On this date in 1999, NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface. (via Wikipedia)

The new Dead Siren blog asks the question: What is the difference between Fandom with a capital F and simple imagination and are either a bad thing? And one of the editors called Sexy Fandom “just my sorta site.”

On this date in 2005, astronomers announced their discovery of a possible 10th planet. Now what should they call it? I vote for a female deity from ancient long-dead civilizations, instead of a male one, for a change. (via Wikipedia)

Mermaid hoaxes were perhaps popularized by P.T. Barnum and his famous circus. He advertised having the remains of a FeeJee Mermaid. FeeJee is the sucker spelling of Fiji I believe. Rotten.com describes these supposed remains as looking like a Hollywood pitch gone wrong: “It’s like Gremlins meets Piranha meets Ebirah!” PT Barnum went ahead and used drawings of traditionally attractive mermaids in order to lure crowds. It’s the damn patriarchy keeping abominations down. The three ring huckster need not have bothered apparently, as the attraction continued to appear before sell out crowds even after Barnum publicly confessed that the mermaid was a hodge podge of glued-together parts from totally unrelated critters. (via rotten.com)

Medical students in New Jersey sure know how to treat a girl. Linda Kay is apparently one uber-goth goth stripper. Police came to her house because they got a report that someone there was suicidal. Very gothic even if the suicidal person was apparently out running errands or something and not actually there. While the fuzz checked things out, they discovered a number of skulls and a sloppily dismembered body portion, specifically a severed arm nicknamed Freddy and given to the exotic dancer in question by the sort of med student who comes courting at a strip club. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. I’ve always preferred the more offbeat ie spelling Freddie when used as a diminutive. Whichever spelling Ms. Kay applies to her mad scientist body parts, her mom is supportive and family is always important in these situations. (via Blue Blood via NJ Star Ledger)

An object purported to be somewhere between a mermaid and a sea monster just sold on eBay for $1,550. The seller calls the find a golden mermaid and refers to it as female. He explains his assumption that the mermaid is a she by pointing out the lack of a protruding sex organ. Really, though, what self-respecting heterosexual fanboy would bid on a male sea creature? That would be totally gay. So it just makes sense to describe the mermaid as her. I feel I can paraphrase the Q&A portion, but you really have to read the auction description verbatim to do it justice:

“While exploring desolate areas of Fort Desoto Beach at the southern end of St. Petersburg, here in Florida, I came upon a rather startling discovery. Before me lay what at first appeared to be a very large strange fish. Shocked and amazed, I realized I had found another mermaid or sea monster. I went back to my car to get my camera. My hands were shaking as I tried to calm down to take these photos. This Mermaid or Sea monster, you be the judge, is a few inches shy of being 5 feet long. Laying on a fresh natural bed of seaweed, this creature of the sea looks out as if still alive. What killed this mystery from the depths? Recently in the news there was talk of another outbreak of Red Tide. Had this mermaid fallen ill from this mysterious dreaded disease from the sea? Looking over her gracefull body, I realized what a special creature she must had been in life. Was she the missing link between primates and fish? In time, what would evolution had shaped this creature to be? I sat there thinking for awhile and realized I must get this mermaid back home. I could always ponder later. The winner to this auction will recieve the sea creature shown in the photos below. The photos have not been altered or retouched nor are they result of photo shop. The entire body has been determined to be covered in once living fish skin with scales. I have drilled a small hole in the back of the head so that it can be hung up on a wall for display.”

The seller was quite adamant about the fish scales being real, although he later changed his story on having drilled a hole in her head for display. As the description uses the word “another” to describe the discovery on this lonely Florida beach, presumably the seller has experience in customer service to buyers of curios.

In honor of Comic Con, Comic Book Fonts is offering, not only new fonts with names like Battly Damaged and Speeding Bullet, but most of their catalog at 50% off. The sale goes through Friday, so head on over there if you’ve been thinking about creating your own comic book on the computer.

IGN, now, just like MySpace, owned by the very savvy folks at FOX has its Comic Con galleries posted now. They have them broken down into convenient categories like The Babes of Tokyopop and Final Fantasy Figures.

