Future Futurama

Great news, everyone! After several years away from broadcast TV and a couple in the wilderness of direct-to-DVD, Futurama has been picked up for a 26-episode season by Comedy Central.

In Popular Culture

xkcd is great, if for no other reason than because it allows me to put up a one-sentence, one-link entry with eleven* tags.

* Well, it would have been eleven, but I reached Blogger's 200-character limit at ten. Can you guess which one is missing?

Keanu Barada Nikto

It appears that Keanu Reeves will star in a remake of the classic science-fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. Given Reeves' apparent air-headedness and very limited acting range---he seems to only be able to play himself, more-or-less*---I can't help but think that a better title for the remake would be the same that of one of my favorite episodes of Futurama: The Day the Earth Stood Stupid. I also can't help but ask, who ordered that?

* I hasten to point out that Reeves is perfect for roles like Ted "Theodore" Logan and Thomas "Neo" Anderson,** where his character is meant to be confused and ignorant of the situation. In roles like these, all this is required is that Reeves look puzzled and give the canine head tilt.
** But only in the first Matrix film.

Canyonero! Yah!

The guys at Jalopnik recently posted a video of the original Canyonero adverts from The Simpsons. Enjoy.

Lessons Not Learned

I'm sure my politically minded readers will enjoy what Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel said a few days ago about White House spending. I just hope Bush taps Bart Simpson to be the Secretary of Keeping it Real.

Stupidification

I'm sure Lisa Simpson would approve of this neologism:

stupidification, noun. Dumbening.

Ah, the Bachelor Lifestyle

Alison has gone out of town for a few days to visit her broken-hipped grandmother, her mother, and, most importantly, Muffy in Florida, where all retired people are legally required to reside. So I'm living the bachelor lifestyle this weekend: sitting around in my underwear all day, eating cold pizza over the sink, watching hours of sports on TV, and playing poker with the boys while drinking cases of beer. Hah! Actually, yesterday, I worked on 2 of my bikes, went for a 3-hour bike ride, monkeyed with some of my new electronics, watched a bunch of The Simpsons on DVD, and read a bit of my latest sci-fi novel. Today, my plans are to futz with the electronics some more and lift weights. Oh, and blog a bit. Yep, I'm going hog-wild.

Bender Bending Rodriguez

It appears that some researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have built prototype artificial muscles powered by alcohol. Can an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking," gambling robot like Bender Bending Rodriguez be far behind?

Robo Roundup

There have been a lot of interesting developments in robotics lately. I expect robots to take over and wipe us all out any day now.

• Boston Dynamics has developed BigDog. This robot's a sort of small robotic pack mule, so perhaps "SmallMule" would be a more appropriate name, but I guess that didn't seem cool enough.
  
• Boston Dynamics has apparently been busy, because they've also developed RiSE, a nifty little hexapod that can climb trees, brick walls, and other assorted vertical surfaces. (RiSE looks curiously similar to the killer robots Gene Simmons--yes, that Gene Simmons---sent after Tom Selleck in the 1984 movie Runaway. Runaway was written and directed by Michael Crighton, by the way.)
  
• Meanwhile, snake locomotion has fascinated scientists and layfolks alike for millennia; as Barry White said in that episode of The Simpsons, "I love the sexy slither of a lady snake." Apparently, plain old terrestrial robot snakes have become passé now. A team in Japan---no surprise there---has developed an amphibious robot snake. It can slither across land and swim in (or under) water. Neat!
• Hitec, makers of radios and servos for radio-control hobbyists, has just released the Robonova-1, a humanoid robot sized to compete in Japan's Robo-One. More importantly, the bot's designed to be hacked---if being designed to be hacked is not a contradiction in terms---so that sensors, actuators, and wireless connections can be added. I really need to get my grubby little hands on one, to put my plans of world domination effect.
  

Be sure to check out each robot's entertaining video.

This Cromulent List Will Embiggen Your Vocabulary

You may be interested to know that Wikipedia has a very amusing list of neologisms, "intentional mutations, mispronunciations, amplifications, [and] portmanteaus" used in The Simpsons.

By the way, I should point out that I yoinked the title for this entry from Nick. I've been going through a process of dumbening for about the last dozen years, so I couldn't come up with one on my own.