Time for some Guy Gavriel Kay stuff. This time, we have early cover art (which is very tentative and subject to change) for the new novel, The Last Light of the Sun. On the left is the Canadian cover art, and on the left is the American version.

And that reminds me, I really need to watch the DVD of this movie one of these days. I bought it really cheap at Target just a day or two after coincidentally finding some enthusiastic reviews about it online. Also, my current plan after reading The Iliad and The Odyssey is to read my copy of The Sagas of the Icelanders. I’ve basically decided lately to start reinforcing my background in reading all the really old stuff.

(UPDATE: An alert reader — a little too alert, if you ask me, harumph! — points out that my above description of which cover is Canadian and which is American is in violation of at least one Law of Physics. Thus, the one on the right is the American cover, tentatively. Those responsible for the error will be sacked later today.)

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Hyper-reclusive author Thomas Pynchon, of whom there are no pictures in existence, will “appear” on The Simpsons. Wow. You gotta love the literary chops of The Simpsons.

(via Jessa Crispin.)

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Fun stuff, since Halloween’s coming up: a couple of countdowns, here and here (second one “in progress”, check back each day). I’ll probably chime in with some of my favorites, but for now, this is a placeholder.

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Maybe someone who’s already read The Iliad can set me straight on something here: am I supposed to like or root for Achilles or something? Because quite frankly, he’s striking me as a complete ass. “I don’t care if all my countrymen get butchered by Hector, I’m mad at Agamemnon so I’m just gonna take my boats and go home.” And I’m thinking, “Shut up and fight, you inveterate pansy!”

(I already know, of course, that Hector ends up dying in the end, by the way.)

*Get it? Achilles? Heel? Ha ha ha haaaaa!

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As I write this (for posting on Tuesday), I’m watching a bit of the Monday Night Football game, and I’m struck by two things about football in Oakland. First, the Raiders are probably the most amazing example of a football team’s cumulative age finally catching up to it in NFL history; and second, the Oakland stadium is one of the dumbest looking football stadiums in existence. To get the full effect you have to look at the aerial shots. Formerly called the Oakland Coliseum (renamed Network Associates Coliseum), it houses the A’s and the Raiders, as it did back before 1983 or so before the Raiders went to Los Angeles for ten years or so. But when the Raiders returned to Oakland, it was with the insistence by owner Al Davis that the stadium’s capacity be increased for football from its original seating for 45,000 (very low by NFL standards). So, they took the roughly circular stadium with former low-sitting bleachers in the baseball outfield and basically removed the bleachers and erected a giant three-tier seating area that basically makes the whole stadium look like a half-assed cross of two entirely different stadiums. Ugh.

(And the Raiders have just lost, failing to make the end zone to tie the game as time expired by a single yard. Wow.)

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I may have commented on this before – – I’ve discovered that self-repetition is a fate to which longtime bloggers are probably doomed – – but it happened again, so I’ll mention it again. I had a search-engine hit from someone looking for Cliff Notes on a Stephen King book, this time the novel Thinner. Now, I haven’t read Thinner, but it seems to me that it either says something really cool about Stephen King that people expect there to be Cliff Notes about him (something about High Literary Worth or some such), or it says something really bad about our readers.

(I like King; when he’s on, his work is superb. He’s dreadful when he’s off, though.)

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A month in a box? Pagh! Standing on a pole for many days on end? I scoff at you!

Now that is a stunt! Don’t try this one at home, kids. Or here, for that matter.

(ADDENDUM: I should note that police here aren’t yet convinced, as of this writing, that it wasn’t some kind of hoax — like maybe the guy dressed a blow-up doll in identical clothes and then hung out down below the falls for the appropriate moment to climb out.)

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I forgot to mention that yesterday’s Bills game was something of a Bills reunion day. Not only was Bruce Smith in town with the Redskins (the Bills didn’t allow him any sacks, but he came close and man, is he still quick and muscular), not to mention Rob Johnson (as I noted before), but the big event was the halftime Wall of Fame enshrinement of Darryl Talley, the great former Buffalo linebacker. Talley was the heart-and-soul of the Bills’ defense during the Super Bowl years, as well as being a fierce competitor and tenacious tackler. Talley was also known for wearing Spiderman spandex under his regular uniform. Also present for Talley’s ceremony were other luminaries from the Super Bowl teams: coach Marv Levy, quarterback Jim Kelly, and running back Thurman Thomas.

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David Blaine came out of the box. Think he actually spent the entire 44 days inside there? This guy doesn’t.

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S.L. Viehl, who (among other things) writes science fiction and makes quilts, will appreciate this recent NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Some of the panels are originals; others are based on actual Hubble photos (linked at APOD). Wow!

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