Yo no quiero.
From the director of Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
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Attempts to update Wordpress were unsuccessful unless you wanted to read about database errors and undefined variables on line 534. So when I restored we managed to lose all of our categories!
Wordpress, you dirty hag!
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Move over Ultraman, you’ve been replaced by a cheesehead! Avery brings another bit of news to the blog here with Robojapan’s report of the short Zero Trooper-F now hitting festival circuits. Tokusatsu, Wisconsin, the Packers, um….yeah!
The Wisconsin film festival site sez:
Zero Trooper - F
(USA, 2007, 39 mins)
digital videoDirected By: Eric Lim
Special effects director: Niko Pueringe
Producer: Eric LimCast: Rob O’Brien, Matt Sloan, Liz Holtan, David Schlachtenhaufen, Kevin Altier, Andy Schlachtenhaufen
In the midst of a devastating giant monster attack on Greenside City, Bryan decides to leave his position as the head scientist of the city’s military defense force. This film was shot in Madison and features some of the cast and crew as the feature film Loose Cannons (playing at this year’s festival). Eric and Niko are both from the UW Communication Arts program.
Trailer on ZeroTrooper.com (~35 Mb)
If you’re in the area, take a break from crying over Brett Favre and go see it.
Thanks, Avery!
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The Edison Chen Sex Scandal continues to generate news months after the fact. Bobo Chan’s fiancee reappeared after weeks of silence only to remain just as mysterious. Rumors continue to abound that Kira will resurface with more photos, but so far, nothing. Trust not in rumors, believe not until you see naked Chinese actresses. But never give up hope that more will surface, because there is no way we have seen everything photographed. This scandal will reexplode when you least expect it!
Marrying BoBo Chan? Philip Kam: Give an Explanation Later
Edison Chen’s Commercial Re-Appears in ChengduThere is a persistent rumour that the source of the Hong Kong nude picture scandal, Kira, would come out of hiding for tomorrow’s prelim hearing of å²å¯é›‹. He would upload new pictures but he has not been seen in Hong Kong sites. It was reported that there were 67 new pictures in mainland Chinese sites. It appears to feature BoBo Chan but the authenticity is not known. It is not known if Kira has “resurrected†but the male lead, Edison Chen, has come back to life in Chengdu. Due to the incident last year, all of his new sunglasses advertisements/commercials were not shown. The incident has settle down so Edison is “coming back to life†to test the market reaction. Last night, BoBo Chan’s current boyfriend Philip Kam has appeared at a function. He was hounded by several dozen reporters and asked if he would be marrying BoBo. Philip kept a smile on his face and announced that he would give an explanation about the situation soon.
BoBo’s boyfriend, Philip, has not appeared in public since her involvement in the scandal. There were rumours that their wedding plans were brushed aside. But he is a righteous and loving person who has been protecting BoBo. Last night, he appeared in public as the sponsor representative at the ABSOLUT Couture fashion party at Lan Kwai Fong. It attracted several dozen reporters who came when they caught wind about his appearance. Philip arrived early to the function so the reporters did not see him. After the function, the PR staff announced that he doesn’t want to accept any interviews and did want to be photographed.
Philip stayed at the party for approximately two hours until the fashion party ended. He originally wanted to leave through the restaurant doors but he returned inside when he found a large crowd of reporters wanting for him. He waited for 10 minutes for a driver to come. He was escorted by two security personnel thought the crowd. He was dressed in a black suit and was smiling. He appeared to be in a good mood. He rolled down the car window and told the reporters to be careful. He also instructed the security to watch out for the reporters and not to push them. Philip was asked if he was going to marry BoBo. He smiled and said: “I would give an explanation later.†Afterwards, the car window was rolled up.
During this time, TV station camera fell in through the car window. Luckily, Philip returned it to the reporter. The car left after the police escort lead the way. There were dozens of people who surrounded the scene to get a look at the situation. The scene attracted a lot of tourists who took pictures and looked around because they thought Philip was some sort of celebrity. Afterwards, they were asking who Philip was.
Edison came back to life when his sunglasses advertisement appeared on the buses in Chengdu. According to local media reports, the posters featured an extremely cool Edison who was wearing sunglasses. He still has a stylish guy look. Yesterday, reporters contacted his management company to confirm the news reports. Edison did do advertisements for a mainland Chinese sunglasses brand. The brand requested that he come to do promotional work in February but it was cancelled due to the scandal. Now the situation changed so they are bringing back Edison in the form of advertisement posters.
Previous Stories:
Hong Kong Sex Scandal - Edison Chen, cameras, and many Hong Kong leading ladies!
Hong Kong Edison Chen Sex Photo Scandal Continues
Update on the Edison Chen crisis
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March of Godzilla Island continues with the seventh story arc from Godzilla Island. This time a mysterious vending machine allows Mecha-King Ghidorah to be unleashed on Godzilla Island. Too bad Mecha-King Ghidorah is useless unless piloted!
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Hobgoblins 2’s trailer is on the net at youtube. Director Rick Sloane returns with a whole new cast playing the exact same characters in the sequel no one asked for. But sometimes the best gifts are those you didn’t know you wanted. Anyone who saw the MST3K version of the original knows the horror of Hobgoblins, but also the joy of Mike and the Bots fighting back the only way they know how. Sloane would be wise to invest in RiffTrax doing a commentary track for his movie, he would triple DVD sales overnight. And if Hobgoblins reaches number three, they tie Munchies for number of sequels to a Gremlins ripoff. But watch Gerome the Gnome come out of nowhere with a new trilogy to claim the title.
