Thanks, Longboxes!

So I hate to open this can of worms but how does a light saber work. I assumed it was powered in part by the Force.

That's priceless, Bruce.

So, I notice the public comments and ratings are disabled for the YouTube video, which I think misses the point of this as a social media punishment. For the punishment to be fitting, this should be the internet equivalent of putting people in the stocks in the village square. We should all be able to make nasty comments about them.

JG Ballard had stories about people being conditioned to not sleep also. In Ballard's stories, everything works fine... for a while.

I loved it. What an amazing work on so many levels. Great animation, great collage, a pleasure to watch, and the narrative - presenting it naturally without undermining it - I don't know what to say; I'm a churchgoer who has always found Chick tracts offensive but amusing and I found this uplifting.

This seems like a good time to tell you GREETIINGS BELOVED I am John Mumbaw, barrister, of the Republic of Freedonia. Forgive me for sweetest contact inall manner possible but I have a business transaction for to offer...

LMAO @ Falcon Seven! hahaha!

Um, carry on.

I love it.

Interesting, Dennison!

Reminds me of several JG Ballard short stories.

Man, you guys did the same thing as me. When I quit was when I got into martial arts. But I also indulged myself in video games. This was more than ten years ago and I used to hit the arcade (tha arcade!) and shoot pool every time I had a craving. So, yeah, same thing.

With quitting, you can get the nicotine out of your system in like 5 days but changing yourself psychologically is the hard part. For me, that meant going vegetarian, hitting the gym and taking up martial arts. I started drinking more, too, but that could be at least in part because my taste buds returned and I started liking wine and scotch a lot more.

The one of the dad holding the baby, and then the grown up baby now looking exactly like his dad holding the next generation - that's awesome. So many good ones. Thanks for publishing my submission, Boing Boing!

What an awesome story. I LOVE that stationary.

Did you read the comments at Jeremy's post? Because something similar happened to several people responding - including ME! I guess Marvel's policy of publishing addresses lead to a lot of pen pal link-ups back then, not all of them, uh, with very happy endings!

I have a little crush on Wendy Wilson now, though.

Gosh, a lot of really thoughtful comments here. I really agree with Semiotix' take on it. It's a pretty good rant, bt cms ff s cndscndng nd nhlpfl s tht whch h crtczs. I'm interested in his thesis, though, of evangelical Christianity as cultural expression. The struggle for identity in these black-and-white culture wars has lead for Christians themselves to distance themselves from evangelicalism at the same time they they are vaguely evangelical. Witness the emerging church movement.

christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html

If you've been reading Here Comes Everybody, as I have, you might think, "Ah! A new organization has formed rapidly and with little or no transaction costs. But, a certain amount of failure will be inherent in the project due to the publish-then-filter practice!"

Oh, wow. I have all the issues in the first four trade paperbacks but haven't yet read beyond that. Amazing move by an amazing comics team.

And, um, I had a HUGE crush on Winnowill. So scared... yet so turned on...

Is it just me or is the Alan Watts one broken?

Oh, this is awesome, congratulations!

NOTHING TO SEE HERE! MOVE ALONG! All criticism of of valuable trading partner, China, should be ignored. Enjoy the Olympics, folks!

I was thinking that, too, Jim. I find this a bit dubious:

...However, the fact that the older children flattered strangers as well as familiar people suggests “they are thinking ahead, they are making these little social investments for future benefits.”

...Maybe the children are just imitating how their parents and other role models behave? Usually, these people constantly praise the children, and children simply imitate that because that's how one behaves.

@Gareth - True, but the article takes some heavy hitters in marketing head on. I work in that field, myself, and I find Watts' ideas as expressed here very compelling. In fact, they echo what I've been thinking about marketing for some time. My POV has always been that if you have a product or something you're trying to sell, an idea, a service, whatever, you should get it into the hands of as many people as possible and let it speak for itself. You never know who the real "influencer" is going to be, so the more the merrier, which is I think Watts' critical point.

I was taught the nod as a waiter and I never used it because it just seemed like a gimmicky waste of time. The idea was you nod when you upsell. As in, "We also have a special today on..." nod when you say it. Meh! I just wanted to get people their damn food and make them comfortable.

I have become a big, big fan of Orwell's essays, after admiring his fiction for years. He's really clear and interesting (although his political writing usually has me reaching for wikipedia or the like).

Hey, check this out. "The D Brand."

http://www.metromodemedia.com/features/dbrand0051.aspx

So neat to see this on Boing Boing. Great pictures. I'm from this area, too, and have been in some of these buildings.

I have this kinda whacky idea that Detroit should cordone off sections of industrial ruins like these, preserve them, and sell the use of the them as sets to Hollywood, perhaps offers some major tax incentives to do film work here. I'm sure that would never happen, though, as it doesn't put the best face on a city that has a number of political problems. Detroit wants to be thought of as "the vibrant Super Bowl city" or "the casino city," not "the urbex city!"

Very sad to hear this! You'll be happy to know that I just started reading Ballard. I've started with 1978's "The Best Short Stories Of."

This is great. I love how, since having kids, the songs and skits from their shows have worked their way into our lives and in-jokes.

@ Thordora - in SE Michigan we get CBC and my sons LOVE the morning programs. But some of them have related toys, DVDs and such that are only available in Canada. Specifically, my son loves a program called "Lunar Jim" (which I also adore, except that it gets a number of things wrong about life on the moon, like vegetation and such - come on, it's never too early to take our sci fi seriously!). But my point is Lunar Jim toys and such are only available in Canada. So when we have relatives go over there they stop into the stores for us and we hide them til birthdays/Christmas.

