Offbeat

No matter where you fall on the opinion scale with regards to WikiLeaks, the various governments and companies involved, or Anonymous and the 4Chan DDoS attacks and everything else related to this wild ride … you have to admit that this comic is ironic if not hilarious … Source: XKCD

Every year at the Academy Awards there is a montage of movies released during that year … but at this point they should just cancel whatever contract they have out for that job and license this! Youtube user genrocks compiled this video because, as she says “this year’s movies have legitimately transformed my idea of what is creatively possible”. You can also follow her on Twitter. Here is his description, including all of the music used: This year’s movies have legitimately transformed my idea of what is creatively possible. To commemorate, I’ve remixed 270 of them into one giant ass…

At this time of year many folks are looking for Christmas presents for their kids, and many people want to get something that is more centered around creative play instead of the pre-packed products that are most popular now. They look to the older toys, to Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, LEGO sets, and so on. At the same time, as someone who writes some offbeat articles for Gear Diary I end up with all kinds of emails, from consumer safety information to import oddities to … well, badly named kids toy sets! At a time when there are seemingly weekly…

(image courtesy Marketing.fm) NASA rocked the scientific world today with a HUGE announcement: Possible aliens! That’s the gist of it, at least. The less exciting part is that they found a bacteria that eats arsenic. But if there is a bacteria that can survive on arsenic, it proves something that’s simply been a theory so far, that life can exist on non-traditional elements. According to CNN: The bacterium — strain GFAJ-1 of the Halomonadaceae family of Gammaproteobacteria — was scooped from sediment in California’s Mono Lake, an area rife with high levels of naturally occurring arsenic, it said. Scientists were…

When you think of Leslie Nielson, it is hard to imagine that at one point he was looked at as a serious actor in leading roles and a ladies man. Yet in the late 1950’s he was tall, handsome and charismatic, and got lead roles in films such as 1956’s Forbidden Planet pictured at the top. But through the years he never blossomed into the mega-star that some expected, as his serious on-screen personas couldn’t compete with other actors, and no one got a look at his comedic side until 1980. His image now is the one cemented by his…

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day across the US, and everywhere you went there were special events, giveaways, speeches, and so on to commemorate the event. And that is a very good thing – I remember well the era when individual soldiers were lumped with politicians and others in terms of getting blamed for Vietnam and everything else that was wrong with the country throughout the 1970’s. And while I have significant concerns about many of the restrictions to our freedoms and ability to dissent in our post-9/11 reality, I think it is a wonderful change for the good in our country…

Is there any music video that screams Halloween more than Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking Thriller? Do you remember how huge of an event it was on TV when it launched? Heck, I was listening to Anthony Braxton and eschewing pop culture wherever possible and I watched the premier! So … without any more chatter, let’s get right to the video! Happy Halloween!