This is probably not going to come as a shock to many of the ladies out there: autism is a case of the extreme male brain.

I'm an excellent driver. It's a 1949 Buick Roadmaster. Straight 8. Fireball 8. Only 8,985 production models. Dad let's me drive slow on the driveway. But not on Monday, definitely not on Monday. Ten minutes to Wapner. We're definitely locked in this box with no TV.

New blog covering all of the interesting bits going on around the twin cities -- MNSpeak. It's put together by Chuck Olsen and Fimoculous Rex, so I have high hopes for it.

Not much else today. I cracked one of my molars, and a trip to the dentist confirmed that I'll need to get my very first crown next week. Bah!

Guess the Google. See if you can be 298.

Hmmm. Even Darth Vader's got a blog now.

The Geek Boat. Take a used cruise ship, plant it in international waters three miles off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, people it with 600 of the brightest software engineers they can find around the world (both men and women), and run a 24-hour-a-day programming shop, thereby avoiding H-1B visa hassles while still exploiting offshore labor cost arbitrage and completing development projects in half the time they’d take onshore or offshore.

Sounds like too many Gophers and not enough Julies to me.

Speaking of Julies... Juliette Lewis is now a rock star? Okay. I guess I kind of like it.

Garden gnomes gone wild. This little guy even got his picture taken with Paris Hilton.

And two great tastes that tast great together. Hot rock girls + garden gnomes = The Donnas.

Oops! I did it again. The original Satchmo version.

Might have to re-think my desire to ride the aptly-named Stratosphere Insanity ride. Nearly 1,000 feet above the Vegas Strip, "Insanity" is a ride that lives up to its name -- spinning people around and around. Now imagine being stuck on it -- for more than an hour. I am, and oddly enough, it still sounds fun.

Jokes with realistic endings.

Man 1: Knock, Knock

Man 2: Who's there?

Man 1: It's me Johnny.

Man 2: Oh, hey man! Come on in, and have a beer.

Too bad this was an April Fool's day column, because it made me laugh. "We really just wanted to know what would happen if Civil War soldiers fought the crew from 'Star Trek.' You never see that in the movies or TV reruns." As you might expect, it did inspire some guy to 'crash' a civil war reenactment... dressed as a confederate soldier. A Klingon confederate soldier.

It's not easy living on Dork Street.

If Only They Kept Diaries: Barbie

Popalicious

Thank god they finally elected a new pope. I'm really happy for this Eggs Benedict guy, because quite honestly, I was getting really sick of the 24-hour pope watch. Yesterday morning, for instance, I was up insanely early (about 4:30 or so). So I'm lying in bed watching Entertainment Tonight! when all of the sudden there's the beep-beep-bada-beep breaking news alert. The programming's pre-empted and we're whisked away live via satellite to the Vatican, where the reporter anxiously announces that... "They have not elected a new pope yet."

I mean, come on! Why do you go on the air with "breaking news", and report that the "breaking news" is that there is "no news"? So, about 5 minutes of discussion goes by talking about this non-news, and then we're treated to a 2 minute montage of watching smoke rise from a chimney. Really. It's like a bad SNL skit, isn't it? And THIS is taking me away from Reese Witherspoon's harrowing encounter with the paparrazzi? Pffft.

Anyway, I flipped over and watched an informercial on the Oreck vacuum cleaner. Because, despite the marketer's claims, at least THAT didn't suck. As much.

Some people dressed up as their favorite character from a Wes Anderson movie. For the record, *I* would have sported Dignan's yellow jumpsuit from Bottle Rocket.



Oh, I soooo need to be on this -- Beauty and the Geek -- a new reality show created from the brilliant mind of Ashton Kutcher.

"Punk'd" creators Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg has scored a six-episode commitment from the Frog for a new dating/makeover series, where they pair up mismatched individuals together.

WB entertainment president David Janollari says, "We pair really intelligent young men with really attractive women who many not quite have the same capability."

I'm not sure I qualify as "really intelligent", but compared to the show's producers? Yeah. Exactly.

Myprontopup.com as a comic strip

We're going to be flirting with 80 degrees today, so I suppose I should get out and do some yard work. Or sunbathe. One of the two.

I'm toying around with some ideas that I might use to add a bit of flair to this site, but we'll have to see how that all develops. In the meantime, just more goofy links today.

Supermarket superheroes.

Sing with Homer Simpson.

Scenes from The Undead Big Chill.

Harrison Ford can act using only his index finger.

Introducing the most technologically advanced piece of clothing since the Hypercolor t-shirt ... the LED scrolling belt buckle.

Love this. Talk to Google. Use Google talk by entering three or four words below. The system will search for this sentence at Google, find the next word and print that. Than it will remove the first word of the search string, add the found word and repeat.

I started with "Cheese curds make me"... and this was the google result:

Cheese curds make me want to be a marine biologist and the aquarium's Sharks.

I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds good.

Watch Elevator moods. Maybe I'll have more stuff next week. Yeah, probably I will. Maybe.

Slow week, huh? Yeah, here too.

