An extremely powerful laser cannon has gone missing. The device is worth an estimated $12,000, and authorities suspect foul play.
Railroads use lasers like this one to measure the length and straightness of rails.
Police spokesman Ryan Grelle said that Denton detectives alerted the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) when they learned of the missing device's power. "Investigators said they worry that the laser could be pointed at aircraft, potentially blinding a pilot," writes NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
KCS is offering a $1,000 reward for information regarding the missing equipment.
Recently, the FAA reported a dramatic rise in the number of incidents in which people pointed lasers at aircraft. In 2010, there were 2,836 incidents recorded, up from 1,527 the previous year.
Things I learned from this article:
1. Lasers are incredibly cheap and everybody should have one
2. Authorities don't really care if they get this one back (a $1000 reward for a potentially lethal laser cannon?)
3. Pointing lasers at airplanes is apparently super fun and awesome and we all should try it
More importantly, however, this article made me think about this:
Founded in 1987, when all the coolest cities were founded, West Sacramento boasts a population of over 44,000 bored-to-death souls and the alleged 'Best Milkshakes in the Region.'
Dine at one of the City’s diverse restaurants, where you can find everything from pad thai to the best breakfast burrito and milkshakes in the region. Enjoy a baseball game or a concert at Raley Field, home of the Oakland Athletics’ Triple A affiliate, the River Cats. Watch a 35,000 ton cargo ship dock while you fish from the opposite bank. Visit the newest exhibit at the West Sacramento Historical Society Museum. Have a picnic by the water in the City’s beautiful River Walk Park. And everywhere you go, ask residents, business owners, and City staff how they feel about this community.
No thank you, Mr. Cabaldon--none of that sounds like very much fun. Not even watching a big ship park, which I usually would enjoy enough to wet my breeches. Do you even know what fun is? Or is your complete ignorance of it the reason you are the Mayor-for-Life of the most boring town in the nation?
In fact, the only thing West Sacramento has going for it is an epic, two-day-long dance called the Enchantment Under the Sea. Sadly, they not only had to rip that idea off from Back to the Future (which was released before the city was even founded!), but they also had to ruin it forever (almost) by turning it into a creepy incest-themed dance that cannot boast any actual enchantment of note. [Why must fathers and daughters have their own dance? -Ed.]
Give it up already, West Sacramento! Wrap your pestilent lips around that giant belching smokestack at the milkshake factory and sleep forever in the pits of hell! Leave the city thing to people who know what they are doing, like Chicagoans.
Where did he spend all this coolness in such a hurry? On this giant smelly turd:
For those of you not in the know, this regrettable project has regrettably been in development for an eternity. Many, many years ago somebody got stoned at one of Elton John's castles (probably) and he became fixated on the idea of doing a version of Romeo & Juliet with animated gnomes--for which he, of course, would do the music and win another Oscar/Grammy/knighthood.
Flush with coolness, Elton had no problem forcing the project onto Disney Feature Animation while it was roofied on the couch in his pool house, but when Disney bought Pixar (in order to release good movies again--SNAP) John Lasseter greatly increased his own coolness reserves by calling a turd a turd and kicking Gnomeo out the back door without so much as a how's-your-father.
Say "Ahhhh" Harvey. And yes, Bob--you can watch.
So Elton did what anybody in his enviable position would do--he climbed up on Harvey Weinstein's solid-diamond desk and shoved good-ole Gnomeo down Miramax's throat with ease. After all, Elton still had plenty of coolness left to spend [More than one could ever spend in a lifetime. We think. -Ed.] and he was not going to let this brilliant idea die on the vine, goddamnit!
But then Miramax never woke up from the Gnomeo-induced coma, went bankrupt, and the project was dead and buried...until a recent full moon, when that zombie climbed out of the grave, walked over to Burbank incredibly slowly, and put the blocks to Disney's Touchstone Pictures while it was on acid and totally distracted by some water dripping out of a faucet.
Starring the voices of every whore who can do a British accent (sorry, Gwyneth!)
