RIP Sir Arthur C Clarke

Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight.

...

Marking his “90th orbit of the sun” in December, the author said he did not feel "a day over 89" and made three birthday wishes: for ET to call, for man to kick his oil habit and for peace in Sri Lanka.



Rest in peace.

'Jaws' star Roy Scheider dead at 75

"You're gonna need a bigger boat"



RIP.

54-40 -- Easy to Love

Another fun group out of Canada.

Spirit of the West - And if Venice is Sinking

SPIRIT OF THE WEST - Home For A Rest

I never would have heard of Spirit of the West had I not moved so close to the Canadian border. This is a fun song that reminds me of my buddies in graduate school ;-) Enjoy!

Arcade Fire - My Body is a Cage

Women in Film

The Lovemakers - 'Naturally Lonely'

I just kind of dig the song.

Van Halen, Roth to announce tour next week

We'll wait and see if this really happens before officially stating that Hell finally froze over.

Jump (man I hate that song) here.

"It's the end of the world as we know it..."

We here at Waiting for the Comet always enjoy a good apocalyptic/post apocalyptic story, television show or movie. While we've been too busy to start watching Heroes or Jericho, we do plan on watching these series at some point relatively soon in the future. Thus, I really have nothing to say about them at this point.

There have been some fine books written in this genre:

In no particular order (and certainly not an exhaustive list) we've enjoyed: Lucifer's Hammer; Alas, Babylon; On the Beach; The Stand; Blindness; The Great and Secret Show; The Postman; Childhood's End; The Alien Years; Mockingbird; The Harvest; and The Road to name just a few of them.

All enjoyable reads that I recommend.

As you probably know, some of the above were made into movies. So, once again in no particular order (and certainly not an exhaustive list) we here at Waiting for the Comet have enjoyed: The Planet of the Apes (1968); The Matrix; George Romeros' Living Dead series; The Terminator Series; 12 Monkeys; The Road Warrior; Mad Max; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); Fantastic Planet; and When the Wind Blows.

Then there are some really fun ones such as: Death Race 2000; Red Dawn; Logan's Run; Heavy Metal; and Soylent Green.

However, we're not here today to just reminisce about the past. No, the reason for this posting is because there seems to be a new wave of movies in this genre. Check out the trailers to I am Legend; An untitled film by J.J. Abrams; The Invasion; and Sunshine.

Another upcoming film is called Doomsday, but there is no trailer as of today.

Now, with the exception of The Invasion, I am excited to see these new films. The Invasion is another "remake" of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which has been remade how many times now?) so it's not high on my list.

Which brings me to the topic of my next post: remakes and sequels. I hope to rant on that soon. For now, please post any books, movies, and/or television shows that you enjoyed that fit this genre!

Then, enjoy the end of the world!

Minisodes: Watch an hour of TV in 6 minutes

That is, who among us hasn't felt the double-edged sword of our media age: So much video from TV, DVDs, the Internet and even cell phones ... but too little time to watch it all?

The Minisode Network has a solution.

...

"The shows you love -- only shorter," boasts Minisode Network, which only asks us in return to watch a very short commercial before each program.

Again, what does this say about the quality of theses television shows?

Anyway, check it out.

Quiz: Test your ‘Two and a Half Men’ memory

Why is this important?

I mean really.

Why?

I think "they're" just making sure you're staying in front of your television set and not venturing away to actually learn what the fuck is going on in the world.

PETA not monkeying around with ‘Speed Racer’

A chimp bit an actor on the set of “Speed Racer” — and there are allegations that the chimp was beaten.

Because we humans can't do anything but beat the shit out of all the other animals on the planet.

I wait for the day we humans discover we are not at the top of the food chain in the Universe.

Oooh. Won't that be fun?

Read the rest.

Hilton dog-food can fetches $305 on eBay

And this is why we Wait for the Comet:

An empty can of gourmet dog food taken from Paris Hilton's trash fetched $305 in an eBay auction. The sellers were from the Web site HollywoodStarTrash.com, which also listed several other Hilton items for sale on eBay.

A used toothbrush sold for $305; two envelopes sent to her while she was in jail sold for $510; and a Coke can pulled from her trash went for $51.

Isn't there something more important going on. Oh yeah, there is over here.

Rockin' the Right

The 50 greatest conservative rock songs.

So here are NR’s top 50 conservative rock songs of all time. Go ahead and quibble with the rankings, complain about what we put on, and send us outraged letters and e-mails about what we left off. In the end, though, we hope you’ll admit that it’s a pretty cool playlist for your iPod.

