Phantasmic Links 9.7.09

People love a good show.

Take the feast I played on Saturday night, for example. We were up on one of those mobile stages, with a handful of people setting up chairs or picnic blankets on the grass in front to listen. Nearby was a DJ booth for a local radio station, and between songs they'd occasionally try to get the crowd riled up. The band I was with was a procession band, and not used to stage performances, but the drummer and our leader's son also DJs at wrestling shows and parties, so he knows how to work the crowd. So he started borrowing the mike from the radio station to address our audience, telling them little facts about the band like who we were, how long his dad had been in charge, how his uncle wrote one of our songs, and more. He has great showmanship.

At one point things took on a more personal note. We got sympathetic murmurs from the crowd when he told them about his sister, who played bass drum for us until she was lost to cancer. There was some clapping when he pointed out his baby girl in the front row with his wife, born last October and named after his late sister. The audience was his, and he was feeling it, so he continued to share. “Yeah, and then last Friday me and my wife got married, and then on Sunday she gave birth to our second daughter, who's also down there with my wife!” I think I heard one slow clap and saw a few blank stares in the darkness.

People love a good show. Hopefully, they'll also love this week's PHANTASMIC LINKS, the first batch of September:

(1) Ever wonder what Neil Gaiman has on his bookshelves? That's insane, amazing, and explains a lot.

(2) After a few crashes, complete with scary footage of being picked up by a giant scientist, my best time for this VW Golf slot racing game was 2:24:27.

(3) Magnets are all bipolar, right? With North and South poles? Not necessarily....

(4) On one of our band's breaks, they used the stage for a zeppole eating contest, in which the winner downed 12 in 1:04, roughly one every 5 seconds. I wonder how he'd do with Deep Fried Butter. I don't know why our nation has an obesity problem...

(5) You know who'd probably love Deep Fried Butter? The People of Walmart. Best. Photoblog. EVER.
Hat Tip: Rey.

(6) A bank refuses to cash a check for an armless man because he was unable to provide a thumbprint. Well, it's about time they cracked down on our cyborg population....

(7) ”Thank You Mario, _________________.” This is for anyone who ever had enough of that “Your princess is in another castle” bulls***.

(8) It's been a while since I linked to one of these so after checking out the bunnies version of Halloween, be sure to check some of the other great adaptations in the sidebar.

(9) 40 new species found in a crater in New Guinea. How many science fiction or horror movies start the same way?

(10) Canabalt takes care of the running, but it's up to you to hit “X” or “C” to jump from building to building and occasionally through windows as you make your escape from an apocalyptic nightmare.

Have a link to a game, movie, article, or anything else you think might be “phantasmic”? E-mail me and it just might appear in an upcoming PHANTASMIC LINKS!