As Kate and I will be attending the Worldcon in Japan, we’re eligible to vote for the Hugos this year. In an effort to be responsible voters we downloaded the electronic version of the short fiction nominees that are available from the official nominations site, and I’ve been working my way through them. To this… Continue reading Hugo Nominees: Best Short Story
Category: Pop Culture
Two Versions of “Oh. My. God.”
Every now and then, you run across things on the Internet that make you say “Wow, this is really cool!” For example, the fake trailer for Greg Bear’s Eon (via Tobias Buckell). I haven’t read the book in years, but that trailer looks amazing. And, of course, every now and then, you encounter something that… Continue reading Two Versions of “Oh. My. God.”
RIP Johnny Hart
The Comics Curmudgeon and others note the death of Johnny Hart, arguably the best known religious wing nut from Broome County, New York, where I grew up. (Sadly, this is not a set of one, as the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue also traces its origins to the Binghamton area.) Hart was the creator of the… Continue reading RIP Johnny Hart
Hugo and Nebula Thoughts
There’s been a fair bit of discussion of this year’s Hugo nominees around the Internets, most of it centering around the gender of the nominees (that link goes to a fairly civilized discussion, which includes links to a rather more heated argument). For those who haven’t been following the controversy, only one of the twenty… Continue reading Hugo and Nebula Thoughts
Jackie Robinson: Most Important American?
Yesterday, on my way in to work, I was listening to ESPN radio and Mike Greenberg made a bold assertion (paraphrased slightly): Jackie Robinson is one of the ten most important Americans of the twentieth century. Not just sports figures, Americans. Contrary sort that I am, my first thought was “I don’t think I believe… Continue reading Jackie Robinson: Most Important American?
‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Otaku
Via Rachel Manija Brown, a Wikipedia page on misheard lyrics in Japan: From Sean Paul’s “Fire Links Intro”: Mayday! […] Sean Paul! This one is hot! ç®çã! […] ã·ã£ã³ãã¼! ãªã³ã¹ã¯ç¡ãã! Me itai! […] ShanpÅ«! Rinsu wa nai sa! My eyes hurt! […] Shampoo! There is no hair conditioner! Global pop culture is Difficult. Still, this… Continue reading ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Otaku
A Bracket for Everything, and Everything In Its Bracket
Posting has been basketball-heavy of late because, well, there isn’t much else going on that I find all that interesting at the moment. More importantly, though, it’s the Season of the Bracket… I’m not the only one affected, of course, though many people who don’t care about hoops have to find other outlets for the… Continue reading A Bracket for Everything, and Everything In Its Bracket
Ficlets
John Scalzi is announcing the launch of a new “collaborative short fiction” site, Ficlets: What does “collaborative short fiction” mean in this case? Simple: You, as a writer, post a very short (not more than 1,024 characters) piece of fiction or a fiction fragment on the Ficlets site. People come to Ficlets to read what… Continue reading Ficlets
The Planets
James Nicoll is soliciting recommendations for a series of novels about the planets of the Solar System. His first pass: Mercury: Venus: Earth: Imperial Earth, Arthur C. Clarke Mars: Jupiter: Jupiter Fred and Carol Pohl (ed) Saturn: Uranus: Neptune: Triton, Samuel R. Delany As you can see, there are some gaps…
Scorsese Is Doomed
A few days ago, Inside Higher Ed did an Oscar preview, and asked five academics who study film to predict the Best Picture winner. Three of the five picked The Departed to win, and one of the other two preferred it to his predicted winner (Babel). Clearly, Scorsese is doomed to lose yet again. Scalzi’s… Continue reading Scorsese Is Doomed