THIS BLOG HAS MOVED UP IN THE WORLD

Check out our new content at: http://ynteonline.com

Thursday, February 17, 2011

We're moving!

Hey, everyone!

It's hard to believe it's been almost 4 years since the first YNTE posts went up. Over time we've evolved and expanded, and I'm proud to say we're at a point where it just makes sense to move off of blogger's servers and onto our own.

So, without any further ado, I give you: http://ynteonline.com

New content will no longer be published here, it will be published there instead. All the classic posts and comments have been moved. If you manually visit our site, update your bookmarks to reflect the change, if you read us via RSS, hopefully the same feed will work! (if not, just pull a new feed from the new site!)

Thanks to all of you who for your support; we hope you enjoy the new site!

Name that celebrity - the reveal!

The man pictured in yesterday's Name that Celebrity is none other than Fred Durst, lead singer of Limp Bizkit.
Apparently he has that disease from Jack where he ages 4 times as fast a regular human, which also explains why a lot of Limp Bizkit songs sound like they were written by a five year old.

You may think "I wonder how old he is" and go check wikipedia to see when he was born. Here's what that yielded me:

Don't do drugs, kids.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Name that celebrity!

The celebrity pictured above has fallen out of the limelight, and, well, now looks like this. He's indistinguishable from his former self unless you know what you're looking for, squint, and use your imagination.

Guess who this is in the comments! If you get it right I may give you a prize or something.

I'll be back tomorrow with the answer!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 2 - The Survivors

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 2: The Daleks
Part 2: The Survivors (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Quick recap: Doctor Who and his granddaughter Susan accidentally kidnap two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara, and take them on a trip through time. Intent on investigating an abandoned city, the Doctor sabotages the ship, stating that the ship's mercury fuel could be found in the city. While searching the city, they split up, and Barbara is attacked by a plunger.

While looking for Barbara, the gang find a room with a bunch of monitoring equipment, including a radiation-meter that, like the one on the ship, is reading "über-death".

The doctor then reasons that they probably shouldn't be out in the incredibly toxic planet and decides to head back to the ship and travel to a time that has medicine for radiation. At this point, Ian reminds him that the ship is busted. Then the doctor admits that the TARDIS is fine, he was just lying and throwing a tantrum to get his way. To prove this, he hands Ian the perfectly functional fluid core.

Last episode I thought he had actually damaged the ship, but it turns out he only pretend damaged it. This makes much more sense.

The doctor then continues his "I'm going to do whatever I want" attitude by saying that he and Susan are going to leave the planet. He then gives Ian the choice of coming with them in the TARDIS to get medicine or staying on the radioactive planet forever. Ian, however, is concerned with someone other than just himself and refuses to leave without Barbara, and points out that he is in possession of the fluid core that powers the ship.

The doctor's pleas of "Gimme that so I can strand you here forever!" don't have an effect, so they all leave in search of Barbara.

Or rather, they would have searched for Barbara, but the moment they open the door, they are ambushed by Daleks. Doctor Who and Susan are terrified by the plunger appendages and immediately surrender, but Ian attempts to run away. Unfortunately for him, the non-plunger arm is a paralyzing ray.

All the companions are held in the same room. And this time there isn't an old crazy caveman lady to free them, although the room is less skully this time.

The Daleks summon the doctor so they can give him some backstory. Apparently the Daleks are at war with a species called the Thals, who look human enough that the Daleks assumed that the companions are Thals. However, the Thals are immune to radiation and the companions are not, and this is becoming fairly obvious, as everyone has suddenly started to look pretty sick. The doctor then remembers the medicine that was left outside their ship and convinces the Daleks to let one of the group go to get it. The ship has safeguards against anyone but Susan or Dr. Who, and the doctor pretends to be asleep so Susan has to go.

The Daleks have an impromptu evil mastermind meeting where they reveal that they have no intention of actually letting the group USE the medicine, they just want them all to have false hope before they die.

