I blessed the rains down in Africa.

The hotel I am staying at in the UK has free internet access, and thanks to the generosity of a good friend, I am not computer-less. This is good because I was worried that after a few days without my computer I was going to revert to savagery like the kids in Lord of the Flies.

And fortunately for you, now I am still able to keep my bringing you important, news-worthy, socially relevant blogging like this: the video for Africa by Toto.



The 80s were such a glorious decade. You could become a massive rock star even if you happened to look like a lame high school chemistry teacher, and your hit song contained about 9000 different chords in it. Did I mention this song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983? Because it did.

japanese trick bowling.

Most people, when faced with the prospect of knocking down 4 pins across three separate lanes when bowling, would simply say, "I can't."

Well I don't speak Japanese, but I am pretty sure that there is no Japanese word for can't. And if there is, it is probably a dirty, filthy word that you are not allowed to say in public.



via afrojacks

new favourite artist: Tyler Stout

Well I am just about to get on a plane headed to the UK to go on tour for a few weeks, and I'm not really sure if I'm going to be blogging with any kind of regularity while I'm away. So before I go I thought I would leave you with some cool stuff, in this case the artwork of Austin, Texas based artist Tyler Stout. As you can see, Tyler creates speciality posters for classic films and other pop culture gems, usually in conjunction with Austin's legendary Alamo Drafthouse.







I would absolutely love to have one of these bad boys hanging on my wall (particularly the incredible piece he made for the Big Lebowski above,) but I think they sell out pretty fast. Still though, I know very little about the art world, but I do know that Tyler Stout is wicked awesome.

Alright, well I'm off, and I will be back as frequently as I possibly can! I love you all!

better off as two.

Just got back from a few days in NYC, and I will write a little about my big city adventures here as soon as I have a few minutes.

I already posted Frankmusik's first single, 3 Little Words, but as long as he keeps putting out amazing tracks like this, I am going to continue to post them here. My excitement level for his Stuart Price-produced LP has reached critical mass. Frankmusik is genius and I have a feeling he is going to be absolutely massive.

terror of golf course.

Now, there's nothing that I can see that specifically says that this is from Japan, but you know what, this is weird enough that even if it originated in Korea, or China, or elsewhere in Asia, I think it qualifies as officially Japanese.



What's that, you'd like some more and you want the strangeness level turned up even higher? Ask and ye shall receive:

you should be watching Eastbound and Down.

If you haven't started watching Danny McBride in HBO's Eastbound and Down yet, you are officially missing out on one of the funniest shows ever and after it has been cancelled due to bad ratings and critical indifference you will have no one to blame but yourself. But really, this training montage put together by Kenny Powers (the egomaniacal former MLB star and current high school phys ed coach,) and his band-teaching lacky Mr Janowski, should be all the reason you need to start watching:



I also just started watching AMC's Breaking Bad and I am already absolutely loving the shit out of that as well. So you should probably also be watching that.

enough is enough.

Wow, we sure have been posting a lot of Star Trek / Star Wars / generally geeky material here recently. I think we should probably tone it down a little, and try to inject a little more "maleness," (as Noah refers to it,) into this blog. Actually, wait a second, what the fuck am I saying? Of course I'm going to post this incredible Star Trek TNG modded iPhone.



This is so cool, it makes me feel kind of funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class. I must have one.

Kittens inspired by Kittens!

My first instinct was that I should save this video to post on Bobbo's birthday. But then when I saw that it had almost 3 million views, there was no doubt in my mind that he must have already come across it in his hours of watching youtube kitten videos, and would have posted it but didn't want to water down the maleness of 'Action and Action' with too much kitty content. I'm pretty sure this video was written and directed by the same responsible parent that gave that little girl a tattoo of a dog on her arm.

a turtle attempting to make love to a shoe.

Pretty self-explanatory. This is oddly hypnotic, and I certainly am sympathetic to the endless cycle of rejection this poor little guy is forced to endure.

computer porn.

Too...awesome. Can't put into words...just watch...video.



via Gizmodo

The Kepler Launch: finally, NASA does something cool.

The Kepler telescope is the first of its kind designed specifially to find Earth-like planets. It has a much wider field of vision than most telescopes and, by monitoring the brightness levels of a specific area of space which is populated by around 100 000 stars, it will find planets that are around Earth size and located in the ideal proximity to a star to support liquid water. This will come in handy once we have fucked up this planet to the point that we all have to go live somewhere else.


Kepler Telescope from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

What I find really cool about this is that if Kepler determines that there is a significant volume of Earth-like planets within its search radius (which is larger than any other telescope but still ridiculously tiny in the grand scheme of space, which is pretty big,) then it really does significantly increase the odds that there is other life out in the universe besides us. And the aliens that have visited Earth already.

