- Behind the Scenes of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Exactly what it says on the tin.
- Earth from Above: a collection of aerial photography. There are some stunning shots here. [via]
- Jeff VanderMeer on best-of-year lists:
…when I see a book title or author I don’t recognize on a year’s best list, my immediate reaction isn’t usually “WTFâ€, but instead, “Excellent! A chance to find some new, shiny thing that I might love.â€
- Hate captchas? Maybe simple logic questions are the better solution. [via]
- And finally, a history of Soft Skull Press. It’s nice to know something good has come out of a Kinko’s. Maybe that’s why the people behind the counter have almost never been of any help to me: they’re too busy building their independent press empires. [via]
Month: November 2010
Monday it was
There’s no disguising the fact that today was a Monday.
I got to the train station this morning, running, I thought, a little late, only to discover everybody walking up the stairs to the platform on the other side of the tracks, thanks to an announcement of a track change. Of course, after we all got over there, it became quickly apparent — by the train going in the opposite direction on that track, and by our train in the distance on its usual track — that we had been misinformed. Sure enough, just before my morning train pulled into the station, they announced another track change, back to the original, and we all trudged back over. I felt particularly bad for a woman with a cane and her friend, but they did seem to be holding the train for everyone. Heck, we were already well into the “late” portion of what the Long Island Railroad considers “on time,” so why not?
The train got very crowded by the time we got to Queens, but that’s nothing especially new. And the train home was a lot less crowded.
Then again, I invariably fall asleep on the train home in the evening — I did this evening — and get very little reading done. Usually, I only get to read when I’m standing the whole way.
This evening, I’m going to try to finish We Have Always Lived in the Castle, while I wait for my iPad to update. I’m not certain about some of the so-called improvements that come with the new iOS 4.2 — the loss of the lock switch for a pretty needless mute button, or the fact that not everything works as magically as Apple insists — but I decided to bite the bullet for the chance to put apps in folders and actually multitask. I expect the upgrade to take several hours, if not days or weeks, judging from past experience with Apple products.
Hopefully it will be worth it.
Song of the day
“Mama Kin” by Aerosmith
Monday various
- Who among us hasn’t wondered what hospitals do with circumcised foreskins? Perfectly SFW, by the way, though it does acknowledge the existence of both penises and circumcision. [via]
- The Simpsons will never ever go off the air, will it?
- Speaking of which: Doctor Who characters drawn in Simpsons style.
- Speaking of re-imagined characters: Star Wars characters as typography
- And finally, the Fantasy Novelist’s Exam. [via]
Is my four-day weekend over already?
Today, I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 with friends — it was pretty good, although rather long and occasionally a little boring — and I did the Sunday crossword. Oh, and I watched this past week’s episode of Fringe and am currently reading more of We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Not exactly an exciting day, but a decent enough ending to the four-day weekend. Tomorrow, it’s back to work for what promises to be a busy three days.