Sony's new Bravia commercial:  250,000 superballs going down a San Francisco street.

I'm not sure if it will sell any TVs, but it is very very cool!

click any still for video:

<spacer>

Be sure to see The making of the advert
(watch the crew take cover once the balls begin their assault)

and the Bravia photo gallery

<spacer>

via Rocketboom

Posted at 11:49 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

UK mag Total Film put together their picks of the 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time.

To be blunt, these controversial lists are designed more to sell magazines thna to be a definitive guide to anything. (On-line, it is to generate traffic).

Regardless, we're suckers for a good list -- even for a deeply flawed one that places "Casablanca" at 98, and "Lawrence of Arabia" languishing at 77. (Puh-leeze) Alfred Hitchcock‘s "Vertigo" was Number 2, and while I always liked the film, I have to think that North by Northwest, Rear Window, and Psycho are even better films.

Here's the excerpt from the Total Film's announcement

It is, frankly, a fool’s errant: compiling a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. Blood was (almost literally) shed over what should make the list.

The deputy editor and features editor are still rowing about the comparative merits of Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (31!) and The Searchers (34). And don’t get us started on ranking The Apartment (16) higher than The Godfather (23)...

There’ll be plenty for you to get your knickers twisted over when The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time hits the shelves.

Here's their top 10:

10 His Girl Friday
9  The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
8  The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars Trilogy)
7  Tokyo Story
6  Citizen Kane
5  The Godfather Part II (Trilogy)
4  Fight Club
3  Jaws
2  Vertigo 
1  GoodFellas

Obviously, a deeply flawed list . . .

Source:
Who is the greatest?
Er, it’s GoodFellas. You can go now...
24 Oct 2005 2:00pm
http://www.totalfilm.com/movie_news/who_is_the_greatest

Posted at 07:50 AM in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oh what tangled webs we weave . . .

click for ginormous graphic

Source:
The Washington Secret Often Isn't (PDF version)
DAVID E. SANGER
NYT: October 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/weekinreview/23sanger.html

Download PDF

Download JPG

Posted at 06:37 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A blank, helpless sort of face, rather like a rose just before you drench it with DDT.
- - - John Carey

A four-hundred-dollar suit on him would look like socks on a rooster.
- - - Earl Long

A modest little person, with much to be modest about.
- - - Winston Churchill

At first I thought he was walking a dog. Then I realized it was his date.
- - - Edith Massey in "Polyester"

Don't point that beard at me, it might go off.
- - - Groucho Marx

Had double chins all the way down to his stomach.
- - - Mark Twain

He had a big head and a face so ugly it became almost fascinating.
- - - Ayn Rand

He had a winning smile, but everything else was a loser.
- - - George C. Scott

He makes a very handsome corpse and becomes his coffin prodigiously.
- - - Oliver Goldsmith

He must have had a magnificent build before his stomach went in for a career of its own.
- - - Margaret Halsey

He strains his conversation through a cigar.
- - - Hamilton Mabie

He was either a man of about a hundred and fifty who was rather young for his years, or a man of about a hundred and ten who had been aged by trouble.
- - - -P.G. Wodehouse

He's a trellis for varicose veins.
- - - Wilson Mizner

He's so fat, he can be his own running mate.
- - - Johnny Carson

He's so small, he's a waste of skin.
- - - Fred Allen

He'd make a lovely corpse.
- - - Charles Dickens

Her face was her chaperone.
- - - Rupert Hughes

Her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.
- - - Woody Allen

Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style. It will look ridiculous year after year.
- - - Fred Allen

Her only flair is in her nostrils.
- - - Pauline Kael

Her skin was white as leprosy.
- - - S. T. Coleridge

His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.
- - - John Quincy Adams

His face was filled with broken commandments.
- - - John Masefield

His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin.
- - - John Philpot Curran

His voice was the most obnoxious squeak I ever was tormented with.
- - - Charles Lamb

