Month: July 2010

Thursday various

  • Following up on yesterday’s revelation that Michael Palin didn’t like A Fish Called Wanda when he first read the script, here’s a letter sent by a “comedy script editor” to the BBC, calling Fawlty Towers — incidentally named the all-time top British television program by the BFI in 2000 — “[a] collection of cliches and stock characters which I can’t see being anything but a disaster.”
  • Following up on the Wonder Woman post on Monday, here’s two more dissenting views.
  • This I Write Like meme is getting torn apart all over the place, notably here [via] and here [via]

    I’d post my own results, but they change with every different piece of text I have “analyzed,” and none seem remotely accurate — a weird mix of ego-stroking and insult.

  • And that’s one way to ensure fewer comments… [via]
  • And finally, Zombies: The Kid Vector:

    Here’s somethin they don’t tell you, but you better listen good if you want to survive out there: It’s the kids you gotta watch out for. They stay in the shadows, in the dark. When you see ’em, they don’t run right at you like the big ones, they stay back, let you come in closer. You think you’re rescuin a kid, you get in close and BAM! The dead brat goes for your throat or face, workin for a quick kill.

Wednesday, or so they tell me

The summer hours thing sure aren’t making this week go any faster, I can tell you that much. I have this weird fear that on Friday morning they’re going to tell us that it was all a hoax, or that they’ve decided to call it off, and we’ll have worked nine extra hours for nothing. Of course, our e-mail server has been pretty unreliable the past couple of days, so I guess I could always claim that I didn’t get that announcement. Either way, I’m looking forward to leaving early on Friday, but I’m definitely already feeling those extra forty-five minutes each day.

With the exception of conferences, I haven’t really worked any “overtime” in years. (And even conferences include a free trip somewhere.)

This evening, I took a different train out of Manhattan, to meet my parents at the eye doctor and drive them home. Which is about the extent of the excitement here for this Wednesday.

I did, however, finally decide to close Kaleidotrope down to submissions starting August 15. I’ll re-open on January 1. This will hopefully ease some of the pressure at my end, since I’m already at least two or three issues ahead; while the slush pile is pretty manageable, a break is always nice, as is being able to publish stories less than two or three years after acceptance.

Song of the day

Given the continually rainy weather we’ve been having — no real relief from the humidity, though — today it’s “Storms” by Railroad Earth. A favorite from last year, making it on to my “Best of 2009″ mix,” which just happened to come up on my iPod shuffle earlier this evening before I left the office.

Wednesday various

  • Six degrees of literary separation? [via]
  • If nothing else, I think this elaborte fake ATM is proof that you don’t need a carefully designed forgery to fool a lot of people. [via]
  • The Cracked Guide to Fonts [via]
  • You know, I’m sure Tin House‘s heart was in the right place with this prove you bought a book somewhere before you submit anything policy, but it’s not hard to see why it’s upset some people.
  • And finally, an interview with Michael Palin:

    I’m very proud of the fish-slapping dance we did in Python. We rehearsed this silly dance where John Cleese hits me with a fish and I fall into Teddington Lock. We were so intent on getting the dance right that I didn’t notice the lock had cleared and instead of it being a 2ft drop into the water it was a 15ft drop. I’m very proud of doing that.

    The rest of the interview is pretty interesting too — he didn’t think A Fish Called Wanda was a good script when he first read it — although residents of his “worst place ever,” Prince George, British Columbia, might not love it.