i'm famous (again)
Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008
although I have been famous for years (see: sunflower, imdb, schmap, various EW headscratchers, various NJPA awards, etc.) my fame has reached new levels. My photo is currently included as an example of an 'action shot' on flickr's page for my camera.
woohoo! another futurama dvd
Posted on Saturday, March 22, 2008 From TVSquad.com,
As the first Futurama straight-to-DVD movie, Bender's Big Score, begins airing on Comedy Central (they'll air the movie as a four-episode blok on Sunday night), Fox has announced the name and release date of the second straight-to-DVD epic.
AnimationMagazine.net reports that Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs will be released on June 24, and they note that Fox calls it "the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic."
SPCA tries saving Pa. shelter's cats By Amy Worden INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
From New York to Indiana to Georgia, desperate animal-rescue groups regularly turned to the Tiger Ranch Cat Sanctuary near Pittsburgh and its promise of lifetime care for unwanted cats that likely would have been euthanized in overcrowded shelters.
In the last year, thousands of cats, some feral, many others once family pets, have been shipped hundreds of miles to what their rescuers thought was a safe haven.
But the reality, revealed in a nighttime raid led by the Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania SPCA last week, was anything but safe.
A 120-member team of shelter workers, police, veterinarians and volunteers descended on the property, 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday night after a seven-month undercover investigation and found hundreds of sick and dying cats, 105 cat carcasses in freezers, and a fresh burial pit.
"What struck me was how young the cats were," Howard Nelson, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania SPCA said yesterday after witnessing several autopsies. "They did not die natural deaths. They were coming in healthy, were exposed to horrific viruses, and died a horrific death."
Conditions were deplorable in a house and five outbuildings, crammed with scores of cats huddled around a portable heater with no clean water and a single food bowl, humane officials said.
Over the next 48 hours, about 400 cats, almost all suffering from life-threatening disease, were seized in what SPCA officials said might have been the state's largest anti-cruelty raid ever. Agents yesterday were trying to round up 250 to 300 cats still roaming the 29-acre property.
The sanctuary's owner, Linda Bruno, 46, also known as Lin Marie, was arrested and charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty. She was held in an Allegheny County jail after being unable to post the $50,000 bond. More cruelty charges are pending, authorities said.
once and awhile, snl is funny...
Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 link |
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are redheads going extinct?
Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 On a recent episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, guest Meredith Viera mentioned a recent Today show story that said that within 60 years, there would be no more red heads. As someone with a little bit of red in my hair, I Googled the truth.
In August 2007, many news organizations reported that redheads or "gingers," as our British and Australian friends call them, would eventually become extinct. Other news outlets and blogs picked up the story, citing the "Oxford Hair Foundation" or "genetic scientists" who claimed that there would be no more redheads by as early as 2060 [source: The Courier Mail]. It turns out that all those people were wrong. Redheads are here to stay and should be around well beyond 2060.
The story of redhead extinction has gone around the Internet before, most recently in 2005, with news articles again citing the Oxford Hair Foundation as a source. These articles work on the mistaken assumption that recessive genes -- like the one for red hair -- can "die out." Recessive genes can become rare but don't disappear completely unless everyone carrying that gene dies or fails to reproduce. So while red hair may remain rare, enough people carry the gene that, barring global catastrophe, redheads should continue to appear for some time.
Some of the articles discussing redhead extinction referred to the Oxford Hair Foundation as an "independent" institute or research foundation, but a Google search shows that the Oxford Hair Foundation is funded by Proctor & Gamble, makers of numerous beauty products -- including red hair dye.
In the most recent wave of redhead extinction warnings, some news outlets incorrectly cited the September 2007 issue of National Geographic as the source of the extinction claims. Others, correctly, cited that issue of National Geographic for the statistics it presented in a short piece on redheads. In fact, the National Geographic story provided some data about red hair in the world population, but it only said that "news reports" have claimed that redheads were going extinct [source: National Geographic]. The piece did not explicitly back the claim. Instead, the article stated that "while redheads may decline, the potential for red isn't going away" [source: National Geographic]. Unfortunately the misconception about disappearing redheads is now widespread.
Experts who have been interviewed agree that the redhead extinction claim is bogus. David Pearce from the University of Rochester Medical Center told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in 2005 -- after the last round of redhead extinction news -- that the scientists behind the original claim should "check their calculator" [source: Seattle Times]. Rick Sturm, a researcher in hair and skin genetics at the University of Queensland, told the Australian Broadcasting Company that "there's no shortage of red-heads" and that the Oxford Hair Foundation didn't provide sufficient scientific evidence to prove its findings [source: ABC Canberra].
Red hair is caused by a mutation in the MC1R gene. It's also a recessive trait, so it takes both parents passing on a mutated version of the MC1R gene to produce a redheaded child. Because it's a recessive trait, red hair can easily skip a generation. It can then reappear after skipping one or more generations if both parents, no matter their hair color, carry the red hair gene.
brand new mraz
Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 link |
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it's finally back!
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 link |
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xfiles 2 teaser
Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The X-Files 2 teaser has been leaked to the net after it premiered at WonderCon a couple weeks ago. It's been taken off of YouTube -- but Popoholic still has it for you to see. Although "see" is a matter of dispute, since the quality is pretty terrible.
vote for hillary
Posted on Monday, March 03, 2008
In what may prove to be a make-or-break Primary day for Hillary Clinton, I urge everyone in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island to go out and make the right choice for our country. Vote Hillary! link |
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read neil gaiman for free!
Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2008 Neil Gaiman's publisher, Harper Collins, has put his novel, American Gods, online for free reading as an experiment to see free digital copies sell print books. It's kind of annoying because you can't actually download the book -- you can only read scanned-in pages on your computer screen. None the less, it's a cool idea, so check it out here:
check it out: 
