[true] Life is always stranger than fiction… the true story of a runaway princess, an american marine and the US Media… ‘Colbert adds: “no matter what the ending, it’s still a movie.” So is it being cast already? Aloe thought Brad Pitt was “a bit too laid back… Jason is a real John Wayne character, a young Steve McQueen all-American renegade, completely without fear.” Freddy Prinze Jr has already been suggested and Aloe says they want at least one big star, probably male. For the princess, Selma Hayek has already been mentioned and Aloe reckons that Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie would be ideal.’

[weblogs] Excellent weblog: Follow Me Here. “‘You can only tell the shapes of things by looking at their edges…’ Some weblogs are about weblogs and weblogging; others about the web and computing; my kind is still about the world. Follow me to some of its “sharp edges” as found on the web. “

[photos] Hunter S. Thompson and Grant Morrison— Seperated at birth?

[aliens] The Observer on the search for alien life in space. “On other worlds, it has remained rooted at the level of amoebas, microbes, and primitive pond life. All aliens are scum, in other words – an observation with crucial implications. As UK astronomer Ian Crawford points out in the latest issue of Scientific American , we may be ‘the most advanced life-forms in the galaxy’.”.

[weblogs] Every wondered what the word Barbelith means? Grant Morrison: “The word ‘BARBELiTH’ is derived from a dream I had when I was about 20 or 21 and coincided with my first structured ‘magical’ experiences and a minor nervous breakdown (in the dream, BARBELiTH was the name of some higher dimension or alternate reality). Like a lot of stuff in INVISIBLES I used the name unconsciously when I needed something to call the red circle that represents our Universe’s placental twin. I’d taken the etymology as far as ‘bearded stone’, which seems much less interesting and less weirdly appropriate than ‘alien stone’. My real life is getting more like the comic every day (in ways I should have suspected but didn’t really expect on this scale). There’s more on the red circle and its many meanings in DOOM PATROL #54, I just realised. That issue was written in near-trance so fuck only knows what’s been trying to get through all these years.”

[web] Zdnet on Ego-Surfing. ‘[..]Fouts says ego surfing is about more than the need for recognition. “I don’t have any real desire to be in the public eye,” he says. “It lets me know how accessible I am to the world. It’s nice to know that some random person from my past could find me.”‘

[comics] Yet another interview with Warren Ellis… “I suspect that, to successfully write superhero books through your thirties and forties, you either have to have genuine brain damage — Grant Morrison and Alan Moore come to mind — or be genuinely infantile. Grant and Alan and a bunch of others write great superhero comics because they are mad and that sick energy infuses the work. Too many others look more and more to me like confused, ageing writers-become-hacks making a vampiric living off the young. I’d rather not end up as the comics version of Art Linkletter. Or Krusty The Klown.”

[cams] newsUnlimited on Being Caprice. “It made me think, also, strangely, of Mrs Thatcher. In the mid-80s, Mrs Thatcher was interviewed by Russell Harty for a seemingly anodyne series called My Favourite Things. Mrs Thatcher’s favourite things included Bovril toast and, pride of place on her mantelpiece, a porcelain depiction of the recapture of the Falkland Islands by Royal Marines. I firmly believe her downfall can, in part, be attributed to this creepy revelation.”

[comics] The wisdom of Preacher… “I mean look at me: My head looks like a penis, I’ve got one leg, one ear, one eye, and my cock’s been replaced with a rubber tube.”

[some random blog] I read somewhere that a smelly dot company swaps embarrassing stories with a taxi ride from a cokehead. I was thinking that when the scooby snack loves, the herbal remedy leaves. I read somewhere that the mobile phone seldom buys an new techy toy from a radioactive screensaver. An impromptu mouse gets RSI, and an umbrella about the internet magazine redesigns. But, the outer microprocessor blogs with some lover. An unstable domain remembers a domain inside some uber-geek, and a domain around some weblog works for a fuck-buddy. Oh, and hey, check out notsosoft sometime. You might like it.

[cows] Fling Cows into Crop Circles! Woo-Hoo!

[vicars] The case of the missing Vicar. ‘Late last week, another churchwarden at St Paul’s, Captain Ian Powe, was arrested in connection with the allegations of harassment against Follett. Powe, who commanded HMS Yarmouth during the cod war, was released on bail and will have to return to Belgravia police station on August 8. He has vigorously protested his innocence. “I used to have an expression that worse things happen at sea,” Powe said earlier this week. “I’m not using it any more.”.’

[photo] Great Photo of Stanley Kubrick on the set of 2001. “My God. It’s full of stars.”

