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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Rogue's Gallery
All the supervillains Spiderman ever faced. Top entry: Venom, of course, though I also have some fondness for The Lizard. Watch for one or both in Spiderman 3.
Dollar Signs
One thing being a copy editor has taught me is how much I hate the dollar sign. It's an idiotic symbol for the following reasons:

1) Like the worst abbreviation ever, lbs., $ (in addition to no one knowing where it's one line or two) bears absolutely not discernable relationship to what it's supposed to represent.

2) More importantly, it goes in the wrong place. Compare "11 dollars" to "$11." Now compare "20 billion dollars" to "$20 billion." We should be writing "11$" and "20 billion $" or else come up with something better.

That is all.
Six Feet Under more like Sex Feet Under
I'm getting a little tired of Six Feet Under constantly going to the same place every week. We spent the last two and a half years on sex; get back to death already. No, they're not the same thing.

In other news, I downloaded and watched Heat Vision & Jack today. It didn't live up to my expectations, but still, it was pretty funny. So many missed opportunities, America--so many.
Fruit Flies Taste Like Humans
Fruit flies have taste buds similiar to those on the human tongue, although they also apparnetly have taste receptors on the outside of their bodies. Weird.

Incidentally, if you're thinking "What is the name of that crazy fifth taste type the Japanese came up with?" it's wasabi umami, loosely translated as "awesomeness." (More here.)

To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure I can taste "bitter."
How to Pick a Lock
Here.

I think this is actually one of the first documents I ever read on the World Wide Web, back in like 1995. In Randolph, we'd had dialup Internet through the library system for a while, but it was text only. At the University of Vermont, they had the Web, and a few times while I was up there I got to play around with it.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Speechless
There comes a time in every young man's life when he has to ask himself: Who do I hate more, the Bush Administration, or Yankee fans?

For me, that time came tonight, and I'm pleased to say tonight I have my answer.

Confirmation from ESPN here
.

Truly, they are America's team.
Dodgeball
Woe to the man who ignores the recommendations of both Pclem and Orson Scott Card: I saw Dodgeball today. It was...not the worst movie I ever saw. Parts of it were actually really funny, especially the cameos, especially...well, I don't want to be accused of "spoiling" anything, as I so often am.

Other parts of it were pretty juvenile.

Basically, if you think there's any chance that you might like it, you will.

More important than Dodgeball, however was a realization I had during the previews, namely that the true impact of Fahrenheit 911 will come not through the (surprisingly high but still not enough to swing the election) numbers of people who actually go to see it, but through the much greater numbers of people who are forced to watch its incredibly effective trailer before other movies, like, say, Dodgeball.

I hadn't realized the trailer was in general circulation, as I'd only seen it before genre pieces like Supersize Me; I'm very glad it is. "Now watch this drive" will change some minds.
Unmistakably
6 = Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Who can this half-blood prince be? Is it Lord Randall? Dumbledore? Neville Longbottom's Gran? Is a prince specifically male? What about neutered royalty?
By the way
Anyone who doesn't know about it yet: BugMeNot.com is a godsend, and any website that makes you register and then can't keep their goddamn cookie in your computer so you have to re-register every goddamn time sucks.

By the way, EJ Dionne is calling Election 2004 a possible Democratic landslide.
Uh oh
I really liked The Mezzanine (seriously, it's great) and have recommended it to a number of people. It's even one of my "top-five picks" on the new version of our backwardscity.net/bazaar page that Ezra hasn't put up yet.

So does this mean that I'm going to get a visit from the Secret Service? In Baker's latest novel, Checkpoint, two characters spent a great deal of their time discussing why and how to assassinate the president.

What's Baker thinking?
Is my city saturated by art?
If you feel as you must ask yourself this question, the answer is probably no. When you're saturated, you're saturated. When you're not, you live somewhere in North Dakota. That's what this new study, by Americans for the Arts, tells us. For a little preview, here's the top eleven:

# of Arts Related businesses, per capita:
1: Seattle
2: San Fransisco
3: Los Angeles
4: Denver
5: Dallas
6: New York
7: Atlanta
8: San Diego
9: Miami
10: Houston
11: Minneapolis

There's an extra pdf which ranks the states. (linked from the study) North Carolina is numero 13.

For the numbers (which only deal with arts-related businesses, whatever that means) see the study.
The Best Unaired TV Pilot Ever
Heat Vision & Jack. Jack Black stars as an astronaut on the run from NASA after solar rays turn him into the smartest man on Earth (whenever it's sunny out). Owen Wilson is the requisite talking motorcycle.



Link to the script.
Look Out! Posthumans!
The Posthuman Manifesto.
1. General Statements
To understand how the world is changing is to change the world
1. It is now clear that humans are no longer the most important things in the universe. This is something the humanists have yet to accept.
2. All technological progress of human society is geared towards the transformation of the human species as we currently know it.
3. In the posthuman era many beliefs become redundant — not least the belief in human beings.
4. Human beings, like gods, only exist inasmuch as we believe them to exist.
5. The future never arrives.
I'm confused by the movie.
In fairness
A number of those hits (67) are coming from a Japanese-language site, and they probably won't be coming back. In the spirit of untranslatability, I present the post in question, via Babelfish:

Translation difficult language top ten of the world

"Ilunga" "Shlimazl" However and so on, it means that the word which hearing is not has lined up in a row, as for attention of 4th rank; "Naa."

4 Naa [ Japanese word only used in the Kansai area of Japan and to emphasise statements or agree with someone ]

Am I being not to be the Kansai person, however the nuance is the clamp to be difficult and so probably translation difficult what?

Furthermore, as for translation difficult language of English,
1 plenipotentiary 2 gobbledegook 3 Serendipity 4 Poppycock 5 Googly 6 Spam 7 Whimsy 8 bumf 9 chuffed 10 kitsch. It probably will put out. Don't you think? selenium D pity, already becoming Japanese, it increases around スパム and the kitsch.
2490 unique visitors yesterday
...according to the counter, which in my opinion/experience undercounts a little. And 389 reloads, which is also a huge number compared to our usual traffic.

Okay, so now *that* is our record.
Monday, June 28, 2004

Oh, Crap, It's the Apocalypse
Iranian woman gives birth to frog.
Superman vs the Lack of Twinkies
Incredible resource detailing superhero/Twinkie cross-promotion.

Adult-oriented banner ads and idiotic macho commentary unfortunately make this site, too, marginally unsafe for work.
Sexual PsyOps
How various armies used sexual imagery to demoralize enemy forces. The basic theme: "While you're over here fighting, a draft-dodger/American/Russian/whoever is having sex with or raping your wife or girlfriend."