Susan runs back to the ship, and there's about two minutes of footage just of her running, which is pretty hilarious, because she's TERRIBLE at it. Girl could not run in a straight line to save her life. Eventually, she makes it to the ship, finds the medicine. Then, in a cliffhanger ending, she leaves the ship normally.

That's it for Serial 2, Episode 2! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 1 - The Dead Planet
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 4 - The Firemaker
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

As you can see, I'm just as romantic as last year. In fact, I'm two bird plates romantic-er.

Hope everyone has a pleasant day!

YNTE Horror Night Holiday Edition: Valentine

Welcome to a special Valentine's Day edition of YNTE Horror Night! I've decided that for as many major holidays as possible this year, I'll be reviewing the slasher film equivalent. For Valentine's Day, this left me with a choice: 2001's "Valentine" or 1981's "My Bloody Valentine". This time "Valentine" won out because the plot seemed a bit more holiday specific, and a lot more ridiculous. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!

The movie starts off with a bunch of middle-schoolers at a Valentine's day dance. A nerdy kid named Jeremy Melton asks all the pretty girls to dance with him. They all reject him cruelly. He then asks a chubby girl to dance with him and they start making out under the bleachers. When some bullies catch them smoochin', the chubby girl claims he attacked her, everyone starts calling him "pervert", and they make fun of him so hard he gets a nosebleed. The bullies then drag him out to the middle of the dance floor and kick his ass. Apparently chaperons weren't invented yet.

Flash forward 13 years. Katherine Heigl, who you may know from Grey's Anatomy, is stretching her acting legs here by playing a Med School student. After going on a bad date with a man named Jason Marquette, she returns to the morgue to practice surgery-ing on some corpses.

She gets a Valentine's card that says something along the lines of "Happy Valentine's Day, I'm going to stab you", and while the writing of the card leaves something to be desired, this guy should seriously get into the greeting card business because the construction of the card was immaculate. It was like a pop-up card with multiple layers and moving parts. Impressive stuff! The card is signed "JM".

Well, surprise, surprise, a psychotic murderer in a Cupid Mask shows up and kills Katherine Heigl's character, and then has a nosebleed out the mask. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about this movie. It is (at least on the surface) a movie about a nerd who girls were mean to who decides years later to kill them.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a downward turn here, as of the 5 girls, Katherine Heigl's character is the only likeable one. Luckily, most of them wind up dead. One of them gets shot by the killer with a hunting bow. You know, the whole "getting shot by Cupid's arrow" thing. Only instead of falling in love after getting shot, she falls off a balcony. Into a dumpster. But the symbolism's still there.

They come to the conclusion that Jeremy Melton got plastic surgery so he'd look less dorky and is secretly dating one of the girls. This leads to a lot of bitchy fingerpointing. At one point, Fatty McGoo admits that Jeremy didn't really attack her, she just didn't want to get made fun of for being fat. At this point she's thin and pretty and ALSO a cast member on Grey's Anatomy.

Cue the big finale where there's a big party and some people get killed. Denise Richards gets killed in a hot tub by a power drill. (On a side note, I don't understand how she became as popular as she did, she's a pretty terrible actress, then again, I think the only movies I've seen her in are this and Starship Troopers.)

It becomes very apparent at one point (and it has been from the beginning for anyone with half a brain) that the main female's boyfriend Adam (played by David Boreanaz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Angel') is Jeremy. He very creepily asks her to dance again. She gets creeped out and runs away. There's a chase scene, and the killer in the Cupid mask tackles her. Adam pops out and shoots Cupid with a gun he happened to find.

They pull off Cupid's mask to reveal Fatty McGoo, who apparently went on a killing spree because her friends treated her poorly as a fat kid. Adam hugs the main character lady, despite her not liking him as a nerdy kid or an alcoholic adult, and his nose starts to bleed, showing that he's Jeremy Melton after all.

First of all, as both a nerd who girls disliked in junior high, and as a bit of a fatty myself, I can tell you, these are not motivations to kill. I have never murdered anyone, and according to this movie, I'd be a double threat!

