I don’t really feel like blogging tonight, so I’m not going to. Back tomorrow, maybe.
Sunday Burst of Weirdness
A grab-bag this week:
:: OK, this really isn’t weird at all, but it’s interesting and I thought I’d plop the link here. Bill Altreuter has a link to the 25 best movies you’ve never seen. For me, it’s the 23 best movies I’ve never seen, since I’ve actually seen two of the ones on this list. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension is in my opinion one of the touchstone flicks of geekdom, in that you can’t claim to be an SF geek if you haven’t seen it. I’ll even use one of its lines (“Whoa, don’t tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to.”) in everyday conversation in hopes that someone will recognize it, but so far, no dice. The other one that I’ve seen is the wonderful Time After Time, in which Jack the Ripper flees capture in 1890s London via a time machine that his friend, HG Wells (yes, that HG Wells) has built, and ends up in 1979 San Francisco. This film deserves classic status, in my opinion — it’s a smart, taut thriller.
:: Greg of Delenda Est Carthago links Strange Maps, which is a blog about exactly what it says: strange maps. I’d link a favorite, but they’re all just so cool; I plan to some serious archive-digging over there in the next few days. If there’s a surer way to make me think you’re a complete weirdo than saying “I don’t like maps”, I haven’t found it. (I could go off on a rant here about fantasy novels these days not including maps of their made-up worlds, but I won’t. Nor will I rant about fantasy novels that include maps that don’t have the locations of the novel indicated within them. Grrrr.)
(Obviously this blog is quite graphics-heavy.)
:: Tom the Dog chronicles the thespianic exploits of Neil Flynn, the Janitor from Scrubs, wherein it turns out that he’s played a lot of cops. Curiously, he omits Flynn’s appearance on That 70s Show as the disco bouncer who lets all of Eric’s friends in, but keeps Eric outside because Eric’s…Eric.
:: Via Warren Ellis: Apparently the Pentagon has confirmed that it spent $7.5 million trying to develop a chemical bomb that, when dropped on enemy soldiers, would make those soldiers…gay. And they did this in the 1990s. Seven point five million dollars. I just can’t say anything more than that. How stupid are we, anyway?
:: Finally, in honor of the impending telecast of Bob Barker’s departure from The Price is Right, here are the three of the luckiest people who have ever been on that show. First, check out this finish from a very old show (in the 1970s, probably), remembering that in the Showcase at the end, if you’re the winning bidder and you’re closer than $100 to the actual price without going over, you win both Showcases:
Then there’s this guy, who decided to spice up the Showcase Showdown thing — that’s where you spin the big wheel — with a marriage proposal. (No, not to Bob Barker.) They’ll be telling this tale ’round the Thanksgiving dinner table for many years to come:
And finally, a longer segment that highlights the fact that sometimes pure guessing can actually triumph over complete cluelessness:
Wouldn’t it suck if Barker’s last show were to end in a double overbid?
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Identifying Earth?
Wow! So far, no guesses at all on this week’s installment of Unidentified Earth. Either no one’s looking, or I’ve actually managed to come up with a difficult one, since only one of the first five went unidentified for more than a day, and most of those were identified in mere hours after posting.
So, I guess I’ll have to update that post with a subtle hint, then.
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Good causes….
In a roundabout way, John Scalzi is raising money for some organization that works for the separation of church and state. What he’s doing is pledging that if he raises at least $250 by the end of this week, he’ll go to that new Creationist Museum that’s apparently quite near where he lives and blog about it afterwards (and he’ll donate all the money he raises to the organization he describes). Personally, I think that if he raises over $2,000, he should have to purchase a T-shirt from that museum’s gift shop and then wear it for one whole day next time he attends a WorldCon. Now that ought to be a hootenanny!
The natural question is, of course, how much money it would take to entice PZ Myers to go to that museum….
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Yuck….
I know they’re still ironing out details and whatnot, but I really don’t like the way the new WNYMedia site looks.
