Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around

Pooh's gotten all riled up about this one. Those of very little brain and too much tummy might get a tad disturbed by a very different bear of very great brain and too little tummy. The army has, for reasons one cannot quite pinpoint, created the Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot or, quite simply, BEAR. Note the adorable ears.

Gary Gilbert, from the US Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Centre in Frederick, Maryland, said that the teddy bear appearance was deliberate.

"A really important thing when you're dealing with casualties is trying to maintain that human touch."

The robot revolution is nigh. And it's adorable!

Thanks to Shaken & Stirred for the link.

I'll Refrain From Mentioning LadyHawke As Well

Does anyone find it ironic that the visual effects supervisor of the upcoming His Dark Materials movie, Michael Fink, began his career creating the very first Coca-Cola polar bears in the early 90s? Honestly, did someone look at this film and say to themselves, "We need someone who can do big white bears. Who do we know with a big CGI white bear connection? I've got it! FINK!"? I mean, I'm a fan of irony but come on, people.

This and other delightful tidbits of info are available through an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. In it you may learn who Pullman ideally would have cast as Lord Asriel, and the reason why this is being called (by its producer, mind you) "the first full-scale fantasy film that has stars in it." We'll all just sit back and think long and hard about that one. Please oh please don't make me bring up Legend, oh producer lady. Please don't.

In any case, if you haven't been paying much attention to either the books or the movie process, this is a piece worth reading.

Thanks to Cinematical for the link.

The Bears..... the bears....

Finally. A way to keep Pooh bear in his place when he keeps rapping on his glass casing demanding better claret.

I can threaten him with this.

I don't think a human brain could come up with anything more disturbing than this. Oh. Sweet. God.

The Case of the Hitherto Unknown Children's Book

Attention, mystery lovers. I know some of you out there may be Maigret fans. I'm not entirely certain why. He never had the charm of a Poirot or the the sheer cold charisma of a Holmes. Still, I know there might be one or two of you out there who appreciated his particular brand of crime solving. With that in mind, did you know that author Georges Simenon wrote a children's book? And DID you know that the manuscript of that book was "discovered among a large cache of papers located in the attic of Shadow Rock Farm in Lakeville, Connecticut, where Simenon lived with his wife and children in the 1950s"? Of course you didn't! Well, in any case, the book has just been published for the very first time by The New York Review Children's Collection and is entitled The Bear Who Watched Trains Go By. Why will I be reading this book? Because it just happens to feature a "morally compromised antihero bear."

Brother, you had me at "morally compromised."