Fully Articulated Productions

Ace Frehley on Tom Snyder, 1979

The funniest minute in glam-rock history. Honest.

Here's the whole thing in three parts, start at the top. Ace Frehley might be the funniest guy alive.

"I'll give you the P&L statement!"

Beautiful.

Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

Link: Websurdity � Blog Archive � Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?.

We’ve all heard the “official conspiracy theory” of the Death Star attack. We all know about Luke Skywalker and his ragtag bunch of rebels, how they mounted a foolhardy attack on the most powerful, well-defended battle station ever built. And we’ve all seen the video over, and over, and over, of the one-in-a-million shot that resulted in a massive chain reaction that not just damaged, but completely obliterated that massive technological wonder.

The alternate happy ending to "King Kong"

Peter Jackson's blockbuster film King Kong cost New Zealand taxpayers almost $50 million

So, basically, the New Zealand government awards grants to film productions that spend a qualifying amount on making movies in New Zealand. The logic is, of course, that the enterprise of creating films will generate oodles of cash for the local and regional economies. Based on qualifying expenditure of $389.22 million, KONG got $48.65 million.

I have absolutely no argument with that; government support of fim production, I feel, pays off. The math used in this particular article, however, is interesting:

An economic evaluation of the large budget screen production grant scheme has estimated its net impact is somewhere between a $33 million gain and $38 million loss.

That, my friends, is a $71 million margin of error in "estimating"!

Link: Stuff.co.nz: King Kong cost taxpayers $49m.

A Dose Of Genius: Students Getting "Smart Pill" Prescriptions

When I was in college I had to work nights to pay my way through, and, yes, I was a bit jealous of the children of privilege whose only job in school was to... attend school. At the UW-Madison my first apartment was right around the corner from frat row, but I was miles away from them financially.

Now there's yet another way for the rich kids to get ahead:

Her friend's attention is laserlike, totally focused on her texts, even after an evening of study. "We were so bored," Lessing says. But the friend was still "really into it. It's annoying."

The reason for the difference: Her pal is fueled with "smart pills" that increase her concentration, focus, wakefulness and short-term memory.

As university students all over the country emerge from final exam hell this month, the number of healthy people using bootleg pharmaceuticals of this sort seems to be soaring.

Link: A Dose Of Genius.

Only the truly ignorant get pulled in by email scams - right?

Who gets fooled by those Nigerian e-mail frauds? How about a decorated Vietnam veteran and ordained minister with a busy practice as a Christian psychotherapist.

From the New Yorker:

Worley, who had spent his adult life advocating self-knowledge and introspection, seemed particularly unlikely to be fooled. He had developed a psychological profiling tool designed to reveal a person’s “unique needs, desires and probable behavioral responses.” He promised users of the test, “The individual’s understanding of self will be greatly enhanced, increasing the potential for a fulfilled and balanced life.” And Worley was vigilant against temptation. Two weeks before the e-mail arrived, he had been the keynote speaker at his eldest granddaughter’s graduation from the First Assembly Christian Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts. He cautioned the students about Satan, telling them, “He’s going to be trying to destroy you every inch of the way.”

Worley scrolled through his in-box and opened an e-mail, addressed to “CEO/Owner.” The writer said that his name was Captain Joshua Mbote, and he offered an awkwardly phrased proposition: “With regards to your trustworthiness and reliability, I decided to seek your assistance in transferring some money out of South Africa into your country, for onward dispatch and investment.” Mbote explained that he had been chief of security for the Congolese President Laurent Kabila, who had secretly sent him to South Africa to buy weapons for a force of élite bodyguards. But Kabila had been assassinated before Mbote could complete the mission. “I quickly decided to stop all negotiations and divert the funds to my personal use, as it was a golden opportunity, and I could not return to my country due to my loyalty to the government of Laurent Kabila,” Mbote wrote. Now Mbote had fifty-five million American dollars, in cash, and he needed a discreet partner with an overseas bank account. That partner, of course, would be richly rewarded.

Link: The New Yorker: Fact.

The Priory Of Sion, Is The "Secret Organization" Fact Or Fiction?

Understand: I've still not read The DaVinci Code. Still, tidbits like this are Damned Interesting:
 

But one mystery still remains, and it's the one that began this story: Where did the priest of Rennes Le Chateau, Bérenger Saunière, get the money to build his estate? In 1910 he was summoned to appear before the bishop's court in the local, medieval-walled city of Carcasonne.

In Carcasonne, Sauniere was tried and found guilty of trafficking in masses. Priests are allowed to accept money for saying up to three masses a day. But what Saunière had done was to solicit and receive money for thousands of masses, which he couldn't possibly have said. In fact, he didn't even try. So the source of the wealth of the priest of Rennes le Chateau was not some ancient, mysterious treasure — but good old-fashioned fraud.

Link: The Priory Of Sion, Is The "Secret Organization" Fact Or Fiction? - CBS News.

Major Rathbone's injury

From the legend,lore and facts of Abraham's Lincoln's assassination comes this tidbit concerning the struggle in the President's theater box after Booth fired the fatal shot.

In the box with Mary and Abraham Lincoln were Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris - - guests who accepted the Lincolns' invitation to the theater after others had declined.

After the fatal gunshot, Rathbone leapt up and grabbed Booth by the coat. Booth freed himself and struck with a long knife, a thrust parried by Rathbone's arm.

In the aftermath, Lincoln's theater box was drenched in blood - - but almost none of it his. His head injury was such that he barely bled at all; indeed, his wife could find no mark on him. Major Rathbone, however, had been dealt a forceful blow with Booth's long knife. The visible incision was small, but the blade went in parallel to his bone and straight up his arm almost to the shoulder, severing veins, arteries and nerves beneath the surface. He bled like a spigot, and many grotesque souvenirs of the evening professing to be stained with Lincoln's blood are actually marked with that of Rathbone.

When a doctor arrived in the theater box, Rathbone begged him to attend to his wound first, before the President. Fortunately for the Major, that little tidbit didn't become contemporary public knowledge.

Rathbone eventually married Clara and moved to Hanover, Germany. Eighteen years later, in a mad daze, he shot and stabbed her to death. He botched a suicide attempt and lived out his life in a German asylum.