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Stuff You Need to Know, Thursday, November 20, 2008

Direct link for the feedreaders.

I know everyone's going to be posting this, and we're jumping on that bandwagon for two reasons. One, because it's Python. And we have a history of "ripping off" Python, as the video puts it. But two, because it's smart. It's the only reaction that makes sense--and one that we've been doing for a long time. Don't be a dick, just ask people to support you--and most times they will. I have a feeling that this will work much better for the Pythoners than it does for us because they're much funnier and they have a larger audience. Granted, we have more ninjas than they do, according to our own intelligence agency. But still.

Anyway, we must all come together in support of smart things that aren't dickish.

In that spirit, we would say the number one Python DVD that we all must own--by law, I believe--is Holy Grail. And the number one Python-related DVD I have always said everyone needs to own: Brazil.

And because I can, another--from my own personal favorite Python film:

Direct link for the feedreaders.

• Click here to buy Monty Python stuff from Amazon.

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Python vs. YouTube: If You Can't Beat Em, Slap Em With a Fish

I must say: of all the Indiana Jones toys around, this one seems to me to have the most merit, especially considering it came from such a terrible film. What could you, as a kid, done with giant remote-controlled ant? The mind boggles. Anyway, we have one here. If you want to enjoy an ant with a crystal skull remote, then enter to win. One winner drawn at random--get your name in once a day by using the form below. Good luck.

Rules:

1) You have to fill out the form *properly* for the entry to be valid.

2) We are not going to give away or sell your address or e-mail address or anything without your permission.

3) You can only enter once a day. A day here means from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. For those of you who need it spelled out to you, that means one person per street address AND e-mail address. If we catch you trying to jive us on an entry, or if you enter more often than once during that day, we will throw out each and every one of your entries. And we will find you out. So.

4) Contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only who are 18 or over. Sorry.

5) Contest ends at 11:59PM EST, on Friday, December 19, 2008.

That is all of it. For legalese, click here.

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Win the Indiana Jones Giant RC Ant!

Let me explain what I am giving an endorsement to in this picture. It's the classic piece of literature Running on Empty, a joint publication from Harlequin Romances and... NASCAR.

NASCAR crew chief Hugo Murphy could never forget Sylvie Ketchum, especially since he only had to look at her daughter—their daughter—to be reminded of the woman he'd loved. But she'd deserted him and Kim without a word, shattering their hopes and dreams. Nothing could fill the void—except NASCAR.

Now I have nothing against NASCAR. It, like most sports, is an enigma to me. And I have nothing against Harlequin Romances. I swore if things ever got too bad I would create a female pseudonym and start writing them to pay the bills. But when you put the two together--my Ability to Refrain From Mockery fails.

This must be a good deal for Harlequin, though. Think about it--you can insert a dime pulp romance story into anything. So I would like to humbly suggest the following additional alliances they could strike up:

1. ...with George A. Romero. Heart of the Living Dead.

2. ...with the Sci-Fi Channel. Boa vs. Python vs. Love.

3. ...with Harmonix Games' Rock Band. Fake Band, Real Tears.

4. ...with Dario Argento. The Tycoon's Rebellious Bride... and The Demons Who Devoured Her.

5. ...with The Muppets. Felt Up.

6. ...with Star Wars. The Sheik's Lifeday Proposal.

7. ...with The X-Men series of comics. The X-Men series of comics.

8. ...with Guillermo Del Toro. Blind Date With the Sightless Creature Portrayed by Doug Jones.

9. ...with Saw. Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Mutilations.

10. ...with Jerry Reed. Pretty Mary Sunlite, She's All Right With Me (Once I've Ripped Open Her Bodice).

You're welcome, Harlequin. You want any more, you know where to find me. My rates are very reasonable.

• Click here to buy Harlequin romances stuff from Amazon. We won't tell a soul.
• Click here to buy NASCAR stuff from Amazon.
• Do you dare? DO YOU DARE? Click here to buy Harlequin NASCAR stuff from Amazon.

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Who Will Love Who When the Rubber Meets the Road

Ken Plume is well known to readers of Needcoffee as being the head of Quick Stop Entertainment, one half of the Ken P.D. Snydecast, the curator of our Gonzo Film Fests, and an all around bastard. But now he's dealing with something nobody ever wants to have to contend with: his mom's fighting cancer. Again.

He wants you to send his mom a postcard for the holidays, to help keep her spirits up as she keeps up the good fight. For the address and the full story, check out Ken's site here.

