Random Linkiness

The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything: An article about how there's just too damned much of everything, especially books, for any of us to keep up with. The author talks about two possible responses to this: "culling" and "surrender." I find that I am constitutionally unable to manage either and am thus rapidly driving myself crazy.

Tree Lobsters! #262 Imponderable: I've had conversations like this.

Pages, Dimensions and Weight: bragan: Courtesy of LibraryThing, it's physical stats of my home library! Apparently if you stacked all my books up, they would be higher than Big Ben. It should be noted that these stats aren't entirely accurate, as there are lots of books with no data and I haven't been particularly careful about inputting correct editions. But I think that number probably errs on the low side, if anything. And this is why I can never, ever move again.

Video Of The Day: Captain Sisko Yelling Compilation: Nobody yells like The Sisko.

Doctor Who Premiere Blasts BBC America Ratings Record: That's right, the season premiere of Doctor Who earned BBC America its highest ratings ever. USA! USA! BBC America has been promoting the heck out of the show, which highly gratifying, but I do have to wonder whether we'll see a ratings drop-off for part 2, since part 1, I must say, did not seem very new viewer-friendly to me. It was confusing enough, really, even if you already know who the characters are and are used to Moffat's timey-wimey ways. I would love to be wrong about that, though.

Proof Of Existence

My mother finally e-mailed me some new pictures of Mickey! Here he is now:



Look how big he's gotten! He went and turned into a cat! Clearly she is taking good care of him. And doesn't he look all sleepily content in his little patch of sun? Awwww.

I Used To Be So Much Better At Night Shifts.

You know, just once this week, I'd like to be able to get more than five or six hours of sleep. Just once.

Shockingly Sad Doctor Who News

Here I was, all excited by the prospect of new Doctor Who this weekend, only to have that emotion derailed by some extremely sad news: Elisabeth Sladen has died. No more Sarah Jane.

She always seemed like a lovely person, and I was so very much enjoying seeing her playing the action hero on the generally excellent Sarah Jane Adventures. How many older women do you get to see doing something like that? And how many people can do it that well? I'm deeply sad to lose that, and even sadder, of course, at the reason.

And I know it's been almost forty-nine years and on those kinds of timescales it's utterly inevitable, but DW people can stop dying now. Just for a little while. Please?

But At Least It's A Dessicatingly Dry Heat!

Not even the end of April, and already it's getting uncomfortably hot. It's 82 degrees in my living room right now. At 9 PM. With the windows open and the fan on.

New Mexico. Bah.

I'll Take "Things You Don't Want To Walk Into Your Kitchen And See" For $1000, Please, Alex.

Holy crap, a cat just threw up on top of my stove.

It's Random Linky Time!

Astronomer: What's the REAL chance an asteroid will wipe out life on Earth?: Astronomer Phil Plait gives you the scientific scoop on the odds of global asteroid armageddon.

And as a companion piece to that: Death from the Skies, in which Plait and singer George Hrab tell us about various astronomical things that might kill us. (Plait wrote a book on the subject a while back. It was pretty good.)

Mirror: I don't know about you, but I found this eerily accurate.

Ian Anderson + Cady Coleman flute duet in space: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and astronaut Cady Coleman perform an Earth-to-orbit rock flute duet. Which is awesome on all kinds of levels.

Personal account of tsunami and aftermath in Japan: An American's account of surviving the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Fascinating and very much worth reading, if only as a look at the ways people can pull together in a crisis.

Currently, It's April! How Did That Happen?

Current clothes: Blue-and-white t-shirt in, I don't know, some kind of vaguely tie-dye-ish pattern. Tan jeans. White socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: Not too bad. As of tonight, I'm off day shifts again for a while, so that's nice.

Current music: Not much of anything lately, to be honest. Random shuffle stuff that I don't remember.

Current annoyance: Allergy season. The fact that I've gained enough weight back that even my fat jeans are starting to feel snug. My neighbors' garbage-strewn lawn. (And I don't mean junk. I mean, literally, garbage. It's disgusting.) Various foods not entirely agreeing with me. Living in a country with a Congress that can't or won't accomplish anything except making sure they get themselves paid. Windy weather. Shift work. I could go on.

Current thing: I'm not sure I have a current thing. Possibly I have a bunch of little things.

Current desktop picture: Still the same stars and nebula as last month.

Current book: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre.

Current song in head: Brain Radio has been very suggestible lately. Right this minute, it seems to be playing "Dog Years" by Rush. I think something reminded me of something that reminded me of one of the lyrics.

Current DVD in player: Nothing at the moment, but most recently watched was disc 2 of season 1 of Merlin. Which is total brain candy, but it's pleasant, digestible brain candy. Even if I normally dislike the tendency to teenage-ify everything.

Current refreshment: Mint tea. Mmm.

Current worry: Not worried about too much in my own life for once, but I do know people who are going through some tough times, so I guess I'll worry for them instead.

Current thought: My mind just went completely and utterly blank.

Well, They Are Calling It "Most Peculiar" On The Paperwork.

Oh, hey, so this is what we're observing tonight. Very, very cool!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Dear self,

You know that when you try to take a nap, you almost always just end up feeling groggier than you started. Give it up!

Love & caffeinated beverages,
Me

Why, Yes, Most Of Them Are Photos Of Cats.

Apparently Blogger has introduced several new ways to view their blogs, most of which are both ugly and difficult to make sense of and leave me scratching my head wondering why you'd ever want that. But this one, which lets you just look at all the images posted to a blog, is kind of neat.

More Adventures In Time And Space

Another Doctor Who trailer, this time from BBC America:

"

I hope this time when we see the Doctor visit the American West, it's better than "The Gunfighters."