[comics] I’m trying to avoid the X-Men but Salon profiles Stan Lee and manages to mention Jack Kirby. It quite literally amazes me that the media still believe the myth that Lee created most of the Marvel characters. Lee was just the editor of those comics. “Jack Kirby returned to the company that year and, lore has it, found Lee sobbing while movers took the furniture out of Marvel’s offices.” [via Slashdot]

[photo] Young William from The Guardian’s Left a Bit Gallery. “Apart from the hair nothing has changed.”

[bulls] newsUnlimited profiles an English toreador. “The gore, shouts and sand seem impossibly remote two days later, as El inglés – The Englishman, a title he increasingly uses in tourist fights – looks back on his dual career as a toreador and supplier of fitted kitchens in Salford.”

[random weblogs] Doozer has left the building. Trying to fill the gap I find: Irish Weblogs… Not-so-Soft talks about the electronic traces you leave behind [She is right… Check out a Google search on: Darren S********], Lukelog blogs foreskins and finally, Blue Lines covers the horror that is sports lessons… “I’m am amazed that this survey can come as a shock to anyone. Doubly amazed that more words like ‘humiliating’, ‘demeaning’ and ‘crushing’ weren’t used as well as the typical ‘tedious’ and ‘boring’. Fuck Vogue and Ally McBeal, compulsory team sports has screwed up more people’s self image than a billion starved models.”

[vikings] The BBC wants to find out if you are a Viking.

[mobiles] If you have a Nokia mobile phone you really need to check out yourmobile.com. [via ChrisH]

[tv chef] Thank God for Delia — the life of a Chef. “Yesterday he was served with a subpoena as a witness in Marco Pierre White’s libel case against a fishmonger and he’s just found out his brother, Ronnie, is back on heroin.”

[tv] What will happen to The Philisophical Car Lot if Frank Butcher leaves Eastenders? “G-g-g-g-go!!“

[film] Slashdot discusses Bladerunner. “How can slashdot embolden its readers on the one hand to boycott the movie industry because of DVD and DeCSS, and, on the other hand, encourage us to purchase the Blade Runner DVD? “

[film] Ridley Scott answers a freqeuntly asked question about his film Blade Runner — Is Deckard a Replicant?. ‘In Channel 4’s documentary On The Edge Of Blade Runner, Scott discusses the scenes and asked what they mean, he confirms with a grin: “He’s a replicant”‘.

[prostitution] Prostitutes Phone Cards and Pokémon — getting blogged everywhere. Pig Inc: “By the way, I’ve got the ‘Cindy Crawford’ transexual model card if anyone wants to swap. Very rare, posted in the Bayswater area only. Mint condition.”

[comics] Ramblings 2000 the comic book industry news and rumours column is dead. Rich Johnstone’s column has moved to Next Planet Over…“WELCOME, SWINE. Hello, my name’s Rich Johnston, and I’ve sold out.”

[net] Danny O’Brien on mailing lists and trolling. “Our new member says he has friends in high places and we should all tread carefully. He says he’s a journalist, and he’ll be calling the tabloids with stories about the other subscribers. He phones the list organiser and hangs up in midcall. He reports subscribers to their ISP’s abuse desks. He threatens another with a libel case. He hurts, too: one man who used the companionship of the list to help with a deep personal crisis unsubscribes in anger at the abuse the troll is spreading; a teenager gets scared he will call the police. He does a search on another subscriber, finds out he’s gay and hurls abuse at him. “

[music] I have just seen Robbie Williams’ new video and I am feeling… disturbed. It’s not nice. But then again just about anything can disturb me at 2:30 in the morning… Here’s a BBC news report. “The video for Williams’ new single Rock DJ sees him apparently tearing chunks of skin and muscle from his body and throwing them to female onlookers to eat.”

[old school web] I used to visit these two sites frequently way back in the old days of the web. Check out Maggie Donea’s Moments and Justin Hall’s Links from the Underground…

[comics] Warren Ellis discusses if corporate-owned comic icons like Batman should be “saved”. ‘Superheroes are ultimately difficult to take seriously. And a mass audience wants, on some level, to take its mass-market violent action entertainment with a degree of seriousness. And what we’re talking about here is a virgin who can run up walls after being bitten by a nuked spider and a bald rich single old man who lives in a big remote house with his leather-clad “students.”‘

[tory] newsUnlimited takes a look at William Hague ‘It was my first Conservative dinner, and it was a shock. The Party is old; most of the dinner guests were in their 70s. It was hard to believe that this Britain bouffant hair-dos, portly, uniformed chauffeurs, crinoline ball-gowns and floral prints still existed; Planet Tory. It was like stepping back into the 50s. One thing was sure, these people would not be knocking door to door at election time. At one table at the back was a small clique of young men from Glasgow University’s Conservative Society. They are strangely awkward, arrogant, odd-looking, dressed in clothes borrowed from their grandparents; young Williams revisited 20 years later.’