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Ken Plume Has a Small Request For You

The hi-def record of Paul McCartney's 2005 U.S. tour is coming out on Blu-Ray from A&E. Two hours of hi-def concert film are here: and we happen to have a spare copy here that you can win. All you have to do for a chance to snag it is enter. We draw a name at random and banzai. And don't forget to enter once a day--because ya can, you know.

Rules:

1) You have to fill out the form *properly* for the entry to be valid.

2) We are not going to give away or sell your address or e-mail address or anything without your permission.

3) You can only enter once a day. A day here means from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. For those of you who need it spelled out to you, that means one person per street address AND e-mail address. If we catch you trying to jive us on an entry, or if you enter more often than once during that day, we will throw out each and every one of your entries. And we will find you out. So.

4) Contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only who are 18 or over. Sorry.

5) Contest ends at 11:59PM EST, on Thursday, December 18, 2008.

That is all of it. For legalese, click here.

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Win Paul McCartney on Blu-Ray!

A&E returns to the Python well with The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Collector's Edition, a twenty-one disc monster of a set that contains every episode of Flying Circus and then, in a separate book that comes out of the box shown ("Monty Python's Everything Else"), you get, well, just that--everything else. Monty Python Live is included, as well as each of the individual members' "Personal Best" collections. Now, you might be saying, "Widge, is there anything new in here? I own the 16-Ton Megaset, why should I snag this?" As well you should ask that. The only thing that's new and never before seen are the two docus included on separate discs, "Before the Flying Circus" which attempts to show the roots of the show and then "Monty Python Conquers America," in which their storming of American shores is recounted. Beyond that, that's it. And my understanding is that the episodes have been remastered and restored and whatnot, in preparation for being released on hi-def at some point in the future. If that is accurate, then I see no indication that we're getting any version of those episodes here in lo-def. So while it's a very nice set--I especially like how it's compact, but only a completist who has no intention of upgrading to Blu-Ray at any point in the future would want to snag this. It's $89.99 on Amazon, and while the Personal Best bits are nice for what they are, I would recommend aiming instead for the 16-ton Megaset. It's priced at $57.99 and you can snag it here. I would recommend holding out for the Collector's Edition in Blu-Ray--or at least the remastered episodes. Oh, and one last bit? My favorite perk of the set is the discounted Spamalot tickets, good January 6th through March 29th. But bear in mind, the show closes January 18th. So. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

While we're on the subject of Python, let's go over to Looney Labs and their new variation of Fluxx. Fluxx, for the uninitiated (ScottC is the one who got me started on this thing) is basically a card game version of Calvinball. The path to winning the game can change from play to play, so can the worth of your cards, or basically anything you've got going on. It's anarchy barely held in check by whatever cards are running the show at that particular moment. In other words, it's a chaotic good time. I had tried out the zombie variation of Fluxx, and now they've gone and created a Monty Python Fluxx, which is basically like taking mental gasoline and throwing it on the kitchen fire that is the usual Fluxx whacked-outed-ness. It's an all Python version of the game, which will have fans rather pleased. It's $20 from Looney Labs for the game, and I think if you have lots of card madness going on at your game night, breaking this out would be worthwhile. (Click here to buy it from Looney Labs.)

I.M. Pei is one of those artists that even if you don't know him...you know him. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum? That's his. That glass pyramid at the Louvre, where beneath is supposed to reside the remains of Mary Magdalene? Yeah, that's his. I bet he didn't even know he was a member of the Illuminati. Anyway, when the book says "Complete Works," it means it. That encompasses not just the many, many works that have gotten made, but also the unbuilt ones--like, for example, the Hyperboloid, which, honestly, sounded like a Doctor Who villain. That was supposed to go up in New York City. The book is heavy as hell and chocked full of more than 340 pages of text about each project, plus scads of pictures from the design phase to the finished project. If you're a fan of architecture or of the man himself--which you might have been and just not known it--then you want to give this a look. It's out from Rizzoli--and for $53.55 (what it's listed at on Amazon at the moment), it's pricey, but there's a lot there. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The second season of Night Gallery is here from Universal. Twenty-two episodes across five discs. And I don't know about you, but that would probably be enough for me, since I'm a Rod Serling freak. But there's some goodness here to sweeten the deal. There's three commentaries with a pair of Night Gallery historians, which is nice. There's also three commentaries with Guillermo "When The Hell Does This Man Ever Sleep?" Del Toro. Then on top of that there's a retrospective featurette and a look at the paintings of the series, and specifically this season's. Sure this isn't as perennial as Twilight Zone, but the beautiful bit of a genre anthology series is you get to sample bits of weirdness as you go, so they don't necessarily have to fire on all cylinders. And I'm biased anyway. But if you're a fan, it's currently at $39.99 on Amazon and this is probably the best version we're going to see on DVD. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

