Flying Belgian Love Trigon

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Times are good. Great football game last night (though Jay Cutler should’ve had like 5 interceptions but the refs bailed him out with a lot of BS pass interference calls) and overall over the weekend (MVP stands for Michael Vick, Playa!). Yesterday morning, I saw my first bear since moving up here too. It was on the way to work, just driving along the mountain roads as always, when out of the drivers side window, there’s an adult black bear just kinda trotting along the side of the road, then v-lines into the trees. No pieces of fresh kill on his face or anything like that, just kinda hopping along. You’ve seen how bears run. So yeah, that was cool.

Something else that’s cool, I have a SECOND date with Candy. “$teve, so soon?” Why not? I have to go into Reno to pick a few things up anyway (projector TV on the fritz & upkeep on Gretchen) so why not top off irritating trips to the nearest Best Buy with a little hot sushi action with a lovely woman? Am I right? You know I am. I know what you’re thinking, “Second date? Whoa, this is serious. When are you two planning the wedding for?” Hold your horses there. Just because this is basically the first second date since I started this blog (sigh…) over three years ago (double sigh…) is a great step… but yeah, not getting too ahead of myself. Still doesn’t hurt to be optimistic about it though. Maybe I’ll hold off until date number three before I make my move… or divulge that I am the Father of Panda Porn, think that snakes are going to take over the world & have a fantastic idea to start a magazine that follows & rates bank robberies. I figure once she starts showing a little trust in me, it will be reciprocated. That’s the way to do it, right? Sorry I have to ask. As you may know, I’ve only been on so many second or third dates in my prestigious career… and usually the lady is the one with her foot on the gas. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying. Anyway, here’s some news…

Bank Robbing Monthly – As previously mentioned, here’s the latest in the world of bank robbing. Two would-be Albanian bank robbers were arrested Wednesday as they tried to drill a passageway into a bank vault from a shop they had rented above it, police officials said. In an aborted heist echoing the plot of the Woody Allen film "Small Time Crooks," the two men were caught after the noise from their drilling between the upper floor shop and the bank vault alerted the authorities (go figure). "We moved in when they were in the last stages of finishing the tunnel," Tirana police chief Tonin Vocaj told reporters. Armed robberies at small, lightly protected branches of 16 commercial banks have risen over the last few years in Albania, a small and impoverished Adriatic nation of 3.2 million (and home to some of the greatest female asses in the world). Okay, so now it’s time for their marks. Overall: I have to give it a D+. Pros: They may have based it on a Woody Allen movie that nobody saw instead of “Inside Man”, though it kinda had the feel of a Three Stooges episode. Cons: They got caught. They didn’t have a muffler on the drill and it’s obviously going to be loud. It’s a drill… at a bank. Even after hours, the neighbors would hear (unless you bought out the block or something). There are definitely other ways to rob a bank.

BRM Part Deux – Bank robbers pulled off a dramatic heist last week, strapping a bomb to a teller and ordering him to steal as much money as he could grab from the vault — all while his father was being held hostage. Sound like a plot to a movie? Heat 2? Well, it began when the three masked, gun-toting thieves burst into the teller's apartment shortly after midnight. The men held the teller and his father hostage in the suburban Kendall apartment for seven hours, waiting for morning when the teller usually helped open his Bank of America branch near the University of Miami campus, according to the FBI and local police. One suspect stayed with the father, while the other two and the teller left for the bank in the teller's red 1998 Ford Mustang. Strapped to the teller's body was a device the robbers said was a bomb. Once at the bank around 8 a.m., the thieves sent the teller inside. "They said, 'We have a triggering device. Get as much money as you can and bring it out to us,'" Coral Gables Police Chief Richard Naue told reporters. Also inside the bank was the female branch manager, the FBI said. After the teller took an undisclosed amount of cash, the robbers took off in his car and the manager called police. That triggered a huge response of heavily armed police and shut down traffic on a segment of U.S. 1, a major Miami thoroughfare, leading as well to lockdowns at several nearby schools. Authorities initially feared there may have been hostages inside the bank. Shortly before noon, after police bomb robots had been sent inside, the possible bomb was removed and the shirtless teller was led out of the bank. Neither the teller nor his father was injured. The robbers never entered the bank, apparently relying on the teller's fear of a possible explosion and the potential danger to his father to ensure he would do their bidding inside. "It is an unusual event to have explosives strapped to a victim and sent in," said Dena Choucair, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami field office. She said there were bomb-making materials in the device, though she said she could not reveal what they were. The FBI and Miami-Dade Police Department's bomb squad were examining the device to determine if it was a working bomb or a fake. They were also questioning the teller, whose name was not immediately released. Although Naue and other officials described the teller publicly as a "victim," authorities wanted to make sure he had no involvement in the plot. "I can't say either way at this point where this person stands," Choucair said. There was no immediate sign of the suspects. Police were still searching late Friday afternoon for the teller's red Mustang, which had the Florida license tag R958DY. Bank of America said in a statement that "the safety of our associates is our highest priority and Bank of America is working closely with law enforcement to assist in the situation." That’s great… but you’re insured either way. Okay, grade time: I gotta go with a B-minus because, well first and foremost, they didn’t get anything… but they get to try another day. Now, the whole hostage AND bomb-strapping combination has promise… but seriously, what was the plan? Have an employee just go in there, take a bunch of money & then walk right out with it in a duffel bag, hand it to you in HIS car & then watch you drive off? With a pinky swear that you wouldn’t hurt his dad? Honestly, if I was doing it, I would’ve just had the teller as the inside man… and this is the perfect alibi. The dad wasn’t harmed, right? Is there any evidence that the other guys aren’t his buddies? A lot of questions with this one… and that’s why it gets a high score for essentially being a wash… because it keeps the authorities guessing, even when it goes bad. Keep an eye out for a next attempt. Yes, I may need psychiatric help… but that has nothing to do with this story.

