Tag: Sentential Links

I missed this weekly feature yesterday because of some unexpected stuff I had to do after work, so here we go. Invoking a theme of sorts for this week’s edition, I’m pulling all of my Sentential Links from the blogs of SF and Fantasy writers (although the posts themselves aren’t necessarily about Fantasy or SF). Click for context:

:: This is what happens when you let your kids read too much fantasy – they go and start writing it.

:: Periodically, when we were out sightseeing in that beautiful city, people would notice our fancy name badges, or overhear us chatting about the festival, and ask who we were. At first we mentioned our books, but, of course, the titles elicited blank stares. And so I started simply pointing to Norman and saying, “This man wrote an episode of Star Trek.”

:: She glared at me. Her furious eyes said if I opened my mouth one more time with one more negative word, I’d have to pay for lunch. (No permalinks here that I can see — it’s the topmost entry as of this writing, or the one dated 3.7, if it’s been moved down by the time you read this.)

:: Did you know that Darwinism is propagated by an international Jewish conspiracy? (You know, I heard that, but I was never sure about it. Now I know!)

:: I am looking forward to signing less and writing more during the rest of 2006. (We can only hope! Again, no permalinks — scroll down to January 21.)

:: A young child with a soda and a packet of pop rocks! What could possibly go wrong?

:: Bradley created the world, and the outline of the history, when she was fifteen, and one of the charms of Darkover is that it has all the cool stuff you put into your worlds when you’re fifteen and don’t know any better — breeding programs for psi powers that give you red-headed sorceresses, and aliens, and spaceports, and a low-tech metal-poor planet, and four moons, one of them peacock-tail coloured, and trackless wilderness, and Seven Domains, and amazons. And it also has all the things you put into the world to explain the things you put in when you were fifteen, like the consequences of the collision of all those things, and out of that arises complexity. It also has a depth of history, because Bradley’s Darkover novels cover thousands of years.

:: My native language isn’t English.

The problem is, I don’t know what language my native language actually is.

:: He put his tongue into her mouth and whispered, “This is like what will happen when we really, you know, do it.” (Ewwwwwww!)

:: How am I supposed to take over the internet if it keeps breaking?

Enough for this week. Tune in next week for the best posts containing the word “heebie-jeebies”!

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Bits of bloggy goodness, shorn of their intended surroundings! Click for context:

:: Thank you for giving the me an opportunity to rant and lecture about one of my favorite modern gadgets which also, unfortunately, provides other people almost unlimited opportunity to annoy me. (Which gadget? Go check. Lynn’s right on — and her blogging was on fire this week!)

:: Why are the subjective self-image, and the self’s deepest desires, so out of touch with the hard facts of biological reality? This is a profound problem for evolutionary biology. This is the first of my articles that deals with this problem. (I didn’t read this whole post — this is more of a “bookmark” of sorts. Looks interesting.)

:: To quote our daughter Iguana at tonight’s dinner table: “Not only would we have an angry Mommy, but we’d have an angry Mommy with a gun!” (Now that can’t be good.)

:: AT-AT stands for All-Terrain Armored Transport? Did not know that. (Don’t we teach kids anything these days?!)

:: The great patriot and American hero Ben Shapiro can prepare Buckley’s noose while that brave American warrior Michael Reagan places the hood over his head and those lovers of American values Michelle Malkin and John Hinderaker lead the throngs as they yell “traitor” and “coward” at Buckley while his neck snaps.

:: So how are Raimi and screenwriter Alvin Sargeant going to do? There are just too many new characters involved to jam them into the movie and have a decent story and a running time of under 4 hours, so I’ll speculate that they will turn some of the characters’ roles (probably Venom, save him for Spidey 4) into extended cameos so they can make another character-based, tight story. Here’s hoping. (I have absolutely no idea what to make of this, but I’m starting to worry that Spiderman 3 may be a mess. I wasn’t completely sold on the first film, but the second almost hit all the notes perfectly. I hope the third doesn’t step backward.)

:: As far as I’m concerned, there are few things as sad-looking as a book that has been under water. (This post was gut-wrenching.)

:: I should be running a TV network. I would crush the opposition. Also, see them driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women. (These last two sentences will enter my daily lexicon, I can tell it already.)

