5 Wicked Moms To Make You Appreciate Yours

Mother’s day is coming up — and well, you probably have a nice gift for your mum, or, well, reading the first part of the sentence has just reminded you. Not being your sibling, I’ve no idea why your mom is the best; there is, however a means of comparison by contrast. From childhood, we’ve heard tales of stepmothers making the children miserable — and, reading a couple of these evil moms will make you appreciate your parent a hundred million times more, if only your mom wasn’t that great already! (Thinking about it, were these tales crafted to give better appreciation for moms?)

The mother/stepmother from Hansel & Gretel – Married to a poor woodcutter, she coaxed her husband (h & g’s parents) to leave them alone in the woods. The kids overhear and leave pebbles along the path to find their way home. If that wasn’t enough, she tried the plan again, emptying the children’s pockets this time — when the kids tried leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Animals ate the trail and they got lost. Of course this is the part where they stumble upon the witch’s candy house. How bad of a mother do you have to be, to leave your kids to the mercy of the forest, almost getting eaten?

The stepmother queen from Snow White – (Plus her magic mirror) So what if being born with skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood is a genetic miracle? Being really, really vain means getting your daughter banished from the castle, tricked into eating a poison apple, and well, generally tormenting her life with the 7 dwarves ‘til she croaked. She had a “Highlander” mentality — there must be only one. Would you have someone killed just because they were prettier than you are? That’s just vain to the nth degree.

Rapunzel’s Enchantress Stepmom – Normally you adopt children out of love, but this enchantress was different — in exchange for a cure to a poor man’s wife, she would then receive his pregnant wife’s offspring. She adopted the child and named her Rapunzel, then shut her out of the world in a tower with no doors, and, instead, she put poor old Rapunzel’s scalp on the line whenever she’d use it as a climbing rope.

Queen Narissa from Enchanted – From last year’s Disney movie, featuring the latest Disney Princess, Princess Giselle. This spiteful queen didn’t want to step down of her being queen, therefore the union between Giselle and Prince Edward must not happen to her. Not content to banishing her out of Andalasia, she used her dark magic to chuck her through a portal to a totally different dimension. If that wasn’t enough, by the end of the film, she turned into a dragon and totally wanted to eat Robert Phillip and Princess Giselle!

Queen Hera – Now for the baddest of them all, of fictional characters, no one was as hardcore as Hera. Not only is she the mother of the god of war, (Ares) out of jealousy for Zeus apparently giving birth alone to Athena, she gave birth to Hephaestus, an unsightly offspring, of which, Zeus didn’t approve of, so he was thrown out of Olympus with Hera not saying anything. If that’s not enough, check out her Wikipedia entry, under Hera’s jealousies for more stories of her deception towards her children. I’m guessing Lucille Bluth was based on her!

5 Latest Innovations in Toilet Technology

There was this episode of Seinfeld where George was telling a girl (for conversation) how the toilet paper hasn’t changed much since its invention — agreed. Though the well, medium it’s being used for, the toilet, has changed bit by bit over the years — there were overhead tanks, the usual 13-liter monster, and there are the water-conservation models.

Here are 5 of the latest innovations in toilet technology.

Toilet Tunes – Ever had a soundtrack for, well, whatever activity you choose to do by the toilet? If you have $30 you can get one of these automatic entertainment devices. With a choice of jazz, latin or nature sounds, it’s sure to cover up the sound of, well, whatever activity it is you do in there.

WashUp – Is a mash-up of a toilet and a washing machine. (Think toilet with a washing machine for a tank.) It uses the water for washing your clothes as the flush water — not only does it help conserve water, it also eats up one space instead of two! (My only concern would be, what if the clothes fall in the toilet after washing? Hmmm)

Kisses! – Is a lip-shaped urinal. Not that it’s innovative or whatever, it just gives guys something to help their aim.

Neorest AH – Developed in Japan, this hybrid tank draws inboard and outside water sources to fully utilize 5.5 liters for flushing, instead of the usual 13. Not only does it flush the toilet, the water gushes out of the hard-to-reach-spots, making it a self-cleaning eco-friendly toilet. Did I mention it also has seat warmers?

The Cell – This beautiful piece of tank-less wall-mount will be something you’d be tempted to keep pristine. It doesn’t eat up too much space, perfect for bachelors in small apartments.

The Big Life Ironman Review!

Ironman. As far as comicbook characters go, he’s not one on top of my list, though this being Marvel Studios’ first live-action movie, it’s looking good for them.

