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Lasting 3 days and involving up to three hundred and twenty four participants, the game of Moopsball debuted in Damon Knight's Orbit 18. Once part of the geek canon (not to mention the favored game of Illuminati University), Moopsball is slowly being forgotten. Still, there are those who are following in its footsteps. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Do you love South Park but you wish you could watch all the episodes on your own time? Uncensored? Without waiting for (or paying for) the DVDs? If so, South Park Studios just answered your prayers. Since the Daily Show recently did the same thing - is Comedy Central making big waves, or big mistakes? [more inside]
posted by revmitcz at 10:30 PM PST - 47 comments

25 years ago, Ronald Reagan announced the birth of the missile defense system. A quarter-century and $120 billion later, was it worth it?
posted by homunculus at 10:10 PM PST - 55 comments

Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes? Related: Whatever Happened to John Hughes? which has an accompanying photo gallery: Where are Hughes' teen stars now? [A previous post about John Hughes here.]
posted by amyms at 10:05 PM PST - 69 comments

He was born on March 24, 1938 in Danzig, "the true nephew of William Tell". He studied under Stockhausen from 1963-1966, then threw it all over to help create Can, whose fans included a bemused David Niven. (I Want More. Hunters and Collectors. Moonshake.) You may know him best as a pioneer of the found/stolen/ethno mashup later popularized by Brian Eno and David Byrne. (Cool in the Pool. Persian Love.) But sometimes he just gives us a sweet little pop song. He's the bloody Energizer Bunny of Krautrock. So Happy 70th Birthday, Holger Czukay, you daft and awesome German uncle I never had. (Hey, why not go over to his MySpace page and give him your regards?)
posted by maudlin at 8:19 PM PST - 33 comments

Film-maker John Downer fitted four elephants with cameras and set them loose. Many of the resulting photos are cute, and some seem made for photoshopping.
posted by spaltavian at 8:11 PM PST - 34 comments

Sometimes, the ice cream man sounds menacing. Sometimes, the ice cream man is more psychedelic than any ice cream man has a right to be.[MP3] Sometimes, he's a public menace who must be stopped. Some people really want to understand the ice cream man.[PDF] And some love the ice cream man just the way he is.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 6:48 PM PST - 32 comments

I was watching Back to the Future Part II today, and realized that their idea of the world in 2015 doesn't really seem all that feasible now. While I was watching, I happened to come across this interesting piece in the now-free Sports Illustrated archives: a feature, written in 1979, on how the NFL would look in the year 2000. The full article is pretty long, but if you want the highlights, they're right here.
posted by SportsFan at 5:00 PM PST - 32 comments

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar - The Complete Adventures Sung to the tune of the Devil's Gallop. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 4:58 PM PST - 9 comments

The partially decomposed sea monster has 4 paws, a tail, and long fur. Is that you, Dagon?
Other famous sea-monster bodies (known as "globsters") include
The St. Augustine Monster ^
The New Zealand globster
Several more recent blobs
And here's how to tell a blob from a sea monster
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:33 PM PST - 14 comments

ABC3D is an elegant pop-up book featuring the letters of the alphabet. Plus: a flip book that generates a rainbow.
posted by tepidmonkey at 4:13 PM PST - 16 comments

Ever have a job working for a record label on a street crew. And yer puttin up publicity posters on lightpoles for an artist like Rocko and some asshole won't stop takin yer picture. Whadda you do then? Break his friggin camera.
posted by Xurando at 2:51 PM PST - 79 comments

Dressing a dog up as a person is I think not a very good thing. But when I do it, it's fine. William Wegman's Early Videos. Short Films. Trio/Metropolis/Guitar. Clips from his feature, The Hardly Boys.

David Hart's David Hockney meets William Wegman
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:40 PM PST - 19 comments

VBS.TV presents "Epicly Latered"[~80 min, 16 parts, gnarly skateboarding], the story of John Cardiel.
posted by auralcoral at 1:00 PM PST - 7 comments

Emilio Gonzalez, Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, will be resigning next month. To mark the occasion, the New York Times prints an editorial exposing the magnitude of the case backlog that USCIS currently faces, and their decided lack of speed in handling said backlog. Gonzalez doesn't like the editorial, so he blogs about it. And that's when the comments start rolling in.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:07 PM PST - 37 comments

Live from her minivan, it’s The Jeannie Tate Show! Everyone’s favorite soccer mom runs errands around town with the help of special guests like Bill Hader (SNL), Rashida Jones (The Office), Lonny Ross (30 Rock), and Rob Riggle (The Daily Show). Of course, she’s willing to leave the van behind to visit her heroines, Hillary and Oprah. [more inside]
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 11:55 AM PST - 14 comments

Three new online magazines - Triple Canopy, Issue Magazine and Rosa B - tackle the problem of text presentation on the screen in innovative ways. via
posted by stbalbach at 10:15 AM PST - 37 comments

Quamut — learn how to write cover letters, crochet baby booties, make a home, how to self-medicate, and do other stuff.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:06 AM PST - 12 comments

40 Years in the Future - Another "what will life look like in the future" article. This one from Mechanix Illustrated, 1968. (via Boing Boing)
posted by caddis at 9:57 AM PST - 50 comments

String Figures Galore!
posted by Miko at 8:53 AM PST - 7 comments

ViceTV takes a relaxing North Korean vacation (video, in 14 parts).
posted by kickingtheground at 8:37 AM PST - 17 comments

The gun dealer who sold the ammunition used in both the Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech campus shootings obviously feels remorse over his role, and wishes to atone. His solution? A (concealed) gun for every student.
posted by Kibbutz at 8:06 AM PST - 136 comments

Jim Henson's 1965 short film, Time Piece [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 6:52 AM PST - 33 comments

Seventeen years Steve Feltham sold up everything, bought an old mobile library van and parked up alongside Loch Ness to look for Nessie... He's still there.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:38 AM PST - 20 comments