The American trailer for Beat Takeshi's Zatoichi is up. It's the story of a blind samurai. I just watched the original film recently. It was smart, fun entertainment.
I like Takeshi as an actor. As a director I'm a little leary. His movie "Fireworks" was much praised by the critics. But I don't know. It was certainly good, but it wasn't as powerful as I expected. On the other hand, I really enjoyed his film "Brother," which most critics didn't like.
Apparently, Miramax has picked up Zatoichi for distribution in the States. I'm looking forward to it.

Director of Versus rumored to be making 50th anniversary Godzilla movie. Versus was one sicko action/zombie flick, made with humor and really fast pacing. I loved it. I can't imagine what he would do with a Godzilla film.

Take a tour through the German cannibal's house.

Chupacabras are living in a mine in Chile. On the other hand, this nonsequitir at the end kind of throws me off:
"In a spectacular display of willful ignorance, big media recently announced that Bigfoot doesn't exist. In this fascinating, fun book, Loren Coleman shows that it just isn't true. There's plenty of evidence, and the media should be ashamed of itself. "
What that has to do with chupacabras, I don't know.

Here's an article on how Deja Vu happens. Here's an article on how Deja Vu happens. (I know, lame joke. Sorry.)

An explanation of the belief that the soul weighs 21 grams.

Only in San Francisco would somebody propose making feng shui the design principle for new buildings.

Jon Thompson says he'll find Amelia Earhart's plane by the third day of his deep-sea search in March.

Ed Gorman, horror and mystery writer, has his own blog at Ed's Place. I haven't had a chance to check it out (besides his review of "The Darker Side" an excellent little horror anthology), but I'm sure it'll be good.

The New York Post ruminates on getting fired for running a blog. I enjoyed this part:
"And when bloggers fall victim to self-inflicted catastrophes, Ljdrama.com becomes their reality check. "This site exists to point out the hypocrisy of people taking out drama on the Internet and then whining when people notice," says Ljdrama's Hep, who has no sympathy for the dumped or fired blogger.
"'People think just because it has the word 'journal' in the title, that [a blog] should be treated like a paper journal that you keep under their bed,' she says. 'But it's on the Internet! I don't have any pity for these people.'"

Bush and Blair have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, for, you know, launching a war. How better to express peace than through war?

A Georgia school system considers banning the word 'evolution' from its curriculum and replacing it with "biological changes over time." The superintendent justifies it this way:
"Cox repeatedly referred to evolution as a "buzzword" Thursday and said the ban was proposed, in part, to alleviate pressure on teachers in socially conservative areas where parents object to its teaching."
How weak kneed is that. I know teachers have to deal with a lot of silly pressure over this whole creationism movement, but there are some places where you have to stand up and do what's right. Changing the name clutters up the language for no reason. Teach evolution, call it evolution and explain what it is. Then kids will have their own chance to decide whether they believe in evolution or creationism.

Punxutawney Phil predicts more winter weather. In Nebraska, they apparently don't have groundhogs, so a woman dressed as a groundhog will have to do. Here's a little history of the holiday. And what would Feb. 2 beg without groundhog carols?

Man sells nothing on eBay. Winning bid is $11.85 (in U.S. dollars). Here's part of the sales pitch:
"My wife tells me I offer her nothing at all times and has threatened to leave me because of it. So I am reluctantly forced to choose between nothing and her. If anybody would like to offer me nothing for my wife I would be happy to consider. No, just kidding. The wife stays and the nothing goes!"
Oh yeah, there's a picture of nothing as well.
(Link found via
Cylindrical Primate Storage Unit.)

Fish Piercing. Article contains picture of pierced fish and interview with the guy who thought this was a good idea.

Engineering geek Jon Blake Cusack names son Jon Black Cusack Version 2.0. That will be a happy family life.

Planecrashes into the water off Lagos. But Nigerian officials claim it's false because no planes are reported down. It has been termed a unidentified flying object. Obviously it was a sea & air craft belonging to the Atlanteans. Duh.

Boston Globe article asks if we're in a golden age of conspiracy.

The majority of candidates in this presidential election have graduated from Yale. Also, it looks like we'll have the first election fight between two Skull and Bones members, the exclusive secret society that also included members like Howard Taft, Henry Luce, William F. Buckley and the elder Bush. You can find more on Skull and Bones here, here, here and here.
Here's the classic Ron Rosenbaum Esquire article on the group.

OK, I've done it. I've changed my comments generator. I've chosen HaloScan, which appears to work well on other people's blogs. Please try it out for me and see how (and if) it works. Hopefully we won't have all the crashes and other problems I had with the last comments generator.