A Tradition of Links

The Ten Weirdest Unsolved Vehicular Mysteries. I'm pretty sure every one of these would make a great Clive Cussler novel. In fact I believe a couple of them already have.

Also, kinda scary how many unrecovered nuclear weapons there are out there.

PAX Prime 2015 in pictures: Cosplay, cartridge art, and classic gaming. Lots of cool pictures from PAX to be found in this article. PAX is one of those things that always looks like a lot of fun but I've never actually tried to go. I'm not the biggest video gamer anymore and I haven't played a tabletop game like Magic or D&D in well over a decade. Still, maybe next year when tickets go on sales I'll try to get a pair. Even if I decided not to go at the last minute I could always sell them.

The Inside Story Of How The First MTV VMAs Created A Tradition Of Making Censors Sweat. This is a really nice long form article on the MTV Music Awards, how they came to be and what they meant to the network in the early years.

The end of Aqua Teen Hunger Force marks the end of an era for TV animation. I guess we're really firing up the nostalgia-machine today. This look back on ATHF and the early days of Adult Swim is pretty interesting. I don't catch as much Adult Swim as I used to but I did stumble upon the ATHF finale last weekend and it made me a bit wistful. It's funny just how influential those early Adult Swim were, stuff like Archer, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty all seem to owe a great deal to Space Ghost, ATHF and Sealab 2020.

Taxpayer Links

Inside the Redman MTV Cribs Episode. Stop what you are doing and read this wonderfully written article on one of the seminal moments of MTV. I haven't been this as excited to link to something since the oral history of Baywatch a couple years ago. They even interview Sugar Bear. SUGAR BEAR!

Chris Christie Spent $82,594 Of Taxpayer Money At An NFL Stadium. HOLY SHITSNACKS that's a lot of cotton candy. It's roughly $5,000 a game. What are you buying that's costing that kind of money? Is the Old Milwaukee being personally delivered by the Swedish Bikini team? Man, American politics are crazy crooked. Maybe not Italian level crooked but still super crooked.

Black Widow Absent From A Toy Based On One Of Her Coolest AoU Moments. Of course she is. I've mentioned this before but holy crap is it hard to find female representation in kids toys. I've actually been sort of happy with the Skylanders videogame/toys in this aspect. There are quite a few cool female Skylanders and miracle of all miracles, my son doesn't have a problem playing them at all. Now if they could just lower the price of Swap Force guys a bit...

The top ten arcade racing games of the 1980s. This article is hella old but I don't care. Hard Driving was the bomb yo. I swear I learned how to drive a stick on that thing. I mean I didn't of course. All I learned about was how to dump the clutch in a tremendously dangerous fashion but who cares? Did you see those 3-D graphics?

Incredibly Links

Behold The Oldsmobile Expression, The Incredibly Ugly ’90s Car With A Built-In NES. Ugly? This thing is sweet. If this was available right now, I'd be one of the first in line. It has third row rear facing seats, rear facing seats. It could have a Colecovision built in and I'd still want one.

The Secret Lives of NYC Mega-Projects, Revealed By One Photographer. Pictures of huge construction projects like these always bottle my mind grapes. A few of these double so given the fact that they're underground. I don't even understand how Manhattan stays standing, there's like an entire mountain dug out underneath it.

We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea Of Ownership. Hey there, here's something that's not particularly good for your average consumer. The basic gist is that a few larger companies are using copyright law to say that you only KIND OF own the things you've bought. Sure you bought the tractor, but all the software that runs it John Deere really owns and you don't have the right to touch it.

But I don't buy tractors, so why should I care? Well the same argument can and will be made for cars, phones, computers, baby monitors basically anything with a chip. Imagine having to take your car to an authorized GM dealer because a regular repair shop can't legally hook up a diagnostic computer. Welcome to the future!

Live From The MTV Movie Awards: Who Won? Who Lost? Who Is Ansel Elgort? This is a bit late but it's still pretty funny. Seriously, are the MTV movie awards still a thing? Kids don't care, adults don't care, who cares? One guy in LA named Donnie?

Rumor of the Day: Marvel is planning a Ms. Marvel TV series with ABC. Disney/Marvel has zero plans of slowing down, right? They have about 7 movies in the works right now plus 4 shows on Netflix, an Agents of SHIELD spin off and now a Ms Marvel show? It's getting to the point where I can't keep up. I just finished Agent Carter a couple weeks ago and I'm like 3 weeks behind Agents of SHIELD. I haven't even started watching Daredevil. Where was this glut of superhero stuff when I was single and kidless?