And so now here we are--unrecyclable Gnomeo & Juliet ads coat the town and a bunch of stupid gnomes will grace silver screens all over the country on February 11th. [Bad movie junkies should wait until said gnomes are available for much, much less at Big Lots starting February 12th. -Ed.]
How bad is this movie? Well, let's just say it has NINE credited writers (plus the Bard himself) and that is never a good thing. There were probably, what, fifteen writers who didn't want their names anywhere near this slithering turd that vomited thousand-pound notes all over Hollywood for 15 years?
But that doesn't matter because Elton is happy. He still has just enough coolness currency to skip to the front of the line at Starbucks, he sold the same movie at least three times, he got to be Executive Producer and do the music, his boo (David Furnish) got to be a producer, and some poor team of handsome young PAs got to be fondled while managing Elton's treasured bobblehead collection.
The bottom line here is that if Elton John doesn't become President of Haiti and clothe the entire nation in sequined jumpsuits and velour top hats for a fast-motion, single-take-helicopter-shot music video within the next couple years he might not only have to forfeit his spot in Princess Diana's tomb, but I might also have to leave him off my Christmas card list and get in on some of this Bieber Fever action that's been going around...
There's a mysterious phenomenon in which some men, immediately after having an orgasm, come down with a flu-like illness. Now Dutch scientists are saying these men may be allergic to their own semen.
Waldinger also identified a treatment for POIS, known as hyposensitisation, which essentially desensitizes the recipient of the treatment. The men were given skin injections of their own semen -- first highly diluted and eventually increased -- and after one to three years symptoms were greatly reduced.
Symptoms of POIS include fever, runny nose, extreme fatigue and burning eyes. They come on straight after climax and can last up to a week, reported The Sun.
Considering Dutch researchers have already identified at least 45 men in Holland alone who have been diagnosed with POIS, that does not bode well globally if that percentage holds. Assuming (incorrectly, I know, but it's just easier) that 50% of the population is male, here is how it breaks down in some larger countries:
Holland - 16,642,000 people - 8,321,000 men - 45 unfortunate men
U.S. - 311,904,000 people - 155,952,000 men - 844 unfortunate men
India - 1,192,870,000 people - 596,435,000 men - 3226 unfortunate men
China - 1,341,800,00 people - 670,900,000 men - 3629 unfortunate men
So, in approximately 41.5% of the world's population, we are looking at a group of 7,744 men who are allergic to their own semen. Allergic to their own semen! Can you imagine going through life becoming miserably ill immediately after having an orgasm? Can you imagine how many men who are afflicted by this will never tell anybody about it?
I think we need to get these 7,744+ names on paper and cross-reference that list with lists of serial killers, murderous dictators, mental patients, heroin/opium addicts, and pathologically depressed men.
Something tells me there will be a strong correlation...
Volume 1 of a new series concerning the various goings-on in Minsk, Belarus:
Sure we've all wanted to get lost in the new 22-story National Library built in 2006, attend a performance at the National Academic Big Opera and Ballet Theatre, explore the extensive trolleybus network, frolic in the vast primeval forest on a summer's day, and freeze our dicks/tits off in the winter while running naked in a vodka haze from discotheque to discotheque with a gang of troublesome local twentysomethings, but not all of us have the means or the stones to get to Belarus as often as we'd like.
Fortunately, Nothing Is Sacred correspondent Fabio Sandrelli generously volunteered to live in Minsk for a calendar year--on his own dime, naturally--in order to pen a weekly column that will bring the many-splendored highlights of living in Minsk to your bedroom when you need it most and where you won't be too far away from your favorite imperialist tidbits.
Please enjoy and keep reading!
-GTC
Fabio (right) receives his travel order from high command
11.01.2011 - OPERATION MINSK - DISPATCH 0001
Finally got my computer station set up in the houseboat. The satellite access along the Svislach River is either one of the worst I've encountered in my travels lately or I drank more vodka on the plane than I realized. Either way, I'm on the hook for at least a three-month rental of this Soviet-era icebreaker so I'll just have to make it work.
