This starts off a little slow (literally), but it is so worth watching the entire way through...

(via dooce)

As the saying goes, "Welcome to the Midwest. If you don't like the weather now, just wait fifteen minutes and it'll change."

Case in point...

This graph, courtesy of Accuweather.com, shows the temperature readings here in Springfield, Illinois for the past twenty-four hours.

Let me summarize it for you... At noon today, the thermometer read 60 degrees and I went out to get lunch without a jacket. It was a little breezy, but perfectly comfortable. A few short hours later, the temp has plummeted to 15 degrees (-12 wind chill) and my ears are practically frostbitten as a result of the two block trudge to my parking spot.

That's a fricking 70 (SEVEN ZERO!) degree drop in wind chill, people! In about five hours.

Ugh.

Holy crap, does this look incredible...

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is coming this spring. Unfortunately, it's only for the consoles at this point.

<In my best Yoda voice...>Hmm, an Xbox360 in my future, there may be...

Paige Davis returns to a new and improved Trading Spaces starting tonight at 9:00 PM central. Ratings for the show tanked after Paige was unceremoniously dismissed in 2005 when the producers wanted to "take the show in a different direction". But since then new management has taken over at TLC and one of their highest priorities was to return the show to its glory days.

Should be interesting to see how it works out. Good luck Paige!

I'm having an 80s flashback! (No, it's not drug related. )

I've been watching MTV circa 1983 (in stereo!) for most of the night. Someone posted three hours worth of MTV on Google Video from the time when they used to actually play music videos and stuff...

• MTV 1983 - Part 1 (1:25)
• MTV 1983 - Part 2 (1:39)

The videos are pretty cool: Night Ranger, Huey Lewis, Prince, The Police, Quiet Riot, etc. (And a really strange Tubes video called "Monkey Time".)

But it's actually the commercials that are the most interesting slice of 80s life. When's the last time you saw a commercial for an Atari 2600?

If you remember the 80s fondly, check these video clips out. They're gnarly! (That's a good thing. )

(via Boing Boing)

AOL and others have a story about a missing cat. What's the big deal, you may ask? Read on...

The last time Levy's wife, Kelly, saw Gracie was before she took her husband to the airport. The 24-year-old went back to her house in Palm Beach Gardens late Friday to find the bottom step, where Gracie would usually be waiting, empty.

She tore the house apart looking for the cat, who had been spayed just days before. She and her dad took out bathroom tiles and part of a cabinet to check a crawl space and papered the neighborhood with "lost cat" signs.

Then she got a phone call.

"Hi, you're not going to believe this, but I am calling from Fort Worth, Texas, and I accidentally picked up your husband's luggage. And when I opened the luggage, a cat jumped out," Kelly Levy quoted the caller saying.

The cat had stowed away in dad's luggage, and flew along with the rest of the baggage (after a trip through the x-ray machine) from Florida to Texas, where the bag was mistakenly claimed by someone else.

I figure that somewhere there's an x-ray technician who going to read this story and think, "Oh, that's what that was!" He or she should probably consider avoiding their supervisor for a few days.

(Thanks for the tip, Jenn.)

Moviehole is reporting that a new Jack Ryan movie is in the works... A completely new Jack Ryan movie based on original material not written by Tom Clancy. Starring Ryan Gosling, who would be brand new to the series and the fourth actor to portray Ryan in the movies.

I can't be the only one who thinks this sounds like a bad idea...

The History Channel is airing an interesting-sounding new documentary this week called Life After People...

What would happen to planet earth if the human race were to suddenly disappear forever? Would ecosystems thrive? What remnants of our industrialized world would survive? What would crumble fastest? ...

Using feature film quality visual effects and top experts in the fields of engineering, botany, ecology, biology, geology, climatology and archeology, Life After People provides an amazing visual journey through the ultimately hypothetical.

It premieres this Monday, January 21st at 8:00 PM Central time.

(via Boing Boing)

I just uncovered an extremely disturbing fact while browsing for additional Cloverfield information on IMDB...

The gorgeous young actress pictured here is named Odette Yustman. She plays Beth, the love interest of the lead character in the movie, but she's definitely not a newcomer to show business. In fact, Odette got her start in movies as one of the kids in the class of Kindergarten Cop.

I am getting so old.

UPDATE: If you've arrived here via Google, don't miss my other Cloverfield entry, which discusses the secret message at the end of the movie.