Slightly exaggerated. Slightly.
Link: http://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg
by 
Reply
Update: At least two new Jesse Stone movies are in the works according to industry reports. See for example this article from Variety. Production begins in May, with scripts to be co-written by Michael Brandman and Tom Selleck, and the movies will initially air on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries cable network. More on this later.
Last May I posted a review of the Jesse Stone made-for-TV movie series, and it’s by far the most popular thing I’ve ever put on this blog (such as it is). I just got two more comments on it in the last 24 hours, and as with most of the comments they’re from people wanting more Jesse Stone.
CBS seems a lost cause at this point, but I tell you how a Jesse Stone movie could still be done.
I say that with confidence because it’s already been done for something fans missed. Last year, a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie succeeded pretty spectacularly, setting a goal of $2 million and actually raising over $5.7 million. (As a result you can find the movie on iTunes.)
A Kickstarter campaign doesn’t need to raise the full production budget, just enough to prove that there’s definitely an audience out there for another Jesse Stone film. Conventional funding can make up the difference, if needed. It just needs somebody with the right connections to make it happen.
by The Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi reports from a place where medical volunteers, some local and some foreign, come to deliver healthcare to the poor:
The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook
OK, Mandvi mugs a little too much in a few places and some of the shots he takes are cheap. But the point he’s making is straightforward and valid: Healthcare here in the U.S. doesn’t reach everyone, because there are plenty of people who can’t afford it.
The Fox Business commentator he interviews, Todd Wileman, also makes a valid point when he notes that some people some people choose to spend money on things other than health insurance. That’s why conservatives proposed the individual mandate some of them now complain about in the Affordable Care Act. Everybody should carry health insurance and not depend on the rest of us to expensively bail them out if they get expensively sick, and as a practical matter those who genuinely can’t afford it should get some help paying for it.
But of course Wileman’s forecast of coming horrors from the ACA makes no sense and is based on misinformation. There’s very little additional government regulation of medicine in the ACA, for example. He’s right, though, when he says wait times may increase, but the only way the Affordable Care Act influences that is by allowing more people to get insurance and see a doctor.
(Thanks to my brother Tom for pointing this out.)
by This is an interesting interaction between a dolphin and a human in Hawaiian waters. The dolphin a fishhook and fishing line in one its pectoral fins with the line also extending into its mouth. When Keller Laros, the human diver, gestures for the dolphin to come over the dolphin does so and appears to wait patiently while Laros carefully removes the hook and attached line.
It’s possible to read to much into something like this, supposing that we have a better understanding of the dolphin’s thinking than we do. On the other hand, it does seem justified to infer that the dolphin expected or at least hoped for help, and go it.
by Before you decide to take up parkour (aka free running), having watched video clips that make it look amazingly cool, take a look at the following and realize that for training purposes, you might want to dress like Iron Man.
(Warning: While there are some amusing bits, a lot of this is pretty painful to watch. There are also, as one would expect, a fair number of expletives, so don’t play this in church with the volume up.)
Link: http://youtu.be/TuXju71wMts
by Here’s the deal: A guy foolishly makes a bet with his kid brother over a basketball game (and not even a real basketball game) and loses, which means under the terms of the bet that he has to go to a specific busy intersection in Provo, Utah — I hope the guy doesn’t normally live in Capetown or something — and dance to music selected by his evil kid brother.
So, being a good sport and wanting to set a positive example for his younger sibling (as we older brothers are wont to do), he goes through with the deal, wearing an explanatory T-shirt reading “I lost a bet.”
But wait until you see the good part. (The whole thing runs under 3 minutes. What else are you doing that’s so important?)
Link: http://youtu.be/BuCfD7mRt_8
It helps that the guy can actually dance. I’d even put him up there with Les Grossman. If you don’t know who that is, see the clip below. (Note that the soundtrack on the following is not safe for work — indelicate language and all that.)
Link: http://youtu.be/uBdszT5myn0
by (Updated)
Today’s XKCD has a rather disturbing graphic showing the total mass of land mammals on Earth divided into humans, our pets and livestock, and everything else. There’s not much of everything else.
As the Explain XKCD site points out here, “Per the diagram, there are 358 million tons of humans, 864 million tons of pets and livestock, of which 520 million tons comes from cattle, and 34 million tons of wild animals; for a total of 1.3 billion tons.”
Update: The comic now indicates that it’s land mammals we’re talking about here and not “land animals” more generally.
In percentage terms, our pets and livestock account for nearly 69% of the mass of land mammals and humans for more than 28 percent. All the remaining land mammals — elephants, lions, monkeys, squirrels, moose, rats, mice, wild bunnies, and so on — put together weigh less than 3 percent of the total.
by A few weeks ago the So Long As It’s Words blog published an informative and amusing post on the origin of the F-word in English. It’s more interesting than one might have thought.
The thing I found most interesting, however, is that at least in the 13th century there used to be a place near Nottingham called Ric Wyndfuck de Wodehous. I’m sure P.G. Wodehouse would have admired that name.
by A nurse is called in to see singer Bruno Mars in his dressing room. He’s wearing an earpiece, and Ellen is telling him what to say and do, which gets more and more bizarre. Funnier than I expected:
Link: http://youtu.be/km-ZnxwQhnk
I’ve always found Ellen DeGeneres appealing, and when I mention that, some people will remind me that she’s both married and not into guys. Yeah, like that’s the only reason I don’t have a shot…
by