Sunday, June 5, 2011

Crushable

Crushable

Snap This: A Guide to Movie Hands

Posted: 05 Jun 2011 10:15 AM PDT

Derek Eads makes awesome infographics. Case in point: Here’s one detailing a variety of famous hands from the silver screen. How many can you get? Image with answers after the jump.

[Via The Daily What Geek]

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Snap This: A Guide to Movie Hands

Video Gallery: 9 Cool Things Fans Have Made With ‘Portal’

Posted: 05 Jun 2011 10:10 AM PDT

I realize that I tend to write about Portal a lot– A LOT a lot– but there’s just so much good stuff floating around out there regarding it that I just can’t help myself. There’s Companion Cube soap. There are real-life talking turret plushes. There are awesome covers of the awesome in-game songs. The list just goes on, and on, and on– and here, it goes on again. Fans of the Portal games are some of the more creative fans out there– it’s actually quite a credit to Valve Corporation that they’re able to create game mythologies that people get this into– and subsequently, they put out some of the most astounding fan projects based off their beloved source material. Some of them are hackers and programmers; some of them are storytellers; and some of them are comedians; but all of them are worth taking a look at. Here are some of the coolest things fans have done with Portal:

1) Portal Meets Doctor Who
Using the level creator in Portal 2, YouTube user BlueToOrange created an Aperture Science-style TARDIS. True to form, it’s bigger on the inside and it travels through time. Geronimo!

2) Portal IRL
This live-action performance won the “most dramatic” award at the Fanime 2011 Masquerade in San Jose, CA. Wait– live-action Portal performance? How does that work? With some well-choreographed movements and a couple of people in orange jumpsuits, that’s how!

3) Kids Sing “Still Alive”
Killer supercomputers never sounded so cute.

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Video Gallery: 9 Cool Things Fans Have Made With ‘Portal’

12 Hollywood Haunts and Unsolved Mysteries

Posted: 05 Jun 2011 08:50 AM PDT

For this weekend’s celebrity gallery, we’re going back a little further than we normally would– back to Hollywood’s Golden Age, to the Roaring ’20s and the ’30s and ’40s. These are the times featured in the game L.A. Noire, the latest offering from Rockstar Games, and what stylish times they are. Back then, old-fashioned movie stars may not have worn their problems on their sleeves the way celebrities do today, but problems were still something they had plenty of. Come on in and take a trip through some of the more notorious scandals, hauntings, and unsolved mysteries of Hollywood, and see what can be dug up– if you look hard enough for it.

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12 Hollywood Haunts and Unsolved Mysteries

Sunday Cute: Baby Sloths Are Amazing

Posted: 05 Jun 2011 07:20 AM PDT

I find sloths to be somewhat less cute when they grow up, but man, are they cute as babies! These little guys all live at Aviarios del Caribe sloth orphanage. My favorite is the one that’s holding onto the orange and yellow stuffed animal so tightly that he topples oh so slowly over. Now watch that and try not to go “Awwwwww.” Awwwwwww!

Happy Sunday!

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Sunday Cute: Baby Sloths Are Amazing

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Dionaea House

Posted: 04 Jun 2011 04:20 PM PDT

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren't is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

The homepage of the website contains only this:

10.7.2004
Jennifer, friends and family of Mark,
As promised, here are copies of the correspondence I received from Mark over the course of the last month. For the most part, I have merely copied and pasted them from my email application.

As you'll read, he requested this, in hopes that you'll better understand why he did what he did.

I made this site because it's the most efficient way to share Mark's emails with all of you. I'm not advertising this to anyone. But I do think it would be wise to pass this URL along to anyone who may help with the investigation. As I collect more information, from various sources, I’ll update this site to keep it an accurate record. I’ll have that link at the end of the series as well.

If you need to speak with me, Jen has my number. Thank you for your patience, and again, I am profoundly sorry.

- Eric

Who is Mark? What did he do? All I can tell you is that it involves a house. And that house is

THE DIONAEA HOUSE

It begins with a newspaper article. The email in this tale is timestamped. Monday, September 6, 2004 at 8:17am. In it, Mark Condry contacts Eric Heisserer, clearly for the first time in a number of years. After some introductory small talk, Mark gets to the heart of the matter: He’s emailing because he got a newspaper article in the mail about someone named Andrew– sometimes shortened to Drew– that both Mark and Eric, along with another friend named Travis, used to have board game nights with back when they all lived in Houston. Mark says he’d forgotten entirely about Andrew until he got the article in the mail– maybe Eric got one, too?– and it’s disturbing him. “Do you know what happened?” he asks Eric. “Did you hear about it already?” Mark goes on to say that he’s going to try to track down Travis and another guy named Dave, and that he’d like to talk with Eric about what might be going on.

In his next email, Mark transcribes the article:

GUNMAN SHOOTS TWO, KILLS SELF IN BOISE RESTAURANT

Diners at the Roadside Breakfast Café on Interstate 84 fled to the parking lot in a panic yesterday afternoon when a man entered and began shooting patrons inside, killing two.

The couple – John and Lucy Madson – were having lunch when 26-year-old Andrew Hughes entered, wielding a Smith and Wesson 59 pistol, according to police. Witnesses claim the perpetrator was muttering to himself as he approached the smoking section and opened fire into the first occupied booth, fatally wounding the Madsons. Soon after, he turned the weapon on himself.