1. I don’t like the colors. I have no great objection to light text on a dark background; my own blog had such a color scheme for a large chunk of its early existence, after all. But the colors they’ve chosen are unpleasant to my eyes.
2. I don’t like how every post that’s longer than a couple of lines now goes to a “after the cut” type of thing. In fact, I’ve never been a big fan of “Read the rest of this post” widgets on any blog, but WNYMedia.net seems to be applying it to every post on any of its blogs that’s literally more than three or four lines long.
2a. As of this writing, there’s not even a “Click here for the rest of the post” link. You’re supposed to automatically know to click the post’s permalink to bring up the whole thing.
3. And my big complaint is that WNYMedia now forces a single blog template upon each of its member blogs. Frankly, this cuts down a great deal on the sense of individuality amongst the blogs there. Now, this isn’t some new thing they’ve done; large media organizations that have numerous blogs under their imprints all tend to use roughly the same templates between them — good examples are all the Buffalo News blogs, or Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Yglesias and the rest of the pros at The Atlantic. But the thing is that little word, pros. These are all professional journalists who are being paid to blog by a larger media company, so it makes perfect sense that those companies would want some branding going on. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but it’s my understanding that the WNYMedia bloggers are not professionals, and thus I see no earthly reason why every one of their blogs should have to look the same. For a media outlet that has in the past indicated that “independence” is its great strength, this degree of conformity being exerted on its members, in my opinion, hurts the experience.
Welcome back, I guess.
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100 Things that I love about The Simpsons
Tosy and Cosh just did this. It’s not a blog-meme thing, but it’s just too good an idea to let pass. Soooo, here we go! (Quotes are approximate.)
1. “You must avenge my death, Kimba — I mean, Simba.”
2. “Check it out, Lis! If you play it one frame at a time, you can freeze the exact moment his heart breaks in pieces.”
3. Maggie’s enemy, the baby with one eyebrow.
4. Gerald R. Ford moving in across the street: “Homer, would you like to come over for beer and nachos?”
5. Homer’s inability to stop thinking of Flanders in his ski suit: “It’s almost like I’m wearing nothing at all!”
6. “An all-syrup Super Squishy? Such a thing has not been done!”
7. “Remove the Stone of Shame. Attach the Stone of Triumph!”
8. Leonard Nimoy’s introduction of the X-Files crossover episode: “All the things you are about to see are true. And by ‘true’, I mean, ‘false’.”
9. Tomacco.
10. “Me, fail English? That’s unpossible!”
11. “Come on, people! This poetry isn’t gonna appreciate itself!”
12. “Oh look, there’s Mount Carlmore.” “What does Carl think of that?” “Strangely, we’ve never discussed it.”
13. “For fifty bucks, this better be the best beer ever! [sips] You got lucky there, Moe!”
14. The Flaming Moe.
15. She-Hulk versus Leon Spinks: “Worst crossover ever.”
16. “Pray for Mojo….”
17. Homer walking through the paper walls in Japan.
18. “Hi, ev’reebody!” “Hi, Dr. Nick!”
19. Bart, human interest reporter: “Joe Banks… 82 years young has come to this pond every day for the past 17 years, to feed the ducks. But last month, Joe made a discovery… the ducks… were gone! Some say the ducks went to Canada, others say Toronto. And some people think, that joe used to sit down there, near those ducks. But it could be, that there is just no room in this modern world, for an old man… and… his ducks…”
20. “Yar, she blows!”
21. Springy, the Springfield Spring.
22. “Smithers, there’s a rocket in my pocket!”
23. Mr. Burns, after listening to The Ramones: “Have the Rolling Stones killed.”
24. “Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore? Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?”
25. “Press any key? Where’s the ‘any’ key?”
26. Nelson’s rationale for letting Bart handle his BB gun: “Sure, it never hurts to have another set of prints on a gun.”
27. Nelson turning out to be a devoted fan of Andy Williams.
28. Mel Gibson’s ultra-violent remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
29. Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.
30. Kwyjibo.
31. “And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords!”
