Whiz of the Web: Monday Meat Slices

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment.

• Who knew there was an annual symposium for cocktail robotics? Apparently it's called Roboexotica, it's been around for nine years, it just happened again weekend before last, and Wired has the photos. (Via Jill)
• This past weekend an auction of items formerly belonging to Ozzy Osbourne and his family raked in a lot of cash, with all the proceeds going to The Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program. Sure, his pool table went for $11,250, but even his completely ordinary coffee cup went for $1,625! (Via Jill)
• Criticker is a neat little site: rank enough movies, and they'll generate TCIs for you. That's Taste Compatibility Index, which tells you which critics you're most likely to agree with. (Via Jill, via Thrillist)
• Part two of Toren Atkinson's Comic History 101 is a lot meatier than party one. Check it out.
• Lev Grossman had a little chat with Philip Pullman (author of The Golden Compass). Here's the interview, and here are the deleted scenes. The title of Grossman's blog post is an interesting question: "Is It Possible to Like Both C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman at the Same Time?" We hope the answer is "yes," because that's where we'd like to stand. We do think it's pretty funny to hear radio commercials that try to convince you to see The Golden Compass because, they say, it's like the Narnia Chronicles. We bet Pullman loves that.
• Warren Ellis points out that the American government has said officially that it thinks it's okay for it to kidnap people. Wow. Remember when America was the good guy?
• The Movie Blog wants to get you into Asian film, and to that end they've put together a list of 12 starter movies. Some of these we haven't seen, and a few we actively dislike, but overall they're really good choices. In particular, we second their recommendations of Ju-On, Fist of Legend (one of our favorite kung fu movies ever), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Ikiru (possibly Kurosawa's greatest masterpiece amongst a filmography full of masterpieces), and Ringu (one of the scariest movies ever made). But hey, where's Takashi Miike?! Dead or Alive and/or Audition need to be on this list.
• Some cool new images have been released of Batman and the Joker as they will appear in Dark Knight. The Joker looks particularly cool. In the same vein, check out this character poster of Hellboy from Hellboy 2.