Almost certainly not safe for work. Interesting though. A G-rated entry to whet your whistle:

Deep Time
I link to this book, not because I've read it (though I may pick it up eventually) but because I find its central question fascinating. How can we reliably communicate messages across millenia to our descendants--for instance, about the dangers of nuclear waste sites? As many have pointed out, Egyptian attempts to ward people away from sacred sites didn't go so well.

I'm not sure the image on the left will cut it. It looks like "Diamonds! Just under here!" to me.

Interview with Joanna Macy of the Nuclear Guardianship Project for the Responsible Care of Radioactive Wastes here.

I guess maybe we should have thought about how to get rid of it before we made it.
Fake Roadsigns
A group of guerilla artists has been putting up fake roadsigns all over Paris. Smells like Bopango. Pretty amazing web interface, too. (Boingboing)
Wow
I know I promised (sort of) to (mostly) keep the politics off the blog, but this article from the Columbia Journalism Review is too good to pass up. It catches the usual anti-Democrat media bias right in the act--and indisputably, too. Seriously, what liberal media?
The campaign press in the summer of 2000 was entranced with John. It tumbled all over itself to describe John as the perfect match for what it saw as the somewhat wooden, robot-like Gore. One newspaper described John as a man with "an easy manner and good looks," a politician whose "charisma [might] rub off on [Gore]," a person who could "bring some charm to the ticket." John's selection, it opined, would signal that Gore "thinks the election will be decided on personality." A television reporter also regarded this John as "charismatic." Another newspaper saw him as "younger and more telegenic than Dick Cheney." Yet a third newspaper called him "handsome," with "a record tailor-made to undermine the standard Republican attack on liberal Democrats."
...
What a difference 1,460 days make.
Pretty much says it all.
Deadly Addictive
Don't click this link or risk a Quarantine coma. Addictive flash games as far as the eye can see.

Don't click this awfully-delightful optics game, either. The first few levels are easy, but things quickly become very difficult.

And don't click here, here, or here.

Or here.
No One's Got The Right To Turn Your Pink World Blue
I've been meaning to put this pair of flash music videos up for a while now, but I've held back, partly because they made the rounds once before and I figured most people have seen them already, partly because they're not-necessarily-safe-for-work, and partly because there's sexual violence depicted against cartoon women, which is clearly intended to be disturbing but may in fact be offensive to some viewers.

And they're bleak. Really bleak. But the animation is really very good, and today the songs are both running around in my head, one after another, so the time has clearly come.

Doorsteps (just shoot the man when he pops up over "video")
I Love Death

[via old-school Metafilter--now with bickering!]
Holy Crap
431 Unique Visitors and I haven't even had breakfast yet. Thanks, BoingBoing! Thanks, BBSpot! It's too bad I have to work on our big day.

And if you've never been here before: welcome! Here's what we are and what we do. If you're interested, bookmark us--and if you're really interested, you might want to submit your work or subscribe to our first issue.

We'll be having more attention-getting events in upcoming weeks, including a Foam Cowboy Hat Poetry Series and a no-entry-fee themed short-short contest. In the meantime, just scroll down.
Sunday, June 27, 2004

The Last Breakfast
While looking for "The Last Supper" parody featured in Supersize Me, I found out there's a world of Last Supper parodies to explore:

The Last Breakfast (and again) --> now with controversy!
The Last Superhero Supper (and again)
The Last Chick Supper
Naked Last Supper (NSFW)
The M*A*S*H Supper
The Last Seinfeld Supper
The Last Pizzeria

And, of course, the obligatory Da Vinci Code Link. WHO'S HOLDING THE KNIFE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

UPDATE: Controversy or not, Dick Detzner's Corporate Sacrilege is pretty good. Take, for instance, "The Lamentation":

What I Like
Today, I like George Saunders a whole lot.

I just finished Pastoralia, which I ordered from Amazon this week (though it's been out a while). Really liked it. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is great too.

Very weird writer--surreal to the point of hyperrealism, or maybe the other way around--and very good. Check him out if you're looking for something to do (and, really, even if you're not).
What is a meme?
I use the word "meme" a lot, because I think it's a great word that expresses a unique and very important concept. No other word we have quite captures what "meme" captures.

But a lot of people don't know what it means. For them, I provide this link.
Even Matt Drudge Can't Spin It
Fahrenheit 911 is #1.

UPDATE: Well, at least the Bushistas can take comfort in the fact that Michael Moore is just preaching to the converted. Right? Right? Whoops.
Attention Greensboro Residents
Independence Air, a new low-cost airline (like Jet Blue) starts national service in June and starts service in and out of Greensboro in August. They actually go a lot of places. Plus, they've never had a crash!
Preach on (to the choir), preach on
Fantastic commentary in The Atlantic this month about your favorite guy and mine:
Moore stipples his film with damning (and in some cases doubtful) statistics—for example, that Mr. Bush spent 42 percent of the first eight months of his presidency on vacation—and vituperation. But, Shenon concludes, while "Mr. Bush's slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news has never been a secret,…seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in the world."

That moment exposes Bush's character. It reveals what his press conferences proclaim: his incapacity. If he were George W. Smith, what job would he be qualified for? Bush's presidency can be seen as one long cover-up of the most obvious thing about him. A life of upward failure, of being his father's son, left him without "sand," my nineteenth century-born father's word for the residue of strength acquired by "standing on your own two feet" and "taking your medicine." Bush never stood on his own feet, never took his medicine—and he has never been his own man.
(emphasis added)

Check it out.
What is that thing?
I'm guessing there's some people out there who will get a kick out of this "Identify the Gizmo" game.
Saturday, June 26, 2004

Official Firefly Movie Site Up
Check it out. Coming to theaters April 22, 2005.
Irish try to curse Bush.
We'll see if it works.
Title of Sixth Harry Potter Book Released
...mistakenly. Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storgé.
I can't believe I missed Three Hot Young Chicks Day
Very bizarre, old-school McSweeneys-esque shorts describing what little-known holiday it is today.

I'm not going to say "They're good," but once you start reading it's hard to look away.

(via Metafilter)
I'm looking for a very specific octopus.
Where can I find octopus-themed grafitti in New York City?

We should do this for the Farts in Greensboro. I've seen at least twenty or thirty of them by now, some in pretty funny and unexpected places. It'll be a historical document or whatever.
Vegetarian < Vegan < Freegan?
Keep Tom away from this article at all costs.

Basically a one-page version of the "Go off the grid" advice from Steal This Book.
October Surprise
Rumors abound that the DVD of Fahrenheit 911 is being slated for an October release. I say that's a great idea.
Great movie.
Everyone should see it.