An hour-long series being promoted to full color and also being extended to an hour and a half? Sounds mental, but that's exactly what happened with Wagon Train, whose 1963-1964 season is here in its entirety across eleven discs--thirty-two episodes in all. That is a huge freaking series. But if that wasn't enough, Timeless Media has put sixteen bonus episodes from the other seven seasons (there were eight seasons in all) on four DVDs. And then there's an additional bonus disc with interviews with actors Robert Fuller and Denny Scott Miller. That's a total of sixty-five hours of content, this is all new to DVD from what I understand, the color episodes being remastered and the bonus black and white episodes taken from the masters. Guest stars in this season include everybody from Ronald Reagan to Peter Falk and from Burgess Meredith to Annette Funicello. Whew. It's currently $95.99 on Amazon. Now, true, that's pricey, but if you are a fan of the show, this is probably the best treatment this season's going to get on DVD. It's about $2 an episode, even though the majority of those are super-sized. If you go by the hour of content, it's under $1.50. So take that under account. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Gregory Peck Film Collection is perfect if you're starting from scratch and want to get a Peck collection right here and right now. It comes with six films: Arabesque (with Sophia Loren); Cape Fear (the original, of course, with Robert Mitchum); Captain Newman M.D. (with Eddie Albert, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson and Bobby Darin); Mirage (with Walter Matthau); To Kill a Mockingbird (nuff said); and lastly, The World in His Arms (with Anthony Quinn). The good news is that beyond Mockingbird and Fear, the other four films are hitting Region 1 for the first time. The bad news is that there's nothing new under the sun as far as special features go--it's everything that came on the two previously released titles: commentary from director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula on Mockingbird; making-of for both Mockingbird and Fear (although the Mockingbird one is feature length); a docu about Peck's life; production photos for Fear and more. The good news is that if you haven't bought the Legacy Series Mockingbird, this has everything from it on this. Cape Fear I can't speak to because I don't own that edition, but I imagine it's the same. So if you're starting from scratch, this is a gold mine of Peck films. Now...what if you are wincing at having to repurchase those two films to get the other four--well, it's $41.99 on Amazon as I type this up--and that's not terrible. But chances are this is the only way these films are going to appear. If it makes you feel any better, Universal at least had the good taste to change the DVD labels so that they don't remind you you re-purchased every time you look at them. Also, each of the films comes in a slimline case with the poster art from the film on it, which is quite appealing. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Sukiyaki Western Django gives me pause. Because on one hand, it's directed by Takashi Miike, who's a lunatic. Have you seen Audition? Christ. Anyway, it's your traditional western, complete with gunfighters, badass gunfights, except there's more swords than you would normally have in, say, Sergio Leone. Two clans of gunfighters are worked over and played off by another new stranger (also with guns). This comes in a steelbook case and on the discs it has a making-of, premiere and festival footage; and a weapons and CG making-of bits. This is out from First Look, and I would recommend it as a rental for anybody who's either a western movie or samurai movie fan or just wants to see Quentin Tarantino speaking Japanese. Only if you're hung up on it should you purchase: It's $20.29 at the moment on Amazon. So that's pretty much for fans only. (You could get the non-steelbook packaging, but that's really no savings.) (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The rest of the second season of Streets of San Francisco is here with twelve episodes across three discs. It's Karl Malden as the Seasoned Cop and a young-as-hell Michael Douglas as the Rookie Cop. And I'm dying to use the "They Fight Crime!" joke but I already did that previously. So damn. This is out from Paramount/CBS DVD and it comes with no features. It doesn't appear to be airing anywhere (although if the remake ever comes to pass, they might run it somewhere) so for now, if you want it, this is your only way. It's $27.99 on Amazon at the moment, so I would say rent it first if you're uncertain about owning. