Friday, March 30, 2012

Tiger Woods is back … and so are businesses capitalizing on his fame

On Sunday, Tiger Woods won his first PGA Tour title since 2009, ending a drought that started with his much publicized sex scandal.
Now that he’s a winner again, businesses are capitalizing on his fame. CBS is already excited about airing the Masters April 5-8 because ratings get a boost when Tiger’s in the hunt. (See Reuters articles: “Rejuvenated Tiger stirs up Masters interest” and “Tiger heads to Masters believing he can win.”)
Electronic Arts perfectly timed the release of “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13,” the latest in the long-running video game series. It came out on Tuesday. However, EA hedged its bets by putting Rickie Fowler on the cover with Tiger.
And finally, the porn industry, which had a field day making X-rated parodies of the Tiger Wood scandal, is coming out with a new movie tied to it. Vivid Entertainment is releasing “3 Mistresses: Notorious Tales of the World’s Greatest Golfer.” The movie features three of Woods’ alleged mistresses ­– Devon James, Joslyn James and Holly Sampson, AVN reports.
The Daily Beast reports that the movie was filmed in 2010, but the porn studio waited until Woods made a comeback to release it.
Since the scandal broke, Woods has been the subject of eight X-rated movies. He is the third most popular real-life target of porn movies behind Charlie Sheen (18 movies) and Sarah Palin (9 movies). Check out an updated list of the top 19 real-life targets of porn parodies.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

More Lego recreations of reality TV: ‘Billy the Exterminator’ and ‘Hillbilly Handfishin’’

After making Lego dioramas of reality TV shows “Storage Wars” and “Finding Bigfoot,” we decided to keep going. Here are photos that recreate A&E’s “Billy the Exterminator” and Animal Planet’s “Hillbilly Handfishin’” using Legos.

Billy Bretherton of Vexcon Animal & Pest Control flees a home infested with rats, spiders and snakes in a Lego recreation of “Billy the Exterminator.”

Skipper Bivins of Big Fish Adventures teaches people how to catch catfish with their bare hands in a Lego recreation of “Hillbilly Handfishin’.”
Animal Planet is owned by Discovery Communications. A&E is a joint venture owned by Hearst Corp., Disney-ABC Television Group and NBC Universal.
See earlier post on Lego “Finding Bigfoot.”

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Funny TSA graphics, cartoons and photos

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is a target of public scorn and ridicule.
Focusing on the latter, here are some funny illustrations and graphics that make light of the TSA and its policies. (An earlier series of TSA funnies ran on Tech-media-tainment in September 2011.)

A TSA agent is caught playing solitaire on a PC while on the job. (Photo from Fail Blog.)

“You cannot get on an airplane if you have shampoo and toothpaste! When will you people learn?” (Photo from Historic LOLs.)

2012 U.S. Government Terrorist Identification Chart by Gonzoville at Deviant Art.

TSA role-playing by Gary McCoy. (See PoliticalCartoons.com.)

If TSA Security Measures Were Even More Invasive. (See Cracked.com.)

TSA parody T-shirt from Zazzle.

TSA Choice: Molestation or Radiation (Photo illustration from DDees.com.)

Airport security cartoon (Photo from 9gag.com.)

TSA funny from Someecards.com.

Altered logo mocks TSA as meaning “Thousands Standing Around.” (Origin unknown.)

Another mock TSA poster featuring Pedobear.

Monday, March 19, 2012

TSA agents are the Keystone cops of security

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is the most comically inept government agency in existence.
Under the guise of securing our airports, the TSA has instituted a laughable set of ever-changing rules and procedures and hired thousands of mouth-breathers to enforce them. The agency has inconvenienced millions of travelers with little to show for it, all while violating the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens against unreasonable search and seizure.
To make matters worse, this multibillion-dollar waste of federal resources has expanded its mission scope to include security at train stations, bus depots, tourist attractions, the nation’s highways and even the Super Bowl.
Here’s a rundown of recent TSA stories that make the Keystone cops look professional.

