A few of My Favorite Things

Friday Links

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Yay yay for Fridays! Hmm, there was actually a typo and that last sentence read as Frodos! We're not quoting Gandalf today, no thanks.

Alright. So I came across this via Pharyngula's site. It's a fun jab at all those folks who dismiss scientific fact and run around believing in all sorts of nonense. I think Dara O Briain referred to them as the folks who should be in a sack. Now, to come up with my own scientific controversy ... I just have to follow the handy steps on that site.

And some of Verizon's customers are in for a nasty surprise. Ai Ai Ai! And I'm not talking about the fuss about the termination fee either.

Ooh didja hear that Dollhouse was canceled? That was a nasty turn of events there. I wish Whedon would find sponsors other those awful folks at Fox. Fox is responsible for the death of so many good shows. Apparently, years ago, Sliders also got the boot because of they were just not into that scifi scene anymore. Alright, so that's a bit of a stretch, Fox first tried to mess about with the show and then they canceled. Kind of what happened to Dollhouse too, isn't it?

And ... I also had a weird 'Oh that's who they are' moment. So here goes. While reading up on Bloodbath at the House of Death, I found out that one of the main guys in it used to have quite a few famous telly shows. Oh, the bloke's name was Kenny Everett. Anyway, his shows were well-known for guest apperances (dance numbers, what have you) by skimpily-clad dancers called Hot Gossip. This particular group (and am guessing that whole telly show) was parodied by NtNON here. Remember this?

There was also a bit where Vin Diesel was the butt of a few jokes. To be fair, it was an article about crappy action stars. You know, the way movie folks create lead characters for action movies?

Really bad voice acting

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Came across this on Felicia Day's tweets.

It's so bad! *cringe cringe*

#44 - He lived a 100 years? With that poncy voice?
#41 - "He's going to explode"? Right.
#23 - oh man, my ears! My ears!
#12 - your wtf moment
# 5 - Aaargh!
#2 - Dude, what's with the weird sputter?!

Kirk and the ladies

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:20:00 +0000

Italian ex-MP calls Mohamed a Paedophile

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:22:00 +0000

Check out the fiesty granny behind the host. She got a bit worked up there.

And boy, doesn't the Host look uncomfortable? Apparently at the end of the show they put up a few lines saying that Daniela Santache's views were not the views of the programme etc. etc.

It ain't global warming

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Wow, this will upset a number of people.

Indian Environment bigwig Jairam Ramesh says that he can't see a link between global warming and the receding glaciers of Himalayas?

Quote from News24:

Ramesh released research on Himalayan glaciers in New Delhi on Monday that disputes the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), regarded as the world's top authority on climate change.

Well, you know Mr. Gore will throw a hissy fit when he hears this story.

Presenting another fun edu-manga

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:23:00 +0000

Definitely kawaii!

You know how they have educational manga?

They've added Lisp to their learn-through-a-comic list.

Makezine via Mangablog

Now it should be easy to nab him!

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Oh, man!

... must ... stop ... laughing!

Did you hear about a bloke on the run who went 'Ergh!' and 'Eww!' when he saw his wanted pic on telly?

And then sent in a prettier pic of his?

Read more at News 24!

Friday Links

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:17:00 +0000

Alrighty! A new post, woohoo! Actually it's a bit late on a Friday so it takes a lot out of me to muster up that amount of enthusiasm. So let's move on, shall we?

see more Epic Fails

First up, I finished Tsukuyomi:Moon Phase. It was an interesting take on vampires, but not necessarily what you were hoping for. I think the young protagonist was a bit of a turn-off. I mean, unless the character is a bit daring and cynical like Ciel from Kuroshitsuji, the story quickly heads up Mount Boring. Incidentally, that implied loved angle was a bit on the 'meh' side. Well, if you like shoujo romances, this might be worth adding to the list.

Aah ha ha ha! This one's classic. Did you hear about U2's concert in Germany, the one where they were celebrating the fall of the wall? And how some idiot organizing the event put up a wall against ticketless folk? Well, Bono is a twat so what I'm hardly surprised.

Okay, Halloween was fun and we watched a lot of horror flicks. Bloodbath in the House of Dead was one and the new Dawn of the dead was another. I must say that the new one doens't even come close to the older one. A lot of social commentary was jam-packed into the earlier one and the new one was more of a gnaw-fest. Plus a bit of nudity. Incidentally, have you heard about the Giant Gila Monster? Ye, that's what nightmares are made of.

Eh? WoW already bleeds you slowly and painfully with a monthly subscription and now they are thinking of setting up a cash shop? Alright ... one of you wiseguys are now going to tell me that they always had one and that this is just about enhancing the said shop, right? It's been a few months since I kicked the WoW habit and I must say news like this don't make it look any prettier.