Time for bed.
Friday, June 25, 2004

130 144 Unique Visitors
By far our best day ever. Now, hopefully some of those people decided to subscribe...

I rewatched Roger and Me today in anticipation of Fahrenheit 911 tonight at 11:40. Jaimee and Jennie T. had never seen it before. Short version: it's still a great movie. It made me a little sad to remember a time not so long ago when I could respect Michael Moore unapologetically without a bunch of other political and public-relations concerns getting in the way. Right now I love him but I hate him but I love him.

I don't know how it's going in other cities, but our local Fahrenheit 911 movie house completely underestimated the demand for this movie. From what I hear, every showing is currently sold out through Sunday. We only managed to get tickets by stumbling by (completely by chance) right after they moved the 11:40 showing to a bigger theater. No way of knowing how long interest will last, but I can't imagine that every sensible freedom-loving Bush-hating person in the country doesn't want to see this movie.

I'll let you all know how it is. I'm expecting fireworks. In the meantime, watch the trailer again.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed above are Gerry Canavan's own. The Backwards City Review takes no position on whether or no Bush-hating persons are sensible, freedom-loving, or interested in seeing Fahrenheit 911.
From the land of almost-dopplegangers
...we have NeilAlien, a comic books-as-literature fansite. The lead story right this minute is pretty wild: genetic mutation creates real-life Superbaby.

Watch out, NeilAnAlien--one day you'll just disappear.
A-Boo Gareff
Must-see Daily Show clip from earlier this week. Best clip in a while from an indispensible show.
R-rated Harold and Kumar trailer
Get it while it's hot.
The World's Greatest Supermarket
You can see the seven years of skidmarks where I tried to keep from going over the edge, but it finally happened...I've broken Eric's heart and gone nearly completely hippie.

The catalyst is EarthFare, the world's greatest supermarket. They appear to be only southern at the moment, but look for them and their counterparts in your area. It's absolutely gorgeous inside. All the fruits and vegetables are fresh, everything in the store is organic and healthy, and they don't truck with evil corporations, preservatives, or trans-fatty acids.

Jaimee and I are very, very excited about this supermarket.



Give them a try if you can, or someone just like them a try if you can't. They're amazing. I feel good just having shopped there.
Complete Twilight Zone to be released on DVD
I'm somewhat excited by this.

Link

Twilight Zone Episode Guide
Comments are for listing your favorites, if you want. Here are a few of mine:

Last Survivor of Nuclear Holocaust Breaks His Glasses
Next Stop: Willougby
Everyone's a Pigman
Martians vs Venutians
The Other One Shatner Was In
Only One Bomb Shelter In The Neighborhood
Earth is Falling into the Sun
and of course, It's a Cookbook!

There's also a few New Twilight Zones I'd like to see. One I saw during a rained-out baseball game once; I think it's called Small Talent For War, and it occurs when the aliens who made us show up, disgusted, and tell us we have one year to clean up our acts. In the year, we cure disease, end all war, end all hunger, etc--then the aliens come back and they're even angrier, because they bred us to be warriors. And then they destroy Earth.

The other is Wordplay, which I've talked about to some people before. Dude wakes up and finds out all the English words have slipped their meanings, and he can't umbrella a walrus that is stair to hill.
Paging all poets....
The Top 10 Most Untranslatable Words

World List

1 ilunga [Tshiluba word for a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time; to tolerate it a second time; but never a third time. Note: Tshiluba is a Bantu language spoken in south-eastern Congo, and Zaire]
2 shlimazl [Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person]
3 radioukacz [Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain]
4 naa [Japanese word only used in the Kansai area of Japan, to emphasise statements or agree with someone]
5 altahmam [Arabic for a kind of deep sadness]
6 gezellig [Dutch for cosy]
7 saudade [Portuguese for a certain type of longing]
8 selathirupavar [Tamil for a certain type of truancy]
9 pochemuchka [Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions]
10 klloshar [Albanian for loser]

English List

1 plenipotentiary
2 gobbledegook
3 serendipity
4 poppycock
5 googly
6 Spam
7 whimsy
8 bumf
9 chuffed
10 kitsch

So THAT'S the trouble with all these other countries--they have no sense of whimsy.

(via GeekPress)

UPDATE: Welcome BBSpot and BoingBoing visitors! Feel free to take a look around while you're here. And if you like us, bookmark us, because we've got some exciting new-literary-journal-related-program-activities coming up the pike, including the 1st Ever Foam Cowboy Hat Poetry Series and no-entry-fee short-short contests. And spread the word around. And...oh, hell, just come back sometime.
Hey England, Wales Called
They want Stonehenge back.
God's Footprints
...found on comet. Well, either God or Galactus.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

We've located the people who really run the world
Apparently they have some kind of relationship to mysterious May Day advertising that has appeared in the University of Arizona student newspaper every May 1st for the last twenty years.

We'll keep you updated.

UPDATE: Here's a summary to get you started.
What language did you think in before you were born?
Midway through last night's installment of the Buffy marathon that has become my summer, Tom raised an important issue: If you could read minds, could you read the mind of someone whose native language is one that you don't understand?

Or, more generally: Do I think in English, or do I think in a universal "Humanese" that is translated into English at some later point in my cognitive process? And--assuming the "English level" isn't my only cognitive level--which level would the mind-reader "hear?"

Hard to say. It's even hard to say who we should go ask: the philosopher, the monk, or the cognitive neuroscientist, if there's even any difference in these enlightened days.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004

You Just Said the Secret Word
Paradox in Popular Time Travel Movies
Instructional Time Travel CD For Sale on Ebay
Chronos Technologies
Instructions for Meeting Time Travelers
The Physics of Time Travel
The Time Travel Institute
'Time Traveler' busted for insider trading
Calvin & Hobbes Go Back to the Future
and, of course, John Titor as Alice
The Navy owns the moon.
Okay, not really. But I was trying to write some prose. Something romantic about checking out this hot chick's eyes in the parking lot, looking deep up in them and seeing the moon reflected...only, I didn't know what I'd see. If I looked out today, I'd see this. But what if it happened in the past? Like I was stuck, say, in 1985 and was trying to get, you know...back to the future. The Farmer's Almanac only helps so much. I needed something better. The Navy.

I guess I could also do some math. But then what do you do with your answer?

Anyway, now my masterpiece can be completed!

EXERPT :
I checked out this hot chick's eyes in the parking lot. I looked deep up in them. She was wasted, so I grabbed her face with both my hands, made like I was going to put a heavy smooching all over her. I propped her eyes open with my thumb. I saw the moon. It was a thin sliver, the last quarter, waning away, just like our love, and my bank account, all because it was November, 5, 1985, where I was stuck. It was just like like how my tongue felt when it was stuck down her throat as we lip-wrestled; Sure it felt great now, but I knew, very soon, I would have to get back.
Dude Kind of Stole Ezra's Idea
Hyperrealistic Action Figure Photography.



But worry not, Don Ezra fans: the potential for Highly Surrealistic Action Figure Photography remains untapped.
Air Guitar National Finals
I only ever made it to regionals.
Tomorrow night's winner of the annual New Zealand Air Guitar Championships at the Poenamo Hotel gets to represent the country at the ninth Air Guitar World Championships in Finland in August.

The qualifying finalists include Auckland rep "Young Davo" Dave Warbrick. He's such a committed air guitarist that during the 2002 national final he fractured his ankle during a rehearsal but, against his doctor's orders, took to the stage to compete in the final.
Cory Doctorow on Asimov and I, Robot
Somewhat interesting article even if you aren't a semi-reformed science fiction kid, which I happen to be. How, given this status, I can judge its interestingness to the general population is a question that will go unanswered at the moment. Just check it out if you like that sort of thing or are bored.

But at least take away the Three Laws:
[ 1 ] A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
[ 2 ] A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders conflict with the First Law.
[ 3 ] A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
There's also a Zeroth Law, which was added later, which is actually the most interesting, in no small part because it was coded/codified by the robots themselves. (This page's entire discussion is pretty geeky, but pretty good. Sass that hoopy Meta-Law of Robotics.)

Who knew Issac Asimov died of AIDS?

In other news, I, Robot looks like it's going to be completely terrible.
I am a band geek--I just never joined the band
No, seriously, I hate band kids, but this here school band performing Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" is pretty awesome.

Thanks, Boingboing!
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

We'd go down to the river and into the river we'd dive
Who knew? Today is the 35th anniversary of the infamous Cuyahoga River fire. Keep on rockin', Cleveland!

(via Volokh)

FASCINATING SIDEBAR: I was actually in the very same 60s lit class with the person who made that website. Way to go, Bill Richoux! Top link off Google for "Cuyahoga River fire," linked to off Volokh--You've hit the big time. I don't see The Annotated Steal This Book getting any love.

UPDATE: Speaking of Cleveland, Tommy's remains my favorite restaurant in the world. Jaimee and I are going to open a franchise in Greensboro when we win 150 million dollars in the Virginia State MegaMillions lotto in a few minutes.
Draft Bruce
Oh baby.
Dear Bruce:

We the undersigned need you.

Our country's leadership is in desperate need of change.

On September 1, the Republicans will hold their convention in New York City and will nominate George Bush for President. Many people will see this event as it will be broadcast on all the major television networks. However, an opportunity exists at that time to make it clear to Americans that they can choose an alternative to George Bush.

I have put Giants Stadium on hold on September 1 in the hope that you will lead the music industry in coming together and perform in a concert for change. Once it is known that you are involved, many other artists will want to perform with you. Together your collective voices and music will send a clear message to all Americans that our country needs their vote to create change. The event is called VoteAid: "Concert for Change" and we think that it has the potential to become the largest concert in history. We would like the money that this concert generates to go to support voter registration and participation throughout the country, but more importantly your decision to play at exactly the same time George Bush is being nominated will focus all Americans on the importance in this election for their future as well as the future of the world.

I have asked the undersigned to join me in signing this letter.

We need you.

Andrew Rasiej
More from Yahoo News. I'd go.
Not like Pac-Manhattan. Actually Cool.
So yeah. Pac-Manhattan. BOOORING. We all thought this was awesome when we heard about it, but come on, it's like so last month.

This is way more better. Art for everybody. Fun that lasts. Little Tile/Mosaic Grafitti in the shape of space aliens. Just click on them in each picture.
(I'm wondering if they are all real or not.)

or just play the game yourself.

Word.
What's your name, who's your daddy?
ifilm has them a clip of M.Moore's new flick Farenheit 9/11. You can watch as Moore tries to get congressmen to enlist their kids in the army to go "help out" in Iraq.

A real short clip, but good to see nonetheless.
The Important Questions
...are being answered at the Straight Dope. Up today: "When the zombies take over, how long till the electricity fails?"
Fefureete-a Mooppets. Bork Bork Bork!
Thees pust ves trunsleted intu Svedeesh Cheffese-a useeng zee Svedeesh Cheff trunsleshun elgureethm, here-a. Bork Bork Bork!



Eferytheeng yuoo veell ifer need is elreedy oon zee Internet. Bork Bork Bork!
Monday, June 21, 2004

Help the BCR, Pre-order My Life
The Big Dog's Book. Go ahead, you know you want to.

Or, you know, order whatever.
Or get an Amazon credit card ($20 dollars off your first book purchase!).

Every little bit helps.
SpaceShip One
Most of you have probably heard this already, but the first privately funded spacecraft successfully touched the void and came back down today. Pretty big day.

As long as this puts us closer to my long-desired space tourism, I'm happy. I want my vacation on the moon, damnit.
Food Glorious Food
(alternative title: This Article Kills Fascists)
Whenever I mention Fast Food Nation or Supersize Me or whathaveyou, people inevitably say to me, "Yeah, fast food is bad, but do you think that people should sue over it?"

One area where political conservatives have done a tremendously good job of poisoning the well of public discourse is in torts. People nowadays think nobody should ever be allowed to sue anybody for anything. "Personal responsibility," yadda yadda.

That's not the point, and I'm not going to get into it now. What I will do is point you in the direction of the Organic Consumers Association, which has a brief commentary online that explains, succinctly, why it's so important that people be allowed to try and sue huge corporations for poisoning them:
Just as in the early days of the tobacco battle, "personal responsibility" is the junk-food industry's mantra. Of course we are all ultimately responsible for our own behaviors. But food choices don't take place in a vacuum. It's unfair for an industry that spends $33 billion a year on marketing its unhealthy products to blame individuals for succumbing to relentless messages to eat more unhealthy foods.
and especially
Whether or not it makes sense for someone who eats too many Big Macs to sue McDonald's, what scares the food companies more than costly jury verdicts is the prospect of the litigation process unearthing damning information about dishonest industry practices, which opens the door to a plethora of new government regulations.
The judicial process isn't some lottery for the stupid. It's part of the system of checks on corporate behavior. We need it.

