The In-Sect - strange

This is not made up by me. There actually IS a movie that’s called “Pinocchio in Outer Space”, I swear by Walt’s moustache! Let me quickly summarize the plot for you: Because the blonde boy named Pinocchio misbehaves about 10 minutes after his transition from wood, the vengeful Blue Fairy retimbers him. Moral: Only if he is a good boy, blah-blah…

Look, up there in space! Is it a rocket? Is it an obese superhero? No – it’s a whale! And he is about to smash the earth! What can we do? Who will help us?

So our little wooden Flash Gordon jumps into a rocket Gepetto builds for him (Hey, it’s not like rocket science needs rocket scientists, an average carver will do, Mr. Branson) and up and away to Mars! But before the countdown starts he meets the secret agent Nurtle the Twurtle, who apparently is just a turtle. (‘Meeting’ in this case is to be understood as standing near an UFO as it lands in your garden. It’s a loan word from Tibetan.)
After our Italian role model and this alien parrot land on Mars and after Pinocchio tried to hypnotize the whale in vain and after they blew up planet Mars (No joke: Atom bomb, explosion = no more Mars.) AND after Pinocchio is swallowed by the whale, they meet the Blue Fairy, get out of the whale through its blowhole and manage to hypnotize the monster successfully. Then our favorite little log is burned to death by accident. Pinocchio is dead.

Don’t halloo till you’re out of the wood! With a little magic dust from the Blue Lady he is resurrected, turned to flesh and honored with medals. Like he just saved the world or what!

This movie from the 60ies was drawn by only two animators and a handful of inbetweeners and was directed and produced by Ray Goosens. The character animation will give you the same strange gooey feeling my description just gave you. Yes, you can buy it at Amazon. Medical advice: Use the DVD only with the hallucinogen of your choice. It’s from the sixties!
Next week, dear loyal reader, I will tell you something about another Pinocchio movie: The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio – “It’s not his nose that grows!” Stay tuned!

Matthew Bartik is metal-bending forks into little pieces of art. YOu can visit his homepage and directly buy one of his works, they are not expensive.
If you have some time to spare let me babble a little about forks. Can you imagine there were times when no one in Europe used a fork? No, they didn’t have chopsticks either – they only used knives and spoons! Have you ever tried to eat a porterhouse-steak with a spoon? No wonder millions starved to death. When a Byzantine princess brought her own set of table-forks to Venice, she outraged populace and clergy by refusing to eath with her hands:

“Instead of eating with her fingers like other people, the princess cuts up her food into small pieces and eats them by means of little golden forks with two prongs.”*
“God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating.”*

*James Cross Giblin: “From Hand to Mouth” New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1987

When I think about it: Chinese still don’t use the fork…

Speaking about cutlery: Don’t you think Bruce Campbell and Uri Geller look exactly like twins?

This website claims to be the ‘primary Internet resource for references to stinking badges’, and I, for one, see no reason to doubt it – even if some other Internet resource for references to stinking badges actually existed, it could hardly be more comprehensive than this one: More than 120 references to stinking badges (or variations thereof) from movies, TV, books and comics – most of them documented with links, video- or audioclips, or images.

The only thing I’m missing on that site: an explanation what makes that particular phrase so enduringly popular.

I (almost unconditionally) love Wikipedia, and the discussions between editors, taking place on the talk pages, are sometimes even more interesting than the associated articles.

Every now and then, of course, these discussions become rather too heated, and the result is referred to as an “edit war”. Sometimes these revolve around major and controversial changes to an article, but sometimes even a minor detail can cause protracted verbal sparring. And there is even a special page to immortalize Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars.

It’s both an amusing read, as well as a legitimate comment on the human condition. All the conflicts about the national/ethnic categorization of persons, places and concepts are almost to be expected, of course, as well as the heated discussions regarding American English vs. British English. (The question whether potato chips are ‘flavored’ or ‘flavoured’ could only be answered after long edit warring. The Solomonic solution: They are ‘seasoned’.)

And then there are the more bizarre questions that were seriously warred over: Is Mojo Jojo really a villain? Is Michael Moore an authority on the question of his own birthplace? Did Daffy Duck father any children? And, essentially a matter of faith: Are the rules concerning ‘Biographies of Living Persons’ applicable to the ‘Jesus’ article?

Really: Who said grown ups do not need cuddly toys? In European cities you will find that 50% of all households are run by singles, so there is a huge market for Karakiri. You can order your own Karakiri by sending an eMail to Embrace
Visit Karakiri’s homepage and read its blog.

Recently I had a closer look at Google Maps and I noticed that Denver has got Street View images now too. So I clicked my way through Denver which I never visited in reality. (The airport is nice, but somehow most of the photos downtown were made in the dark.)
Then I found this! Is it an alien ship materializing? Is it an ESP phenomen? Ghosts? What is it? If anyone lives in or near Denver – could you checkout 6113, Wadsworth Bypass?
The Aliens in Denver.