I haven’t been to the movies in a while. I’m trying to think of the last film I saw in a theatre and I am struggling a bit to recall it. I think it was some sort of adaptation of the Smurfs in which the blue dudes were actually bigger than humans and wore revealing clothes but didn’t have nipples.

Of course, I learn now that some intrepid internaut has watched every second of that film, frame by frame, and created a collage of accidentally visible nipples.

The movie finds itself in an interesting paradox. The big Smurfs must have mammaries so that people will watch, even though the characters are aliens and presumably not mammals. Nipples, however, are a liability because an R rating means a cataclysmic loss of revenue due to lowered advertising and merchandising opportunities.

Something’s got to be done, though. People just aren’t wild about movies the way they used to be. In fact, from the box office numbers it looks like we’re all kind of “Meh.”

The Movie Industry has decided to combat patron aloofness by adding another dimension. Yes, that and making us all wear stupid plastic glasses. Who do you think you are, Movie Industry? You can’t just toss on another dimension like the razor people add blades!

On top of that, Roger Ebert tells me that this uncomfortable thrust into 3D is actually detracting from the movie experience. Nice one, guys.

Look, I’m no expert, but for me the problem with going to the movies is that it’s no longer fun. I would probably invite Cheryl to go to the grocery store before the movies. At least in the grocery store I expect every conversation to take place in front of a wall of products.

Someone should open a movie theatre with less seats that are more comfortable. They should charge $20 per ticket and have actual ushers who give a shit. It should feel more like I’m about to experience something special and less like I’m being checked into jail. I would happily pay higher prices for something like that.

Trying to add another dimension is definitely 3D: dumb, dumb, and not fun. Wait… aw the hell with it.

As you may have heard, a widely-touted prediction held that the end of the world would come last week. Fortunately for most of us, everything seems to have passed by without any adverse effects. I’m speaking, of course, about Tyler Hamilton’s appearance on 60 minutes.

Okay, I’m kidding. What really happened is the zombie ghost of Don Knotts returned from the great beyond with a dire warning and was immediately given a radio show. Unfortunately, zombies are notoriously bad at math, and he made some miscalculations.

This slight clerical error was recognized too late to stop hardworking Americans from plastering their vehicles with the wrong date writ large.

There also seems to have been a halfhearted attempt to forcibly wrest the Papyrus typeface from yoga fliers, online invitations that need an “outdoorsy” or “holistic” edge, and the movie Avatar, but it remains to be seen how successful this ancillary thrust was.

Once the news of this miscalculation broke, one of my favorite advocates for Science, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, posted one of his customary thoughtful and succinct tweets on the matter:

DeGrasse Tyson’s lament is on point. Why are religious leaders, who are so often factually, er… challenged, shall we say, much better at getting attention than scientists who are so fond of rigor and peer review? That, and who is this “Eisiminger,” whispering succinct tweets into NdGT’s ear?

I think the answer can be found here, on a web page from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Here’s what the page looks like, in case your clicky finger is tired, or whatever:

Now, compare that to a Family Radio billboard:

NASA’s page above predicts that a bigass asteroid will come very close to–possibly whack into–the Earth in 2169. That’s pretty interesting news, if you ask me, but the message lacks punch. Know why?

Because scientists are horrible at marketing. They couldn’t sell a whoopie cushion full of water to a clown on fire. There’s not even a single shred of Papyrus on that page, guys. Come on! Are you even trying?

Meanwhile, these religious dudes are scouring free font libraries and Photoshop filters to put together eye-popping messages and all the scientists can do is slap together a couple of tables with a big wall of boring text? Ugh!

Neil deGrasse Tyson, if you’re listening and you want some help pepping up Science’s message, hit me up. I might not be the best designer in the world, but I got fonts for days.

I remember vividly watching MacGyver as a kid. He was smart. He was resourceful. He outsmarted his enemies and was irresistible to 80′s ladies. In short, he and his badass mullet exemplified manhood to me when I was most impressionable. I even let my hair grow long in the back, at my mom’s urging.

“This is how guys are wearing their hair in New York,” she said.

Who am I to argue with MacGyver, let alone New York City?

No matter where he was, he had the knowledge required to take whatever raw materials surrounded him and turn them into something useful. I tried to employ the same resourcefulness in my own life, admittedly with limited success.

Here’s one example from his list of achievements:

MacGyver plugs a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate. He states that chocolate contains lactose and sucrose (chemically C12H22O11), which are disaccharides. The acid reacts with the sugars to form elemental carbon and a thick gummy residue (proved to be correct on Mythbusters).

