I’ve never understood why Iain Banks isn’t famous-er in the U.S. I mean, I know he’s well-known, but why isn’t he a towering collossus? If you haven’t read him, he basically writes space opera — massive starships, bizarre aliens, ultra-advanced tech — but with a hugely intelligent literary sensibility and dark Douglas Adams-y humor. I [...]

It’s called Up Till Now. It is not Shatner’s first piece of autobiographical prose, but it is the first in his oeuvre that I have personally sampled. It’s not out till May, but it’s on my desk, and I don’t recall signing anything saying I wouldn’t blog about it. So.

In a bizarre, uncharacteristic moment of coolness I got my mitts on an early copy of the new Nerf Herder album, Nerf Herder IV, which is coming out April 29.

The legions of agents at Ain’t It Cool transcribed every word uttered, written or thought at WonderCon (the poor man’s Comic-Con) in San Francisco, then added thorough descriptions of each frame of video screened. A hasty, random guide to the take-away, plus links if you want the exhaustive treatment:

When I was 22 I moved to a small town in Maine where I knew nobody. My intention was to isolate myself the better to focus on my goal of writing the Great American Novel. Instead I focused on playing a lot of Risk on my Mac Classic. Wow, did I play a lot of [...]

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Jon Lech Johansen, a.k.a. DVD Jon, is an Internet legend for cracking the cryptography on DVD’s and in Apple’s FairPlay technology. He did this in a way that sounds totally great but which I am too stupid/lazy to really understand/use so feel safe mostly ignoring. Also he is Norwegian and like 16 years old. (Actually [...]

This appears to be a leaked clip from the upcoming movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Apparently the studio (Warner Brothers — hey, we’re corporate cousins! Don’t tase me, bro!) has been busting them wherever they appear, but here’s one I swiped from Ain’t It Cool. The dialogue is obviously scratch, [...]