Archives for 2015

Okay, time to get your geek on. As some of you may remember I’ve got a buddy who’s working on the Batman -vs- Superman flick. She loves me like a puppy and STILL won’t dish any hot gossip. However, the couple of things she did share all proved true. Right now she’s admitted that Batman will be wearing armor and not just tights. Which makes sense if he’s going to fight Superman. The fight, which has to happen to justify the title, should be near the beginning of the movie. She said they are basing it on this clip from the Dark Knight Returns animated movie. I specify “based on” because the plots of the live action and the animated versions are going to be totally different. But, if you click the link, it will give you a taste and you’ll understand the whole “armor” thing much better. One dude, named Alex Luthor (yes, really) has created a fan made trailer using the cartoon as his template and cutting together footage from existing movies and adding a few special effects. Click on his name to read all about it and watch it yourself. It is pretty fucking cool if you’ve got your geek mojo rocking. While we’re on the subject, Henry Cavill, the dude playing Superman, says that the movie WILL NOT be split into two parts. That rumor began when a cell phone pic of the trailer’s header was leaked and it showed a movie titled Batman -vs- Superman Part 1: Enter the Knight being released in October of this year. Despite Mr. Cavill’s blunt assertions it may still happen. They shot a ton of footage, some of it here in Chicago, and may simply need to do it that way to tell the whole story.

So what don’t we know about this film or these films, as the case may be? Quite a bit. For example, we know that Scoot McNairy, of Gone Girls fame, has been cast, has shot all his scenes and still can’t tell us who he plays or what he does.

Adam Holmes at Cinema Blend has the whole non-story.

Although details surrounding the plot of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are being kept under wraps, we know who most of the main players will be – ranging from Jesse Eisenberg’s antagonist Lex Luthor to Gal Gadot’s Amazon demi-goddess Wonder Woman to Jeremy Irons’ butler extraordinaire Alfred Pennyworth. Among the few roles that are still a mystery, however, is the character being played by Scoot McNairy – Ben Affleck’s costar from Argo and Gone Girl. Despite his casting being announced five months ago, the production has kept his character’s identity locked up tighter than Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. But now the actor has offered fans some new clues for us to mull over.

McNairy was playfully vague with his answers about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice during a recent interview with USA Today, saying that while he would love to talk about who he’s playing, that might result in him not being able to score a film role again. However, he did give us some new clues to who he is playing – specifically that the part is unlike anything we’ve ever seen him play before. Said McNairy,

“It’s definitely 100% a character I’ve never played and I can’t speak too freely on it, but yeah, getting into that thing was definitely something I had to wrap my head around emotionally in order to play that character. But with that being said, I had a lot of fun doing it when I was in the process of shooting on it — my head was in a different place but I’m really excited to see how it turns out and what they do with it and see the film.”

Not having played this type of character doesn’t narrow things down much, although if you spent enough time browsing his filmography, you might be able to exclude a few options. McNairy’s recent roles include starring as Gordon Clark on the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire and as Tommy O’Hara in 2014’s Gone Girl, so computer expert and former boyfriend of a kidnapped woman must be off the list. The only visual clue we have so far is a leaked picture of McNairy on the set wearing green-screen socks over his calves.

It was these photos that led some fans to speculate that he might be playing The Flash, though Ezra Miller being cast a few months ago as the Scarlet Speedster put that idea to rest. Other guesses have ranged from Superman’s cyborg nemesis Metallo to an older version of Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen. There’s also the possibility that he’s playing someone original to the film, and those socks will be used in post-production to make it look like his legs have been injured. Since McNairy described the role as putting his head in a whole different place, I’ll assume that my theory that he’s the hot dog vendor camped outside The Daily Planet is incorrect.

Damn! I was looking forward to an epic hot dog vendor scene.

Okay, all silliness aside, everyone working on this film had to sign a nondisclosure agreement that made hardened lawyers tremble in fear. While my friend has snuck me a nugget here and there they have all been nuggets that were slated for public release shortly thereafter. She’s being very careful, which isn’t really like her. How tight is that agreement she signed? So tight that it includes a provision preventing people from talking about the agreement. That, boys and girls, is tight.

The other monster comic book based movie that’s due to overtake the universe is The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Our homie H. Shaw-Williams over at Screen Rant has done the digging on that for us, so I’ll share what he knows.

As the third highest-grossing movie of all time (and the highest-grossing comic book movie full stop), The Avengers left a big legacy to live up to. Next year director Joss Whedon will attempt to match (or even beat) his own record with sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which the titular superhero team will face off against a new threat: the indomitable android Ultron (James Spader).

Concrete plot details are currently scarce, but the powerful sibling duo Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) will be joining the fray, as teased in the mid-credits scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Filming began in worldwide locations earlier this year and production is currently focused in London, with the release date for The Avengers: Age of Ultron now less than a year away.