If you want to see the launch, here it is.

10 Reasons why George Lucas shouldn't have directed the Star Wars Prequels.

1999 was a much more innocent time than the one we live in now. The world's intelligentsia all believed whole heartedly that the new millennium would bring about a technological apocalypse, few of us had even heard of George Walker Bush yet, and right about this time ten years ago, fans began to line up for 'The Phantom Menace' and thought it was going to be good. I have a distinct memory of Liam Neeson promoting the film on The Rosie O'Donnel show, saying that Ahmed Best (aka Jar Jar) was going to be the next Eddie Murphy.

I've been looking forward to seeing how the film 'Fanboys' portrays this period ever since it was finished 2 years ago. After some re-shooting, re-editing, and redirecting (the original director was replaced), the film finally got its (limited) US release last month. No word yet on when the Canadians will get to see it, even though there's a bunch of us in it (Jay Baruchel plays one of the main characters, Seth Rogan and William Shatner both have cameos as well). For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of the film, it involves a group of fans trying to sneak into the Skywalker ranch to get a copy of the first unreleased Star Wars prequel so that their dying friend can see it.

While they may have not known the disappointment that awaited them, the world today is much wiser to the directorial skills of Darth Lucas. The following list isn't really what the title of this post suggests, but more just a list of really cool things other people have done with the Star Wars universe, showing that 'fanboys' sometimes grasp the content better than its creator.

10. Troops (1998)

9. Masters of Teras Kasi (1997)
Ever wonder who would win in a fight between Han and Chewie? I know, it would never happen, right? Except in this awesome Star Wars fighting game for the original sony playstation.


8. Robot Chicken: Star Wars (2008)
This is just one of the many great moments of the 23 minute special.


7. Darth Vader with removable helmet toy (1996)
His hand comes off too. Totally boss.

6, 5, 4 Timothy Zahn's 'Thrawn Trilogy'
'Heir to the Empire' (1992) 'Dark Force Rising' (1992) and 'The Last Command' (1994) take place about 5 years after Episode 6 and are the first serious and successful literary contribution to Star Wars' expanded universe. It's been a long time since I've read a Star Wars book, but I would probably read these again before picking up anything new, as I'm sure these are superior.

3. Warning: mind is at risk of being blown if image below is clicked to enlarge.



2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Okay, this film has no literal connection to Star Wars whatsoever, though I'm sure one could uncover several thematic links. The first time I watched this martial arts masterpiece, these links are what made me think Ang Lee would be a much better man for the job that Lucas, blinded by self importance, refused to let anyone else have.


1. 'Fette's Vette' by MC Chris
Wanting to post this video was the primary catalyst behind this entire post. It's a great rap, and the videogame footage they show is pretty incredible as well, though I'm not sure where it comes from. Kevin Smith used the song in 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' and it's ten times better than that Chewbacca song he used in 'Clerks.'

The only thing that George Lucas has done in the last 15 years that's anywhere near as cool as anything in the list above, was setting Hayden Christensen's stumps on fire, and he made us sit through three movies before that happened.

Click here to read what like-minded individuals over at Dork Shelf have to say about Lucas beginning production on a live action Star Wars series.

ZOMG NEW STAR TREK TRAILER!!!!!11!

I'm looking forward to seeing this bad boy on the big screen tonight before Watchmen. I was never sold on J.J. Abrams going with the 'young versions of classic characters' format for this, but fuck me running this looks fantastic.

yaaaay, that's great!

Nicely done, Noah! You have officially won the Internet. You've earned this, big guy:




So now you guys have met the new supporting cast, and for the final time, I am really excited about having Noah and Mark on board, and I think it's going to mean very good things for this little old corner of the webisphere (I think I just made up that word.) Anyways Mark clearly had no moral qualms with shamelessly plugging the ever-loving shit out of his various projects, but Noah seems to think he is above such an action. I'm not above it at all though, so check out Noah in his web series My Robot Friend. You also might want to become one of the 800,000 people that have already enjoyed this following video:

Almost there Internet...

I subscribe to the bohemian beliefs expressed by the ill fated lover of that French 'Red Windmill' movie: The Internet is like oxygen. The Internet is a many-splendoured thing, the Internet lifts us up where we belong. All you need is the Internet!

A little anachronistic given that the ever capitalized 'Internet' did not reach France until approximately the 1950's, but then again, Nirvana didn't exist in 1889 either and Elton John was only a child at the time.