Galleries of pictures taken at the record-smashing Comic Con 2006 are already starting to post. ComingSoon.net has more than a hundred photos although most are not of people, but more importantly the booth babe galleries are starting to post, such as this Flickr gallery by Greg O’Connell, as reported by Comic Book Conventions.

I’m apparently going to a dinner at The Omni and then getting some sleep tonight. However, everyone else appears to be going to the X-Sanguin V ball. Blue Blood has posted some photos from X-Sanguin IV.

Here is a link to a second gallery of Comic Con photos on Blue Blood. I’m busy shopping for collectible Creature from the Black Lagoon Dolls networking at the Comic Con, so I’m not ranging very far afield for my posts this week.

According to their site: We were the kids that lived down the street that at the age of 8 were putting on haunted houses for our friends. We were the ones that started setting up stuff in our yards in August for Halloween, and the ones that spent more time thinking up how to make realistic eyeballs in the candy bowl than doing our home work (by the way, peeled grapes work really well). We were also the ones who were so sad we could almost cry when November 1st rolled around and all of the pumpkins came down, and we had to put everything away until next year.

Well, it’s 20 years later, and we are still doing the same thing. On just a slightly different scale.

The original name of the group was “The Brotherhood of the Forbidden Grape.” That was before we were of legal age, and the single largest goals we had were acquiring booze and meeting girls. Usually the beer was much easier to find than the girls, thus we pursued the attainable goal instead of what we figured was a quest that would bear no fruit.

Sometime around 1990, the first ever Brotherhood party took place. We decided that costume parties were where it’s at, and our likelihood of getting girls to show up was much greater if we did something really cool. So we built Dante’s Inferno Room, the whorehouse from Beetlejuice. Much to our surprise we really did get some girls to show up, and we even have some photographic proof somewhere.

It took about 4 weeks of arguing, 5 cases of beer, and one long-ass night to put it all up. We messed with it for another week or so, but the bulk of it went up in someone’s backyard in one night. It was by far the biggest pain the ass thing I have ever built. Its a miracle that it didn’t fall down on top of everyone, and kill them all in a single blow.

However it was bad-ass looking and managed to stay up for the 7 hours of the event. Plus, it was the coolest thing we had ever done. From there, every year, it has gotten bigger, harder, more fun, and much more cool. As we got older, our disposable income grew, and our imagination grew with it. Every year since 1990 we have started the planning earlier and thrown a larger shindig. Sometimes in the past we would take a year off and do something mellow since we were burned out from all the work of the year before, but for the post part we would do some type of large shindig every year. Recently we started moving to more than one event a year even though it drastically cuts into our drinking time on the weekends. (via freaksnightout.com)

Blue Blood is going to have a few flyers for my little site in booth 433 at the Comic Con. The booth is sponsored by The Brotherhood. Here is gallery number one of the adventures in that booth last year. Thanks so much, guys.

If you are going to build the perfect Frankenstein-style woman from cloned cells and spare parts, Biotech Hobbyist magazine recommends the Scientific Surplus site. I know you were wondering where the heck you were going to find a reasonably-priced incubator, given that the alternative is to keep your skin cultures on your body at all times, and that is just gross. Scientic Surplus explains their service: “Scientific Surplus sells and services high quality new, used and refurbished equipment for laboratories. We provide a wide variety of general laboratory items and are experts in the pharmaceutical and biotech fields. We are your source for fermenters, bioreactors, centrifuges, shakers, incubators and related lab equipment. Scientific Surplus offers equipment from leading manufacturers that is tested, serviced or rebuilt to perform to original specifications. Every piece that we refurbish is guaranteed to perform to your satisfaction. With over 20 years of experience in providing service to commercial and research labs, our principals have earned a reputation for the utmost dependability and integrity. Use our Free Equipment Locator Service to help you find specific items for your lab. We purchase laboratory instruments and buy entire contents of labs. Contact us for all your equipment needs.” They don’t explicitly state that you should contact them if you are growing glow-in-the-dark undifferentiated flesh to dip your balls in, but it is implied in the word “needs.” (via Biotech Hobbyist)