Oh, and by the way, the junk food industry just got the House to pass the "Cheeseburger Bill," which immunizes the industry against precisely this sort of lawsuit. Now it goes to the Senate. Ah, democracy.
Sunday, June 20, 2004

Great Inventions of the Twenty-First Century
Sick of constantly having to turn your hot pillow over trying to find a cool spot? Presenting the Chillow. Awesome.
On A Lighter Note
Holy crap, Biff has a website, and he's a painter.



And, he isn't bad!
I'm not getting you down, am I?
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement: "May we live long and die out."

I'm getting there, but for more philosophical reasons, I expect. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable bringing a new life into this wonderful world of death. This weekend, especially, I feel that way.
Strange feelings
Disappointed at missing the March 2004 Greensboro Gate City Noise show of my old-school brookeballantine rival Mike Albanese, lately of Athens, GA and, apparently, Cinemechanica? I am too, actually, a little. I'm going to try to choke it down though, because that way lies squishy high school reunions and madness.

Pat, Tom, Ezra: Did other people I know go to this? Did my anti-social nature and lack-of-rockitude screw me again?

UPDATE: You can listen online (if you dare).
December 11, 2004: Cinemechanina (prerecorded track) begins at 2:24:20.
November 6, 2003: Cinemechanica (live in the WMFU studio!) begins at 13:45.

Weird.
Seven Haiku at Night in a Convenience Store
Poetry is a big tent.
Just My Type
Deceptively simple game: identify letters by their component parts. It's one of the few things you're still better than a computer at, so get cracking.

This dude's got a bunch of games on his site, all like this. The color one is impossible.

Via Metafilter.
Saturday, June 19, 2004

Buffy+Men in Black=Hellboy
Finally saw Hellboy at the cheapo theater today.

We were all pretty unimpressed. The plot tried to cram way too much into too little space, didn't make a ton of sense, and didn't wrap up a ton of loose ends. And the big set pieces are too predictable to ever be worth it. And even the special effects seemed below par, including what looked like an old-style, fake-looking "thread the film backwards" throwing stunt.

At least it wasn't as bad as Daredevil. But it wasn't X-Men 2. The best part of the movie was the twenty-second vision of the Apocalypse, which (spoiler: highlight to read) doesn't even happen. It did, in fairness, have giant Cthulhu squids.

I'd heard it was good. Instead it was just passable, and pretty generic.

The comic sounds better.
Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter
The second coming is upon us, and Jesus has returned to Earth. But before he can get down to the serious business of judging the living and the dead, he has to contend with an army of vampires that can walk in the daylight. Combining Kung-fu action with Biblical prophecy and a liberal dose of humor, the film teams the Savior with Mexican wrestling hero El Santos against mythological horrors and science gone mad and also manages to address contemporary sexual politics. And did we mention that it's a musical? This sure ain't Sunday school.
I must see this movie.
Better, Cheaper, Faster, Easier
I-95 is terrible. You'll never make it through DC without hitting traffic, except maybe at 2 am. Give up the dream.

It's better to just take 301 from Virginia, up through Annapolis, and hit up with 95 again near the Delaware Memorial Bridge. There's no reason to drive near DC or through Baltimore unless you absolutely need to. It's not even longer.

Here endeth the lesson.
Thursday, June 17, 2004

I'm gone
I'm gone for a couple days. Pclem, DonEzra, and Tom have the keys. Word.
Cure for a cheating heart on the way?
Tough luck, guys.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, pg. 69, dudes.
"From now on, I'll describe the cities to you," the Khan had said, "in your journeys you will see if they exist."

But the cities visited by Marco Polo were always different from those thought of by the emperor.

"And yet I have constructed in my mind a model city from which all possible cities can be deduced," Kublai said. "It contains everything corresponding to the norm. Since the cities that exist diverge in varying degrees from the norm, I need only foresee the exceptions to the norm and calculate the most probable combinations."

"I have also thought of a model city from which I can deduce all the others," Marco answered. “It is a city made only exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of absurd elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception, exists. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real."
Buffy: The Animated Series A Go
It's not Angel: Six Two-Hour Movies in 2005, but it's a start.



Check out some more test images here.
GameCube
History will record whether my re-purchase of a GameCube was a wise or foolish decision--but until that judgement is made, I can say with authority that Viewtiful Joe rocks. I don't think you can really get a sense of that until you play it, but it's an extremely innovative and beautifully rendered game.

I can't wait for the new Metroid and the new Zelda.
Can Eric Get Scurvy?
My friend Eric's long-ago, long-forgotten, somewhat amusing, hilariously dorky fake high school science project -- Can Eric Get Scurvy? -- has been born again by a bunch of crazy, lovesick fans of terrible WB show Superstar USA. For obscure reasons involving celebrity judge Vitamin C, they latched onto Eric's page and now worship him, calling him "Pirate Guy." It's quite bizarre.

Undoubtedly the latest Internet-related murder is in the works.

I still don't understand where the banana came from.
Happy Bloomsday, Everyone!
Tons of links on MetaFilter in honor of Ulysses, which I just (finally) read. (Still waiting on the improbable movie.) Includes a walking tour of turn-of-the-century Dublin at no additional charge.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004

A mo dé! Táthum túag im chenn-sa.
Oh my God, there's an axe in my head! In every language.
Lucy in the sky with lysergic acid diethylamide
See, it *was* about LSD. Oh Beatles.
Life Stinks
The Methuselah Foundation: dedicated to eliminating human aging and helping YOU live forever.

More commentary and links from slashdot here.

You know, the problem with the whole "physical immortality" technomagic is that someday the Earth will die, someday the Sun will burn out, and the Universe will either ultimately collapse upon itself or expand forever into heat death. This is to say: even physical immortality still chains us to this Universe, which is doomed. You're really just putting off the inevitable.

What we need is physical immortality AND the ability to hop universes, and an invincible invasion squad to help us conquer any good-seeming universe we hop to.

Lately I've been thinking that I'm wrong, that there is some mystical Heaven waiting for us after we die, but when we get there the dude's just going to say, "Yeah, Heaven's great, huh? Too bad it's only got a hundred years left."
Monday, June 14, 2004

I pledge allegiance to my homies who keep it gangsta
Supreme Court ruled against Newdow today in the pledge case. I'm a little disappointed in the verdict, but as far as I'm concerned, ruling against Newdow on standing grounds is a tacit admission that his substantive claim was correct.

Furthermore, the pledge itself should be tossed out, lock, stock, and barrel. It's pointless, it's counterproductive, and it's absurd.

(Goodbye, presidential run!)

