Check out the trailer for The Perfect Host with David Hyde Pierce. I love a good table-turner.

(thx David)

Great video of lightning captured at 9,000 frames per second. Totally wild, the pulses that follow the exact same track across the sky.

Christopher Hitchens: “In whatever kind of a ‘race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.”

One for the coffee table: All My Friends Are Dead.

Nice, this fantastic catch by Andrew Fleming made SportsCenter.

Dan Fierman scores a rare Bill Murray interview. The explanation of how he came to do Garfield is worth it by itself. Lots of good stuff. Straight shooter.

I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into creating Big Bang Big Boom, and incredible piece of large-scale stop-motion animation.

OkTrends, where every post is fascinating: The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating. For example, guys add 2" inches to their height, which isn’t really surprising, but what is surprising (to me) is that this is true for guys who are already tall. It’s not until they get to 6'8" that the exaggeration stops.

I love these articles that underscore the huge gaps between pros and everyone else (and the gap between bona fide stars and workaday pros): author Nic Brown plays friend and tennis pro Tripp Phillips with the goal of winning a single point in a three-set match (well, two sets, really).

Wow, Hollywood had brainwashed me too. I had no idea that drowning doesn’t look like drowning:

The Instinctive Drowning Response - so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) - of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).

Definitely click through. Fascinating, and the stuff of parental nightmares. (via kottke)

I probably enjoyed Ricochet Kills 2 more than I should have. 280 shots to finish it.