If I don't get a fire going soon I just might freeze to death tonight. As I step onto the aft deck to search for something to burn, the air hits me and appears to be on the sweeter side, while still bearing a slight trace of Mongols, Stalin, and Nazis, which are aparently a few of the more difficult scents to remove.
From what little I have seen of it so far (lunch outside the train station and a long cab ride to the boat yard), the city seems very proud of itself, of having risen where once there was nothing, of rebuilding time and time again after being ravaged by war.
Stout buildings of stone with labor-intensive architectural ornaments; grand boulevards crowded with automobiles and trams; monolithic museums, churches, and universities; smoke and noise, fur hats, hardy folk that don't talk too much and wear a lot of brown...I definitely need to improve my conversational Russian if I plan to enjoy myself here.
Anyway, nothing much seems to happening here for the time-being...wait--
I just translated the front page of a foreign newspaper in my head and it seems the government of "Europe's Last Dictator," Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, is threatening to assume legal guardianship of a three-year-old child of one of the leading opposition candidates for President. Lukashenko had the child's father and mother (a journalist) arrested during a raid in which government agents threw 7 of 9 opposition candidates in prison on trumped-up charges relating to a police riot against peaceful protesters and it appears he would like to ensure the child does a good long stretch in a state orphanage so that his parents get the message.
Here is a shortish clip that may or may not be from an episode of the Australian television show A Current Affair, which may or may not be a serious news program (verifiable information is scant):
Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch that never aired. Michael Palin hosting John Cleese would have been funnier, but points to these chaps for making a go of it.
Ladyboys on parade in a village outside Dayton, Ohio
BANGKOK, Thailand (Nothing is Sacred) - As the hard-working citizens of the Thai capitol prepare to bedazzle the salivating world media with the ornate costumes, navel jewelry, porcelain skin, and narrow hips that have skyrocketed ladyboys to the heights of fame, it is important to take a step back and remember why it is that people the world over have the day off work/school today.
No, it is not so that you have an opportunity to cloak yourself in ostrich feathers and alternate bong rips with keg stands in the kitchen at your grandparents' legendary annual celebration before safely acting on your latent bicuriosity with an intriguing stranger without fear of reprisal.
Candlelight vigil in support of ladyboys in Africa Unity Square, Harare, Zimbabwe
Rather, International Ladyboy Day seeks to remind the world of the countless atrocities committed by generations of haters against the peaceful ladyboy community. We live in an age where ladyboys can roam the streets without fear of hostility, with the assurance of earning a living wage for their efforts, with their heads held high and the world at their feet, and so we forget the world was not always so hospitable for their kind.
It wasn't long ago that being a ladyboy prohibited somebody from running for office or becoming a movie star, a captain of industry, professional athlete, etc. Discrimination was rampant, random acts of violence were common, wages were shockingly low, disease spread like wildfire...the ladyboy camp was running scared, rarely coming out of hiding, fearful for the future, dwindling in number, pretending to be something they were not.
Old Man Gunderson's barn in Wyoming, USA, was home to countless Ladyboys over the years, for a night or two. Funds are currently being raised for its preservation.
The now-famous Ladyboy Railroad that provided so many persecuted ladyboys passage to friendlier confines in Bangkok over the years--thanks to the selfless efforts of rural homesteaders and urban liberals the world over--was a key component in allowing the previously vulnerable ladyboys to assemble en-masse, lick their wounds, perfect complicated new sexual techniques, and come back stronger than ever, more numerous than ever, and more relatable than ever.
As a result of a pitch-perfect public relations campaign, an increasing supply of satisfied customers, and a general loosening of morals among younger generations and closeted politicians, ladyboy tolerance spread across the globe slowly but surely. However, while ladyboys are indeed everywhere these days, Bangkok will always be the spiritual home of their movement.