So, in that particular example, the modern show Mythbusters proved that one really can plug a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate, but MacGyver certainly had no compunctions about stretching the truth a bit to tie a show together. In fact, the Mythbusters are mentioned 4 times on that list of MacGyverisms: one “confirmed,” one “plausible,” and two “busted.”

What’s interesting to me is that a show like Mythbusters can exist and run even longer than MacGyver did (he ran for 7 seasons, Mythbusters are in their 9th). I think it raises some questions about our modern interest in authenticity.

Of course, there are still shows out there that are wildly popular, even though don’t make any sense.

Deliver that whole “GUI interface”/”IP Address” line to your company IT guy sometime if you want to see his goatee quiver with impotent rage. Fun times!

I think that our modern connectedness is improving our taste for authenticity. There aren’t any more stories, but the stories now have a lot more sides.

Oh, and the mullet is back as well. Praise be!

Do you guys remember when GTA: San Andreas came out? I sure as hell do. You just never forget the first time you stab a hapless man on the sidewalk to death, then collect his glowing stacks of cash. Of course I’ll also never forget Cheryl’s disgust and outrage.

“This is what your new game is about,” she shrieked, “stabbing people?”

Some arguments will never go away, and one such fracas is over whether violent video games cause a person to be violent. It is ridiculous. Playing violent video games does not make a person violent any more than reading the Bible or Quran makes one peaceful.

I regret that in our modern American democratic society it is more important that something sounds good than that it is factually accurate, but so it goes.

Now, If you are one of the brave few who read this blog regularly, you are aware that I have some strong opinions about how a person should conduct themselves in traffic. You know: eyes front, phone in the pocket, collar buttoned and cravat knotted smartly… that sort of thing.

It might come as a surprise, in that light, that I’d be as taken as I am with Hipster City Cycle, an iPhone game in which riders are encouraged to split lanes, run lights, and generally ride like any prize-class dickneck one might spot on N. Highland Ave. Remember, though, that’s what makes games fun: you get to do stuff you wouldn’t do in real life.

Here I am in Hipster City Cycle, posting up at the end of a race that I didn’t win (serious cycling faux pas):

And riding at the rear of the pack as usual:

And last but hardly least, what I think might be a Tom Waits joke:

I was contacted a while back by Alex Alsup, who is the marketing nipples to the Hipster City Cycle breasts. Like any good breasts, the HCC development team is free and independent, which is great news for their game’s spirit and terrible news for my hopes of being paid to write. Oh well, it’s a great game in any case.

Check it out if you have an iWhatever and some time to kill, secure in the knowledge that it won’t cause you to ride like an actual jerk in real life. Only you can do that!

As a proud resident of Atlanta for over ten years now, I feel it is my duty to apologize to anyone visiting our city this weekend. You probably came here to sample our famous Midtown male prostitutes, only to find that our police department went and arrested them all. I know how dejected you must feel, and for that I am sorry.

The truth of the matter is that our fair city would simply not be as fair without the efforts of the APD, even if they can seem to be killjoys at times. This sting operation is known as “Summer Heat,” and has netted around 50 suspects, even though summer is still a month away. That’s what I call effectiveness!

There’s also something called Georgia H.E.A.T., but I’m not sure if it is the same thing.

The HEAT is on Georgia roads and highways to combat traffic and impaired driving. The Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and local law enforcement agencies have come together to create H.E.A.T.–Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic.

Unless the Atlanta PD is using male prostitutes to combat drunk driving in some way, there’s going to be an awkward phone call about who had what law enforcement operation names first. Let’s help out by coming up with a few original suggestions for the Atlanta police to use. Here are mine:

• Operation Boner Kill
• Boys in Blueballs
• Operation Hai Boi Haaaaai

Leave yours in the comments here, or tweet them with the tag #APD_HEAT.

Some might say that the police are just a bunch of haters out to ruin a good time. It’s the eternal struggle, really: haters gonna hate, hos gonna ho, and Lance Armstrong is going to get a mention. Yes, you read that right. Our hero Lance Armstrong, known for thrashing those prickly Frenchmen at their own bike race as well as for being a boring interviewee came up in conversation between the Atlanta PD undercover cop and a soon-to-be-arrested male prostitute on a bike. [Video has since been removed. Way to sabotage my post, CBS.]

“Tony,” the alleged prostitute in the video, also appears to be riding without a helmet, and that concerns me. If there’s anything you want in a Midtown male prostitute, it is most certainly a penchant for protection. Stay safe, Tony!

Overall, I’d say this story just goes to show that all types of people enjoy cycling. Sex workers and undercover police are no exceptions!