More next week, as ever.

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Click for the context, folks:

:: The endgame to this pregnancy isn’t playing out like the previous two, at all. (Man, this is making me nervous. This better end well, or The Guy Upstairs and I will be having a frank chat about things.)

:: It’s gorgeous. But they do need to put more ice in the Pina Coladas. And there’s this abhorrent concoction they make that involves beer, lime juice, and a salt rimmed glass. It tastes like sea water. (Ewwwww!)

:: I decided to show you all what a grumpy Jen(nifer) looks like. (Wow. I’m glad that I didn’t meet that version at the Buffalo blogger meet-up!)

:: If the reports of Mr. Williams failing another drug test are indeed true, all of his teammates on the Miami Dolphins should publicly state their disappointment in him. (Screw the Dolphins. They welcomed this guy back with open arms when they were coming off a 3-13 season.)

:: Somehow this career as a privileged screw-up has won him a reputation as an authentic and self-made man.

:: If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

:: Do you have a dangerous idea? (Hmmmm. I’m sure I can come up with one, someday….)

:: One thing that strikes me as interesting about Akira–both versions–is that I don’t see the future here. If anything, without the information revolution–personal computers, the Internet, text messaging, the works–Akira’s future feels decidedly retro, like the Japan of the 1980s.

:: I really don’t know what to say, when I said a puppet government; people get angry and say it’s an elected government. Well, I apologize for using such a word “puppet” describing the Iraqi government; actually I should say a “prostitute’s government” and the occupation are their pimps.

:: What makes me wonder is that these are actually federal laws which make it illegal for you to declare publically that you believe the holocaust never happened. I can count at least 5 other genocides in the past century that don’t get the same recognition; starting with Sabra and Shatilla, to Deir Yassin to Rwanda to Armenia. (These last two via Rambling Taoist.)

:: Sort of (but not exactly) stealing an idea from Byzantium’s Shores… (Huh-whuh?! I call shenanigans!)

OK, all for now. Join us next week for…more clicking.

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This week’s items shorn of their context, for which you must click:

:: Top Ten new slogans to replace Verizon’s “Making Progress Everyday”: (OK, that’s not even a sentence. Oh well. Still a funny post.)

:: The one good thing about getting the cops called on you — and it’s happened to me dozens of times, including the very last time I was out observing — is that you can show them exactly what you’re doing, and they’ll not only understand but enjoy the experience.

:: I was thrilled to watch Shaun White win his first gold medal in the half-pipe at the age of 19 last night. (I watched this too, and I dig this guy for the same reason Mr. Jones does. I also got a kick out of that speed skater from Texas, “The Exception”, who’d never even speed-skated until just three years ago.)

:: If it doesn’t involve a clock, a ball or puck, or a firearm I find it hard to take it seriously. Don’t the people who follow figure skating already know who is going to win assuming nobody falls? All right then, let’s leave this one to the soccer moms and the wussy husbands who don’t have the balls to turn the channel and move on. (Crikey — I’m a wuss! Ben, why didn’t you tell me! Obi Wan, there’s no place like home!)

:: If you really, really want to use some catchy acronym let me give you one to make your own. For you, I’m thinking “ISH” (“I’m Super Hot”), “IRWRN” (“I’m Really Wet Right Now”), or “ILAMNITM” (“I’m Looking At Myself Naked In The Mirror”). It would be even better if your entire post was actually just those three things strung together, as in; ILAMNITM and IRWRN because ISH. If you included pictures of you and your sister it would be even hotter. (Yeah, two “Sentential Links” to the same blog. But this blog has two bloggers, and the links are to posts written by each, and this post had me ROTFLMAO*.)

:: Not every science fiction show needs to be as precisely plotted as was Babylon 5, with not just the basic show mythology and long term plot planned in advance but also the major plot arcs of every character. And, even an elaborately plotted show is going to have some “filler episodes” which do little or nothing to advance the plot. However the opposite approach means that you end up with a show like the X-files which they really did just make everything up as they went along. (I gotta disagree here. The X-Files felt, to me, like its mytharc was heading in a single direction for most of the show’s run; it didn’t lose steam, for me, until the fate of Fox Mulder’s sister was finally revealed in Season Seven, two years before the show ended. That was a mistake, since Mulder’s search for his sister had been the underlying personal reason for his quest; after that, things really seemed to deflate. [It should be noted that the individual episode in which Mulder found his sister was one of the most moving of the entire series.] TXF did go on longer than it should have, and like all such things, it started taking on the tone of being made up as it was going along. But it wasn’t that way for the majority of its run.)

:: I live in the part of New York city that’s very warm – right over Grand Central station among all the downtown buildings. It sort of feels like the city’s internal organs… so warm in their metabolism that they are melting off a lot of the snow. (What a great metaphor!)

:: Say what you will about the Space Shuttle, it was never brought down by a software failure.

:: It’s such a crushing blow when the body doesn’t DO what it’s supposedly DESIGNED to do. It’s like a cosmic joke on me.

:: Huh???? All this common sense tough love and then this kind of crap???? I didn’t even BOTHER reading anymore. The end. (Jennifer’s putting herself through the hell of reading self-help romance books, “so you don’t have to”. Talk about doing yeoman duty — wow!)

OK, that’s all for this week. Enjoy them all!

* I promise to never use this acronym again on this blog.

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It’s time again for some sentential goodness. Click for the context:

:: And anyone who likes to makes jokes about how old they are now, show me you have as nice an ass as Mick Jagger and I might think about listening to you. (I’d give this challenge a try, but I can’t see my ass because my gut keeps getting in the way….)

:: I mean, for God’s sake: a 24-year-old press officer for NASA who sees it as his primary mission to “make the president look good”? Gag me. Can’t we throw him to the largely ignorant Muslim fundamentalists?

:: I seem to remember the Soviet Union being held in contempt for its heavy reliance on “political officers.” President Bush’s close relationship with Russia’s ex-KGB head honcho, Vladimir Putin, is starting to make more sense. (Remember how, in The Hunt for Red October, Captain Ramius’s first act in his plan to defect was to kill his ship’s Political Officer? Hmmm….)

:: My great-grandmother was old enough when she died to have met people who fought in the Civil War. “Multi-tasking” for her at my age would have been playing the phonograph while dancing the Charleston. (“Moriarty” of AICN — real name, Drew McWeeny — has a blog about DVDs. I don’t always agree with Moriarty, but I love his approach to films: he’s not afraid to like whatever he damned well wants to like. Cool. Welcome to blogging, Moriarty!)

:: I’m gearing up for a post wherein I share a current inner dialog about living the dream in my heart, (and why I am on the brink but for some reason holding back) but some explanation may be needed to fully “appreciate” (as in understand, not necessarily enjoy) the different forces and factors in my life. (Jayne’s blog is almost a kind of Zen meditation thing at times. It’s really something.)

:: Of course Gonzales begins his Opening Statement by quoting Osama bin Laden and Zawahri. We used to quote Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln to decide what the principles of our Government are going to be. Now we quote Al Qaeda. The Administration wants Al Qaeda and its speeches to dictate the type of Government we have. It is the centerpiece of everything they do and say.

:: 1. I will hold you, Daniel. (If you read any of these this week, read this one. Via.)

:: So why this sudden burst of enthusiasm for things photographic? It’s a complicated question, but as to what triggered it the answer is clear: I was seduced by the Power of the Dark Side of the Zoom. (Will has a new URL, by the way. Update your blogrolls. This means you. Yeah, you, in the back — the guy in the overalls who is always slow to update his blogroll. Slacker!)

All for now….

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In addition to the normal linkage, I’ll have some links to blogs nominated for “Most Deserving of Wider Recognition” Koufaxes. There are so many nominees for that award that I can’t possibly link them all in a single post, so I’ll attempt to link a bunch of them each week for a while.

:: While airports have a lot more glamor than bus lines and can probably get a lot more dollars too (maybe even $24 million of them,) I’d suggest that the NFTA stick to its mission and stop trying to get some more pork for an unneeded second airport. (Craig has been blogging the hell out of issues surrounding the Niagara Falls International Airport.)

