Jun 23 2017

Skirting The Dress Code

Fun story about a group of kids who protested their school dress code by wearing skirts, hence my enormously clever “skirting the dress code” headline. Bam!

(The pic below is because this is a LINK to story elsewhere. Get it? A LINK? Have I over explained it yet?)

Worthington Super Links

Based on the other links below, this is not a new idea. Regardless, I like it.

They wanted to wear shorts, but were told that breached their school’s uniform policy.

Source: Boys at Exeter academy wear skirts in uniform protest – BBC News


Sep 21 2015

Fun Bat-Facts For Adam West’s Birthday

Today is Adam West’s birthday, and Flavorpill compiled a fun slideshow of Bat-Facts titled 15 Famous Actors You Didn’t Realize Were in the ‘Batman’ TV Series.

Batman The Complete Television Series Limited Edition Blu-ray

As a loyal Bat-fan, I thought I would know all of these, but I didn’t. This one in particular amused me.

That’s none other than Eli Wallach as Mr. Freeze. Why did the acclaimed stage actor appear on the show? According to Flavorpill, Wallach “appeared on Batman only because his children pushed him to go for the part.”

And the children shall lead us… into silly costumes. Here’s a discussion of the episode and the actor’s role, because YouTube literally has everything, including a British guy talking about Eli Wallach appearing on ‘Batman’.

Hit the link below for the full list. Holy Procrastination, Batman!

Source: 15 Famous Actors You Didn’t Realize Were in the ‘Batman’ TV Series

Batman: The Complete Television Series (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] (Amazon.com)


Jul 09 2015

Oh My, It’s Comic Con Time

To borrow the words of the ever-wonderful George Takei: Oh my, it’s comic con time.

George Takei Oh My

What are we talking about? Why, the San Diego Comic-Con of course. It happens every year.

(Here’s a video of George saying “Oh My” in case you need to hear that. There’s never a bad time to hear George.)

Anyway, San Diego Comic-Con has been around for awhile, but in the past decade, it has become big news. Geekery, as we all know, is no longer a hidden pleasure for many. It’s become a billion-dollar business. Amazon recently introduced their Geek Boutique, which about as mainstream as it gets.

One could debate when this all started, the explosion of so-called geek culture into the real world. I’ve been a Geek Gold Card member for my entire life, but suddenly people actually want to know who the hell Ant-Man is. (If you are one of those people, just ask. I’m nice that way. For example, here’s the latest “Ant-Manmovie trailer, complete with a reference to The Avengers.)

The links below give you more information about the big event than I ever could, and not only because I won’t be there. I’ve actually never attended the San Diego Comic-Con, just the New York Comic Con. But there will be lots of announcements about nerdy stuff (or perhaps I should say formerly nerdy — is something still nerdy if it’s immensely popular?) like movies, TV shows, video games, and yes, even comic books.

Here’s how to follow io9’s coverage of Comic Con. (We like io9.) The Mary Sue is also a good source. For example, here’s Betty White as Wolverine.

And then there’s this, via Polygon.com. Watch it at your own risk.

 


Jun 16 2015

Shatner on Sunny Side Up Show

He’s gone where no man has gone before, and now he’s on the kiddie TV channel Sprout. Ladies and gents, here it is — video of William Shatner on Sunny Side Up Show.

 

DaddyTips Featured Video

 

 

Apparently, Mr. Shatner is an expert on something called The Clangers. (Something tells me his appearance is mostly for the adults who have to watch Sprout with their little ones.)

But, y’know, Shatner. Is there anything he can’t do?

 

William Shatner's star on Canada's Walk of Fame

William Shatner’s star on Canada’s Walk of Fame (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apparently he’s going to do some voice acting on The Clangers, which is a show we’ve never heard of but it seems that it used to exist and is being revived. (Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame, is also on it.) In addition to this, a quick news search tells us that The Shat will be on an upcoming NBC show with Henry Winkler (Ayyyy!), AND he’s driving cross-country on some sort of odd vehicle. You can read about all of that, as well as the fact that there’s apparently a fake Shatner on Snapchat, via the related links below. All this is in addition to the many other projects Mr. Shatner always has going on.

We hope to have half as much energy as ol’ Bill has at his age. Heck, I’d settle for having that much energy NOW.


