The Fourth Quarter Drive

News from the land of "Better Late Than Never" - as the Obama campaign concentrates on (and struggles?) to bring young and first time voters to the polls sooner rather than later, Errol Morris has launched People in the Middle for Obama, a late in the day ad campaign that hopes to push remaining fence-sitters into the Democratic camp.

The site features Errol Morris' interviews with "real people" in the center of the political spectrum, telling the filmmaker and viewers why they are voting for Barack Obama. Each interview with a self identified Democrat or Republican voter is framed by the same featureless white backdrop and simple, carousel style musical tune, displaying Morris' signature minimalist style. But content-wise, there's really not a lot new here, with voters talking about being tired of negative campaigning, scared of the state of the economy, etc. And even stylistically, these shorts pale in comparison to Morris' body of short works, like Mayo, which was somehow overlooked for an Oscar.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone by Errol Morris, a groups of Peruvian medicine men has thrown their support behind Obama as well, the BBC reports. And while they may not be a huge constituency here in the states, if there are shamans out there practicing magic and dispelling evil spirits, it's good to know that they're on your side, right?

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

I always kind of wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, but that had less to do with any passion for space travel than it did with one simple fact: astronauts got all the cool toys. Pens that wrote upside down. Freeze dried everything. Tang. Adult diapers that you apparently get to take home with you. The bells and whistles that NASA supplied for it's intrepid explorers were always second to none. Case in point - this artificial intelligence therapy program.

Created by a former astronaut who now teaches space medicine, the program combines animation, video and audio elements to recreate or summarize difficult or hazardous situations encountered by veteran astronauts. The program is meant to aid in decision making, relationship management and controlling depression in the high pressure environment of a space flight by putting trainees into tough situations and letting their choices make the situation better or worse, a method of training and therapy that should be familiar to anyone who has ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

The results of these tests won't be available to the public, of course, but in my heart of hearts, I like to believe that astronauts aren't that different from the rest of us, and that the first round of testing will be devoted to it's only logical use: seeing how fast you can bring the International Space Station plummeting in a fiery ball back to earth.

And as one means of computerized therapy enters the space age, another goes the way of the dodo as JVC ends production of standalone VCRs, bringing an end to an era in home entertainment. Somewhere, the guy who invented Beta max is smiling grimly and snickering to himself. I shared a lot of good time with a lot of VCRs, from the first time I ever saw Batman to the copy of Pulp Fiction that played perpetually in my first apartment. And as a longtime video store clerk, I get to watch one of my few pragmatic, handyman style skills - dismantling fixing, cleaning and reassembling a VCR - be rendered obsolete before i even turn thirty.

For hardcore VHS fans (you know you're out there) and those who are just reluctant to own copies of Con Air on two separate formats, you'll still be able to get combo players that play DVD and VHS formats. But let's face it - it's just not the same.

I've had friends argue that VHS will never really fade out, and will instead come to fill a home entertainment niche similar to the turntable, becoming a staple in hipster pads everywhere, treasured for it's retro cool and nigh-indestructible recordings. I see where they're coming from, especially when it comes to valuing a medium that can take a beating - I've seen people take some truly heinous actions against VHS tapes, with no discernible damage to the film, something that DVDs But considering how consolidated home entertainment is becoming, from gaming consoles that double as movie players to directly streaming HD video at your fingertips, even the discreet, archaic, indie charm of the VCR may not be enough to keep it in favor forever.

Rest well, good friend.

Bird Eating Spiders and and Particle Physics - Wicked Awesome

First, the wicked - an unlucky Chestnut-breasted Mannikin gets snared in the web of an abnormally large golden orb spider, which looks like something out of Starship Troopers.
What happens next is more or less undocumented, as the spider wrestles and then devours the bird, all caught on camera by an Australian retiree whose backyard hosted this scene of pure badassery. You can see a gallery of the rest of the pictures here.

Now, the awesome. I had forgotten all about this until a friend brought it up again at work, and reminded me that it is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. Everything a layman needs to know about particle physics, dark matter, how the Large Hadron Collider works (when it works) and what it's for, nestled in the warm bosom of five minutes of astonishingly good rap.
Enjoy.

Hell Hath No Fury...

Like a woman digitally scorned. Or at least like this Japanese woman, who, following her divorce in the strange and precocious online world of Maple Story, used her former in-game heartthrob's password to send his avatar to the cornfield.

