I can’t. Hate Tom Cruise, that is. I can’t help it, I love the guy.

Yes I know he’s a Scientologist, that totally bizarro-world nutcase religion with some really whacked-out ideas about space thetans and trillion-year old aliens, the same religion that’s not above using violence and extortion to keep their secrets intact. But hey, at least they don’t rape kids.

It’s not that all of Tom Cruise’s films have been so awesome - some have even been pretty damn bad. Really, really bad. But you have to admit that many of his films have been pretty good. Some films have even been really, really good.

But none of this really matters. Because the main reason I can’t hate Tom Cruise is because he doesn’t take himself very seriously.

This is one of Hollywood’s leading men, a one-man box-office hit-generator who is arguably one of the most famous people alive on the planet, and he goes around and does things like this:

And then, for no other reason than because he wants to, he goes ahead and repeats it on one of TV’s biggest annual events: the MTV Movie Awards.

(Unfortunately there’s no video available outside of the US due to Viacom’s anally retentive copyright-obsessed lawyers denying the rest of the world the glory of Les Grossman via legitimate means, so I suggest you find the video on your favourite file-sharing site.)

A man that is that famous, and yet possesses sufficient quantities of humour and self-mockery to do this sort of thing and enjoy it, deserves praise.

So there you have it. I like Tom Cruise. I really do.

Airport security event:

Customs Official: ‘May I know your name?’
Passenger : ‘Batman’
Customs Official: ‘What’s your name?’
Passenger : ‘My name is Batman’
Customs Official: ‘Trying to be funny? What’s your surname?’
Passenger : ‘Superman’
Customs Official: ‘So you’re telling me your name is Batman Superman?’
Passenger : ‘Yes’
Customs Official: ‘Arrest this guy’

When they had him in custody, he was asked to show his identification card:

(I know this is an oldie but it’s still so damn funny.)

New research published today suggest there may be a link between UK news consumption and IQ test scores.

The research, conducted by Emeritus Professor Ian Connell of the Francis Anthony Institute of Liverpool, has revealed that people who regularly read tabloid publications such as the Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, and Daily Mail, are much more likely to achieve scores below 100 on official IQ tests.

The study was performed on a group of 150 volunteers from across the United Kingdom. Each subject was administered an IQ test at the start of the study, then made to read the same national newspaper publication every day for a week, after which the IQ test was administered again.

The results showed that readers of ‘tabloid’ papers found their IQ scores dropped dramatically after a week of exposure to these news sources. Researchers also made note of a number of side effects in this group of subjects, such as a greater tendency to wear pyjamas during the day and increased viewing of commercial TV reality shows.

Readers of mainstream ‘quality’ papers such as the Times, the Telegraph, and the Guardian, were found to have no significant statistical change in their IQ scores before and after their exposure to their selected newspaper. In some cases however readers of the Telegraph started raving uncontrollably about ‘climate change conspiracies’ and Guardian readers tended to develop a strong preference for the colour red.

Participants of the study that were made to read the Independent showed a marginal but ’statistically significant’ increase in IQ test results, as well as a propensity to speak whole sentences in Russian. The researchers however referred to this test group as ‘an anomaly’.

Commenting on the study, Emeritus Professor Ian Connell of the Francis Anthony Institute of Liverpool said that this research “may have exposed some alarming side-effects of the choices made by the public in their consumption of news content.”

Referring to similar research performed by the Delft University of Medical Branches, which revealed a similar effect of lowered IQ scores for readers of the Telegraaf newspaper in the Netherlands, professor Connell added that it was “encouraging to see other researchers take the effects of news consumption on human intellect more seriously.”

“However,” he added, “correlation does not necessarily indicate causation. More research is required.”

It can’t come soon enough.

Click for the full version
(Via Unreasonable Faith)

This is one of the biggest reasons straight men should not be friends with attractive females. An excerpt:

I really like you. I do. You’re so nice, and sweet, and you listen to all my problems and respond with the appropriate compliments. But, well, I don’t really see a relationship in our future. It would be terrible if we let sex destroy this great friendship we have where I get everything I want and you get nothing you want. Don’t you think?

The inevitability of this type of one-way friendship is exactly why I stopped being friends with unmarried women.

Here’s a sample of a hilarious set of splash pages a web developer considered putting up on his site for every IE6 user:

Some of them may seem overly harsh, but then again, if you’re still using Internet Explorer 6 you pretty much are a retarded douche.

(Via @danielflorien)

Don’t you just hate it when you’re having a drink in a bar and a hot chick starts flirting with you, and then another equally hot chick also starts flirting with you, and then suddenly they go all Obi-Wan on you and fight it out with lightsabers?

No, me neither.

Absurdly humorous (and very NSFW due to excessive cursing).

(Via Boing Boing)

Ever since I played the demo I’ve been waiting for this day: the full version of Auditorium is now available.

For those not in the know (and this is I suspect the majority of my readership), Auditorium is a superbly addictive game. The basic premise is simple, as it is for most forms of digital crack cocaine posing as games: you need to guide a flow of particles to several containers using a set of manipulator fields. Easy to learn, difficult to master. The later levels become increasingly complex and you’ll have to think hard and experiment a lot to solve a seemingly impossible puzzle.

The strength of the game is its music. Every container represents part of a musical score. As the particles fill the container, the music associated with the container plays. This adds an element of hypnotic beauty to an already fun game.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have about 56 more levels of Auditorium to play. See you in 2011. Maybe.

If you want a music collection you can rely on, pirate it.