The Starbucks on Khaosan Road always has the most fabulous queue in Bangkok
Will the Ladyboy Parade in your small Norwegian mining town be as grand as that of Bangkok? Doubtful, but it is equally as important and I have no doubt the hors d'oeuvres will be fantastic, so get out there and have some fun, people of Earth!
Time to indulge in a few dozen buttery nipples and gather vital material required for me to report back tomorrow afternoon, as the world sobers up on its convenient 'sick day.'
Au revoir for now, mes amours,
GTC
Goodtime Charlie is the foremost expert on ladyboys and the author of several books on the subject, most recently, "Ladyboys in Love: A Thrilling Journey to the Frontier of Love," a New York Times Notable Book for 2010.
The ongoing saga of the Pirates Off the Horn of Africa (soon to be a best-selling trilogy of books/movies/video games aimed at the tween market, followed closely by a Broadway musical/traveling-ice-capade tandem to milk the parents dry until the remakes begin production) has just gotten a tad more interesting with the introduction of the sexiest thing in the world: lasers.
This just in from my contacts in London:
Sailors may soon have a weapon in their battle against sea-borne raiders: an anti-pirate laser.
BAE Systems has demonstrated its new laser system, which can temporarily blind would-be attackers. The system would prevent pirates from being able to aim their weapons at targets, BAE claims.
At distances of more than of between 1.2km (0.75 miles) and 1.5km (0.85 miles), the laser beam acts as a warning signal, letting the pirates know they've been spotted, said Brian Hore of BAE.
"Today's pirates tend to be opportunistic. If they know they've been spotted, they're likely to look for an alternative target," he told BBC News.
"At closer ranges, the green laser beam will dazzle them, making it difficult for the pirates to use weapons of their own" and rendering them physically unable to avoid dancing energetic ethnic steps to a John Williams score as Navy SEALs swoop in to gather the best performers in large canvas sacks to be airlifted to Central Casting in Los Angeles for further study, according to Brian "Dirty" Hore of BAE.
But the real question here is: are Somali pirates dazzled by lasers as sexy as vampires?
We aren't sure...
This is a valid concern and one which at the very least requires further taxpayer-subsidized research at entertainment think-tanks across Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
Can we lazily plug pirates into the age-old "star-crossed lover" routine with the same success evinced by the aristocrat/peasant, business heir/rival business heir, North/South, one religion/another religion, and vampire/mortal dynamics of years past?
Well, let's have a shot at the pitch and see what happens:
Milestones are meant to be reached, right? Congratulations, Internet--that is the only bright side I can see in this travesty:
That piece of garbage was viewed 126,558,675 before I ever heard of it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
There's no way around the fact that I feel dumber for having seen it, I worry that some innocent people out there might have seen it and unwisely viewed it as successful comedy worthy of imitation, there's no stopping it now, and it irritates me that the guys who made it have no doubt profited in some manner as a result of its creation.
On the other hand, it has ostensibly shown a lot of people a good time since its release--only 29,869 people officially DISLIKE it (please ignore the fact that only 24,299 people bothered to officially LIKE it).
Maybe this video is what America craves. Maybe the entertainment provided by this video is the reason generations of hard-scrabble immigrants bled to death tilling our soil and shaping our skylines. Maybe 2011 has ushered in the zenith of mankind's presence on Earth and not its nadir.
There was once a Dutchman named Robert Wolders. He was born in Rotterdam in September of 1936, to a man and a woman, although if you asked her, the woman did most of the work.
In 1965, Mr. Wolders became an actor, starred briefly in a TV show, but never achieved much success. By 1975, he decided to retire from acting and marry legendary Hollywood nutjob Merle Oberon.
Below are more than a few words about Merle Oberon, for your pleasure:
She was an exotic beauty born on the British side of Bombay to a British mechanical engineer working on the Indian Railways and her own (half) sister, Constance.
To hide this embarrassing bit of incestuous pedophilia, one of Merle's birth certificates listed her father's wife--a Eurasian from Ceylon with partial Maori heritage, who had Constance at age 14 with an Irish foreman of a tea plantation--as her mother and the story stuck.
