Cinematic Pumpkin Carvings

Cinematic Pumpkin Carvings

Posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 10:10 pm by: Peter Sciretta

Tomorrow is Halloween. To help celebrate we have collected the 75 best movie related pumpkin carving photos (we could find) on the internet. Check them out below.

Continued in Part 2

Sears Black Friday

enough said:

Sears Black Friday Ad

Oldest known photograph of a tornado

Dead Ping-Pong Balls

Vadar

Nissan GT-R 7:38 around the Nurburgring

Awesome Lego creations

75 years ago Lego was created. Since then it's entertained generations of children and adults and inspired creativity in millions all over the world. Check out these awesome creations fans, artists and engineers have made!

click here for all 16 incredible creations

'Marijuana is not a drug, it's a leaf,' says Schwarzenegger

By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 29 October 2007

Already facing enough problems with the wild fires that have swept California, the state's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have stepped into a new row by claiming that marijuana is not a drug. In an interview with GQ magazine, the Hollywood star turned governor of California insisted: "I didn't take any drugs."

The interviewer, former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, put it to the star that he had admitted smoking marijuana in the past. In Pumping Iron, the bodybuilding documentary which launched his career 30 years ago, he was shown taking a drag on a spliff.

"That is not a drug. It's a leaf," said Austrian-born Mr Schwarzenegger, 60. "My drug was pumping iron, trust me," he added.

When George Butler's critically acclaimed 1977 documentary Pumping Iron was re-released in 2002, before Mr Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California, he was unconcerned by the scene showing him smoking marijuana, saying – in a pointed reference to former US president Bill Clinton who claimed never to have inhaled: "I did smoke a joint and I did inhale. The bottom line is that's what it was in the Seventies, that's what I did. I have never touched it since." Mr Schwarzenegger said that it was not necessarily a matter of public interest whether politicians had taken class-A drugs.

He said: "What would you rather have? A politician taking the stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?"

The Republican governor, renowned for his green policies, said Washington had not done enough on the environment. "So we pick up the slack and show the rest of the world America is not just Washington. There are 600 mayors in America who have joined the Kyoto treaty. For us, it is very important that America gets back the great reputation it once had."

He said: "I think we have to do everything we can as a country to get out of the Iraq war, and to take a lead on the environment."

Despite his insistence that the US must finish the war in Iraq, Mr Schwarzenegger included Tony Blair in a list of the greatest leaders in history, alongside Nelson Mandela, John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

RED SOX WORLD CHAMPIONS 2007

some interesting facts:

For the second time in four years, the Red Sox are World Series champions. From 1919 to 2003, the Red Sox went 85 years without a title.

• The last two World Series victories by the Red Sox have been via a sweep. In fact, three of the last four World Series champions swept the series.

• Manager Terry Francona has been at the helm for both titles, making him the first manager in baseball history to go 8-0 in his first eight World Series games.

• Francona also becomes the first manager ever to win his first six potential postseason series clinchers.

• Jon Lester, who was making his first playoff start, pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings. He joins Whitey Ford (1950) and Tiny Bonham (1941) as the only pitchers to win the World Series clincher as a starter while making their first postseason start.

• Lester is the fourth pitcher in the last 10 years to pitch at least 5 2/3 scoreless innings and get the win in a World Series clincher.

• During Lester's 11 regular-season starts this season, he had pitched a scoreless outing once -- Sept. 7 at Baltimore, firing seven scoreless innings.

• Lester's win means the Red Sox's starting pitchers won all four games of the World Series. Since divisional play in 1969, only four teams' starting pitchers won all four games of the World Series -- '07 Red Sox, '95 Braves, '89 A's and '69 Mets.

• Jonathan Papelbon recorded a five-out save, the longest save to end a World Series since Jesse Orosco got a six-out save for the 1986 Mets against the Red Sox.

• Mike Lowell hit his first career World Series home run in his 10th game. It was the Red Sox's second home run of the Series. He's only the second Red Sox third baseman to homer in the Series. The other is Larry Gardner who hit three, his last in 1916.

• Aaron Cook, who like Lester was making his first career postseason start, allowed three earned runs in six innings. He was the first Rockies starter to pitch at least six innings in the World Series.

• Cook joins Bob Miller (1950) and Bob Shawkey (1914) as the only pitchers to lose as a starter in the World Series clincher while making his first postseason start.