Flying Belgian Love Triangle - A Belgian woman went on trial last week charged with the murder of a fellow skydiver and love rival who plunged to her death after her parachute was sabotaged (GASP!!!). Els Van Doren, 38, smashed into a back garden from some 4,500 meters (14,764 feet) in November 2006 because both her main and reserve chutes failed to open after she jumped from a plane with defendant, Els Clottemans, 26, their lover, Dutchman Marcel Somers, and another man (who wasn’t getting any). Tehehe, I just thought of a show called “Two Els, a Marcel and a Pizza Plane” that only lasts one season. Anyway, Clottemans, an elementary school teacher (oh yes), is accused of cutting through key parts of the parachute system the weekend before the jump to remove her rival and have Somers for herself. Lawyers for Clottemans, who herself only spoke in court to confirm basic details such as her date of birth and profession, issued a statement expressing their firm belief that their client did not kill a woman she regarded as a friend (but rather she believes she killed a harlot b**ch who’s been f**king her man). In a red top and black trousers and flanked by two police officers, Clottemans showed no emotion as Prosecutor Patrick Boyen read the 68-page indictment. Interest in the case was so great that a live television feed was laid on in a larger room in the courthouse in Tongeren, a town in eastern Belgium. Several police guarded the entrance. Laying out details of the love triangle, Boyen said that bachelor Somers entertained Van Doren, a married mother of two, most Saturdays and the younger Clottemans often on Fridays. Boyen said Clottemans was an experienced skydiver and would have known how to sabotage a parachute and that she had the opportunity to do so when she and Van Doren were with Somers a week before the fatal drop. Van Doren's pilot chute, a small parachute deployed to pull the main chute out, was detached from that, while a line that should have connected the reserve chute to the harness was free. Experts ruled that both items had been deliberately cut and that it could have been done in just 30 seconds with scissors (still wanna go skydiving?). Psychiatric experts have identified signs that Clottemans suffers from a psychopathic disorder (GASP!!!). Clottemans' lawyers say that is no hard evidence against their client, whom they say investigators intimidated and belittled in hours of questioning. "She was continually accused of lying by investigators. The investigators had formed their own version of the truth and were no longer prepared to deviate from that." The trial, which is likely to feature video of the fall shot from a camera on Van Doren's helmet, is due to last four weeks. I know what you’re thinking, “When can I see that footage?” Patience. In due time. What’s the moral of the story? Don’t be involved in a love trigon (because triangle is overused & improper mathematically. It’s not like you call the Pentagon a Pentangle, right? Steroid popping MMA fighters don’t fight in the Octangle? Think about it) unless you’re absolutely certain that both women are sane. The odds of that one? Well, I only took Calculus in the 6th grade & I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that complex of a computation. Good luck playa…

