No Section

Spanking in Minnesota

That'll take the robot's traffic

April 9, 2014 at 5:39PM

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

I'm tempted to drive to Calhoun to see if anyone's on the beach today. It's only 57 now, but we're promised 70. Then it's back in the 40s next week, because life is cruel. Is this worse than last year? Well: last year, April 15: high of 37. April 15, 2012: High of 61. 2011: 43 at noon. 2010: 66. As you see, it goes back and forth with big swings. Let's check 1986: 45 at noon. 1985: 62 at noon.

All this data comes from the Time Machine feature of forecast.io. Plug in any date. You'll see wide variances, but a mean emerges. Imagine that.

DISENGAGE Captain Janeway says she was tricked into voicing the geocentricism documentary. AVClub:

She says - well, read the article; they did the heavy lifting, I didn't. I figured she was just taking a paycheck. Just because Orson Welles did the voiceover for frozen peas didn't mean he ate them.

WEB CULTURE You never know which gaping hole in our culture exists until someone plugs it. This is one of those: man recreates bathroom fight from "World's End" in Minecraft. Whew.

Via AV Club.

ART Beautiful cinemagraphs by Rebecca Mock.

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

They're all available at one page, and I could point you there - but then they'd get the traffic instead of the artist, and you wouldn't see the rest of her portfolio. I know, I know, who appointed me Link Cop today.

BAD ROBOT Let's check in with our favorite gibberish blog, automatically compiled to snag search results. It's written by "Leonard," and it's called "Minnesota / A blog about minnesota from a graduate student." Today's title: "Spanking in Minnesota."

No link, because that's what they want. SAYS I, LINK COP.

VotD From Blastr, a story about the original design for the Predator.

The recollection of Van Damme's fury is priceless.

Wait a minute, says Link Cop. What's this in the comments?

Well, let's see how Bloody-Disgusting titled the piece: "Hilarious Story About Jean-Claude Van Damme In 'Predator'!! Okay. Blastr: "Awesome, long-lost 1980s footage of Van Damme's hilariously bad Predator." No, different headline. And better. And they link back to movies.com as the original story.

So Link Cop will let them go on their way, and detain the commenter for a while to issue a warning against making spurious accusations.

Finally: yesterday's discussion of Archie dying - and by that we mean "dying in an alternate timeline to goose sales" led to someone tweeting out the cover of Life with Archie #37 by comics legend Alex Ross. Oy:

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Can you possibly imagine a situation where this would be your perspective, and something really awful wasn't about to happen? There are actually many different covers, and you can see the whole batch here. You may not care a whit about Archie, but the comic is an American archetype, and it's interesting to see what different artists do with the concept of Riverdale's redhead taking the big sleep.