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March of Godzilla Island continues with the sixth story in the continuing Godzilla Island saga. Hedorah (the Smog Monster) drops in on Godzilla Island to kill Mothra just because he can. Mothra Leo is the next generation of Mothra, and he goes all Earth Day on Hedorah for daring to kill his momma!
With clip
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In the tradition of Killdozer and that guy who went crazy and turned a bulldozer into an armored death machine that was on the news comes Crawler!
The plot:
A group of construction workers
fight for their lives as their 50 tons bulldozer
appears to have a life of its own, and
an insatiable hate for the living.
Written by Sv Bell and Robbie Ribspreader.
Sv Bell is also Producer / Director
Yes, an ancient evil possesses another bulldozer and people get bulldozed. To death. By evil. Dozer evil. As Killdozer is still MIA on DVD, it is good to see more bulldozer terror. No word on if there will be a tie-in Marvel Comic like Killdozer got.
Official site
teaser trailer:
With all the fancy, crazy construction machines that are out there it is a wonder there aren’t more movies like this.
Thanks to Avery for another scoop! A bulldozer scoop!
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March of Godzilla Island continues with Story Arc 5, featuring Gigan! The story moves rather slow, which can be annoying. But it is filled with Samurai references, so it’s good for those who like that stuff.
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Cave fish are a subpopulation of Astyanax mexicanus who live in caves. They have light-dwelling relatives, both of which are shown in the picture I attached below. These fish are fun because their blindness lets you have all sorts of interesting experiments transplanting goofy eyes to them. I glued some googly eyes to the front of them and set them loose in an aquarium, you’ve never seen such a panic! I’m going to give cave fish echolocation powers, and then pit them against cave fish with night-vision eyes I’ve made to see which ones can run a maze better. That one will get genetically engineered to be gigantic and set loose attacking the Eastern Seaboard. Just because I can. MuHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Let’s start with a story about blind cave fish regaining their sight…
Progeny Of Blind Cavefish Can ‘Regain’ Their Sight
Blind cavefish whose eyes have withered while living in complete darkness over the course of evolutionary time can be made to see again. In some cases, the offspring of mated pairs originating from distinct cave populations regain vision, researchers found. The result shows that mutations in different genes are responsible for eye loss in separate cavefish lineages that may not have been exposed to light for the last one million years.
…..
The study examined four populations of blind cave fish, Astyanax mexicanus, which inhabit different caves in northeast Mexico. Blind for millennia, these fish evolved from eyed, surface fish. The researchers’ genetic analysis showed that the evolutionary impairment of eye development, as well as the loss of pigmentation and other cave-related changes, resulted from mutations at multiple gene sites.
In order to gauge how genetic make-up could bring about the restoration of vision, the researchers created hybrids of the different cave fish populations. Among these various hybrids, they found that nearly 40 percent in some hybrid crosses could see.
Article about transplanting lenses onto cave fish, who then grew other eye-parts.
Researchers Find Way To Reverse Evolution Of Cave Fish Blindness
The old cliche “the blind leads the blind” may no longer apply to a population of cave fish. Eye parts lost during the past million years of evolution were restored in just a matter of days after a lens transplant from a sighted surface-dwelling fish of the same species (Astyanax mexicanus), according to a University of Maryland biology research report featured in the July 28 issue of Science.
….
Within eight days of implanting a lens from a sighted surface-dwelling fish to a blind cave fish of the same species, Maryland researchers began to see an eye develop from underneath a flap of skin. After two months, the cave fish had grown a large restored eye with a distinct pupil, cornea and iris. In addition, the retina of the restored eye showed rod photoreceptor cells, which are rare in the degenerate cave fish eye.
Why are cave fish blind? Regressive evolution:
‘Regressive Evolution’ In Cavefish: Natural Selection Or Genetic Drift
“Regressive evolution,” or the reduction of traits over time, is the result of either natural selection or genetic drift, according to a study on cavefish by researchers at New York University’s Department of Biology, the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology, and the Harvard Medical School.
Previously, scientists could not determine which forces contributed to regressive evolution in cave-adapted species, and many doubt the role of natural selection in this process. Darwin himself, who famously questioned the role of natural selection in eye loss in cave fishes, said, “As it is difficult to imagine that eyes, although useless, could be in any way injurious to animals living in darkness, I attribute their loss wholly to disuse.”
Of course that doesn’t explain anything, as random genetic drift and natural selection are completely opposite! It’s either random or selected for! But the fact it seems to have showed up many times shows that there is selection for it, but the appearance is probably random, as it has dozens of different places the mutations showed up. Thus the regressive evolution could be countered by cross-breeding different populations of cave fish.
In addition: rare cave fish were still popping up in 1999..
Rare Cavefish Found By Scientists
Dr. Whit Gibbons and Dr. Kurt Buhlmann, scientists from the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) accompanied John Jensen and Jim Ozier of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources on a spelunking expedition in north Georgia last week and found a rare, blind fish known as a southern cavefish.
…..Cavefish are not just blind; they are eyeless. They are small white fish known to inhabit the waters deep beneath the earth but they are rarely seen by people because they are found only at limited points at which underground lakes can be reached through caves. While some scientists look for the cavefish for years, this group had been underground for about an hour and had come to the end of a winding tunnel. The rain outside was making the water level of the cave rise when Buhlmann spotted the fish. Within 30 minutes he was able to capture it using a net. Only two other individual cavefish have ever been caught in Georgia, one in 1969 and one in 1973.
Little is known about this elusive fish. Even to call them rare may be inaccurate. They may be abundant, but simply live outside our knowledge. Their number cannot be estimated and no one knows how they live or reproduce. As Dr. Gibbons points out, “The ultimate question is how many species are living beneath the earth’s surface that humans are yet to find, and perhaps never will?”
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