Something that might be of interest to anime/manga fans out there - a discussion about Christian themes in anime and manga. This article is more of a theory about why we come across such themes in these shows. After all, Japan is not a Christian nation; in fact, they are pretty much secular or at least pretty chilled about religious matters.

Oh my, look at all these folks complaining about Valve. Other online delivery services are getting their panties in a knot about the utterly awesome delivery service that is Valve. Do I sound in favor of the latter? You betcha. Incidentally Direct2Drive can go suck it! t(-_-t)

Wit's End

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:20:00 +0000

New Guild Episode!
<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=c53b6435-06bc-4b28-ad6e-2f9dc8e51364" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 9: Wit's End">Video: Season 3 - Episode 9: Wit's End</a>

Xenophobia, much?

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:10:00 +0000

You know how ICANN recently gave the thumbs-up for the use of foreign alphabets in domain names?

And everyone out there was waving flags and cheering and opening bottles of champagne?

Well, not everyone was all hey-ho and hello!

Someone was quite upset with that development.

And he decided to pen his thoughts about it.

Please brace yourself for a facepalm moment.

Thanks to Twilight *snicker* for that link.

When folks fear science ....

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

... we're all screwed!

I came across this via the Dawkins website. I'm glad folks are pushing for this and making a case about it.

Honestly, the number of folks who are into this namby-pampy, wishy-washy, hoity-toity quack nonsense is unbelievable. I say Tina, when are you going to stop following ...alright, I will stop with the TBL references. I think I made my point.

Quote from article:

The tragedy is that we have largely refused to educate ourselves about science and consequently the gap between its knowledge and our own has become ever greater. Our fear and suspicion of it have grown accordingly - and yet when it comes to irrationality in all its guises, we have cast all suspicion to the four winds and thrown ourselves on the mercy of quacks and mountebanks. Hence we barely raise an eyebrow when we find a well known television presenter using his position of influence to promote dangerously anti-scientific nonsense on the subject of vaccines: nonsense which we could have excused a hundred years ago but which is now simply the height of ignorant irresponsibility.

The article is called Vaccination: the moral imperative by Paula Kirby. Read the full article, it is excellent.

The Acoustic Version

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:12:00 +0000

...of Do You Want to Date My Avatar?

They are not going to live it down

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:45:00 +0000

... are they?

Copying and Stuff: New Guild Episode

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:58:00 +0000

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=ad9da3c0-f956-4a84-91a0-29281cc13c51" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 7: Coping and Stuff">Video: Season 3 - Episode 7: Coping and Stuff</a>

Friday Links

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Yay, another Friday Links page. And a lot has been happening!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Funny Brutal Legend interview

Were these guys joking or did they really not get what Jack Black was on about? I'm talking about the promo conference Black and Schafer gave for Brutal Legend. Black, in his typical over-the-top manner, came out making fun of rugged action types and I think most folks didn't get it. Oh and that emoticon? \m/ ? Yea, totally digging that!

This is for Social Media n00bs
or for folks who are doing it wrong ...

I've been tempted to unfollow a bunch of folks from twitter and other social media sites recently. Reason? A lot of them have
a) been spammed their stream with the same link over and over again
b) shamelessly promoted a product without bothering to talk to anyone
c) misusing the hashtag of a trending topic just for attention
... and the list goes on.

Do you want to know the full list of Do's and Don'ts for using Social Media? Check out 99 Social Media Failures @Digitaloz. Good info here and with this list, you might find out why you are losing followers/online buddies.

Review of Bloody Pit of Horror

I've mentioned this link in my feeds. But the movie is worth mentioning here. Have you seen this movie? You can download it for free via the Internet Archive as it is in the public domain. I swear someone somewhere didn't do the correct translation for this movie. It's cheesy, it's the over the top and you can't stop laughing at this flick! Read review for BPoH.

Porfolio inspiration

Vandelay Design has a great list of portfolio sites, showing how folks are arranging their 'I did this!' pages. I am going through a few such links since I should be finishing up my own portfolio site ... any day now. By the way, that Adam Amaral site is awesome!

What you need to know about Contracts

Thank you, Smashing Magazine. They had this fantastic article about Freelance Contracts and it is a must-read. Some stuff I already know but I learnt that the hard way, after dealing with exceptionally pushy clients. Now I am older and wiser but if only someone had told me some of that stuff early on ... Go on, check it out.

Vash the Stampedo

Ooooooh! The good folks doing a movie adaptation of Trigun has finally set a date. It's supposed to come out in 2010. Woot! Check out ANN for full details and other great links to that movie.

I remember why I don't trust RT

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:09:00 +0000

How do I get dragged into these things?

Why click random links and read articles that end up annoying me?