Oh yeah, Ms Marvel is SUPER RAD. I hope this show gets made. If it's half as awesome as the comic it will be a giant hit.

Refined Links

WWE Diva AJ Lee Publicly Calls Out Stephanie McMahon Over Women's Wages and Air Time. This is kind of hilarious. Basically Stephanie McMahon (daughter of Vince, on the board of Directors for the WWE and underrated in ring performer) tweeted some bland congratulations on Patricia Arquette's Oscar acceptance speak using the hashtags #womensrights and #useyourvoice. She of course tweeted that on the same evening the only WWE Divas match on Raw as an embarrassingly short 30 seconds. AJ Lee (WWE Diva, wife of CM Punk disgruntled ex-WWE employee) responded by blasting the WWE on twitter over how they treat their female talent.

Whoops.

Homeworld Remastered impressions: A refined masterpiece. Homeworld! You remember homeworld, right? Right? Ok, so Homeworld wasn't a huge hit but it is remembered fondly, fond enough that it's getting an HD remake. I'm pretty excited for this one.

Surprise: Almost Everything About Pimp My Ride Was Hilarious Bullshit. This is pretty fantastic. It's hardly surprising but it's still pretty fantastic. I like the part about how MTV put it into the contract that you couldn't list your car on Ebay right away.

Comic Book Writers Matt Fraction & Kelly Sue DeConnick Sign Deal With Universal TV. Woot Woot! These are two of my favorite comics book writers right now, I'm excited to see what they'll bring to TV.

Retro Light Guns Throughout History. Cool little stroll down memory lane. I'm surprised light guns aren't a thing anymore. Shooting games are some of the more popular games at the 7 arcades that still exist in the country. Why hasn't anyone tried to bring that experience home lately?

Daria, the Fake Movie Trailer

Remember when MTV played awesome animated shows like Daria, The Maxx, Clone High? Ok, I'm probably the only one that remembers Clone High. 2003 was the first year I had like super cable TV and I lived in the middle of nowhere so I watched a lot of weird Cable shows. Just trust me, Clone High was the tits.

So this fake Daria trailer starting Aubrey Plaza hit the interwebs today. It's good, I particularly like the guy that plays the dad (is that Spirit Fingers?). So someone get on that, lets make a real Daria movie. It's gotta be better than Turbo or The Lone Ranger.

Hump Day Link Day

The NES turns 30: How it began, worked, and saved an industry. I've been trying to work in a "Nintendo Entertainment System Turns 30 years old" post in this week and just haven't found the time. It's for the better, this article by ArsTechnica is amazeballs. It's a real interesting and very thorough look at the console in all it's different variations. The first computer like mock up for the US market is a trip.

Navigating a Maze of Real Lasers is Harder Than You'd Think. I wonder how many DVD players were sold in 1999 based on the scene in Entrapment pictured above. It's gotta be like 4 or 5 million, right?

Behind Falskaar, a massive new Skyrim mod, and the 19-year-old who made it. Want to get a job in video games? Why not spend a year of your life living at home making a HUGE Skyrim Mod. It sure beats whatever I'm supposed to be doing at work right now.

Top 10 Real World/Road Rules Challenge Fights. Oh man, 2004 seems like it's both yesterday and FOREVER ago. I watched I think one episode of the last season of the Challenge and I had no idea who anyone was. Whatever happened to Coral, Miz, Rachel and that big guy with the red hair. Those were the days, back when MTV2 still played videos....

Frost those Links

The Next Xbox Will Require an Internet Connection To Start Games, Sources Say. I really don't want it to be true but it's starting to sound more like the Xbox Dodge Durango (working title) really will require an internet connection to do pretty much anything. This new report says you will be ok if your connection craps out on you for a few minutes but you're going to have to be online to start any game. Thanks for saving me $400 Microsoft!

The 90's Guide to Getting a Girl. To be fair, this should really be The Late 90's guide to getting a girl. Still hilarious none the less.

Inside Secrets of the Making of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and "Space Seed"! Oh man, Star Trek II is easily my favorite Star Trek movie. This article was the balls. Weird that I'm a big fan of Star Trek and it's intellectual take on Sci-Fi but my two favorite movies are the most un-Trek like (Wrath of Kahn and First Contact). I guess I'm just a complicated nerd.

