Never ever shave your cat

shaved cat.jpg Ever.

PHALLIC LOGO AWARDS

B3TA : FEATURES : PHALLIC LOGO AWARDS Enugh said.

Browser-Playable 3D-SFCave Applet

Browser-Playable 3D-SFCave Applet

The 2-D version was addictive - this is worse.

Romance Novels

Longmire does Romance Novels - Your Submissions

I'm ashamed to find this so funny.

Memo to people who print out or forward jokes

Seriously, the Joke Is Dead - New York Times: ". To tell a joke at the office or a party these days is to pronounce oneself a cornball, an attention hog,"

I like a good joke, but this article shows why it's a dying form. One point that this doesn't address is that a joke can be used by an unfunny person to try to be funny. Because the joke is self-contained humour - its the joke that's funny, not the person telling it - it can in theory be deployed by anyone. But then you find yourself listening to someone who may or may not be funny in their own right trying mark themselves as funny by using someone else's work. And this is why the joke is dying: because it allows unfunny people to give the appearance of being funny, it forces genuinely funny people to rely on their own wit, invention and timing to win laughs without jokes. I have a friend who, when going to a meeting in Wales, tracks down and prints off anit-Welsh jokes from the Web. It's bad enough to use humour against a people, but in my eyes what's worse is that he isn't even writing his own material.

To summarise: reciting other people's jokes doesn't make you funny.

Star Wars

K O K O G I A K

This pretty sums it up. Whether I like it or not, I was utterly taken by the original Star Wars when I was nine, and so was every friend of mine. We would spend entire playtimes reciting the best bits of dialogue and acting out the good bits.

What made Star Wars so exciting was the feeling that this movie was made exactly the way I wanted it. I was the target demographic for that film, and boy did it feel good.

Talking about "Sith" with friends, I've been saying that the trouble with Episodes I and II was that they felt like they were made by someone who had never seen Star Wars, but had been to a few fan conventions and figured they knew what was wanted. Whereas III, for all its many flaws, feels like its made by someone who really likes Star Wars. Just as Star Wars felt like it was made by someone who really loved space serials, and wanted to make the best ever.

The Lucas' dialogue has, if anything got worse over the years, and it was never much cop to start with. But in Star Wars he knew his characters, and he cared about them, even the minor ones. The attack on the Death Star remains the best bit of film-making Lucas has ever put his name to, and not just because its exciting, dramatic and a suitable climax to the film. But he also manages to introduce a bucketful of new characters late into a movie, give us a brief sense of who they are, and make us care when they die.* That's hard.

What makes III better than I or II is that, for the first time, we start to get characters, rather than figures spouting bad dialogue. It takes a while, but when Vader is put into his mask for the first time, it actually looks like a prison rather than armour, and we understand that he sees it this way.

In the end it did what a prequel should - made me want to watch the original (analogue, 1977, Han-shoots-first original) straight away.

*Porkins (good name George! How long did that take you?) is the obvious example, but for me it has always been Gold leader. Even as his wingmen as being shot to crap, he is intoning "Stay on target. Stay on target." For me, this is the talk of a man who has spent his life in middle management - I see him working in a bank somewhere - but, when the chips went down, he went to the Rebellion. And when he had his one chance to save the world and cause he believes in, you'd better believe he's going to stay on target, no matter what, because he's going to do it by the book, because, while he'd rather be home with a book and his wife, he will not shirk his duty or miss his chance. And then he's dead and it's up to Luke.

Pet costume: slave girl Princess Leia

Boing Boing: Pet costume: slave girl Princess Leia

Scary, and yet oddly perfect.

Are Jedi evil?

Marginal Revolution: The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading

And another point: given that - as the films progress - an increasing number of dramatic points occur because a character drops their light sabre, are the Jedi too dumb to invent wrist loops?

Still, I did enjoy it. Star Wars has been part of my cultural life since 1977, and while none of the movies will ever reproduce the world-changing experience of seeing the original movie on my 9th birthday, I'm glad that things have come full circle.

Earthly Empires

Earthly Empires


Hmmmm.

Do parents matter?

USATODAY.com - Do parents matter?

Answer: Yes, but not in the way you think.

Of course, this is a U.S. survey, but there is no reason to suspect things will be much different here. What it means is that the thing that our unborn child will ultimately thank us for most is our parents.

Episode III to cost millions in lost working time

Skip-work Force with you again - The Washington Times: Business - May 17, 2005: "Challenger Gray & Christmas, a Chicago outplacement firm, estimated that 51 percent of people attending opening day would be full-time workers, costing employers as much as $627 million in lost productivity. "

Of course, I'm in no position to complain. I have already bought my ticket and will leave work at 2:50 on Thursday no matter what.

Self-referential multiple choice test

Clever too.

Robot cat

vp.mov (video/quicktime Object) 2MB file, so be warned.

What's missing is the fact that, when you are nice to it, the cat doesn't give you a hateful glare. And I bet it doesn't throw up on your shoes either.

Baby blog

I feel safe now in talking about the baby currently staying up all night next to me in bed. Since s/he is still safely inside Angela, the nighttime activity isn't a problem for me: at 17 weeks, its not yet a problem for Angela either, but that will come.

Having lost one last year at about 12 weeks, we were very cautious about trumpeting this pregnancy too early, but we're past most, but not all, of the danger, and it looks as if this really might produce a baby. Naturally, I'm oscillating between a benign ignorance of what this will involve and utter panic.

Lots more on this over the next 18 years.

Truth through sign language

As Ukraine Watched the Party Line, She Took the Truth Into Her Hands

This is an amazing story, mostly because it centres on an act of genuine personal bravery. But it also demonstrates how, if you're going to be a censorious media monolith, you need to check everything that is aired. Signs have a way of leaking out.

There was a nice story (I think in Wired, but I can't find it now) about how the designers of (again, I think but am not sure) Melrose Place snuck subversive designs into the clothing and props. One was a dress with a design that was basically the chemical formulation for the morning after pill.