Cheerful Kiss-Off Songs

The AV Club offers a list of 28 gleeful breakup songs, a category that includes some great tunes. The comments contain some good additional suggestions, and they still missed one of my all-time favorites, “Bye, Bye” by the Subdudes (if that link won’t play, you can get a cell-phone camera live version on YouTube— skip… Continue reading Cheerful Kiss-Off Songs

Hugo Awards 2010

The 2010 Hugo Award Winners were announced on Sunday night. Of course, this being a science fiction award, it’s only appropriate that they be announced from THE FUTURE, so the results were available early this morning, US time. It turns out that I voted for 1.5 of the fiction award winners: China Mieville’s The City… Continue reading Hugo Awards 2010

What to Tell Your Dog About Einstein

“Hey, dude, whatcha doin’?” “Signing these contracts. I’m not sure why they need four copies, but they do.” “Contracts for what?” “The new book. Remmeber, the one we’ve been talking about these last few weeks? Sequel-of-sorts to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog? About relativity?” “Oh, yeah, that’s right! We’re doing another book! Where… Continue reading What to Tell Your Dog About Einstein

Ode to a Rubber Dinosaur

Rubber dino, you’re the one, You make bathtime lots of fun Rubber dino, I’m awfully fond of you Doo-doo doo-de-doo Rubber dino, fearsome roar, Good thing you’re a herbivore Rubber dino, I’m awfully fond of you doo-doo doo-de-doo Every day when I, get undressed next to the sink, I find a Little fella who’s, cute… Continue reading Ode to a Rubber Dinosaur

Pop Culture Poll: Wedding Music

Prompted by an off-line conversation, a question about the magnum opus of Jim Steinman and Marvin Lee Aday: Playing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” at a wedding reception is:online surveys I’m sure you can come up with lots of songs that would be even less appropriate. Feel free to leave them in the comments.

Bad Universe, No Biscuit

Sunday was a really long day around Chateau Steelypips, and I couldn’t see staying awake to watch the premiere of Phil Plait’s Bad Universe on the Discovery Channel, so I’m way late in writing about it. I DVRed it, though, and watched it last night. The theme of the premiere/ pilot was killer rocks from… Continue reading Bad Universe, No Biscuit

Short Story Club: “The Things” by Peter Watts

Over at Torque Control, Niall Harrison is doing a Short Story Club, hosting discussions of SF short fiction. As I always vaguely regret not reading enough short fiction to make sensible nominations for the Hugos, this seemed like a good opportunity to read a selection of stories that a smart person with pretty good taste… Continue reading Short Story Club: “The Things” by Peter Watts

Guess-the-Lyrics: Unusual Rhymes II

Same deal as the last game: Each of the following pairs of words is taken from a pop song, where they are set up to rhyme (many of the phrases don’t really rhyme, but they’re treated as if they do). Your job is to guess the song based on the rhyming pair.