I don't recognize you - I've changed a lot.
- - - Oscar Wilde

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.
- - - Groucho Marx

I see her as one great stampede of lips directed at the nearest derriere.
- - - Noël Coward

Is that a beard, or are you eating a muskrat?
- - - Dr. Gonzo

It's like cuddling with a Butterball turkey.
- - - Jeff Foxworthy

Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
- - - Alan Bennett

She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.
- - - Groucho Marx

She had much in common with Hitler, only no mustache.
- - - Noel Coward

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.
- - - Oscar Wilde

She looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - or anywhere else.
- - - Elsa Lanchester

She not only kept her lovely figure, she's added so much to it.
- - - Bob Fosse

She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no teeth, and has white spots on her yellow skin.
- - - Heinrich Heine

She spends her day powdering her face till she looks like a bled pig.
- - - Margot Asquith

She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered.
- - - James Matthew Barrie

She was so ugly she could make a mule back away from an oat bin.
- - - Will Rogers

She was what we used to call a suicide blonde - dyed by her own hand.
- - - Saul Bellow

She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitchfork.
- - - Jonathan Swift

The tautness of his face sours ripe grapes.
- - - William Shakespeare

When I see a man of shallow understanding extravagantly clothed, I feel sorry - for the clothes.
- - - Josh Billings

While you remain at home your hair is at the hairdresser's; you take out your teeth at night and sleep tucked away in a hundred cosmetics boxes - even your face does not sleep with you.
- - - Martial, 1st Century AD (to a female friend)

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
- - - Mark Twain

Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum.
- - - P. G. Wodehouse

Yeah, she's beautiful, but you can't find her IQ with a flashlight.
- - - from "The Greatest American Hero"

You couldn't tell if she was dressed for an opera or an operation.
- - - Irvin S. Cobb

Posted at 08:43 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

We're off to see some Vineyards & Wineries on the North Fork   

I will update with some photos and favorite wines later . . .

Posted at 06:35 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This commercial for Guinness Beer is way way cool:

click for video

Its titled noitulovE, and after you see it, you'll know why.

For some background on the fimr that created the Advert, go to Framestore
http://www.framestore-cfc.com/commercials/guinness_noitulove/index.html

See this link also:

best ads on tv
http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad_details.php?id=634

Posted at 08:22 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There are lots of perversities that I understand. There are plenty that I don't necessarily share, but at least get (kinda)

This one leaves me baffled: Car Stuck Girls

Unfortunate gals, clad in bikinis or short skirts / business garb, spin their tires furiously in mud or sand. Perhaps its their plaintative pleas -- "I'm stuck, I'm stuck" -- that brings out some kind of a rescue fantasy in men.

I don't get it.

click any car for video

(whats with the bouncing up and down? that won't get your car free . . . )

OK, maybe now I almost get it -- a little

Posted at 09:27 AM in Automobiles, Photo Caption Contest! | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Some beautiful pieces in today's NYT on Christies move into China:

<spacer>

Wu Guanzhong's "White Poplar Woods"
click for larger images

Lin Fengmian's "Four Beauties."

<spacer>

Just lovely . . .

<spacer>

Source:
Christie's Going, Going to China to Hold Auctions
CAROL VOGEL
NYT: October 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/arts/design/20emer.html

Art Slide Show
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2005/10/19/arts/20051020_EMERGE_SLIDESHOW_index.html

Posted at 10:04 AM in Art & Design | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Go figure:  the anti science crowd (replete with sloping foreheads) got this wrong

<spacer>

click for larger graphic

Source:
A world of evidence says global warming is real   
Sunday, October 9, 2005: Page updated at 12:00 a.m
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/globalwarming/1.html

Posted at 06:06 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is what the code looks like:

<embed src="http://www.clocklink.com/clocks/0002-Black.swf?TimeZone=EST" width="250" height="250" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

Posted at 02:29 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack