Month: May 2010

Tuesday various

  • Well this is disheartening:

    “Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,” Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said at the meeting of environmentalists here. “This is happening in the context of overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and a threat. But the poll figures are going through the floor.”

  • Know what’s not going through the floor? Vegetables grown upside-down, that’s what. (And how’s that for segues?)
  • Two words: zombie astronauts. The auction has ended, but the dream lives on forever.
  • Though I think maybe too much of the Internet is devoted to Super Mario Bros. — I know, heresy! — this study of in-game camera movement was surprisingly interesting and something I had never once considered before. [via]
  • And finally, I have to say, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy has really outdone himself with his 100th video:

Gales fully spanged

Time to spang my gales and write a quick recap of what did today on my day off. Except I spent the day doing mostly the same sort of thing I did all weekend, which is really nothing much. I watched last night’s Lost series finale first thing on my iPad. (I tried watching it on my laptop, but I wound up with a virus I had to clean up, and ABC’s player app is actually really good.) I don’t really have a lot more to say about it than the very little I said about it here. Except for the AV Club’s write-up, I’ve been pretty much avoiding reviews of the episode, preferring instead just to have enjoyed it. At some point, I think I’ll revisit the commentary, just as I plan at some point to revisit the series in its entirety, but for now, I’m just amazed the show is actually over. I don’t think I’m going to go into crazy withdrawal (thanks Betty), but I will miss the show. It really was like nothing else on television. (And the few shows, like FlashForward, that have tried to be like it have mostly only adopted the superficial elements. It was never about the mystery, but about the characters those mysteries happened to.)

Okay, maybe I had a little more to say about it. But, for now anyway, that’s it.

Other than that, I spent the day mostly just lounging about, reading some, trying to get caught up on Kaleidotrope slush submissions. I think I only have a couple of stories still hanging around since February, but those couple really do need to get read right away. I try to keep my response time down to a month or two if at all possible.

It’s back to work tomorrow, for a grueling four-day week.

Monday various

  • It probably should come as no surprise, but I’m pretty much in complete agreement with Noel Murray about last night’s Lost finale. “These are the new myths. Now it’s up to us to misinterpret them.” I liked the episode a whole lot.

  • Meanwhile, Terry Pratchett is maybe a little harsher than I would be about Doctor Who and the title character’s deus ex machinations. I’m not entirely convinced there’s real value in rigidly defining science fiction and fantasy this way. (And, unlike him, “Small Worlds” is one of my least favorite Torchwood episodes.) But he makes some good points, while still happy to enjoy the show for what it is. [via]

  • Speaking of Doctor Who, here’s an interesting take on The Comparative Lives of the Doctor.

  • Here’s a scary thought from the New York Times:

    Ask a first grader to identify Bugs Bunny and the response more likely than not will be a blank stare.

  • And finally, Neil Gaiman on Ray Bradbury [via]:

    So when the wind blows the fallen autumn leaves across the road in a riot of flame and gold, or when I see a green field in summer carpeted by yellow dandelions, or when, in winter, I close myself off from the cold and write in a room with a TV screen as big as a wall, I think of Ray Bradbury . . .

They say it’s Sunday


Me, at around two or three years old.

How did I spend today? Well, I worked on the New York Times crossword and thoroughly failed to complete it, despite getting a couple of the themed answers. I joined friends for our weekly writing group, meeting again after a long hiatus. And I read a little. I still have off tomorrow, but it’s amazing how quickly this weekend flew by.

Saturday, such as it was

I didn’t do too much today. I went for a walk, I read some, and I watched both Craig Ferguson: A Wee Bit o’ Revolution (amusing, if short, reminiscent of Ferguson’s autobiography, American on Purpose) and Crazy Heart (not exactly remarkable, but both Jeff Bridges and the music are great). And somehow that managed to fill a day. Don’t ask me how, I just work here.