in D.C. to give it a whirl - though maybe I can convince Famous Sister to be a guinea pig...

Down The Rabbit Hole

You start off checking up on an Los Angeles band on a Australian fan site that gets you to a YouTube page for girl in Ohio. You follow the interweb where it takes you... 

The Artist Of Oz

Off To See The Wizard is a damn cute Aussie artist who makes some trippy art...

Murderquake

Researchers believe they have discovered a link between the behavior of serial killers and the same mathematical patterns obeyed by sporadic events like earthquakes, avalanches, stock market crashes.  You mean it was an equation and not Satan talking to them through a dog that is to blame?

Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury are electrical engineers at UCLA, and they modeled the behavior of Andrei Chikatilo, aka the "Rostov Ripper", who murdered 53 people in Rostov, Russia between 1978 and 1990.  Sometimes Chikatilo went years without a killing, other times just days - and the researchers found that the seemingly random spacing of his murders followed a mathematical distribution known as a power law.

When the number of days between Chikatilo's murders was plotted against the number of times he waited that number of days, the results form a near-straight line on a type of graph called a log-log plot, which is the same if you plot the magnitude of earthquakes against the number of times each magnitude has occurred.  Simkin and Roychowdhury hypothesize this effect causes epileptics to have seizures or serial killers to commit murder - a simultaneous firing of large number of neurons in the brain.

A single neuron firing in the brain can potentially trigger the firing of thousands of others, each of which can in turn trigger thousands more. This mostly dies down, but sometimes, at time intervals determined by the power law, neuronal activity surpasses a threshold. Following their theory, it would cause the expected result in nature or people. Of course, a study would need to look at larger set of cases to determine whether the data holds or it was merely a chance correlation.

Thespian Gourmet

Movie Posters From An Alternate Universe

FCCC-P?

File sharing is now ordained in Sweden.

Since 2010, Church of Kopimism, a group of self-confessed pirates, had been denied several times in their attempt to have their beliefs recognized as an official religion. The "Kopimists", who hold CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols, finally got their approval, and hope their official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.

Here's the loose timeline on the origin of the religion: In 2001, a lobby group called the Antipiratbyrån (the Anti-Piracy Bureau) was formed in Sweden to combat copyright infringement. By 2003, the free-information movement mockingly copied the lobby group’s name and removed the "anti", calling themselves Piratbyrån (the Piracy Bureau). Piratbyrån created The Pirate Bay site, which quickly became the world’s most notorious source for downloading feature films, TV shows, and software. Ibrahim Botani, a central figure in Piratbyrån, designed a kind of un-copyright logo called “kopimi” (pronounced “copy me”) in 2005. Adding the kopimi mark, as it were, to a work of intellectual property indicated that you not only give permission for it to be copied but actively encourage it.

When Botani died unexpectedly, in 2010, Piratbyrån decided to disband. The Pirate Bay is still thriving despite the ongoing criminal case against its operators, and there's even the Pirate Party, a political party with a pro-Internet platform with special emphasis on copyright and patent reform. Isak Gerson, a philosophy student and active Pirate Party member, was such a religious (pun intended) file-sharer, he founded The Missionary Church of Kopimism to protect his "sacred beliefs". And in the last six months their ranks have tripled to 3,000 devotees.

Ultimately, it may not separate church and state, but I'm all for a more tolerant P2P world of belief.

Hello!

Calgon Arm Candy

It was pretty bad that people are using bath salts as a drug, but karma pays back those who are stupid enough to try it...

The first known case of necrotizing fasciitis aka flesh-eating disease, caused by an injection of bath salts has been reported.  Dr. Russell R. Russo (are you kidding me with that name?) and his colleaguesat the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine (are you kidding me with that name?), treated a 34-year-old women who developed forearm pain and redness after she attended a party. Normally, it would be bruised thighs and a swollen groin, but the only sign a small red puncture wound on her arm.

