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One topic that seems to pop up regularly on political blogs these days is whether or not 24 is a right-wing show or not. Kevin Drum had a representative post a few days ago: So what’s up? The hyperkinetic world of 24, where good and evil clash, torture is a necessary tool, and terrorist threats are everywhere, is indeed a paean to modern Bushian conservatism. But when the action switches to the Oval Office, hawks are almost universally portrayed as either ideologues who panic at the first sign of trouble or else scheming superpatriots who are desperate to push theDown the rabbit hole….

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Shamus provides some recommendations for computer games to try out as entry-points. I found this especially helpful, seeing as how my last direct experience with PC gaming was Riven. But on the other hand, today’s installment of Get Fuzzy was not so good a sign of things to come: Aieee! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Some short hits on stuff I’m seeing today: :: Hayao Miyazaki’s new film is announced. The tale apparently involves a goldfish Princess who wants to become human. Here’s hoping, because I’ve always loathed The Little Mermaid. :: Turkish Star Wars. I have absolutely no idea what this is all about. (Fairly long video, but if you watch the first minute or so, you get the idea.) :: I don’t know how much of an influence I was in Jennifer‘s decision to make this purchase, but I can’t help but feel a little proud! :: Tokyo’s long nightmare is over. Well,Down the rabbit hole….

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This week has been a blend of busy and not-feeling-like-posting. So I haven’t been posting. Will that continue? Who knows? Anyway, a few thoughts on various stuff: :: Watched Raines last night, and I had one of those cases where I read a lot of middling-to-negative reviews of a thing, watch it, and wonder if they watched the same thing I did. I found Raines very enjoyable; Jeff Goldblum delivered a fairly understated performance (as compared to, say, Jurassic Park, in which he hammed it up) as Detective Raines, who has conversations with the murder victims whose murders he isDown the rabbit hole….

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Apparently while I was offline, PZ Myers turned 50. And in doing so, he demanded that readers write poems celebrating him, or something. So here’s a tri-partite Fibonacci poem in honor of Dr. Myers: I. PZhas turnedfifty. Mayhe never meet anaxe murderer in overalls. II. Heisthe scourgeof I.D.,but his secret loveis ever the cephalopod. III. Foraguy whodescends frommonkeys, he’s oddlymild-mannered. Clark Kent o’ the Plains. (Anyone quibbling with my accounting of syllables will be subject to pistols at dawn!) He also provides the latest “Bold it if you’ve done it” meme-thing, this time springing from somebody’s list of “the mostDown the rabbit hole….

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All that reading of Shamus‘s blog has, as I predicted here, finally demolished my resistance. Today at Target I weakened and bought, from the “cheap computer games” section, Galactic Civilizations (which apparently includes an expansion pack of some sort) and Freelancer. And I saw a bunch of others I’d like to try at some point as well, including a Star Wars five-pack thing. (Shamus pleads ignorance here as to how this could happen, claiming that when he writes about games it’s mainly to rant and rave about them, but I know reverse psychology when I see it! He’s not foolingDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve seen this quiz a few times in the last couple of days. It’s straightforward enough: 1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times. Casablanca. 2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater. When The Wife and I were first dating, we saw Aladdin together four times. 3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie. Hmmmmm. Not really sure, anymore. Harrison Ford used to be gold, but then he stopped picking good movies to do. Liam Neeson, maybe. 4. Name an actor that would make youDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve been reading some comics and graphic novels lately, and I have more to go over the next few weeks. Here’s what I’ve read: :: Marvels, by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross. I liked this quite a bit, but I wanted to like it more. The conceit here is an encapsulation of the first few decades of the Marvel Comics universe, starting with the debut of the Human Torch and ending shortly after the death of Gwen Stacy. The tale is told, however, from the viewpoint of a normal person witnessing all this: news photographer Phil Sheldon, who documents theDown the rabbit hole….

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Back when I was soliciting space opera reading suggestions*, a reader e-mailed me (or maybe he commented, I can’t recall) about a book called Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. I saw a few copies on eBay, but never acquired one. Now, I see that I won’t have to. Viva Project Gutenberg! OK, all you geniuses, what’s a good gizmo on which to read e-books? (via) * Not that I’ve stopped soliciting space opera reading suggestions, folks. Feel free to keep those coming! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Over at AICN they’ve started running a series of articles that are apparently a tribute to 1982, which Harry Knowles bills as the “best genre year ever”. Now, I’m not sure about that, but it’s a personal thing — Knowles was twelve, which as we all know actually is the true Golden Age of science fiction. Anyhow, the first article he runs is about that year’s megablockbuster film ET: the Extra-Terrestrial. Here’s something about E.T., and only a few, few other movies… it gets childhood intrinsically, so completely RIGHT. High praise indeed for Melissa Mathison’s script, which has the cadenceDown the rabbit hole….