Johnny Depp sure is cute, but the fellow I’m swooning over in the Pirates of the Caribbean trailer is Davy Jones. He can play the organ with his face! (And that is a provocative sentence…)
I’m also impressed that he can summon up the Kraken. It’s like this whole movie is stuffed full of tentacles—I’m going to be there opening day, I think.
You can watch it online.
It’s appropriate to have a poem about pregnancy today—so go read Adapted, Not Designed. It’s lovely, and I think you can tell from the title that there’s another reason I like it.
News from The Panda’s Thumb: tonight, The Simpsons is all about the creationist pseudo-controversy, and Lisa gets arrested as an evilutionist. Let’s all tune in!
I was unimpressed. There were a few good barbs thrown at the creationists, but in the end the matter is settled by something trivial (Homer looks like an ape; yet again, the lazy Simpsons trope of the stupid Homer resolves the story), and of course they caved and pandered to the false dignity of the dominant tribal superstition. Eh.
Lots of people have sent me links to this—thanks, all!—and it’s the perfect thing to lift me out of the finals week blahs, and it’s also just in time for Mother’s Day on Sunday: The Devonian Blues.
Every single girl and every little boy
Was born from the clan of the wayward Dipnoi
Don’t let the preacher man spoil all the fun
Took a lot more than 6 days to get the job done
Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and man
All belong to the fish tribe, doncha’ understand?Your momma was a lobefinned fish
My momma was a lobefinned fish
Sing along, everyone!
Watch this short film of Terry Bisson’s well-known short story, They are made out of meat. I like the idea, but it was a little off-putting that they used actors made out of meat to play the main characters.
There is no shortage of non-meat actors, you know, and there are some CGI functions that might want to protest the usurpation of roles that really ought to go to minorities. Here some excellent, juicy non-meat roles come up, and they hand them over to the meaty majority.
(via The Valve)
Remember when you went to the high school dance, and all the social strata of the institution were exposed? You knew who the jocks and cheerleaders were, and the stoners and the college preppies, and of course, the geeks, the A/V nerds, the chess club crowd…the ones who didn’t show up very often, and when they did, everyone was wondering what they were doing there. Geek Prom wasn’t anything like that—it was kind of an anti-Heathers experience, where all the distinctions were thrown away. There were some beautiful people there, and everyone liked them, but they weren’t any more special than the four-eyed nerd with bad hair. This was an event where everyone was appreciated for being unique.
I hear it’s National Poetry Month, but poetry is way out of my skill set. I was sent this interesting poem about Darwin today, though, so that will be my contribution.
If you want poetry with themes similar to what I write about, I suggest you read Phawrongula. It’s still being updated with new stuff!
I haven’t watched South Park in a long time, but I understand the latest controversy is that they blanked out an innocuous, brief portrayal of Mohammed, and everyone is saying the network caved under pressure. Michelle Malkin and her fellow right-wing nutjobs are embarrassingly hysterical over it.
People, it’s a cartoon that intentionally tries to drum up shrieks of outrage…it tries so hard that I’ve lost interest in it. I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks this whole affair was done on purpose by the creators, can I? If you think this episode is significant, you’ve been played.
The Online Journalism Review has an article based on interviews with several of us loudmouths here at scienceblogs.com, if you want yet another look at our perspective on this venture.