Biotech Hobbyist magazine already offers online instructions for growing human skin, but now they are gearing up to help you figure out what to do with your vat of flesh. From the Biotech Hobbyist web site: “What to do? There are endless things to do with skin-do you want to make it glow in the dark? Do you want it to talk directly to your computer by interfacing it with silicon? Of course you do! The next project installments will explain how to splice in an amplified Great Star coral gene that will make your tissue glow cyan under UV light.” Yes, how can I make blob-like clones of my parts glow in the dark and post personals ads to the web? (via Mars Dust)

I pleased to be able to report that Mars Dust, the well-dressed fandom web site, has printed a prototype of a magazine they hope to do. Their first issue covers psychobilling and horror rock, Bruce Campbell, cosplay, Star Wars artist Sara Wilkinson, and Wonder Woman model Diana Knight of Blue Blood fame, and an article on how to become a spaceship entrepeneur and perhaps help Molly have weightless sexual relations. Okay, the last one is really just how to become a spaceship entrepreneur and I admit I read the rest into it.

Anzen Senshi supposedly translates from Japanese to English as “Safety Warrior.” No idea if this is accurate, but I noticed these robot-themed condoms on Slashdong and I could not rest until I found where to buy them. Now that my primary prophylactic mission is accomplished, I may address my secondary goal of making sure as many people as possible are aware of their options for robot penis wear. Amen to the thought that clearly anyone who thinks otaku get no play are mistaken. Apparently they just don’t use birth control, unless a mecha robot transformer monster tells them to.

Weightless Flight (also known as Parabolic Flight) is achieved aboard ZERO-G’s Boeing 727 aircraft named G-FORCE ONE. Weightlessness is achieved by flying G-FORCE ONE through a parabolic flight maneuver. Specially trained pilots fly these maneuvers between approximately 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude. Each parabola takes 10 miles of airspace to perform and lasts approximately one minute from start to finish.

The maneuver is somewhat like a roller coaster in that the plane is initially pulled up to approximately 45 degrees ‘nose high’. Next the plane is ‘pushed over’ the top to reach the zero-gravity segment of the parabolas. For the next 25 - 30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless. At approximately 30 degrees ‘nose low’ a gentle pull-out is started which allows the Flyers to stabilize on the aircraft floor. Finally, the g-force is increased smoothly to about 1.8 g’s until the aircraft reaches a flight altitude of 24,000 feet. The maneuver is then repeated.

The weightlessness experienced by everyone inside the airplane is actually equivalent to the type of “free fall” you experience when sky diving. In this case however, the body of the aircraft surrounds you and protects you from the on-rushing wind. At the end of the free fall period, the aircraft also scoops you up and carries you back up to the top of the arc to begin the free fall process again.

In addition to achieving zero-g or weightlessness, G-FORCE ONE can also fly a parabola designed to offer Lunar (1/6th) or Martian (1/3rd) gravity. These reduced gravity environments are also created with a modified parabola that is not quite as steep as zero gravity parabola. (via gozerog.com)

With Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest breaking all box office records, you would think it would be easier to find naked pictures of Johnny Depp online. I’m 99% sure that nude photos of the swashbucking pirate exist, so I’d appreciate it if someone would email me a link already. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thumb my nose at those who say that genre work is doomed to be smaller than “general interest” media. With $132 million smackeroos, Pirates beat the previous record-holder for opening weekend gross, which was of course another fandom movie, Spider-Man. With $55.5 million doubloons on opening Friday, Pirates also beat the previous one day gross record, which was held by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The top grossing flick the weekend before Pirates opened was Superman Returns. So I think this fandom thing might just catch on. Subliminal message: hire more screenwriters to create and massage fandom scripts or just send me nekkid pics of Johnny Depp. Either one is good.

