November 30, 2007

Evel Knievel Died:

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over crazy obstacles including Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.


Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills. He also suffered two strokes in recent years.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundle said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

"It's been coming for years, but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?" Rundle said.

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

"I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have" after so many injuries, said his son Kelly Knievel, 47. "I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years."

Though Knievel dropped off the pop culture radar in the '80s, the image of the high-flying motorcyclist clad in patriotic, star-studded colors was never erased from public consciousness. He always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel's trademarked image in a popular West music video.

Knievel made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival, which Rundle organizes.

"They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives," Knievel said. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner."

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. To Knievel, there always were mountains to climb, feats to conquer.

"No king or prince has lived a better life," he said in a May 2006 interview with The Associated Press. "You're looking at a guy who's really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved."

He had a knack for outrageous yarns: "Made $60 million, spent 61. ...Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. ... Had $3 million in the bank, though."

He began his daredevil career in 1965 when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph behind dragster race cars.

In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the West and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.

He steadily increased the length of the jumps until, on New Year's Day 1968, he was nearly killed when he jumped 151 feet across the fountains in front of Caesar's Palace. He cleared the fountains but the crash landing put him in the hospital in a coma for a month.

His son, Robbie, successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

In the years after the Caesar's crash, the fee for Evel's performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London — the crash landing broke his pelvis — to more than $6 million for the Sept. 8, 1974, attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered "Skycycle." The money came from ticket sales, paid sponsors and ABC's "Wide World of Sports."

The parachute malfunctioned and deployed after takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him close to the swirling river below.

On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.

Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater. He continued to do smaller exhibitions around the country with his son, Robbie.

Many of his records have been broken by daredevil motorcyclist Bubba Blackwell.

Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in "Viva Knievel" and with Lindsay Wagner in an episode of the 1980s TV series "Bionic Woman." George Hamilton and Sam Elliott each played Knievel in movies about his life.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and '80s.

Born Robert Craig Knievel in the copper mining town of Butte on Oct. 17, 1938, Knievel was raised by his grandparents. He traced his career choice back to the time he saw Joey Chitwood's Auto Daredevil Show at age 8.

"The phrase one-of-a-kind is often used, but it probably applies best to Bobby Knievel," said former U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., Knievel's cousin. "He was an amazing athlete... He was sharp as a tack, one of the smartest people I've ever known and finally, as the world knows, no one had more guts than Bobby. He was simply unafraid of anything."

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, Knievel went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1957 and played with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959.

He also formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

Knievel also worked in the Montana copper mines, served in the Army, ran his own hunting guide service, sold insurance and ran Honda motorcycle dealerships. As a motorcycle dealer, he drummed up business by offering $100 off the price of a motorcycle to customers who could beat him at arm wrestling.

At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man.

Evel Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s. They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.

Robbie Knievel followed in his father's footsteps as a daredevil, jumping a moving locomotive in a 200-foot, ramp-to-ramp motorcycle stunt on live television in 2000. He also jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm of the Grand Canyon.

Knievel lived with his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, splitting his time between their Clearwater condo and Butte. They married in 1999 and divorced a few years later but remained together. Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

November 28, 2007

Darth Vader Kitchen Towel:



This Darth Vader tea-towel from Etsy seller JennyDee tickles my sithbone. This would make drying dishes into an exercise in resisting the Dark Side of the Force.

LINK

November 26, 2007

Bill Nye Pisses Off The Crazy Christians:

Bill Nye in Waco
Posted Apr 13th, 2006 at 7:19 am in Science, Religion & Faith, Culture


Last week, Bill Nye (The Science Guy) gave a talk at McLennan Community College in Waco, TX. Everything went well at first, until…



The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”


He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.


A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.


“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.




What’s funny to me is that people would get angry at this, when there are two creation stories. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the first, and a new story begins in Genesis 2:4. In the second story, man is made before anything else, including women. This is in total conflict with the creation order given in the first account, and seems rather in conflict with Genesis 1:27 which, with a close literal interpretation implies that men and women were created at the same time.


You know, when I’m reading literature and I see two different stories back to back, I usually recognize a literary style other than literal history. But it seems that some, like the attendees to Nye’s lectures, wear their sensitivies on their sleeve, looking for their opportunity to cause a scene. Man, it’s embarrassing.


Nye’s website (warning, it’s the most annoying website ever, turn off your speakers or puncture your eardrums) opens with a flash animation of the evolution of man. Perhaps those audience members who got angry should have Googled him first. Then they could have gotten angry at home.

