The tortoise and the... hippo?

So, it seems that a young hippopotamus calf in Kenya was swept away from his mother as a result of last month's tsunami. He was pulled into the Indian Ocean and then washed back onto the Kenyan shore where he was found and taken to a local wildlife refuge. Missing his mother, the young hippo has latched onto an aged male Aldabran giant tortoise as a surrogate mother. Apparently, things are going swimmingly. The hippo follows the tortoise everywhere. Kind of cute. Let's hope that the prudes in power over here don't find out about this story. Who knows, given the recent SpongeBob flap, they'll probably try to read something about gender confusion into this and try to ban that "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" game from way back when.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

SpongeBob! SquarePants!

Yup. Another story on SpongeBob's insidious assault on the moral integrity of our country's children.

You've got to be kidding me

So George W. Bush was inaugurated for his second presidential term. Haven't heard all the news yet, but NPR seemed kind of petty in one segment where they nitpicked some aspects of his address. Not that I'm defending President Bush; it's more that I'm disappointed that NPR would succomb to such high school behavior.

On to more important issues: the newest enemy of moral decency is none other than... SpongeBob SquarePants. According to an article in this evening's online edition of the New York Times, the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family has targeted SpongeBob SquarePants as an advocate for tolerance towards homosexuality.

Un-fucking-believable. Guerilla war in Iraq. Ongoing military operations in Afghanistan. Active efforts to dismantle Social Security. An Attorney General who has no regard for our Constitution or international law. And the most pressing issue is SpongeBob SquarePants?

In other news, I'm totally psyched for Darth Tater. Episode III may totally suck (or it may actually be decent, we'll have to see) but Darth Tater rocks. Check it out.

Deep Impact takes off...

... be afraid. Be very afraid.

Am I the only one apprehensive about this? Does no one else remember Star Blazers? Specifically, the Comet Empire. We couldn't fuck with them back then (i.e., the late '70s when Star Blazers was in its US TV run); what makes us think that we're up to the task now?

That's dedication

OK, I'll try not to post anymore Lord of the Rings stuff for a little while. I just finished going through the extended edition of Return of the King. (Took me two nights. Gah, I must be getting old.) My comments later. But first, this is from Flagpole, the local alternative newsweekly here in Athens. One of the movie critics took it upon himself to watch all three of the extended editions back-to-back-to-back in one sitting. What follows are his hour-by-hour musings (comments in brackets are mine):

Since first seeing The Fellowship of the Ring, I have salivated over the idea of experiencing all three films in one single viewing. With the Dec. 14 release of The Return of the King Special Extended Edition, this dream could finally be fulfilled. So with popcorn, pizza and Southfarthing leaf at hand, I began the longest cinematic journey of my life one Saturday morn at 10:30 am.

Hour 1. The first of countless over-pronounced Morders is uttered. Ian McKellan gets his ass handed to him by 80-year old Christopher Lee in the battle of the Geriatrics. Look, Peter Jackson is eating and burping through the streets of Bree. [Ooo, I'll have to look out for that!]

Hour 2. The day's first bathroom break occurring in only the second hour is a bad sign. What is Sawyer from "Lost" doing here? Wait, it is just Viggo.

Hour 3. Has anyone else realized how much the Balrog resembles Dio's all-pervading Devil?

Hour 4. Boromir's amazingly painful death is also a great moment of cinematic redemption. Fellowship ends at 1:53 pm with Two Towers beginning at 2:04 pm.

Hour 5. The fifth hour begins with Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Bernard Hill, Brad Dourif, Treebeard and Gandalf the White all stopping by.

Hour 6. The Gollum/Smeagol conversation - the best scene of the series and 2002 - is funny, sad, and the best performance Andy Serkis will ever give.

Hour 7. The Elves appearance at Helm's Deep represents deus ex machina numero uno. The Energizer Battle of Helm's Deep begins at 5:00 pm sharp. Deus ex machina number two, Gandalf and the Rohirrim, appear.

Hour 8. It is 5:30 pm., and the battle still rages. I am surprisingly lucid at the seven and one quarter hours mark. Return begins at 6:05 pm, as does the pizza and beer. The restored confrontation with Saruman is nice but nothing to get worked up over. I would so take Eowyn over Arwen.

Hour 10. [Hey, what happened to Hour 9?] Of all the long hair, that of David Wenham (Faramir) is the worst. That new skull avalanche is tight.

Hour 11. The siege of Gondor is in full-swing, and I sit pondering the Orc who designed that faboo ["faboo"? The fuck?] battering ram. Legolas' oliphant-surfing proves once and for all who the biggest badass is.

Hour 12. I liked Rankin-Bass' Mount Doom better. [I hope you didn't like their songs as well. Did you like Thundercats? Thundercats rocked.] A fourth and final deus ex machina, the eagles, saves Frodo and Sam. [What was the third deus ex machina? Oh, nevermind.] The Eye of Sauron could use some Visine. Sam cries for the eight-billionth time, as do I whilst sitting through all these frigging endings. At 10:15 pm, 11 hours and 45 minutes since Fellowship began, the final credits roll.

The final tale of the tape: 705 minutes, 3 films, 6 DVDs, 1 pot of coffee, 2 breakfast pastries, 1 bag of popcorn, 1 Coke, 2 cookies, 1 pizza, 3 beers, 1 candy bar, 6 bathroom breaks, 0 phone calls, 2 roommates, and 1 cat (never really a factor). - Drew Wheeler

As for me, what's stands out the most from the extended edition of RotK was probably the parlay with the Mouth of Sauron. (Of course, this might change upon subsequent viewings.) I don't know whose idea it was, but for some reason, the Mouth of Sauron was really twitchy. It's as if he had some kind of neck tic. Even better, every time he twitched his head, he'd gnash his teeth, which got me thinking that behind all his insults and threats, what he was really trying to say was: "Do you see anything different about my smile? I got my teeth whitened. I used Colgate whitening strips. My dentist recommended them. I can give you his name if you're interested."

Maybe after all the fighting and crying and handwringing over Sauron's stupid ring (which, incidentally, I still don't understand how it fits over his finger if you look at the gauntlet he's wearing in the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring), perhaps Tolkien's moral was to practice good dental hygiene.