:: It won’t come as a shock to anyone that we don’t think much of Democratic elected officials. (Koufax nominee)

:: So the contributions to Democrats from the Abramoff represented tribes would probably have gone there anyway. This is all legal, by the way. To equate it with the illegal contributions (or “bribes”) coming from Abramoff is, at best, highly misleading. (Koufax nominee)

:: Here’s the problem with adventure journalism more generally: it’s not written by experts or beat reporters, and therefore only infrequently rises above the usual combination of local color, exoticism, florid prose, and received opinion back home. (Koufax nominee)

:: We’re so used to today’s Hollywood smile that we’re not much bothered by the fact that they’re fake. We are so distracted by the dazzling expanse of perfect white teeth, we hardly notice the eyes. (I know people who smile entirely with their eyes. You can’t fake that.)

:: I will also say that having a nice industry job offer in your back pocket makes these things much less stressful. (Yeah, already having a job makes the search for a new job a lot less terrifying! Koufax nominee.)

:: With 400 posts under my belt I finally feel a bit like a blogger. But I still despise the word “blog.” I want to suggest something more dignified like “combo.” (“Combo”?! Koufax nominee.)

:: Heavy, heavy sigh. (Go see what she’s talking about. Yipes, that’s sad.)

:: But is that what Christianity is about? Is it about power, and authority, and controlling the discussion, and framing the issues, and winning the debate? Or is it about what St. Francis supposedly said: “Preach the gospel to all the world and, if necessary, use words.” (Koufax nominee)

:: Today, I am a man. I’ve received my first hate e-mail. (Geez, I’ve never received hate e-mail! Guess I have some red-meat blogging to do, then. Koufax nominee.)

:: The background animals on the other hand… I just have this vision of the harried BBC wardrobe mistress going to her assistant and saying “go raid the pantomime costumes or something, just get me more animal costumes!” (OK, she wrote this post a month ago, but I’ve been forgetting to link it for that long. Remember when Letterman used to have a bit called “Can A Guy In A Bear Suit…”, in which he’d literally send a guy in a bear suit out into the streets of NYC to do funny things? That’s what I thought of when I read Sarah’s post.)

All for this week on the main links, although I may return to Sentential Links more often as I try to get through the Koufax nominees. But I’m not going to try to have them done by the time the awards are done; I’m just going to try to throw them some linkage as I can. Enjoy!

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It’s Monday again: time to sit down and commit some Linkage By Excerpt!

:: All her personalities took a vote and “hard-line” Hillary showed up yesterday to shame Bush over Iran. (Credit where due: that’s pretty funny, even if it’s the entire post — something I avoid doing on Sentential Links. Hey Craig, why weren’t you at the BloggerCon thing last week?)

:: Maybe, just maybe there’s a chance I’m really beginning to understand Thomas Edison after all this time. In case you don’t know, one of my favorite quotes of all time is one from Edison. (Well, this post is actually a follow-up to the preceding post, so maybe you should read that one first…or not….)

:: Will you try something unexpected and delightful this week? Something out of character that disrupts the little habit/pattern synaptic connections/grooves in your brain, not to mention people who thought they knew you, who depend on you to be predictable? (Hmmmm, might not be a bad idea. Anyone got any suggestions?)

:: Over time I have come to realize that one of the truly amazing aspects of keeping an online journal is that I can reach out and touch people with my words…. but also those same people, or people that I have never known before can also reach out and touch me. Advice, support, a kind word when you need it, an “atta girl” or “atta boy”, or a kick in the ass when nothing else will do. (Isn’t that the truth!)

:: (4) Stop chasing Jehovah’s Witnesses past property boundaries and onto street. (Hmmmm…I wonder what my own “Evil Monkey”‘s resolutions are….)

:: So Sunday was the 100th birthday of Robert E. Howard, famed creator of Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn among others. (I don’t know the first thing about Robert E. Howard, I’m sorry to say. I should rectify that.)

:: My darling Nettl looks as sweet and tasty as a Viennese meringue dusted with vanilla sugar, and by my expression I appear to be thinking, “Let’s ditch this juke joint and get a room!” (Please do! Scroll down to January 22 entry — no permalinks here that I can find.)

:: “Disenfranchise?” Excuse me? Because you don’t get everything on your wish list, no questions asked, you’re disenfranchised? (Apparently so.)