All three were taken by paramedics to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where John Madson and the shooter were pronounced dead. Lucy Madson, 37, remained in critical condition for several hours but did not survive the night. Police are investigating Hughes' work and personal background, but as of this morning a motive for the attack is unknown.

What was Drew doing in Boise? With a gun? Mark doesn’t know, but it’s freaking him out. Eric’s response– quoted in Mark’s next email– asks if Mark had considered that it all may be an elaborate prank. It had, Mark says, but he called up Saint Alphonsus to check whether a patiend named Andrew Hughes had been admitted. He found him as a DOA: August 28. Gunshot wound to the head. Pronounced dead at 3:14pm. Furthermore, Mark has figured out that something else was niggling at him: Shortly before Andrew stopped showing up for game night, his stepfather had asked him to house sit for ten days while he and Drew’s mother went on vacation. Drew didn’t want to do it– something about the house bothered him (“It’s too cold,” he said)– and though he asked his friends if someone would come out and stay with him while he was there, no one did. The first game night Andrew showed up at after those ten days, he would only speak in quotations– Mark describes it as like having a television on, the quotes were that accurate. Something changed Andrew during those ten days, but none of them would ever find out what; he dropped off the face of the Earth shortly thereafter.

On Sunday, September 12, Mark informs Eric that he intends to drive to Houston to go investigate the house Andrew’s stepfather made him watch. That Wednesday, he managed to dig up an address. On Thursday, he checked it out: It wasn’t in great repair, and he couldn’t get inside, but he was able to talk to a neighbor. The house had apparently belonged to Andrew’s stepfather’s clients, but that they hadn’t stayed there long; after a variety of electrinagcal and heating problems, they drove off in an RV, leaving most of their furniture behind.

The clients names were John and Lucy Madson.

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Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Dionaea House

Video: A Zombie Musical Love Story

Posted: 04 Jun 2011 01:15 PM PDT

While we’re on the subjects of both zombies and musicals: Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the undead deserve a musical of their very own? If it hasn’t, it should; but in any event, it occurred to SOMEBODY, and the result of that piece of epic wondering is this: Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story. And it’s AWESOME.

The Daily What Geek describes it as the lovechild of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog and Shaun of the Dead, which is a pretty accurate description. My personal favorite detail is the difference between the way our two zombie lovebirds appear to interact when humans are watching them versus when they’re on their own, but there’s loads of hilarity throughout. Check out the three-part masterpiece below!

[Via The Daily What Geek]

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Video: A Zombie Musical Love Story

Countdown to the Tony Awards: How Does Tony Voting Work, Anyway?

Posted: 04 Jun 2011 11:50 AM PDT

There’s only one week left to go before the Tony Awards telecast, and I just realized something: I love watching the ceremony, and I always have shows I’m rooting for, but I have absolutely no idea how the nominees or winners are chosen. Consequently, I decided to do some digging to see if I could unravel the complicated web that is Major Award Show Voting. Here’s what I found out in the form of a handy-dandy FAQ:

What defines a “Broadway” show?
Interestingly, the definition doesn’t depend on location; rather, it depends on size. A production must be produced in a theatre that has 500 or more seats. It’s coincidental that pretty much all of those theatres are in Times Square or around Lincoln Center.

What defines a “new” play or musical?
A couple of things make up the definition: It can’t have been produced on Broadway before, and it can’t be a classic or part of the “historic or popular repertoire.” Naturally, there’s been some quibbling over this, e.g., can a show still be considered “new” if it’s had a couple of out-of-town try-out productions or if it’s a transfer of an Off-Broadway show; but ah well. Someone’s always going to be unhappy.

When does a production have to be open by in order to be eligible for nomination?
An “eligibility date” is set by the Management Committee each year. By the time that date has come around, productions must have officially opened in order to be eligible for nominations. For example, the eligibility date for the 2008-09 season was April 30, 2009. Shows that opened after that date were not eligible for the Tonys that year; however, they WERE eligible for for the 2009-10 season.

Who chooses the nominees?
There are two tiers of decision-making, the first of which is the Administration Committee. This committee is responsible for selecting the second tier, the Nomination Committee. The Nomination Committee rotates every three years and consists of up to 30 theatre professionals. These 30 people are asked to see every new Broadway production over the course of the season and meet after the eligibility date detailed above. They vote for their selection of the nominees via secret ballot, and the results are announced the following morning.

How does the actual voting of the awards work?
Back in 1947– the year of the very first Tony Awards– the voting pool was limited to the members of the American Theatre Wing, which was responsible for creating the Tony Awards in the first place. The pool was expanded in 1954 to include a whole bunch of other theatre professionals, and these days, there roughly 700 voters each year, give or take. Besides the American Theatre Wing and the Tony Nomination Committee, voters can come from the boards of any number of places: The Broadway Leagues, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, the different labor unions for actors, directors, playwrights, and choreographers (yes, we all have unions; they’re what give us health insurance, among other things), and so on. Voters are required to see any and all nominated productions, though if they don’t quite manage that, they’re not allowed to vote in any category in which they haven’t seen all of the nominees. As with the selection of the nominees, voting for winners happens through a secret ballot in the weeks leading up to the awards ceremony. The winners are known only by a chosen few, and they’re kept under lock and key until the ceremony.

Can there be ties?
Yep; in 2009, for instance, Billy Elliot and Next to Normal tied for Best Orchestrations

May the best plays win!

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Countdown to the Tony Awards: How Does Tony Voting Work, Anyway?
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