• Bobby Kielty hits a pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning, which provided some insurance for the Red Sox. He was the first to hit a pinch-hit homer in the World Series since Jason Giambi did so for the Yankees in Game 5 of the 2003 World Series against the Marlins.

• Kielty is also the fourth player to ever hit a pinch-hit home run in his first career World Series at-bat.

• The Red Sox finished with the second-highest batting average (.333) in World Series history. Only the 1960 Yankees (.338) hit better.

• The Rockies were a longshot to win Game 4. Including the Rockies' loss, only 3 of 23 teams down 3-0 in a World Series won the fourth game. None won more than once.

• This was the fourth World Series clincher in the last 10 years to be decided by one run. It's the second straight time a World Series sweep ended with a one-run game as the White Sox beat the Astros 1-0 in 2005.

• Brad Hawpe hit a home run, but he also struck out eight times in the four-game series -- the most strikeouts by a hitter in a four-game series in Series history.

We Didn't Start The Viral....

We Didnt Start The Viral - Watch more free videos

Eight of the World’s Most Unusual Plants

By: Midori Nakamura

Plants 1-4 (Plants 5-8)

Weird is relative. What seems weird to me might not seem weird to you. In the plant kingdom, however, there are definitely some species that most people would acknowledge are highly unusual. In the wack spirit of Halloween, some of my findings follow.




1. Rafflesia arnoldii: this parasitic plant develops the world's largest bloom that can grow over three feet across. The flower is a fleshy color, with spots that make it look like a teenager's acne-ridden skin. It smells bad and has a hole in the center that holds six or seven quarts of water. The plant has no leaves, stems, or roots.

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2. Hydnora africana, an unusual flesh-colored, parasitic flower that attacks the nearby roots of shrubby in arid deserts of South Africa. The putrid-smelling blossom attracts herds of carrion beetles.

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3. Dracunculus vulgaris: smells like rotting flesh, and has a burgundy-colored, leaf-like flower that projects a slender, black appendage.

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4. Amorphophallus: means, literally, "shapeless penis." The name comes from the shape of the erect black spadix.

Yes It is another Van Damme Friday

Hacky Sac

American Gangster Leaked Online

Posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:09 am by: Peter Sciretta

“For Your Consideration” season has begun. I know this because the first Oscar screener of the season has been leaked online. A week and a half before the official release date, Ridley Scott’s new film American Gangster has been uploaded to the bit torrent networks and has already been illegally downloaded by tens of thousands of people. And that’s just in the first 20 hours online. As I write this, over 10,000 users are currently downloading the video off a popular bit torrent website.

Audiences usually stay way from pirated movies due to the notorious bad quality video camera-taped copies. But with Award Season screeners, the movie quality is as good as a retail DVD release. So what is to stop consumers from downloading this film early? American Gangster is set to hit theaters in he United States on November 2nd, but its release in other world territories happens as late as February of 2008. So while this might not have a huge effect on the box office in the U.S., it is likely to hurt foreign markets hard. And as for the U.S. results, that is debatable. Recently horror director Eli Roth blamed piracy for the lower than expected box office numbers of Hostel: Part II. The workprint for his film was leaked online a week before the movie’s national release.

American Gangster stars Russell Crowe as a detective who is working to bring down the drug empire of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who is smuggling the heroin into the Manhattan in the coffins of soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. I’ve heard nothing but great things about this film. The movie currently has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 9.0 rating voted by users on the Internet Movie Database.

10 Geeky Wedding Photos

Um...whut?






The centipede is a nice touch





What else says 'I love you' like a blue, feathered border?






"As you wish"





Um...way too far





Arrrrgh






"Thank you very much Mister Roboto"





My eyes! They're burning!






No. No way...this is ridiculous.





Robin wants to know where YOUR costume is.

10 Kick Ass Facts About Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973). Image: Lexinatrix [Flickr]

1. Bruce Lee’s Family Gave Him a Girl’s Name: "Little Phoenix"
Bruce’s family never called him "Bruce." They preferred to call him by his nickname "Sai Fon" or "Little Phoenix." It was a girl’s name, deliberately chosen by his parents because they believed that evil spirits did not like boys in the family (their firstborn was a son who died in infancy). So, by giving Bruce a girl’s name, they believed they could fool the demons into sparing his life!

