Frankbeaton.com

Poor guy.

I grew up a stone’s throw from Caesars Palace, so the footage of Knievel’s infamous wreck as he attempted to jump the fountains on a motorcycle has always had a weirdly special place in my heart. And even now, 40 years on, watching it still makes me wince and go, “God! Fuck! Oh my–! JESUS GOD!!”

You were brave and crazy, Evel. The world is a little less badass today.

read comments (0)

I approve.

read comments (0)

You wanna really mess your brain up this holiday season? Decide you’re going to write a story that requires you to spend three straight days watching conspiracy documentaries for research. Then supplement that research by reading every crazy-ass You-Are-Being-Lied-To website you can find through a cursory Googling, taking copious notes the whole time. As far as the relative level of traumatization goes, this course of action ranks just below being raped by a monster.

So have a good Thanksgiving, everybody. If you need me, I’ll be cowering in the corner of my basement fallout shelter, sipping grain alcohol and weeping softly while I check for RF implants.

read comments (1)

Apology accepted, Mr. Kring.

Nice.

read comments (0)

Wow. This looks really, really good.

Jeremy Sisto as Batman? I am SO all about that.

read comments (0)

Courtesy of the Star Wars Crafts group on Livejournal (really?), here’s a painting of Admiral Ackbar on black velvet.

Thanks, Internet!

read comments (0)

Brilliant op-ed piece in the Times today by the co-creator of LOST:

I am angry because I am accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I am angry because my greed is fair and reasonable: if money is made off of my product through the Internet, then I am entitled to a small piece. The studios’ greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the Web — that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely “promotional.” Seriously?

Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. Not working means not getting paid. My weekly salary is considerably more than the small percentage of Internet gains we are hoping to make in this negotiation and if I’m on the picket line for just three months, I will never recoup those losses, no matter what deal gets made.

Full article.

read comments (0)

Apparently someone put up a billboard in the Ideaspace that reads “TIME TO ‘RE-IMAGINE’ THE WIZARD OF OZ, EVERYBODY! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?”

First it was American McGee’s OZ game, which sadly never happened due to legal issues. Then last month there was the news that Todd McFarlane finally got the green-light to turn his “Twisted Land of OZ” action figure series (the Dorothy remains one of the most disturbing examples of brazen misogyny I’ve ever laid eyes on) into a feature film, possibly to be directed by one Michael Bay. And now we have the trailer for TIN MAN, a six-hour Sci-Fi Channel miniseries starring Zooey Deschanel as “DG” (get it?) and Alan Cumming as “The Scarecrow, Although We’re Going To Call Him Something Else For The Sake Of Cleverness, Like, I Dunno, ‘Rags’ Or Something”.

Eh, maybe it’ll be good. Who knows.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s your WTF? of the day, courtesy of the good people at Sci-Fi. (Keep an eye out for Richard Dreyfus, who, inexplicably, is in this.)

“That’s life in the Oh-Zee”? Are you fucking serious?

read comments (1)

My vote for coolest new tech device: the Asus EEE-4G Sub-Notebook.

Basically a miniature laptop — folded up it’s about the size of a Nick Hornby novel in hardback. 7″ screen, 3/4-size qwerty keyboard, has WiFi, a 4-hour battery life, three USB ports, a 4GB solid-state hard drive and it weighs less than 2lbs. Runs a stripped-down version of Ubuntu Linux that comes pre-installed with Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. Supposedly boots up in 8 seconds. Shockproof and spillproof. MSRP is $299 for the basic model (the same thing you’d pay for an AlphaSmart).

Seems like it’s practically made for writers, doesn’t it?

I am happy with the laptop I have. I am happy with the laptop I have. I am happy with the laptop I have. I am happy with the laptop I have.

read comments (1)

The difference between Black-Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” (which I’ve written about before) and Kelis’s “Milkshake” is, of course, that “Milkshake”, while ridiculous, is also pretty damn sexy — whereas “My Humps” just leaves you with a “What the fuck…?” feeling so profound it’s difficult to shake, even years later.

Having said that, a sure-fire way to strip any song of its sexiness is by mashing it up with the theme from GHOSTBUSTERS. This is especially true if the mashup works really, really well.

Enjoy.

mp3: “Milkshake Busters”

read comments (0)