I guess it's lucky that we can take this issue off the table in an election year, but the Court was still wrong. (By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, this link is actually real. Click it.)
Flash Monday
Escape the Archipelago.
The Backwards City Review has nothing to do with, but likes,
Surrealism, by Maggie Taylor

Sunday, June 13, 2004

The Uncanny Valley
Apparently videogames are getting close. More at the metafilter thread from whence this came.

(We should have named our magazine The Uncanny Valley River Quarterly. Aw, hell.)
Incredible New Protest Project

The Signal Orange T-Shirt. To be worn whenever cameras are near.

These could be very effective, especially outside the Republican National Convention this fall.

Always innovating.

(via Boing-Boing)
Saturday, June 12, 2004

John Kerry and The Elecktras
The Elecktras: John Kerry's high school rock band. Listen here.



Honestly, I didn't believe it either.

UPDATE: Someone's out to make a buck. The Elecktras' Official Site.
No words for this
My cousin died last night.

Since time began
the dead alone know peace.
Life is but melting snow.

--Nandai
Never Eat McDonald's
Saw Super Size Me in Chapel Hill today. Incredible movie. When I think of how I used to eat--not just as a kid, but as a junior and senior in high school--it just boggles my mind. I've improved so much, cut so much out, and I'm STILL constantly eating awful crap. I think I'm giving up soda again, for good. It's just black fizzy death.

Check out mcspotlight.org for more.

This movie's as good as Fast Food Nation was. Please, take a look at this stuff.

While I was there I also saw great trailers for Farenheit 911 and the incredible-looking, long-anticipated Shaolin Soccer. We're going back to Chapel Hill in two weeks for Fahrenheit 911.
The Sound at the Start of the Universe
You can listen to it here. Frankly I'm a little underwhelmed. (From an article in New Scientist)
Vintage Pulp Science Fiction Covers
Very neat.



Is it wrong that I kind of what to see the new SciFi Hall of Fame?
Friday, June 11, 2004

Daily Show
Off to a Bats' game in a second. But I wanted to say, the Daily Show has been completely on fire lately. Check it out at dailyshow.com, especialy these:

6/11: Reagan Remembered
6/10: Finding Memo, the DoJ Torture Memo scandal
and 6/09: Do It For The Gipper

Best news on TV.
For my bored friend, Gerry.
What are you going to do? This Anti-Bush Video Game is alright. The intro is funny and well made, minus the scenes of Lady Liberty Being Sodomized. Lots of non-sensical 80's references and anti-corporate propaganda. After level one, you get a bonus character. SPOILER : It's Howard Dean!

Just don't click the instructions away before you're really ready to start.

I found this off of Little Fluffy.
The pseudo academic gamers.
They have websites. (I believe.)
They have websites. (Ladies Love Cool Games.)
They have websites. (They Link to Lego, may be just geeks.)
They write essays. (Links to Amazon.)
They are wholesome (Seriously boring.)
They change their minds.(Pleading the fifth.)

Oh, and then there's these jerks. Even with a Bazaar button. Crapola.
Is It A Theme? Is That What This Is?
Working off Ezra's posts below, check out lego sculptures, lego sculptures, lego sculptures, and lego stop-motion animation movies (including the infamous The Big Night Out).

Still not satisfied? Go back to the Brick Testament and educate yourself. When Should I Stone My Whole Family?
The best Castle Toy on the Web.
Number of Sets in 2004 Lego Harry Potter Line : 9
Price for one of each set: 297.91 USD
Number of Harry Potter Figures you'd get : 6

Number of sets in 2004 Lego Knights Kingdom Line : 6
Price for one of each set : 198.94 USD
Total number of figures : 19
Number of figures who don't have a name : 5


Best castle deal on the web? You'd be surprised. (sorry this page loads funny. it's their fault, not mine. I want to point to the item, Siege Tower and Castle defense. But don't sweat it too much...they've got sales! 3 astronauts, 3 dollars? You're kidding me, right?)

UPDATE : This post breaks my heart, but it has to be done. I've been buying lots of this stuff from Target instead of Lego. Why? I want a generic toy...and Lego is moving away from that, to a place I call ding-dong land.
Nine inch nails still rocks.

At least, that's how I felt when me and my friends went downtown to take some pictures for the website. Lots of textures and architectural oddities. Somehow we managed to miss the "party" going on a block away.
Remember when the Onion was Free?
I love Herbert Kornfeld. I love Jim Anchower more. I wish I could link you over to some of their great articles of the past, but now you have to pay. What a rip. It honestly isn't THAT funny. Regardless, the latest Jim Anchower is pretty good. Seems to be everything my summer has been so far. Except, he expresses a desire to find work.
'99 Rooms' Game
Go on...waste your time.

UPDATE: Creepier than I was expecting. Pretty cool.
Thursday, June 10, 2004

Songs to Wear Pants To
Yes, I suppose they are. Dude makes quickie songs based on email suggestions.

I was all set up to say, "I liked this guy better when he was named They Might Be Giants and talented," but actually he's pretty good. I am an Emok is pretty funny, especially given the setup, and so is MC Underwear vs MC Pantz. But needless to say the Super Mario Brothers song blows them all out of the water. Unbelievable

Someone more musically funny than me (Patrick?) should get him to write a song about us. THAT WOULD SO RULE!!!!

(via metafilter)

UPDATE: Die is pretty funny. I am the first fifty digits of pi. The second Monkey Island game was the best.
Abstrakt
The photography of Frank Lemire. Some of these Chicago pieces (or these others) might be good for a BCR cover someday. Jaimee?
The Little Things
Sometimes we have to be reminded how good The Onion can be. This week:

Kerry Names 1969 Version of Himself as Running Mate
Suicide Letter Full of Simpsons References (Paging Neil Farbman...)

My favorite all-time Onion piece remains, however, that infamous Point/Counterpoint: "It Was Then That I Carried You" vs "Bullshit, Jesus, Those Are Obviously My Footprints," which unfortunately appears to no longer be available in its original form online.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004

More Early Reviews
Another extremely positive "The Life Aquatic" review
An extremely positive review of Joss Whedon's forthcoming Firefly: The Movie

Still very little spoilage in these reviews (more in the Firefly review), but I know how some of you are, so here's the sum-up is: Rejoice, nerds, all is well.

Have I mentioned that I'm very excited for Serenity? I am. But man, I miss Angel.
Zelda
Three righteous-looking screenshots of the next Zelda game for the GameCube, as well as a trailer. Man, I hope my very low bid was the high bid on Jesse's GameCube. (Jaimee hopes it's not. Since I never heard back from him, I suppose it probably wasn't.)
Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Fractalicious
Presenting The Infinite Art of Kerry Mitchell and Janet Parke.