32. “Yoink!”
33. “Ahoy hoy!”
34. Bart gets a nice photo of himself made for his mom for Christmas.
35. Jasper as a substitute teacher during the teachers’ strike: “That’s a paddlin’.”
36. Any time Homer screams.
37. “Okily-dokily!”
38. The church congregation holding up candles and lighters in honor of the organist’s rendition of “In-a-gadda-da-vida”.
39. Great opening sequence: the “Powers of Ten” zoom, from the Simpson’s living room out into space and then back into the world of the microscopic and back in the Simpsons’ living room. Homer: “Wow.”
40. The verb “embiggen”.
41. Principle Skinner trying to convince Superintendent Chalmers that he refers to hamburgers as “Steamed Hams”.
42. “We’re gonna paint that wagon, we’re gonna paint it good!”
43. “Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do! We do!”
44. Bart distracting Sideshow Bob by betting him he can’t sing the entire score to The HMS Pinafore.
45. Sideshow Bob and rakes.
46. The Simpsons enter the Witness Protection Program: The Thompsons!
47. Yvan eht nioj!
48. Homer’s run as Springfield Garbage Commissioner: “I can’t believe we’re moving the whole town!”
49. Barney gives up booze…so Moe gets him addicted to cappuccino.
50. The ‘J’ in Homer J. Simpson stands for…Jay!
51. “Homer, this is the worst thing you’ve ever done!” “Marge, you’ve said that so much it’s lost all meaning.”
52. “Dad, do you even have a job anymore?” “I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t!”
53. Flanders, after Homer’s raided his garden: “But did you have to salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again?” “Heh heh…yeah.”
54. Homer as football coach: “This is the easiest part of the coach’s job: the cuts!”
55. “Luke be a Jedi, tonight!”
56. Ralph Wiggum: “That’s where the leprechauns tell me to burn things!”
57. Y2K: Dick Clark’s robot self melts and explodes.
58. Bart trying to impress his older female babysitter by wearing a smoking jacket and “smoking” his bubble-pipe.
59. The Springfield Isotopes.
60. Homer’s inventions: electric hammer, recliner/toilet, chair that won’t tip over.
61. Homer’s sub crew singing “In the Navy”.
62. “We’re in international waters now, Bart! Look over there! That boat is rebroadcasting Major League Baseball with implied oral consent, not expressed written consent!”
63. Smithers feeding Mr. Burns spanish peanuts: “Skin!”
64. Frank Grimes.
65. Homer walking backwards all the way home after he sees Apu having an affair.
66. Jasper freezing himself at the Kwik-E-Mart.
67. Krusty’s Comeback Special: “Send in…the clowns….”
68. Bart drinking twelve glasses of water to ensure he gets up early Christmas morning, and his ensuing surreal dream about having to go to the bathroom, with cheerleaders screaming, “Give me a P! We’re number One! Go go go!”
69. Nelson as Lisa’s first boyfriend.
70. “Marge, I’m not gonna lie to you. Well, goodbye!”
71. The Simpsons run out on Jeopardy! after running up a huge tab. One of Trebek’s goons: “She ain’t gettin’ the home version.”
72. The Springfield Symphony Orchestra, playing the shower scene from Psycho on the bus home.
73. The missile destroying the only bridge out of town when a meteor is going to hit Springfield.
74. Homer’s bowling-ball beer bootlegging scheme.
75. Stealing the Springfield lemon tree.
76. Personages from PBS, including the Teletubbies, chasing Homer after he welches on his pledge-drive pledge.
77. “Listen to those bassoons! John Williams is rolling over in his grave!”
78. The Canyonero.
79. “Bart, do you think you can stop the casual swearing?” “Hell, no!”
80. The little city Lisa grows in a petri dish, which later dispatches a tiny spaceship to destroy Bart.
81. “Well, crying isn’t gonna bring him back, unless your tears smell like dog food. So you can either sit there crying and eating can after can of dog food until your tears smell enough like dog food to make your dog come back – or you can go out there and find your dog!”
