Random Link Dump

I've been accumulating these for a while.

LOST spoof - Ben and Jack Have a Conversation: This goofy little Lost spoof made me laugh a lot. Warning: features spoilers for the episode before last. Probably will do nothing for you if you don't know the show. May annoy you if you're a Jack fan. (Assuming Jack has fans.)

Inside the Inboxes of 15 Fictional Villains: Ever wished you could spy on a bad guy's e-mail? Now you can! Some of these are funnier than others, some of them went right past me because I'm clearly not familiar with the source material, and at least one invites debate over the definition of the word "villain." But some of them are very funny indeed.

Barack Obama is tired of your motherfucking shit: Clips from Obama's audiobook reading of Dreams from My Father, in which he quotes a foul-mouthed friend. Because there's something surreally amusing about getting to hear your president say "motherfucker!", however unfairly out of context it is.

And the Circle is Complete: Covers of Star Trek novels, entertainingly retitled. It's kind of disturbing how many of these I recognize.

Back to the Future Alternate Ending: Short video offering a slightly different ending to the movie. It's all the more amusing thanks to a certain coincidence of casting.

Fishmen: H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" presented in under two minutes. As a musical.

What Does a Lunar Eclipse Look Like from the Moon?: A picture taken by the Japanese lunar probe Kaguya answers this question beautifully.

Progress on NASA's Constellation: Pictures of the space shuttle's future replacement as it begins to take shape.

Making a proper Doctor Who anime: Unfinished scenes from an anime version of Doctor Who (Third Doctor era), featuring original animation and audio clips taken from the show. Pretty darned impressive.

This Post Brought To You By Too Little Sleep And Too Many Kleenex

Ah, allergy season. Back again so soon.

Sigh. There are times when I really kind of wish I lived somewhere that got more than about twelve weeks of winter.

This Is Entirely Possible.

How will I die? Your Result: You will die of boredom.   Try not to take so many quizzes. And while this answer may seem like a joke, it most certainly is not. Boredom is one of the most frequent causes of death. The body will simply stop functioning. Try not to become an excercise junkie. One cannot escape destiny...
You will die in your sleep.
You will die from a terminal illness.
You will die while having sex.
You will die while saving someone's life.
You will die in a nuclear holocaust.
You will be murdered.
You will die in a car accident.
How will I die? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

But, really, I hardly ever do these stupid quizzes any more.

Confuse-A-Cat

I had the cats into the vet for their regular annual checkup last week, and it appears that Lard-Ass Kitty has lost no weight since I put him on the diet. None. Sigh.

So, in an attempt to supply him with some kind of exercise regimen, I went out and bought a little laser pointer so he could have a nice dot of light to chase around while I sit comfortably in my chair and move nothing but my arm.

It does seem to work reasonably well. He won't always jump up and chase after the thing, although he does always look keenly interested, but when he does, he moves with an insane energy you'd never expect in an animal that obese.

But I dunno. I actually feel weirdly guilty playing this game. Because it's a terrible tease, isn't it? The very laws of physics dictate that no matter how diligently the cats chase down the little light spot, they are never, ever going to have anything to show for it. It's like some kind of cruel kitty mind-fuck, really.

But, man, it is entertaining to aim the light right between their paws and then suddenly turn it off and watch their little "WTF? Where'd it go?!" faces.

Show Me The Money! Or, Y'know, Not.

So, I just did my federal taxes. Apparently I'm entitled to a forty-seven cent refund. I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

Hip, Hip, Hooray!

I'm feeling much better today, I think. The sore throat seems to have disappeared entirely.

Three cheers for the healing powers of sloth!

Ooky, But Undefeated

Since last night, I've had a bit of a sore throat, and a tiny bit of a headache. Bah! Well, actually, it's not too bad, but I'm definitely fighting something off. So, since amazingly enough I don't have to be in to work today, I hereby declare that my plan for the day will consist of lying on the sofa accompanied by my laptop, that copy of Great Expectations I've finally gotten around to reading, a stack of Stargate DVDs, throat lozenges of various kinds and flavors, and large quantities of mint tea.

Fear me, germs! I shall defeat you with my amazing powers of idleness!