For those who can’t bear the wait, however, JoBlo claims to have a small collection of plot and character tidbits from a “trusted and proven source.” There is nothing that could be really be considered a spoiler, but those who would prefer to remain totally in the dark about The Avengers: Age of Ultron until the trailers are released may want to give the following details a miss.

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[Warning: Possible mild SPOILERS for The Avengers: Age of Ultron ahead.]

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Iron Man leads the pack

It’s no secret that Tony Stark is currently the figurehead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was Marvel Studios’ first movie and Iron Man 3 was second only to The Avengers in its total box office gross. According to JoBlo‘s report, the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier means that Tony will be picking up the tab for the Avengers in Age of Ultron. The former Stark Tower is left with its single “A” and becomes the new HQ for the team, as well as the central hub for global security. Tony uses his seemingly bottomless wealth to fund new costumes, a new Quinjet, and new tech.

That new tech will include an army of Iron Man drones similar to those used in Iron Man 3, which allow Tony to “keep the peace” since he’s not able to be everywhere at once. There is something a bit unsettling about an army of robots being used as a police force around the world, governed by a single man. Maybe it’s just the impending release of X-Men: Days of Future Past that’s soured the idea a little, though. Either way, we already know from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that Stark has “privatized” the remaining forces of S.H.I.E.L.D., so these ideas seem reasonable enough.

In addition: having been plastered all over international news during the attack on New York, the Avengers are officially out of the superhero closet and have publicly made clear their intention to keep the world safe. It won’t be an easy task.

The Avengers assemble

According to JoBlo‘s source, The Avengers: Age of Ultron won’t waste time retreading the exhausting process of getting the group of strong personalities to work together as a team again. An opening battle near the start of the film will provide the first “hero shot” of everyone together as they take on Baron Von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) and encounter the twins for the first time.

To symbolize their status as a proper team, Tony Stark has designed costumes for everyone that all feature an Avengers logo (this detail seems to be true, based on set photos of Captain America’s new uniform). Black Widow has been gifted two new batons with the ability to shock enemies into submission, Hulk has been given some stretchy pants to help preserve his dignity, and Hawkeye will sadly be covering up his guns with a long-sleeved jacket, also seen in set photos.

Explicit android-on-android action

Why have one Ultron when you can have three? There will apparently be three different versions of Ultron featured in The Avengers: Age of Ultron as he transitions from a rudimentary original state to something much more advanced. He is coated in Vibranium and spends much of the movie seeking out more raw materials in order to continually upgrade. At least one version of Ultron will be mo-capped by Spader.

Paul Bettany, who has played Tony Stark’s friendly artificial intelligence system J.A.R.V.I.S. in the movies so far, will be getting an upgrade in this movie to become Vision, an android and member of the Avengers in the comics. According to this report, Vision will not make his appearance until the third act of the movie, suggesting that he may be something of a secret weapon for the Avengers when all their usual methods of attack fail against Ultron.

Although all these details are rumor for now, they definitely do seem to fit with the glimpses of The Avengers: Age of Ultron that we’ve seen in set photos so far. It makes sense that Marvel would want to maintain Tony Stark as leader, and it will be gratifying to see the Avengers organizing themselves now that they’re out from under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s thumb.

Which, when you add it all up, gives us more to go on that we might have hoped.

If you click on all the links provided you’ll get all of the background info that was referenced. We’re all cool like that.

Now, admit it, you want them make me adult size superhero Underoos don’t you? Well you’re in luck, at least if you gender identify as female that is. Super Hero Stuff, yes, that’t a real company, has a complete line of superhero underwear including see through lace Super Girl panties.

Who says I’m not here to help?

By the way, if you click on my email below you’re welcome to send me pics of you trying some of this stuff on.

Feed Me & Crystal Fighters – Love Is All I Got from Us on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Stupid is as stupid does, goes the modern aphorism. Or, as Ron White famously put it, you can’t fix stupid. But, God help me, I am going to try. Let’s get some of the obvious ones out of the way. There are no Nigerian princes, or princesses, hanging on to a couple of mil that they just need to deposit in your bank account. Quit encouraging them. Also, bonus, if you do fall for that scam you can go to jail for money laundering, among other crimes. So, yes, it is now a crime to be stupid. Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, you need money. We all do. That said, going to an online loan site and turning over your banking info and social security number makes you an idiot. The same crimes apply as for the Nigerian money scam so you and your loved ones may not see each other for a while. Additionally, if you get an email from a bank you don’t use or have never heard of, just delete it. Save yourself years of hassle. Russian brides? I actually know a guy who went for that one. $100,000 and three years of court filings later he was allowed to give her half of his money and property. On the one hand that may have been a cheap price to pay to get rid of the bitch but, on the other, this was pretty avoidable. Kind of like, if the gates are down or the lights are flashing, don’t go on the train tracks. This stuff is easy if you take a minute to think first.

