Joel Achenbach on science, change, and the future. Hard to describe, but an excellent read for your Monday.

Meanwhile, Robin D. Laws covers the, uh, exorcism of the new Yankees stadium.

"Plastic waste in the oceans poses a potentially devastating long-term toxic threat to the food chain"

The military increases its strikes in Pakistan, before the government changes.

( Thursday news... )

"The Disney princesses aren't sweet and innocent. They're a gang of vicious hoodlums, and they're plotting against you."

The New Cult Canon: They Live. Aw, yeah.

Has anyone seen the British TV show Primeval? It's pretty much straight up my alley, making it surprising that it hasn't come up sooner.*

And why it caught my eye: a forum I frequent mentioned this clip and something absolutely beautiful happens about a minute and thirty-five seconds in. And since I know he doesn't frequent LJ that often, could someone mention this clip to sonofmudflap as well? He'll thank you for it.

* - General disclaimer: if you did recommended this to me and I forgot, I apologize. I faintly recall it came up on someone's LJ, at some point.

Some doodled art by the master, necrocannibal. This was on a piece of paper from when I was taking karaoke notes, years ago.

( el snippo )

"Richard II is a terrible king, unjust, foolish, grasping. But not hunchbacked - that's Richard III. Richards are bad, Henrys are good. Richard exiles his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, then seizes all his lands etc when his father dies. So Henry comes home, seizes them back and while he's at it deposes Richard and becomes Henry IV."

Chris Sims of the ISB presents Bring It On Week!
* The adventure begins
* The rundown
* Cheersploitation as a genre
* The finale

"These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!"

-E. Gary Gygax, 1 November 1973

Thrilling Two-Fisted Tales of Commuters Observed:

See, whenever confronted with strangers trying to get me to sign up with their charitable organization or give them money or what have you while I am in my travels, my gut response is just to tell them 'sorry, no' and be on my merry way. The problem is, this totally cuts out any opportunities for me to harass these people trying to harass me.

Case in point: while walking in the cold the other day, and the smiley college girl in the Greenpeace jacket holding a clipboard asked me if I would like to do something about this weather, I just said "sorry, no" and kept walking. What I should have said is "HOLY CATS, Greenpeace has a Weather Dominator?!" and then accused them of collaborating with COBRA, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

We went to see a movie at the Charles in Baltimore a while back, and before the movie, there was an excellent 'no smoking in this theater' spot featuring John Waters. I raved about it to a bunch of people, and I don't know why I never checked the YouTubes for it. Check it out.

( Make with the clicky... )

On Sunday, Z. and I sat down to watch Superman: Doomsday. It was decent. I wasn't a big fan of changing the cast from the JLU TV show, but the new crew did a good job. (Spike, for one, made a much smarmier [and creepier!] Lex. But Lex will always be the Kurgan to me.) The storyline changes actually helped it, as well. Doomsday is still just a plot device, but leaving aside the whole 'rise of the Supermen' angle made for a much closer story. They *almost* tied in Bizarro, and that would have been an improvement, but I wager they did it to make the story for the movie more concise and self-contained. Which is fine.

What I didn't expect was the graphic violence. Now, mind you, none of it was on screen. (I mean, except Superman dying, of course.) Wow. I mean, once Doomsday emerges, he kills dozens of people. And it's off-screen, but it's right off-screen, and there's no doubt as to what happens. And one of the news reports is, in fact, about a little kid being killed by Doomsday in a rampage. There's not much blood, but it's used a couple times, very effectively. It was a bit of a surprise, in the long run. [EDIT: oh, hey, I didn't even notice the PG-13 rating.]

(Z. didn't have a problem with any of this, but we did stop the movie once so I could help her catch up on the plot.)

Did I mention the slugfest with Doomsday was ten minutes of pure fight scene? It was, in fact, a treat. And the movie wasn't even half-over then.

Also on the DVD was a pretty decent documentary about the Death of Superman as a comics event. Very interesting hearing a lot of insiders talking about how they came to the decisions they did, and how the whole thing took shape. Great for comic book fans.

So, I dug it. Won't be buying it, but glad I saw it. If you liked the other DC cartoons, check it out. (Netflix link here.)

One year ago today, a bunch of people in Boston created a terrorist scare when they decided that a bunch of Lite-Brite looking devices advertising a cartoon about fast food products solving crimes in New Jersey* were clear evidence of a terrorist attack.

A bunch of artists celebrated in their own way. (Courtesy ammitnox.)

Also, a brief word from Mr. Milholland.

* - they don't actually solve many crimes.

Stolen from, uh, someone:

A complete list of things that make David Banner hulk out in the TV show.

Neat. Taryn Simon photographs America's secrets. (Courtesy warmaster.)

A celebrity photographer turns her lens towards... monkeys.

"In the polluted tunnels beneath the streets of Sao Paulo, Zezao, one of Brazil's most famous graffiti artists, returns time and time again to produce his work."

Also, Beaucoup Kevin gives us some banners you nerds can use for your interweb forums. I'm totally stealing that first one. And MightyGodKing presents some important lessons in case you're haunted by a, uh, demon gun.

Check out the trailer for Doomsday, which seems to be the bastard child of Escape from New York, The Road Warrior, and 28 Days Later. And I mean that in a good way.

So. At the hospital yesterday, I got to stand behind the big leaded wall while M. got her x-rays. And back there was a sort of employees' bulletin board, next to the phone for the room. I'm just, you know, glancing around like I do, and I run across a list of codes next to the phone for different situations. Now, thanks to generations of hospital shows on TV, we all know that Code Blue means a patient is crashing. But man, this list took ( a turn towards awesome... )

A new contender for the greatest story ever told.

My newfound love is Square America. It's a collection of old family and personal photographs, organized by theme. I used to search online for these sorts of things. They're just so weirdly compelling and interesting. (Courtesy Dinosaur Comics.)

The next comic book I will be loaning to everyone: It's a Bird by Steven T. Seagle. It's about a freelance writer who lands a job writing Superman, but finds he can't do it. Very meta, very interesting (and at times rough) read. Highly recommended.

Also, I got back my copy of volume 1 of Nextwave!, for whoever it was who I told I needed to loan it to them.

Holy carp, this week is goofy.
Last night: relaxation with a couple friends.
Today: movie with the Z-dawg, then tree trimmin'.
Tomorrow: errands and book club holiday partay.
Tuesday: dinner with friends.
Wednesday: Pushing Daisies.
Thursday: work holiday party.
Friday: someone's else's holiday party with M.'s family.
Then there's a like a week before the real holiday goofiness begins. Then it's a week before 2008. I am wholly unprepared for this, mentally.