Help name a $100 billion tanker "Mr. Oily Pants"

Noah Shachtman of Wired says:

In February, the Air Force picked the European consortium EADS and its American partners, Northrop Grumman, to build a badly needed new fleet of tanker aircraft. Boeing, the losing team, and its pals in Congress are trying to overturn to decision, which could be worth as much as $100 billion. But the Air Force is already looking ahead. The service is asking for names for the new tanker, the KC-45A.

Theoretically, the contest is only open to "active duty, Guard and Reserve Airmen, as well as Air Force government civilians," who can submit their suggestions to namethetanker@pentagon.af.mil. But we know that Air Force bigwigs read Danger Room with alarming regularity. So get your names in before the May 30th deadline -- or vote on the ones you think are the best.

My submission is "Mr. Oily Pants." Vote for your pick or submit your own name here.

Wearable motorcycle design

My Robotech fantasies just might come true? I refuse to click on the link to see what the design actually looks like. Story via Slashdot. "Mospeada Ride Armor VR-052F" photo (or as I like to think of it, the "totally awesome motorcycle from the third Robotech series") found at CollectionDX.

Valleywag's hiring an intern

Link.

Space Invaders desktop wallpaper

Very cool.

Desktop Wallpaper: Plastic Spacemen, Robots, Aliens

Desktop sized image here. Via.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mouser 3-Pack

Unfortunately, a Comic Con exclusive. Larger image here. (Meanwhile, my local Target and Toys R Us are drowning in the uglier line of TMNT toys (not to mention the Speed Racer and Hulk toys).)

Save The Trolls merchandise

Part of the Hellboy marketing campaign. Via.

Interesting article about working at Disneyland as Jack Sparrow

Disney warned us we were going to have a lot of horny women coming on to us. They were also worried about girls. I heard Disneyland had an Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was very flirtatious, and they finally pulled her because men found her too sexually arousing and were acting out.

[snip]

It took over an hour to get Disney’s suit on. In the dressing room there is one long makeup table and a wall with a long mirror. I think over 100 character actors were there. You had face characters like Jack, Aladdin, the Mad Hatter, and you had fuzzies, the characters in costumes. The face characters and the fuzzies dressed apart. There was a ranking system in the dressing room: If you were a princess, you pretty much got that long mirror wall. For some reason the Jacks always ended up in the back corner.

Read the whole thing.

Maybe I should have called my blog "Black Mamba"

LA Times: "Kobe Bryant started calling himself 'Black Mamba' a few years ago, explaining to ESPN, 'The mamba can strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession. That's the kind of basketball precision I want to have.'"

"The most peaceful place in the Arab world is ruled by a gay sultan"

Strategy Page: The most peaceful place in the Arab world is ruled by a gay sultan. At least that's the word on the street in Oman, where the childless and divorced sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur Al Bu Saidi is a popular and successful ruler. The 68 year old monarch is the 14th Saidi Sultan of Oman, his family having been in charge continuously since 1749.

Clinton says she's staying in the race just in case Obama gets assassinated

“We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” she continued. “You know I just don't understand it.”

[snip]

After a brief off the record defense of Clinton’s comments, Campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee gave reporters what they were looking for. “She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer,” he said. “Any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate.”

Link. Via.

30% off designer toys

Including Erick Scarecrow's Old Skool Kaiju - OSK Ultra. (So it's $50, and oh, so tempting.) Here's the main page for Strangekiss Art Toys. Irritatingly, sale prices don't appear until you click "buy."

Sale news spotted here.

Papercraft: Death from Sandman

Download here.

Papercraft: Indiana Jones, Fertility Idol

Download here.

Collage of internet shopping cart icons

See the whole thing here. Via.

AT&T ships out iPhone, forgets to include iPhone in the box

Here's the kicker, the invoice in the box said "75011 MISC iPhone PPA BAG ... $0.00." Photo of the bag here.

Toycutter Updates

Recent updates at my action figure, miniature and vinyl toy customizing blog include:

-Heath Ledger as the Joker Munny

-Hello Kitty Warhammer 40K Dreadnought

-Ralph McQuarrie Concept Luke Skywalker miniature

Video: Navy Seal vs. Chimp in obstacle course

Navy Seal vs Chimp

Via.

40 free professional icon sets

Link.

Cute Johnny Bravo, Bloo figures

(Figures? Illustration? Whatever, they're cute.) Link, link.

John McCain is offering "points" to people who post positive comments

Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the message out about John McCain's policies and plan for the future is one of the most valuable things you can do for this campaign. You know why John McCain should be the next President of the United States and we need you to tell others why.

Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known. Once you’ve commented on a post, video or news story, report the details of your comment by clicking the button below. After your comments are verified, you will be awarded points through the McCain Online Action Center.

Sleazy. The site offers recommended talking points. I don't know what you do with the points.

Finance site creates hoax news story to generate links to improve it's Google rank

“Online marketer Lyndon Antcliff recently helped a client achieve over 1500 inbound links in under a week with a story designed to grab attention.” The article, titled “13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers,” was and still is hosted at the authoritative looking domain Money.co.uk, which is a financial advisor and Lyndon’s client, apparently.

Details here. There's a lot of shady finance sites out there. I've been asked to host misleading text-ads in the past.