Full Moon Belgian Booze - Full moons are often associated with tides, insanity and creatures like werewolves & horny sorority girls, but it turns out they're also good for brewing beer. In Peruwelz, a small, sleepy town in southern Belgium, a family-owned brewery has produced its first batch of specialist beer brewed by the light of a full autumnal moon. It isn't so much a nod to mythology as a recognition of nature's impact on the science of brewing. "We made several tests and noticed that the fermentation was more vigorous, more active," explained Roger Caulier, the owner of Brewery Caulier, which began in the 1930s when his grandfather started selling homemade beer from a handcart. "The end product was completely different, stronger, with a taste lasting longer in the mouth," he said. The full moon speeds up the fermentation process, shortening it to five days from seven, which adds extra punch to the beer without making it harsh, according to connoisseurs. The finely balanced, gold-colored beer is 10% alcohol by volume, extremely strong by most European or U.S. standards but not uncommon in Belgium, where traditional monk-brewed beers frequently hit 10-12%. "It goes down very well, no problem at all," said Joseph Francois, a journalist and beer expert who has tasted the brew. Brewery Caulier, which uses methods dating from the 1840s and is well-known for its artisanal beers, plans to produce about 12,000 bottles of its full moon beer, called Paix-Dieu (Peace-God), which go on sale on October 31. The idea came to Caulier after he visited a friend in Alsace, a winemaking region of eastern France, who told him about how he planned his entire production schedule according to the lunar calendar. Caulier began experimenting and eventually came up with a nine-step process that includes using two types of hops and involves a two-week secondary fermentation process inside the bottle, not unlike the technique used to produce Champagne. "It gives the product greater fame, a bit like for great vintage wines," he said. "It could lead to collectors checking the differences between one vintage and another because there could very well be differences between every batch." Being from a three-generation brewing family, Caulier is fascinated by the science behind the process. But he doesn't discount the mythical aspects of full moon beer either. "Many farmers are convinced that the moon influences the quality of some of their products. You can feel agitated on full moons, you have births, you get many myths around the full moon and I think there is some truth behind them." Either way, he's hoping that Paix-Dieu proves a hit and is even in talks to distribute it in the U.S. and Japan. We can only hope… but unless it’s fairly affordable, we may never know for sure. Still can’t understand the thousands of dollars for a bottle of rotten grape juice with wine, so there’s absolutely NO WAY I would understand it for rotten barley juice. Regardless, I like the idea of experimentation within the beer realm. It’s like Willy Wonka & the Whiskey Factory or something. “This beer was brewed on a full moon… and turns even the most timid drinkers into raging sexual animals. Observe. Wait, where did all my Full Moon Brew go? Oompa Loompas?” “Sorry Mister Wonka, that behemoth $teve came in again. He pumped gas through the air ducts, took dozens of incriminating photos with our unconscious bodies, put all of us in a gunny sack & drove off with all the beer saying something about putting a hurtin’ on the 49ers cheerleaders.” “BLAST!!! Oh… and next time, try to sing it out like you guys usually do. I understand that you’re flustered by the whole thing… but I don’t pay you guys to be eye candy.”

Avengers Update – Speaking of movies gone badass, "V," "Stargate" and "Firefly" star Morena Baccarin is the latest name rumored to be joining the cast of Marvel Studios' upcoming "The Avengers" reports Mania. Is she in talks to play The Wasp? The report sounds extremely dubious at best… but gives me an excuse to put a few pics up of her. In more confirmed news, Mark Ruffalo talked with Vulture and revealed that his incarnation of The Hulk will be motion-captured in "The Avengers". The previous two "Hulk" movies with Eric Bana and Ed Norton used entirely CG creations for their Hulk scenes. Finally, director / nerd demi-God Joss Whedon has spoken about the project to SFX and how he intends to juggle both action scenes and so many characters together (and knowing Joss he’ll probably kill a few of them off randomly): "What I will struggle with, in the outline and throughout, is that I would like to put these actors in a room and just make Glengarry Glen Ross. We’re talking about really exciting people and at the same time I have to keep the momentum of the thing going. I can’t let it turn into a lull fest. Knowing that I have enough time to do both of those things – that by the end of the movie you will feel ‘in’ with these guys – is the trick. It’s not an easy one but one that Marvel absolutely honors." Whedon also spoke about Ruffalo's involvement in particular. "They don’t hire Mark Ruffalo [the new Hulk] to say one iconic line and strike a pose. They hire him because he has so much humanity in him. He’s the antithesis of the iconic actor. He’s so human. He was my first choice to play the part, and the fact he is playing the part is nuts! They went to great lengths to make that happen and they understood exactly why he was right for the part" he says. So… okay, no Edward Norton this time around. That’s okay. I understand. He’s got some Academy Award winning role lined up I’m sure so what does he want to be part of an ensemble cast action flick? As any nerd would be, I’m excited for this movie… and adding more eye candy like Morena just makes me moreso… even if it’s just an unfounded rumor. By the way, did you know that Neil Patrick Harris is going to play Hawkeye? Oh you didn’t? It’s on the internet now… so it must be true.

Well, that’ll do it for tonight. Really excited about the SECOND date coming up. Gonna try not to screw it up just yet… but we’ll see. Any tips? They’ll definitely be considered. If not, just wish me luck & have a great day everybody!!!

Moon Water: Now in 3 Flavors

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

I have the apartment to myself for the weekend. My roommate is spending time back home in Florida. So what does that mean? Absolutely nothing…unless somebody wants to come visit…ladies. It really just means that I’m free to walk around in my underwear (or less) and be as loud as I want in the morning, because you know the first thing I want to do in the morning is belt out Sinatra hits in the shower. “THOSE FINGERS IN MY HAIR, THAT SLY HYPNOTIC STARE, (gargle) RIPS MY CONSCIENCE BARE OH IT’S WITCHCRAAAAFT!!!” And yes, there’s usually a splashing tap dance routine involved too. That’s really about it going on in my deck of the woods. Jay-Z’s performing tonight in San Jose…but I’m not going to be there. Yeah. So ugh… here’s some news…

Moon Water: Now in 3 Flavors - Since the surprise discovery last year of trace amounts of water on the moon (when we decided to BLOW IT UP!!!), scientists have been redefining their concept of Earth's rocky neighbor. Now researchers say the water on the moon comes in three different flavors. Until recently the moon was thought to be bone dry. But measurements in the last year from the Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3 or "M-cubed") instruments on India's Chandrayaan-1 moon probe and from NASA's recent LCROSS mission have proved that wrong. Mini-SAR found 40 craters, each containing frozen water at least 6.6 feet (2 meters) deep on the lunar surface – which adds up to 600 million tons of lunar ice stuff altogether (how did we miss that?). LCROSS slammed into the moon on October 9th, 2009 and found evidence of water in another crater. "So far we've found three types of moon water," said Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. "We have Mini-SAR's thick lenses of nearly pure crater ice, LCROSS's fluffy mix of ice crystals and dirt, and M-cube's thin layer that comes and goes all across the surface of the moon." LCROSS struck moon water in a cold, permanently dark crater at the lunar south pole. Since then, the science team has been thoroughly mining the data collected from the intentional moon crash. "It looks as though at least two different layers of our crater soil contain water, and they represent two different time epochs," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator. "The first layer, ejected in the first 2 seconds from the crater after impact, contains water and hydroxyl bound up in the minerals, and even tiny pieces of pure ice mixed in. This layer is a thin film and may be relatively 'fresh,' perhaps recently replenished." This brand of moon water resembles the water M3 discovered last year in scant but widespread amounts, bound to the rocks and dust in the very top millimeters of lunar soil, scientists say. But the second layer is different. "It contains even more water ice plus a treasure chest of other compounds we weren't even looking for," he says. "So far the tally includes sulfur dioxide (SO2), methanol (CH3OH), and the curious organic molecule diacetylene (H2C4). This layer seems to extend below at least 0.5 meters and is probably older than the ice we're finding on the surface." The researchers don't yet know why some craters contain loads of pure ice while others are dominated by an ice-soil mixture. It's probably a sign that the moon water comes from more than one source. Spudis says, "Some of the water may be made right there on the moon. Protons in the solar wind can make small amounts of water continuously on the lunar surface by interacting with metal oxides in the rocks. But some of the water is probably deposited on the moon from other places in the solar system." These findings are completely rewriting the book on the moon. "It's a different world up there and we've barely scratched the surface. Who knows what discoveries lie ahead?" Moon men? Or rather a man IN the moon? Or perhaps up reaching a deeper layer, there's another interesting compound - Gouda? Okay, so I was kinda hoping that the three types of Moon water would be regular, cherry & grape...but instead I guess it's Ice, Dirty Snow and what I like to call - Skee (because it "comes & goes all across the surface of the moon" which is an exact quote). Anyway, I think it's interesting...but I'm a nerd so...always glad to share with others.

