I think I’m at the point now where my digust and hatred of Bush make it literally impossible for me to be objective and rational about anything. Fortunately, there are many sensible people in the world who can apparently sit on the rage and still produce cogent analyses. For example, Charlie Stross posts about the science stuff in the State… Read more →
Year: 2006
She’s From Away
When we moved to Halifax we found out that we were “Upper Canadians”, or more generally “come from aways”. Apparently we will never shed this distinction and become Maritimers, but Sarah has a chance. We’re not the only people to have this kind of experience, of course, and now there’s even a weekly comic strip that’s nominally about it (although… Read more →
Posted Without Comment
Trailerspeak
OK, this is more than a little awesome: “Voice Over” is the latest project of artist Brian Joseph Davis, who also did the Ten Banned Albums, Burned, Then Played project. in Voice Over, Davis created a text based on lines from 500 different film trailers, then gave the cut-and-pasted text to professional voiceover artist Scott Taylor to read. Of course… Read more →
Snowed In
So, we had a little mini-blizzard last night, and now we’re quite snowed in. It was only around a foot of snow, but the 120 kph+ winds (according to Environment Canada–I’m not going out there) are keeping things whited out, and are apparently giving the plows some trouble. At least this time we are snowed in with both power and… Read more →
Another Award Post…
So, I see that the shortlist is out now for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke award: Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go Ken MacLeod – Learning the World Alastair Reynolds – Pushing Ice Geoff Ryman – Air Charles Stross – Accelerando Liz Williams – Banner of Souls This one is almost as hard to call as the BSFA list.… Read more →
Counting Heads
Yesterday my copy of David Marusek’s Counting Heads arrived. I kind of took a flyer on this–I had heard a few good things around the net, but I didn’t have a positive recommendation from any of my usual sources. Today, I found the Rick Kleffel–who is definitely one of my trusted sources for recommendations–had a decent length review of the… Read more →
People Who Are Awesome: Tom Waits
I’ve mentioned Tom on here before, in praise, in amused wonder, and so on. Tom is top on my list of “people I’d love to just spend a night hanging out with”. Of course the first reason to love Tom is the music. If you know, I don’t need to say more. If you don’t, allow me to point you… Read more →
Best First Lines?
So, Litline (American Book Review) has what they purport to be the 100 Best First Lines from Novels. I don’t know about the 100 Best, but there’s certainly some good ones in there, although I could certainly argue with the order. For example, “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” should… Read more →
OK, I might be alive…
Feeling much better, although not 100%. I just replaced some light bulb in my office–I have no windows in here, so I try to keep the place extremely well-lit, especially in the winter. For the last couple of years I’ve had four of the 100W-equivalent compact fluourescent bulbs, which are both more energy efficient and a whiter light. However, I’ve… Read more →
Oh, poor poor me
The Head Cold from Hell has really settled in now. It’s funny, because you’d think the head cold was the mildest ailment, and the easiest to get by, but I find that not being able to breathe right makes it impossible for me to sleep. Of course not sleeping is not the best way to get over a cold, so…… Read more →
I do not endorse Wikipedia vandalism.
However, every statement in the first paragraph of this particular revision of the entry is true. Read more →
Loathsome People
I had a good laugh (a “you have to laugh, or go insane” laugh) this morning while reading “The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005” over at The BEAST . You should give it a read, and take your own laughs. Here’s two examples from the list: 15. Karl Rove Charges: A greasy pig whose only distinction in life… Read more →
This month’s All-Story magazine…
The current issue of All Story magazine features a “guest designer”. I picked up the magazine, not one of my normal picks, because that guest designer is one of my favourite characters: Mr. Tom Waits. The world is much more interesting place with him in it than it would be without. There’s actually limited material in the magazine for Tom… Read more →
Last election post today
This post brought to you by Laphroaig and Lagavulin. Well, I’m going to get drunk now and really enjoy this funk. Tomorrow I’ll try to focus on the positive things. There actually are some, but they go hand-in-hand with even scarier scenarios. Read more →
