Operation Global Media Domination: Life and Times

TIAThank god for the Internet, I say. Not only does it ensure that we need never go Shatnerless, but it also guarantees that, no matter how pathetic, meaningless and ultimately debased our own situations, we can always rely on a fresh supply of inbreds to whom to condescend. I speak as one who adored working retail for a decade because working with the public gave me so many people to whom to feel superior.

Now, having broken the top 170,000 of 40 million on Technorati, I am practically impossible to talk to, even though I've stayed in my pjs, blowing my nose, blogging, snarfing reheated pizza and reading Fark all damn day; call my agent, baby!

Particularly if you are responsible for the following.

Behold a ten-thousand word Wikipedia entry on the seven forms of jedi lightsaber fighting, the eight OTHER forms of jedi lightsaber fighting, and the horrible realization that the author hasn't exchanged physical affection with anyone other than his cats since The Empire Strikes Back.

Just kidding about that last part.

Die Muppet! Geek Rage

Each Jedi chooses the style of lightsaber combat that best suits him or her. For example, Master Yoda uses the Ataru form to compensate for his lack of reach and height, as well as to take advantage of his nearly limitless amount of Force power; Mace Windu uses Vaapad to tap into his anger and employ it constructively (without giving himself over to the dark side); Count Dooku's practice of the Makashi form fits his intention to frequently engage in lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat as well as his emphasis on class, elegance and precision. The Jedi Exile from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was an expert in many of these forms but never relied on just one. In the game, the Masters remark that he masters their forms very quickly, as if he had studied them for years. While not always, Lightsaber styles are generally taught to the students by the Jedi Battlemasters.

And, lest we forget, the Shat has, as always, some words of wisdom for us. (Sorry Metro, it's just a Shatner kinda day, and damn the loading time!) a side note: has The Shat replaced The Giant Squid as the muse of raincoaster? Better than Blair!

The 100 Most Influential People in History…and their Religions!

For the next time you're looking for some way to stir the pot at a boring party. This is from Michael H. Hart's book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. No matter what the religion, you can find people the world would have been worse off without. But I didn't know Manicheanism was considered a whole separate religion: seems to me just a quality of most of them. Live and learn. Here's the top twelve:

Rank Name Religious Affiliation Influence
1 Muhammad Islam Prophet of Islam; conqueror of Arabia; Hart recognized that ranking Muhammad first might be controversial, but felt that, from a secular historian's perspective, this was the correct choice because Muhammad is the only man to have been both a founder of a major world religion and a major military/political leader. More
2 Isaac Newton Anglican (rejected Trinitarianism, i.e., Athanasianism; believed in the Arianism of the Primitive Church) physicist; theory of universal gravitation; laws of motion
3 Jesus Christ * Judaism; Christianity founder of Christianity
4 Buddha Hinduism; Buddhism founder of Buddhism
5 Confucius Confucianism founder of Confucianism
6 St. Paul Judaism; Christianity proselytizer of Christianity
7 Ts'ai Lun Chinese traditional religion inventor of paper
8 Johann Gutenberg Catholic developed movable type; printed Bibles
9 Christopher Columbus Catholic explorer; led Europe to Americas
10 Albert Einstein Jewish physicist; relativity; Einsteinian physics
11 Louis Pasteur Catholic scientist; pasteurization
12 Galileo Galilei Catholic astronomer; accurately described heliocentric solar system

 And an interesting table:

Religious Affiliation % in List
Catholic 31%
Anglican/Episcopalian 13%
Jewish 7%
Atheist 6%
Greco-Roman paganism 6%
Chinese traditional religion/Confucianism 5%
Lutheran 5%
Russian Orthodox 4%
pre-Nicene Christianity 3%
Platonism 3%
Islam 2%
Hindu 2%
Buddhist 2%
Presbyterian 2%
Zoroastrian 2%
Manicheanism 2%
Quaker 2%
Unitarian/Universalist 2%
Calvinist 2%
Jain 1%
Jansenist 1%
United Brethren 1%
Congregationalist 1%
Dutch Reformed 1%
Egyptian paganism 1%
Mongolian shamanism 1%
Taoism 1%
Baptist 1%
Sandemanian 1%
Protestant (denomination unknown) 6%
unknown 5%

Newton’s Laws of Physics

as presented by a group of athletic, yet highly impaired teenage boys. With slo-mo replay from multiple angles. Do not operate heavy machinery or videocameras under the influence of whatever it was that they just took. Although apparently it prevents you from feeling pain…

Today in Ancient Squid News

Tully MonsterThis monster is no myth! The Tully Monster is real, it's here, it's extremely queer, and it's absolutely unquestionably Squid. I mean, look in those eyes.

The Tully Monster is the official state fossil of Illinois, having beaten out many an elderly barfly for the coveted honour. Nobody seems to know what the little stalks are, but they've decided, after no doubt having enjoyed a lovely crab dinner, that they must be eyestalks and therefore, and also because of the teeth, that must be the front end of the monster. One notes, one does, that the museum report goes out of its way to stress that there is no evidence that the area with the teeth, which you might be tempted to call a "mouth" connects with the esophagus. So, like, what does?

Tully Monster DioramaCuriouser and curiouser: how strange can this Squid get? They think maybe it just gnawed things with the teeth and then sort of slid around until the actual intake met up with the mangled prey and hoovered it up. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. How many years of nursery school do you need to become a paleontologist?

Whatever. You just gotta salute (with all ten tentacles) an ancient, unclassifiable Official State Fossil Squid-like Creature that was discovered by a wandering amateur loony with a metal detector and a collecting fetish.

Dan Tully directs visitors to his Homer Glen home with some simple instructions — it's the one with three tractors on the front lawn.

The retired Lockport cop collects everything from farm implements to belt buckles dug up on his frequent metal-detector forays.

But Tully will be the first to admit that none of his prospecting treasures has quite the stature of his dad's discovery: a 300-million-year-old fossilized creature so strange it was dubbed "Tully monster."

Tully Diagram

Dan's father, Francis X. Tully, found the fossil — now on display at the Field Museum as part of a new exhibit on evolution — when the two were on one of their weekend fishing and fossil-hunting trips around 1958 near Braidwood.

"He done most of the fossil huntin', and I done most of the fishin'," Tully joked recently, sitting behind a small black-and-white photo of his father, who died in 1987 at 75, holding up a model of the squid-like creature.

Manhattanhenge: May 28

From Gothamist:ManhattanHenge!

Manhattan-what? Here, let's let the director of the Hayden Planetarium explain:

"Next Sunday and on July 13, the sun will fully illuminate every Manhattan cross street (not the curved or angled ones) on the street grid during the last 15 minutes of daylight, and it will set on each street's center line. The sight is breathtaking."

You know, of course, what the longterm effect will be? Centuries from now, puzzled archaeologists will conclude that ancient Manhattanites worshipped the sun; devotion was displayed in the common "Mystic" tans, and the city was laid out on a celestial grid. The festival known as "May Two-Four-Plus-Four" was the holiest of days.

Of course.