Here I Am, Brain The Size Of A Planet...

How many of these robots can you identify. I got 19/30 — not bad, not great. (Famous Robots by Daniel Nyari)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Heavyweight Champion Of The World
The Birth Of Robot Punk
Vitruvian Robot

Where's WALL-E?

While I did locate WALL-E, I was pleased to see Marvin the Paranoid Android, Twiki from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Muffit form the original Battlestar Galactica, Futurama's Calculon and, too my great pleasure, Mr. Butlertron from Clone High. Wesley! (Where’s WALL-E? by Richard Sargent; link via The Daily What Geek)

Previously on Popped Culture...

R2DJ Drops Robot Beats

Vitruvian Robot

It's Astro Mega Robo Iron Gadget Prime Time Fools!

R2DJ Drops Robot Beats

Bidi-bidi-bidi. Warning, warning, danger, danger! Eclectic Method brings their mixing wizardry to our favourite buckets of bolts, including R2-D2 and C-3PO, Twiki, Johnny 5, WALL-E and EVE, Teddy, Robby the Robot, B9 and my personal favourite Marvin the Paranoid Android. Could have used some Bender though. (Link via Neatogeek)

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Everybody Be Cool - The Tarantino Mixtape
If He Gets Up, We'll All Get Up. It'll Be Anarchy!
Cultural Funkin Overload

Don’t Panic And Carry A Towel

"Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day." — Arthur Dent to Ford Prefect, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This shirt is a reproduction of a poster produced by the Earth Ministry of Information. It was the third in a series, intended to be released only in the event of Vogon invasion. Unfortunately, since the Vogons demolished the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, it never really got a chance to be displayed. (Link via ThinkGeek)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Happy Towel Day, Hoopy Froods!
The Original Fail Whale
Who/What To Worship?

The Original Fail Whale

It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity.

Twitter owes Douglas Adams a debt of gratitude. (Fail Whale via ThinkGeek)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Happy Towel Day, Hoopy Froods!
Who/What To Worship?
I'm On Twitter! I'm On Facebook! La-La La La La La

Happy Towel Day, Hoopy Froods!

"A towel, [says the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy], is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

So just under the wire I found out it was Towel Day, a tribute to the much-missed Douglas Adams. Seems it's been going on since 2001 and I've never heard about it. Too bad, as I always known where my towel is.

The downside of this celebration is the realization that Eoin Colfer has indeed followed through on his abomination of a sixth installation of the Guide, entitled And Another Thing... and is due this fall. I still can't get by what a staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad idea this is. Please, leave well enough alone and let us celebrate with our towels, lest we feed you to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Staggeringly, Jaw-Droppingly Bad
Who/What to Worship?
Don't Panic

Who/What To Worship?

These days I'm split between the Black Obelisk and the The Great Prophet Zarquon. Use this handy chart to help you decide.

Cartoon by Tom Gauld for the Guardian. (Link via JazJaz)

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Ghost Busters Catch Gozer... Um, Jesus
Matthew, Mark, Luke and Optimus Prime

Take That, Dick Tracy!

The buzz product (so far) at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is LG's wrist 3G phone — which has fanboys all dreaming about talking into their wrist a la Dick Tracy. Wait, does anybody even remember Dick Tracy? I remember the terrible Warren Beatty movie from 1990, which makes it older than most of the people at CES.

OK, I just looked and it seems somebody is still drawing Dick Tracy, making the police gumshoe a spry 77. Who knew?

Anyway, now that brilliant scientists have gotten around to recreating comic strip gadgets, there are a few inventions I'd like them to get to work on...

Star Trek: Tricorder — Scan alien lifeforms/plants, diagnose your health, vehicles, etc. And I'm talking the real, looks like a bulky Pentax version, not some iPhone app.


Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Babel Fish — Instantly understand any language in real-time translation. Just stick it in your ear. Sure, there will still be massive cultural misunderstandings, but at least you'll know what they are yelling at you.


Jetsons: Flying Car — Who wouldn't want a flying car? A sky full of drivers, what's the worst that could happen. I suppose a Transporter would be more efficient, but like Dr. McCoy, I'm not ready to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space.


Futurama: The What-If Machine — A gadget that will tell me, in a humorously detailed fashion, how all my decisions will turn out. Of course, I'd settle for a Finglonger.

Addendum: If you are ever looking for images of the Jetsons, make sure you have SafeSearch turned on. I've seen things I can't unsee.

Staggeringly, Jaw-Droppingly Bad

Writing a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sequel is bad idea. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that writing new James Bond novels is a bad idea, but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's book. Listen...

A new author had been tapped to write a sixth book in the increasingly inaccurately-named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Douglas Adams' widow (Adams died at 49 in 2001) Jane Belson, has given her approval to a plan by Penguin to resurrect Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin, the Paranoid Android (the antecedent to Futurama's Bender).

Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl novels, will write the posthumous installment, entitled And Another Thing... "My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series," Colfer told The Times. "But on reflection I realized that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams."

He really should have stuck with his first thought. But of course booksellers are already salivating at the thought: “There’s a ready-made audience of millions for more Hitchhiker’s books," said Michael Rowley, Waterstone’s science fiction buyer. "This is very exciting news for all those fans."

Well, not this one. The Guide was my first pop culture obsession, before The Cure and before The Simpsons. I read all the books, have the original radio show on cassette, the scripts, a towel (I sill know where it is) and I treasure my signed copy of the trilogy from one of Adam's readings. I love the universe Adams created, a place where you learn how to fly by throwing yourself at the ground and missing; where a ship is powered by improbability; where the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, which has an effect similar to "having one's brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick." The Guide itself is akin to reading a Wikipedia that has a sense of humour on a Blackberry — a very prescient invention.

So why would I want to read someone else's vision of this place, of these characters? "For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world," said Colfer. Wonderful, so why not write your own book? To me, it will just be fan fiction. Well written fan fiction to be sure, but fan fiction nonetheless.

Of course it's all about moving books and trying to revive a franchise that once brought in so much money and perhaps is dwindling off nowadays. Sad, but true. When this comes out, you'll find me reading far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy.