The WorldWatch Institute has a guide to good stuff. Here it is. With topics on everything from DVDs to meat, WWI’s guide to good stuff lets you know what’s good and what’s not. The Consumption Manifesto accompanying the guide is also good, with 10 principles of good consumption.
(via How To Save The World)
https://www.swordbilled.com/good-stuff/
https://www.swordbilled.com/crazy-apes-and-damaged-bananas-and-pens/
(City of Lost Children)
(1995) dirs. Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet – Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Mireille Mossé, Joseph Lucien, etc., and The City
Review: The sets in ‘City’ are nothing if not outstanding. And they’re outstanding. As are the numerous bizarre characters we chance upon throughout the course of the movie. Clones. Genius demented divers. I think I mentioned the cyclops characters already. Etc. etc. Anyway, there are lots of weird characters. There are points in the movie when you’re not even sure the plot’s there, and you think the movie might have gotten completely distracted, but it doesn’t really matter because the characters are so three-dimensional—four- and five-dimensional, some of them—and it’s really just an enjoyable film. Or I thought so, anyway. So maybe it isn’t entirely obvious if the city was created for the sake of the story or the story was created for the sake of the city, but either way, it’s wickedly creative and cleverly warped. Fantastic.
Rating: [••••] out of [•••••]
https://www.swordbilled.com/city-of-lost-children/
(from the Late Show with David Letterman, June 29, 2004)
10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing
9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election
8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words
7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported
6. Didn’t have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger
5. Of all Michael Moore’s accusations, only 97% are true
4. Not sure — I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe
3. Where the hell was Spider-man?
2. Couldn’t hear most of the movie over Cheney’s foul mouth
1. I thought this was supposed to be about Dodgeball
(via David Neiwert’s Orcinus, which was tipped off by James Benjamin)
https://www.swordbilled.com/top-10-gw-complaints-on-letterman/
They kill humans, and from a more balanced perspective, that’s a good thing.
I’m not saying that I’m gonna start wearing a t-shirt reading I [heart] mosquitoes anytime soon, but it (the above-linked article) does raise an interesting thought, one that you may not often have occasion to consider.
(The point, for those of you who are easily distracted, is that mosquitoes have historically played a big part [and still do, to some extent] in controlling human population.)
If you’re interested, the article has other points to make as well. Like the fact that if we were able to completely exterminate the dread insect (and we won’t be able to), the complex web of life of which the squitoes previously were a part would not unwind. And so on and so forth. Anyway, you should read it. It’s a quick read. I doubt you’ll regret it.
(NYT: “No Skeeters, No Problem? Not so Fast” by James Gorman [June 22, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/mo-squitoville/
An excerpt:
Me: “So how does CortiSlim work to reduce cortisol?”
Seller: “It decreases the level of cortisol in your body, just cancels it all out.”
Me: “OK, but how does it do that?”
Seller: “CortiSlim evaporates it and absorbs it and decreases it and cuts it down. So I want to tell you about a ‘buy two get one free’ special we’re running this week.”
You get the picture. (Popular Science: “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney” by William Speed Weed [May 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/pseudoscience-and-other-fun-stuff/
“Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles.”
So crazy you know it’s true, the article is a neat trip through the land of genetic mutations an internet-only bodybuilder supplements. (AP: “Doctors discover a toddler muscle man” by Linda A. Johnson [June 23, 2004]; originally via diepunyhumans)
https://www.swordbilled.com/to-your-health/
It’s the 2004 Canada Day Quarter.
(originally via BoingBoing, but I’d like to think I would’ve stumbled across it sooner or later)
https://www.swordbilled.com/reason-34-why-canadas-pretty-swell/
The survey’s asinine and you’ve gotta “register,” but once you do, everything on [email protected] (note: [email protected] is not the actual address) is free until August 31st, including premium content.
Plus, you could (emphasis: could) win a digital camera.
https://www.swordbilled.com/free-science/
(2002) Don Coscarelli – with Bruce Campbell as Elvis, Ossie Davis as JFK, Bob Ivy as Bubba Ho-tep (not that you’d know), Larry Pennell as Kemosabe; also starring Ella Joyce, Heidi Marnhout, and Daniels Roebuck and Schweiger as incompetent Hearse Drivers
Synopsis: ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ finds Elvis resting in a nursing home in Mud Creek, Texas, alongside various other senescent oddballs (including Ossie Davis’ character, who’s convinced he is JFK). The story is, somewhere along the line Elvis tired of his act—he didn’t feel like “himself” when he performed—and decided to switch places with an Elvis impersonator. Fate conspired against him, and after a massive grilling accident (in which his contract with the impersonator was destroyed) and the death of his impersonator/public face, he eventually wound up in a rest home. In, of all places, Mud Creek, TX. Is he bitter? Yeah, sure. But then Jack, a fellow retirement home ambler, brings his attention to a terrible evil plaguing the home—what evil turns out to be a “soul-sucking” mummy. Which inevitably leads to JFK and Elvis facing off against the evil mummy.
Review: Take Bruce Campbell and put him in a movie that involves JFK, Elvis, and a mummy (an evil mummy, that is), and you’re basically guaranteed to have yourself an instant cult classic. The special-effects aren’t exactly believable, but neither is the story, so everything pretty well balances out. It’s a quirky, campy, funny movie that manages, more often than not (but not always) to evoke the right response from the audience: pity, ambivalence, muted horror, and so on. Bruce Campbell is almost unrecognizable as an older Elvis, and does a bang-up job; the absurdity of the story notwithstanding, you almost believe it really is Elvis, bedridden in Mud Creek, Texas. You never really believe Ossie Davis is JFK, but then again, neither does Elvis. But he’s a nice guy. Still, there are some straightforward jokes that you’d expect a cultish film like this to avoid, and there are parts where the movie as a whole lags behind, either slow or badly paced or unintentionally awkward. Despite which it’s still a fun movie.
Rating: [•••½] out of [•••••]
Etc:
Elvis: Uh, Mr. President… You’re on the floor.
JFK: No shit?
https://www.swordbilled.com/bubba-ho-tep-12/