TSA agent forces nursing mom to use breast pump

A nursing mother says she was humiliated by a TSA worker who forced her to pump her breasts in a public restroom before she could board a plane in Hawaii with her ice packs and bottles. The TSA screener violated the agency’s own rules in the incident, which occurred earlier this month.
(See articles by ABC News, MSNBC and the Washington Post.)

TSA deputizes hot dog vendors at Super Bowl

Looking to expand its purview, the TSA took a role in security at this year’s Super Bowl.
Even though the TSA has never caught a terrorist in its more than 10 years of operation, it trained hot dog sellers and other vendors at the Super Bowl to spot terrorist threats. As the old saying goes, those who can’t do, teach.
(See articles by Info Wars, Fox News and the Daily Mail.)

TSA confiscates pipes, realizes hours later they might be bombs

In January, TSA agents at New York’s La Guardia Airport found two possible pipe bombs in a passenger’s luggage and left the materials in a public area for six hours before alerting police. 
Even though the pipes turned out to be part of some “homeopathic medicine” kit, the incident shows that TSA agents have no clue as to what is dangerous or not and how to handle items if they suspect they are hazardous.
TSA agents frequently confiscate liquids and gels (water bottles, toothpaste, perfume, etc.) and just throw them in the garbage. If these items are possible explosives and potentially dangerous, why throw them in a nearby garbage can? They know and we know those items are not dangerous.
(See articles by Fox News, CNN and the Atlantic.)

TSA seizes cupcakes, other non-threatening items

The TSA has a long history of confiscating innocuous items, but missing real potential threats.
TSA agents are either stupid, don’t use common sense or are blindly following ridiculous rules when confiscating items like cupcakes, homemade jam, a purse with a gun decoration, an antique cannonball, and camera dust cleaners.
Of course, these are in addition to the regular harmless stuff the TSA confiscates every day, such as snow globes, toothpaste, shampoo, perfume, cologne, and bottles of water and soda.

TSA can’t take a joke, bans U.K. couple from entering U.S.

In January, two British tourists were barred from entering the U.S. after joking on Twitter that they were going to “destroy America” and “dig up Marilyn Monroe.” They were arrested after landing at Los Angeles International Airport.
Despite telling officials the term “destroy” was British slang for “party,” the couple was held on suspicion of planning to “commit crimes” and had their passports confiscated. The tweet about digging up Marilyn Monroe was a quote from the TV show “Family Guy.” After lengthy questioning by U.S. authorities, the two were forced to fly home, the Daily Mail reports.

TSA continues to pat down elderly, disabled and children

Despite assurances to the contrary, the TSA continues to pat down the elderly, the disabled and children.
Senior citizens, the handicapped and youngsters are low security risks. Photos and videos of TSA agents feeling up these types of airline passengers have sparked repeated outrage. But those complaints have fallen on deaf ears.

Photos: Anti-TSA poster (top) and protest cookies made by Alaskans’ Freedom to Travel USA (see Alaska Dispatch article).

Monday, March 5, 2012

Lego ‘Finding Bigfoot’

Working with a mish-mash of Lego block sets, my kids and I recreated the Animal Planet TV show “Finding Bigfoot” in a diorama.
My previous Lego artwork includes a mashup of sci-fi epic “Star Wars” and reality TV show “Storage Wars.” (See photo here.)
For my Lego “Finding Bigfoot” diorama, I used Chewbacca from “Star Wars” as my sasquatch stand-in. (Chewie has played this role in at least one other Lego bigfoot recreation before mine. See Cryptomundo and The Brothers Brick.)
I used a beardless Hagrid from the “Harry Potter” series to depict jumbo-sized bigfoot investigator James “Bobo” Fay.
In the first photo, biologist Ranae Holland and bigfoot investigator Cliff Barackman check out squatch tracks near a stream, while a cameraman records their findings.


In the next photo, Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization founder Matt Moneymaker chases a squatch into the woods.
And finally Bobo makes wood knocks using two clubs, oblivious to what’s going on behind him.