A Paradox

In honor of Leap Day/Year, enjoy this most ingenious paradox. I grew up on Gilbert & Sullivan, and will fight anyone who calls me gay because of it. However, I do find Kevin Kline curiously attractive in the clip below, and will therefore defer to others' judgement as to my sexuality.

Come on, admit it, you're all taken by his chest hair too...

and his one-legged yoga squat...

and his 70's pornstar 'stache...

and his unnecessarily puffy sleeves.

"America Can, Should, Must, and Will Blow Up the Moon"

SPACE.com via Yahoo! News reports that NASA is planning on "priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice." Is anyone else reminded of the Mr. Show sketch in which NASA plans, for no apparant reason, to blow up the moon?

It may be my favorite Bob & Dave sketch, and -- if I may deign to analyze -- is about American machismo. In a broader sense, it could be an observation that the nature of science and technology -- the blind, ceaseless tendency to push further and always do whatever is "next" -- is inherently foolish. But -- perhaps just because I disagree with that sentiment -- I think the central notion of the joke is that America will flex its muscle just 'cause. Along the way, the sketch throws some nice jabs at knee-jerk activism ("We're Earthlings, let's blow up Earth things!") and jingoistic country-western music (see below).

But, as the geezer in the sketch -- and my friend E -- says, "Now, it's science fact!" So what are we to think? Have NASA lost their marbles? I doubt it. If anything, Bob & Dave's spot-on satire speaks to the disposition of the media coverage (or at least to this particular article). Apart from "double whammy," it's chock-full of language like "takes aim," "sledgehammer," "brute force," and my favorite, "Earth-on-moon violence." I guess that's ok with me as long as the moon is a consenting adult. And what happens on the dark side stays on the dark side.

So I'll take NASA's word that this is an "economical" plan. In the meantime, I'll just be amused by the coverage, which is very Mr. Show in nature. But I bet someone will complain soon, if they haven't already. Will some Green Party committee of the Planetary Society form to declare this a corruption of the moon's ecology? Or how about this: remember a few years back when some company sold off the real estate of the moon to anyone who wanted to buy? You could buy an acre, or the whole Sea of Tranquility if you could afford it. As I recall, no one could stop them because, well, let's face it: who has jurisdiction over the moon? Even if there were little green men on it, they'd probably have as much luck disputing these real estate purchases as the Iroquois had getting rid of their white devils. So you just watch as the Deutsch Bank Credit Union comes forward and says, "Nein! Das ist our slab of die moon!" Or better yet: Joe Bob McScratchyballs in backwoods Bumblecrack sues NASA $3 billion for destroying his descendants' place in the sun.

I digress. The point is, ready-or-not... moon, here we come. I leave you all with "C.S. Lewis, Jr."'s country hit from the Bob & Dave sketch:

Look out, moon,
America's gonna getcha.
Gonna go ka-boom,
Was nice to have metcha,
'Cause you don't mess around
With God's America!

I Think We're Gonna Need a Bigger "In Memorium" Montage

WTF? Unless I blinked longer than I thought, Roy Scheider was conspicuously absent from this year's "Bye Bye My Life Goodbye" section of the Oscars. Boo-urns.

Roy, I haven't forgotten Jaws, All That Jazz, and Sea Quest. Here's lookin' at you, kid.

AMENDMENT 2/25 6:06 PM:
It seems (reading the fine print) that the montage was only through Jan 31, 2008. So Scheider will be on next year. Brad Renfro, on the other hand, got shafted, as MQA points out in the comments.

The Last Crusade of the Raiders of the Temple of Little Green Men

The Indy 4 trailer is finally online, and nothing has me more excited -- other than the return of Karen Allen -- than the above still. Let the speculation begin.

Forget Bucky, You Can Still Write-In Steve Rogers

This image is as political as this blog will get during the Presidential race (which, incidentally, should give you some idea of my opinion of the across-the-board mediocrity I see in the primaries).

When Do Sirrus and Achenar Get Flashbacks?

I refuse to blog extensively about Lost. I do not want to be one of the hordes of theorists and speculators who devote countless hours to this, only to proven completely -- if not moderately -- wrong with each passing episode. All I will say, after watching the "ooh... ahh..." Oceanic Air viral commercial, is this: I'm just waiting for them to tell me that the name of this goddamn island is Myst.