Galactica ends

Battlestar: Galactica is ending, which is bad news for fans of smart, dark science fiction. I'd like at least once for them to do the title screen appropriately, with "STARRING JAMIE BAMBER'S TRICEPS." And then, after that, in tiny letters, "ALSO: JAMIE BAMBER." You've gotta love any future society where the required uniform involves sleeveless shirts.

What I find kind of impressive about the series was that the theme song was from the Rig Veda - its a hymn in praise to Savitar, which makes its theme song thousands of years older than the Bible. I watch a lot of Bollywood movies, and the amazing thing is, you watch enough subtitled you start to be able to pick out words: Mata = mother, agni = fire (as in to ignite). If you love languages as much as I do, it's fascinating to examine. North Indian languages are actually close cousins to European ones.

After CHILDREN OF MEN and PAN'S LABYRINTH were extremely popular, I was excited that a lot of the dark, adult variety of science fiction that I like would finally make it to screen. Naturally, this was overoptimistic.

If Iraq taught us anything, the key to understanding events isn't economics, or engineering or metal shop, but social studies. To understand why people in Hollywood make bad decisions, just look at Los Angeles itself: as George Carlin said, "no one reads, and there's cilantro on everything."

Wear the Scarlet Letter

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, atheists and those with no religious beliefs are now the third-largest group in the United States, and the fastest-growing behind Catholics (who have grown largely due to Latino immigration in the Southwest).

If you subscribe to the idea of a rational world without supernatural elements, wear the "scarlet letter" and come out to your family and friends.

Kirk Morris!

Kirk Morris is one of the most spectacular profiled, muscular actors to ever play Hercules. For one thing, he looks exactly like friggin' Jake Ryan from SIXTEEN CANDLES. Seriously!

Interestingly enough, Kirk Morris was, along with Alan Steel, one of the few homegrown (and we mean grown!) Italian actors to star in the sixties peplum boom. His real name is Adriano Bellini, and he was a gondolier in Venice when he was discovered by Cinecitta. Presumably, some producer's wife saw him with his shirt off in the Venice canals or something.

His movie, THE WITCH'S CURSE, was a remake of MACISTE AL'INFERNO (which I've written about before, remember?), which was supposedly Federico Fellini's favorite childhood movie.

The first place I ever heard of Kirk Morris was in his film COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS, which is only made watchable because it was on Mystery Science Theater 3000, lampooned by Mike and the 'bots with their usual panache. The most interesting scenes are the ones where it's obvious they used extremely short, skinny actors to make Adriano look downright gigantic.

Happy Pi Day

“If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.”
- Alfréd Rényi

March 14th, or 3/14, is a good day to celebrate that most irrational of numbers, 𝚷. Pi is a mathematical constant used to reflect the ratio of a circle’s radius to its circumference. It’s a truly magic number – use it to 11 places, and can position a point on the planet earth accurate to a millimeter. Use it to 29, it can calculate the position of a hydrogen atom in the visible universe. In geometry, it’s usually used to figure out integrals that describe radius and circumference of circles, whereas in Calculus, it’s an important part of Gaussian’s integral, and just about any calculation that involves a physical universe.

Visit the Official Pi Day Website!

This website contains Pi up to one million places

I have a lot of good memories related to Pi Day. I was the only girl in my High School Engineering Club, where for the most part our days were spent in a gym, while our teacher showed us taped episodes of MACGYVER.

For those interested in Mathematics, check this great intro-level book out, by Winnie from the Wonder Years:



FACT: Movie star Natalie Portman, a Harvard grad and math student under her real name of Natalie Herschlag, has published several articles on mathematics.

Visit Brian's Drive-In

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this old internet warhorse of a site, Brian's Drive-In, which has been up and running since Clinton's first term.

Brian's Drive-In

He has galleries and images related to fifties beefcake and cheesecake, including profiles of all the actors that have ever played Hercules, Tarzan and Maciste.

Back when I was a Geology major as an undergrad, I heard a professor of mine say that searching for information on the internet is a little like dumpster-diving. I'm often absolutely amazed by very silly people that believe the Internet has made libraries irrelevant. For one thing, the amount of information on the internet is pretty darn shallow, and you need go no further than googling a lot of old b-movie muscle stars. Unless they're a role as high-profile as Tarzan, almost nothing is on about them - just look up Gordon Mitchell (star of GIANT OF METROPOLIS and ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS and see what happens.

Look many stars up, the only truly relevant search result is Brian's Drive-In, and even his website can hardly be said to have in-depth profiles on any given actor. And finally, Brian's Drive-In is pre-YouTube, and pre-embedding, so his webpage hardly dances and sings, which adds to its old-fashoined quality.

BOYS BEWARE!

This 1950s instructional vid on the creeping menace of homosexuality, sensationally titled BOYS BEWARE! has to be seen to be believed.



What's really amazing is, if you make the whole scenario a little less creepy, it can actually double for a gay wank fantasy! Young boy befriends a cool older guy that he becomes friends with and confides in...

Seeing something like this, I come to the conclusion that we're a heck of a lot smarter than our parents' and grandparents' generation was. All through this entire article there are a million points that set off a big flashing red light that makes us go WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Yet alas, our narrator pays them no mind.

If your parents are boomers (mine came in at the late end of the baby boom), the one thing they've probably hysterically incalculated in you is that EVERYTHING CAN KILL YOU. It takes something like this to show us that the world is, actually, fundamentally safe. Most people that hitchhike actually survive, for instance.

Take the Great American Challenge!

I've always been a "size queen," so the usual discreet little pinky finger clip-on that slips comfortably in a purse was never really enough for me.

Thankfully, there's "The Great American Challenge," which is the only adult plaything that can also double as a cudgel for use by police officers, club bouncers, and Vikings. No matter how big you think it is, it's bigger, perfect for those of us that fantasize about genital monsters and atom-bomb beasts.

Having handled one with my boyfriend at a high-end couples adult novelty store in Williamsburg, let me say one thing the catalogs won't tell you: it's heavy. So shockingly big that it feels like it's made of lead, and for someone of my size to lug it around a store was something of an exertion.

I'm not making a single cent off of these, just pointing out the existence for the benefit of the readership.

Buy it here.

All this brings up an interesting discussion topic, especially if you're an insecure male: does size matter?

The answer is maybe. Super-size queens are relatively rare. And truth be told, as amused as I am by a toy like this, in a relationship a monster member wouldn't even make the top 20 list of important characteristics. So rest easy, tiny guys!

Unless of course you joust and vanquish your opponent by "penis fencing," the way some species of snails do.

FUN FACT: the animal with the largest penis in proportion to its size is the hermaphroditic gooseneck barnacle, with a penis 40 times its body weight and size. The giant pork sword developed as barnacles are sessile.