3:00 Panel on Tail- and Ear-binding
Oh, I forgot to mention today’s Narbonic webcomic, in which Arnie the superintelligent gerbil has been accidentally locked in a human form, at least for now. Apparently, some of his other hyperintelligent lab animal friends on the Internet don’t believe him, and are accusing him of being a “thumbie”. No doubt there are thumbie-themed cons, animals who construct bareskinsuits, and thumbie porn 🙂
I think “Kevin and Kell” did that joke once too. Still funny, though.
Harry Potter and the World of Dysfunctional Cylons
From the wonderful mollyringwraith, who brought us the condensed versions of the Lord of the Rings movies, comes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (condensed) Parts One and Two. If you are a Potter fan, read these. You may even wish to if you aren’t a fan 🙂
This weekend while playing WoW, I got into my first 4-person party, and I admit that this was probably the most fun I’ve yet had with the game. But the Schwartz has an up side and a down side.
Like, WoW. This is a bit of a pain…
As I mention many posts back, I’m playing World of Warcraft with some of my free time these days. I was thrilled with the execution of the game when I began playing it, and loved the way it sucked one in early on. The fact that it ran well on my older-but-upgraded Mac was a real plus, too.
I’m beginning to have a few problems with the game, however.
My Old Googlism Entry
I did the Google meme back in November 2002. Rather than re-post it, I’ll just drop a link; the phrases it gave me are in italics, my comments in plain text.
Sure, it would probably come out different 2.5 years later – an era in Internet terms – but I’m too tired to re-do it 🙂
Booklist Update
I’d forgotten to keep this up… let me update.
Since finishing Ringworld’s Children, I’ve read: (N = new, R = re-read)
The Hunt For Red October – Tom Clancy (R), Patriot Games – Tom Clancy (R), Bridge of Birds – Barry Hughart (R), Tales from the White Hart – Arthur C. Clarke (R), Star Trek Movie Memories – William Shatner (R), I Am Spock – Leonard Nimoy (R), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling (N), Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams (R), The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul – Douglas Adams (R), Beyond [The Physics of] Star Trek – Lawrence M. Krauss (R), and Crashlander – Larry Niven (N).
I’m working on Eragon – Christopher Paolini (N), A Wizard’s Holiday – Diane Duane (N), and the sixth volume of Chobits – CLAMP (N).
From this list, one might deduce: 1) I’ve had lots of free time lately, 2) I haven’t lots of spare cash on me until I recently got a gift card from a relative, and 3) there’s a certain part of the bookstore I usually visit first.
Checking in
I’ve been gone for a while, here. Sorry about that, but I’ve been going through a rough time and haven’t been feeling quite outgoing enough to post stuff here. But I’ve got a lot of backed-up reviews and links, now, so I’ll at least slap them up here before they spill over.
Fantastic Four: Decently cast, well-executed, and pretty dull, at least until the last half hour. If you know some science, be sure to bind and gag that knowledge and lock it in the car trunk before entering the theater 🙂 OTOH, isn’t it great to be a comic-book fan in an year where the worst superhero movie of the summer is still fairly decent, and the best is Batman Begins?
War of the Worlds: Not necessarily better than the George Pal version, but certainly prettier. I sure would like to see Spielberg’s people do a Godzilla or Battletech flick – at least I would believe all the visuals. This is the first version of the story I know of that gives humanity a glimmer of a workable tactic against the aliens before the traditional denouement takes care of things. It would have been nice if they’d somehow worked a USS Thunderchild into the river crossing scene.
Half-Blood Prince: Far superior to Order of the Phoenix, both IMHO and in an unscientific poll of people I’ve asked. Hard to talk about it much without causing spoilers or boredom, but Tonks and Lovegood (not a 70’s cop show) are still two of my favorite characters.
Shortpacked! on why there will be a few changes to the G1 characters in the Transformers live-action flick.
Shortpacked! again on Batman reaching the pinnacle of human reflexes and agility.
Brad Hicks on “The Spaceship We Have”, parts one, two, and three. He talks about why we have the Space Shuttle instead of the equipment every space geek in the early sixties thought we were going to have by now; and why that’s going to be a real problem real soon.
The stars are right again
This is my Sci-Fi Horoscope, from a link seen on tzel‘s journal. I’m only posting this because it’s completely accurate:
Kirbii (Oct. 14—Nov. 20)
You will be unable to shake the feeling that society at large would be improved by even more chunky, quasi-cubist levitating machinery of mystic origin, as well as the increased use of triple exclamation points by the general populace.
Whizzo Replicator Distribution
This one’s been on my mind for a few days. I blame the alignment of the planets.
Situation: you have a shiny-new Starfleet food replicator, the kind that takes molecular building blocks from storage and makes any kind of food you want based on patterns you’ve loaded or scanned in.
Poll cut to protect the squeamish
Birthday, icon, and filk
Happy birthday to yubbie – hope he and collenk have special plans this weekend!
I’ve been threatening to write this one for ages. A new filk for Keith…
