His new show, Dollhouse, stars Eliza Dushku, known to fans of Buffy and Angel for her character "Faith", known to most teenage girls from the movie Bring It On, and known to most boys by word of mouth (^_·) .

Rather than rehash the explanation of the series, I'll just quote Fox's description, which is also quoted at eonline.com:

Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

It sounds like a really cool concept. Reminiscent of The Clonus Horror/The Island. I'm really excited to start watching. Spread the word so we can keep Fox from killing Joss' work!

Read more on E!

Pushing Daisies has a very interesting plot in that lead character Ned, played by Lee Pace, can bring the dead back to life. When he touches a corpse, the person springs to life. When he touches them again, they go back to being dead. There is a caviate however. If he leaves a formerly-dead person alive more than 60 seconds, someone in their proximity dies instead. Quite the double-edged sword, that.

Ned grew up to be a pie baker, due to series of events one learns in the first episode, but puts his extraordinary talent to work by reviving the murdered to find their killers, and collecting the reward (split with his P.I. partner played by Chi McBride).

Don't be fooled, friends, for this isn't just another tired TV show with a flashy plot! I don't even know where to start with how great this show is. There is a strong undercurrent of a star-crossed lovers story in at least the first episode that had me tearing up and awwww-ing. The rest of the time I was laughing or just terribly entertained.

The characters are both endearing and wonderfully acted with Anna Friel playing Ned's love interest Charlotte Charles, and Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene (who played Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors) playing her neurotic aunts (I shouted in delight when I saw Ellen).

This show has amazing visuial styling that looks as if tim burton himself designed the sets. There is a definate flavor of excentricity and morbid flare, and you can definately see the Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls in the overall feeling of the show.

As if all of this just was not enough, actor/singer/vocal worker Jim Dale MBE, the voice of the U.S. Harry Potter Audio books, does the narration in that wonderfully musing and sing-song tone. He adds a fairy-tail like quality to the whole show, and if you think I'm overstating how good he is, he's won a Grammy Award, 4 Grammy nominations, and 7 freakin' Audie Awards!

I may seem like an overanxious promoter of this new series, but I really have just fallen in love with this show and cannot wait to see the next episode. Please do give it a watch.

Pushing Daisies airs Wednesday nights at 8e/7c on ABC in the US, and on CTV Canada and ITV1 in the UK.

Man, so much to rant about. As far as the Mooninite thing, I was going to be brief but I can't hold my tongue. Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York all didn't bat an eyelash at these effin' lite-brights, and thats all they really were. They weren't "hoax devices" because there was no hoax. It was marketing. At best you could call them street art, and at worst they are improvised billboards.

So, New York, (and I hate to bring this up, but it makes a good point) the place were 9/11 happened, didn't get scared in the least at these home-made light-brights, but Boston feels the need not only to freak out, but their Mayor says he's "outraged" and that an apology isn't enough.

They claim the responsible parties should pay for the "estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost the city to respond to the bomb scares", but who turned it into a "bomb scare"? The City. Not the creators, not turner, not [Adult Swim] or the advertising group. No, it was the City of Boston, and they need to pay for their own alarmist behavior.

My point is this: Mayor Thomas Menino and all the other alarmists in Boston are a bunch of pussies. I hate use crude language for fear of sounding ignorant, but thats exactly what they are: big, whiny pussies.

The upshot to all of this is the fact that since all publicity is good publicity, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (The show that "Err" is from) is going to get more attention than they ever dreamed of.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm off to spray-paint a picture of a bob-omb on Faneuil Hall.

Update: Jesse made us this lovely Anti-Terrorism poster:

General

Adam's website is mostly cool things he's either made or collected over the years, and the general section basically introduces this, and gives you some background on the inventive and funny Mr. Savage. There isn't a lot to see here, so let's move on...

Commercial

Adam has worked in the Special Effects industry for years, and this section displays some of the work he's done for various companies. Among them are a laser cut acrylic crane for First Union Bank, a torture device for Pizza Hut's Mr. Bill, and a half-scale model of the Mars Viking Lander, which I particularly like, since I'm fascinated with Mars. He also talks about his work on the Coca-Cola commercial "Contraption" which was nominated for a Clio, but I can't for the life of me find a version of it anywhere online *sigh*.