All jokes aside, I do love how accessible the Internet has made the rest of the world. Any idiot could disprove pretty much everything I said above with a few simple word searches. Aside from the practical, productive uses (banking, job searching, email), it is also how I spend most of my leisure time (youtube, facebook, Action and Action). I never thought there would be a period in my life where I wouldn't have cable, let alone a television set, but these days my laptop is my TV, cable, and TVO all inside of a portable DVD player. Another thing that makes the Internet better than television is the user generated material that you would never see on a network, like all those 'Internet sensations' we've come to know and love so much.

Our current reliance and obsession in some cases (like mine) with the Internet has been spoofed several times over by the inspirational Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who I've long respected for having the most available show on line. When the Internet fails nationally in episode 1206 'Over Logging' we're treated to a panic that leads to brilliant Depression era throw-backs and an imaginative 'Internet porn simulator' for Stan's dad. After losing instant access to anything and everything his perverted mind could come up with, Randy gets a little backed up and resorts to a man behind a box drawing crude pictures of his requests for “Japanese girls exchanging bodily fluids” and “Brazilian fart fetish porn.” We understand where he gets his name once his 'Randyness' creates quite a mess.

Since I am fortunate enough to have what I consider to be rather pedestrian pornographic interests, I decided to apply this theory that just about any image one can dream up already exists in some form on the Internet to something other than fetish. When I tried to think of what I'd really like to see, the first image that came to me was of Freddy Kruger rocking out on guitar. Sure it would be tricky with the glove, but in the hands of the right artist, I'm sure it could somehow be beautifully realized. I wasn't successful in my search, but did find this sweet guitar image and for some reason, this awesome 'Clockwork Orange' desktop as well.



So the lesson learned is that if you do a google image search for something you'd really like to see, even if it's not on the Internet yet, you'll probably find some similar things that are equally as cool. I leave it to you to find me a picture of Freddy Kruger making Kirk Hammet look like Paul Jonas, then the Internet will truly be complete.


I'm going to sign off my first Action and Action post by thanking Rob for inviting me to contribute to a blog which has long been an oft-clicked bookmark and inspired me to begin my own just a few months back. I'll try to keep future posts a little more concise than this rant as we share tidbits of this strange technological beast.

a man giving a tiger a belly rub.

it's the city...of 500 cats.

"I want to go to there."
-Liz Lemon



via Urlesque

Terminator Salivation.

The new trailer for Terminator Salvation is going to be attached to Watchmen which comes out Friday (!!!) but Warner Brothers has released it online via Yahoo. I was highly skeptical of this project when it was announced. Terminator and Terminator 2 are kind of sacred ground for me - T3 was kind of fun but I still died a little inside when I saw it, and I kind of despise the Sarah Connor Chronicles. So When McG was announced as the director for the new film I prepared myself for a disaster of Aliens vs Predator proportions, but he has managed to say all the right things and his casting decisions have been interesting and most every image and trailer that have been released so far has been really impressive. He seems to really want to embrace the continuity of the franchise, he has reached out to James Cameron for his blessing and now there is talk that Linda Hamilton and the Governator may be involved in some way as well (a Hamilton voice over to start the film, and the use of Arnie's face digitally mapped onto a younger Austrian bodybuilder, allegedly.) And now we have this new trailer which reveals more about the story and characters than ever before, and I have to say, this has pretty much reached must-see status with me. I really like the look of everything, so much of the outdoor action is outside in broad daylight, and the war between humans and machines has yet to descend into the nightmare world of the Cameron films. Supposedly this is the first film in a trilogy of new Terminator movies so I am really anxious for this to be as good as it looks.




Its no wonder Bale was screaming at the DP, this shit looks intense.

Star Trek TNG high comedy.

YEAH, GIVE IT UP FOR MARK EVERYBODY!!!

OK, I'm sorry, I won't type in all-caps ever again. I'm just really excited about the prospect of having some more people contributing here, I think this is going to be really cool, and I'm also just glad I have have someone at least somewhat covering for me when I am stricken with one of my frequent bouts of just-don't-feel-like-doing-it-itis.

Anyways, I am shocked that someone has been making this incredibly irreverent, hilarious, Star Trek: the Next Generation mashup on Youtube for months and I am just hearing about it now. TNG is somewhat of a Youtube staple. There have been various minor comic triumphs like the filthy rap song, and the Picard remix...but this ongoing series from Jan van den Hemel and Andrew Hussie elevates the burgeoning genre to a serious artform.







via BWE

I feel like I could just keep embedding these all day, but you should just go and check out all their videos on their Youtube page. They also do mashups of Back to the Future. I haven't watched one of those yet as I've been too engrossed in TNG, but I'm going to go ahead and predict that yes, those are fucking hilarious too.