I have heard that you don’t count as rich until you own your own jet. Well real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow is raising the bar. He has committed five hundred million dollars towards attempting to make my dream of zero gee sex come true. Technically, the owner of the Budget Suites hotel chain has so far only funded the launch of a space-faring Russky balloon, but it is a scientifically important balloon in the journey towards creating the first commercial space station, which is the ultimate goal of Bigelow Aerospace. (via AP on Yahoo)

The thing that Hollywood people always say about Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, when speaking of the movie Speed, is that “oh, they had such amazing chemistry.” That thought certainly never crossed my mind watching Speed. I think Keanu Reeves is a fine actor and Sandra Bullock managed to reach for his level in Speed, but sometimes actors can seem like they are in love because they, you know, can act. This is why you should never ever ever date an actor. One night stands with actors are okay but not relationships. At any rate, I’ve never been sure whether this chemistry comment was code for “they had a steamy fling during shooting” but now it seems that every journalist who covers The Lake House is contractually obligated to imply that maybe someone’s driving their bus in the tunnel, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, maybe putting their boat in the ocean, get it, ha, ha. Bullock is recently wed and Reeves is famously private and, kids, it is just a movie, not real life, so this line of questioning is totally insufferable to me just as a reader. Plus it distracts from the average person remotely comprehending what this paranormal romance is about.

Sci Fi has an interview with the faux couple which includes the following exchange: Why has it taken so long for you two to work together again, and will it be another decade or so before you have a romantic destiny again?

Reeves: I’d like to have a “romantic destiny.” Please give me a “romantic destiny”! Wow, a “romantic destiny,” what does that mean? Romantic destiny.

Bullock: Maybe. Does it matter? Let go of time. Have you seen this film? Let go of time and your preconceived notions of time and just be. If you write that literally, and don’t say that I said that sarcastically, I’ll be the first to come to your home and destroy your landscaping. [Laughs.]

Oh yeah, The Lake House is about some chick and some guy who fall in love via some sort of time travel conceit. Not clear on it because I haven’t seen the movie. Reports tell me that Bullock and Reeves held hands at the premiere, but, like, only as friends, so at least I’m clear on that.

A forthcoming movie called Goya’s Ghosts chronicles the life and times and painter Francisco Goya. It particularly focuses on a muse of his, played by Natalie Portman. Said muse gets accused of heresy by a monk. Supposedly nude torture scenes ensue. Yes, fanboys, Padme Amidala only gets naked if torture is involved. (Those of you who wish to bone up on electrodes to the vulva can head on over to Wired Pussy for an education.) Natalie Portman has an entry on Mr. Skin which still contains only sexy, bikini, and the coveted underwear rating. No nudity. Apparently, Darth Vader’s lover made the director of Closer leave nudies of her on the cutting room floor. So it remains to be seen whether torture is really enough of a motivator or whether Goya really has a ghost of a chance of a naked Nat.

Fun Trivia has a section devoted to science fiction fen. The first quiz is on Classic Science Fiction Novels and I just want you all to know that I got 25 out of 25 correct. I just want you to know you are in expert hands with me here. (via Blue Blood)

This week, The Independent published an article, by their Washington Correspondent Rupert Cornwell, which asked whether human space exploration is really such a good idea. Arguments against manned space exploration were that it was more expensive and unwieldy than robotics and that there would be an inevitable loss of life from time to time. Arguments in favor of using humans, rather than machines, were that people can sometimes do better research and make proper repairs in ways machines can’t. Also, “The drama of watching men and women explore new worlds appeals to something basic in human nature.” They left out “Molly Case has always wanted to have sex in zero gee in front of a window on the stars.”

On this day in 1456, Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy. Unfortunately for Joan, she was executed twenty-five years prior. Being a strong woman can be rough. I’ve been sitting around trying to think how this date would be celebrated if Joan of Arc’s acquittal was a holiday.

Okay, I probably was not really bought out by the Sci Fi Channel. Most likely, I was just annoyed at the way people are trending towards a repulsively mercenary attitude. Like they think doing anything for the joy of it is stupid. That stuff just sort of discouraged me for a while.

But this weekend Entourage had a character insert a highly collectible Shrek doll into a hooker. I couldn’t let that pass without mentioning it. Still viewable on HBO On Demand this week. Now that’s quality television.