Ka-Boom!: The Demented Cartoon Movie is a Flash epic—in the sense that it runs for nearly 35 minutes and the Earth blows up about a dozen times. Blowing-up is kind of a theme in this sci-fi-for-grade-schoolers premise, which manages to find room for mad scientists, kamikaze watermelons, Shakespearean drama, a trip to Mars and a secret word that, you guessed it, blows up the Earth. Witness the birth of a new medium—the stick figure opera‚ at www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/demented.php.

Toy soldiers: Is this nigh-inexplicable site a sly political statement? A weird sexual fetish? Or simply a kind of pop-cultural parody that Westerners just “don’t get”? No matter what, here are the facts. It’s photos of Japanese anime dolls dressed in lacy, frilly French maid outfits, arranged in poses based on a Japanese army training manual. Hundreds of them. They even have incongruous little guns and HUMVEEs, and exposed panties-a-plenty at http://tinyurl.com/lmqed.

Comments? Michael Citrome