- Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but is “it’s on like Donkey Kong” actually such a popular phrase? I’m going to try to popularize the phrase “This is gonna hurt like Q*bert!”
- I didn’t love what I saw of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and it seemed a little like a well-intentioned but disjointed mess. But I’m perfectly willing to accept Jon Stewart’s argument (expressed in this long and compelling interview with Rachel Maddow) that those intentions were entirely apolitical on their part. That they were just trying to put on a comedy show, and whatever “message” the rally had, it was not the same message that so many of his viewers, so many of the left-leaning progressives who attended the rally and are bemoaning its outcome, clearly wanted it to be. I’m perfectly willing to let Stewart pass for falling short of what I hoped the rally would be — a call to arms, groundbreaking satire, something, anything other than a singalong with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I’m willing to let Stewart pass on this, the same way I’m not willing to let Obama pass for falling short on his own call to arms, because when you get right down to it, I buy Stewart’s contention that he’s just a comedian. A comedian with a political bent and sometimes important insight, but one following in pretty well-established treads and with pretty well-established boundaries. It can seem like a cop-out, and I think Stewart acknowledges that, but I think he also does a good job of explaining why it’s not, why his job isn’t drumming up progressive activism (on the left or right) but instead making people laugh.
I think you can argue that the rally wasn’t entirely successful on that front either, but I think it’s important to weigh expectations against intentions.
- On a less serious note, Harry Potter as space opera [via]
- Uwe Boll: he just might make you root for the Nazis.
- And finally, building the perfect zombie safe house.
zombies
Tuesday various
- Christine O’Donnell isn’t a witch. She’s also not a qualified candidate.
- Is the bacon bubble about to burst? [via] The zombie bubble? The Singularity? [via]
- The Anatomical Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man [via]
- It’s things like this that make me love Community. [via]
- And finally, Tea Party takes over the comics page. [via]
Wednesday various
- A vexation of zombies! Supernatural Collective Nouns. [via]
- Wow, H.G. Wells would hate American journalism today!
- Swanky new Vegas hotel’s ‘death ray’ proves inconvenient for some guests. Imagine that. [via]
- That Johnny Depp, what a mensch! (I still don’t want to see the next Pirates movie, though.) [via]
- And finally, via Reuters: “A man carries a shark through the streets of Mogadishu September 23, 2010.”
I love how there is absolutely no context given for this.
Thursday various
- “Due to strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this game in no way endorses a belief in the occult.” A History of Zombies in Video Games [via]
- Restaurant Workers Don’t Stay Home When Sick, Study Finds. Not too surprising, but still: yuck.
- Tens Of Thousands Of Walruses Crowd Ashore In Alaska Due To Melting Sea Ice. How far south do they have to get before we accept there’s global warming? Utah?
- You know, Katherine Heigl’s reputation as a shrill diva probably is overrated, if not unwarranted, but I suspect most of her movies have bombed at the box office simply because they’re really, really bad.
- And finally, Unicorn vs. Narwhal [via]
Tuesday various
- The United States of Star Wars. I apprently live in/on Coruscant, or at least in its suburbs.
- The strange and sad life of science fiction author F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. [via]
- Corn syrup manufacturers want to change the name to corn sugar. This is actually a pretty canny (if cynical) move, trying to capitalize on the mistaken belief that lots of sugar is okay for you, in whatever quantity, as long as it’s not that nasty, unhealthy high fructose corn syrup. If nothing else, this would confuse the issue for consumers even more. [via]
- And yet where, might I ask, are the actual Dalek blueprints in question?
- And finally, it’s Zombie Week at Tor.com! Though it is possible to take this whole zombie thing too far…