Vanishing Islands - For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone. New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols (can’t just take his word for it?). "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra. Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal. Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said. Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra said. "We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water," he said. Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18% of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models. India and Bangladesh both claimed the empty New Moore Island, which is about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) long and 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide (and apparently it’s highest peak is about 6 inches if it was completely submerged in thirty years). Bangladesh referred to the island as South Talpatti. There were no permanent structures on New Moore, but India sent some paramilitary soldiers to its rocky shores in 1981 to hoist its national flag. The demarcation of the maritime boundary and who controls the remaining islands remains an open issue between the two South Asian neighbors, despite the disappearance of New Moore, said an official in India's foreign ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on international disputes. Seriously though, who cares? It’s Atlantis now. I just thought it was interesting that they were arguing over control of this three square mile island…that has no structures, no beach, probably just a few lizards or monkeys or…WAIT!!! You don’t think… could they? Could snakes have sunk New Moore Island? We’ve already heard of them overthrowing government institutions in nearby Sri Lanka but…could they really sink an island? Perhaps that’s why there’s no official comment. Interesting…

Belgian Waffle – Enough about the Apocalypse. It’s stories like these that give me hope. You see, one of my favorite movies is “Amelie” and there’s a scene in there that this story reminded me of…and so maybe if one thing can be true, then others can. If you haven’t seen it, get thee to a rental store. You’ll love it. Anyway, a Belgian woman who committed suicide by jumping from her 12th floor apartment killed a pedestrian in the street below, police said Wednesday. The 67-year-old woman leapt from her balcony in Brussels and hit a 72-year-old man as he was entering the apartment building on Monday. The woman was reported to have suffered depression since the death of her husband three years ago…and I’ll bet the man felt depressed shortly after impact. (Rim shot) Okay, that was a bad joke, what do you expect? I do feel sorry for both parties involved. Depression’s a horrible thing. So is losing a loved one. I’m not a huge fan of suicide though. Maybe it was because a few of my friends & classmates took that route growing up…but yeah, don’t be a p***y. There’s a lot to live for, even if you can’t see it through the fog. That’s what friends are for. As for the guy that acted as a cushion, that just sucks. Period. He was probably having a pretty damn good day too. Probably just coming back from breakfast with a friend, stomach full of waffles & frits, whistling a little tune to himself, splat. Game over. Is it considered a murder-suicide now? Anyway, my condolences to both of their families.

Sexting Update – Seems I’ve had a few of these this past week. Connecticut lawmakers are considering a way to keep young people off the state's sex offender registry if convicted of "sexting." Sexting -- a contraction of "sex" and "texting" -- is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs electronically, often between mobile phones (see Tiger Woods). Under existing law in Connecticut, sending or receiving messages that include nude or sexual images falls under the state's child pornography statutes. Those convicted are put on a state sex-offender registry. The proposed bill, which was being debated on Monday by the state legislature's joint judiciary committee in Hartford, would reduce the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor when the sexting is between minors of 13 to 18 years of age who are in some sort of relationship. "At times, minor children do foolish acts without appreciating the consequences of their actions," said Rosa Remimbas, a Republican state representative…who is obviously jealous of today’s technological advances. Paul Vance, spokesman for the Connecticut state police, said no teens have yet been arrested in the state for sexting. A 2009 survey conducted for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children found that 19% of teens had sent, received or forwarded nude or nearly nude photos through text message or e-mail (yeah, lower than I expected too). At least 15 states have introduced or are considering bills or resolutions regarding sexting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. John Danaher, commissioner with Connecticut's Department of Public Safety, said the bill "strikes a good balance between asserting the illegality of the activity while, at the same time, removing the age population from the serious consequences of being required to register as a sex offender." The judiciary committee will next consider whether to send the bill on to the state's House of Representatives. Remember back in the day when if you wanted your girlfriend to see your weenus, you’d actually have to sneak over, toss a pebble up at her bedroom window, then when she wouldn’t answer because she had her headphones on, you’d scale the side of her family home like f**king Spiderman, try to get her attention by knocking on the window to let you in, but she still didn’t notice, so then you figure you’d start the show a little early…and as you undo your pants the aluminum siding gives and before you know it you’re hanging upside down by your pants which are securely around your ankles, and you try to free your ankles from the mess of denim but then you hear the rack of a shotgun, so you bail whether your pants decide to come along or not? Yeah, those were the days. There was adventure, romance, suspense, passion, danger, all good things. Now you have to be careful opening a multimedia message on your phone because your buddy may have a girlfriend named Stephanie who’s listed next to you on their contact list…and they’re a little drunk. Then the awkward text conversation goes something like, “Dude, not cool.” “Sorry $teve, meant for somebody else.” “I’d hope so. By the way, you might want to get that mole on your hip checked.” “I’ll call the doctor in the morning. Thanks dude.” “No problem, just pay it forward.” Not that that’s ever happened or anything. Wouldn’t mind if it were somebody trying to send a photo to their boyfriend who also happens to be a $teve. “Jackpot!!! Holy crap is that… oh my? I knew she colored her hair.” Oh yeah, so… kids may not be forever marked as sexual predators for being kids because of the advancement of technology. That might be a good thing. Call me old fashioned, but I like the whole sneaking in through the window thing. I was a damn good climber though, so I’m a little biased. I’m still trying to figure out emoticons…but there’s one that I like to through out every once in a while (__!__) You just looked at my ass. Congratulations.

