Footage of New BioWare Star Wars MMO - The Old Republic

BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic 1 and it's sequel were award winning and fantastically fun action-RPG games. And the BioWare version of the Star Wars universe just begs for more stories to be told within it. Thus, below is the long awaited sneak peek at footage from BioWare's first MMO: Star Wars - The Old Republic. Don't forget to wipe off your drool. Enjoy!




UPDATE: BIOWARE has an HD version of this on their site, but it autoplays, so I had to post using the lower quality version from YouTube.

R.I.P. Bettie Page

Bettie Page died yesterday at age 85.  I can't think of a better way to remember her but through photos.  Although if you're interested the film about her The Notorious Bettie Page, was quite good (trailer below).

Gotta Love Religion

Nothing makes me happier than finding the silver lining to sad situations. For example: when religious zealots refuse modern medicine and their children perish prematurely. Sure, we are all shocked and horrified that this could happen to some innocent kid in this day and age. But look at it this way; that is one less indoctrinated kid who will grow up to be a religious douchebag like their folks were. Sounds to me like Darwin's theory at work. And don't forget the added bonus of the parents being dragged through the media as poster-children for bad parenting...we can only hope that some other ultra-religious family will see the result and maybe take their poor kid in for a doctor visit.

And just for fun I decided to add this wonderful advertisement I found. Don't ya just love religion? Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go pray to FSM to bring an end to all religious belief. Enjoy!

Now THIS Is Real Hip-Hop!

The artist is Murs, newly signed to Warner Records. The album is "Murs For President". Every song just gets better than the last. There is a little bit of talking between Murs and the shows' host before he starts singing; you can fast-forward if you like. I suggest just leaving it play in the background while you are surfing. It's simply excellent. Enjoy.



The album is available through Amazon here.

The Pacific Garbage Patch - Plastic Soup of the Sea

Some of you may have heard about the giant garbage island the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. I don't really like that analogy because it brings to mind a garbage heap on land...something tangible that could be picked up. Better imagery would be this: Take a plastic coke bottle and put it into a blender; blend until the pieces are teeny tiny. Now pour those coke bottle fragments and particles into a glass of water. No imagine this plastic particle soup covering the surface of the ocean. This can never be cleaned up. Never. Fish and other ocean life eat these particles and the accumulate them (bioaccumulates) in fat tissues, then we eat these animals as consumers. We are all consuming these pollutants on a daily basis. Now drink the glass of water.

Truth is, my analogy doesn't do justice to what these filmmakers found during their trip into the North Pacific Gyre. While I highly recommend watching the entire documentary from the beginning (as it is much more potent and powerful as a whole), I realize that most people suffer from short attention spans, so below is the most effective & informative clip. Enjoy.

Most Elaborate Lego Design Ever - Huge and Complex!

The theme is a terraforming space ship that would land on a planet, workers would assemble prefabricated modular pieces into living quarters, parts of the ship would be left behind to attach to the living quarters, and the rest of the ship would depart for home. There is nothing more I can say here except, do yourself a favor and look through all 6 photo albums on the site (containing 74 pics in all), or you will never see the intricacies involved in this mammoth project. This was built by a father & son team and they really did try to build it as realistically as possible; they thought of everything a real space going vessel would need and built it to scale. Enjoy.

Here is the link routed through Babelfish for translation (it's a german site)

The direct link takes you to 1000steine.de

What's Bush Done To You Lately

The Huffington Post has an article outlining the final evils that "still president" Bush has pushed through in the eleventh hour of his dictatorship...err presidency. After the jump is more info behind what has happened and what hopefully can be done to rectify it, but here is a list of some of the atrocities:
• EPA would not regulate a contaminant in drinking water
• Mining permits near Grand Canyon and other national parks
• Gut the Endangered Species Act
• Power plants could be exempted from installing pollution controls, allowing an added 70 million tons to be released into our air
• EPA narrows the definition of solid waste
• Less reporting on animal pollution proposed
• Rules for dumping mine debris erased
• EPA lowers air quality standards for lead
• Fisheries rule calls for less public input
• Loaded guns possible in National Parks
• Public lands may be leased for the development of oil shale (public, not to be confused with proprietary)
• Interior Department rules could limit public environmental comments
• EPA lets factory farms decide if they need a permit to discharge animal waste into waterways

UPDATE: Here is an even more in depth and specific article about the Bush "midnight regulations".

Happy Holidays from Mr. Bush!