Month: November 2006

  • Blogging Pathologies

    Check out this link for a list of blogging pathologies, as supplied by Velcro City Tourist Board.

    I do not fully exhibit most of these, but a few ring uncomfortably close. Notably the reading aspects, not the writing ones.

  • Peter Jackson = LotR? Maybe…

    Three times in 12 hours, I’ve been spammed by a Save The Lord of the Rings post relating that only Peter Jackson could possibly do a movie based on The Hobbit.

    Obviously this took a bit of time to ramp up, because, as you can see from this website it’s been a week since The Announcement Of Impending Doom, that Peter Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit, according to New Line Cinema.

    Now, frankly, I don’t care about the spat between Jackson and New Line. They’ll figure it out, I’m sure. What I’m more concerned with is the assumption that only Peter Jackson has the vision, skill, knowledge, chutzpah, to do another Tolkien-based film. The underlying base to that assumption is that Jackson had the vision, skill, knowledge, chutzpah to do the first set of films. I personally don’t think he did that great a job holding to the vision of Tolkien.

    Oh, I’ll be one of the first to stand up and say that he produced three epic awe-inspiring, legend-setting, fan-base-swooning movies. They were cinematographic triumphs! As long as you don’t care about the various travesties he rendered unto J. R. R. Tolkien and his masterwork.

    As an avowed Tolkien afficionado, I liked The Fellowship of the Ring; I disliked The Two Towers; I despised The Return of the King. I acknowledge that there are corners that must be cut to turn LotR into a movie that is watchable in less than 15 parts, but some of the libertys taken were over the top. Peter Jackson entirely slew the character of Faramir, a crime that is unforgivable. The intransigence of Elrond was all wrong and the appearance of the elves at Helm’s Deep nearly killed me. Then of course, there was the entire Return of the King which had so little resemblance to the actual story, it doesn’t even bear mentioning.

    [sigh] Deep breaths…

    Back to the Question that everyone seems to be assuming the answer to: Is Peter Jackson the only person who could direct The Hobbit? I don’t think so. He did a ground-breaking series of movies, but The Hobbit won’t be the same, and studios won’t need to be shown that it will make money. So, if it doesn’t work out between New Line and Peter Jackson, I’m not going to wail. I’m going to expect them to go out and find someone who loves the books as much as Peter Jackson does, with their own vision, and make a great movie.

  • Seen on an Atlanta Highway

    Recently I was doing fieldwork and I snapped this picture.

    The image on the back fo a truck.  very weird

    Would you trust this clown with your child? I wouldn’t.

  • On Tangents and Other Necessary Brain Cleansers

    Frequent readers will realize that not much has occurred on this blog for the past month or so. There’s been some spats, but not vast torrents like today.

    The deluge has a simple explanation: it’s writer’s block.

    Seriously. I’m sitting at my work computer trying to write a report that defends the indefensible in a clear, succint, yet horribly detailed manner. So far, I’m having a bit of a “write-write-write-DELETE” sort of time. I’ll poke away at it, write a bit, then realize that I totally missed the target and go look for some inspiration.

    So congratulations! Today, my inspiration is to write things I can publish right now.

  • Excellent Website

    Cleaning out the “to be posted” file…

    I’ve spent the past week or so perusing the pages on this website. Most are strangely amusing. My favorite quote, found on the page of Astronomically Unlikely is:

    …if all-natural organic free-range babies are the perfect ingredient for tentacle lotion…

    Originally, I was punted over by way of SFSignal and I ended up on the SF Chronophysics page which details exhaustively the types of time travel you run into whilst reading Science Fiction and watching Star Trek (Bleha! on Star Trek’s time travel!).

    A good time sink. I approve.

  • Lost? How Lost are you?

    I suspect that the number of comments I received on this post about Lost was due to the juxtaposition of “Lost” and “Shit” in the same googleable sentence. Somebody even popped up just last week to drop a comment. I’m quite proud of my most popular post. [sniff]

    But, I digress. If anyone pops over to this post who still watches Lost, I’m curious what you think about the show now that it is in the third season. Some people I work with swear that it jumped the shark last season and that it’s not worth the air to blow it out the lock. Rumor has it that there’s a second island now, and that frightens me.

    So, what do you think? Does it suck? Does it rock? Does it sock?

    I’m now under the strange compulsion to watch Bones and Heroes, and I do not miss an episode of Battlestar Galactica, practically the only good show on the SciFi channel. Rumor has it that the new SciFi show based on the Dresden Files will be good, so I’m looking forward to that.

    Update: 28 Nov 2006
    I should have waited to post this. Then I could comment about the Lost action figures!

  • Do Not Click on this Link…

    …if you are my nephews or niece. Or anyone else who is traumatized (or might have a parent who would call to traumatize ME!) by blue language.

    Otherwise, I insist that you learn about the newest academic theory.

    Enjoy.

  • Blog Whoring

    I dutifully link to Acephalous in his attempt to track a rampaging Meme across the interblogoweb. Interestingly enough, this is for purely academic purposes, not for blatant blog whoring. He plans to present at MLA concerning this experiement.

    Having been to MLA as the husband of a participant, I fully endorse supporting this project and emphasize that you should too!

    So whore your own blog to this project and see where it takes you.

  • Finally, A freaky-weird scheme I can get behind

    http://www.globalorgasm.org/

    I even have a half-day off that friday!

    The Science

    The Global Consciousness Project (http://noosphere.princeton.edu), Princeton University, runs a network of Random Event Generators (REGs) around the world, which record changes in randomness during global events.

    I need to set up some “random event generators” in my own house. Oh wait! I already have one; it’s called my cat.

  • Forsooth! It is Book!

    As only a ten-question quiz can do, it has summarized my life down to the last string of vestigal DNA. I feel complete and without any more purpose.

    What Kind of Reader Are You?

    Your Result: Dedicated Reader

    You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.

    Literate Good Citizen
    Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
    Book Snob
    Fad Reader
    Non-Reader
    What Kind of Reader Are You?
    Create Your Own Quiz