Overboard Remake - Jennifer Lopez (“Gigli”) is set to star in the remake of 1987 comedy "Overboard" for Sony Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment says ABC News. The Garry Marshall-directed original had Goldie Hawn playing Joanna, a socialite's pampered wife who falls off her yacht and develops amnesia. Kurt Russell played Dean Proffitt, a carpenter and single father of four whom Joanna stiffed on a job. When the socialite decides not to claim Joanna at the hospital, Dean decides to get even with Joanna and claims she's his wife. The pair soon develop a genuine attraction despite the false circumstances that brought them together. Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and the original film's scribe Leslie Dixon all worked on the new incarnation which Will Smith and James Lassiter will produce. Sigh... I just thought I'd share that with you. Why? I don't know. J-Lo? Really? I thought she was done with all this. Anyway, something better...

Addams Family 3-D - Who doesn't love the Addams Family? Communists, that's who. The 60's TV series, the movies, all good stuff. Well, "Alice in Wonderland 3D" and "Sweeney Todd" helmer Tim Burton is doing yet another remake with a 3D stop-motion animated version of "The Addams Family" reports Deadline NY. This new version however will not be related to the classic TV comedy or the 90's films...but rather the original Charles Addams drawings that appeared in New Yorker magazine and inspired the show. This version will likely have a more adult and witty tone in line with the original drawings. A writer is being sought for the film and should be hired shortly (ah hem...make me an offer). Burton's next project, "Frankenweenie", uses a 3D/stop-motion technique that will also be employed on this. Well, now I'm going to go home and watch the late great Raul Julia...and the next time that a girl scout tries to pawn her cookies off on me, instead of picking a fight about the political correctness of her tasty treats, I'll just ask her "Are they made from real girl scouts?" Badanana (snap snap)

The Human Torch is Captain America - That's right, you heard it here first. Chris Evans (who played the Human Torch in the "Fantastic Four" movies) has accepted Marvel Studios' offer for him to play Steve Rogers/Captain America in the upcoming tentpole "The First Avenger: Captain America" says Variety. Evans was offered the role last week and agreed over the weekend, now it's just a matter of the papers being finalized. Marvel has yet to comment or issue a press release, but one is expected shortly when everything is locked in. The deal calls for Evans to star in at least three "Captain America" movies and "The Avengers". Hugo Weaving (Smith in the "Matrix" movies) committed the other week to play the villain Red Skull. The Joe Johnston-directed 'America' kicks off filming this Summer and will hit theatres July 2011. That's right, the man who brought you "The Wolfman", "Jumanji" & "The Rocketeer" will be directing Captain America. Oh...and there apparently isn't going to be any more Fantastic Four movies, so probably a good career move for Chris Evans. You may also remember him from "Push" or "Cellular" or "Not Another Teen Movie." Keep an eye out for that.

Anyway, I think that’ll do it for today. Not a whole lot to blab on about. Tune in tomorrow though. I’m sure there’ll be a movie review or two, some news clips, maybe a dirty text message, who knows? The possibilities are endless. Have a great day everybody!!!

Fullest Moon of the Year Tonight

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well, not much to update on other than still no phone...but I should have one next week. It gets really lonely when you live by yourself and don't even have a phone to say hi to the family or send text messages with obscure movie references or inside jokes or anything like that. Oh well, I'll deal with it for a few more days. I've got a lot of cleaning and stuff to do anyway. That'll keep me occupied...and maybe I'll go have me a drink at a bar tonight, see what's out there. Anyway, here's some news that might interest you.

