National History Museum's Dino Directory

This is freaking awesome. The NHM's Dino Directory. Just a great repository of Dino Info. Stats, lengths, lifespans and human to dino size comparisons. Would love this as an indexed App on the iPhone. This would've settled so many arguements in the schoolyard when I was a kid.

Five Grindhouse Trailers for Shits and Giggles

Recently I got a hold of 42nd Street Forever Volumes 1-3 and some of the trailers thrill my brain like nothing else. Each little trailer is a beloved 'time-capsule-look-see' into a seedy underbelly which Hollywood would most likely have you forget. I adore this old skool shit.

I come from the generation of kids who first experienced these films on VHS, and I've noticed a few titles re-appearing in my local video store on DVD. A little part of me feels aglow when i realise the mantle is being passed to a new generation of teens and twentysomethings smoking pot in their new flat-share and laughing til there eyes pop out. Here's a classic 5 which i remember or know I have to see at some point.

1. Alligator



2. Phase IV




3.Behind the Door



4.The Devil Times Five



5.Thing With Two Heads

Papercraft is the Thing This Year

One of my goals this this year is to get into papercraft (AKA paper modeling). One of the things that soooo inspired me was coming across Marshall Alexander's page. This guy has some awesome projects going, especially his Foldskool Heroes section. I seriously want to sit down with tigerlily and print and cut and fold and glue these mothers together. Stay tuned......i'll let you know how they are going.

Oh!! He's been in something before?....(the top 6 character actors of all time)

We were watching a movie the other day in the lab and one of those actors appeared on the screen. You know the ones, you get that tickle in the back of your memory and you think "Oh. Its that guy, who was in that thing, he's always playing that type of character, who is he again?"

You know, a character actor. So i got myself on the inter-tubes and thought that I would make a short post about some of the ones that really stick in my memory.

So here I present to you

The Top Six Character Actors of All Time (1972 - present)

6. Earl Boen


So do you need a Lab Partner, Scientist, or psychologist? Which one do you need? Or Earl here-could even play all 3. Forever immortalized as well-meaning but shifty Psych-Ward-Head-Honcho Dr. Peter Silberman in all three Terminator movies, Earl is your goto guy if you want someone, in a position of power, whose level of competence, you just,... somehow,... can't trust.

A mainstay on the screen and off Earl now makes quite a decent living doing voice overs for video games, including Call of Duty, Baldur's Gate and most infamously as narrator in World of Warcraft.


5. Al Leong



You need Bad Ass Asian? We have Bad Ass Asian!! Introducing Al Leong, That guy from Die Hard, you know the one, the Bad Ass Asian one. Stuck behind the confection stand at Nakatomi Plaza.

Recently appearing in episodes of 24 and Deadwood, Al most certainly owes kudos to his role as Uli in the 1988 action classic for putting his face on the Whose-that?-map!!

Al has had a long career appearing in some serious box office muscle over the past 26 years, in films such as Godziilla, Lethal Weapon and Escape From LA, but for me he will always be remembered as Genghis Khan in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.


4. Vincent Schiavelli


Those eyes!! That hair! But more to the point and forevermore,.... those eyes!! Vincent Schiavelli (10.11.1946-26.12.2005) is probably one of the most recognisable faces in film. With 152 appearances on the big and small screen, Vincent had (and continues to have) an ever growing fanbase amongst character actor loyalists and film enthusiasts everywhere. Born with a visage that could strike pity as well as unsettling "not-quite-rightness" in equal measure, Vincent had the "Gentle Lunatic" market single-handedly sewn up since an early break landed him a role in 1975's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Having appeared in eeeeevvvveeerrryyything, (I'm convinced his face will appear miraculously in a piece of toast any day now), to most people he will be remembered as the Subway Spirit in the movie Ghost.

3. James Hong
















This guy is freakin' awesome!!! Why? I hear you ask? One answer. He plays Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China. But to boil it down to just one role is to overlook a career spanning a whopping 335 TV, Movie and Video Game appearances since 1955's Soldier of Fortune and culminating in an up to the minute appearance in the recently released re-(tard)make The Day the Earth Stood Still. An even stronger contender for appearing in nearly eeevvvvveerryything (as far as miracle-toast goes, he will share the other side with Vincent Schiavelli), James Hong consistently apperas in the "251 memory bank" when either playing the corporate businessman or 2000 year old evil genius. For shits and giggle; s we highly recommend you get some sagely advice by asking Lo Pan the answers to your serious problems at Ask Lopan . Whn asked "If i should get out of bed tomorrow?" he replies; Act on your first impulse. Then rip the heart from your foes chest, eat it, then immediately excrete it from your bowels and shove it down their throat.




2. Danny Trejo



When it comes to picking knife-wielding assassins for your B-Grade movie pic, the list begins with Danny Trejo and goes down from there. With a moustache gently laid across like filigree upon his acne-scarred face, Danny Trejo has one of the more fascinating "plucked from obscurity" stories found in the pages of Hollywood Lore. IMDB lists his short biography as thus,..

A child drug addict and criminal, Danny Trejo was in and out of jail for 11 years. While serving time in San Quentin, he won the lightweight and welterweight boxing titles. Imprisoned for armed robbery and drug offenses, he successfully completed a 12-step rehabilitation program that changed his life. While speaking at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985, Trejo met a young man who later called him for support. Trejo went to meet him at what turned out to be the set of Runaway Train (1985). Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict extra, probably because of his tough tattooed appearance. Also on the set was a screenwriter who did time with Trejo in San Quentin. Remembering Trejo's boxing skills, the screenwriter offered him $350 per day to train the actors for a boxing match. Director Andrei Konchalovsky saw Trejo training Eric Roberts and immediately offered him a featured role as Roberts' opponent in the film.

Apart from that, Trejo has one of the sexiest, dare i say it "Prison Chic", tattoos ever to grace the silver screen, his trademark Sombrero Lady



1. Dick Miller


Coming in at number one is Dick Miller. If I ever walk into a bar, a garage, a construction site or garbage dump and i see Dick Miller there, i will shit pure joy into your hat.

The man has been sticking his mug into roles as the "shit-kicking everyman" for over 54 years, always serving you a drink or, filling up your car while simultaneously offering sage advice to youngsters and travellers about strange happenings and unseen forces, which may or may not guide their souls into peril.

If in the 3rd act you need to know just what happened on that fateful night at the Jones Mansion on top of the Town Hill over 4o years ago, Dick Miller is the guy to show up and tell you.

So there you go, thanks so much for indulging me, this blog post has been a labour of love. Enjoy...

25 Most Racist Advertisments and Commercials

Check em all out here

Eric Staller and his amazing Bicycle Concoctions

Meet the Conference Bike, also known as the CoBi 7 an invention by a rather dedicated madman by the name of Eric Staller a gentlemen whose work may seem very familiar when you get a proper glimpse at his body of work. His work has appeared in various movies including Men In Black and LA Story

Apart from looking like a squid wearing boxing gloves it is indeed a 7 seater bicycle for those who like light conversation while group commuting. I just love an invention whose fashion only barely meets the full requirements of its function




upon further research, although the Cobi-7 has practical everyday, use the artist Eric Staller has a body of work which stretches back over 30 years including some very clever and satirical works which raise a significant chuckle while raising some poignant topics,... but meh, like most art I'm guilty of liking it just because its just wonderful to look at,...




Here is a site with more of him to wet your appetite, Yay!!!

Do You Wanna See A Computer Play Chess

Thinking Machine 4 is a cool little flash widget which shows you how a computer computes its next chess move.

The site has this to say about its little project,

What do the images mean?
When it is your (White's) turn to move, the chess board will gently pulse to show the influence of the various pieces. in the left image below, you can see waves over the squares around the king and (very lightly) over the squares where the pawns might capture. When the machine (Black) is thinking, a network of curves is overlaid on the board; see image at right. The curves show potential moves--often several turns in the future--considered by the computer. Orange curves are moves by black; green curves are ones by white. The brighter curves are thought by the program to be better for white.


LINK