May 08 2015

Avengers: Age of Ultron Link Roundup (Ongoing) – UPDATED

Now that Avengers: Age of Ultron is finally here, and I’ve seen it (twice), I can start reading about it until my eyeballs fall out. This page will have an an ongoing list of links to some of what I’ve read that I found interesting.

Me and The Avengers movie.

Personally I prefer The Avengers. Have I mentioned that lately?

UPDATED 5/11/15 (new links after the break; you can tell they’re new because they say NEW LINK.)

As you know, I frickin’ LOVED The Avengers, the first one. To say that Avengers: Age of Ultron isn’t quite as good as the first film is like saying I’m shorter than Shaquille O’Neal. Or, to ever-so-slightly borrow a joke from the movie, that this blog post will be shorter than a Eugene O’Neill play. Bottom line: it was a lot of fun, Joss Whedon did a nice job of balancing all of the myriad demands of a film with a ton of characters and future Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to promote, and I’ve already seen the movie twice and would gladly see it again.

As expected with a summer blockbuster, especially a follow-up to a film as great as The Avengers, the Interwebs are filled with articles and blog posts and charts and click-bait about all things Ultron. I went on Rotten Tomatoes planning to read a few reviews. I got as far as one before being sucked into a rabbit hole (maybe I should say tesseract instead) of Age of Ultron related topics.

Oh, the obligatory Spoiler Alert from this point forward. I’m not going to bother watching what I say about the movie, although this isn’t a review and odds are I won’t reveal anything particularly important. But if you haven’t seen the movie yet and prefer to do so without knowing anything about what happens, stop reading now. Then come back. Don’t worry. We’ll wait. Read more »


Apr 28 2015

Tumblr And Disney

Tumblr and Disney are, I suppose, a natural pairing. Hardcore Disney fans are obsessive, and even non-hardcore fans are at least aware of Disney tropes. So the two coming together to create Interweb flotsam are as inevitable as chocolate and peanut butter.

Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform (I use it, it’s fun) that works particularly well with images. This post, from The Lion King, is about parenting and amused me.

Click below for a much larger collection of Disney/Tumblr musings, many of which use oddly profane language.

H/T to George Takei, the man from whom half of all Web content spreads these days.

31 Times Tumblr Had Serious Questions About Disney (via Buzzfeed)


Mar 02 2015

Vaccination Nation Continues

File this under “things that shouldn’t be a debate but are.” With no medical or scientific evidence to support a link between vaccines and certain undesirable medical conditions such as autism, many parents insist that they know better. Or at least that someone else knows better. (Usually it’s someone on the Internet.)

The making of a DNA vaccine.

The making of a DNA vaccine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many parents are asking doctors to “spread out” the vaccines that their children receive, according to the L.A. Times.

Personally I don’t know if spreading out the vaccines is such a terrible thing, but according to the L.A. Times, citing an article in the journal Pediatrics, “87% of the doctors [surveyed] agreed that when parents delay some or all of these vaccines, they are putting their children at risk of being sickened by a preventable disease.”

In spite of their concerns, many doctors are doing it anyway.

So. To sum up. Most doctors (in a particular survey, at least) think that spreading out vaccines is dangerous. But if a parent is noodgy enough, they’ll do it anyway.

This is not good medicine. I’m not saying that doctors are always right. Far from it. (Oy, the stories I could tell you.) But if a doctor truly believes, based on all of the information available to them, that their patients, who in this case are children under 2 years old and therefore can’t decide for themselves, should be vaccinated in a particular way, they should not be swayed by a parent who complains loudly enough.

Other doctors are taking a hard line on the issue, refusing to treat children who have not been vaccinated.

Considering that measles is making a comeback (see the Related articles links below), and that Rand Paul and other politicians have made anti-vaccination a political issue as well as a medical one, I think it’s safe to say that this issue won’t be going away anytime soon. Which is annoying because, to the best of my knowledge, the entire anti-vaccine campaign (such as it is) dates to the Lancet study which was shown to be COMPLETELY WRONG in 2010. (More on that here if you’re interested.) And yet, five years later, we’re still talking about it.

Grrr.

Small Pox

As I said before — zero deaths. That’s the goal. And it’s an achievable one. How? Science! Cue music.

Doctors often delay vaccines for children to appease parents – LA Times.