Further Proof That TV Executives Hate Me Personally

Oh, god damn it. I meant to record the premiere episode of Dollhouse tonight and completely forgot to set it up. And my TiVo is already recording both Battlestar Galactica and Psych.

Geez. There are all of six TV shows I'm interested in following at the moment, and half of them are on in the same time slot?!

Well, maybe I'll be able to watch it online somewhere.

Happy Scaper

I got my copy of the second Farscape comic in the mail today, and I've just finished reading it. If anything, I think I enjoyed it even more than the first one, though it seemed to be over even more quickly.

These characters? Are insane. I love them to bits.

Random Link Time!

Previously on Lost: Mildly entertaining video about a guy who decides to watch all of Lost in one marathon sitting. It's his facial expressions and incoherent outbursts that really amuse me; I think it's possible to tell from them exactly which episodes he's watching. I believe I made some of those same noises, just not quite as close together. Warning: said outbursts contain spoilers through the end of season 4.

The Planetary Society's Year in Pictures: 2008: A nice overview of what's been going on in the solar system in the last year, with pretty pictures.

Space Station in the Moon: Speaking of pretty pictures, this image of the International Space Station flying in front of the moon is freaking amazing.

Pic Shows Man Robbing Stores With Klingon Sword: News article about a robber with a bat'leth. Except it really looks like a tiny, cheap knock-off. This man has no honor! What really amuses me, though, is that apparently both the clerks he held up were able to identify the weapon. Nerds are everywhere, man! We live on both sides of the law!

Star Trek: Trailer: The version of the Star Trek movie trailer that aired during the Super Bowl. I'm still not feeling good about it, even if the guy playing McCoy does seem to be doing his damndest to imitate DeForest Kelley's voice. (Note: video is only accessible to folks in the United States.)

More On The Inconvenient Nature Of Cats

When you want to sleep, they want you to get up. When you want to get up, they lie on top of you so you can't. They're like perverseness covered in fur.

February Currently

Current clothes: Dark gray sweatpants. Light brown shirt with a drawing of some books on a shelf and the words "Life is short. Read fast," which is very much my personal philosophy. White socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: Meh. Okay, I guess.

Current music: More random-shuffle stuff on the iPod. I don't quite remember what the last thing it served up was. I think maybe some Bowie.

Current annoyance: Various minor physical complaints, including the fact that I woke up with a tiny bit of a headache this morning, although I think that's fading now.

Current thing: It seems like I have been doing pretty much nothing with my life lately, except perhaps for indulging in random bouts of vague existential angst about how I'm not doing anything with my life. I think I need a vacation.

Current desktop picture: Still Sarah Jane Smith and friends.

Current book: A Trio for Lute by R.A. MacAvoy, which is actually a trilogy in one volume, consisting of Damiano, Damiano's Lute, and Raphael, about a young musician/wizard in 14th century Italy. I'm about halfway through the second book now. The plot is kind of slight -- at least so far -- and while the main character is pretty three-dimensional, I'm not finding him quite as engaging or sympathetic as the author was probably hoping for. But it's very smoothly written and pleasantly character-based, and free of the usual cliched fantasy tropes, so I'm definitely finding it worthwhile.

Current song in head: Doesn't seem to be one at the moment. Maybe the headache chased 'em all out.

Current DVD in player: Disc 3 of season three of The Pretender, which I am watching pretty slowly. I'm still enjoying it, but it's not eating my brain nearly as much as the previous two seasons. Which is probably a good thing. Also disc one of season 8 of South Park, which is my current "watching while I'm on the treadmill" show.

Current refreshment: Water. I also woke up feeling a little dehydrated, which may help explain the headache.

Current worry: I'm worried about my house cracking in half and falling down again. I really need to get the cracks in my concrete repaired, and maybe even have the foundation shored up, if it turns out to be necessary. I keep putting it off, though. I don't actually think I'll have too much trouble paying for it, I just don't want to deal with the hassle. Sigh.