Actually, "Bruce" was a name given by a nurse at the Jackson Street Hospital, San Francisco, where he was born (Bruce’s father was traveling with an acting troupe at the time). The nurse thought that giving the baby an English name would help avoid any confusion with his American birth certificate (yes, Bruce was an American by birth - he never had any other citizenship).

2. Bruce Lee was Part German
Bruce wasn’t pure Chinese - he was actually part German (his grandfather from his mother’s side was half German).

3. Bruce Lee Never Lost a Fight
Well, actually he lost a fight only once in his life: when he was 13 years old. This loss actually prompted Bruce to learn martial arts from a Wing Chun master named Yip Man. After other students learned that Bruce wasn’t pure Chinese, they refused to let him train in their class. Yip Man had to train him privately. (Image: Portland Kung Fu Club)

4. Bruce Lee was a Bad Student
Academics didn’t interest Bruce in the least. After primary school, Bruce entered La Salle College, an English-speaking boys’ secondary school in Kowloon, Hong Kong, where he often got into trouble. Bruce was expelled from La Salle for disruptive behavior.

Even after his parents moved him to a different school, Bruce kept on getting into street fights.

5. Bruce Lee was an Excellent Dancer and Boxer

Actually, Bruce studied dancing as hard as he studied martial arts: he was an excellent dancer who, at 18 years of age, won the 1958 Hong Kong Cha Cha Championship! Bruce was also a great boxer: he won the 1958 Boxing Championship - by knockout, of course.

6. Bruce Lee was a Philosophy Major
Bruce wasn’t just all muscle and no brain. He attended the University of Washington, where he majored in philosophy with focus on the philosophical principles of martial art techniques. As you might imagine, Bruce supported himself in college by teaching martial arts. Later, Bruce dropped out of college to open his martial arts school.

7. Want to challenge Bruce Lee? Just tap your foot on the ground!
After he got famous, a lot of people thought they could beat Bruce - they would walk up to him, tap their foot on the ground (symbolizing a challenge) and then proceed to attack him! Well… maybe not that literal, but Bruce’s popularity certainly attracted a lot nutcase trying to prove they’re better than him.

One day, while filming Enter the Dragon, an extra taunted Bruce Lee and challenged him to fight. The whole thing went on like this:

"This kid was good. He was no punk. He was strong and fast, and he was really trying to punch Bruce’s brains in. But Bruce just methodically took him apart."

"I mean Bruce kept moving so well, this kid couldn’t touch him…Then all of a sudden, Bruce got him and rammed his ass into the wall and swept him, he proceeded to drop his knee into his opponent’s chest, locked his arm out straight, and nailed him in the face repeatedly."

Typical of Bruce Lee, after the fight he didn’t fire the extra - he actually gave his challenger lesson on how to improve!

8. Bruce Lee was Strong
In 1964, Bruce was invited to a karate championship in Long Beach, California. There he performed his famous "One Inch Punch," where he would deliver a devastating blow from only an inch away, sending his opponent flying back!

[YouTube Link]

Bob Baker of Stockton, whom Bruce hit, said "I told Bruce not to do this type of demonstration again. When he punched me that last time, I had to stay home from work because the pain in my chest was unbearable."

… and Fast!
Most martial art films are sped up to make fighting scenes appear fast, but not Bruce Lee’s. His moves were too fast to be captured on the regular 24 frames per second film - so they had to film him at 32 fps, and run the film slower so you can see his moves.

9. Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris, who would win?
Here’s a clip of Bruce Lee fighting Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon. You can see how fast Bruce Lee moved … though it’s obvious that Chuck Norris would be immune to the One Inch Punch as his one-inch chest hair would absorb the punch with ease!

[YouTube Link]

And the most bizarre Bruce Lee fact is this:

10. Bruce Lee’s Corpse Acted in his Final Movie!
Bruce Lee was filming Game of Death when he died unexpectedly. So what did the studio do? Well, they rewrote the script so Bruce’s character faked his own death to escape the mafia. Then they took footage from Bruce’s actual funeral - including close-ups shots of the open casket showing his embalmed face - and work that into the movie! (More on this at Neatorama’s post: The Creepiest Movie Ever Made)

Source: Bruce Lee [wikipedia] | Academy of Jeet Kune Do Fighting Technology: Sijo Bruce Lee | Bruce Lee Foundation: Bruce Lee Bio [PDF]