Secondly, the ending sucks. It's too muddy to be satisfying. It just kind of lays out some events without giving them context. There's at least three possibilities this ending could mean:
  1. Adam isn't Jeremy Melton, and the chubby girl was the killer all along
  2. The chubby girl is still the killer, but Adam is Jeremy Melton who got all the face surgery so he could trick the girl into dating him, but nothing more sinister
  3. Adam IS Jeremy Melton, and the killer, dressed the chubby girl(who is innocent) up in the costume and shot her to cover up his identity
Any one of those endings would have been much better, but by not articulating it, the end just felt lazy.

Anyway, all in all, not as bad of a movie as I expected.

But remember, on this Valentine's Day, the moral of this movie: Nerds and fatties need lovin' too

Catch up on past installments:
Jason X
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor delayed until Tuesday

Today's regularly scheduled "I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor" will run tomorrow due to the Valentine's Day YNTE Horror Night Special.

This is a public service so your heads don't explode from awesome overload. You're welcome.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

YNTE Horror Night: Jason X


Welcome to YNTE Horror Night, a spinoff series of YNTE Movie Night! This month we'll be analyzing "Jason X", the tenth movie in the Friday the 13th series. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!
Before we get into the plot of this movie, a bit of background on the nine movies that came before: Jason Vorhees drowned as a child at summer camp; now as a an adult he murders promiscuous teens around the site of his death. Last film left him, through a series of crossovers, banished to Hell with no chance of escape. It ended with a tease for the film "Freddy vs. Jason", leading many to believe that would be the next Friday the 13th film made. It wasn't.

At this point, everyone wanted to make Freddy vs. Jason, but for one reason or another, it just wasn't happening. So while waiting to make the film they all wanted to, they put together and crapped out another movie to tide people over.

Couple that with the fact that it's set in the future, in space, so as to not be saddled with all that pesky "continuity", you've got the formula for greatness right there.

Jason starts this movie in government captivity, where scientists are running tests on him to try and discover how he is seemingly invincible. It's interesting to note that they've ALREADY retconned the mystical reasoning introduced last film. He's chained up in a device that looks like one of Houdini's straightjackets. And like Houdini, he escapes from it. Unlike Houdini, instead of taking a bow, he starts with the murderin'.

He kills everyone in the facility except the one cleverest lady scientist who manages to lure him into a cryrogenic chamber. Unfortunately before he can be frozen completely, he stabs her through the door, causing them both to be cryrogenically frozen.

Many years later, the room is discovered by a team of scavengers. They assume Jason is too far gone to save, but think they can bring the lady scientist back to life. So they bag up both bodies and return to their spaceship, which flies them out to an orbital space station where they plan to perform the medical procedures.

At this point the movie looks like a low budget, Stargate rip-off, SyFy Channel original movie. If I walked into a room where someone was watching this, asked them what it was, and they said "A Friday the 13th film" I would not believe them.

They must be spiking the water with horny juice on the spaceship, because nobody on board can go 5 minutes without having sex. One couple starts making out on top of the operating table Jason is still on. One guy puts on a woman's nightgown and has a female crew member tweak his nipples with oversized tongs. One person tries to add nipples to a robot so he can fuck that robot. Seriously.

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone that Jason comes back to life to kill these oversexed spacemen. His first victim is the lady that was doing the autopsy on him, and after killing her he picks up an incredibly impractical surgical tool that happens to look exactly like a machete, but a future machete. FOR SCIENCE.

Jason then proceeds to take out a whole squad of heavily-armed soldiers, one by one, guerrilla-style. The dark, enclosed areas of the spaceship really do a good job of upping the suspense. Or rather, they would, if the film took itself seriously, which it does not. At one point Jason throws a body onto a corkscrew drill, and the body spins around its impale wound. When a soldier finds the body, she reports to her commanding officer "He's screwed."

The pilot prepares to take the ship in to dock with a space colony, knowing that there are many armed commandos on the colony who can take care of Jason. Unfortunately, once the pilot lines up the ship for dock, Jason kills him, and the ship plows through the space colony, blowing it to smithereens.

