The Chinese government has confirmed that they are launching their first manned space mission next week. They’re being pretty coy about actual details, but I certainly wish them success, as a person who thinks that manned spaceflight is still the best thing to happen in the twentieth century and an essential part of our future as a species. Here are a couple of interesting things from the article:

:: The people doing the flying will be called “Taikonauts”, from a Chinese word for “space”.

:: The launch is being scheduled to possibly coincide with a major conference of the Chinese Communist Party, so as to link spaceflight with politics. Sort of like 1957 again…I wonder if we’ll have some prominent Senator announcing that we have no intention of going to bed by the light of a Communist moon?

:: According to reports, the ship will be additionally equipped with handguns, knives, and other weapons. This quote is offered: Astronauts will be able to deal with wild beasts, sharks and other dangerous animals or enemies. Kinda makes you wonder where they’re planning on landing. The Afghan highlands? Iraq? (Actually, the article reports that Inner Mongolia will be the landing site.)

:: The article does not report on what the taikonauts will eat while in flight. I envision little squeeze-tubes of Kung Pao Chicken, but that’s probably wrong. (Which reminds me of an exchange from MAD Magazine‘s parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey that I never tire of quoting:

DAVE BOWMAN: What’s for dinner?

FRANK POOLE: A glass of steak, a glass of potatoes, and a glass of corn.

DAVE BOWMAN: Nothing to drink?

FRANK POOLE: Yeah, a piece of coffee.

Har har!)

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Dear President Bush,

The other day, Governor-elect of California Arnold Schwarzenegger said this, in reference to the giant budget problems he’s about to confront:

“I will make sure that I can meet with President Bush as quickly as possible, because I have a whole bunch of business, California business, to talk to him about and take care of. There’s a lot of money we can get from the federal government.”

I just want you to know, Mr. President, that if you ride to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s and California’s rescue now, after allowing that state and its former (Democratic) Governor to twist in the wind along with all us other budget-challenged states, merely because the new Governor there is a Republican and you’re naturally hoping to put California’s electoral votes in play, not only will I never vote Republican again in my natural lifetime (and I have done so, more frequently than you might immediately believe), even if my mother runs on the Republican ticket against a known cannibal with a taste for children and kittens on the Democratic ticket for county dog-catcher, but at such as I’m actually employed and pulling in money again I shall start donating to any Democrat I can find, for the first time in my life.

Thank you for your attention, Mr. President.

(Link via Billmon.)

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Oy.

Didn’t Ronald Reagan once have a personal law of campaigning that went something like “Never speak ill of another Republican?” I did read about that at one point, didn’t I?

Come on, guys!

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Back when I was active on Usenet, one of the more colorful voices on rec.music.movies was a fellow named Dave Thomas (no, not the Wendy’s guy, either), who would constantly claim to have the worst taste in movies EVER, and to back up his claims he’d rattle off long lists of movies that he likes that I’d never heard of, often Hong Kong action movies with titles like “Sucka Chop Suey Maidens From Hell” or some such. (I made that up. I hope that’s not a real movie title.)

Anyway, Dave was always an entertaining soul to have around until he listened to his better angels and ditched the newsgroup. The other day I discovered that he’s been running a review site devoted exclusively to B-movies, called Steamed Prawn Buns. Check him out; his reviews are a hoot and…well, you gotta admire anyone who has willingly seen some of the movies that he’s seen. I didn’t see it mentioned on his site, but Dave is the only person I have ever encountered who is willing to admit to liking Howard the Duck.

(Of course, the damn title of his site is making me hungry for dim sum, which you can’t find in Buffalo. Have I ever said that before? Yeah, probably….)

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Composite photo of the Toronto skyline.

What’s cool about this is that this photo is composited from four photos that were part of a time-lapse photography project. Someone actually set up their camera to take a new shot of the view outside their balcony every twenty seconds for fourteen hours, and then they actually put together a Quicktime timelapse of all the photos, so you can see dusk fall on Toronto and a weather front pass by. Very cool.

(Via The Modulator.)

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If you like personal essays of the haunting variety, check out this one by Mike Finley. It’s about his reunion with his grade school bully…and much, much more.

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Every so often I’ll get stuck at a certain point, unsure of how to continue with the novel in question. It’s not a total blockage, since I still know my destination; it’s more of a moment of indecisiveness, the kind I imagine Bugs Bunny experiencing when he pops up in Albuquerque and ruminates as to whether he should take the left turn or not. I end up trying one thing, deleting it (or crossing it out, if I’m going longhand) and trying something else, and then sooner or later I realize what needs to be done.

The observation is this: invariably, when I figure out what needs to happen at a spot like this, my immediate second thought is of my Muse grumbling thusly: “This is obvious, dummy! It took you three days to realize it? You imbecile! Why did I waste this story idea on you, anyway?”

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Warren Ellis points out a comics creator named Patrick Farley who produces his work exclusively online. Some of Farley’s content is free, and some of it is “gated” behind a micropayment system. I, being poor, have checked out some of the free stuff and found it intriguing. I also love the site’s design, so check it out. And if you have money, give some to this guy. (Or to me. Or to PBS. But preferably me.)

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Bara apparently has to endure a person of, shall we say, questionable value in one of her college classes. Here is what she thinks of him:

The filthy, disgusting, chauvinist idiot creep! That detestable, nauseating lump of mentally incompetent phlegm, whose shit-smelling toxic presence smears my theoretical class, is poisoning my very being with that vomitous stream of asinine prattle that relentlessly pours out.

And apparently, it got even worse the next time she saw him, when he apparently made a pass at her, and occasioned her to speculate on what she’d do if she ever occasioned to spend an evening in his presence. (It’s in her follow-up comments; drop down to the sixth comment.)

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We’re enjoying a nice spell of Indian Summer right now in Buffalo — temps in the high 60s or low 70s, sun, no rain, et cetera. Lovely.

My point? I got none. Move along.

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