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Living Colour still rocks ass. Honestly. When Collide0scope hit a few years back, it was like they had just gone to get a sandwich after finishing the Stain sessions. And now, two years after that last full new studio album, they hit the stage at CBGB's like bats out of hell--and MVD Audio has released the 2005 set on CD. They launch into "Type" like they're attempting to wrench the head from your shoulders if you dare to try and bob your head along. Corey's voice is still badass, as evidenced when I saw him more recently in Jesus Christ Superstar. Will Calhoun is smacking the shit out of the drums. Vernon Reid is on hand for your funked up guitar weirdness and Doug Wimbish provides the foundation. They've still got it and they spend most of the set messing with their older tunes, "Ignorance is Bliss" being the only Stain track and "In Your Name" from Collide0scope. For example, in the aforementioned "Type," there's a spoken word break, then a reggae break. Of the tracks, "Terrorism" is the only one that doesn't ring a bell. But be prepared for long, long reworkings of both "Sacred Ground" and "Open Letter to a Landlord." When Vernon finally starts the end with the blistering opening of "Cult of Personality," you're pretty much exhausted just from listening. These men are madmen. All I ask is next time: "Sunshine of Your Love" live, guys. Please. I want to hear you set that bastard on fire live on stage. Well done. Fans should buy already. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Star Trek is about to be reborn at the hands of J.J. Abrams. Whether it's Star Trek Begins or Star Trek Returns remains to be seen, but in the meantime, Paramount has re-worked the original series. Reworked as in updated the FX so that phasers look more like the phasers in your imagination and the Enterprise is a CG-realized starship now, for example. Otherwise, nobody's changed out the phasers for flashlights or retroactively changed up history or any silly shit like that. They're just remastered and the episodes look better than the last time they hit DVD. Trouble is, this is them hitting DVD again, so should a fan buy this? Well, a lot of the features are ports from the previous release of this season, including both versions of "The Cage," featurettes on Koenig, Doohan and Takei, and so forth. What you do have new is a retrospective from Bob Justman, producer and more of "Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest," where we learn what being a background player for years on Trek will get you--that's right, a spot on the DVD. I don't like the packaging. The front of it flips forward, revealing a paper box out of which you pull the plastic holders for the discs--and I just know that I'm going to wind up scratching one of these damn things. Back to the question: buy or not? Well, I figure that the Blu-Ray version will be out around the time as the new movie or immediately following--that would be the smart thing to do, methinks. So you can probably expect all of this and more on those, so my conservative inclination is to tell you to hold off if you can. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Sarah McLachlan has released a greatest hits album from Nettwerk entitled Closer, since this is her celebrating twenty years in the business. Most of the songs you would expect are on here, including "Vox," "Hold On," "Building a Mystery," "I Will Remember You" and so on. I'm a little surprised that "Ice Cream" isn't on here, although perhaps she figures that five or six different versions of that floating around is sufficient. Oh wait, sorry, there's a 2-CD version of this that has "Ice Cream" on it--I'm only sitting here with the single disc. There's also two new songs, "Don't Give Up on Us" and the texting friendly "U want me 2". This disc serves a few purposes, I find. One, it reveals that she hasn't lost any of her voice. Two, it reveals that she hasn't really moved that far away from where she started, at least not musically. If anything, she's less likely to use a lot of layered voices, but beyond that--if you mixed up the songs and handed them to somebody and told them to put them in chronological order, they'd be hard pressed to succeed. That is, unless they had some sort of ear for production and could tell in that way. I'm not saying that the disc isn't nice if you don't already own the albums, but the new songs just didn't move me enough to say pick this up for them unless you're a Sarah completist. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Blu-Ray flavor of The Universe is out from The History Channel and while it's no Stephen Hawking book or Cosmos, it's a well executed primer on space--and looks damn good to boot. Hence the desire for hi-def for something like this. I've said multiple times that all the Circuit Citys and Best Buys of the world just need to snag stuff like this and Blue Planet and Planet Earth and show them in hi-def on all their televisions...and they'd sell a crapload more. This season of the series covers subjects like The Sun, the life of a star, and the eschatological "The End of the Earth," because nothing drives ratings like armageddon. This also comes with a bonus docu, "Beyond the Big Bang." While I dig series like this I also understand that a major portion of why we should buy things comes into play here: the rewatch factor. This isn't the sort of thing you're going to break out once you've watched it through most likely, so I question whether or not anything beyond a rental is warranted here, as tasty looking as it might be. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