Sexbot Update - An Australian man broke into three adult shops, had sex with blow up dolls named "Jungle Jane" and then dumped his plastic conquests in a nearby alley, local media reported Wednesday. The owner of one of the adult sex shops, who only gave the name Vogue, told the Cairns Post newspaper, "It's totally bizarre. It's a real concern that someone like that is out on the street. He has been taking the dolls out the back and blowing them up and using the dolls and leaving them in the alley." Police also told the Cairns Post that scientific officers had taken DNA samples, fingerprints and pictures of the crime scene. How is this a Sexbot Update? It shows the dangers of society being completely reduced to sex-crazed men & women committing unlawful acts like breaking & entering…and entering…and dumping. These poor degenerates need to find a hobby…or at least a more socially acceptable way to release their urges like this good doctor…and help is on the way.

Geeks Learn to Flirt - Even the most quirky of computer nerds can learn to flirt with finesse thanks to a new "flirting course" being offered to budding IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin. The 440 students enrolled in the master's degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection (it's inevitable…believe me). Philip von Senftleben, an author and radio presenter who will teach the course, summed up his job as teaching how to "get someone else's heart beating fast while yours stays calm." The course, which starts next Monday, is part of the social skills section of the IT course and is designed to ease entry into the world of work (ugh…are sexual harassment laws different in Germany?). Students also learn body language, public-speaking, stress management and presentation skills. "We want to prepare our students with the social skills needed to succeed both in their private life and their work life," said Hans-Joachim Allgaier, a spokesman for the institute. I like it. You know that Germans have to be some of the best at flirting and persuasion. I mean…have you SEEN some of the things that they convince girls to eat and do on those internet videos? That's borderline Jedi mind trick stuff. Ah, I vaguely remember trying to flirt in German back in high school. It's really hard to make it sound sexy though. Too many hard K sounds and incidental spitting. Not like Spanish. You could read the menu at Taco Bell in a deep voice and roll your R's and it'll come out golden. Believe me, I've impressed a few ladies with a singing Julio Iglesias impersonation and I had no idea what I was saying…but it sounded good. Anyway, yeah, flirting classes. That may help us former engineering students out too…but then again...

Smart Men Have More Swimmers - Women tend to like smart men because they're usually more successful and better providers…but there's another reason: Their sperm is better, a new study says anyway. Researchers at King's College London, the University of Delaware and the University of New Mexico recently compared results from five intelligence tests given to 425 Vietnam War vets in 1985 as part of the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's Vietnam Experience Study. These vets, aged 31 to 44, also provided sperm samples, so the researchers analyzed the sperm per milliliter of semen, plus how many of the sperm swam normally, and other measures of sperm health. The smarter the men were, the more sperm they produced and the better their wee ones swam - and it didn't matter how old the men were or whether they smoked, drank or were obese. Why might these two seemingly unrelated traits be linked? Why would calculus aces or business consultants make better sperm? Turns out that intelligent people are generally healthier than their less-clever peers. Studies have shown that brainiacs are, for instance, less likely to suffer from heart disease and Alzheimer's. Scientists have suggested that smart people may score less stressful jobs in safer places and that they may make better lifestyle choices, for instance by exercising more and eating better. In other words, maybe bright people actually listen to the Surgeon General…but these newest findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Intelligence, found that negative habits had little effect on sperm quality, so they don't support that theory. The researchers instead speculate that intelligence might be passed down as part of a larger package of good attributes. One gene can influence multiple traits, so the genes involved in smarts may somehow improve sperm quality - and perhaps other characteristics as well. This could help explain, then, why intelligence can be so sexy: It could simply be an indicator that a person has a lot of good genes and traits, says study co-author Geoffrey Miller, a psychologist at the University of New Mexico. Can't wait to hear about the results of the taste test. What? There's no such thing? What kind of study is this? Ah-ha, maybe I found another niche to get my grant money from the government.

Smelling Intentions - It's not hard to tell when a guy is "happy to see you." The twinkle in his eye, his swagger, that sexy smile - all are clear signs he's in the mood. And, at least subconsciously, a woman can also tell by the scent of his sweat, according to new research. Scientists have long debated whether humans, like animals, use chemical signals called pheromones to communicate sexual interest to potential mates. Problem is, the effects of pheromones are thought to be subconscious - meaning that if we do communicate using them, we sure don't know it. It's also hard to know what these pheromones might be and how we sense them, so researchers understand little about them. But if human pheromones are going to be anywhere, they're going to be in sweat, right? Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University in Houston, and her colleagues devised an experiment to compare how women respond to different forms of male sweat - sweat produced in everyday situations versus that produced when a man is turned on. The researchers speculated that if humans do produce and respond to sweat pheromones, then a woman should respond to a guy's sexual sweat differently than she does to his normal sweat.

Chen and her colleagues asked 20 heterosexual guys to stop wearing deodorant and scented products for a few days ("Well, if it's in the name of science…"). Then they told the men to put small pads in their armpits as they watched pornographic videos ("Well, if it's in the name of science…") and became aroused (the researchers confirmed, using electrodes, that the images did the job). Later, the guys were asked to exchange those pads for fresh pads to collect the sweat they produced when they weren't aroused. Then the researchers recruited 19 brave women to smell the men's pads while undergoing brain scans. The investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that reveals the brain regions a person is using at any given time - even if their brain activity is subconscious. Sure enough, the women's brains responded very differently depending on which sweat they sniffed. (And no, none of them passed out.) The sexual sweat, but not the normal sweat, activated the right orbitofrontal cortex and the right fusiform cortex, brain areas that help us recognize emotions and perceive things, respectively. Both regions are in the right hemisphere, which is generally involved in smell, social response, and emotion. The findings bolster the idea that humans do communicate via subconscious chemical signals, notes Chen in her study, which was published in the December 31 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Our sexual intentions, in other words, may be a lot clearer than we ever intended them to be. That crush you have on your co-worker? She may already know - at least subconsciously. Keep that in mind. Interesting...because when I'm at the gym, you can probably guess what I'm thinking about when I'm on the treadmill. No, not the Journey music on the speakers or whatever's on that little TV screen, it's usually either a hottie on a treadmill nearby (using perepherals when necessary) or just motivating myself with images of bow chicka bow wow. Don't knock it. It's a great motivator...and apparently it's sending those pheremones out...so we'll see how that works. Anyway, I found it interesting...and it's my blog.

Love Hormone - The "Love" hormone linked to feelings of sexual pleasure, bonding and maternal care also appears to help us recognize familiar faces, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday. Men given oxytocin (not oxycotin) -- involved in nursing and childbirth -- more accurately recalled images of familiar faces but the hormone did not help them recognize inanimate objects. Their findings published in The Journal of Neuroscience suggest the hormone somehow strengthens the brain's neural networks involved in social memory and may have implications for conditions such as autism, researchers said. "The study highlights the parallels in social information processing in mice and man, and adds further support to the notion oxytocin plays a critical role," Larry Young, an expert on oxytocin at Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement. "This has important implications for disorders such as autism, where social information processing is clearly impaired." Oxytocin was known for years to be involved in labor and it is the hormone that stimulates the production of milk for breastfeeding. Animal studies suggest it can help in bonding between mother and child and between mates. Only in recent decades has it been found to have a function in men -- in sexual arousal and function. Klaver and colleagues showed 44 men pictures of faces and inanimate objects that included sculptures, houses and other images. Half the volunteers received an oxytocin nasal spray and the rest got a placebo. The researchers found that men who used the oxytocin spray more accurately recognized the faces they had seen before than did those in the placebo group. The hormone made no difference for the other pictures, Klaver said. Further analysis also showed the hormone made it less likely for people to mistakenly characterize unfamiliar faces as familiar. "It is important to understand that social recognition can be improved by such hormones," Klaver said in a telephone interview. Then I got to wondering…there's a Love hormone? So I googled the hell out of it…and basically it's all speculative research with little definition…but it's been shown to do things like cause spontaneous erections in rats when injected into their cerebrospinal fluid, show signs of forming a monogamous bond in females with their sexual partners (again in rats), possible cure of autism, and significant increases in feelings of trust, generosity, maternal instincts and that one hard-to-describe or explain feelings popularly called Love. Anyway, I found it kind of interesting…and I'm still trying to figure out how to make up a good pheromone cologne to use when I'm out on the prowl. I'll call it Oxymone…so the patent people think it's some kind of alcoholic-smelling acne treatment…but I pronounce it something Frenchy like "ah-si-moh" when the ladies ask "Mmm, what cologne is that you're wearing?" Aaaaah yeah, now I just need to get that chemistry degree…and maybe a lady...

Biggest Full Moon of the Year Tonight - If skies are clear Saturday, go out at sunset and look for the giant moon rising in the east. It will be the biggest and brightest one of 2009, sure to wow even seasoned observers. Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But the orbit is not a perfect circle. One portion is about 31,000 miles (50,000 km) closer to our planet than the farthest part, so the moon's apparent size in the sky changes. Tonight, the moon will be at perigee, the closest point to us on this orbit. It will appear about 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during 2009, according to NASA. So please…take someone special outside with you…or stare at it together outside your 34th floor apartment window (ladies…) and don't let this one go to waste. Have a great night everybody!!!