The Who, Stones, U2, Sex Pistols, Metallica, Kinks, Rush, Eagles, Pretenders, Clash, Bowie, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, CCR, Sammy Hagar, Everly Brothers, Everclear, and more...including Iron Maiden. I'm kind of surprised they even knew of Iron Maiden.

Anyway, here's the list.

THE 100 WORST COVER SONGS

Ouch. Some of these are really bad.

Enjoy!

Coming Online Soon: The Five-Minute ‘Charlie’s Angels’

The question probably never occurred to viewers in the 1970s and 1980s, but suddenly it is highly relevant: exactly how much worthwhile entertainment content was there in shows like “Charlie’s Angels,” “T. J. Hooker,” and “Starsky and Hutch”?

The Sony Corporation and its production studio, Sony Pictures Television, which controls the rights to those and many other relics of a distant era of television, have come up with an answer to that question: three and a half to five minutes.

You read that correctly -- 3.5 to 5 minutes.

That’s the length Sony has shrunk episodes down to in order to create what the company hopes is an appealing new business in retooling old shows for a new era of entertainment. Sony even has a name for these shrunken slices of television nostalgia: minisodes.

Doesn't that speak volumes to the quality of television shows?

Read about these new minisodes here.

The Targets - December 5, 2006

Now that does not look like a user friendly vagina.

Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton & Britney Spears Pantyless Montage - "Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton actually all ended up together partying last week and even ended up smiling and seemingly having a good time together. Of course that would all later end - as Paris dissed Lindsay, Britney ditched Paris and then the two blondes made up while Lohan checked out an AA meeting. Ah - a week in the life of young Hollywood." -- I apologize for adding to this already over talked about topcic.

3 BIMBOS OF THE APOCALYPSE - "THEY have already been dubbed "The Brit Pack": three girls, increasingly famous for making spectacularly bad choices, marshaling their collective brain power to navigate the booths and banquettes at Hyde or Spider Club or wherever it is they're drinking it off on any given night. Paris Hilton, her frenemy Lindsay Lohan, and newly separated Britney Spears: three party girls without a care (babies? what babies?), a high tolerance for alcohol, or a good publicist."

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan in Witches of Eastwick - "Viacom chairman, Sumner Redstone, is expected to announce early next week that Viacom subsidiary Paramount Pictures has signed Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan to star in a remake of the 1987 comedy-thriller The Witches of Eastwick." -- Can't wait for this shit? Oh, yes you can.

Britney Spears tops Yahoo's searches - "Bereft of any new music to promote, Britney Spears was nevertheless the hottest thing on the Internet this year, judging from Yahoo's annual list of popular search terms." -- Which means the comet needs to hurry up!

New flash: Anna Nicole Smith is a mess. Again. And pregnant. Again. - ""I might be pregnant again...Did that just come out?" Yes, Anna. It did." -- Why is she "important"?

The Gym of the Soul - "Stallone spoke of being reborn in a teleconference with pastors and religious leaders concerning the faith elements of the unlikely sixth movie that's due out Dec. 22."

TV Land Lists 100 Greatest Catchphrases - "The TV Land cable network has compiled a list of the 100 greatest catchphrases in TV, from the serious — Walter Cronkite's nightly signoff "And that's the way it is" — to the silly: "We are two wild and crazy guys!" The network will air a countdown special, "The 100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catch Phrases," over five days starting Dec. 11."

'Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists' - "We tried our best not to turn this into some sort of popularity contest where only the most famous (or infamous) frontmen in metal lore were recognized."

Top 5 Undeserving Rock and Roll Hall of Famers - "That’s because, for as much of a heavy metal cornerstone that the band and singer Ozzy Osbourne have become over the last 35 years, Sabbath was, to put it as bluntly as their music, terrible." -- Check out the other 4 on the list.

The 50 Greatest Commercials of the ’80s - "Whew. We were planning to throw together a quick compilation of our five favorite commercials from way back in the 1980s, but then we found more…and more…and more."

Plans for ABBA Museum Unveiled in Sweden - "An ABBA museum dedicated to the music, clothing and history of the legendary Swedish pop group and its four members will open in Stockholm in 2008, organizers said Tuesday."

The Worst Band Names Ever - "There are lots and lots of crappy band names out there. Here are some of our favorites." -- Come on! Some of these names are great!