A Taste:

How to Beat a Speeding Ticket
Click Here.
These are important things we all need to know.
Okay, you take the thirty thousand on the left
The best part of copyreading today was coming across this quote from the I Ching in a column this week: "It is unlucky to be stubborn in the face of insurmountable odds."

The Chinese concept of luck is a little different from ours. In the West, you're basically either born lucky or you're not. In the East, it can be "unlucky"--infelicitous--to do something stupid or counterproductive, like go and try and fight the unbeatable foe.

Of course, what all this really makes me think of is the Angel finale, which had exactly the opposite theme.




I miss Angel.
I'm not sweating it, either.
Early reviews from AICN of Wes Anderson's new movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. There aren't really any spoilers in the reviews, but since some of you are undoubtedly reluctant to trust my too-often-spoiled, very untrustworthy self and click the link, I'll sum it up for you here:

The nerds are saying The Life Aquatic is incredible.

I really am going to work soon.
Reality-TV Version Of Gilligan's Island On Its Way
Yes.
Errata
That last post wasn't political. It was more News of the Weird. We're all good.

Anyway, I probably won't be back until after work, so if you're bored, you can either join the search for Neil's childhood idol, the Great Brain, or play some psychopong. The first level's easy--the second one just broke my brain.

And if you're lucky, maybe one of my co-editors will post something.

UPDATE: I cheated to beat the second level by cleverly (highlight to read) turning my mouse upside down. However, my clever cheating has left me without the necessary skillset required to tackle the third level. I'm doomed.
Pope Thinks Bush Is The Anti-Christ
...apparently.

But it's okay: Bush thinks the Pope is the Anti-Christ.

I have no further comment on this, except to say that I hope Catholic bishops will start denying communion to those Catholic politicans who don't acknowledge--in accordance with papal dictum--that Bush is the Anti-Christ.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed above are Gerry Canavan's own. Backwards City Review takes no position on whether Bush is the Antichrist.
In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a run-away American dream
50 Coolest Song...Parts.

#44: The Boss. If we're talking cool parts of Born to Run, it begins and ends with the saxophone at the end of "Thunder Road." Also, it's #1.

Their #1? Phil Collins. I don't think so. At least give it to the Who.

Discussion can continue in comments if you like. Some of you know a LOT more about music than I do.
Go Proverbs
They're not really about Go. They're about life.
Monday, June 07, 2004

Fiduciary Matters
Thanks to everyone who's applied for an Amazon Credit Card or used the clickthrough to purchase something from Amazon! The money's starting to show up in our account, and we're really grateful.

If you haven't applied for the Amazon card yet, what are you waiting for?

Also, note that we're justaboutready to start accepting subscriptions. Keep an eye on the link on the left, just under What We Are and Submission Guidelines, which will very soon tell you How to Subscribe. Watch for it! And thank you.
Hmmm.
Not as good as previous season-enders, but this week's Sopraneys was interesting, to say the least. Like most people, I didn't really care for (spoilers--highlight to read) the ending, where Tony was able to outrun an FBI dragnet. That was weak. But the Tony=bear shot in the woods was cool and almost worth it, and the callback to the Tony/Pie-O-My painting in Paulie's apartment was exceptional, and completely unexpected. My favorite Sopraneys moment in a long while. Now if they'd just bring back that damn Russian, I'll be happy.

What I should really do is rewatch the first season--still the best.

Six Feet Under next week. Happy Days are Here Again. The third season was sort of lackluster, but we'll see if they can't pick it up a bit.
Fahrenheit 911
Check out the trailer for Michael's Moore's latest hit piece on the Bushes masterpiece.
Random
After a too-long hiatus, GeekPress is back today with some cool items.

Contrary to what you'd assume, there is less theft at a self-checkout station than at an employee-manned checkout station.

And scientists think they may have found the lost city of Atlantis, that fantastic ancient city which Plato completely made up. Incredible!

Also, here's a Java applet to help you solve the brainteaser Petals Around the Rose.

UPDATE: I figured it out after 7 rolls. I'm incredibly proud of myself.
Seriously, Day of the Tentacle was awesome
I'm not sure if I ever actually beat Maniac Mansion or not, but the nerds over at LucasFan have made a free, 256-color version of it available for download.

The sequel, Day of the Tentacle, was chosen by some random magazine as the #1 adventure game of all time. That one I did beat. I believe it. Day of the Tentacle rocked.

UPDATE: Sam & Max was great too. It was really disappointed when they cancelled produced on the sequel. I haven't played an adventure game in years (do they even still make them?) but I might have played that one.

Also, X-Wing. X-Wing was the greatest game of all time.
It's best if you never pick up the phone
New credit card scam doesn't even need your account number to work.
Welcome to the Future.
My future. Combover, the Movie.

Trailer.
Oh yes.
Transformers. Breakdancing.

UPDATE: It's a big file, and it's very popular, so just be patient. You'll get in eventually.
Sunday, June 06, 2004

How Houdini Got His Groove Back
How Houdini did his Metamorphosis trick.
A new exhibit, "AKA Houdini", opened on Wednesday at the Outagamie Museum, revealing how the Hungarian magician, handcuffed inside a sack and locked in a trunk, somehow managed to switch places with an assistant on the outside.
I Have Dreams Like This
How it feels like to get shot.
Incidentally, the beach was awesome.
Now we're back in Greensboro, just in time for this sweet Metafilter post on Square One.

(Mathman! Mathman!)
Look out, it's a Catfox
UPDATE: Catfox link is fixed now.

Unidentified creature roaming North Carolina. I'm assuming it's an alien or a government-created mutant superfox until further notice.

In other news, backwardscity.net is (almost) up and running.

In still other news, someone besides me posted on the blog. Definitely read it. (In general for blogs, scroll down until you find the first link you haven't read, then read upwards.) The band Pclem links to kind of sounds like Nirvana to me, but pretty much every band that isn't Counting Crows or Springsteen sounds like Nirvana to me. I'm very lame.
Dementors
The new Harry Potter is exceptional. It's easily the best of the three movies. When I first heard they had chosen noted Spanish pornographer Alfonse Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien) to helm the film, I was a little surprised. But he was clearly a great choice. This movie doesn't feel nearly as tedious as the others sometimes did, and is a lot more fun.

Flaws? But of course.

1) The new Dumbledore is terrible.
2) The last third of the movie is almost incoherent (though that's JK Rowling's fault, not Cuaron's).
3) The Marauder Map scene is missing, for no discernable reason. If they're not going to have the full scene, they could have at least revealed the identities of Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. It would have been so easy to fit it in, you have to wonder why they didn't. Maybe it'll turn up on the DVD.