This is why your MMO load screen always tells you never to give out your account information. Because online, spurned lovers can blink you right out of existence, which one would have to assume they can't do in real life, being that I am still here.

Drugs Are Bad - And So Are Fish, Probably

Dispatches from the realm of "Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't" - quitting smoking is now officially hazardous to your health. With deaths and drug reactions reaching an all time quarterly high, Pfizer's stop smoking aid Chantix led the pack, with more than a 1,000 incidents attributed to it, including vivid dreams, mood swings, blackouts and traffic accidents. Chantix, which works by blocking the pleasurable effects of nicotine from reaching a smoker's brain has also been linked to suicide attempts and depression, which Pfizer executives have been eager to pass off as symptoms of smoking withdrawal, rather than fairly routine side effects of a drug that keeps pleasure from entering your brain.

Also now bad for you - Chilean farmed salmon, which recently tested positive for crystal violet, and anti fungal agent that has been tenatively linked to... drumroll please ... bladder cancer!

But more dangerous and also cooler than both the smoking and fish living their entire life spans coralled in filthy, infected tropical waters is the Bloodhound SSC, the plans for which were presented today at London's Science Museum. If all goes right, this rocket car, powered by a jet engine, will reach speeds upwards of 1,000 miles per hour, breaking the world land speed record and setting a new bar for the very conept of awesome.

ExoMars Takes a Staycation

While India's first lunar probe zips through the stratosphere toward glory, the European Space Agency's ExoMars Rover will look on jealously from the ground, which is where it will be for at least the next eight years after the mission, scheduled for 2013, was pushed back three more years. The reason behind this latest postponement is the same behind the recent dulling of ambitious projects worldwide - money, money, money.

Since it's inception as a simple, bare bones mission to the Red Planet, the ExoMars Rover has been run through a space version of Pimp My Ride, acquiring advanced labarotory capabilities to analyze the martian environment, as well as a drill to take deeper core samples. All these bells and whistles have caused the cost of the project to balloon from an initial estimate of 650 million euros to 1.2 billion euros as of today. Italy, who has taken the lead on financing the project, has cried uncle, and since no other nation has ponied up to help the ExoMars Rover liftoff, the rover is in a holding pattern for now.

Hitler Bad, Stalin... Good?

I don't know how this came up last night, (though I'd wager it had something to do with whiskey) but I still feel pretty strongly that it's a topic that merits discussion. In the wake of WWII, America had experienced so much loss that a few things were bound to slip through the cracks, never to be grieved over by families or historians. But there's one small loss, mostly unmourned, that we still have the power to reclaim. I'm talking, of course, about the toothbrush moustache, the bushy tuft of hair directly that sits directly beneath the nose. It's also known as the Chaplin moustache, or The Tramp if you're feeling nasty. And of course, it's also known as the moustache worn by Hitler as he declared war on the world and carried out the most horrific genocides of the 20th century.

This once respected little tuft of facial hair, the moustache's classy answer to the soul patch, has fallen drastically out of favor in the west. Of course, we have Hitler to thank for this, because now no one can sport this lean lip buddy without people comparing them to history's greatest monster. In simple terms, folks, that ain't right. Why should we all be denied the option of free choice in facial hair just because it was worn by a power mad mass murderer? It's enough to ma you wonder just who really won WWII. Because until we, as a society, as a nation, take back the moustache that is rightfully ours, we haven't really beaten the Nazis.

So I'm calling for a mass return to the Toothbrush Moustache. If anyone gives you a line about wearing a Hitler 'stache, you just tell them that, actually, it was a Chaplin first, and then ask if they have any problem with one of Hollywood's most gifted early filmmakers and comic actors. Almost no one does. Hitler took it from us, and damn it, it's time for all Americans regardless of race, color, creed or political affiliation, to stand up and take back what's theirs.

One the other side of the world, but remaining in the "Tyrannical Mass Murderers with Notable Facial Hair", Josef Stalin has been moved from the most popular Russian in history to only the 12th, after an adjustment of the voting system by executives in charge of the poll, taken for the upcoming Russian history TV show "The Name of Russia". Which is better, but the fact that I guy responsible for the mass extermination and starvation of countless civilians under his rule still makes your Twelve Best Historical Figures list still says something a bit disheartening for the state of contemporary Russia.