There’s an interesting interview over at Wired with Neil Gaiman talking about his current run writing Batman. Apparently DC decided to kill Batman, wait awhile, then reboot the whole franchise. Much as they did with Superman in the 1980′s. Back then, they had Alan Moore do the honors. The result was “Whatever Happened to the Man of …
I Said I Wouldn’t Twitter, Then I Twittered
Just in case you’re curious, I’ll do it for you. Here are the places where I said (or strongly implied) that I would never Twitter ever: here, here, here, here, here and here.
Sometimes your job makes you do things you didn’t think you’d have to do. I said I didn’t like Twitter. I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.
Hypotwit. …
THX 1138: Watching the Unwatchable George Lucas Movie
It is the shame of contemporary medicine that people can still get strep throat. I feel like it should have been stamped out already. Like polio. Perhaps my children will live in such a world. I was born too early.
Because I had strep all weekend, and I also had a huge repetitive-labor task to perform, I watched a lot of movies, …
New Potter Puppet Pals: Ron’s Disease
I’m sorry, I just think the Potter Puppet Pals are important. In this episode: “Millions of little monsters have spawned on Ron’s already filthy scalp.”
J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009
J.G. Ballard died on Sunday in London, aged 78.
I’m a little surprised when I think about how much J.G. Ballard I’ve actually read. Like most people my first contact with him was through the movie of Empire of the Sun, which starred — trivia moment — a 13-year-old Christian Bale. Eating grubs. It was a truly, truly great …
There’s a New Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer
It’s here, in vivid, unembeddable Quicktime. Yes, this is the fourth one they’ve released. Gotta catch’em all.
It looks great. The spooky Cave of Voldemort. A misty, empty quidditch field. A tortured Malfoy who, it is turning out, seems actually to be able to act. And especially creepy is a glimpse of the cursing of Katie Bell in …
Simon Rohrich is More Nerd Than You or I Will Ever Be
Three things that have been on mind, as I sit here trying to decide if I am sick enough to not go into work.
One: this magisterial history of Matter-Eater Lad, who has to be on anybody’s list of the worst-named superheroes of all time, but who manages to salvage a strange alien dignity despite his lame power. I like the part where he …
Alice. Remember Alice? This is an iPhone app about Alice…
I found Alice today in the iPhone app store. Remember Alice? It has a special place in computer-games history: It was the only game to ship on the first Apple MacIntosh computer.
The chess-related entertainment was written by Steve Capps, a legendary hacker who lives out here in the SF Bay Area. Among other things, Capps worked on …
We Didn’t Start the Song Parody
I’m not proud of this, but I am somewhat of an afficianado of parodies of Billy Joel’s paean to Baby Boomer self-obsession, “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” At one point, I forced the other writers at work to help me write a Simpsons version of the song, called “They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons.” This tribute, although eerily true in its …
Amazonfail: The Morning After
This post is mostly just an excuse to say “hashtag.” Hashtag. It’s just so satisfying.
Also to say that I find the mass introspection on display—most eloquently by gifted insta-essayist Clay Shirky—in the wake of the whole amazonfail phenomenon to be almost as interesting as the phenomenon itself.
It is apparent—or as …
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Sorry about the low posting rate. I think there must be a 10th muse, a muse of blogging. Her name is Banalia, and she has been idle.
Plus my Killzone 2 saved game got corrupted, and I had to start over. So that happened.
Still, Michael Chabon is apparently working on a screenplay of John Carter of Mars, which suggests that not all …
Ultimate Final Secret Crisis Wars: The Crisisization
You may not have been aware of it, but DC’s Final Crisis mini-series mega-event wrapped up last month. That was it. No more crises after this. That was the final one.
I usually avoid this kind of continuity-wide mini-series. I’ve just read too many of them that are all, ‘this will change everything,’ and then nothing ever changes, …