There's a really touching scene where the robot lady tells the dude crushing on her that there's only a 12% chance of survival. Then they make out. She says that the odds just improved to 53%. Then they "go for 100", which happens off camera, but I'm guessing it means sex. I don't have the calculation skills of a sexbot but I'm pretty sure fucking instead of trying to escape actually LOWERS your odds of survival.

They all have a great plan for leaving in the shuttle, but one scared idiot attempts to fly off without the rest of the group before the shuttle is detached from the ship and it crashes and blows up.

Just when it looks like everyone is doomed, the robot-lovin nerd comes back. It turns out that after the robot sex, he reprogrammed her from a sexbot into a killbot. Despite the fact that he programmed her to kill with flair, not efficiency, she still manages to kill Jason pretty completely. She even blows off a good 3/4 of his head. Everyone, even the lady from the past who KNOWS Jason is unkillable, accepts that he's dead and continue going about their day.

What nobody thought of was that they left Jason's body was left on one of their Science Healing Beds. There's not enough organic tissue left to revive him, so he is augmented with robot parts, replacing Jason Vorhees with the unstoppable cyborg "Jason X"

The group manages to blow Jason up and shoot him out into the vaccum of space, but he punches a hole in the hull, causing explosive decompression. One lady gets sucked out, but before she dies she screams "This sucks on so many levels!", which is actually a pretty accurate review of the movie.

A ship comes to rescue them, unfortunately, the hatch is jammed and they can't get to the space-bridge connecting the two ships, and the hatch controls are on the OUTSIDE of the ship. One guy puts on a space suit and goes to try and unjam the controls from the outside, which begs two questions:
  1. Why the hell would you put the hatch controls on the OUTSIDE of the ship?
  2. If you have space suits, why not just space suit up and float to the other ship?
To slow Jason down while he stalks them, they boot up a crystal lake hologram simulation, complete with immoral camp counselors for him to kill. This slows him down just enough for the last 2.5 survivors (The scientist lady from the past, the nerd, and his robot lover's decapitated head) to escape. The guy in the space suit propels Jason X's body down toward nearby planet "Earth 2".

The movie ends with two immoral campers by a lake seeing the "shooting star", and deciding to go check it out.

The next Friday the 13th film is finally the crossover, Freddy vs. Jason, which begs the question, which film should I do next? Freddy vs. Jason? Nightmare on Elm Street (for a primer), or should I put the Friday the 13th franchise on ice for a while and do something else, like Scream? Let me know in the comments! One way or another, I'll see you back here next month with a new review!

Catch up on past installments:
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Man's Spleen in the Running for a Guinness World Record

Here's a link to the picture, for people not curious about a disembodied giant organ.

This technically is a news story, since I found it on Reddit. Although I haven't actually found a good link to any other site reporting on it, the guy at least was gracious enough to give his personal account about his giant spleen in the comments to that picture.

So in 2009 this guy started just losing weight at a very quick pace. He said he would keep eating constantly, but he'd just keep losing weight and sweat a lot. (As a side effect though, he said he got the most kickass 8-pack abs, pictured here).

Well, as you might imagine, he started getting chest pains. After going to the doctor he found out that he had Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, a disorder that basically makes new white blood cells that are not programmed to die, so the spleen decides to retain all of them. And to facilitate this, it needed more energy, hence the guys weight loss, and more space, hence the giant spleen. Apparently he had so many white blood cells that the surgeons had to thin his blood twice to make it operable.

Long story short he gets his spleen removed, and you can see it at the top of the page if you didn't already. Apparently it was so big that it was crunched up against his abdominals and ribcage, which is why he got that 8-pack.

Fast forward to 2011. The guy says he's got the paperwork filed to Guinness World Records as the "heaviest spleen removed" and is just currently waiting on his medical documentation to reach them. Once it gets to them, this guy will be immortalized in history. As the guy with the really huge spleen.

And apparently you can also live without a spleen. Anyway, this story is pretty much just chock full of bizarre if you ask me.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Most Bizarre But True News Story - Baywatch: Where are they now?

The TV show "Baywatch" famously launched the career of Pamela Anderson. But what about Donna D'Errico, the other large breasted blonde on that show?

Recently she was offered a chance to be on Dancing with the "Stars", but turned it down due to pursue a lifelong dream. She wants to climb Mount Ararat in Turkey to search for the frozen remains of Noah's ark.

This is a real news story.

Highlights of the article:

However, despite numerous sightings and expeditions, no solid proof of the ark has ever been found.

D'Errico would like to be the person who changes things and makes one of the biggest historical finds in human history.
and also:

Now that her plans are set, D'Errico is swimming and running to build up her endurance.

What about running in slow-motion, a la "Baywatch"?

"Not doing that," she said with a laugh. "But I'll probably be climbing in slow motion when I start."

There was a football game yesterday?

My planned interaction with the super bowl consisted of me playing Xbox all day and then looking up the Captain America trailer later that night. Which is more or less what I did.

Then the twitters were atwatter and the blogosphere was all bloggey.

Apparently, the "entertainment" they hired has never heard of "rehearsal", and as this is a blog that frequently focuses on the unintentionally hilarious, I feel obligated to sum up the day's events.

To start off, Christina Aguilera sang the National Anthem. She liked certain parts of that song SO MUCH she sang them twice. I realize that the national anthem is a long, complicated song that the average American has trouble singing. But Christina, you are not an average American. You are a professional singer.

Luckily, then came the halftime show, and everyone forgot her mistake. Remember the time they "accidentally" showed a saggy boob in the halftime show? This was a FAR BIGGER train wreck.

[EDIT: That was fast! The video of the halftime show I posted got pulled off youtube before I finished writing. Looks like most of them did. Good luck finding one if you want, or just read my review below and you will have missed NOTHING]

Watch the video, or read my shot for shot:
-The Black Eyed Peas are lowered down from space wearing Tron jumpsuits. But not actual tron jumpsuits, the kind your mom would make you when you were 8 and you told her you wanted to be "a tron" for Halloween. There's a string of lights taped to black clothing.
-They start singing "I've Gotta Feeling", which is a song I don't particularly like. Little did I know this would be the high point of the show. Also, they aren't singing in time with their backing track.
-Part way through the song, the four peas(Fergie, Wi.l.ia.m., derp.de.derp, and that other guy whos name nobody knows) take turns singing their various solos. When Fergie goes to sing hers, the sound guy forgets to turn on her mic. Fergie's rap also includes the line "I'm so 2008", which I would tend to agree with.
-The crowd of people "enjoying" the show seem far more choreographed than actual fans would be. It becomes clear later that these are just dancers paid to "like the show" in unison. And to their credit, far better dancers than the mooks on stage.
-Everyone gets one solo segment, except Fergie, who gets three.
-Slash inexplicably comes out of the stage and starts playing "Sweet Child of Mine" while Fergie sings. I never thought I'd say this, but I find myself wishing desperately it was Axl Rose singing instead.
-I also find myself wondering if it's more difficult to play guitar when the singer is straight up dry humping you the whole time, which is another problem we didn't have when Guns 'n' Roses were together.
-Third note about Slash: He's not wearing his signature Top Hat, but instead a bedazzled top hat to "match" the Tron motif they're sort of doing.
-Then Dick Dale's Misrilou comes on, and the Black Eyed Peas start yelling over it phrases such as "check it out" and "louder". Is this what passes for talent these days? Repeating phrase over other people music?
-What the hell is on W.il.li.a.m's head? It looks like he has a plastic shell to protect his hair from rain.
-Transition to "Lets Get It Started". There's a scene in Hot Tub Time Machine where a guy's band covers this song. That's sort of what this feels like, only the people covering this song in the movie had talent. Lets Get It Started is one of the few Black Eyed Peas songs I don't totally hate, but this version of it was abysmal.
-Usher comes on stage just to dance around.
-Usher jumps over .wi.ll..i.a..m's head and lands in the splits. Okay, I'll concede. That was kinda cool.
-The peas come back on to sing "Where is the Love". The stage has been reconfigured to be the shape of the word "Love", but part of the V is not lighting up so it looks like "Lol.E"
-In the middle of "Where is the Love", ..........william... changes the lyrics so it is now a song about how Obama's doing a bad job as president. News flash, dude: you're standing on a "lol.E" stage. You don't get to criticize anyone for doing poorly at their job.
-They start singing that "Time of my Life" song from "Dirty Dancing" only this time its v.vil.i.an.n singing it to Fergie. Josh Duhamel is going to be PISSED.
-All the backup dancers on stage put boxes on their heads. I was going to put a second sentence here with a joke, but the best joke I could come up with was "All the backup dancers put boxes on their heads." Seemed redundant.
-The "fans" on the field do some synchronized dancing that once again upstages the black eyed peas
-They sing "I've gotta feeling" AGAIN. It's a 12 minute set and they have so little material they have recycle from earlier in the show. This time there's box people though, so it's different, I guess.

