But on the plus side, I’m doing a lot of baking.
Dave Bowman: You see, something’s going to happen. You must leave.
Heywood Floyd: What? What’s going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.
We have a new website, lots of new content, and we’re all really excited that one of our new writers is a real live lesbian! (Weak Nights is already thick with gay men.)
Head on over our new site, unless you just came from there, in which case go back now!
I knew any exhibit as obtuse as the one I saw at Comic-Con this weekend had to be about The Prisoner! I visited the address on the card I was handed: 70.87.154.219. After staring at an unhelpful splash screen for an awkwardly long time, eventually the site loaded: six screens of 6 x 6 images apiece. All I had to do to unlock their hidden meaning was to click on images with six of something in them. I’m starting to detect a theme here…
Anyway, here are some of the images I found which worked for me.
- six red locks on teal wooden door
- 6 sign on green brick wall
- black stadium seats among red seats
- roulette wheel on 6
- six-fingered hand
- rotary phone face all 6’s
- six stacked stones against blue sky
- digital stock chart
- six diamonds
- Q-bert blocks
Pictures with six things in them, easy enough. This list can also be described as “things they already know at kotaku, io9 or toplessrobot”, but I thought I’d list it here anyway. After you solve this little puzzle, it takes you to a place to enter your email address, then dumps you out on an already available blog following the remake of The Prisoner. The number they gave me is 590875… but I refuse to answer to it.
And thus my viral marketing role is fulfilled. Enjoy!
Cracked recently ran a scathing litany of 5 Terrible Life Lessons Hollywood Loves to Teach You. It is just painful to read because I can make no solid argument against what Cracked is saying; in particular what they have to say about the irony of casting corporations as villains:
Each and every one of these films are made by a corporation every bit as huge and unfeeling as the ones being portrayed in the movies (and the Walt Disney corporation could crush all of them like a grape). There’s almost something condescending about the way enormous companies are willing to cast themselves as the villains, knowing we’ll give them more of our money to watch it.
Speaking of Disney, in the movie WALL-E the earth has been ruined by the excesses of humanity, fueled by a greedy, uncaring, ubiquitous corporation with the cute name of Buy ‘N Large. But here is the thing I don’t get: if Buy ‘N Large is the corporation that made everything, then they’re the same ones that created WALL-E, the robot who saved humanity, and they also made EVA, a robot tasked with finding plant life, a sign welcoming people back to earth — www.buynlarge.com even says they make robots. So wouldn’t this mean the big, bad corporation that caused this mess is also the one with a plan to solve it? Surely someone within Buy ‘N Large was looking out for people after all.
Sadly, I don’t think this was the message the movie intended.
Ralphs Baker: Chef, what topping should I put on these cupcakes?
Chef throws the baker a bag of fun-size Snickers bars
Ralphs Baker: Do you want me to …unwrap them?
Chef stares daggers at the Ralphs Baker
And that is how you make the laziest cupcakes in Ralphs.
A couple of friends found more posts about the Watchmen ad winners!
Television Without Pity has a story on the Watchmen ad, along with links to five of their favorites, including my own Ozymandias toy ad! It’s so satisfying to see people picking up on the nuances I put into the video, like the mispronunciation of “Ozymandias” by the disinterested A/V tech in the video’s pre-roll. You may also notice the copyright at the end is in roman numerals, which while not that unusual, is a touch I think Veidt would have insisted on.
The ads also showed up on sci-fi blog io9, which included four of their favorite videos — guess which familiar toy ad makes an appearance? I’m really excited that people like the ad enough to keep posting it. While you’re there, you may want to also check out a Veidt hairspray ad that is so 80s it’s almost unhealthy.
My Ozymandias commercial was picked as one of the winners in YouTube’s Watchmen ad contest, so thanks again to the people who helped as well as everyone who voted — I couldn’t have done it without your help! I’ve won a chance to have my ad shown in the Watchmen movie, and enough money to put off going back to work for at least another week.
Maybe I should put a less-poor quality version online?
File under: impotent nerd rage, big-time important stuff
I’m sorry to report that “Home Is Where The Hate Is” has been the first lame episode of The Venture Bros.
*DISAPPOINTING SPOILER ALERT*
The hilarious and edgy aside about Sergeant Hatred’s pedophilia problem alluded to in season two was blandly dragged out only in service of a couple of toothless gags. The bomb in Dr. Venture’s back, sure to unravel Sgt. Hatred’s career and also the endgame in The Monarch’s henching plans? Ends in a fizzle. Literally. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what Dr. Girlfriend’s murderous moppets would do once they caught 24 and 21, or what plan the henchman would form to escape the tiny terrors, only to have the episode proper end with them still on the run. Again, no ending. It’s like the writers simply gave up 2/3rds of the way through. You’ll notice even Brock is disinterested in the episode’s proceedings.
I can accept the episodes that are light on action because they usually advance the characters, but this takes two minor footnotes (The Monarch moves into Phantom Limb’s place, Sgt. Hatred runs a by-the-book henching arching of Dr. Venture) and stretches them out into a mediocre 22 minutes. After last week’s episode — or the exceptional, mind-blowing season three opener — I know what the writers are capable of. This isn’t even close.
*END OF DISAPPOINTING SPOILERS, I HOPE*
You can buy a tee-shirt commemorating the worst episode yet of Venture Bros, but why?
I got a massive response yesterday from my friends asking them to vote for my Watchmen video and I wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted!
The voting session is now closed, and the winners will be announced on Monday. I haven’t waited on test results like this since that time in college.
So today is the official 24 hour voting period for the Watchmen contest on youtube, and I need everyone’s help. You need to go to the Watchmen page on youtube and click on ‘Vote’.
From there, search for my video by typing ‘timtoon’ into the search box. Next my video will show up; click to watch it. If you like it, please vote it a thumbs-up!
The contest is here: http://www.youtube.com/watchmenmovie
I don’t want to sound too severe, but this may be the most important vote you cast in your entire life.