News-Record.com

The Canadian comedy duo known as "The Masked Avengers" somehow cracked the impenetrable security of the McCain/Palin campaign and got in a prank call to Gov. Sarah Palin.

Pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they get Palin to discuss hunting from a helicopter (and promise she'll be a better shot than Dick Cheney), how hot Sarkozy's supermodel wife is in bed and even the infamous Nailin' Paylin porn movie produced by Hustler.

Listen below...

Who would have predicted the McCains would be funnier than Ben Affleck?

Makes up for Palin's just-sort-of-showing-up appearance, I'd say.

It looks ugly as sin -- but you could say the same thing about a Volvo.

But who cares? The new car from Zero Pollution Motors can run on compressed air, gasoline (106 miles per gallon), diesel, biodiesel, ethanol or vegetable oil. Also: Indian carmaker Tata is going to market them in the U.S. at $20,000 a pop.

It can go 35 mph running on just compressed air and can go highway speeds for 800 miles at a stretch with the motor running on any of the other fuels it accepts.

We could see them as soon as 2011.

MTV has a feature asking comic book writers who their characters would vote for this year.

Super-heroes, from Iron Man to the X-Men, seem to be going heavily for Obama. (Insert your own ACORN joke here...)

Creator Erik Larsen left no room for doubt as to how his hero, The Savage Dragon, would vote...

Writer/director Michael Crichton, best known as the author of "Jurassic Park," has died of cancer at age 66.

Crichton wrote best-sellers that blended science, adventure and social commentary. Some of his best known novels became hit films, including "Jurassic Park," "Congo," "Rising Sun" and "Disclosure."

He was also the director of such movies as "The Great Train Robbery" and "Westworld" and the co-creator of the long-running hit TV drama "ER."

Everything about the man seemed to be outsized -- he stood 6'9'', was married 5 times, wrote his first best-seller ("The Andromeda Strain") while completing his studies at Harvard Medical School.

He was also a foe of the theory of global warming and a critic of the American media.

He was like a character from one of his own novels -- large, fascinating and somehow not quite believable.

If you're in Greensboro and not too exhausted from the elections:

Don't forget about Rushmore -- one of my favorite Wes Anderson movies, playing tonight at The Carousel.

Greensboro's own Billy the Blogging Poet has lost his famous streetplane, the Wackemall-1.

The marvelously weird contraption - which has been featured in Make Magazine, on The Discovery Channel, on the website of Wired magazine and in local and state media -- was stolen from his home.

Keep your eyes peeled -- it's going to be hard to keep this thing hidden -- and call the Greensboro Police if you see it anywhere. The GPD number is 336-373-2222 and it's Case # 2008-1104-252.

UPDATE: N&R public safety reporter Ryan Seals talks with Billy about the theft.

Billy the Blogging Poet's streetplane, the Wackemall-1, has been recovered!

From N&R reporter Sonja Elmquist's story:

Jones said the Guilford County Deputy N.L. Rider noticed the craft outside 2127 Fairbrother St., when he was serving a warrant near there on Wednesday.

Police found the streetplane less than a half-mile from Jones' house.

It's nice at the end of a crazy busy election week that bloggers and the local newspaper worked together to reunite a crazy blogging poet with a ZZ top beard with his weirdo homemade bike-plane-thingy.

Remember Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor who was felled in a money-laundering/call girl scandal?

Well, the people running the service are facing federal charges -- including one woman who simply booked appointments.

But Spitzer himself? Not so much.

Of course. Why charge the money laundering John when you can go after the hookers, the service and the folks who answered the phones?

Sounds like justice to me.

An Obama campaign photographer has an excellent Flickr stream of photos showing president-elect Obama, his family, friends and staff watching election results in their Chicago hotel.

Check it out here.

(via Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing.)

The new Bond movie came out this week and, of course, I was there to see it on opening night. Haven't missed one in the theater since Goldeneye.

On the whole I liked it, but there's good news and there's bad news...

The Cartoon Network's new Batman: The Brave and The Bold cartoon premiered on Friday -- and it's well worth checking out.

(Theme music owes a bit to The Tick, I think, but it's not that tongue-in-cheek.)

As discussed in this Wired interview, it's the first time in decades that we've seen a lighter Batman -- not the driven, disturbed and haunted vigilante of the breakthrough Batman: The Animated Series or the "Dark Knight" of the new batch of Batman films.

The show will team a solo Batman with a different DC comics character each episode -- and it looks like they're going to the back-benches with some of the people who will be showing up. The first episode "Rise of the Blue Beetle!" is light enough for kids, but it's not junk-food. Adult comic fans, sci-fi geeks and kids-at-heart of all ages will also enjoy the show's wit and imagination.

Reminds me a bit of what they did with Superman Adventures some years ago - taking essential elements of the property and telling really great pop stories with them.

Sometimes, you just can't bear the rules of the normal world and you gotta rip off your clothes and run, literally, buck wild.

Goofing around of Facebook today (it's work, really) we ran across this ad from a travel Web site listing the top 10 places to get naked (kinda NSFW).

But if you're looking to stay more local, there's always the Bar-S-Ranch. Though you might want to wait for some balmier weather.

Remember: "Naked" is simply not wearing any clothes. "Nekkid" is when you're not wearing clothes and you're up to no good.

You're sitting there, watching the float for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, when, all of a sudden, the music stops ... and the audience at home gets one of the biggest Rickrollings ever.

The fact that my grandma now knows about Rickrolling means it is officially so five minutes ago.