The show ends with somebody saying "That was MEGA."

I disagree.

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 1 - The Dead Planet

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 2: The Daleks
Part 1: The Dead Planet (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Quick recap: Doctor Who and his granddaughter Susan accidentally kidnap two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara, and take them back in time. In the past, their time machine, the TARDIS, malfunctions, leaving them unsure if they will ever be able to return to their own time. After a blind jump to an unknown point in space and time, the Doctor suggests they all "freshen up" before going outside, but first asks Susan to check the radiation levels, which are fine, until she looks away and they jump to MAXIMUM DEATH.

Oh, my god. SO MUCH to cover this week. I'm excited!

First of all, when the Doctor suggested they all "freshen up", what that meant is that they are all wearing new clothes now. Ian is wearing a Mister Rodgers sweater. Susan is wearing a shirt with a tiny collar all the way up her neck. Barbara is wearing a low cut shirt with a GIANT collar. Doctor Who is wearing a new set of the exact same clothes.


The mysterious thing here isn't what they're wearing, but where these clothes came from. You can maybe assume that Susan has a closet full of shirts with various sizes of collar, but it's been demonstrated that Doctor Who only has one style of clothes (like Monk!). And this is of course assuming that the kidnapped teachers wear the same size as the doctor and Susan, which is clearly not the case.

You can then draw one of three conclusions:
  1. They have a machine that creates clothes out of thin air in whatever sizes you want
  2. They have a massive warehouse full of clothes of all sizes within the TARDIS.
  3. The kidnapping was not accidental, but premeditated, and the Doctor stocked up on clothes in the teachers' sizes.
Any one of these three situations would be fascinating to watch, or at least more fascinating to watch than looking at a bunch of petrified trees, which is what they do show instead.

It turns out that everything around here is dead and petrified. They wander about for a bit but don't discover anything anything. They're all set to head back to the ship and leave when Ian sees a large city off in the distance. The Doctor then goes on another of his selfish benders and decides he WILL study the city, completely ignoring the protests of all his traveling companions.

They all agree it would be too dangerous to explore the site then and there though so they head back to the ship to wait until morning. On the way back, somebody touches Susan. The adults handle this child groping by telling Susan she's crazy and made it up.

Then they all take a snack break! Apparently in the future, Science has discovered that all food is comprised of two base flavors. Depending on how you combine these two flavors, you can create food that tastes like anything. Conveniently, the TARDIS has one of these machines on board, and by twisting two knobs to various settings, it spits out a paste that tastes like bacon and eggs. Unless the two "primary flavors" are "bacon" and "eggs", then I don't really see this as plausible, but it's an interesting idea. Honestly, this was my favorite part of the episode, and at this point I don't care if they ever leave the ship again.

They hear some banging on the outside of the ship and come to the conclusion that there may actually be life on this planet, so they decide to leave as quickly as possible. But the doctor still has his heart set on visiting the city so he SABOTAGES HIS OWN SHIP. The ship's drive runs on liquid Mercury, so he empties it out so they will be forced to go into the city and find some.

