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Sniffly Wednesday

Today was a pretty decent, if not altogether exciting day, although I do seem to be fighting a summer cold or allergies that have kicked into higher gear suddenly. It’s been coming on the past couple of days, actually, and is now a fun mess of watery eyes, a sneezing and runny nose, and a tickle at the back of my throat that, if I’m not careful, turns into a lot of coughing. I’ve felt worse — and I don’t necessarily feel sick — but I’ve also felt better.

Then again, I had an amusing moment via Twitter this afternoon when Kurt Andersen, replying to my compliments on last night’s reading briefly mistook me for his fellow panelist Jeffrey Ford. It’s not like there’s no resemblance, but I think it’s pretty slight. Still, there are worse people to be mistaken for, and it was amusing.

Thinking of making an early night of it, to keep one step ahead of this nagging cough and runny nose.

Monday various

  • Two from Roger Ebert: on racial intolerance and on why he tweets.
  • On the set of David Lynch’s Dune with Sean Young. Weirdly fascinating. I wonder if it’s at all worth revisiting that movie. I keep thinking I’ll re-read the book, but I think I’m worried it will just encourage me to read them all. [via]
  • Charlie Stross on the iPad [via]:

    The iPad doesn’t feel like a computer. It feels like a magic book — like the ancestor of the Young Lady’s Primer in Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. It’s a book with hypertext everywhere, moving pictures and music and an infinity of content visible through its single morphing page. The sum is much weirder than the aggregate of its parts. Criticizing the iPad for not doing Netbook-or laptop-like things is like criticising an early Benz automobile for not having reins and a bale of hay for the horses: it’s a category error.

  • The Sea of Galilee is out of fish. [via]
  • And finally,inside the Vatican’s private library. [via]

Monday various

Thursday various

Monday various

  • Would you have spotted the fraud? I’m not convinced I would have. A good reason to avoid any unattended debit or credit card reader. [via]
  • Mark Evanier further defends Jay Leno:

    What I don’t get is why some people think Leno had a moral obligation to retire and disappear. They didn’t like that he did that 10 PM show. They didn’t like that he was willing to do the half-hour show at 11:35 when that was proposed. They don’t like that he’s going to take back a show that he and his crew didn’t want to give up in the first place. I know some of you don’t think the guy’s ever funny but you oughta try what I do. If I don’t like a performer, I don’t watch him. It’s just as effective as if he did disappear and it saves a lot of time.

  • Speaking of Leno, he’ll apparently be hosting this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner. I guess it’s better than Rich Little, but not by much.

    Then again, Leno’s hosted the event before (in 2004), and, Stephen Colbert’s 2006 appearance notwithstanding, they haven’t really been known for making memorable choices for host. Anybody remember Yakov Smirnoff’s routine from 1988 or Elayne Boosler’s from 1993? Me neither.

  • Last week on Twitter, I joked that in the new movie Extraordinary Measures, Harrison Ford is entirely computer-generated. By law, Brendan Fraser’s co-stars must be at least 35% CGI. Turns out I maybe wasn’t so far from the truth: Ford’s character didn’t exist in real life. I guess they figured he’d be more convincing as a Nebraskan than as a Taiwanese.
  • And finally, speaking of Twitter, the first live tweet from space! [via]