Face/Off is science fact!

Big Yellow Nasty medicine wires

Remember the movie Face/Off? The badass action flick whose intense action is overshadowed by amazing acting from Nicholas Cage and John Travolta who alternately play the good guy and the bad guy when their faces are surgically switched? John Woo's best American movie? With lines such as, "It's like looking in a mirror. Only... not."? Remember that?

Well, the medical technology that allowed John Travolta to go undercover as Nicholas Cage is now a reality. According to the BBC, the French performed a face transplant on a woman whose original face was mangled by a dog.

Doctors are stressing that the woman's face won't look like her original face, and it also won't look like that of the original donor. It will be a hybrid of the two (you will recall that Travolta required cheekbone and chin implants as well as liposuction and a lot of other super-high-tech prosthetics before he looked exactly like Cage in the movie).

Ethical and psychological issues have been holding up such procedures for a long time. And more questions are a-coming!

For example, organ donors may soon have to check boxes on the backs of their drivers licenses that say they're willing to donate their face.

X Heart
X Lungs
X Liver
X Kidneys
Face

But my Illinois license doesn't have those boxes. It only has one for "Any organ or tissue." Does that include my face? And how willing will loved ones be to give up a person's face? Isn't that a little creepier than a kidney or a heart?

Now stop for a minute and think about kissing a person you love, only that person has a dead person's face. Are you creeped the heck out or just happy they have a normal face again? And how long will it take you to get over it?

What if the person starts rejecting the face, the way a body can reject other organs? I remember in the sixth grade, we used to say to the ugly girls "Your face is rejected." It was kind of synonymous with "retarded" or "deformed" or "ass nasty." But now it could really mean rejected. Like your body is rejecting your face. Take that, ugly sixth graders!

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the can of worms this opens up.

"I don't know what I hate wearing worse. Your face or your body. I mean I certainly do enjoy boning your wife, but let's face it, we both like it better the other way yes? So why don't we trade back." - Castor Troy

Thanks to Slashdot for the story. Also, I read a story a few months back that said Americans had selected a candidate for this operation, and I swear I blogged about it. If you can find a link to either my blog or the story, you post it, because everyone here is too lazy.

Postgame audio from Arizona at ASU

Take in the audio spectacle that is a bunch of still-drunk fans counting to 23 (twice!) as ASU wins the game with a last-second field goal. Spectacular! Ear candy!

This concludes our 2005 regular season Sun Devil football audioblogging. Will Big Yellow Nasty follow the Sun Devils to the Insight Bowl? Probably not, but you never know.

Fourth-quarter audio from Arizona at ASU

We asked for it, we got it. In an old, dirty football rivalry, it doesn't get much sweeter than sweet, sweet revenge. And at this point, we had injured true freshman quarterback Willie Tiutama and senior running back Mike Bell.

That means we got even on the whole 'late hit on the quarterback that results in injury' thing as well as the 'messing up your best senior and jeopardizing his NFL draft chances' thing. At least, we can hope the injuries Bell sustained after coming back into the game and playing on a deep thigh bruise will hurt his draft chances.

Was I still hiccuping? No. Again, the low-grade audio may cause this audio post to reproduce sounds inaccurately or produce auditory artifacts, such as hiccuping sounds or awkward pauses.

Pregame audio from Arizona at ASU

Here's the pregame in all its hiccuping, cursing, bloodthirsty glory.

Did we have a keg at the tailgate? Yes.

Did we finish more than half of it despite the fact that only about five dudes were getting serious? Yes.

Did I get obliterated while playing a version of a washer-throwing game called bongos with stiff drinking rules? Yes.

Did I get kneed in the balls after stealing a UA fan's hat and putting it down my pants? Yes.

Did I really pronounce it Tuitappa? No, that's just a problem with the low-fidelity audio. I pronounced it correctly, for serious.

Other tailgating fun facts: there was a train parked next to us, which we used as a giant urinal, for the most part. A dude from the next tailgate down threw up on intersection of two cars, which I astutely referred to as "con-CHUNK-tion junction." What's your function?

Save a boat load of money on DVDs

Okay, so I haven't been the best about updating the ol' blog the last couple of weeks. So I hope this makes it up to you.

No, it's not a stunning new blog post (although I've got a review of MDX energy soda coming soon, and it's being written by a world-famous big ramp skater). But this is still pretty cool.

If you've ever bought a DVD online, you probably know a site called Deep Discount DVD. They consistently have the lowest prices on DVDs, usually by a good margin. That's all nice and everything, but check out this offer from DVD Talk:

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It's back DeepDiscountDVD.com is running their famous 20% off blow out sale where you can save an additional 20% off their already low, prices on DVDs and get free shipping on your order. Every title is on sale, all you need to do is enter the coupon code DVDTALK in the promotion code box when you check out to receive your discount. The Coupon is valid from on currently available DVD's only. Coupons do not apply to orders for prerelease DVD's or other merchandise, including video games or electronics. Coupon may only be used once per customer! DO NOT MISS THIS SALE (Sale runs 11/11-11/19)

So there it is. No fun blog action or anything worthwile, but here's your chance to stock up on DVDs for the holidays, on the übercheap.

But, please, buy DVDs responsibly.