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A group of creatives stood slightly dazed in a Four Seasons hotel conference room in Houston, staring at three random ping-pong tables. A few were still bleary-eyed and jet-lagged after flying in from Iceland, Prague, London, and other parts of the world. Over the past few months, they had been whittled down from a million applicants, advanced through rounds of intensive interviews, and undergone a rigorous health screening to find themselves face to face with an enigmatic billionaire benefactor. Now, in September 2021, there was another hurdle: Their chance to travel...

San Francisco, Dec 10 (Ians) Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has announced an eight-person private mission around the Moon, carrying artists and creative professionals on a SpaceX flight.

The crew will have DJ Steve Aoki, musician Choi Seung Hyun, choreographer and performer Yemi A.D., photographer Rhiannon Adam, YouTuber Tim Dodd, photographer Karim Iliya, filmmaker Brendan Hall, and actor Dev D. Joshi, with snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and dancer Miyu as backup crew members.

“I hope each and every one will recognise the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, traveling to the moon and back,” Maezawa said in a video making the announcement.

In 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed that Maezawa, Founder of Japan’s largest online clothing retailer Zozotown will be the first private customer to ride around the Moon on the company’s future rocket, the Big Falcon Rocket (Bfr).

According to The Verge, Maezawa plans to fly on the trip...

So I've Got This Theory...

This week I had the great misfortune of seeing the steaming pile of dog doo doo that is the Robert Downey Jr./Zach Galifianakis "comedy" Due Date which opens this Friday. The movie, director Todd Phillips' follow up to The Hangover, had been on my radar due to a trailer that had Ethan, Galifianakis' character, reading rather gay. Check it out in case you missed it.

Having suffered through seen the entire movie, I can report that the it presents Ethan as ostensibly being straight, if only by having him say in a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment that he once dated a woman. Otherwise, he's pretty much neutered if effeminate throughout the film.

As for the sort of casual homophobia typical of these sorts of comedies (see The Hangover) there is refreshingly little of it present here, although the movie does let the word "faggot" fly once.