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First, if you're going to rant to the whole world about going some place 'boring'. At least spell it right, it's Decatur, IL.

Second, while you may see Cedar Rapids and Decatur as 'boring' (and for the locale, they are) they are home to two companies that do some cool large stuff.(IMHO).

Rockwell Collins does a ton of contract work with the government and encourages all their employees to get a pilot's license.

Decatur is home to Caterpillar's off highway truck division (among others), at which the 797 (the world largest mining truck) is built. It was even a topic on one episode of Ultimate Factories.

Decatur also has ADM and is where The Informant was filmed about ADM's price fixing.

That really sucks.

That really sucks.

That really sucks.

The fact of the matter is that the more educated you are the less likely you are to have children.

It's called the Idiocracy effect.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

That's FRANCIS Bacon, you insensitive clod!

How's this:

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo + Juliet which starred Leonardo DeCaprio who starred in Gangs of New York with Tim Pigott-Smith who was in Sweet William with Melvyn Bragg who was the narrator in Francis Bacon.

W

(thanks to the Oracle.)

This is awesome.

What's next? Will the Army start issuing "vintage" armored cars? Will there be a resurgence of interest towards lavishly carpeted submarines? Find out in the next installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

...conspiracy literature and impact drills to students with number affinity should not be recommended considering the consequences where they may already suffer from teachers like these.

You think that's awkward, imagine Bobbit plugging in.

You don't need to imagine, you can go watch the video...

From SuperMicro and price what it would be like to max it out on RAM and processors. You'd need a custom case for it to make it a workstation pc rather than a rackmount. Comes to about $20k with 96G of RAM and 4 6-core Xeons -- still less than what Dilbert spent for his dream system.

Ernest goes to Burger King

I bow to your Hollywood Insider knowledge. IMDB knows nothing of this. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001815/

there was a tv show sorta based on your suggestion
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/

Jimmy the Saint tried something similar - only with videotapes.

Ended up in debt, owing money to the local gangster who hired him to "do a job" to pay off the debt.
Naturally, things went south, and Jimmy and his crew ended up being killed one by one by hired hitmen.

Give it a name.

I think the GPP was referring to George Burns.

the Stasi who maintained a "smell register" of dissidents

It's visible in use in the excellent and highly recommended film The lives of others.

Beat The Burglar

i saw chinese ghost story recently and there was a scene where clearly rotting corpses were trying to drag the main character into the cellar

there was even a transvestite tree spirit pimp of dead ghost whores

so no skeletons... but transvestite tree spirit pimp of dead ghost whores is ok?

In the UK, where we have 240v mains 2kw vacuum cleaners are common. They clean really well too - though the scenario in the return of the pink panther involving Inspector Closseu, a parrot and a vacuum cleaner is certainly a possibility.

If I remember correctly Lost was originally intended for 5 seasons, so extending it 1 season really doesnt do that much to it...

The problem with Lost has been that JJ Abrams (in typical "jeenius" fashion) decided to solve the story arc length problem by never actually crafting a story arc to begin with. Basically, he thought it'd work to just have the story create itself, by just making stuff up as he went along. Unfortunately, failing to plan a cohesive story arc is not a viable plan, and just leaves you with a big pile of nonsensical garbage.

But that describes all his works, to some degree. I'd have to say that he pretty well proves once again that nepotism trumping writing skill in the entertainment industry is a pretty pervasive problem; that having your father be a well known producer makes up your complete lack of ability.

If I remember correctly Lost was originally intended for 5 seasons, so extending it 1 season really doesnt do that much to it...

The problem with Lost has been that JJ Abrams (in typical "jeenius" fashion) decided to solve the story arc length problem by never actually crafting a story arc to begin with. Basically, he thought it'd work to just have the story create itself, by just making stuff up as he went along. Unfortunately, failing to plan a cohesive story arc is not a viable plan, and just leaves you with a big pile of nonsensical garbage.

But that describes all his works, to some degree. I'd have to say that he pretty well proves once again that nepotism trumping writing skill in the entertainment industry is a pretty pervasive problem; that having your father be a well known producer makes up your complete lack of ability.

If I remember correctly Lost was originally intended for 5 seasons, so extending it 1 season really doesnt do that much to it...

The problem with Lost has been that JJ Abrams (in typical "jeenius" fashion) decided to solve the story arc length problem by never actually crafting a story arc to begin with. Basically, he thought it'd work to just have the story create itself, by just making stuff up as he went along. Unfortunately, failing to plan a cohesive story arc is not a viable plan, and just leaves you with a big pile of nonsensical garbage.

But that describes all his works, to some degree. I'd have to say that he pretty well proves once again that nepotism trumping writing skill in the entertainment industry is a pretty pervasive problem; that having your father be a well known producer makes up your complete lack of ability.

Fox has a show with a very set arc - Reunion. While it wasn't great by any means, it was a murder mystery with some twists & turns and each episode represented 1 year of the 20 years covered in the story arc. Like I said, it wasn't great by any means (fairly low production value) but I really looked forward to it because there had been a couple of shows I really liked that got abruptly canceled, so I was looking forward to the finality & completed arc it would provide. Only thing was Fox put it on hiatus during baseball playoffs without ever advertising it or when it would be back and it lost so many viewers that it got canceled before without even finishing it's set course.

Do we have time to make a batch of Torgo's Executive Powder?