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Headsup: Two Fists of Flying Circus!

After finding this monstrous wonderment on Ectoplasmosis, I was struck by a thought: it looks like a wild and evil doppleganger of the Astrobase from our friends at Astrobase Go!, shown below:

It only makes sense: the Hall of Justice's opposite was the Hall of Doom. New Genesis had Apokolips. It's actually a work by Kris Kuksi, "Imminent Utopia." But still. What would the Crime Syndicate versions of Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick be like? The mind boggles at the thought...

• Click here to buy Venture Bros. stuff from Amazon.

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Could This Be... The Anti-Astrobase?

It's the fifth and final season, with twenty-two episodes of Jack Klugman and Tony Randall across three discs. We've got five copies of the set to give away thanks to Paramount and CBS DVD. Want to win one? Enter below for the chance to win--and if we draw your name as one of the five, it's yours. It's just that easy. But make sure you enter once a day. Because it's not just good to do so, it's good for you to do so.

Rules:

1) You have to fill out the form *properly* for the entry to be valid.

2) We are not going to give away or sell your address or e-mail address or anything without your permission.

3) You can only enter once a day. A day here means from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. For those of you who need it spelled out to you, that means one person per street address AND e-mail address. If we catch you trying to jive us on an entry, or if you enter more often than once during that day, we will throw out each and every one of your entries. And we will find you out. So.

4) Contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only who are 18 or over. Sorry.

5) Contest ends at 11:59PM EST, on Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

That is all of it. For legalese, click here.

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Win The Odd Couple's Final Season on DVD

Goodbye Blue Sky

U2 and more after the break.

With or Without You

For those that prefer their guitars plugged in and turned up to 11, I give you Quinn Sullivan (age 7) making George Harrison proud.

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Sungha Jung: Fretkillr's Padawan?

That's right, it's another season of Jack Lord bringing the noise--and the hair and the fashion--of Hawaii Five-O. We have five copies of this fifth season to give away, so if you want to check out all twenty-four episodes across six discs, then enter below. And you can enter once a day--so don't forget! We draw five names at random, and they win. So that's the story.

Rules:

1) You have to fill out the form *properly* for the entry to be valid.

2) We are not going to give away or sell your address or e-mail address or anything without your permission.

3) You can only enter once a day. A day here means from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. For those of you who need it spelled out to you, that means one person per street address AND e-mail address. If we catch you trying to jive us on an entry, or if you enter more often than once during that day, we will throw out each and every one of your entries. And we will find you out. So.

4) Contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only who are 18 or over. Sorry.

5) Contest ends at 11:59PM EST, on Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

That is all of it. For legalese, click here.

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Win Hawaii Five-O Season 5 on DVD!

Our TV sets: Holiday Treats will treat Linda Dane of Michigan, Angel Baker of Missouri, Ben Whitfield of Wyoming, Daniel Mihaliak of West Virginia, and Gail Brown of North Carolina.

Ambrose Bierce is going to Tara Wright of Minnesota.

The Touch of Evil will touch (in a purely non-evil way) Shelby Llewellyn of Washington.

That Lucky Old Sun was won by the lucky Noah Carlucci of Arizona.

Dangerous Missions was won by Daniela Perez of Texas, whether she chooses to accept it or not.

The Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits vinyl goes to Lindy Mann of Vermont.

The Sex Drive Poster will be driving over to Lori Berman of Utah.

And CSI Season 8--a rather popular contest--was won by Evan Christopher of Delaware, Beverly Colton of California, Sara Gregory of Pennsylvania, Shaun Wallner of Tennessee, and Teresa Layfield of Georgia.

Congrats to all the winners. Don't see your name up there? Don't panic. There's plenty of chances to win. Find our contests here. And hey: subscribe to our news feed so you don't miss a single chance to enter--the day you miss entering might have been Your Day!

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Ahoy, There! More Winners off the Port Bow!

New Zealand. Land that brought us cinematic hobbits. Gorgeous landscapes. The place where I'd like to retire to, once I make, you know, a lot more money than I have now. But there are certain things we need in any country--and one is, well, coffee. And another is ice cream.

How fortuitous then that New Zealand Natural Ice Cream shot me some samples. Granted, we have audience in the Australia/New Zealand area...but they're also about to storm the west coast of America. Here's what they tell us:

So they're coming to us? Even better. So what's the verdict?

First up, let's start with a basic. "Vanilla Classic." Which is good, because that new formula of vanilla never worked for me. NZN's vanilla is that deep, rich vanilla that just begs to be thrown into a milkshake. The taste stays with you--and that's not a bad thing, since it's really good. The only problem is since I only have a pint of this stuff, I can't really do the milkshake thing since it would blow through the pint--and it's good enough where I want to savor it.