In lieu of anything else, let this tide you over. Check out these amazing 360 degree panoramas of the Minnesota State Fair. (Note -- use the SHIFT key to zoom in, and the CTRL key to zoom out as you're 'wandering around')

More later. Hopefully.

Welcome to high-bandwidth Mondays. Here's some movies for you:

The Found Footage Festival (click on the Preview link to see a trailer for the movies). The Found Footage Festival is a live comedy event and screening featuring odd and hilarious clips from videotapes found at thrift stores and garage sales and in warehouses and Dumpsters throughout the country.

Turn around, bright eyes...

Incredible basketball shots.

Shakeskin.

Fabulous. I just used Google Montage to create this wonderful piece of art. Even though this uses Google's image search, many of the pictures on the page are actually mine. Tres cool.

Implausible Claims Made by Vanilla Ice in His 1990 No. 1 Hit "Ice Ice Baby."

The emotional final scene from Seven. Performed by stuffed animals. (Click SKIP -- in the upper right corner -- when the page first loads).

Mail Order Husbands.

THIS IS FUN TO MAKE A BLOG ON THE COMPUTER WEBSITE. (weird)

Lecture! The Musical!

Woman makes a 911 call because Burger King doesn't make her Western burger correctly. (Click on this link for the audio).

The world's ugliest car? Mmmmm okay. I still want one.

You won't believe this, but I'm actually on a crowded elevator right now.

I did get to see Wim Wenders the other night. It was a last-minute replacement to the film festival (probably why I didn't know about it earlier), and it was completely packed. I'm glad I got there when I did. The movie -- Land of Plenty -- was about 90% good. I liked most of it, but I absolutely HATED the last 10 minutes. It's not likely to be shown in the US any time soon, because I guess they don't know how to market it here. On the one hand, it's vehemently anti-Bush in tone, yet on the other side it's got strong Christian overtones.

"The idea for 'Land of Plenty' originated with the fundamentalist Christianity of the Bush era. From the anger that Christianity has been so perverted and used in so a perfidious manner for political interests," Wenders said. "As a Christian, I know no other option except to be against war and to have solidarity with the poor."

Hmmm. Interesting dilemma, but it may be released through Moveon.org because I guess the anti-Bush message trumps the pro-Christian one.

One of the funnier moments came when I was waiting for the film to start. I was sitting next to these 4 college-aged girls (hey, they sat next to ME, dude). Anyway, they were talking about the Pope, and here's basically how the conversation went:

• You know what they should do? They should pick the Pope on a TV show.
  
• Yeah, like "Who Wants To Be The Pope"!
  
• And the cardinals could do, like, challenges in stuff...
  
• I'd vote for the one that can eat the most bugs...
  
• Conclave! Catch the Fever!

It went on like that for a while. I think that was my favorite part of the movie, actually.

Also, my adventures in dog-sitting are over for the moment. Maddy's going to be a little PO'ed with me today since her playmate is gone. Here's another picture of Lilly & Maddy.

Movie Monday

I'm planning to check out my first film festival selection tonight. I was browsing through the movie selections and this one just jumped out as a 'must see' -- Wim Wender's Land of Plenty. And the reason it's a must see is that Wim Wenders himself will attend the screening and do a Q & A session afterwards. Most American audiences would be familiar with films like Paris, Texas and Buena Vista Social Club, but that's not my favorite.



One of my favorite movies of all time -- perhaps THE favorite -- is the classic Wings of Desire. I remember seeing this when it first came out at the Uptown. I was a freshman in college, I think, but it had a big impression. Much of the film is interspersed with Peter Handke's poem, Song of Childhood, which is sort of an ode to Rilke. After seeing this movie, I read a quite a few things by both Handke and Rilke.

It was also the film that introduced me to Nick Cave.

Wenders also gets credit for helping launch the career of Jim Jarmusch, one of my other all time favorite directors. Wenders gave Jarmush his "extra" film stock from a movie he just completed. With it, Jarmusch made Stranger Than Paradise. I just got the Criterion Collection's Down by Law on DVD, but I haven't watched it yet.

In my house, in the hallway leading upstairs, I have 3 framed movie stills. The first is a scene from Down By Law, the second is David Byrne dancing in his Big Suite from Stop Making Sense, and the third is a picture of Damiel the Angel in Wings of Desire.

Anyway, Wenders turned me on to a lot of stuff, so it will be fun to see him in person.

Bassetzilla vs. Xena



My hound slumber party is going pretty good. Every night I've got front row seats to some all-star dog wrasslin'. At the dog park, Lilly has he nickname 'Xena'. One of her favorite tricks is to pick up a big stick and then charge. She's armed and dangerous. Yesterday she picked up a stick, ran up behind me, and THWACK! gave me a good spank. Maddy's never spanked me.

Anyway, some other dumb stuff for today:

Finally, somebody "gets" the brilliance of the Burger King Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch commercial.

Before the Daily Show, there was this: Waiters who are nauseated by food.

A modern Cool Hand Luke -- 50 peeps in 60 minutes.

15 bad scenes in great movies. (Hit the nail right on the head with Million Dollar Baby!)