Needless to say, this is quite the gamble. If my life depended on my finding liquid Mercury here in Tacoma, I'm not sure I could. And this is a planet where I know liquid Mercury actually exists! And there are live people to help me! But apparently for Doctor Who, always getting what he wants is far more important than not being stranded forever on a radioactive planet.

As they leave the ship the next morning, they discover a metal box. Presuming it to be a bomb, they take the proper precautions and poke it with a stick from 2 feet away. Ian at least has the good sense to put one hand in front of his face, while the others just stand in the blast range unprotected. Here's a travel tip: when you find yourself in a petrified forest, and one of your friends is going to poke what you assume is a bomb, hide behind a rock, which is pretty much ANYTHING AROUND YOU. Luckily for them all, it isn't a bomb, but a container of vials of fluid which they ignore and continue on.

When they arrive in the city the next day, they decide to split the party up, which is always a great idea. Unfortunately, Barbara, who went off by herself, doesn't meet back up with the group, because she's attacked by what seems to be a giant toilet plunger.

No, seriously:

That's it for Serial 2, Episode 1! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 4 - The Firemaker
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I've been to Leavenworth...

...it was not this exciting:

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Publicly shamed into sobriety?

LA is thinking of a new strategy to combat drunk driving... publicly (electronically via the net) shaming drunk drivers by posting their mug shots on their facebook profile.

LA to post DUI offenders on Facebook

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Exotic Taco Wednesday

Boca Tacos and Tequila, of Tucson, AZ. has had an Exotic Taco Wednesday for the last six months. This special menu has seen items such as python, alligator, elk, kangaroo, rattlesnake, Rocky Mountain oysters, turtle, duck and frog legs in its tacos. The usual going rate is $3-$4 per taco. Last month, owner Bryan Mazon, announced that he would be serving up African Lion tacos starting Feb. 16th and would be taking pre-orders for this specialty taco at $8.75 per taco. People all over the world have since placed orders for their lion tacos (I would love to have the chance to eat lion too...). The FDA has no rules against serving up the King of the Jungle in a tasty corn tortilla since it isn't on the endangered species list. The price for lion is even steeper than lobster at $100/lb for ground lion, and $400/lb for a tenderloin.

The news of this epic taco has stirred up quite the hubbub and has resulted in many threats to the restaurant, employees, and customers. Due to these threats, Boca Tacos and Tequila, has decided to scrap the lion taco in favor of safety and angry mobs.

Articles About Lion Tacos

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Most Bizarre But True News Story - Diddy Gets Sued


You didn't think I'd make a new contest without pre-selecting an entry, did you?

Sean Combs, AKA "Sean 'Puffy' Combs" AKA "Puff Daddy" AKA "P Diddy" AKA "Diddy" AKA "That dude from 'Get Him to the Greek' that isn't the fat one or the one banging Katy Perry" is being sued. For ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

Here are the charges being brought against him, in descending order of absurdity:
1) He fathered an illegitimate love child who is now 23 and now owes 900 billion in child support
2) He stole a poker chip "well worth over 100 zillions of dollars"
3) He caused the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11

THIS IS A REAL NEWS STORY. Your move, competitors!

February Contest - Most Bizarre But True News Story

The contest for this month: Most Bizarre But True News Story

The Rules:
1) News stories CANNOT be fake. Nothing from the Onion or similar fake news sites.
2) News stories must be from 2011. Current events, people!
3) Contest is open to everyone (except the rule czar). To enter, leave a comment with your news story on any contest blog post one of the writers puts up.
4) Contest will run until Friday, February 25th, at Midnight.
5) Winner will be chosen by the Rule Czar.
6) Bribing the Rule Czar with money or food IS ALLOWED, as long as it is done publicly.
7) Outstanding bribes MUST be paid off by Friday, February 25th. Promising a bribe and failing to pay up will result in disqualification and public shame.
8) Bribing Evan with money or food is also allowed, but will have no affect on the outcome of the contest.
9) Evan, as the rulewriter, withholds the right to append or modify these rules at any time, assuming it is not for a douchey reason. (Douchiness quotient determined by rule czar)
10) A prize (TBD) will be supplied to the winner. Good luck!