Blogfight: Mummy v. Terminator Round 1

No time for pleasantries today, Lifers: there are dreams to crush.  DISCLAIMER: Read this first, lest you be utterly unprepared for the barrage of ballistic awesomeness I am about to unleash on Muted.  The question at the heart of this Blogfight™, dear readers, is who would win in a bar fight: the Mummy or the Terminator.  SPOILER ALERT: It's the Terminator.  I, naturally, being the winner I am, will be representing the T-800.  

 He will melt your face.

I'm going to fight it but I'll let it live

"That's an endangered species at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?"

"Revenge."

From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read
cth

Blogfight: Preview

Ahoy Lifers.  This is your Captain speaking.  This will be a short post, a teaser if you will, for an upcoming new feature on the Life Despotic™ (NOW WITH WINGS FOR EXTRA SUPPORT!).  After very little forethought and even less planning, my good acquaintance and sometime foe Everything is Muted and I have decided to test the waters of inter-blog communication with a new project a lá the über-nifty Conversation blog with scribes David Brooks and Gail Collins over at The New York Times.

As Ivan Zissou is involved, however, dear readers need not fear the subject matter becoming too academic.  On the contrary, we have decided upon a sufficiently silly topic ripe for angry diatribes and petty insults.  That topic?  Tune in to Muted's blog tomorrow(?) to find out.  I told you this was just a teaser.  OBVIOUS QUERY: If you're not going to tell us what it is, why not just spare the teaser and do the damn thing?  SNARKY RESPONSE: First of all, Muted has been tasked with the firing of the opening salvo in our verbal tête-à-tête, so I wanted to warn you avid readers to look for it there, lest you find yourself surprised when I post my stinging and inevitably superior response.  And B) this gives me the opportunity for a little pre-game trash talk.  But as the Captain would never stoop to the level of insults or petty threats, I'll simply let my good friend and countryman Ivan Drago do the talking for me.  Your weather forecast is cloudy, Muted.  With a 100% chance of ass-kickage.

I'm going all Cobra Kai on Muted's Daniel-san.

From the virtual dojo of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read

cth

Reality TV Monday: Tool Academy Week 2 Analysis

Ahoy Lifers, this is your Captain speaking.  It's Monday again, and that means another installment of Tool Academy!  What better way to counteract the Monday blues than to settle down with a bag of Ho Hos® and let the Captain take you away to a world where bandannas and  tribal armband tattoos are the highest status symbols a man can achieve.  Will Angelo cry again?  Is Jordan still wearing a pink thong?  What the hell is a glow-sticker?  Am I really going to devote the next eight Mondays to this ridiculous pursuit?  The answers to these questions and more inside!

This man is a tool.

S P A C E !

Ahoy, Lifers.  This is your Captain speaking.  Having been watching a lot of Cosmos lately, and having been inspired by Symphony of Science, I was reminded of an activity I used to enjoy in high school but that had fallen out of my routine in college.  I used to periodically visit NASA's Image of the Day page, which if you've never done I highly recommend.  They have some of the most remarkable and beautiful images you'll ever see (I considered describing them as "out of this world," but even the Life Despotic has standards).  I'm always impressed that the actual images of the cosmos exceed aesthetically even my most ideal conceptions of them.  To that end, I've done the legwork for you and collected here some of my favorite images from their archive.  That's right, my dear readers, fear not, for this is not another long-winded and poorly-reasoned meditation on astrophysics, but rather a modest collection of pretty pictures.  As I can't let you get away without having to read some text, however, I've paired the images with some of my favorite, most poignant quotes by our friend and cosmic mentor, Dr. Sagan.

Preach, Carl.

I am not a turkey, David!

Point of clarification: we are not dressed as skunks, we are dressed as skunk people.

Dateline: Moscow

Russian Man Refuses Vodka at Wedding; Kremlin Officials Scramble for Answers
Martin Redding, Moscow Senior Correspondent

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- What was intended to be a day of celebration ended in a tragedy that set a community and a nation reeling.  After completing their wedding vows, newlyweds Arkady and Marina Kandinsky accompanied their guests to the reception at the Izmailovsky Hotel.  

While exact details are unknown, an eyewitness reports that it was just after a rambling and at times uncomfortable speech by the best man that a guest of the groom, Ivan Napitok, allegedly refused a glass of vodka offered by the bride's brother.  

An off-duty police deputy attending the wedding, Pyotr Bykov, describes the scene that followed: "I was sitting on the other side of the hall when I heard a great commotion coming from the bar.  After someone told me what happened, I moved immediately to secure the reception."  Bykov placed the suspect into custody and notified Moscow authorities.  

Riot police arrived on the scene to contain what was described as an atmosphere of mass hysteria.  "It was crazy," said Daria Smelaya, a guest at the reception and eyewitness.  "Many people would not believe he refused it; but we saw that he refused it.  Fighting broke out.  It was terrible." 

Napitok, 43, works as a claims adjuster for a firm located in the Izmailovsky district.  Friends and acquaintances reacted with uniform shock and disbelief at the accusations leveled against him.  His landlady, who requested her name be withheld from this report, had this to say: "He always paid his rent on time.  He was quiet, a good tenant.  He helped me re-tile the hallways.  I never would have expected this sort of behavior from him."  

However, Mikhail Skuchniy, a sports psychologist at the Moscow Institute of Agriculture and Mines, says that such deviant tendencies cannot be easily detected in every case.  "These things happen," explains Skuchniy, "Such deviant tendencies cannot be easily detected in every case."

A spokesman for the Kremlin issued a written statement late Tuesday night announcing  that the FSB has opened a full investigation into the allegations.  While inquiries to the FSB central office went unanswered, a source within the Kremlin says they are taking the situation very seriously.  It is rumored that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has cut short his vacation at a dude ranch in Wyoming to personally oversee the investigation.  The source went on to say that Mr. Napitok could face charges ranging from light to medium treason, for which the minimum penalty is two full readings of Anna Karenina. 

As the investigation unfolds, a community is left waiting for answers.  "He wouldn't explain why he refused; he simply said he didn't feel like it," recounts Smelaya.  "What gives a person the right to act this way?  Someone must be held responsible."  

However, it appears there will be no quick answers for what has become a lightning rod of national interest.  For at least one, however, the incident has remained intensely personal.  "I haven't slept," says Napitok's mother, Tanya.  "This is not the son I raised."

Follow this developing story at Reuters Online.

From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read

cth