:: These rules seem very fair and evenly applied and I think we owe it to the country to be a little more diligent in complying with them. After all, if we don’t stop with all of this criticism of the Commander-in-Chief, we might lose our freedoms.

:: Despite widespread interest in their culture Shaker song remains virtually unknown with one glaring exception – Simple Gifts. This song has been reworked by Aaron Copland and so many others to the point that it is generally assumed that Simple Gifts and Shaker song are one and the same. This is both wrong and a great pity as there is much more very fine music which deserves to reach a much wider audience. (You know what’s weird? I had forgotten, until I read this post and thought “Wow, I gotta check that CD out”, that I already own it. So many times I forget the treasures I have in my own collection!)

All for this week!

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Time for this week’s roundup!

:: Don’t ever dial 411 on your celly phone. (Why? Click through and find out!)

:: I suppose its true that the Native Americans got screwed over, back in the day. Let me tell you, though, inch by inch they are going to get their own back. It’ll take time, but we are just stupid enough to turn our cities over to them, and then all bets will be off.

:: Today is Pratie Place’s first birthday. I’ve fed the blog almost every day for a year! (Congrats! But be wary, because blogs just get more and more hungry, and they’re lazy, too. They’re the Net equivalent of a big, fat cat.)

:: I wonder if this is why science fiction’s market share is declining. I also wonder if Ringo’s fans have ever gone on dates. (Oh, good lord. You have to follow a couple of links to get to the entire passage that Randy excerpts here. I’ve never read Ringo, since military SF isn’t my thing, and now I know for sure that I’m not going to. Ick, ick, ick.)

:: Add salt and pepper to taste, and dig in with a knife and fork while it is hot–all the while giving thanks for the humble smoked hock. (You know, I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten a pork hock before. This is a really good, and offbeat, blog, by the way.)

:: As great as he was, Martin Luther King Jr. is dead. Dead men AND women don’t lead movements. Live ones do. (Great point: where are the MLK’s of today?)

:: Suddenly realizing that everyone who meets me from now on will assume that, given my age, I am divorced. That this fact shouldn’t matter to me, but it does. (I discovered Et al. before Little Quinn died, but I still read it. She lost a husband to a lengthy illness; not the same thing as a CP-afflicted todler to a probable crib-death, but still, grief is grief. I wonder how I’ll answer the inevitable question, “How many kids do you have?”)

All for this week.

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Links. Sentences. You know the drill!

:: Because an Amazon ranking is really the only feedback authors have in terms of having any idea how well their book is selling. (OK, time for a naive aspiring-writer question: don’t publishers provide authors with information about how well they’re selling? Or is Amazon’s info so much more direct and up-to-the-minute? Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about here, so….)

:: And having been caught with their hands in the cookie-jar, Congress will now undoubtedly pass legislation outlawing cookie-jars. (Goodness — I just had to scroll through more than half of Craig’s main page to find a post I strongly disagree with. What’s up with that?! Lots of good stuff there today — and I don’t merely define “good stuff” as “stuff with which I agree”.)

:: Wow. 7,468 unentertaining performances. (Alan apparently doesn’t like Andrew Lloyd Webber. Interesting. I liked both Phantom and Cats, although neither overwhelmed me. Oh, and check out Alan’s rhyming link-dump. He put a lot of thought into that….)

:: In a word, according to many, all balance and harmony will bring is a mad race toward mediocrity. (Gotta read this blog more….)

:: Don’t tell anyone named “Chip” that you are a socialist because he will feel compelled to tell you why that is the stupidest thing in the world and follow you around the room even after you say you’ve had enough and walk away from him to get a snack. Bad Chip. Stop it. (Thank God I’ve never met a “Chip”….)

:: Just what the world needs right now. Another argument that evil is simply opposition to the side we happen to be on.

:: Now I may get the prize for Most Truistic Blog 2006, but I’ve always white-hot loathed the common tendency to separate intellect and feeling, particularly in music. (I do tend to err on the side of feeling, if only because I’ve so often found myself surrounded by clinical-intellectual types.)