82. “The Simpsons are going to ______!”
83. Homer on medicinal marijuana; he cuts himself shaving and bleeds little rainbows.
84. Abe Simpson dosing little Homer with Ny-Quil.
85. Maggie’s first word, unheard by anyone else.
86. That Texan guy who fires off his two six-shooters pretty much at the end of every sentence.
87. Fox Mulder’s ID badge, juxtaposed with a photo of himself in a Speedo.
88. Dana Scully, watching Homer on a treadmill: “His fat…it’s like watching a lava lamp.”
89. Homer’s failure to get Mr. Burns to remember who he is.
90. Homer’s ill-advised attempt to demonstrate to Lisa that Simpsons are not doomed to failure: “Should’ve researched this plan a little, eh, Dad?”
91. Bart gets a credit card.
92. Homer, after seeing Maggie all made-up by Lisa and her slumber-party friends: “OK, I’m goin’ to Moe’s.”
93. Homer’s time-traveling toaster, in which he flees a timeline where it rains donuts.
94. Bart as The Fly.
95. Lisa on jazz: “You have to listen to the notes that he isn’t playing!”
96. Marge’s crush on the Brawny paper-towel guy.
97. Maude Flanders’s dream, the amusement park Praiseland, with the ride where a giant animatronic King David reads all of the Psalms to the captive riders.
98. Bleeding Gums Murphy.
99. Abe Simpson always falling asleep in mid-sentence.
100. Slurm. (Oh, that’s Futurama. My bad.)
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I’ll take Door Number Three, Monty!
The other day I posted about my take from my local library’s quarterly book sale, a post which I titled “Monty Haul”. In comments there, Redsneakz asks about that title:
Is the phrase “Monty Haul” common koine? The only place I’ve seen it used is the infamous and uproarious “Bimbos of the Death Sun” by Sharyn McCrumb.
I’m not familiar with “Bimbos of the Death Sun”, but I came across the term “Monty Haul” in some of the old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons literature I used to own. I don’t remember which book this was specifically in, but the term refers to an AD&D campaign which basically boils down to “Kill the beastie with relative ease, take home the enormous treasure, lather, rinse, repeat”, with no real attention to storytelling or plot or role-playing. An extreme example would be a party of third-level characters coming across three or four kobolds, killing them in three or four combat rounds, and then finding that the kobolds had a million gold pieces and five scrolls each with one “Wish” spell on them.
A more detailed explanation of “Monty Haul” can be found here. I was lucky in that neither of the campaigns I played in college were “Monty Haul” campaigns. My first DM placed a far higher premium on role-playing (his earlier, high-school experiences with AD&D involved him and his fellow friends from the drama club using AD&D to hone their improvisational theatrical skills) than my second DM, who was more into action and puzzles. But both were good at making the rewards for action commensurate with the difficulties involved in the struggles.
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Unidentified Earth 6
[Updated below, with the solution!]
Well, I’d love it if one of these would stump my readers for more than a day! Last week’s entry was the Little Big Horn National Monument, which when I stopped there on a cross-country move as a kid, was still called “Custer’s Last Stand”. Of course, naming it for the Battle of the Little Big Horn is better than Custer’s Last Stand, but if we were really going for historical accuracy in naming, we’d call it “Custer’s Last Monumental F***-Up”.
Anyway, I have yet to come up with anything close to a genuine stumper in this series…but let’s try again, shall we?
Where are we?
UPDATE 6-10-07: Well, three days have passed since I posted this, and nary a guess in sight, so maybe a hint is called for. Here it is: had Google been able to take a photo of this location say, thirty years ago, it would have looked significantly different.
UPDATE 6-12-07: Hmmm, still nothing. Here’s another hint: scientists were amazed to discover life in this body of water so soon after the event that made this place look the way it does.
UPDATE II, 6-12-07: We have a winner! It is, as Paul tells us, Spirit Lake, which is located north of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State. Here’s an overall photo of the whole area:
And here’s the Google Maps location.
