Samantha's Picks

I love this site! You've heard the expression, "everyone's a critic"? Well, on Movie Mistakes, everyone's a nitpicker. The site documents continuity errors, dialogue flubs, and costume mishaps from Gone With the Wind (at least 50 mistakes), King Kong (more than 45 mistakes) and nearly every flick in between. If you think Citizen Kane is the end-all/be-all of technical perfection, this list of user-submitted slips could change your mind (12 mistakes logged so far). Convinced Lord of the Rings is the greatest cinematic achievement since Star Wars? You may want to retire your hobbit ears after seeing this epic list of blunders. But before you start rolling your eyes at the sheer geekiness of it all, keep in mind these errors are lovingly submitted by movies' biggest fans. They just happen to be a little more obsessed with being right than the rest of us. MOVIE MISTAKES

The Mojave Desert hosts a large population of people who are nuts about airplanes. It's also a place where old planes go to die, new experimental planes get put through their paces, and (as of last year) the occasional private spaceship lands. Helicopter mechanic and aviation photographer Alan Radecki observes the comings and goings of Mojave's main drag in this very cool photoblog. If it flies, it's here: rocket planes, presidential helicopters, global flyers, even a junior rocketeer convention. Hey "Lost" fans, where did that broken-up airplane come from? MOJAVE WEBLOG

The satellites and massive telescopes of space just got alot closer. International Space Station? Check. Weather satellites, U.S. Navy monitoring orbs? They're here. Thanks to the Missions Operations Laboratory at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, we now know right where they all are. From the Chandra Observatory to hundreds of artificial objects "swarming about our earth," much of what is hovering up there can be tracked and scrutinized from the comfort of the Web. Once launched, each of the mapping applications available here runs live, and several offer stunning 3D positioning. Rotate the displays, zoom in or out, and select coordinates. Then, just before you tear yourself away, sign up for an email alert so you can receive advance notice of future objects passing overhead. NASA

I love this site too -- I guess I have a darker sense of humor than previously thought. How about some real-life famous last words? Enter Wikipedia. "I am not the least afraid to die," boasted a confident Charles Darwin at the end. Sigmund Freud, meanwhile, came up with the rather less dignified "This is absurd! This is absurd!" before he finally gave up the ghost. The collection of quotes here is fascinating, from the insulting ("All right then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick." -- Lope de Vega) to the sublime ("I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis" -- Humphrey Bogart). So if you're looking for insight into some of the world's most celebrated people (or endings), in the words of Giuseppe Zangara, "Go ahead. Pusha da button!" LAST WORDS

Movie Quote of the day:
Better Off Dead (1985)
Monique Junot: He keeps putting his testicles all over me. (Speaking of Ricky.)
Lane Meyer: Excuse me?
Monique Junot: You know, like octopus? Testicles?
Lane Meyer: Ohhhh. Tentacles. N-T. Big difference.

And finally ...

A farmer had five female pigs. Times were hard, so he
decided to take them to the county fair and sell them.
At the fair, he met another farmer who owned five male pigs.
After talking a bit, they decided to mate the pigs and
split everything 50/50. The farmers lived sixty miles apart.
So they agreed to drive thirty miles each, and find a field
in which to let the pigs mate.
The first morning, the farmer with the female pigs got up
at 5 a.m. loaded the pigs into the family station wagon,
which was the only vehicle he had, and drove the thirty
miles.
While the pigs were mating, he asked the other farmer,
"How will I know if they are pregnant?"
The other farmer replied, "If they're in the grass in the
morning, they're pregnant, if they're in the mud,
they're not."
The next morning the pigs were rolling in the mud.
So he hosed them off, loaded them into the family station
wagon again and proceeded to try again.
This continued each morning for more than a week.
One morning the farmer was so tired, he couldn't get out
of bed. He called to his wife, "Honey, please look outside
and tell me whether the pigs are in the mud or in the grass."
"Neither," yelled his wife, "they're in the station wagon
and one of them is honking the horn!"