The Hottest Alien Babes of Film and TV - "There’s nothing like a good sci-fi flick to really capture a guy’s attention. The spaceships…the laser guns…. the distant worlds full of adventure…and those saucy alien chicks in miniskirts whose morals seem looser than William Shatner’s toupee. But golly gee, there’s so much alien hotness to choose from. How do you decide which babe with green skin is worth your time? Well rest easy fellow space traveler, I’ve done the hard work for you. Allow me to present you with a list guaranteed to appeal to the Buck Rogers in all of us. ... My number one pick is a no-brainer. How can you go wrong with a science fiction movie in which the female lead spends the entire time walking around with no clothes on?"

Even the Dutch are tiring of smutty TV - "Despite a long tradition of television that pushes the boundaries of the acceptable in the Netherlands, Dutch viewers are being turned off by a wave of controversial programs." -- I haven't tired of smutty TV.

Santas face job risks being cheery, survey finds - "Saying "ho, ho, ho" is practically a Christmas miracle, given the job woes that shopping mall and store Santas face each day, according to a survey released on Monday. Santas get sneezed upon up to ten times a day, fend off children pulling their beards and mop up after children who frequently wet their laps, according to the survey of hundreds of men who work as seasonal Santa Claus characters."

Flatulence, not turbulence forces plane landing in Nashville - "Flatulence brought 99 passengers on an American Airlines flight to an unscheduled visit to Nashville early Monday morning."

The write stuff: Hospitals resort to penmanship classes for doctors - "Long winked at as a harmless peccadillo, poor penmanship among health care providers is increasingly being diagnosed as a threat to patients. Now, some of them are being sent back to school in hopes of eliminating the illegible. Such chicken scratch can become a prescription for tragedy. Experts say up to 25 percent of medication errors may be related to illegible handwriting: A pharmacist misreads an illegible prescription, one drug is mixed up with another." -- Why aren't prescriptions printed off and then merely signed by the physician?

The Targets - November 27, 2006

Simpson interview could turn up on Web - "The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age of YouTube and eBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret for long."

The Real World: The Beginning of Drunken Denver Hook-ups and Mishaps - "We start off this season with a new group of seven strangers, but this year the location is Denver. Let’s hope the altitude keeps them drunker, sluttier, and all around more entertaining."

'AMC' Introducing Transgender Character - "In a story unusual even for a soap opera and believed to be a television first, ABC's "All My Children" this week will introduce a transgender character who is beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman."

BRITNEY'S REVEALING WEEKEND - "Britney Spears was totally out of control while partying with Paris Hilton this weekend and letting it ALL hang out — literally!" -- I bet her parents are proud of this shot.

PAM AND KID: R.I.P. - "Pamela Anderson's rep confirms to Star that Pamela and Kid Rock are splitting: "It's confirmed. Pam filed for divorce last week."" -- Aren't you devestated?

Bruce Lee to get own theme park in China - "A theme park with a statue and memorial hall will be built at Bruce Lee's southern Chinese ancestral home of Shunde, the president of his fan club said Monday."

Cosmetic surgery helps make 60s new middle age? - "Cosmetic surgery is altering not just how people look but how they feel by changing perceptions of middle age, a study showed Monday."

Researchers seek routes to happier life - "Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness. "I thought it was too simple to be effective," said Miller, 44, of Bethesda. Md. "I went to Harvard. I'm used to things being complicated." Miller was assigned the task as homework in a master's degree program. But as a chronic worrier, she knew she could use the kind of boost the exercise was supposed to deliver. She got it. "The quality of my dreams has changed, I never have trouble falling asleep and I do feel happier," she said."

Digital Music: Beyond 'Squirting' - "Have you squirted a song yet? That's the question Microsoft hopes your friends will ask you as you ponder which digital music player to acquire. After all, iPods don't squirt songs. And Microsoft's new player, Zune, does."

Study: Money-happiness link is complex - "Does money buy happiness? It's sometimes said that scientists have found no relationship between money and happiness, but that's a myth, says University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener. The connection is complex, he says. But in fact, very rich people rate substantially higher in satisfaction with life than very poor people do, even within wealthy nations, he says. "There is overwhelming evidence that money buys happiness," said economist Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England. The main debate, he said, is how strong the effect is."

The 10 Best Teachers in Movie History - "How many of these memorable educators have you met?"

10 Movie Meals That Won't Make You Go 'Mmm' - " The message is that fast food is (in many ways) bad for you, but movies have a nasty habit of presenting meals that are far less than appetizing. Sumptuous repasts in films like "Big Night" and "Babette's Feast" seem to number far less than examples of food that makes the greasiest Slyder seem like prime rib. Don't believe us? OK, we'll prove it:"

Giving viewers something to chat about Lycos Cinema puts kibitzers on the small screen - "Some movie buffs can't resist talking back to the screen during their favorite films. That was the idea behind the cult-TV favorite "Mystery Science Theater 3000," and now the same concept has come to the Internet, thanks to the search portal operator Lycos Inc."

