There's worse ways to spend it than watching  Robot Chicken:  Star Wars

Claymation-style and voiced by some very famous people, including several guys who voice on "Family Guy," plus George Lucas himself.  They even got Mark Hamill to voice Luke.

It's like a mini-sketch show, with the sketches running anything from 5 seconds to about a minute.

Like any sketch show, some are funnier than others.  But overall, it's definitely worth checking out.

But I didn't know whales lived so long:  explosive bomb lance fragment puts bowhead whale at 115 to 130 years old

Fascinating.  The whale was hit squarely, and the explosive did go off.  But the whale survived another century--until killed by (legal) hunters last month.

I wonder how old whales can get?

Army to soon start using teddy-bear-influenced robot to pick up casualties and remove them from battlefield

Pretty remarkable.  It was just a few years ago they came up with those wheelchairs that could climb stairs.  Now they're coming out with a robot that can climb stairs and go most places humans can go, scoop up a wounded GI, and carefully remove said soldier from the battlefield.

The teddy-bear head?  It's to be a resassuring feature for a guy who's scared out of his wits.

Don't know why a teddy bear exactly, but it makes some sense.  Human faces are hard to duplicate--try to, and you may come up with something scarier than you intend.  Humans are very good at recognizing other human faces.  This is why it wasn't really until "Shrek" came out that a reasonably non-cartoonish human was made by an animation studio.  And even then those humans are somewhat, and purposely, distorted.  Remember how creepy the human kid was in "Toy Story?"

Science marches on, even while three of the Republican Presidential candidates raise their hands on live TV and declare they don't believe evolution.

SI.com--ugliest college football uniforms

The "winner?"  U of Oregon.

Oddly, looking through the pictures, I didn't find the uniforms uniformly ugly.

As someone who had elementary, junior high, high school, and college colors all gold-and-green, just like the ducks, I must say:  yeah.  Pretty ugly.  I never liked those colors even when I was in school.

Give me one of those all-red uniforms any day.

Bush uses Osama bin Laden to defend Iraq policy

"President" Bush is saying that in 2005, bin Laden started plans to create a major al-Qaeda cell in Iraq to head up attacks around the globe.  This then defends his Iraq policy.

Hey, uh, Mr. "President?"  Here's a li'l secret...

Saddam Hussein hated and feared al-Qaeda, and kept them out on his own for decades because he was loathe to share power with anyone!  If you'd kept your mind on Afghanistan, no one would have had to worry about whether al-Qaeda was going to become a major terrorist haven!  This is all YOUR doing!

Some people, you really have to spell it out for them....

Of course, NOW we have to worry about Iraq becoming a terrorist haven.  It's like if you abandon--or in this case, purposely damage--a big building in the middle of a city.  Before, it had its problems, but they were its own.  The owner of the building had his own incentives to keep vandals and vermin away.  Afterward, you definitely have to worry if it's a center of drug use and rat infestation.

Gas prices hit all-time inflation-adjusted high (CNN.com)

And we're not even at Memorial Day yet--the traditional start to driving season.

Crude oil stocks are okay.  The real hangup is with the refineries.

No new oil refinery has been built in the U.S. since the 1960s.  While capacity has gone up slightly from expanding existing facilities, it hasn't been profitable to build refineries for a long, long time.  Firstly, there was capacity to spare for a long time, so margins were low.  Secondly, going through the environmental red tape for a refinery is really amazing.

Both problems are solved by higher prices, though.  The trouble is, it takes years to build a new refinery.

So, in the meantime, we're a bit stuck.  While crude oil might hit a permanent production plateau and even decline (the "peak oil" theory), as long as crude stocks are decent gasoline margins can still come down.

With the hurricane season starting early this year, it seems likely that we won't get the lucky reprieve that was last year, which gave most refineries a good chance to get back to production after Katrina/Rita.

It'll be an interesting summer if you like the sound of the internal combustion engine.

"The Simpsons" hits 400 episodes (Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo!)

While I'm not quite the rabid fan I was in the early '90s, I still watch Our Favorite Family every week.

Seasons 5-8 were the apex of the series.  If you want to see the series at its best, try an episode made in the early 1990s.

Still, even today, past its prime, the show beats 90% of the other stuff on TV now.

While I think "Family Guy" is currently funnier, it's funnier than "American Dad."

"South Park" is a heaven-or-hell show to me.  The very funniest episodes are among the funniest things ever made; most of the shows are only marginally watchable.  Amazingly, the show's creators seem to agree:  most of my favorite episodes (from past seasons) show up on the DVD "South Park:  The Hits."  That's hits, as in hit-or-miss.

While I may not be as sharp as in the past, I can probably beat most people at Simpsons trivia.

$4 gas expected (CNN/Money)

Gasoline stocks are the lowest for this time of year since 1956.  Ouch.

Given that demand is so much higher now than it was then, that's a very, very bad thing.

It seems to me almost a foregone conclusion that gasoline will rise.

Here's hoping that at least some demand destruction will occur due to higher prices.  But I kind of doubt much will occur.  Firstly, the expectations are already in for higher gas--so what sort of demand pullback might be expected if $4 gas isn't shocking?  Second, gasoline is commonly higher in many countries where taxes are higher (as pointed out in the article).  Third, I've long held that gasoline is more inelastic in demand that most people think.  We have a big, rangy country, and it takes energy to move around in it.

Brace yourselves.

I've been playing "World of Warcraft" exclusively on a "PvP" server, Dethecus.

My "main character" is a warlock, currently level 32, name of Panphobia.

If you play on Dethecus on the Horde side, I'd love to hear from you.

I-Mockery looks at cheesy "Spider-Man 3" product tie-ins

Ahh, the wonder of it all...