11:23 PM (0 comments)
Courtesy of one of the Laziest Men on Mars, the automatic E/N page.

8:28 PM (0 comments)
A behind-the-scenes look at an episode of Trading Spaces.

7:21 PM (0 comments)
Via Bruce Sterling, War of the Worlds through the years. Based simply on these illustrations, I may have to pick up a copy of the recent Tom Kidd-illustrated version (out of stock? What the?)

1:55 PM (0 comments)
P()rn + ph()t()sh()p=high art, apparently. (via boingboing)

9:27 PM (0 comments)
Best. Programming language. Ever. Ook! Ook.

7:56 PM (0 comments)
Watching the NASA Channel at my folks' place with a Net connection and time to spare led me to this: ever wonder who all those people in Mission Control might be?

Back to Madison tomorrow.

Just a link for me to bookmark when I get home. Nothing to see here.

10:01 PM (0 comments)
I'd like to put forth a theory: if this is still on the web, it's probably not real. Anyone want to play devil's advocate?

4:07 PM (0 comments)
Well, apparently the rule now is that it isn't a trip to the Twin Cities unless I see an IMAX movie with one of the Schomburg clan. Actually, this time it was most of the Schomburg clan; my parents and I went down to the Science Museum of Minnesota and ended up running into a near-full set of two generations of Schomburgs and a member of a third, so I ended up sitting next to Scott as we went in to see forty-foot monkeys capering around for an hour.

While waiting for the movie to start, they advertised the coming Omnifest--six IMAX movies in one day, including a couple classics (I really wish they were showing Genesis; it was one of the first Omnimovies, and SMM was one of the producing museums...). I'm planning a special trip to the Cities for a day of giant movies. Anybody else want in?

8:59 PM (0 comments)
By the way, I had forgotten, until I was watching it again just now on the SciFi Channel (or, as they like to call it these days, Scifi!), but Gremlins is a Christmas movie (and one with a scene featuring Robby the Robot talking on a payphone while wearing a cowboy hat, at that!) I sense a new holiday tradition...

8:39 PM (0 comments)
For crying out loud, don't miss the comments thread in Teresa's post linking to the Tolkien pastiches, where some have began to produce their own fabulous tributes. Although I don't claim "fabulous" status, I did produce mine own:

Mr. Frodo Baggins lived, in late 3017, at Bag End, West Farthing, the house from which its famous owner had departed some sixteen years previous. He was one of the most noticeable visitors to the Ivy Bush, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished hobbit of the Shire. People said that he resembled Balbo--at least that his head was Balbonic; but he was a happy, tranquil Balbo, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.

Hopefully the web research I did to fill in a few details is sound...

UPDATE: And Teresa nails the source within nine hours. I suppose I could have gone with something horrendously obscure, like some of the others, but instead I went with one of my favorites (of course, among Teresa's readership, "horrendously obscure" and "favorites" are not mutually exclusive categories.)

7:28 PM (0 comments)
I don't know if this is where you heard about it, Glenn, but here's dvdfile's story on the screwup of the Back to the Future DVD set.

8:53 AM (0 comments)
It's heartening to see that the web hasn't ground to a halt for the holiday. Links from me later--I just heard my sister come in upstairs, and it's time to go pick on her for a few minutes.

8:48 PM (0 comments)
Here's exactly how I feel about Nigella. Might I reccommend the book I found much more useful to my cullinary education this year?

8:34 PM (0 comments)
An interesting alternative take on The Two Towers. And speaking of Tolkien, you could go to the Straight Dope message boards, or you just read Teresa's terrific summary.

8:32 PM (0 comments)
Champs and SAS fans should be sure to vote now--it's the Superhero Showdown!

4:03 PM (0 comments)
From a Newsweek story on the Matrix sequels coming next summer:

"On a basic level, though, “The Matrix” was simply good storytelling. “I’ve heard the ‘Star Wars’ people boast about shooting frames that are 97 percent digital, and lo and behold, the movies are soulless,” says John Gaeta, visual-effects supervisor for all three “Matrix” movies. “They traded the whole idea of depth in filmmaking for this supertechnological hype. It helped us focus our own philosophy: the story drives everything.” "

Amen.

2:34 PM (0 comments)
An interesting story on the Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown, Iowa (via MeFi).

9:34 AM (0 comments)
Not much time--last minute preparations underway before I hit the road for the hollidays. But before I go, some excellent links via Gawker: "Chess Rivalry Becomes Blood Sport", the story of dueling chess stores in Manhattan; Weapon Specialists, weapon rental house extraordinaire; and a followup story on the High Line--it looks as though it may be saved after all.

Thanks to my dad's Net connection, posting should continue apace (well, okay, maybe not apace apace) through the holiday. Have a good one.

10:52 PM (0 comments)
I completely forgot to tell you--when I went to catch a noon matinee of LOTR last Wednesday, the kid sitting next to us was playing a GBA while waiting for the movie to start. And on his GBA: a Penny Arcade GBA mod skin.

9:36 PM (0 comments)
Legonomics: brilliant.

12:48 AM (0 comments)
Well, I ended up winning an Xbox at the company Christmas party, and happily it came packaged with Jet Set Radio Future. There went the night. Taking a break from playing I tracked down an interview with the composer of the game's excellent music, Hideki Naganuma. From there, I jumped to the site for Sega's music division, Wave Master. Glenn will have to tell us if there's anything neat hidden in the corners of that site (although it doesn't look like Naganuma is on the staff page; maybe he moved on to other things?)