Saturday, August 29, 2009

Lamborghini Gallardo Hybrid

It's slated for introduction in the 2015 model year. Sometimes the wife asks if I have a five-year plan. Now I have an answer for her.



Now all I have to do is keep my Saturn Ion running until then. Here's the object of my lust.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

World's Youngest Wing Walker

Sorry for the long delay between updates. Been crazy busy. Don't even really have time to be doing this. I should be asleep. Goodnight.



Hey, I wonder if the boy wanted to go again -- after he stopped screaming. Here's a picture of the kid. Doesn't look too traumatized.

Monday, August 17, 2009

A Pervy Cat

You can always count on stupid criminals to deliver choice material. I would have liked to see the police interrogators trying to keep a straight face as this guy told his story.



Did you play along with Lily? If you guessed right, leave a comment to brag about it. And leave a comment if you guessed wrong -- you have some explaining to do. It wasn't that hard, was it?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Zombie Fungus

Sorry I haven't posted anything in awhile. It's 2:00 AM and I just spent an hour creating a really cool episode about a fungus in Thailand that turns ants into mindless zombies. First good inspiration in a week. But xtranormal lost the file during rendering. Gone. No sign of it. Tried to save it as a draft and re-open it. No such luck. Gone. FML. And I'm not staying up to redo it -- have to work tomorrow. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

UPDATE: Yay! Finally got it published with the diligent aid of xtranormal tech support. But after five days, it already feels dated. But maybe that's just me. I usually post'em and forget'em. Having to mess around with this one for the last few days made it feel old to me -- but it's new to you, right? Enjoy.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Ferris Wheel Fiancé

A true story of romance between a woman and a carnival ride.



Does the Ferris wheel have any say in this? What if he has more appropriate feelings for the Tilt-a-Whirl?

This story is so bizarre, I couldn't resist it -- but I felt a twinge of guilt doing it. This story makes me sad. Described in the article as an unemployed church organist, she might not be considered by most as "a catch," but I'll bet there's a lonely man somewhere who would love to love her and be loved by her. Cue Eleanor Rigby.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Gender Neutral Child

Those wacky Swedes!



I believe this is the longest Deadpan Inc. episode ever. And the shortest blog post.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Healthcare Profiteers

Is brokering the sale of a kidney really so bad? How is that worse than denying coverage of a medical procedure so you can boost your bottom line?



Some opponents of universal health care will use Canadian patient satisfaction surveys as evidence that they are not happier with their system than we in the U.S. are -- but that's bullshit. This article by Stephan Gohmann from the University of Louisville explains how the different delivery methods skews each groups' perception of quality.

I'll try to explain the gist of that article with an analogy. Say you have two groups of people going to two different lunch cafeterias every day. In one, fries are always available. In the other, sometimes those same fries are available and sometimes they're not. Both groups are likely to rate the quality of the fries (hot enough, salted right, etc.) the same. In fact, the people who have a harder time getting fries might rate them better because they appreciate the opportunity to eat fries when they can. But if you move a diner from the lunchroom with spotty fry service to the lunchroom that always has fries, you can be sure he'll consider that an improvement in his fry situation.

Another rap on single-payer government health care is that it would cost jobs in the health insurance industry. Boo frickin' hoo. Let them change with the times and get new jobs.

I once had a nice career shooting, designing and programming multi-image shows. These were glorified slide shows where 12 or more slide projectors were controlled by a computer and synchronized to a soundtrack. Then lower cost video projection became available and my multi-image career became obsolete. Was there a multi-image lobby out there trying to stop low-cost video projection? Nope. Did I curl up and cry about it? No, I switched to producing and writing video. I changed with the times.

At the end of the 19th century, there were 130,000 horses working the streets of New York. No, they weren't prostitutes -- they were pulling streetcars, delivering milk and so on. That made for a lot of jobs in the horse manure removal industry. Isn't it a shame all those jobs were lost due to the arrival of the automobile? Wouldn't it be a goddamn shame if the health insurance industry became obsolete? I have my doubts.

Okay, got that off my chest. Look for a much funnier episode Monday morning. 'Later.

BTW - if you liked the Intelligent Design episode a few days ago, you might enjoy the script extension over on the Facebook fan page. Are you a Facebook fan yet? No? Why not? It's a great place to stalk other people who share your love of DI.