WFMU’s Kenny G broadcasted the entire last episode of Friends (including the commercials) stretched out to fill his entire three hour show. The end result is strangely compelling in a Negativlandic head-shaking way.
Month: May 2004
SpaceShipOne breaks 200,000 feet
SpaceShipOne makes it up to 41 miles altitude in it’s third test flight. Nine more miles to go and they’re officially an astronaut. Bottom line: these guys are going to win the X-Prize. I wanna go!
747 firefighting tanker
Impressive film and video footage of a Boeing 747 that has been converted into a firefighting tanker plane. I can’t help but notice this paragraph in the listed capabilities:
The aircraft’s exceptional drop capabilities, loiter time and size make it an ideal tool to perform challenging homeland security missions, able to neutralize chemical attacks on military installments or major population centers, and help control large, environmentally disastrous oil spills.
So they just want some of those blank checks Homeland Security has been getting, but pictures like this are still unsettling. The promotional video is a classic bit of promo video cliche.
Phil Gersh R.I.P.
Years ago I used to work at one of the major talent agencies and not surprisingly the old-old-school agents were the coolest and most interesting to be around. Phil Gersh’s obituary in the LA Times today is a mini Hollywood history lesson and just a fantastically good read with a touch of the hard-boiled.
Passenger86 interview series
LiveJournal user Passenger86 has been running a series of great interviews done in the late 1990s. Eliot Easton of The Cars and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo have been up for a little while now, the new ones are with snark-heroes Negativland and Man… Or Astroman.
My Undertaker, My Pimp
An article in the Best Crime Writing of 2003 anthology called “My Undertaker, My Pimp” is about a Portland mortician who packed up and moved to Nevada to run a brothel. The whole article is online and is better than all the episodes of Six Feet Under put together.
The voices really ARE inside your head
I’ve mentioned these kinds of stories before – the latest mad scientist device that can beam advertising, propaganda, etc. as a beam of sound to a hapless citizen. Only the tech is far enough along that you can schedule an appointment and have it demonstrated to you. From International Robotics’ propaganda:
International Robotics is proud to demonstrate the impossible by remotely transmitting tightly focused sound waves, aimed specifically at any object, sculpture, wall, ceiling, floor and other surfaces, including one or more people. The Hypersonic Sound Waves travel silently through space, up to 300 feet away, then convert into an instant sound source whatever surface they impact. Amazingly, if you aim this magical device at a person, their head will become a speaker, and they will hear your message “inside” their head.
More X-rated Giant Squid news
There’s enough of these stories for a separate “squid sex” category. This one from Germany:
The giant squid is not especially choosy when it comes to sex and will mate blind without checking if the object of its affections is male or female, a German researcher said.
…
“Until now, it was thought males injected themselves with sperm by accident during mating. But that is definitely not the case here: the sperm was clearly injected by another giant squid.”There is another possibility that cannot be totally excluded, Miske added, which is that the infusion of sperm happened during group sex.
Right now, giant squid may be having group sex in the ocean – and you’re swimming in it!
[via Fred]