:: I’ve interviewed a number of high-powered people, including Cecilia Bartoli, Osvaldo Golijov, Julie Taymor, Juan Diego Flórez, John Barry, and Marin Alsop. Never, though, have I been so terrified as when I met Howard Shore, multiple Oscar-winner and composer of the scores to Ed Wood, The Fly, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and many other films. (God, that would terrify me, too. I’m this close to becoming a full-scale Shore nut. And check out this same blogger’s Newsday article on Shore.)

:: I guess I should name something that’s entertaining without being artistic, but I have to admit that’s harder for me, because I’m not all that likely to be entertained by something that isn’t, at the very least, artful. (I can’t think of one, either — but then, it’s pretty much impossible for me, since I define art as “Any activity whose primary function is to provoke esthetic response”. I don’t necessarily couple the concepts of “art” and “quality”.)

:: Everyone knows by now that the objections to Bush’s NSA program have nothing to do with opposition to eavesdropping on Al Qaeda, but are instead based upon the fact that in ordering this eavesdropping, Bush is breaking the law, because the eavesdropping is conducted in secret and without the judicial oversight required by FISA. Surely Steyn knows this, too. But rather than address the argument, he simply lies and says that the objections are based on the belief that the U.S. shouldn’t be eavesdropping on Al Qeada. (How Glenn Greenawald spends so much time deconstructing people like Steyn and Powerline is beyond me. He must own stock in whatever company makes Tums.)

More next week, as always.

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The thirty-first installment of Sentential Links! Yippee! Let there be…some links, I guess. Sheesh.

:: On December 24th, my only sibling drank himself to death. (My God, what a horrible way to spend Christmas. Condolences and prayers to Farmgirl.)

:: I look at my life this way at times…. Like a warrior, weary from battle. Not everyday, but on some days for certain. The scars and scratches on my ‘blade’ sometimes catch the sunlight and reflect it as brilliantly as a diamond; from others the light seems almost absorbed somehow. It’s as if the mere memory of that struggle can pull all the life from the light.

:: But, a woman who was as knowledgable and clever as Pope Joan just dropping a kid in the middle of the street one day? I have serious problems with that. (So do I. Ewwwww! Oh, and if you wondered what Alexandra looks like, she posts a self-photo here. I used to be entirely uninterested in what bloggers look like, but now I like it better if I know. Go figure.)

:: Blood red lipstick goes best with deathly pallor (That’s the title of the post, which consists of a photo. And what a photo it is. Wow.)

:: I have a theory about males in general. There is one reason for their continued existence: sex. We’re not really necessary, except that we provide a convenient way to provide some mixing in the gene pool. (Robert Tilendis is a writer for GMR, and I just found his blog yesterday. He’s been posting a lot about the movie Brokeback Mountain. Check him out.)

:: Why is beer not granted the sort of inherent quality that other foods and products are? (That is a good question.)

:: After reading various reports of its [the Spielberg film Munich] corrupt, perfectly imbecile underlying philosophic premise (as the Leftist — way Leftist — playwright, Tony Kushner, is the principal screenwriter, what else could the underlying philosophic premise be but corrupt and perfectly imbecile?), I decided my age-hardened arteries would be better off not being subjected to the insult the steep rise in my blood pressure would inflict upon them. (Well, thank God for that. I mean, checking one’s preconceptions at the door before encountering a work of art is so 2005.)

:: So here it is, the Blog Manifesto for Northcoast Exile… (Maybe I should write one of these…or maybe not…hmmmm….)

:: Nice to see that the Jewish community is finally waking up to the fact that the Christian Right is not our friend, no matter how much they support Israel. (See, if there’s no Israel, Revelations doesn’t come out right.) As usual, they’re philo-Semitic as long as the Jews are keeping their mouths shut and playing their little Old Testament part in somebody else’s supercessionist belief system.

:: CASINO ROYALE is not only the best Bond film ever made, but it is possibly the best film ever made. (Dammit, I gotta see this someday!)

:: I won’t list everything Ken got me, but it included oil pastels and grease pencils and a spirograph kit and a globe that goes from earth to star-chart depending on the light level in the room, and a crank-powered flashlight/radio, and a handheld sewing machine, and Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life, and a hoodie for those winter runs… (That globe sounds like the coolest thing ever! What would happen if you darken the room and then illuminate the globe with a floodlight, thus simulating the hemispheric light of the Sun?)

More next week. Tune in. Drop out. Or something like that.

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