The Targets - October 28, 2006

The coolest horror movie killings ever - "But I know that when I say that this is a list of the coolest horror movie killings ever, I’m inviting argument. I don’t care. Argue away. Gore is subjective and personal, anyway. One person’s really poignant brain-eating cannibal moment is another person’s meaningfully vicious disembowelment or ax in the face, you know?" -- Not a bad list, bu where was Johnny Depp's death from A Nightmare on Elm Street?

Scariest Movies of All Time - "So you want to see something really scary? Check the locks, turn out the lights, fire up the DVD player and get ready for the bad dreams ahead."

Oh, the Horror! - "Everybody's gotta start somewhere... Check out a few pre-fame victims of Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Leatherface, the Leprechaun, and killer tomatoes."

Which horror movie character are you? -- Take the quiz to find out.

Vampires a Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says - "Efthimiou's debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on. If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population would disappear much faster. Even an unrealistically high reproduction rate couldn't counteract this effect."

Very Short Stories - "We'll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves." -- I really liked Margaret Atwood's, Vernon Vinge's, Bruce Sterling's, Richard Powers', Harry Harrison's, William Gibson's, and Steven Meretzky's (the last one).

Meat Loaf unleashes "Bat" for third flight - "Virgin Records releases "Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose" on October 31, adding a new chapter to the biggest and best-known album serial in rock 'n' roll history. Its two predecessors -- 1977's "Bat Out of Hell" and 1993's "Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell" -- have sold nearly 50 million copies combined, and Meat Loaf is well aware that the anticipation for the threequel is as much, if not more, about the "Bat" than it is about him."

Purple Haze: Battle Over Hendrix Songs - "An unidentified bidder spent $15 million to purchase guitar legend Jimi Hendrix's entire song catalog, but members of the rock star's family said Friday that the music, including classics like "Purple Haze" and "Voodoo Chile," still belongs to them."

Borat's Top 10 Tips for Sexytime - "I like you? I like sex! Here I make my tops 10 checkings list for Americans mens on sexytime."

Nicole Richie seeks medical help for thinness - "Socialite Nicole Richie, whose rail-thin appearance in recent photos has stoked tabloid speculation of an eating disorder, has checked into a treatment facility to address her inability to gain weight, her publicist said on Thursday."

Reality TV's Delusions and Dreams - "One of the most pleasant aspects of reality TV is witnessing delusional people in action — and "Top Model" certainly takes the prize in this regard."

28th Annual Mooning of Amtrak - "All Day Saturday, July 14, 2007, Laguna Niguel, (Orange County) California, U.S.A. ... THIS WEB SITE does not contain offensive or sexually suggestive material, and is not classified as "Adult". It is acknowledged however, that the "Mooning" of a public conveyance may be considered objectionable to some. The photos presented here are not "revealing" and are quite safe for all age groups to view."

NEW BEATLES ALBUM TO BE RELEASED - "The Beatles are releasing a new album next month (NOV06), which promises to be a "new experience" of the Fab Four's music."

Cult Film Evil Dead Comes Back to Life as Off-Broadway Musical - ""Blood will fly, limbs will be lost, demons will tell bad jokes. All of this, and singing and dancing!" boasts Evil Dead: The Musical, a new musical comedy based on the Sam Raimi cult film classics."

The Top 40 music moments in film history - "The only real criteria we set was this: The song couldn’t have been written specifically for the film or have made its debut on the film’s soundtrack. This was pretty rough on us at first, because it meant we had to say so long to Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” (“The Breakfast Club”), bid bye-bye to O.M.D.’s “If You Leave” (“Pretty in Pink”), and offer a fond farewell to Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” (“She’s Having a Baby”). Fortunately, we had a lot of great songs – and movie moments – waiting in the wings. But be advised: our descriptions contain spoilers galore."

The Biggest Movie Mistakes -- Here are the top 15.

The NPR 100 - "The most important American musical works of the 20th century."

Top 10 All Time Pop Singalong Songs - "Whether its in the car listening to the radio, at a sports event, in a bar, or in the shower, one of the great things about pop music is it invites you to sing along. Some songs clearly are better than others for singing along, and it takes some time for a pop song to establish itself as a clear favorite. Read on for your guide's picks of the best of the best in singalong favorites." -- With the exception of a couple, the list pretty good.