Whiz of the Web: Thirsty Thursday

• Everybody knows that famous American actors rake in the cash in Japan making extremely weird commercials for extremely weird products. But we're not sure we've ever seen one quite as weird as this vintage commercial for an incredibly manly and violent cologne called Mandom (no, really!) starring the incredibly manly and violent Charles Bronson. Oddly enough, even though the commercial is all about lovers and how everybody loves them, Bronson appears to be applying the cologne for no one but himself - maybe he's going to go get the lotion and the tissues after the cameras go off? (Via)
• Did you guys know that Patti Smith is putting out a new album on April 17 called 12, wherein she covers 12 rock classics, including "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Are You Experienced?," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," "Boy in a Bubble," and "Gimme Shelter?" We had no idea, but now we're totally excited about it. You can download the "Gimme Shelter" cover right here. (Via)
• The online porn industry made $97 billion last year. That's $3 million every second. Holy crud. Don't people know you can get it for free online? Uh... at least, that's what we heard...
• A rumor floating around the internets recently has been confirmed: Transformers had an R rating until Stephen Spielberg himself called some people and got it knocked down to PG-13. It's just that freaking intense and hardcore. Woo hoo! Oh, also, Bumblebee gets buck naked in one scene.
• According to director George Miller, there really is going to be a Mad Max 4, and it will not star Mel Gibson. We love this series of films, and we're very tired of Mel Gibson at this point, so this is all good news to us!
• Bryan Singer is teaming up with his Usual Suspects writer, Chris McQuarrie, to make a movie set during WWII. Sounds great! This might push back the next Superman movie a bit, but we're okay with that.
• We have to admit it: Microsoft has done something smart. They're launching a service called Windows Live on May 8th that will allow PC players of specific Microsoft online multiplayer games to play against Xbox 360 players of those same games. The first title to actually allow this will be Shadowrun, due out in June.
• We don't get a chance to try out a lot of the games highlighted on casual gaming blog Jay Is Games, but we do like the site very much, so we just had to make time to try out the winner of their 2nd game design contest, Sprout. And as it turns out, it's pretty brilliant. It's a handdrawn game about the adventures of a magical seed that gains the ability to grow into any plant it gets near. You have to use this ability to move the seed across the land and achieve its goal of becoming an acorn and ultimately a tree. It may sound rather dull, but it's actually quite clever and lovely. Check it out. (Via)

Image Credit: Flickr user Lindsey Spirit