Eventually, the idiot woman admitted that she injected bath salts two days before her symptoms began, and upon reexamination they determined that she had necrotizing fasciitis. The disease progressed so rapidly that the doctors had to amputate the woman's arm, shoulder and collarbone and perform a radical mastectomy. The women later underwent skin grafting and rehabilitation, but no word if she's getting talking any night classes at the local city college or doing on-line school in order to try and raise her IQ.

There's so many other great drugs available out there which can totally kick your ass and not cause your arm to immediately rot, and I expect more from a 34 year-old.  I can't even be a grumpy old man and say "kids these days"...

Chicken McFucking

A woman was arrested last week for allegedly offering sexual favors in exchange for Chicken McNuggets, according to Burbank police. I hope she was at least going for the 50 pieces for $9.99 - that's value!

Khadijah Baseer was seen opening customers’ car doors in the McDonald’s drive through at 1700 block of Olive Avenue about 11 p.m. Wednesday - and since that was last week, now you've got the date, time, and location in case you want to see if you get a Happy Meal for yourself this week. Baseer was allegedly offering to swap sexual favors for the McNuggets, which led a witness to report her to the authorities. I'm mean, c'mon, you're not even going to try and go for a meal combo or supersized fries and drink?  Baseer was arrested on suspicion of prostitution, and a lack of understanding of the Value Menu.


UPDATE: Sorry to get your hopes up about having your own "I'm lovin' it" moment, but Baseer is still in custody, since she was unable to post her $2,000 bail.  Homeless people don't often have that kind of scratch.  It was said she was willing to fill her mouth so she could fill her stomach, but I'd be looking through the dumpster in the back for a half eaten Big Mac before I sat on somebody's quarter pounder...and you can bet it was that way of thinking prostitution > dumpster diving that led her to be homeless .

Imagevoloution

It's simple - just take a transparent image, go to Google Image Search, and ask it to find similar images. Take the top result and feed it back in...2951 times.

Throw Me The Clip...Give Me The Idea

It's Back!

After a slight and unintentional hiatus (congrats on your parole, DMFG), Velvet Glove - Iron Fist is back and better than ever. Or worse, depending on who you ask.

Gamer Grub

From the very tasty Gourmet Gaming, a site that takes some of the eats from video games and makes them available for yor enjoyment in real life, here's the Cluckin’ Bell 'Fowl Burger' (from the Grand Theft Auto series):

What you will need: A frying pan, meat tenderiser, 2 bowls.

For the Fowl Burger:

- Olive Oil

- 1 Large Chicken Breast

- 50g / ½ Cup Breadcrumbs

- 1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin

- 1 Tablespoon Ground Coriander

- 1 Tablespoon Paprika

- 1 Egg

- Ketchup

- Mayonnaise

- White Burger Bun / Bread roll

- Baby Gem Lettuce Leaves

- 1 Baby Shallot

- 1 Slice of Mild Cheddar Cheese

Making the Fowl Burger:

1.Combine the cumin, coriander and paprika with the breadcrumbs in a bowl and mix well. In another beat the egg and set aside.

2.Heat a good amount of olive oil in a frying pan on a medium high heat. Beat the chicken breast so it is about 1-2cm thick, cut in half so you have two evenly sized pieces.

3.Dip them in the egg and then coat well in the breadcrumb mixture.

4.Once the oil is hot enough, fry the coated chicken breasts for about 4 minutes each side or until golden brown and cooked through.

5.Toast the bun then layer ketchup, lettuce, chicken, cheese, lettuce, chicken, lettuce, mayonnaise, sliced shallot and close with the top of the bun.

6.Serve with fries and a Sprunk and enjoy; the chicken didn’t die in vain.

Red Letter Media And The Crystal Skull

There is no better way to start the new year than with a new review from Mr Plinkett (who's already skewered the Star Wars prequels several times).

Part 1:

Part 2: