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Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
Amazon has set up an account for the American Red Cross to which you can directly contribute between $1 to $100 immediately using Amazon's interface. Amazon has waived all fees normally involved in the transactions.
As Sean pointed out to me, it's awe inspiring to refresh the page and watch the growing tallies of number of donations and total amount collected. At the time of this writing, the total collected appears to be growing at a rate of something approximating $100,000 per hour and is accelerating.
posted by Gray @ 03:39 PM CT [Link] [4 comments]
Cold Storage
The story of Glacier Girl continues: the P-38 Lightning -- rescued from beneath more than 200 feet of ice on the Greenland glacier where its lain for 58 years -- has had its engines fired up for the first time since WWII.
posted by Chris @ 08:59 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Ticket To Ride?
So Clear Channel, the world's largest radio broadcasting network, has released a list of questionable songs that should not be played in light of the recent tragedies in NYC and Washington, D.C. Included in the list: "Killer Queen" by Queen, "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" by The Beatles, "Love Is A Battlefield" by Pat Benatar, "Walk Like An Egyptian" by the Bangles, "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette, "Benny & The Jets" by Elton John, "Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm... [Plastic]
I'm all for sensitivity in the wake of recent events, but this smacks more of silly, reactionary censorship than it does of actual empathy.
posted by Chris @ 11:51 PM CT [Link] [2 comments]
Letter to my Fellow Americans:
[from our longtime comrade, Brad Robertson, up in NYC]
I celebrated my 30th birthday last week. Last Thursday, to be exact, and in short, it was one of the best days of my life. Huge party, an army of friends. Such moments cause a person to take stock, and my life by all standards could not have been in a better place. Wonderful girlfriend, a vast circle of friends, a job I would otherwise do for free, and all in a city that is the envy of the world. I could never have imagined that night that everything would be so very different fewer than five days later. I sit now in Manhattan, hearing the fighter jets patrolling overhead and I know that those jets and more so what they represent will be with me and with all Americans for a very, very long time.
Last night, I stared from Fulton Landing in Brooklyn across the East River at the forever-altered Manhattan skyline. A Walt Whitman poem inscribed on the handrail there urged, mockingly now, “Stand Up, Ye Masts of Manhattan!” Other masts still glittered, chaotic within their monolithic cubes, but behind and amid them wafted a lazy column of smoke and dust, luminescent with the worklights at its base, a drifting, pale-green ghost where the World Trade Center colossus once stood. [-more-]
posted by Gray @ 07:37 PM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Baker Answers The Call
Hmmm. Looks like Rick Baker will be doing the make-up for the Dreamworks remake of "The Ring." Baker promises that the American version of the Japanese horror movie will be "even stranger."
I remain skeptical. FYI, the article is incorrect in referring to The Ring as The Ring Virus. The later is a Korean remake of the Japanese movie, and the director mentioned helmed the Korean version (reputed to be inferior to the original, though I haven't seen it).
posted by Chris @ 04:52 PM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Down The Glass Elevator
Scott Frank (writer of "Out Of Sight" and "Get Shorty") discusses why he departed from the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" remake, and provides some interesting insight into the problems of adapting the Roald Dahl novel.
posted by Chris @ 04:25 PM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Will Crime Pay?
Were the organization(s) behind last week's attacks so insidious as to invest in military technology companies and short airline stocks beforehand?
If you haven't picked up on it, you have to continuously include a couple international news sites to truly stay on top of all the information. My top selections thus far include Ananova for late-breaking updates and the International Herald Tribune for analytical articles.
posted by Gray @ 01:57 PM CT [Link] [No Comments]
This Evil House
Neil Gaiman has reviewed the new Stephen King/Peter Straub novel "Black House," a sequel to their earlier collaboration, "The Talisman."
posted by Chris @ 08:33 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Vampire Illos
In case you missed it in the article on the Bebop movie, there's a short interview with Terada Katsuya, the Character designer for Blood: The Last Vampire.
Whoa...I _need_ to get his artbooksposted by Kenji @ 02:45 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Patlabor 3
(in an attempt to restore some normalcy to life...Which is funny, considering how many people thought about Patlabor 2 as events occured...)
Via ANN, they've announced a Spring 2002 release for the third Patlabor movie, based on a story in the comic. It sounds like they've got new people working on it, 'tho, (no headgear?) as the director will be Fumihiko Takayama (Gundam 0080, Macross Plus, Bubblegum Crisis), with a script by Miki Tori.posted by Kenji @ 02:35 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Blood: The Giving
No, it's not a new movie. Although Austin's blood bank is currently full after the rush to give blood in the wake of Tuesday's horrors, they are asking folks to stop by and sign pledge cards promising to come by in the near future and donate. Blood has a shelf life, and more will be needed before all this is over. Details here.
posted by Sean @ 10:08 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
...And so it begins...
I Wonder how far they will be allowed to go... I find it particularly interesting that neither of the major net newssites (CNN, MSNBC) mention this (yet, it's fri AM), considering it came out Thurs lunchtime. Mainly, pay attention to the other parts of the bill listed at the bottom.
posted by Kenji @ 03:48 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Smoke Plume
An amazing shot from space that begins to give you an inkling of the true scale of the devestation. [Slashdot]
posted by Chris @ 02:04 PM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Anatomy of a Collapse
The BBC has an article that explains why the collapse of the WTC was inevitable after the initial damage; more detail and background (including discussion behind the politics of its initial construction and mention of a B-26 bomber that struck the Empire State building in 1945) is provided by architect John Young on his Cryptome site. [Register, Wired News]
posted by Chris @ 09:02 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
no words
for the local Austin Crow/Jester folks: thus far Brad, Paul & Renee, Sarah & Greg, and Hillary have checked in, are ok, and are holed up in their respective residences in NY. more names to be posted as they contact us. if you've successfully checked in with any others of the gang up there, please let me know so we can post, or post to the comments section.
(updated 4:20pCDT, 9/12)
posted by Gray @ 05:06 PM CT [Link] [1 Comment]
You'll Pry My Apex and MP3 Player From My Cold, Dead Hands
Just when you think it can't get any worse...Senator Fritz Hollings (in conjunction with Walt Disney) will be introducing a new piece of draconian legislation this month called the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) that would make it illegal to construct, sell, or import any device that did not contain digital rights management technology. It also would give entertainment companies an anti-trust exemption ('cuz they need that), and make any violation of the act a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $500,000 fine. [Also Register]
What I find most outrageous about this legislation is the nakedly self-serving rationale used by the bill's sponsors, claiming that it is actually "good" because, somehow, it will spur broadband growth, despite any evidence to support that theory. Hopefully consumer electronics manufacturers will derail this ill-conceived and stridently anti-consumer bill before it ever gets off the ground.
posted by Chris @ 08:23 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Sword!!
For those who (like myself) had been scrounging around for good wallpaper from the movie, the official site for Blood: The Last Vampire has finally gone live.
If you haven't picked this up yet, while short on plot and exposition, it's a gorgeous experiment in state of the art blending of 2D and 3D animation techiniques. It's a shame Don Bluth's Fox animation team never figured some of this out by the time Titan AE had been done.
Oh, and if it would make a difference as to whether you'd spend money on a copy, be aware that the 80 minute runtime listed on the back refers to all materials on the disc apparently -- the feature itself is only about 45 minutes or so.
posted by Gray @ 10:55 AM CT [Link] [No Comments]
Xanadu Resurrected
Slow news weekend, and so far slow news week...but Monday morning brings us the first review I've seen of the upcoming "Citizen Kane" DVD, due out on 9/29.
posted by Chris @ 08:56 AM CT [Link] [1 Comment]
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