On that note, let’s take a look at you. Yes, you. You have a computer. You use it to catalog grandma’s recipes and search for porn. To protect all that valuable stuff from falling into the hands of the terrorists of the week you need a password. Olivia B. Waxman, from Time Magazine, has some advice for you.

Make sure your password isn’t on this list

SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual list of the 25 worst passwords based on files containing over 3.3. million passwords leaked in 2014.

“123456” and “password” hold the top two spots, as they have every year since the company started producing this round-up in 2011. New passwords appearing on this year’s edition include “696969” and “batman.”

Here is the full list:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345
4. 12345678
5. qwerty
6. 123456789
7. 1234
8. baseball
9. dragon
10. football
11. 1234567
12. monkey
13. letmein
14. abc123
15. 111111
16. mustang
17. access
18. shadow
19. master
20. michael
21. superman
22. 696969
23. 123123
24. batman
25. trustno1

Cyber-security experts often say that the harder the password is for you to remember, the more secure it is. If your password is on this list, consider this smart and easy tip TIME recently received from security expert Bruce Schneier:

Come up with an entire phrase that’s easy for you to remember, and then use the first instance of each letter, number and symbol from each word in the phrase, keeping punctuation intact as well.

By the way, #19 is most popular with women who like 50 Shades of Grey. You might want to talk to your mom about safe cyber practices. That will be a fun conversation, I can promise you that.

“Mom, we need to talk. I know you’ve been having unprotected encounters.”
“Oh, honey, dad and I stopped doing that stuff years ago.”
“Mom, no, ewwww…..”

See? I promised you fun.

In other news, quit being an asshole and vaccinate your kids. Even Fox News, which has a habit of finding experts who actually don’t have a freaking clue what they’re talking about, actually broke down and asked real doctors about the risks involved with vaccination. The unanimous result was that parents should vaccinate their kids. And, if they won’t, then the government should do it for them.

Yes, I’m still talking about Fox News here.

Measles and whooping cough, two diseases that were almost completely eradicated 20 years ago, are now infecting people and claiming lives at an astonishing rate. In 2012 over 48,000 kids, in California alone, came down with whooping cough and some of them are died.

Needlessly.

The reason that Fox’ guest doctors advocated government intervention is that none of these kids needed to get sick; and wouldn’t have if they were properly vaccinated.

I’ll make it simple for you.

THERE IS NO FUCKING LINK BETWEEN VACCINES AND AUTISM!!!!

Simple enough?

Justine Alford, over at I Fucking Love Science, says that the Gates Foundation is using art to hammer home the concept.

photo credit: Alexia Sinclair, via The Art of Saving a Life

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On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner performed a now famous medical experiment on an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps. He was testing out his theory that people who had been infected with the mild disease cowpox could not contract smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in human history. To do this, he cut the boy’s skin and inserted the pus from a cowpox sore. A few days later, he challenged Phipps with smallpox, but he never succumbed. Phipps had become immune to the disease.

This experiment marked the first important step towards the global eradication of smallpox, which was officially achieved almost 200 years later, and is represented in the image above. (If you’re wondering where the beautiful woman fits in, she is highlighting the fact that the disease does not discriminate between the rich and the poor).

The thought-provoking piece, which was shot by Australian photographer Alexia Sinclair, is part of a wider collection of art by more than 30 world-renowned photographers, painters, sculptors, writers, filmmakers and musicians. The idea behind it is to share with us the stories behind the success of vaccination, which are stories of “risk and bravery, the passion and dedication of scientists, the love of parents, and the determination of health workers.”  Of course, there is a wider message that the artists hope to convey: vaccinations save lives, and they’ve helped change the world for good.

The compilation is called The Art of Saving a Life, and it will be unveiled throughout January in order to promote the importance of vaccination during the run up to a huge fundraising meeting at the end of the month. The event, which will be held on January 27^th, is organized by Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, who are seeking $7.5 billion over the next five years to deliver vaccines to 300 million children. If they are successful, they believe 6 million lives could be saved.

Here is a sample of the evocative work, which we can thank the Gates Foundation for as this philanthropic organization commissioned the work:

Flowers—The Beauty of Vaccines, by Vik Muniz

While this may look a bit like wallpaper, the image was actually created using cells. As Muniz explains: “The artwork is a microscopic pattern of liver cells infected with a smallpox vaccine virus. After infection, the virus turns the cells a reddish color which allows scientists to visualize infection.”

