various

Thursday various

  • This fan-produced Shining novel seems like a half-amusing “haven’t I already seen this before, and often?” idea, but I can’t see spending any money on it, even for the novelty. [via]

  • Well the odds on The Reader winning Best Picture just went way up. This seems a little underhanded, invoking sympathies for Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, who passed away last year, but I guess “fitting tribute” is another way of seeing it. I have a friend who really loved The Reader, but I hear mixed-to-bad things everywhere else.

  • If it’s not an unnecessary remake, it’s a prequel. Next up? Gossip Girl. I’ve never seen the show, and I don’t expect to watch this new one, but I do think it will test how far ’80s nostalgia can take you. (Anybody remember That ’80s Show?) Still, as Smitty comments at the first link above: “It’s set in LA. It takes place in the late-’80s/early-’90s. The core characters are wealthy teenagers. Will this show be the true heir to 90210’s tarnished mantle?” Personally, I always thought 90210 did a heckuva job tarnishing its own mantle, but to each his own.

  • I’m not really sure what they mean by “a “no holds barred” episode without sets, special effects or autocue.” But more Red Dwarf? Count me in.

  • And The Middleman on DVD! This makes me very happy. A second season would make me happier. I’m just saying: if the universe is listening, I do have a birthday coming up in a couple of months. More episodes of The Middleman would be a very welcome gift.

Wednesday various

  • I know our Canadian neighbors had a little trouble in the last election (or shortly thereafter), but is that really a good enough reason to hand it over to Alex Trebek?
  • When does the craze to remake movies end? Warner Brothers has announced they’re planning to remake Tomb Raider, which is itself less than ten years old. In other news, plans to remake the remake are already in the works. Both will probably go straight to DVD.
  • Bacon. We get it. It’s tasty. Make it stop. [via]
  • Mickey Rourke to wrestle for real? Oh, Mickey… It’s not like that whole professional boxing thing worked out for you… Still, not to be outdone, fellow Best Actor nominees Frank Langella and Sean Penn have announced that they will be entering the world of politics, while Brad Pitt will pretend to age backwards, mainly by yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
  • I think TV Squad says it best: “Nothing tests ethics like a recession.” For the first time, movie ads can run during the Oscars.

Tuesday various

  • Is this the world’s best job? I don’t know how to sail or snorkel, but there are worse ways to spend one’s day, that’s for sure.
  • Gerry Canavan has an interesting post about imaginative urtexts, the seminal influences that define us and, more specifically, or respective nerdities. It’s tough to narrow these down to just a select, specific few, but my own urtexts include The Muppet Show, Monty Python, Ray Bradbury stories, He-Man and G.I. Joe, Douglas Adams, Infocom and Sierra games, the Beatles, and a host of others I’m equally proud of and embarrased by. What are yours?
  • I’d read (via Waxy.org) that small, handmade toy manufacturers might be seriously hurtby new regulations to protect children from lead exposure. But I’m shocked (via Neil Gaiman’s twitter) that the same regulations might apply to children’s books. That seems a bridge too far, if you ask me.
  • This is not something you read every day:

    At the start of the Year of the Ox, researchers announced they had kept frozen for 13 years the testicles of a bull named Yasufuku, the progenitor of the expensive Hida-gyu brand of beef in central Gifu prefecture.

    Don’t the Japanese listen to This American Life? [via]

  • And finally, a short logic test. Although what does it say that I, who earned a D- in my freshman year formal logic class, scored 100% on this? [via]

Tuesday various

  • Last night, several local television stations ran a five-minute test of their digital signal, in anticipation of the February 17th switch from analog. My own television, which is the only one in the house not hooked up to cable, and which I use primarily as a platform for watching DVDs, failed the test. All I got was a test pattern, color bars. I’m not too concerned about it, frankly, since I don’t really use the set, but now the Obama team wants to give me more time now to worry about it. Maybe he just wants the time to put the finishing touches on his own restaurant review show. (I’m assuming any restaurant that serves Yes Pecan ice cream gets four stars.)
  • Speaking of bad food, however: Paula Deen wants to kill you. Whereas her colleague at the Food Network just tried to kill the holidays. [via]
  • I don’t know about joining the book club, but I’m up for the challenge of reading all of Gene Wolfe’s “Solar Cycle” novels this year. Especially since I’ve already read The Shadow of the Tortuer, really liked it, and own a copy of The Claw of the Conciliator, the second book in the series. The only “downside” is that Wolfe’s writing can be a little dense and does require some very close reading because of that. It might distract me from reading anything else for awhile. But still, I’m sorely tempted.
  • Speaking of Gene Wolfe, an interesting quote via Chris McLaren from a recent interview:

    The purely commercial writer writes for the editor. The purely artistic writer writes for himself or herself. I write for the reader. As long as the editor buys it, I don’t much care what he thinks of it. If it’s a good solid story, that’s enough for me. But if the reader doesn’t like it, it’s a failure.

    Smart man, that.

  • No optician needed. Self-adjusting eyeglasses:

    The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.

    This obviously won’t work for all vision problems (like my own, astigmatism), but in developing countries, where getting any type of affordable corrective lenses can prove difficult, this sounds like a really good idea. [via]

Saturday various

  • Sci Fi Wire offers a list of reasons why 24 is actually science fiction. I’m reminded how, a few years back, I made a case that The West Wing was science fiction. It really was, you know.
  • Paula R. Stiles offers some interesting thoughts on taboos in speculative fiction:

    The other reason is that taboos change and not every theme that seems taboo now was taboo when such books came out. Some of the strongest taboos can come and go within a generation, while others simply mutate. For example, people now talk about homosexuality openly. In some circles, homophobia is what is now considered to be unacceptable. So now, something like Sturgeon’s groundbreaking “The World Well Lost” (1953) seems a bit repressed. The “tragic gay people” storyline isn’t exactly hyper-tolerant by today’s standards, but it was revolutionary in 1953 for showing sympathy toward homosexuality. Similarly, a lot of people have criticized Heinlein’s apparently pervy view of women while ignoring that when books like Stranger in a Strange Land came out, any open discussion of sex in speculative fiction was revolutionary.

  • I find the prospect of a 3-D episode of Chuck equally annoying and endearing. I think the show is having a genuinely very good season, improving over a fun but not overly remarkable first, so I can’t say for certain I won’t pick up the glasses if I see them, even if I won’t go out of my way to find them. Then again, 3-D can sometimes be ridiculously amusing when you’re not wearing the glasses. Maybe the technology has improved significantly since then — Roger Ebert doesn’t seem to think so — but the other day I caught several minutes of Jaws 3-D on HBO. Shots clearly designed to wow and amaze an audience — a harpoon flying into camera, for instance — just look silly. Then again, maybe that’s also the product of Jaws 3 being a pretty lousy movie. (The first Jaws, though, which I watched in full a couple of days before, is still damn good.)
  • I’m not sure I’m as disappointed in Battlestar Galactica as Jayme Lynn Blashcke, but I’ve also had serious issues with it, especially in its more recent seasons, and especially in its “Final Five” storyline. I think it’s given the actors involved some interesting things to do, but it makes almost no sense in terms of the story and has eclipsed practically everything else. BSG is basically just a show that I find very intense when I’m watching it, still find reasons to enjoy, but find it very difficult to build up any kind of enthusiasm towards, even when it’s airing week to week.
  • The Remnants — a terrific post-apocalyptic web comedy. Where else are you going to see Ernie Hudson, Justine Bateman, Enrico Colantoni, and Ze Frank in a comedy about what happens after the end of the world? It would be a real shame if no more episodes were made. [via]