Merle and her "mother" moved to England, where she dated a retired actor who passed her off to a studio in France when he realized her "mom" was dark-skinned and he was irretrievably racist. The "Sexy Extra All the Powerful Men Hit On at Craft Service" roles poured in and once famous director Alexander Korda got the hots and cast Merle as Ann Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), she was officially going places.
Alexander Korda, Merle Oberon, and Samuel "Thug" Goldwyn
Scarred for life in an automobile accident a mere four years later, skilled lighting technicians were at least able to hide Merle's disfigured face long enough for her to tear up the silver screen opposite Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939).
By the following year, Merle's face "suffered even further damage...from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs." Mr. Korda, now her husband, paid for several treatments at a skin clinic in Nueva York, but to no avail--without makeup she was hideous to behold.
So Mr. Korda decided to join the knighthood and make Merle a Lady, to give her something else to do with her time. Three years later, bored of being a Lady knight and day, Merle divorced her knight and married cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who then created a special light--the Obie--to obscure her facial scars on film.
That act of devotion fell short, however, and Merle married twice more--to Italian industrialist Bruno Pagliai (with whom she moved to Mexico and adopted two children) and the Most Interesting Man in the World, Mr. Robert Wolders--who is 25 years younger than her.
But only four years after Merle marries Robert Wolders, she dies at age 68.
What does the most interesting man in the world do when this happens? Why, he immediately becomes companion to Audrey Hepburn (7 years his senior), of course--ever the proper lady, she was waiting patiently for her turn on the Wolders, no doubt--and the two of them even hang out with the Reagmeister General:
Thirteen years later, in 1993, the honorable Audrey Hepburn dies on him, too, leaving Mr. Wolders all alone in frigid Switzerland. How does the most interesting man in the world cope with this tragedy?
He hops on a train to France, where he becomes the companion of another older woman, of course. Then-64-year-old screen legend Leslie Caron is a French dancer discovered by Gene Kelly in 1951 who went on to become a successful actress at MGM for decades and dance with every famous dancer whose name you have ever heard.
Alas, their torrid, Metamucil-tinged affair lasts only two years before the furnace goes kaput and Mr. Wolders moves on--for the first time?--without anybody dying.
Where does he go? Sadly, one can only speculate.
Here goes:
Immediately after french-kissing his goodbyes to dear Leslie, Mr. Wolders steals her 1964 Peugeot 404 convertible and drives all the way to Marseilles on the wrong side of the highway, chain-smoking a box of Cuban blunts given to him by Johnny Depp at his birthday party last year.
After six martinis and a few bottles of cheap cognac in the backroom of a rough-trade dockside saloon, Mr. Wolders gets himself into a card game and wakes up to find himself at-sea in a 45-foot sailboat named Skye.
Upon hearing several members of the crew refer to him as "Captain" (as in: "Captain, you have vomit in your beard."), Mr. Wolders commands his crew to pull into the nearest harbor for supplies and a bit of barbering.
After a killer haircut and the trading of most of their food, medical supplies, and lifeboats for several dozen barrels of rum, six pounds of beef jerky, a prostitute, and two fishing poles, Mr. Wolders and his crew are able to outrun a couple police officers and set sail for anywhere else.
The crew becomes family as they drift around the Mediterranean with Mr. Wolders for the next 15+ years, mastering kung-fu, running guns for the Russians, trying to get invited to parties along the Riviera, counterfeiting their own Cuban cigars, making their own sushi, experimenting with mind-altering drugs...and subsisting solely on the bounty of nature, the naivete of strangers, and the small fortune Mr. Wolders inherited from his two famous dead lovers.
The crew was not terribly pleased to have their berths converted to rum storage,
but they eventually got over it and embraced the good life.
When his love of the finer things in life--coupled with his innate distaste for labor of any kind--catches up with him, Mr. Wolders sees no other choice but to adopt a fake Mexican accent and resume acting under an assumed identity in commercials for Dos Equis.