Taking a step from vanilla to chocolate, we have "Cookies & Cream," which pairs the vanilla with "chunks of dark chocolate cookies." The coloration of the photo on the front of the pint is a little misleading, as it would appear to be vanilla with mostly large chunks of cookie. However, prying the pint open I find that it's a few chunks of cookie but mostly shredded up tiny bits of cookie, so much so that the vanilla ice cream is positively peppered with the stuff and has gone from white to a cookie-discolored off-white. Is this a bad thing? No, what, are you mental? Oh darn, more cookie. In fact, the rich vanilla is a bit tromped down by the chocolate cookie bits being so prevalent. Again, not a bad thing, and indeed, cookies come first when you're talking cookies and cream flavor. So this is also quite good.

Next, we jump not just to chocolate, but "Chocolate Ecstasy." A bold jump, my friends. This is chocolate ice cream with "a river of rich chocolate fudge." Okay, let's dig in. I see and taste chocolate--and it's a worthy chocolate. But I'm not wading into any river of--ah, there it is. I'll say this: the chocolate alone is just chocolate. There's only so much you can do with "just chocolate," and NZN has done it. But it's the fudge river that kicks this up a notch. It's not what I would call the richest fudge ever, but that's okay...it brings the regular chocolate ice cream up one level in chocolatey goodness, and really, that's all you want.

Next, it's the "Mango Sorbet." And if there was ever a doubt they were using real mangoes, check out the color in that pic there. That's the color of the mangos I've seen, if not looking even better. And when you take a bite...well, it's like somebody took a baseball bat made out of mangoes and tried to club you to death with it. But hey, it's sorbet and fat free, so you die happy. In fact, I would go so far as to say if you dig mangoes, then this sorbet is your new best friend. Holy crap, but it is really rich. It's just like biting into a cold bit of mango. I know I keep saying mango over and over again, but that's the only way to describe it. If you've never had one, just move along. But "mango puree" is the second ingredient listed after water, so it's clear they've succeeded here.

And lastly, the "Hokey Pokey." "Crunchy butterscotch pieces hiding in creamy butterscotch flavored ice cream." Pulling it open and then sticking in my spoon, I was immediately greeted by butterscotch spoogification. I don't know if something happened in transit, but I get no crunch here. I instead get gooey butterscotch pockets riddling the ice cream. How is the ice cream alone? I literally cannot tell you. I kept trying to get a little spoonful of just the ice cream, only to hit another pocket of the liquefied butterscotch. From what I can gather, it's exactly what the lid promises, but without the crunch. The ice cream bit is a subtle butterscotch flavor with the pockets of goo taking it over the edge. While rich, it's still not brain destroyingly so. So it's pleasant without being overwhelming. And this is the sort of flavor you'd expect to linger poorly on the tastebuds, but it's not bad at all. The benefits of natural ingredients I'm sure.

The pints are all quite good. In fact, they're a little insidious. Why insidious? Because they're not too rich, any of them. (With the exception of the mango, perhaps.) It's not like, say, a pint of Ben and Jerry's where the thing is screaming RICH RICH RICH at you over and over again. Because these are so good and yet understated, you could literally plow through a pint if you're not careful.

The flavors don't really redefine ice cream as we know it. When you do vanilla, you want, you know, Vanilla. That being said, I'd like to see NZN branch off into more stuff like the mango sorbet (which was intense) and the Hokey Pokey (which was rather interesting), i.e. playing around beyond the usual ice cream staples. If you were to run across this in the freezer or even one of their scoop shops, you would do well to give them a try. And here's hoping they move eastward soon.

For more info on NZN, check out their website here.

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New Zealand Natural Ice Creams - Review

It's hard not to post Moebius artwork. Just because I love his stuff. But when you couple that with an array of designs he did for the unrealized movie version of Dune that pre-dated the David Lynch version--the mad one in which Salvador Dali played the emperor and Pink Floyd provided the score. And, you know, they killed it because it was going to turn into a fourteen-hour version that was positively mad.

Regardless, here's some of the designs that Moebius (The Airtight Garage) did. If you want to read more about the versions that didn't make it, Dune Behind the Scenes' entire Unseen Dune section is pretty damn sweet.

Found via io9.

• Click here to buy Dune stuff from Amazon.

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Hollywood That Wasn't: Dune Designs