26 "Next" Bus Contestants You Would Never Date. Ah early 2000s dating shows. What ever happened to you? I would trade all the celebrity diving shows in the world for just one more season of The 5th Wheel with Aisha Tyler.... and I LOVE celebrity diving shows.

Easy as Pie, not the numbers the dessert

Hey Kids! Remember Sifl and Olly? I know 1999 is like a long time ago, but way back when MTV2 used to play music videos, there was a show on MTV about a couple of singing sock puppets that was awesome. Well it's back, in pog web video form. The only thing that could make me happier this morning is hearing that they're going to make more episodes of Clone High.

BTW, slap that ass 2 looks amazeballs. I can't believe how well rendered the asses look.

Boo, links

Stephen Speilberg blames George Lucas for Indy 4 being awful. My favorite part about this is that Speilberg says it was Lucas' idea to use space aliens which of course "ruined" the movie. However it was Speilberg's idea to have Indy survive a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator. How about we just say it was a team effort?

Yes Google Stole from Apple, and it's a good thing. I can't believe Jobs had the balls to sue google for stealing from Apple given how much IP Apple has stolen. The best part of the article is the apple freaks in the comments section that can't help but defend the double standard.

Real World Star sues MTV. Tanya, who has always been one of my favorite Challenge veterans, claims that a Kenny and Evan sexually assaulted her with a toothbrush. I'm not sure which is worse, the allegation or discovering that MTV actually has a "rape clause" in their contracts.

Patton Oswalt narrates a reality star's trip to the pumpkin patch. I have no idea who he's ripping on but it's highlarious none the less.

This Internet thing is catching on

Here's a special report from MTV in 1995* on this thing called the world wide web. It's pretty eye opening. Did you know they have porn there? Porn and poorly rendered virtual worlds, and I guess Michael Jackson is there too. I'm guessing for the porn.

Seriously, there's a lot to make fun of on this video but number one has to be that it starts with Michael Jackson doing some sort of online chat and ends with a guy being arrested for kiddie porn. It's like Kurt Loder had some sort of crystal ball.

*Have Moby and Dave Matthews really been subjecting us to awful music since 1995? I feel so old now..

Sean Duffy Brought that Axe to Washington

So Sean from the Real Wold Boston was ellected to congress the other night. In related news I feel about a hundred years old. Seriously, the Seattle season was taped over 11 years ago. I think that makes it older than Justin Beiber, whoever he is.

Keybord Solo JJ Abrams!

MTV Shows

So the MTV movie awards were last night. I caught the first half hour or so until I got antsy and had to play some Left 4 Dead. Andy Samberg was pretty funny, it's always fun to see the reaction from the crowd when the host starts poking fun at them. Who would have guessed that Megan Fox has no sense of humor? She seems like such a fun girl.

Anyway, here's your internet sensation for the week. "Cool guys don't look at explosions". In the same way that Team America ruined me for montages, this has pretty much ruined me for "walking away from explosion" scenes.

~ very unsexy update ~

If I had kept watching the awards it looks like I could have caught Sacha Cohen (aka Bruno/Borat/Ali G) teabagging Eminem. I think history will show that playing Left 4 Dead was still the right decision.

The State on DVD

Hey Kids remember way back in 1993 when MTV aired both music videos and groundbreaking sketch comedy shows? No? ...well here's some news you won't care about but makes me a happy boy.

Thomas Lennon, co-star of the upcoming comedy 17 Again, told reporters that his cult MTV show The State will be coming to DVD this summer. "July 14th," Lennon said in a news conference on Sunday in Beverly Hills, Calif. "For real: Bastille Day. The whole g--damn thing. I have no idea why it's coming out on Bastille Day, but it's coming out on Bastille Day."
The State was an acclaimed but ratings-deficient sketch-comedy television series that ran from 1993 to 1995. Lennon said that the show hasn't debuted before on disc because of music rights issues and the fact that its fan base remains modest. "There was a lot of music clearance issues, and then, you know, it's a cult show," Lennon said. "The fans are die-hard, but there's not tons and tons of them."
~via scifiwire.com

This is really horrible news for my wife. She hates it when I break out my DVDs of Mr Show with Bob and David, there's no chance she'll put up with The State.