Vaccines as Love Serum—Mauro Perucchetti

Using pigmented resin, Perucchetti has combined two of his most famous sculptres: Jelly Baby Family and Love Serum, which could “inoculate the whole world.” The idea is to bring a smile to children and remove both the fear of needles and parents’ skepticism of their effectiveness.

The Girl Who Kicked the Ball—Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

This digital animation is “a metaphorical portrayal of the poliovirus as aliens and the human spirit that defeated it by creating the anti-virus in a ‘vaccine.’” Mehra hopes that the film portrays the power of immunization and shows us a brighter future if we take a stand against disease.

By the way, Edward Jenner, mentioned above, got the idea by watching milk maids. They would get the mild disease of cow pox and never suffer any further ills. So, basically, some dirty old man ogling women is responsible for saving billions of lives.

In other words, if anyone asks, you’re searching porn to try and cure cancer.

Girlicious – Stupid Shit from Daneille on Vimeo.

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Before we begin today, I need to take a moment to stare goggle eyed at Florida. At St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach a kid, and I mean teenager, passed himself off as a doctor. Not just any doctor either. He pretended to be an OB/GYN. That’s right, a young man, who turns out to be off his meds, was presenting himself to patients as a doctor. Fortunately he was too incompetent or scared to actually to treat a human so no harm was done. But how does this happen? When I was in the hospital last October every doctor I met had an ID card hanging on their shirt and knew the other doctors in the room with me. How many doctors do they have down there that no one noticed him? By the way, he didn’t do this once or twice. He was there every day for a month before a real doctor got suspicious. Just one more thing to worry about I guess. Maybe they didn’t know that Doogie Howser was fiction. It’s the only thing I can think of.

Speaking of your health – I am the segue king, after all – a new study has come out that may make you want to change the way you shower.

Phil Dumontet, over at Entrepreneur, posted this a couple of days ago and I decided to try it before I posted it online. While bracing in the extreme the first time you do it, you get used to it. And, yes, I did feel a hell of a lot better when I was done.

You’ll spend about 4,000 hours of your adult life showering — possibly more time than you spend reading, exercising or watching TV — but chances are, you’ve been doing it wrong.

If you take a morning shower, you probably think it energizes you for the day, but it can actually have the opposite effect.

In fact, a hot shower or bath is what many doctors recommend for people who have trouble falling asleep — to help them fall asleep. The reason: Emerging from a hot shower into cooler air brings a sudden decrease in body temperature, leading to a tranquil state of mind. This is helpful when you’re looking to fall asleep but not what you need before you start your day.

If your goal is to wake up in your morning shower, then you need to make a 90-second tweak.

The secret lies in the contrast. Here’s how to do it:

Once you’ve finished your normal cleaning ritual, crank the nozzle as cold as it goes, and stand under the water for about 30 seconds. Feel free to gasp or scream if it helps (some say it does).

After 30 seconds, turn the water up as hot as you can stand for another 30 seconds. This opens up the capillaries, increases blood flow and provides an all-around sense of stimulation.

Finally, cap it off with one more cycle of icy cold. Always end on cold.

You might be asking, “Why would I put myself through such discomfort first thing in the morning?” Because it works.

Hot and cold hydrotherapy has been used for thousands of years. In Finland, the sauna isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. The country is home to 2 million saunas (for a population of 5 million) with 99 percent of Finns enjoying the stress-relieving benefits of the sauna at least once a week.

I trust the Finns and scientific research provides further confirmation. Studies have shown that it provides a full-body tune-up, including:

Reduced stress: In a study on free radicals, 10 healthy subjects swam regularly in ice-cold water and showed adaptation to oxidative stress and hardening (an increased tolerance to stress). When building a business, combating stress is crucial for achieving clarity of mind.

A stronger immune system: Another study found that taking daily cold showers increases the number of disease-fighting white blood cells. In an attempt to warm up, the body speeds up its metabolic rate and activates the immune system, releasing more white blood cells.

Improved blood circulation: When exposed to cold water, our arteries and veins constrict. This temporary tightening allows blood to flow at a higher pressure, which is great for cardiovascular health.

Increased ability to burn fat: Research shows that cold-induced glucose uptake results in the creation of brown fat cells, which create warmth, burn energy and keep you slim.

Aid in battling depression: A 2008 study found that adapted cold showers stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and increase beta-endorphin levels in the blood. They send a high level of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could produce an anti-depressant effect.

While trying out this new routine, you should fully expect discomfort but be equally prepared to start your day feeling more refreshed than ever before.

One thing I can’t emphasize enough is that the first time you hit the cold you feel like you’ve been hit with a hammer. Once you get past that you’ll be fine.

That said, if you’re taking heart meds you might want to skip this. It does make your rhythmic organ bounce a little.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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