Anatomical Heart Made From Candy Hearts:

Posted by Cory Doctorow

Nathan Sawaya's 2003 sculpture "Sweet Heart" is an anatomically correct 3D heart made from hundreds of Necco Conversation Hearts. Says the artist, "I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day. It is a made up holiday and makes more people feel sad than happy. It can make your heart feel vulnerable. Almost edible."
LINK

November 20, 2007

Wool Hat Gives Wearer Fake Beard:

The Best & Most Popular Funny T-Shirts | SkullznEyez
It's a hat with built-in beard! You can buy them at a Brooklyn store called Scandinavian Grace.
LINK

November 18, 2007

Victorian Cthulhu Horrors From Dan Hillier:

Posted by Cory Doctorow

Dan Hillier's Cthuloid drawings sport engraved Victorian gentlemen and ladies who are magically twisting into tentacled horrors. LINK

November 15, 2007

Would You Like Rat Poop With That?

While serendipity may be the art of finding pleasant things by chance, what health inspectors found at celebrated eatery Serendipity 3 was not very agreeable.

Officials closed the restaurant Wednesday night after it failed its second inspection in a month. An inspector spotted a live mouse and mouse droppings, fruit flies, house flies and more than 100 live cockroaches.

"Both inspections revealed rodent and fly infestation and conditions conducive to pest infestation, including stagnant water in the basement," the department said.

People stand in line for hours outside the Manhattan restaurant, known for its extravagant and expensive desserts. Its $25,000 Frrrozen Haute Chocolate features top-grade cocoa, edible gold and shavings of a luxury truffle and was declared the most expensive dessert in the world by Guinness World Records. The eatery also offers a $1,000 sundae named Golden Opulence requiring 48-hour advance notice.

Santa Fury At 'Ho, Ho, Ho' Ban:

By Janet Fife-Yeomans and Amanda Grant

He is an unlikely revolutionary but this Christmas, Santa is a rebel with a claus.


He is having the last laugh on political correctness - and it's a great big fat belly laugh.

Santas across Sydney are rebelling against attempts to ban their traditional greeting of "ho, ho, ho" in favour of "ha, ha, ha".

Recruitment firm Westaff - which supplies hundreds of Santas across the country - has told its trainees that the "ho ho ho" phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.

Two Santa hopefuls reportedly quit the course because of the hullabaloo of the ho, ho, ho.

One would-be Santa has told The Daily Telegraph he was taught not to use "ho, ho, ho" because it was too close to the American slang for prostitute. He also quit.

"Gimme a break," Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids, said.

"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they.

"Leave Santa alone."

November 10, 2007

Jones Soda, Co., Fizzy, Bottled Ham:

SEATTLE - Coming soon next to the Coke and Pepsi in a store near you: ham-and latke-flavored soda to make your holiday feast complete. It even will be kosher, the company making it says — including the ham.


Jones Soda Co., the Seattle-based purveyor of offbeat fizzy water, is selling holiday-themed limited-edition packs of flavored sodas.


The Christmas pack will feature such flavors as Sugar Plum, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Christmas Ham. The Hanukkah pack will have Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Latkes sodas.


"As always, both packs are kosher and contain zero caffeine," Jones said in a statement.


The packs will go on sale Sunday, with a portion of the proceeds to be given to charity, the company said.


Jones' products feature original label art and frequently odd flavors. Last year's seasonal pack was Thanksgiving-themed, with Green Pea, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Turkey and Gravy, and Antacid sodas.


For its contract to supply soda to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, Jones came up with Perspiration, Dirt, Sports Cream and Natural Field Turf. The company — fortunately or unfortunately — prides itself on the accuracy of the taste.


Jones also makes more traditional flavors, including root beer, cherry and strawberry sodas.



LINK: http://www.jonessoda.com/

November 08, 2007

Mickey Rourke At It Again. Big Surprise:

In this photo combo provided by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, actor Mickey Rourke is shown. Rourke was arrested Thursday for driving under the influence on a green scooter, in Miami Beach, Fla., authorities said. (AP Photo/Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department)


MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A scooter-riding Mickey Rourke was arrested Thursday on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Rourke, star of "Sin City," "Diner" and "9 1/2 Weeks," was arrested at 4:20 a.m. and booked at the Miami-Dade County Jail, said Janelle Hall, a jail spokeswoman. He was released on a $1,000 bond, she said.

A telephone message left at the office of Rourke's agent wasn't immediately returned.

A Miami Beach Police report said Rourke made a U-turn with a red light and then swerved several times while on a green scooter. He had a flushed face and bloodshot, watery eyes, his speech was slurred, and he had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, the report said.

"I'm not drunk, I didn't even drink that much," the report quoted Rourke as saying.

Rourke, 51, allegedly failed field-sobriety tests before being taken to headquarters. He also failed an alcohol breath test, police said.

The Phelps-Roper Clan:

Are fucking AssHats.

Just saying.