What else can I say about it? From the looks of things, it IS the first big hit of the summer. Casting Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark is an inspired choice, and, well, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow also fit in their roles as Jim Rhodes and Pepper Potts, respectively.

The movie starts out with Tony Stark living the futurist/industrialist frivolous lifestyle, never having regard for anyone but his self interests. While doing a demo for the United States army, he is abducted by a terrorist faction who wish to use his technology to take over the world. In captivity, he meets Yinsen, a brilliant scientist who manages to save his life from shrapnels that are making their way to Stark’s heart.

Forced to make a missile that would guarantee the terrorists’ success, he and Yinsen start work on their way out — the Ironman Mark I suit. (This all pretty much comes direct from the first Ironman story, just set in modern times.)

Seeing his life’s work being used as a leverage for modern wars, Stark spends the rest of the movie redeeming himself by becoming Ironman, and, well, keeping up with the sexual tension between him and Ms. Potts. Laughs, action and Stark’s arrogance makes for an interesting superhero movie. Go see it!

By the end of the movie though, I had this weird hankering for some Burger King.

3 Newsworthy Giants of the Animal Kingdom

I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard of the colossal squid that’s been in the news lately, and, well, in the animal kingdom, like in Texas, bigger is better! Here’s the colossal squid and a couple more giants that got their 15-minutes.

Colossal Squid

This gigantic, 26-feet long (that’s 8 meter sticks!), more-than-a-thousand-pounder was caught last year and is only now getting to be examined in New Zealand. The Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, is being thawed slowly for proper examination begins — apparently, it’s also the animal with the world’s largest eyeballs.

You’d imagine how much calamares it’d make, (and there would have been tons!) if not for the ammonia in its flesh. (Translated, it should taste/smell like stale urine.)

Giant Killer Croc

Pictures of this humongous croc has been circulating inboxes since 2003. Apparently, in Point Noire, in the Republic of Congo, several villagers started disappearing, and nobody had any ideas where they were until they found this huge 16-foot Nile crocodile. It took the army to take down this beast, and, well, they preserved it too, to check the insides for human remains.

Obese Chinese Cat

This 33-pound cat was apparently loved so much by its owner that it was fed what’s considered to be a feast for a cat everyday. News about this cat was reported in fluff segments of news programs, but animal rights thought making this cat obese was a form of animal abuse. The cat got too fat that it can no longer support its own weight with his legs.

Ways You Don’t Want to Die

When I’ve done all I can to live this wonderful, wonderful life of mine, maybe have a successful career, become a guajillionaire, raise amazing kids who will outdo me and carry my name, live on a farm and reap the rewards of a retirement, there’s only one thing to look forward to, right? However grim the inevitable is, and, well, honestly, I’m looking forward to an awesome death.

Something that involves me going in my sleep, or maybe one that involves me leaving a cliffhanger sentence? (“The treasure is buried in …”) Something like that. Now there are other, more awesome ways to go, but I won’t detail ‘em here. In fact, I’m here for the opposite. Like many people, (or maybe few?) I have a list of things that I DO NOT want to happen to me in my last moments.

Drowning or Asphyxiation or, just plain not breathing … to death. There should be parental discretion warnings just before the nightly news. Some news are just not meant to be seen by kid eyes. See, when I was a kid, there was this news about a giant ferry that sunk — and days and days and days of search-and-rescue have yet to catch up with the count of the people missing. Then they used the choppers — and we, of the “we eat dinner in front of the tv” families got a shocking view of bloated corpses on salt water. Just imagine, bodies bloating from too much water exposure, skin stretched out to as far as it can go, and well, terrors of the deep probably eyeing the delicious morsel just floating about. Freaky! So, say I’m out on a cruise … that thought will always, always linger in my head.

Medical malpractice. News in the Philippines are making waves because, as it turned out, some inept nurse or doctor “leaked” a “documentation” of an operation. Not only is this a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, it’s also unethical. The worst thing is, you couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. You are heavily sedated, and that’s why hospitals always make me queasy. I’m never sure what they do there, maybe play a little sedated surfing, plus, interns might be there — I DO NOT want to be an autopsy body. So what will I do? Ask not to get anaesthetized? Or, the harder alternative, try to keep healthy?

(image from Lucid TV)

Decapitation or amputation. There was this .gif file circulating Digg a while back, like, supergluing your hands to the side of your head just before you jump with a noose on your neck. It’d then seem like you tore your head out your neck, right? Wrong. I’m guessing the flaps of skin, muscle and tissue, plus the bone would impede. What scares me is losing an arm, or a leg, or worse, a head, by accident. (Or some other brutal means.) I mean, come on! When the day for the dead rising comes, would I want to be the worst looking shambling zombie???

Alcohol poisoning. Respect the alcohol, or it will whup your ass. I certainly don’t want to go out like these guys. (Caution: NSFW, or, Not Safe For Work!)

Rant: The Real Deal On Earth Day

Earth Day. Does anyone still care anymore? I saw this cartoon over at Truthdig, and couldn’t agree more. Some places even went so far as to celebrate Earth Day, fireworks and all.

Is it still a spectacle to love Earth? Can’t we just do it in our everyday routines? Have we, as a species officially gone too far that we have to remind ourselves to take care of, well, ourselves?

The funny thing is, I realized it all because of that cartoon — does that say something about me? That, I get my beliefs on news issues from cartoon illustrations? It’s funny, really, that, while I let out a chuckle, this is the actual reality that we are in.

The cool thing is, I saw it online, (along with other strips) meaning, there wasn’t any paper involved! (Though I wonder if those things got printed and are now just pieces of paper somewhere?)

Know what? I’ll suggest that, we all be considerate, even for one day (I’m guessing that’s what Earth Day’s for anyway) — conserve water, recycle paper, use less, re-use more. The basics, because I believe, we’re better than this, as a species, we can do so much more, without causing more damage.

MK vs DC: Videogame Mash-Up

Holy cow. Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe? Seriously?!

I’m guessing most of you guys have seen the teaser trailer of Batman beating up Sub-Zero, and, while I admit that it looks fun, I’m not sure it will be, but, as long as it has the MK name, we could expect brutal takedowns, hilarious/violent finishing moves and, well, just a huge, gigantic amount of unlockables.

From what I hear — MK 8 (Worlds Collide) will be MK without fatalities. That’s because DC wouldn’t want their heroes to be pulling heads off characters from a video game franchise that was built upon gruesome violence. (a Superman fatality??!) While it’s still possible, it would just take a whole gigantic amount of paperwork to do it.

Even if they do pull it off, what would secure the game from an M rating from the ESRB?

Video games, after all, is a business — the more narrow the audience, (who will be able to get it) equals less money.

So how can Midway / DC just balance this game in order to appeal to old-time MK fans and the DC comic book fans? I’m thinking they’ll go the traditional crossover story route — mind control or “fate of the universe unless you win” type of scenarios in order to allow superheroes to act out of character.

Like you, this just intrigued me enough to geek over.

Top 5 Mythbusters Season 6 Moments

This post (see number 3) reminded me how great a show Mythbusters is — I mean, I already love the show and yet I’ve only recently really got into it. (Waiting for the DVDs in the mail.)

If Kari Byron or all the explosion isn’t enough of a good reason to see it, here are a couple of season 6 myths they’ve covered that might convince you of the shows greatness.

Are bulls really aggravated by the color red? – Busted. This was awesome, because this is the first time I’ve heard that bulls are actually color blind.

Can you climb a building with a motorized grappling hook? – Plausible. From the Superhero special, Adam and Jamie each build their own grappler/launcher device, and while Jamie was able to pull himself up, Adam’s didn’t hold quite as well.

Does the presence of dolphins deter sharks from attacking their prey? – Plausible. For some reason, the shark wouldn’t bite into the tasty morsel while the roboto-dolphin was around it. (Later on, my friend told me that sharks are actually afraid of dolphins because of group of ‘em can bump their noses at a shark, capsizing him the opposite direction, towards the air. Shark that can’t breathe? Shark that can’t bite no more.) This is useful information especially if you’re out there in the waters.

See video here

Can a lead balloon fly? - However frivolous the myth may be, they will prove/bust it. That’s what’s awesome about this show.

Could MacGyver have built an ultralight airplane from bamboo, trash bags, duct tape and a cement mixer? – Busted. But the fun thing is, I remember this episode of MacGyver from childhood.

Still not convinced? Look up ‘mythbusters’ in the internets for that unaired episode. :)

[Comic from xkcd.]

Top 5 The Office Best Moments

Whee! The Office is back! After being one of the first shows to get shut down because of the Writer’s Strike. Last week, something amazing happened: post-strike eps began airing, and all was right with the world!

Just to recap how The Office is one of the sharpest, funniest shows around, here are some “Top” Office moments from season 1. (And why I haven’t stopped shooting my dinner out from my ears from laughing since)

Dwight proudly showing off his “man-purse” – From season 1, with Jim’s pep-talk, Dwight approaches the purse salesgirl (Amy Adams) and tells him that his exit would be buying a purse. Guess what. (Oh, by the way, I never did get what Dwight was trying to do when he was trying to fit his shoe in a bag.)

Pam kisses Jim – From the “Dundies” episode, there were hints from the earlier season that these two have a thing for each other, (no one could’ve guessed they would take over as the central romance of the show!) and it was such a treat to fans to finally see them kiss. (Though, Pam was intoxicated at the time, while Jim was grinning after.)

The Dwight Bobblehead – In the Valentine’s Day episode, Dwight receives a present from a secret admirer (Angela, whom he was secretly dating) and what was inside the box? A bobblehead of Dwight. This was so popular, that they actually made one for The Office merchandise!

Michael Kisses an Outed-Oscar – After offending Oscar by homosexual jokes, Michael gives a seminar on accepting homosexuality and how it doesn’t affect the workplace. He exercises his comfort by … giving a smooch — right in the kisser! (According to Jenna Fischer’s MySpace blog, that kiss was improvised, and the shock from the cast was actually real. Brilliant!)

Michael and Dwight “Hug it out” – After a brief mention of the show Entourage at the beginning of the episode, it seemed like there was no way that Michael Scott was going to forgive the coup attempt of Dwight … until he says the famous line, “let’s hug it out, b***h.”

Those are just from some of my favorite episodes. And within the week, I’ll be catching a new one. What about you guys (any Office viewers out there?) what are your favorite moments from the show?

[Couldn't find clips of the actual things I listed, so here's a little sampling of The Office comedy:]

7 Items made better by Homer Simpson

The Simpsons — I could easily say that The Simpsons ARE pop culture. If satire was indeed an art form, then the hundreds(?) of awards and merit they have acquired since the beginning should be a fine measure for success. Along the way, of course, they’ve made a fortune from merchandising. I have a theory on it — add Homer to any product, and it will sell. (Probably)

Don’t believe me? Compare these products with their normal, run-of-the-mill equivalent, and see which one you prefer.

The Simpsons Talking Homer Operation – Take that, original Operation Game! Ailments include bowler’s thumb, rubber neck and trick knee. Pieces unique to the game are a donut, a pretzel and a bowling pin. Instead of the usual buzz sound when you make a mistake, Homer gives a funny one-liner criticizing your operating skills.

Duff beer and Flaming Moe’s Energy Drink – Red Bull? Bawls? Forget ‘em! Here’s the real energy drink you gotta have — both have a different packaging but are both energy drinks that contain ingredients of what constitutes an energy drink: Taurine, Inositol, Guarana, Ginseng, and, the stuff of legends, caffeine. The Duff can is especially interesting, since, save for the words “Energy Drink,” (it’s BEER in the cartoons) it looks exactly like the cans that Homer chugs on the show. (Did I mention they also have Buzz Cola?)

The Simpsons: Message Mate and Remote Control Holder – Okay, so you can’t get a TV station that has 24/7 Simpsons reruns, but at least you could keep your remote controls handy for when watching something else. The fun thing is, when you press your remote, the base gives out one-liner from the Simpsons, like, “TV respects me. It laughs with me, not at me.” You could even record your own messages — not that I’d think anyone would want to — I could hear it now, spouting, “Booooring!”

The Simpsons: 3 Piece BBQ Utensils Set – Who says you can’t take the Simpsons out for BBQ? Now you could have a matching set of Homer “Kiss the Chef” Simpson and Ned “Bishop of BBQ” Flanders spicing up that little picnic, for when you’re fighting off your Simpsons withdrawal.

“Kiss the Chef” Homer Figure – Okay, so I can’t find any “Kiss the Chef” aprons for the last item’s barbeque, but I found the next best thing: a figurine of Homer, still wearing the “Kiss the Chef” apron, (continuity, yow) suddenly realizing exactly how much gas you should put on your grill.

Simpsons Boxer Shorts – I dunno about you, but I like funny underwear – it amuses me that while under a suit, the Simpsons family is protecting me from chafing.

Simpsons DVDs – Come on! Who wants to watch any other show? I grew up doing “the Bartman” — I love this on-screen family. And who knows for how long they’ll keep entertaining me? To me, these were the first true adult-themed cartoons, only because they were satirizing what was true and real in our world. Now that I’ve grown up, I also find that certain jokes only apply when you’re older, thus rewarding repeated viewings of the material.