All that debris that in my original photo looks like a bunch of matchsticks dumped into a rain puddle? Those are trees that were leveled in the stunning blast of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980. Twenty-seven years later, and the lake is still partially covered with debris.
In the second hint, I point out that scientists discovered life in the waters of Spirit Lake far earlier than they ever thought possible. Since Spirit Lake pretty much lies in the direct line of fire of the eruption of that day — notice how it’s just off the direction of the clear slope of that day’s blast — it was literally sterilized by the heat and violence of the cataclysm. However, Spirit Lake today is home to fish.
My next hint, had it remained unidentified another day, would have been that so violent was the geologic upheaval of the May 18 eruption that today, Spirit Lake’s bottom is actually at a higher altitude than its surface was before the eruption.
Always remember, folks: this planet can shrug us off anytime it wants to!
(Also remember, Buffalonians: shoveling six inches of snow is easier than clearing one’s driveway of one inch of volcanic ash. As my family lived in the Portland, OR area when St. Helens was going through its 1980 eruptions, I know whereof I speak!)
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Eight Things
Lynn tags me with a meme where I’m to reveal eight things about myself, or give eight facts about myself, or reveal eight habits, or something like that. After more than five years of blogging, coming up with new stuff that I actually want to reveal here is kind of hard.
1. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dates the guy who zones out every time “Desperado” comes on the radio? I’m the same way with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.
2. Musical instruments I feel like I should like, but which I really don’t: the harpsichord, the classical guitar, the harmonica.
3. I listen to The Daughter talk about her collection of Pokemon cards, and it hits me that this is what I sounded like to my parents when I talked nonstop about Star Wars.
4. I think there should be a national restaurant chain that does nothing but sell those regional specialties that are beloved in one place but completely unknown just fifty or a hundred miles away. I’m thinking of beef on weck, scrapple, spiedies, Maid-Rites, broasted chicken, and so on. The restaurant could be funded with Piers Morgan’s money, after the dingoes eat him.
5. I believe that rum makes the world a better place.
6. It’s been over a year since the last time I set foot in a Wal-Mart.
7. I don’t recall how it happened, but my family has now become spoiled: we can no longer consume pancake syrups like Mrs. Butterworth’s or Log Cabin. We pay the hefty price for real maple syrup, and we do so cheerfully.
8. I’m the only member of my family who enjoys the flavor of coconut. This means that I can load up on Mounds bars and not feel the slightest bit guilty for not sharing.
I’m supposed to tag people, but I’m not going to. Grab it and post away if you like, folks!
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Saying Mean Things about Piers Morgan
So we’re watching the first episode of this year’s iteration of America’s Got Talent, a show which I enjoyed last year because I like goofy acts of the sort that get featured on shows like this; the things that people discover they can do and then hone to a fine talent can be really touching, amazing, or hilarious in the best (and, frankly, worst) way. But I’m reminded also of what a colossal ass Piers Morgan is, and I was about to write a big rant about the degree of his assness, but then I remembered that I ranted about him last year, so I figure this year I’ll just satisfy myself each week by writing something mean about Piers Morgan.
For those who aren’t watching the show, Piers is the resident BluntBrit of America’s Got Talent. Every competition-style reality show, it seems, must have a BluntBrit amongst its judges, because, obviously, Simon Cowell was the original BluntBrit. Never mind that Simon Cowell is a record producer who fronted the show Pop Idol in Britain, the show that actually inspired American producers to come up with American Idol. Anyone who actually watches American Idol knows that (a) Simon knows what he’s talking about, and (b) he’s not nearly as mean as his reputation suggests. Not so Piers Morgan, who is only there because he’s got the British accent. He’s there for no other reason than to be a BluntBrit.
So anyway, here’s this week’s Something Mean about him: I hope that Piers Morgan is bludgeoned into unconsciousness and then dropped naked into the Australian outback, where his body would be slathered with enough beef gravy to attract a pack of starving feral dingoes.