Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits – Nice. Bottom line: “We made a bunch of money, including for our millionaire executives, but not as much money as we wanted. So this year we’re going to increase rates, even if that means that 600,000 people won’t be able to afford our insurance any more.” And people keep thinking that for-profit insurance is the “best system in the world.”
- 668-5: Questions and Answers: Amn’t – Amn’t, ain’t, and aren’t I — some cool English history here.
- The Canadian Press: N.S. man angry hospital wouldn’t help father having heart attack in parking lot – Wow. This sounds more like an American story …
- Bambi: admin
- SFX: 13 Episodes For Torchwood Series Four, Confirms Barrowman – Yay!
- The Hollywood Reporter | Heat Vision: ‘Tron: Legacy’ team mount a ‘Black Hole’ remake – With the notable exception of Teh Cute Robotz, and a rather odd ending, this was actually a very cool movie at the time. With a John Barry score. And godawful science, but that wasn’t the point; it was, ultimately, a horror film, and a nicely done one at that.
- John Scalzi – The Ten Worst SciFi Blockbusters of the ’00s – I have seen an appalling number of these.
- ATTN – I cannot support or encourage graffiti or defacing signs. But since someone already did it … this is funny.
- Disney’s “Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” is one special holiday special – Immediately got this set up on DVR when Margie mentioned it. P&F is the best cartoon on ostensibly-kids TV these days.
- CU bans Nerf guns: Here’s our top five list of other dangers it should nix next – Denver News – The Latest Word – Making the world safer by making it less fun. sigh
- Denver Zoo gets ready for “green weenies” by breaking ground on an exhibit of elephantine proportions – Denver News – The Latest Word – I don’t think that’s quite the press release the Denver Zoo had in mind …
- More Condemnations of Uganda’s “Death to All Gays” Bill – I can understand the diplomatic aspect of Lambeth’s statement — “It has been made clear to us, as indeed to others, that attempts to publicly influence either the local church or political opinion in Uganda would be divisive and counter productive. Our contacts, at both national and diocesan level, with the local church will therefore remain intensive but private.” — but silence (even if there’s furious activity below the surface) also sends a message.
- Ellery Queen: Industry Sources Tell Us to Expect a Long-Awaited DVD Release of the ’75 Series – I loved this show. Glee!
- Slingers, the Sci-Fi Show Too Good to Exist – Oh, I do like.
- 8 Reasons Why Robotech Is Better Than Macross – I loved me some Robotech when I was … well, post-college, I admit. But it was my big intro to anime (as it was for so many Americans), and with the exception of Minmei (who I wish the Zentraedi had nuked in the first episode of the show), I had a lot of fun with it. I had no idea it was still so fan-geek-controversial.
- Think you don’t know Yiddish? Oy vey – Salt Lake Tribune – Interesting to see how language spreads, changes, is adopted, etc.
- Internet and phone companies aren’t just spying on us, they’re making money doing it – The hell? I, the taxpayer, am paying the telcos to invade my privacy on behalf of the government? Yeesh.
- BBC News – Glacier threat to Bolivia capital – See! Global warming is a hoax! A glacier is advancing on La Paz, threatening everyone! Run! Ice Age! Killer glacier! Run — wait, what? Oh, the glacier is receding at a breakneck pace and rainfall has also decreased? Oh, that’s just seasonal variation, no need to worry about fictitious global warming. Plus, ACORN!
- Rescue Carpet from a Permanent Stain with Shaving Cream [MacGyver Tip] – Making a note for the grocery store …
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Regarding the “worst SF blockbusters” I would respectfully submit that “The Chronicles of Riddick” was pretty good. I liked it anyway. It may well be that David Twohy got more bang for the buck in “Pitch Black” (which I also liked), but I thought Chronicles was good enough that I bought the DVD so I could watch it again later. It’s pretty escapist, but if you work at it, you might find some interesting points about the nature of evil.
It’s certainly a truism that pretty much any of the films on any such list are probably enjoyed by someone. Heck, there were places where I enjoyed Star Wars II, too.
Saw tht yesterday and had to laugh. Yet another case of the whole zero tolerance thing getting in the way of logic and reason.
Heck, I remember playing Assassination back in the day with toy guns on the campus (and CSU’s).
I think I have just been damned with faint praise. 🙂
The Humans/Zombies game is on campus at CSU now. It is a little disconcerting at times to see people play-acting at that sort of thing while everyone around them goes on about their business in a normal way. I think the CSU version must not have the dawn-to-dusk rule since I saw some folks marching around like a militia with nerf guns after dark the other night. That was a little disconcerting too. The CSU folk got the CSU PD to approve of the game before they started, and the faculty got an email from the Chief of campus police telling us to expect to see the game in progress. When the Chief of Police has approved of your game and tells everyone about it in an email, it doesn’t seem so subversive any more.
Well where’s the fun in that?
I’ve seen three of the awful SF films, and then only because they were from franchises that I liked: Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien/Predator (does anybody else think that Star Trek: Nemesis was a thinly disguised remake of The Wrath of Khan?).
I never made it all the way through The Black Hole, bought I have the soundtrack on LP and CD. One of Barry’s best.
I couldn’t make it through that Slingers promo, either. I hate it when director’s resort to stunts like jump cuts and speed changes. It’s distracting, and I always feel like they’re trying to compensate for a lack of ability by using camera tricks.
Ellery Queen on DVD? Excellent! Watched it every week. I still think of John Hillerman as Simon Brimmer as much as I do Higgins (was he really only in eight episodes?). But they left out the one guest I remember vividly: Barbara Rhoades as stripper Veronica Veil (I was 14, remember).
I’ve seen Aeon Flux, Chronicles of Riddick, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Red Planet, Attack of the Clones, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I’d like to see Scalzi’s “10 Best” list in order to have a point of reference with which to evaluate his “10 Worst” list. Of those I’ve seen, I think Chronicles is the best. Attack of the Clones was the biggest disappointment, but I think there’s a good movie buried in there somewhere. The other four were good enough that I wasn’t unhappy that I saw them. Maybe I’m just a philistine.
“League” would have been mildly entertaining and okay enough on its own, were the source material not so brilliant. It would be like seeing a somewhat pleasant, if stupid, sword-and-sorcery flick called “The Lord of the Rings” where pretty much all the kept were a couple of the characters and the general setting.