Author: Makerbot

I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man.
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I Really Want To See This

And I don’t care what you say.

Laurel & Hardy, one of the world’s great comedy teams, set out on a variety hall tour of Britain in 1953. Diminished by age and with their golden era as the kings of Hollywood comedy now behind them, they face an uncertain future. As the charm and beauty of their performances shines through, they re-connect with their adoring fans.

The tour becomes a hit, but Stan & Ollie can’t quite shake the specter of Laurel and Hardy’s past; the long-buried ghosts, coupled with Oliver’s failing health, start to threaten their precious partnership. A portrait of the most tender and poignant of creative marriages, they are aware that they may be approaching their swan song, trying to rediscover just how much they mean to each other.

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Gum Disease May Cause Alzheimer’s

You bastards better keep flossing! According to NewScientist …

If you bled when you brushed your teeth this morning, you might want to get that seen to. We may finally have found the long-elusive cause of Alzheimer’s disease: Porphyromonas gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease.

That’s bad, as gum disease affects around a third of all people. But the good news is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year, and research published today shows it might stop and even reverse Alzheimer’s. There could even be a vaccine.

Multiple research teams have been investigating P. gingivalis, and have so far found that it invades and inflames brain regions affected by Alzheimer’s; that gum infections can worsen symptoms in mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer’s; and that it can cause Alzheimer’s-like brain inflammation, neural damage, and amyloid plaques in healthy mice.

“When science converges from multiple independent laboratories like this, it is very compelling,” says Casey Lynch of Cortexyme, a pharmaceutical firm in San Francisco, California.

In the new study, Cortexyme have now reported finding the toxic enzymes – called gingipains – that P. gingivalis uses to feed on human tissue in 96 per cent of the 54 Alzheimer’s brain samples they looked at, and found the bacteria themselves in all three Alzheimer’s brains whose DNA they examined.

Full article here.

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The Muck Monster

When I was a kid, my mom would take me grocery shopping. I would practically run to the magazine stand and then she’d collect me after check out. What she still doesn’t know is that I read TONS of inappropriate shit, from Creepy to Creem and whatever else you can think of. On one of those trips, I came across this story. Me being me, it had a profound effect. Unfortunately, I could never track down a copy as an adult, not knowing the artist, story name, or publication. Occasionally, I would ask other horror fans about it, but no one ever knew what I was talking about.

Of course, after I gave up looking, I accidentally found it online. According to some comic historian with a blog, “The Muck Monster” was originally published in the September 1975 issue of Eerie (#68) as a color insert. Comix International then reprinted it in October 1975, and then, a few years later in November 1979, it was reprinted in black & white for issue 113 of Creepy. (Which is when I must have initially read it.)

So here it is, pretty much as I remembered it. I uploaded the color version because it’s higher resolution, but the black & white version is much more impactful. I should have guessed Berni Wrightson was the artist and writer.

No Images found.

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The Dude … Returns?

Well, probably not. In fact, this is likely just a teaser for a Super Bowl ad, or possibly a Lebowski spinoff starring John Turturro (Going Places) expected later this year. So …

But! If you’ve always wanted a sweater like The Dude’s, you’ll be happy to learn that Pendleton is making them again! The ORIGINAL WESTERLEY has finally returned, and it’ll only set you back $239.00.

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Check Out These Early Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Animatics

So sayeth animator Alberto Mielgo …

As I mentioned before, I was hired to direct the animation test for the new Spiderman film.

Here you can see my original storyboards and animatics that I produced for such a test. My main intention was to explore the language of comics and cinema and merge them together. We finished only 4 of this shots. And everyone ended up pretty exhausted!!!
The shots that we produced with an incredible technical team were some of the most amazing thing Ive seen, and Im extremely proud of them and the team involved. With those shots we open a door to a pipeline and possibilities and help to estimate the overall film.
I hope Sony will allow me to share the finished shots some time in the future .

Im really happy to see that most of my shots on this early boards made it to the final film. Again I would like to congratulate the whole team that finished the final film for preserving the compositions and the original intention of these shots. It shows that everyone felt inspired and that they really cared for this particular vision.

As you can see the 3 versions are very different in tone. It was early and I was not too sure yet what would be the final mood of this film yet.

I work with pencil, photoshop, I do the comp in After FX and my edits in Premiere, with my own sounds and all bunch of crap in Audition… Did I ever say how much I love adobe?

Music on this obviously temp score just for the edit.

My pick temp track artist:
v1: SON LUX
v2: LEFTFIELD
v3: MAXIMONO

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Wanna Know How To Spot A Fake?

Just the thing for a late afternoon distraction …

Forensic scientist Thiago Piwowarczyk and art historian Jeffrey Taylor PhD examine a purported Jackson Pollock painting and use their expertise to determine if the painting is legitimate or a forgery.

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You Get Nothing

Anybody ever heard this?

Willy Wonka is usually a very pleasant (albeit eccentric) chocolate tycoon. But when Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe steal the fizzy lifting drinks, he succumbs to a maniacal fit of rage and informs them that they get NOTHING!

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Sunny Prestatyn

By Philip Larkin

Come To Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.

She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls

Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.

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Dirty John

If you bastards listen to podcasts, you MUST add this one to your list. Absolutely riveting.

Debra Newell is a successful interior designer. She meets John Meehan, a handsome man who seems to check all the boxes: attentive, available, just back from a year in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders. But her family doesn’t like John, and they get entangled in an increasingly complex web of love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and ultimately, survival. Reported and hosted by Christopher Goffard from the L.A. Times.

Check it out here.