Design

This Section showcases Adam's skill in sculpture and design. He has some great work here, especially if you have eclectic taste. I like the Frankenstein Biker Heart, Dolphin Spine, bionic eye, M1900 9-barrel, and of course the map of Middle earth.

TV Show

The TV Show pretty much just has some shots from the show. Nothing new to see here so we'll move on.

Film

Adam has worked on some of my favorite films, like Star Wars, Space Cowboys,
A.I., and Bicentennial Man.

The eye-checker and robot pieces are two of my favorites from Bicentennial man. The eye-checker is extremely well done.

He's also made some tiny sets for films like Space Cowboys and Titanic. Adam also showed off his fake radiator in one of the Mythbusters special.

Well, thats all there is to Adam Savage's site. There isn't a whole lot to write about, because its all visual! Go check it out, its worth the time, and if you did follow along, I hope you enjoyed perusing his collected works as much as I did. Stay strange people!

The best part is that it is not a flashy mindless thrown-together sort of TV show. The hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are Visual Effects professionals who attack every myth using the scientific method, use physics and science researched by a crack team of behind-the-scenes specialists, and test each myth tirelessly and thoroughly to make sure their findings are correct.

I love the show so much that I've made DVDs of every episode, and I encourage you to watch every episode you can, however you can get your hands of them. The subject matter is fascinating. The hosts, including the "build team", are hilarious, with Adam and Jamie having a classic Double Act relationship. You'll probably even learn something while watching. And lets face it, these guys are doing things we can only do in our wildest dreams.

So, now that I've professed my affliction for this marvelous show, we can get down to what sparked all this. For some reason I came across links to both the M5 website (M5 is Jamie Hyneman's visual effects company), and Adam Savage's website. These weren't hard to find mind you, I just hadn't ever looked for them before. Both websites have a lot of really neat stuff for both Mythbusters fans, and those just interested in the cool, weird, unusual, and funny.

First, lets highlight some neat pages at M5...

Portfolio

The Portfolio, as you might imagine, makes up the bulk of the site. Here you will find a comprehensive list of Visual Effects projects M5 has undertaken over the years. There are Commercials, Films, and Prototypes. This area is still in progress, so some of the project pages are lacking description or images, but most are there. M5 has created puppets, models, robots, and all manner of gadgets over the years.

Of particular interest are This ingenious Chef Boyardee rolling can, The massive Monkeybone set, The famous 7-Up vending tank, and of course this great vintage shot of young Hyneman!

I'd like to see video links here, maybe from youtube/google video, alas not today.

Inside M5

This section is really neat because it gives us a sneak peek into M5I's inner workings. As you've seen on Mythbusters, there are artifacts stuffed and dangling all over the place from past builds and projects. We also see some build tools like band and table saws, caulk, paint supplies, and CAD equipment. Also hanging out in M5I is a chatty rat, I believe from the Junkyard Wars commercial, and one of the guys from Naked Lunch looking like an alien autopsy photo. I'm not linking these, to encourage you to hunt them down yourself.

Staff

The staff section has a little bit about a couple of the people that make M5 function. As a side note, I stumbled upon this page by Cris Rocha who is apparently renting his family's Villa, lol.

Departments

The Departments section gives us a look at the different areas of M5 that go into creating these crazy concoctions. Among them are the Modelshop, Moldmaking, Machine shop, Painting, Woodshop, Robotics, Electronics, Welding, and Fabrication.

The Machine shop is where their two-time champion BattleBot Blendo was constructed.

Press

The press area is that last area of the M5I site (besides Contact, which is just for companies wanting to hire M5). In this section you can view Article excerpts from magazines M5's creations have been featured in.

Well, thats about all the fun stuff on the M5 Industries page. I really enjoy looking at the projects they've done in the past. I hope you do too!

I've decided to split this into a two-parter, and Adam Savage's website has some really zaney stuff, so check out part two here.

Sure, it has a silly name, but if you want to get your whole family involved in hours of fun, want to experience revolutionary gameplay, and don't want to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for a gaming system, you NEED the Wii.

Nintendo is the only console creator left with originality and passion to push gaming to the next level, and it shows.

I remember waking up early to catch all of my favorite shows, but didn't actually remember the titles of many of them. At least not until I stumbled onto this little gem:
Saturday Morning TV Schedules of the 90s.

This site has a lineup of Saturday Moring Shows for NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX, grouped by year (Spring/Fall), and it's sure to bring back memories. I think I started watching TV around 1988, so if you're older than I am, be sure to check out 80s Saturdays and 70s Saturdays.

Just because this is my blog, here are my top 5 favorite Saturday morning shows:

1. Jim Henson's Muppet Babies
2. Scooby Doo
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
4. Garfield and Friends
5. Reboot (first completely computer animated TV series, and well done at that!)

I personally believe things started going south around 1995, for Saturday Morning shows anyway, and I not gett all my cartoonage on Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. What were you're favorites?

If any of you are semi-long-term readers, you will likely remember my post from almost exactly a year ago about the V for Vendetta movie project. Whether you caught it or not, go ahead and refresh your memory as it's a short post and has links to introduce new readers to V for Vendetta

The advertising has been pretty extensive, but if you are one to cut yourself off from normal modes of media assailment (I myself don't listen to the radio and watch little non-downloaded TV, instead getting all of my info from the internet), you may have missed the fact that the theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel V for Vendetta is now playing! I'm going to see it this weekend so I haven't a review for you right now, but the novel is truely stellar (how could it not be... it's Alan Moore) , the film was adapted by the Wachowski brothers, and it was directed by James McTeigue who's assistant directed on Dark City, The Matrix, and Attack of the Clones. As if that wasn't enough, Natalie Portman is in it. I can see Doody drooling now.

Alan Moore adaptations can be great companions or red-headed stepchildren of their graphic novel counterparts, depending on the screenwriters/directors. For example, From Hell was really good, however League of Extrodinary Gentlemen was not... at all. Let's hope this one knocks it out of the park.

While on the subject of movies: Serenity was amazing (except they F#@&ing killed Wash!!! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot guys? Jeez... was that really necesary? Anyway...), H2G2 was fun (though I'd like to see more of them made), and will Watchmen EVER be made, and more importantly, made *well*?

Systm Episode 2 - Build your own MythTV box is out now!

Bittorrent links for Xvid, Windows Media, Theora, and h.264 quicktime 7 versions are available at systm.org

As stated in the newsletter, "While Systm is a general interest HOW-TO show, thebroken will continue to have 40'z and hacking". Thats good news, for though I welcome any show by Kevin Rose, I would hate to see The Broken go the way of Call For Help.

They're throwing a release/Dan's birthday house party tonight with invites going out to "Kevin, Dan, Keith and Ron (systm/thebroken crew) along with other TechTV staffers (Leo, Pat, Yoshi, Martin, Alex, and others (Ramzi) have all been invited)." with a webcam and IRC chat for us lowly fans. I didn't catch anything until a few minutes ago, however, and it apears they shut the cam off at 10:11 pm PST. There are only three people chilling in the picture, so I assume they party didn't go well, or it was crazy nuts and someone went to the hospital. I'm guessing the former, which saddens me with memories of our first and only "rave" at Jalbey's house.

As for new The Broken episodes,

I'll quote the newsletter:

After several weeks of lawyer negotations with G4 (my 9-5 job), they have agreed to release me from my contract. Friday May 27th 2005 marks my last day on the G4 network. That means we are focusing on thebroken / Systm FULL TIME! We are starting to plan the next episode of thebroken now, and we'll send out another update as we get closer to the release! Now that this is our full-time job, expect to see many more video releases coming your way!

It is sad to remember how G4 completely destroyed TechTV and every good program on it (except X-play, somehow), but I am elated that we still get to see many of the people that made it a great place to watch.

Ugh! The torrent is 97.4% complete. My posts are never long enough...

If all this excitement weren't enough, I'm ashamed to say that I havn't seen H2G2 yet, but I'm going TONIGHT! SCORE!

If that still isn't cool enough, My apartment number is, wait...

wait for it,

ok:
42.
How cool is that?

PS: If you post a comment and it doesn't go through, try waiting a little bit before posting again. Some of my comment spam filters take a while to check new comments, as I get about 50-100 spams a day (Every single one of them being for online gambling and drugs)

Thats right, V for Vendetta is being made into a movie! I'll read any graphic novel handed to me if Alan Moore had a hand in writing it, seeing as he's written nearly every one of my favorites: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, Watchmen (my all-time favorite), and of course, V for Vendetta. So naturally I was floored when I heard this. Moore and David Lloyd did an amazing job with this one, and it has the potential to be a great movie, so I hope I'm not let down (LXG was sooo disappointing!)

The Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver are heading up the film, with Natalie Portman playing Evey (she's perfect for it), and James Purefoy as V. Filming is underway on location in Berlin and London.

I'm also dying to see the Firefly movie Serenity, and H2G2

For more about the V for Vendetta graphic novel, see here.

PS: My auto-close comments plugin closed this post, but yes, I *did* read Watchmen at Baba's in Virginia. It believe it was the first (non comic-book sized) graphic novel I ever read.

Konfabulator comes with a few pre-installed widgits, all which are very useful. They are: an Analog Clock, Battery indicator, Calendar, CPU Meter, iTunes Remote, Picture Frame, Reminder List, Stock Ticker, Weather Indicator, Waste Basket, Moon Phase Indicator, and WiFi Signal Indicator.

The weather indicator is gorgeous, as are nearly all the widgets, and can give compact current weather info, or a 4 day forcast along with current weather. I'd reccomend downloading Konfabulator even if this was the only widget for it (there are actually hundreds upon hundreds).
The CPU indicator shows both the percentages used by the user's apps, and the system, with the total via digital display.
"What To Do", the reminder list, is compact, very useful (with priority settings for each item) and as usual, very pretty.

The real wealth of utilities lies in the gallery (linked above):
TV Scraper 1.4 downloads a local channel guide, which you can then tell what channels to display (via tv.yahoo.com). It shows you whats on, and can scroll forward up to three hours ahead. I love it!

In lieu of the iTunes Remote, or the sexier mini iTunes Remote, I use Sputnik. Sputnik retrieves album art from Amazon.com in real-time as songs play in iTunes. You can specify a jewel-case color or choose none for just the picture itself. Mousing over the lower part of the picture displays title, artist and album, and mousing over the top reveals back, play/pause, and forward buttons.

mini CPU is a slightly smaller version of the CPU Portal Widget. It matches other widgets better, and shows user/system usage in a more compact way.

To expand my vocabulary I have Word of the Day. This is a tiny widget that simply dispays a word and its definition, from the word of the day from either wordsmith.org or dictionary.com.

There are many rss feed viewing widgets. The one I like is Kontent. Its minimalistic, skinned, has presets as well as allowing custom sites, and is tabbed. Whether its browsing, IM, etc, everybody loves tabs. This one has em, and slots for lots of sites, or just a couple if thats all you wish. If you don't like Kontent, here are a bunch more.

I have one last widgit for Jalbey. Its called FlightTracker. Its a real-time flight monitoring widget providing flight departure and arrival information "for all commercial flights within, originating or terminating in North America".

Read more about Konfabulator at www.konfabulator.com/info

• Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden" ...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
• Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
• Coca-Cola was originally green.
• It is impossible to lick your elbow.
• The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
  The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
• The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven : $6,400
• The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
• Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
• The youngest pope was 11 years old.
• The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
  • Spades - King David
  • Hearts - Charlemagne
  • Clubs -Alexander, the Great
  • Diamonds - Julius Caesar
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111
  = 12,345,678,987,654,321
• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
• Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of Their Birthplace
• Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
  A. Obsession
• Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
  A. One thousand
• Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
  A. All invented by women.
• Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
  A. Honey
• In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight"
• It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey-month....which we know today as the honeymoon
• In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down". It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
• Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
• At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow

No, I didn't lick my elbow when i read this, I'd read you can't before... But I have tried.