Current thought: While I was writing this, Happiness the cat, who was sitting on the windowsill next to me, started making barfing noises. Not wanting her to throw up on the window, or anything underneath the window, I grabbed her and shoved her into the tiled utility room. She then proceeded to walk all the way through that room, and the one next to it, and the dining room, and on into the kitchen, vomiting a little all along the way. To make this even more entertaining, I was in the process of cleaning my glasses when she started this and threw them down somewhere when I went to grab her. And then, of course, I couldn't find them, because I couldn't see. Somebody remind me again why the heck I have cats? (Oh, wait. While I was proofreading this, Nova came up and climbed into my lap and started purring. Yeah, OK, I guess that's the reason.)

Today's List Of Annoyances

DVD-related things that annoy me:

• Double-sided DVDs. Dude, I like to be able to tell at a glance what the disc actually is, not to mention which direction I ought to put it into the machine. (Level of annoyance: low, if it means the DVDs are cheaper than they would be otherwise.)
  
  
• Title menus that force you to sit through some flashy FX or a video clip before you can access the damned menu. South Park, I'm lookin' at you! (Level of annoyance: moderate, particularly for discs with multiple TV show episodes that I'm not gonna watch all at once.)
  
  
• Spoilery images on episode menus. Um, guys? If the fact that the hero's girlfriend turns out to be a glowy-eyed alien is the big surprise plot twist, maybe it's a good idea not to show her being a glowy-eyed alien on the menu screen. And, why, yes, that is a real-world example. (Level of annoyance: high, although often it just ends up spoiling me for stuff I was pretty much expecting to happen, anyway.)

Welcome To The Future. Have A Pizza.

Ever since I hooked it up to the broadband, my TiVo keeps asking me whether I want it to order a pizza for me while I'm watching. I honestly can't decide whether this is an appalling example of the way in which modern society is trying to turn us all into complete lard-ass couch potatoes -- I mean, heaven forbid we should have to put down the remote control long enough to dial a phone for our food! -- or whether it's a really cool example of clever 21st century technology.

Of course, what it really is, no doubt, is a marketing stunt on the part of Domino's. But that goes right along with both couch potato-ism and 21st century technology, I guess.

Oh, Yeah, I Do Have Random Links To Post.

In the absence of anything remotely interesting from yours truly, have some links:

Dave Barry Year in Review: Bailing out of 2008: Not exactly timely now, 28 days into the new year, but still amusing.

Jennifer 8. Lee: Who was General Tso?: Amusing and oddly fascinating lecture on Chinese food in America. I must admit, I always did kind of wonder who the heck General Tso was and why he had a chicken dish named after him. And, damn it, now I'm hungry...

The Best Cat Video You'll Ever See: After this, and you'll never have to watch another humorous cat video on YouTube ever again.

The 9 Reasons Doctor Who Is a Terrible Time Lord: Funny, affectionate snark from someone who clearly knows his Who (no matter how many humor-challenged commenters seem to think otherwise)

BOOM! Studios’ Chip Mosher on Hexed, Farscape and more: An interview with BOOM!'s sales and marketing guy about various comics, including Farscape.

Still Not Dead

I'm still not dead. Really. My sleeping patterns are still kind of fubared, however (although they are improving a bit), which means that I seem to spend most of my free time lately either sleeping (at strange hours) or trying not to fall asleep (and frequently failing). Which means that I have done very little worth speaking about in the last week.

Well, at least we have new TV... My reaction to Battlestar Galactica, oddly, is still to be perfectly interested in it while I'm actually watching it, and to immediately stop caring about its existence as soon as I turn off the TV. But I'm very much enjoying Lost, and the most recent episodes, pleasingly, give me what feels like the beginning of the glimmer of an inkling of the sense that things are developing in such a way that it will all make some vague kind of sense in the end.

I Aten't Dead. Also, Stuff.

Um, apparently it's been long enough since I actually posted anything here that people have started e-mailing me to make sure I'm not dead in a ditch or something. Well, no, I'm fine, just apparently deep in winter hibernation mode, in which my body moves slowly, my brain partly shuts down, and my blog goes sadly neglected.

But let's see what miscellaneous stuff has been happening in the last week that I can talk about...

1. We lost Ricardo Montalban, Patrick McGoohan, and now Bob May, the guy who played the robot on Lost in Space. It's been a bad week to be someone who's appeared in a genre TV show. I was the most bummed to hear about Montalban. I've watched The Wrath of Khan a truly disturbing number of times, and I never, ever, ever get tired of seeing Montalban doing his villainous thing.

2. Thanks to a $25 software upgrade, I can now send videos from my PC to my TiVo and watch 'em on my TV instantly. This came in really handy when the TiVo missed Sunday's episode of The Mentalist thanks to a stupid football game running long. I love the internet, and I love finally being all WiFi'd!

3. I watched Wall-E on DVD yesterday. It's cute, beautifully animated, and features a nice environmental message, so I definitely enjoyed it. But, y'know, while I like Pixar's stuff a lot, and while it's fascinating to watch their animation improve over time, I still don't think they've ever surpassed Toy Story for quality.

4. I'm basically keeping 26-hour days right now, in an attempt to switch over from last week's night shifts to this weekend's day shifts. Today I went to bed about 1:30 PM and woke up a little after 9:00 PM. Sometimes, this works incredibly well, and I feel great, if a little out of sync with the world, and never suffer from a lack of sleep. Other times... Well, let's just say it doesn't combine all that effectively with aforementioned winter hibernation mode. I'm feeling really drag-ass this week. Also, I've gotten to the point where I'm suffering a noticeable sunlight deficit, which, considering what a night person I am, takes some doing.

5. It's Martin Luther King Day. I feel as if I ought to say something meaningful about that, but all I can think is, man, it's Martin Luther King Day, and tomorrow we are inaugurating a black man as president of the United States. King was a dreamer and an optimist, but I'm not sure even he would have believed it. It's a very warming thought.

And, uh, I think that's about all I have to say at this point. Here's hoping it's enough to tide you over if I randomly disappear for another week.

Look, Now I'm A Comic Book Reviewer!

A buddy of mine who posts over at Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog asked me if I'd write up a short review of the Farscape #1 comic for them. Why people think of me for things like that I'm sure I don't know. Heh.

Anyway, I did so, and if you're curious, it can be found here. It's really just some vague comments on how Farscape-y it is -- answer: very! -- and contains no spoilers or anything.

I Still May Not Have HD, But I'm Pushing My TV-Watching Forward Into The 21st Century In My Own Way.

I just tested it, and, thanks to my new state of wiredness, I can, indeed, talk to my TiVo over the internet and tell it to record stuff. If, say, I'm at work and somebody mentions that there's a really cool show on tonight while I'm stuck at the ol' data mines, never fear! Thanks to the power of the internet, that piece of televisual entertainment will be mine!

Of course, now that this is the case, that particular situation will probably never come up again.

First "Currently" Meme Of The New Year! How Exciting!

Current clothes: Blue jeans. My "Irreversibly Contaminated" t-shirt from watchfarscape.com. Blue Blogger hoodie over that. White socks. (And, hey, speaking of Farscape... I got an e-mail a couple of days ago saying the store was at last getting ready to send me the Farscape comic I pre-ordered, but I still haven't seen one letting me know they've actually mailed it. Why, oh why, must they tease me so?!)

Current mood: Pretty good. It took four hours and half a pot of coffee, but I did finally manage to clear out the mental cobwebs left over from my strange awakening this morning.

Current music: You know, I haven't been listening to much music lately. I think the last thing was the soundtrack to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Current annoyance: There's a cat crawling around on my lap/desk/keyboard and making it difficult to type.

Current thing: Um, obsessing over TV shows, still, I guess. But I'm also blogging more! Look!

Current desktop picture: This picture of Sarah Jane Smith and her kick-ass kids.

Current book: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo, creator of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Not exactly a fun book, but a fascinating and rather enlightening one.

Current song in head: It's "Christmas at Ground Zero" by Weird Al Yankovic, for some reason. Which is better than most of the stuff that's been looping around in my skull for the last couple of weeks, so I'll take it.

Current DVD in player: Disc one of season three of The Pretender. I'm trying to stretch this season out a bit by interspersing it with some South Park, but I find myself starting to use it as an artificial mood-elevator. "Bah, I'm feeling cranky! I know! I'll watch a Pretender episode!" It works quite well, too, I think in large part because observing fictional characters' larger-than-life pain helps make my own trivial issues seem quite cheerfully bearable.

Current refreshment: Mint-flavored tea.

Current worry: Eh, there are plenty of things I could worry about, but why bother?

Current thought: My feet are cold.