It's the closest he can get to not working while still getting paid, so that's alright with him.
Yes, at 74 years of age and still kicking, life has been good to Robert Wolders. I wonder if the next 74 will be so kind?
"Ted Haggard to bounce back from that whole male-hookers and meth thing with a reality show." This Onion A/V Club article is well-worth a read.
And this article about Larry the Cable Guy's new show on the History Channel is just sad.
To cheer yourself up, read David Cross' 'Open Letter to Larry the Cable Guy' once more and put that smile back on your face for a while...oh, wait--the website he posted it to is now defunct.
WTF? Did he and Bob forget to pay their GoDaddy bill or something? Luckily I found something even better--David Cross reading said letter aloud. You're welcome.
Turns out everybody's favorite hero, Ted Williams (no relation to the now less-famous asshole baseball player), was not just some tragic homeless guy who found his resolve in teaching himself to sing the paint off a barn, but rather a homeless former radio announcer who had fallen on hard times due to drug and alcohol abuse, arrogance, the changing face of media, etc. Huh. No way around that being a disappointment when I hear the phrase "golden voice."
She hates when people use teleprompters (exceptions include John McCain, Sarah Palin, and herself)
If there is one successful type of person in this world who deserves to be homeless, it is "actors who read anything you tell them to say on camera and tell you they are journalists."
If there are two, I would add "radio and television announcers/hosts" to the list. How many of the oft-ridiculed "Pig & Mikein the Morning!" ass-hats--and the vain, less-talented hacks who were paid to "announce them"--were out there in this country before the radio bubble burst and 90% of radio talent got the axe? [This is a wild, unsubstantiated estimate. -Ed]
I hope things get better for all of you this year, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Or, wait a minute--I probably would...til I pass out while reclining in a bubble bath.
Hell can't be any worse, right? Might as well give it a shot.
The Oscars are not that far away, guys. What I'm trying to say here is that before all you nerds go home to fill out your Oscar pools this weekend while laying low with mud facials, martinis, and pre-awards-season bacne treatments, I think you should keep in mind this hot little tip: a donkey should have at least been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Award in 1966, but tragically was not even credited in the film.
The performance in question was written and directed by Robert Bresson, and the uncredited role of Donkey Saint was portrayed flawlessly by the brilliant but chronically unappreciated Balthazar.
Was dear Balthazar's performance too realistically donkey-like to be considered acting? Was he too method for the voting audience? Were all the other actors jealous enough to blackball him? Did he run away with beautiful Marie and just not give a donkey's cuss about getting his name out there?
We may never know--just like with the Oscars this year. Somebody will win the awards and some people will think other people (or donkeys) should have won them instead. Sigh. What can you do, right?
Ladies and gentlemen of taste, I'll tell you what you should do-- make Au Hasard Balthazar the extremely slow but clever and memorable movie you watch this weekend while most people in this country satisfy their baser urges with fast food, fake butter, and the nonagenarian antics of Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller.
You deserve a treat, after all, in these tough times. And so does Balthazar.
Paid for by the Campaign to Posthumously Nominate Balthazar the Donkey for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (CPNBDBSAC)
A mere glance at the poster for the new Vince Vaughn/Kevin James waste-of-time The Dilemma on my way to the sulphur mines this morning confirms what I have feared for a while now--Kevin James and Vince Vaughn have fused their hands together and are spinning around in circles laughing at each other's stale jokes as crumbs tumble from their bespittled lips, their jiggly centers of mass gradually moving closer to impact.
Eventually--I give it maybe two years, tops--their ever-enlarging torsos will collide, their bodies bursting into millions of pieces that will continue to orbit Hollywood along the same path until these little turdlettes coalesce into one larger, more formidably awful superturd that will indubitably acquire several sycophantic moons in the Brett Ratner mold and reign over a large swath of Hollywood for many years to come.
A bone-chilling reminder that the continuing evolution of the universe is not always a good thing; in fact, the creation/destruction cycle puts our odds at only 50%.