Kyle, that's a very good point. I can't think of a single other religion in which you have to pay to read the texts or participate in the practice.

Some of you have also made good points about fair use, too (a topic I don't have a very deep understanding of). I'm all for Scientology going more public with its content - the more the merrier, in my opinion.

I'm from outside of Detroit, too!

So, I'm confused. How are you supposed to crack the heads of striking teamsters and hippies in this thing?

They are all over the playgrounds in my area (the metal ones) and we play with them all the time.

Fascinating discussion.

As a raised-Catholic-practicing-Protestant/non-denominationalist, I have always, and always will, have a place in my heart for Catholic kitsch. Plastic dashboard saints, murals, creepy babies, creches, you name it, I love it. I am drawn to gift shops like these like a... well, what would be the comparison?

I like Elvis paraphanelia, too, though not with the same nostalgic religious fervor... my love of Bruce Lee-related junk approaches the spiritual, however.

This is all kinds of awesome, as are the thoughtful comments on this thread.

I, too, wish they had correctly spelled "resurrect."

Gold! Thank you. I've read some of Ritchie's work on Japanese film, so I'd really like to read this peculiar work. But I'll enjoy digging through the other lists, too. These kinds of recommendations are invaluable to me, as a reader.

Japan is the only nation on earth willing to take the Zentradi question seriously.

They have mechs. When the poop goes down, they will be the ones to protect us.

This reminds me of the time I sent a card from San Fran to my dad that said simply, "Come away from there, Jake. It's just Chinatown." Unsigned. So he starts calling a buddy of his, blurting quotes from the movie, and hanging up. Buddy is freaking out but finally connects that it's my dad pranking him and straightens my dad out that it was not him who sent the card. So my dad thinks, Hunh, if it's not my buddy who sent this? Wait, the handwriting...

Prank calls his brother, my uncle! Hahaha! Finally connects it to me. Well-played!

We are Polish, too, so I would love to pull this on my pops...

So cool. We had a place in Ypsilanti, MI that, if I am remembering right, is a storefront church AND gospel record store AND hair salon. That's just how some folks do church.

I've no attribution on this, so delete it if you can't find a source:

Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was the original inspiration for Donkey Kong. Mario and Kong were based on puppets Rogers made but ultimately rejected for his show. While screwing around between takes Rogers created a story of a Czech janitor trying to scale a series of ladders to....

Nah, you guys are better at this than me!

This pleases me on so many levels. I may have to watch that Goodbye clip for a good cry.

One of my favorite internet myths was that Fred Rogers always wore long sleeves to hide his tats, that he was this stone-cold ex Navy SEAL killer. I wanted that to be true.

Spielberg's been off his game for years, IMO. Always ends his movies with these tacked on, forced happy endings. Just my opinion.

This Tideland looks great!

http://www.tidelandthemovie.com/main.html

Terry Gilliam would be awesome, yes!

Good point, Nelson. I was a big fan of the Disney version as a kid.

Those of you who are suggesting that some babies, in fact, need a touch to feel comfortable have really NAILED it. As a parent, I find this both creepy and intriguing. But the puns are out of HAND.

I, too, love Alice but have the same misgivings of a film version as those expressed here.

By the way, anyone interested in the new trend in Lewis Carroll scholarship? Shoot, where was that web site...

Here we go.

http://www.lewiscarroll.cc/

Basically, most scholars of Carroll's personal life have assumed he was a repressed pedophile who never acted on his impulses. But a small body of scholars believes this is a myth that has self-perpetuated and that Carroll was, in fact, quite normal sexually, and that his odd (to us) behaviors can be lumped under the banner of the Victorian cult of the child. Doesn't help that Carroll's extensive journaling and correspondence is missing a year's worth of documentation that was destroyed for reasons unknown after his death.

Gabriel, that's Bing-Bong, isn't it? (It took me a minute to figure out that "K'Shawndra" was being funny, then I giggled out loud!)

I'm fascinated by him, too by his unsung role in the culture (and I'm glad this film is addressing that!). It sounds like he just went off the deep end, mentally (and in the martial arts community, he wouldn't be alone!). Can't wait to see this movie, I've been following its story online.

Oh, wow. The couple that..... together?

Boy, art is getting so weird these days, and I love it. So much of the art Boing Boing seems to like is... well, what would you call it? Pop art?

I have some close friends that are artists and they probably hate this stuff for not being highbrow enough, but I love it.

What a trip! I was just thinking this morning about how well James M. Cain describes some of the things referenced in this post. In particular, I was reading Cain's "Love's Lovely Counterfeit" on my bus ride in. The main character is "a chiseler," a criminal who's not all the way bad but, obviously, not all the way straight. In this short novel, Cain allows other characters to sketch in this aspect of the chiseler, and the character further reveals his chiseler-ness through his actions. James M. Cain, I think, was a master when it came to accomplishing this depth of characterization with just the right touch.

I'd love to get my hands on this Nelms book. Wonder how well I'd do at some of the used book stores in my area...

Criminy, I REMEMBER these!

This mashup makes me so happy. Not only did I visit the Haunted Mansion as a child, I had the record with this narration on it, and used to scare myself and my kid brother with it all the time by listening to it in the dark. Of course, I also dug Bauhaus as a teenager. Throwing these two together is bringing up all kinds of thrilling emotional associations!