Torgo's busy, taking care of the place while The Master is away.

The master ... would not approve of Executive Powder ... he would not ... approve.

Interesting Torgo fact: The actor that played Torgo (John Reynolds who studied drama with Timothy Leary at UC Berkeley) wore his satyr knees backwards (which he somehow made himself) causing him great pain and thereby giving him an addiction to pain killers. He would commit suicide before Manos: Hands of Fate was released and never live to see the true glory. RIP Torgo.

How on earth would that help this problem?? Paramount losing the copyright on TOS would have absolutely no impact whatsoever on their ability to create a new star trek series.

Talk to the Senator from Disney about that. What a copyright can do, due to its granting of a 'monopoly', is keep everybody else away from the 'playground'. Copyright holders are under no obligation to grant licenses to use their work. For an example of that, watch this if you can find it. And with lawsuits flying left and right, what's a creative person to do?

Some of the 'Fan Trek' series are absolute utter shit. But there's some diamonds in there, too. Imagine if they were allowed to actually make enough money to keep their series afloat. Different writers/directors/actors/etc bring different things to the table. Diversity can be good

On the contrary:

Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?

Well, you could get Sidney J. Furie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094074/ from Superman 4 and make sure that it doesn't stay on the air. Though to be honest it sounds more like something you'd see on the BBC.

I liked both of the previous related shows . . . Salvage 1 and Quark Brilliant idea, BRILLIANT!

I liked both of the previous related shows . . . Salvage 1 and Quark Brilliant idea, BRILLIANT!

"Because of the metric system"

I thought Willis' career was mortally wounded by Hudson Hawk.

Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? Fuck you, pay me." --- Henry Hill, Goodfellas

To those of you offering technical solutions: stop. You're wasting your energy.

Any time you see "policy" or "auditing," turn off your brain and channel your inner Bill Lumbergh. These tools are all about generating pretty graphs showing how many computers were checked and had the "IT policy enforced and audited." SOX, PCI/DSS, and other auditors get their jollies seeing reports like this. As long as the software generating the report is a name they know (and, preferably, expensive -- because, you see, expensive means it's good), they'll check that box on their report without so much as a second thought, making your C*O happy.

For all the auditors know, this software could be doing nothing other than generating (fake) reports. For them, it doesn't matter; as long as the other auditors are doing it, it's a "best practice" and their butts are covered.

I guess you haven't seen Superbad.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829482/

Or, in the words of Dr. Strangelove, "Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack."

I'd suggest making a joke that uses a Clint Eastwood as Retired Engineer reference, instead.

is tar!

I wish. It's a quote from The Prisoner, one of the little mantras of The Village designed to reinforce that you aren't supposed to ask questions and your life will be better if you don't.

IMDb lists 438,664 theatrically released movies.
Source: IMDb statistics page

Ahhh, at last a market for my seat cushion based DNA sampler! And my colleagues all said it was just a pain in the ass... Who's laughing now?

See Das Leben der Anderen. Perhaps the MPAA has trained some Dobermans to follow the scent.

We must not allow a cybercrime gap, bring back the cold war is what I say ..

General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!

But of course, a tiny movie budget won't give you the next Star Wars any more then a tiny game budget will give you the next Half Life, that however doesn't mean they can't be good in their own way.

I think a group of talented people could easily take the budget for the original Star Wars (about $13 million) and make a much better movie than any of the last three that George Lucas has put out.

Sure, you wouldn't have monster special effects, but you don't need those to make a good movie.

Heh, yeah right. It never cease to amaze me how people expect rapid technological advancement, when all the historical evidence shows that most of these innovations are decades old, but the equipment wasn't available back then. I saw a photo from the first V2s sent up with a camera yesterday on NASAs site, and that was dated 1948. How long until Google Earth hit the mainstream ? 2005 ? The reason for the delay was computing power, access to images, and satellites. Satellites have changed the world in so many ways, they are part of almost everything we do. TV, telephone, data, science all rely on satellites somewhere in the chain. But in the 1960s they were ground breaking and so that 1969 film could be seen as possibly true. We had no way to determine if a planet really was diametrically opposite us in our orbit of the sun. This is the way it goes, some sci-fi is born out by scientific discoveries, and other stuff is provably impossible. This is why modern sci-fi is mostly dreck, hardly any science is left to the imagination. Back when the best sci-fi was written (due to our ignorance) it was an amazing journey into the possible. Now we're left with existential dilemmas rather than technological ones, which doesn't have the same zing on screen.

Sometimes you have to look at the way it *was*, to better appreciate the way it *is* and I fear that aspect is lacking in todays world. It seems to be all "now" and "next" and disappointment when it doesn't happen immediately. Newsflash - it never did.

You can't necessarily make a good movie with a handful of guys and some talent.

Have a look at the recent Half Life short movie or movies like The Man from Earth or Primer, you very definitvly can make a good movie with a tiny budget. The only real disadvantage that a movie seems to have is that you need to have all the crew in the same place at the same time, while a game can be developed by people connected via the internet and can recycle lots of content from the parent game. But of course, a tiny movie budget won't give you the next Star Wars any more then a tiny game budget will give you the next Half Life, that however doesn't mean they can't be good in their own way.

including paying or compensating actors.

That's like saying you can't make a game without compensating the programmers and artists, but you very definitively can, because there are plenty people who do it for the fun of it, not the money.