Sure, half the movies on this are worse than an elephant's turds ... even if it has a Batman perched on it ... but then again, why would you include The New Guy?

That was not so bad. It may not be the movie of the year but it's certainly better than some of the mind-numbing crap people usually list in the besta-movies-eva category!

And the bloody hell is Kaene:The Prophecy in this list? Did you leave your brain at the door when you reviewed this?

It worries me that people can't tell the difference in quality and subtance when rating movies like Big Momma's House and Kaene; that stupid Big Momma's whatchamacallit should never have been made and Kaene was so good, it wandered into the snooty-arty category.

Dr Horrible Part 2?

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:04:00 +0000

I don't know if I should get excited about this one.

There might be a follow up to the Dr Horrible Sing-along Blog.

On the one hand, I love the show and, let's face it, Joss Whedon's work is almost always awesome.

On the other hand, I will be bitterly disappointed and cursing at them if they decide to put this show on wucking-fanker-Hulu.

Hmm, that was a bit of a rant.

Meh!

Season 3, ep 6 of The Guild

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:58:00 +0000

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=09ca7e47-a094-46b3-ace4-d28658ee76a1" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 6: Newbtastic">Video: Season 3 - Episode 6: Newbtastic</a>

New Guild episode is out. Go on, check it out.

Blasphemy Day is Today

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Go on, say something. Make the clerics proud. Must stop with the Equilibrium references.

What about the 72 virgins or something like that? Although, when you think about it, makes you wonder if he was going to get a continuous supply for eternity or if it was a once-off deal of virgins who end up as his wives and then nag at him to take out the trash for the rest of eternity?

Banned Books Week

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Equilibrium

This is it, it's here. The Banned Books Week. So, what's everyone up to?

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I was planning to read a few banned books and talk about them this week. Turns out I didn't have time to finish reading any of it; in fact, I will start reading them this week.

Eeeyikes!

However, I will be planning to talk a bit about censorship, banned books and challenged books/videos/movies this week.

This particular article is not about a book but I am guessing if the movie is too controversial, any book by the good fellow is probably being handed to the clerics.

Check it out - US is shunning the new Darwin movie (Derren Brown's Blog)

Did you jump straight into an activity?

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:43:00 +0000

This was a boring ad. Alright it was boring until they started out with their innuendos. If that was intentional, man, those were sad ... and creepy.

Or am I the only one picking up on that?

Oh man! Someone else was also thinking along those lines. In fact they built on the tension between the folks. Ai Ai. Check it out here!

Lily Allen infringes on copyright ... again!

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:24:00 +0000

Maybe Lily Allen must have a quiet chat with Lars about the follies of putting your foot in it.

After she became the poster child for anti-piracy tirade, it's no surprise that folks will start scrutinizing her life and seeing if Ms. Allen adheres to copyright law.

Apparently not, especially if this Techdirt article by Micheal Masnick is anything to go by.

Quote from Techdirt:

When Lily was first trying to get attention, she created a couple of mixtapes with a ton of songs from other artists... available as MP3 downloads, and mixing in her own tracks. This is a well-known tradition in some circles and a great way to get some attention. We're all for it. But... it seems quite hypocritical of Ms. Allen to claim that file sharing is somehow evil and destroying the industry when she appears to be an active participant and used it to promote herself (oh my goodness! free music working as promotion!). According to the tracklisting of the second mixtape, it included 19 tracks by artists other than Lily Allen. Both mixtapes (mixtape 1 and mixtape 2) are available directly off of Lily's website, LilyAllenMusic.com, which has a copyright notice at the bottom from EMI.

Check out the full article, the writer makes a good point about implications of 'three strikes' in Lily Allen's case.

Parody about American Insurance Folk

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:34:00 +0000

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Hehe, nicely said!

Lily Allen hates piracy?

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:12:00 +0000

Want to know what Lily Allen has to say about file sharing?

Seems like she is not in favor of p2p sharers.

Quote from Cyberlaw:

“Last week in an article in The Times these guys from huge bands said file-sharing music is fine. It probably is fine for them. They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world.

For new talent, though, file-sharing is a disaster as it’s making it harder and harder for new acts to emerge..."

Charming.

Someone should tell the young one what happened to Lars when he last made a comment along those lines.

Moore talks about print media

noreply@blogger.com (Aktief Kulture) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:07:00 +0000

Hmm, interesting.

This is Michael Moore's take on newspapers going down the privvy.

Quote from The Wrap:

It’s not the Internet that has killed newspapers, the gadfly documentarian said in a four-minute detour from talking about his film, which rejects capitalism as “undemocratic.”

Instead, he said, it’s corporate greed. “These newspapers have slit their own throats,” he said. “Good riddance.”

There's a video on the site too, go check it out!