Mercurymen: New Syfy online series

I was reading through Boing Boing and I found a heads up for a new series from SyFy that is web only. The movie was made on a shoestring and harkens back to the old big screen movie serials. From the article:

• The Mercury Men is a ... new Web series made for under $10,000 in Pittsburgh with ray guns, evil aliens and even a brain in a jar. It’s a modern homage to the black-and-white serials of the early 1900s featuring a mild mannered engineer who normally toils away at an office in obscurity until he stumbles on a plot by The Mercury Men to destroy Earth. It was picked up by Syfy for distribution and began running online lat week at SyFy.

There are seven episodes available so far. The first one is number 101 kind of tongue in cheek I guess (is it 101 episodes or 5. 101 in decimal is 5). I have seen the first couple of episodes and its campy, but not overboard like the network Batman series. The Steam Punk dress and weapons certainly are fun enough. I am certainly not adverse from watching more.

Click the article title to go to the website.

2009 let the weirdness begin!

I know, as a general rule, I don't make a habit of reporting the weird (oh I know....I have crossed the line on occasion...no one is perfect! lol) But I was on IO9's blog and just couldn't resist a couple of really weird starts to the year.

Like finding out that Cosplay really does have a function! Cosplay, for you uninitiated, is for all intents dressing up as your favorite fictional character.

According to the Daily Telegraph:

• On January 1st In Edinburgh, Scotland, Torvald Alexander came home from a "costume party" dressed head to toe as Thor. Upon entering his domain, he caught a mere mortal burglar in the act of making off with his worldly possessions. The thief - clearly not realizing he was messing with the gods - was so scared of the 6-foot tall Alexander dressed like a hammer-thumping crazy, he took off.

More?

Essex police arrested a man on Thursday on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon after he had been spotted carrying a longbow, and a search of his apartment freaked officers out enough that they evacuated 100 nearby homes and called in bomb disposal experts to deal with what were classed as "unexplained items." Sadly, said items had a very simple explanation, as a police spokesman was later forced to admit:

• Bomb disposal officers attended and carried out an assessment. No items of danger were found in the premises. Initial concerns were raised by the crude adaptions of many household items into science fiction style equipment.

What this means is that the arrested gent was into what is more popularly referred to as"steam-punk" which is making normal items look like they are driven by Victorian Steam Technologies, but in virtually all cases are non-functional or work in a different or limited fashion. But I have to ask...what person who wants to cause mayhem is going to go traipsing about with bronze age weaponry? I didn't think so....