The clear shoutout to Back to the Future Part 2 ("My old man's about to deck Biff!") was also duly noted and much appreciated, though I wonder if Cuaron didn't inadvertently spoil the joy of BTTF2 for the entire next generation of happy schoolchildren. I guess time marches on.

This was a real step forward for the franchise. I'm impressed. Will it crash and burn in Goblet of Fire? See you in November 2005.
Friday, June 04, 2004

Always Should Have Been One Movie
Early review of Kill Bill: The Whole Damn Story from Cannes. You know I'll be seeing this when it comes out, even if I didn't want to (which I do).

Weird little changes. No Klingon proverb? Wha? And the House of Blue Leaves sequence is now in color (which I one point I predicted would happen on a DVD release eventually, but later recanted, and now I don't believe it).

And no "Does she know...that her baby is still alive" cliffhanger, which is also surprising, though I agree that the movie works much better that way.

And just for the tie-in with the nerdy He-Man post below:
Most crucially, the full KB places proper emphasis on the controversial Superman speech at the end of Volume Two. As well as being a wry joke at his own expense (The Bride is forced to listen to Bill’s rambling theory while waiting for his truth serum to hit), it perfectly crystallises the key theme of the movie. Here, Tarantino pulls the rug, revealing that the woman we feel so much empathy for is nothing but a stone-cold killer, passing for human in the same way Superman poses as Clark Kent. The Bride is Bill’s equal and much more, which is why only one can survive, because the other can’t be trusted.
Thursday, June 03, 2004

This One Really Is For Ezra
A Brief History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Complete with weird, strangely dark fan script for a He-Man sequel series.


Orko was my favorite.
And Jaimee was She-Ra for her first Halloween. She's always been strong.

UPDATE: I have to say, that fan script is actually a pretty decent concept for a He-Man series. The premise--superhero trapped in superidentity when what we currently need is the nonsuperidentity--isn't entirely an original one, but the unique circumstances of the He-Man/Prince Adam relationship and the political situation the writer concocts for Eternia is a pretty good and pretty original twist on it.

I'd forgotten how interesting the Prince Adam/He-Man relationship is, psychologically. Arguably more than any other superhero, He-Man is a mask Prince Adam wears (sometimes unwillingly, sometimes with feelings of inadequacy or with sadness). (When he changes into He-Man, only his external form changes--Prince Adam's interior, mental state remains his own.)

The idea that after years of wearing the He-Man suit, Prince Adam wouldn't be able to take it off is just the natural, Buffyesque extension of the concept.

PS: One must note, however, that the idea for the sequel to the sequel--Battle-Cat: Quest for Truth--is awful.
Two Bad Tastes That Taste Bad Together
Just heard on the radio that Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladies are touring together. What a terrible idea. Yay Canada and all that, I guess, but why?

I've now mentioned Alanis twice more on this blog than I've said her name out loud in the last five years. I'm done now.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004

The Things You Learn Reading Jaimee's Parents' Magazines While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood
From the letters page of Discover Magazine, I find that there's a theory out there called the "ekpyrotic universe" which, to quote the letter writer:
...eliminates the need for dark matter and dark energy, makes inflation unnecessary, offers an explanation for the Big Bang, offers an answer to whether our universe is a onetime fluke or one of many, and grows directly out of a physical theory that appears to reconcile all of the currently existing competing theories of high-energy physics.
What is it? Well, it appears to explain everything this way: There's Universe A and Universe B, each moving along a x-billion-year orbit around each other. Every so often, they crash. The result is us. Read more here.

In other news, Rimbaldi Da Vinci invented plastic.

In still other news, shit takes FOREVER on dialup.
Okay, one last thing.
Casey emailed me these links about knitting. It turns out knitting is completely out of control.

Article in the Globe and Mail which describes knitting a grandfather clock
Website from the same lady that has pictures of knitted teacups, knitted armor, and a functional knitted boat called the "Lace Coracle."

Knitting blogs? Oh yes.

There's a whole world out there.
Off
Well, Jaimee and I are off to Wilmington for the weekend. We'll be back Monday. Blogging is likely to be very sparse until then. Look around the archives if you get bored. Peace.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004

How The New Yorker Accepts Its Fiction
A Mathematical Analysis. (Thanks, Sheryl!)
GNOD
Via the curiously absent Patrick Egan, we get GNOD, the Global Network of Dreams. Play around with it.

The fact that my search for Calvino turned up Kurt Vonnegut kind of creeps me out. I can't stand being part of a quantifiable demographic.

UPDATE: Vonnegut comes up under a search for Kundera too (also Borges, also Calvino). Good news for my Introduction to Narrative class: we're doing Unbearable Lightness and Slaughterhouse- Five. Bad news for the illusion of self.
Comics
Great post on MetaFilter, replicated here:

The Marvel Dictionary
Who's Who in the DC Universe
No Words Required
David Eggers Has A Novel-in-Progress at Salon
Did other people know this? I didn't. Weird.

You'll note that the Virginia Board of Tourism isn't messing with him.
Lebowskifest
Coming up.
Hitl3r's Watercolors
Extremely surreal. I knew these existed, but I'd never seen them before.

DISCLAIMER: This post does not constitute an endorsement of the tenets of National Socialism.
Syncronicity
Ezra had us do something very much like this photoshop contest at the barbeque yesteday. Except our "Draw Your Own Memorial" thing was any topic, with markers, and in thirty seconds.
Horrible
The man who wrote this moving but extremely disturbing piece about child molestation has now been charged with felony stalking. Warning: These links are not for the faint of heart.
Ulysses: The Movie
How is this even possible? Check out the trailer. Looks...weird. I would have guessed ten minutes ago that Ulysses was unadaptable. Now I think it still probably is.

Coming Bloomsday, June 16.

Glad I read it first.
Science Story of the...Morning
NASA is training robots for operation in space on air hockey tables.
Hamlet Text Adventure
"Hey Dad," I say cheerily. "What's up?"
"Hamlet," says the old man after a sigh, "you remember how I was found mysteriously dead in the orchard a couple of weeks back? Well... it's like this. Your uncle Claudius poisoned me so he could become king and marry your mother. I'd be awfully grateful if you could kill him for me."
"All right," I say, "I'll do it!"
My life suddenly seems to have purpose.
Have you all seen this before? It's the Hamlet Text Adventure. Pretty classic, pretty well-done. Complete with walkthrough!

Why, it's the second-best text adventure on the web!
Woman Performs C Section on Self
It's true.

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